Feral: Chapter 3

The next day, I was working on something new.

Art had left for the Prophesied Child. He wasn’t a devout man, but he did have hope that she would turn out to be everything the Chapel of Valor claimed she would be.

More importantly, many possible clients might go as well. Clients hoping for things as expensive as a suit of armor for example. Granted, we didn’t hold much hope. As hard as we worked, the number of people willing to overlook my orc ancestry was just enough to keep us alive with Hasha helping (Though neither of us had any idea where Hasha was getting his money on the income of a researcher).

Still, that left me alone. From the moment I’d woken up, the loud noise of the parade outside, with people cheering and loud music, had filled the house. With nothing else to do, I fell back on one of my standard forms of fighting boredom.

I immediately went into my workshop.

The first thing I did was take inventory. I kept a small booklet with the names and numbers of all my materials based on what they could be used for, with intersecting lines if they had more than one use. With this, I was able to keep track of what I had, where it was, and why I had it. A good memory is fine, but paper, that marvelous invention, can hold onto information for years if taken care of.

Once I’d checked over my materials, I grabbed one of the tanks from the floor, my runic notebook, and several of my materials. A simple metal file, flexible tubes that were attached to a metal one, a few drops of my blood in a small glass vial, a cougar’s eye, small pieces of lanthanum, nickel, and tin, the steel I’d shaped into a helm for my face, and finally a large piece of glass.

I entered the main shop and took my equipment to a table in the corner. While I usually used my workshop for my projects, I felt like getting some sunlight. Even with all the commotion and the wide-open holes in the ceiling, I still had a relative amount of quiet, and found myself humming contently as I assembled my objects on the empty table.

I went back to the workshop, this time for my alchemy set and jeweler’s tools, then came back carrying the two small red boxes. I most likely wouldn’t use all the equipment, but having them on hand would keep me from having to get up a dozen times.

My idea for the helm was simple. I wanted it to be able to protect my head of course. But more than that, I wanted it to be able to improve my senses as well.

I’d heard of a few wizards who could use magic to shape the air so that it could be used as microscope or telescope, seeing things that were small or far away with ease. I even used a microscope myself, a small black one that was a gift from Jennifer, to look at the smaller details of my works. There were other wizards who did things to improve their sense of smell or hearing.

But those spells were temporary at best, either lasting a few minutes or shutting down when the wizard lost focus. My idea was to create something that could improve several senses at once, and could activate and reactivate with a thought while using little to no energy. It would be hard, but if I could do it right, then I’d need fifteenconnected spells to make it work! More than enough to qualify for runic grandmastery.

That is, if I could get over my fear. That was part of why I was trying for fifteen. That way even if I only got to say, twelve, then I’d still succeed in my grandmastery.

Pushing down the thought, I sat down in a wooden chair and took the glass in my hand. It was thick, round with dull edges. With careful deliberation, I opened the box of jewelry tools. I’d gathered the tools out of garbage from behind some of the bigger jewelry shops in uptown Jarvin. I couldn’t afford crystals of course, but glass works as a very inferior replacement for cheap jewels, and my jewelry set had several tools specific for shaping and etching glass.

Which I suppose really made it a jewel and glass shaping set.

Taking out the small sharp piece of metal I needed, I took a deep breath. With the ease of long practice, I set up my intent. First, the rune I needed. I flipped my runic notebook open to the relevant page. The rune took up most of the page.

ᛗ

Mannaz, the symbol that represents sentient beings. It was a beginner’s symbol, one of the ones discovered hundreds of years ago. Runes were once thought to be an ancient language, but it was later discovered that they were more like… rivers, I suppose. When you poured mana into them, the magic would follow the engraved surface to create the effect. And if you combined elements with them, runes became even more powerful. A rune connected to water engraved using acid, for example, would be even more powerful due to the use of a liquid in the process. Part of a runemakers job was discovering what each rune could do, and how to make them stronger.

In this case, mannaz would link the glass to the wearer’s thoughts and body. That way the next runes would follow that link. And I was using steel, since sentient beings are made of large amount of earth, and would be finishing with an acid etch, to represent the liquid running through our veins.

I’d follow up by setting the glass to the helm, after strengthening the glass visor with another rune so it wouldn’t ever shatter and blind me in an excruciating manner, I’d be able to see with incredible detail whenever I was wearing the helm. Planes, maybe I could even set it up to see thermal spots!

The idea made me grin, my fangs popping out. I stopped just short of wiggling with excitement, calming down.

With the rune fresh in my mind, I pressed the metal in my hand to the glass, and began to—

BOOM BOOM!

With a yelp, I fell off my chair, slamming into the ground on my buttocks. The room shook as my massive form hit the floor. Dazed at the sudden knock at the door, I looked around.

“What in the—?”

Two more loud bangs brought my attention to the door behind me. I’d thought it was the door to the house, but apparently someone was knocking to the door to the workshop instead. Rising up, I placed the metal tip back into the jewel/glass shaping box and rushed to the door, opening it.

“…Hello?” was all I could say, confusion filling me.

Standing before me was a girl. A tiny, blonde human girl who looked around my age, wearing full armor. She stared up at me, shocked, her hand lifted up to knock again. I stared down at her, more confused than I could ever remember being.

Then she squeaked. It was an annoyingly adorable sound. “Uh, hello!”

She bowed. She bowed respectfully. To an orc.

My confusion only increased as she came up from her bow and smiled.

“I was hoping I could hide in your shop!”

“H-Hide?” I stuttered. I couldn’t help it. This was so out of my routine. Tiny human girls don’t bow respectfully to me, they run screaming for the city guard (Not an exaggeration sadly, as it had happened on two occasions).

“Yes,” said the girl. She looked around frantically. “Please! Just for a bit!”

She seemed scared. Worried. I hesitated. She ran up to random shop and asked to be hidden? From who? Why? What if her pursuers came here?

“Please?”

Aw damnit. She was staring at me with big eyes, her lip quivering. Never in my life had I seen someone make that face. She looked like I’d be kicking a puppy if I didn’t do as she asked.

With a feeling I was only inviting massive amounts of trouble into my life, I stepped aside. Smiling brightly, she rushed into my workshop, and I closed the door behind her.

------

Twenty minutes later, I was working on my helm, using my welding torch to add another portion to it. The girl was sitting on a chair a safe distance away, shading her eyes with a colored glass I’d given her so that she wouldn’t be blinded by the light of the welding torch.

I welded another section, taking my time. With the addition of another person in the room, I’d chosen not to work on runes, instead putting on my thick leather apron and a thick square face guard with a colored glass window made to let me see what I was doing while protecting my eyes.

I did those best when on my own and without distraction. Welding still required focus, but at least things wouldn’t explode. Well, they were less likely to explode.

Welding was something Hasha and I had invented to help the shop, based on several principles of purely physical magic, so suddenly thinking about something else in the middle of it wouldn’t be disastrous as with runes. Even the welding helmet had been made by Art when he noticed how blinding the sparks from welding were.

But all that was just me waffling. Welding could have waited. The truth was that if I tried to make a rune now, I’d probably fail immediately from the sheer presence of the other person.

I had no idea what to do with the girl in the room. A girl. Someone my age, not like Art, Hasha, or Jennifer.

As I worked, I could feel the girl’s eyes on me. She hadn’t looked away even once as I worked, apparently fascinated by what I was doing. Or maybe she just hadn’t ever seen an orc before.

I gave her a brief glance under my welding helmet. She was gorgeous. Speaking as someone who had known Jennifer and her girls my whole life, I knew a thing or two about beauty, and even they would have been a bit jealous of this girl. Short blonde hair that seemed to glow in the light, skin so clean and smooth it seemed to beg to be touched, and a face that was the perfect combination of cute and attractive. She pursed full lips, biting her bottom one as she stared at what I was doing with bright blue eyes filled with curiosity.

Her armor was even more interesting. It was clearly expensive, made of bright steel that was mirror polished. On her chest was a pair of wings made of what had to be gold. The feathers of the wings were so detailed they almost seemed to begin to flutter from where they rested on her chest. Still, it wasn’t how I would have made the armor.

“How are you doing that?” She asked, sounding amazed.

I kept my hands moving, making sure to maintain my work for a moment. Once I was done, I turned off the welder and put it carefully aside in a stone box made for it. I double-checked my weld. I’d have to add to it, and file it down after, but it was more than perfect for now. Only once I was sure of what I’d done did I turn to look at the girl.

“My welding torch?” I asked. When she looked confused I explained. “The fire I was using to fuse the metal pieces.”

“Oh, yes!” She sounded oddly happy. “The fire! It was so small, but you were making the metal spark! Was that magic?”

I was torn. On the one hand, I had no idea how to respond to this enthusiasm. Most people tended to avoid talking to me at all, and generally only with contempt. On the other hand, I never really got to show off my ideas.

Hasha sometimes said that a painter who never shows his art is not a true painter. All ideas must be shared before they become worthy of the name.

But I’d never gotten the chance. Give me half a chance and I would talk a person’s ear off. But not many want to listen to the ideas of a half-orc.

But this girl, smiling so enthusiastically, eyes shining…

“It’s called ‘welding’.” I patted the tank next to me. “There is an alchemical mixture in this tank.” I pointed to the tube rising out of the top of the tank and going to the welder itself. “The mixture is pulled through this tube, made of an airtight material I created based on the sap of certain trees. When I ignite it, the gas is so hot that I can use these,” I took a strand of metal off the table, holding it out for her to see how thin the metal was. “To fill in the gaps between the metal. It creates a powerful bond, letting me create more intricate designs in less time without compromising the overall strength of the project.”

“Wow,” She came over to stare at the project in question. “That’s amazing!”

“My teacher created the process,” I said honestly. “I just use it.”

“And what is this?”

“A part of a helm I’m making,” I lifted it up. “I embedded some runes into it, heat treated it, and I’m welding it together with the other parts. This will be the visor after I finish putting the runes into the glass,” I lifted it to my face, showing where the glass would fit. She giggled a bit as the sight of my serious eyes looking at her through the space.

“Runes… so you’re a wizard?”

That had me blinking at her. An orc… wizard? Who had ever heard of such a thing? I considered that she might have been making fun of me, only to see that she was serious.

“No, I’m not. I was trained by one however. He taught me how to use alchemy and magic to improve my blacksmithing. The welder is a part of the alchemy I’ve learned from him. I also use the magical research he’s taught me to create steel with a high carbon content, which makes steel stronger.”

A simplified way to explain it, as high carbon steel could sometimes be brittle, but explaining the concept of balancing all the different ways of forging steel over the course of hours to make a single piece that was strong and flexible would have taken up a lot of time.

She took the piece from me and looked through the eyeholes herself, amazed. “How do you do that?”

“Well, wizards are those who research the universe. They aren’t like mages, sorcerers, or warlocks, who use magic primarily for combat, or druids, alchemists, blacksmiths, and priests, who use magic to grow plants, create potions and tools, or heal,” I explained. “Wizards like my teacher have a focus on studying both magic and the natural processes of the universe. Things like the movement of the stars in the sky, the changes of a soul over the course of centuries, the migration patterns of fish, and the use of evocation magic to throw a ball of flame, are all a part of the wizards work.”

“Isn’t that a lot?” she asked, shocked.

“Not really. Wizards tend to have a focus in their research,” I explained. “My master has a preference for alchemy, or the study of how different things react with each other, though he has a good base in most other magic and research. Others might be good with water based magic, or in the study of the difference between each school of magic and how they mix.”

I turned the piece of metal in my hand to show her the runes I’d carved into the inside. “He’s taught me a bit of enhancement magic, the school of giving people and objects abilities or properties they wouldn’t have otherwise. It tends to have many facets.”

The runes I’d carved were extremely small. I’d had to spend hours over them with a file and blade, making sure each groove was perfect. I had plans to figure out how to make my runes even smaller one day however.

“Why smaller?” asked the girl. She leaned over to look at the rune in question. I blinked, only to realize I’d continued explaining things to her on autopilot. I had a habit of doing that, just spitting what I was thinking. Except, I only did that around Hasha, Jennifer, and Art…

Discarding the thought, I continued. “Well, runes work best when they are complete, detailed, and have been carefully formed out of energy. So that means most people make very large runes, and use only one for each piece. They are easy to create, because you don’t have to put as much work into perfecting all the details, and you have less of a chance of runes interfering with each other.

“For example, a chef doesn’t throw random food into a pot. They have to be careful with each ingredient, and the more careful they are, the better the food. If they simply do whatever they want, they could end up with food that is overly sour, burnt, or even poisonous. Runes are the same way. You have to be careful about every groove and pattern you make, and that the effects that you are looking for mix well. An electric rune doesn’t mix well with a rune of water, so placing both on the same piece can do either nothing, or become disastrous.

“However, smaller runes mean that you can add more effects and even layer them together, since you are using less surface area. For example, if I give a breastplate two runes that increase metal strength, then the breastplate will be twice as strong as adding just one rune.”

“Wow,” She smiled. “That sounds amazing.”

“It’s hard work though,” I sighed. “I have to use really precise tools and instruments to do it. It take hours to finish a rune, and it takes magical energy to do it. And then, I have to do it while forging metal, so that the runes blend magically into the metal. So I end up forging steel while I’m using alchemy and runes to make it even stronger. And with how small I make the runes, it sometimes doesn’t work.”

“Oh,” She sounded less impressed now. “Well, what does this one do?”

She pointed at the rune on the piece of metal. It was placed at the forehead. The mannaz symbol? Had I already incorporated it in? Odd of me to forget. If I’d placed another one into the glass like I’d planned, they would have negated each other.

“That’s the symbol to represent sentient beings,” I explained simply. “It just tells the other runes that they’re being used by a person, so that I can control them.”

The girl nodded. She seemed impressed again, which was nice. I’d never had someone who didn’t know me act like my creations were worth a damn.

“So, what are you hiding from?” I put the piece away in a box, turning from her. When I turned back, she was stepping into the back room. “Hey!”

No one was supposed to go in there! I kept my more dangerous tools and project back there specifically to make sure no one would get hurt by a mistake, and she was just strolling in!?

I rushed after her, terrified I would hear a sudden explosion, or see a rune activate and do something horrible to her. Both unlikely scenarios due to all the safeties I’d placed everywhere, but I was still terrified.

When I entered, I was relieved to see her simply poking at a steel cotton shirt I had hanging on a rack. She looked over at me, confused.

“Is this chainmail?”

“No one is supposed to come in here.”

At my stern tone of voice, she blushed. “O-Oh, I’m sorry! I just saw this and…” She looked back at the shirt. “This is chainmail, yes? But it’s so small! How did you do this?”

“I turned cloth to metal,” I took her by the shoulders and began to guide her from the room.

“W-What!?”

“I took a cotton shirt and used a transformation spell to turn the cotton into steel. It takes thirteen hours per shirt, since I’m not good at it, and you have to be careful to have absolute focus while constantly calculating how much metal you need. But you end up with chainmail as strong as steel and thin and light as a shirt. That way I wear multiple levels without sacrificing strength.”

“What is that?” Ignoring the way I was pushing her, she pointed at my armor stand that stood at the back of the room.

I looked over at the steel gray armor. “My armor prototype,” I grunted, still pushing her out.

“It’s so different from mine,” said the girl in confusion.

“That’s because that one is made for battle, not ceremony,” Well, for my grandmaster attempt really, but I didn’t see the point in making non-functional armo—

“W-What!?” she spun away from me. I blinked, shocked at how fast she’d moved. One minute she’d been letting me push her. The next she was two steps in front of me and looking me in the eyes. “This is my battle armor!”

I stared at her. Then I looked at her armor. The ornate gold wings on her chest, the two protrusions shaped to her breasts, the silver pauldrons on her shoulders, and the small cloth ribbons all over the body that gave her the appearance of a spirit of war about to take flight.

“It… It’s very pretty,” that came out a lot more nervously then I wanted it to. Honestly, the armor looked good. Even the gauntlets, greaves, and boots, the pieces most often left unadorned, were works of art, with embossed designs all in what had to be pure gold. It was very pretty.

“But it’s not battle armor.”

Her cheeks filled with air, like a chipmunk with its cheeks full. It moved her appearance from attractive to adorable. “How dare you! My armor is made for me to fight the greatest enemies of the land!”

Ah. Now that was familiar. Anger and condescending attitude.

I had no idea what it said about me that I was far more comfortable with this than I was her awe and polite speech. It wasn’t what I was used to. I had no idea what to do when a stranger was being polite. But this?

I could understand this.

“Listen,” I let a bit of my orcish side, the gruff anger that turned the sound of my speech into something horrific, come out. “Armor being ornate is not a problem. Armor is only given to those who represent the best in the land, those who are chosen to defend the land. They should remind others of the elevated status of the wearer,” I tapped her armor, on the gold wing extending over the left side of her chest. She gasped in shock, but I ignored her.

“But you have pure gold on your armor. Gold is soft, heavy, and extremely expensive to replace if damaged. Silver isn’t much better, and I can see a lot of that as well. The pauldrons are also much too big. Are you a longsword user?”

“Y-Yes.”

“Then your pauldrons, while they do look very stylized, are also so big that they will end up squashing your skull if you ever do an overhead strike. That also tells me your armor, though pretty, is obviously not made to your needs or shaped to your body. How long did it take to make the armor?”

She stared at me, dumbfounded. “I-I don’t know.”

“Hmm,” I looked her over, circling her. She stood still, letting me look over the armor. “I’d guess whoever made it for you wanted it to be a surprise, so they sized it from the clothes you wear. It would work if done right, but the preferred method is for the smith themselves to make the measurements. That way they have an absolute image of how they want the armor to look, and can make something that will fit you for years. And finally, your breasts.”

“M-My what!” she covered herself with her arms, scandalized.

“It is not a requirement to make depressions specifically for the breasts,” I growled. “Armor is heavy, will always be much hotter or colder than you prefer, and makes you sweat. Most people wear padding in the chest area underneath their chainmail to absorb the sweat, absorb blows, or warm the skin. Which makes breast protrusions an odd, as well as useless, addition. And then of course, the main purpose of plate armor like yours is to deflect blows; those protruding sections will instead guide blows inward towards your sternum, possibly allowing an opponent to shatter bones there.”

It was almost as if no one ever intended for her to go into battle. Why tell her this was battle armor? If they wanted her to get killed in the field, why spend such expense? Why make her beautiful armor made for nothing but ceremony, and let her think she could go into war in said armor?

“I see,” She no longer sounded angry. Now she seemed a lot more thoughtful than anything. “Do I have to get new armor?” said the girl worriedly, looking over her shoulder at me as I circled her.

“New battle armor, yes,” I came around in front of her, toning down the gruffness of my voice. “It will protect you better than this one. This armor will do well if you want to impress at a banquet or during a parade. But you really shouldn’t sacrifice function for beauty.”

Right then, someone knocked on the door. I looked over at it, frowning.

“Hmm. I wonder who this is.”

With the celebration for the reveal of the Prophesied Child, I hadn’t expected anyone to come by the shop at all. And now I had my second visitor.

I walked over to the door, speaking over my shoulder to the girl. “Listen, if you don’t want a half-orc doing your armor, I’d understand. There are several blacksmiths in the city I can recommend, one even does work for the city guard, and they take jobs for us when a client doesn’t want me doing the work. Just let me—,” When I opened the door, there was another person in armor.

He looked up at me grimly. He was wearing simple steel armor, and had a sword bared in his right hand. His black hair was cut almost to the skin, and a trace of stubble rested on his chin. Piercing hazel eyes stared into me as though he was checking for my soul. “Orcling. I’ve heard that my charge entered this domicile.”

“That is incorrect,” I said without thinking.

His eyes narrowed dangerously. “You dare lie to me?”

“Not that,” I said quickly. “This is not a domicile. It is a place of business. A domicile would be a permanent home for an individual. The domicile is at the front.”

He blinked, apparently unprepared for that. “I… I don’t…”

“Richard?” the girl poked her head out from behind me. She sounded hesitant, but not scared.

“My lady,” he said in relief. I stepped aside to let him enter, fairly certain from their reactions that he wasn’t about to hurt her. He wrapped her in a hug, their armored chests clinking as they met, and she hugged him back. “I was so worried. When I heard you’d left the celebration, I feared you’d been taken.”

“I’m fine, Richard,” she pulled away and gave him a smile. “I just wanted to see the city for myself. Char let me rest here when I got tired.”

Is that what I did? I’d thought she’d been running from some sort of danger. Now I found she was some sort of noblewoman who’d been a victim of her curiosity.

As I thought that, the man, Richard, turned to give me a surprised look. “Your name is Char?”

“Yes. I’m apprenticed to the owner of this shop.”

He looked around the shop, raising an eyebrow at the table full of the things I’d set up to work on my helm.

“I see,” he drew away from the girl, facing me fully. His hand made a brief clanging noise when he placed a hand to his chest and bowed. “Thank you for keeping her safe, orcli—…Char,” He sighed. “After all, we can’t very well have a Prophesied Child Celebration without the Prophesied Child herself.”

“Yes, I imagine that would be… Oh,” I stared between the two. The girl was looking at the ground. The man was still bowing. And I had a legend standing in the shop. A legend who I’d pushed around, lectured, and…and I’d spent time talking about the uselessness of the breasts on her armor.

Dead. That’s what I was. She’d tell Richard about my rudeness, and I’d be skinned alive and cooked in boiling oil.

As I stared at them, horrified (This cute girl was the future savior of the world!?) Richard rose from his bow and turned to the girl. “My lady, we must leave.”

She sighed sadly. “Yes, I suppose I’ve imposed on him enough. Oh, thank you again for the advice, Char! I hope we can meet again!”

Oh no. She was employing sarcasm. My impertinent speech had angered her, and soon I’d be called in for my execution.

She must have been far more practiced with sarcasm than I assumed, because she seemed sincere.

Bowing as one, the pair rose and left the shop. I staggered over to a chair, eyes wide in terror, and broke out into a cold sweat.

A random thought hit me. Despite all that time, I’d never once heard the Prophesied Child’s name.

------

“Of all the shops the Prophesied Child came to, she chose ours!?” Art rushed around the house, shoving things into bags. “Why did you even let her in?”

“In my defense,” I grumbled as I shoved another notebook into my cheap leather satchel. “No one ever saw her face before today.”

“Well we need to go,” said Art rhetorically. “Only what we can lift. We’ll send a letter to Hasha and Jennifer, have them hold the rest for us until we can set up somewhere else. If the Prophesied Child really does decide it’s time to play ‘impale the half-orc’, she’ll need to chase us.”

“Where do we go?” I tried to stay calm, but paranoia kept making me want to lash out. Every person with a lantern passing by was the person who’d come and take me away. Anger and fear bounced inside me.

“Head south to the docks,” Art shoved a shirt into a bag. “There’s captains that will take us further west into the continent on the river. From there, we can take move into one of the other rivers, head all the way to the Decortana Forest. There’s hundreds of miles of forest up there.”

“Isn’t that Elvin territory?”

“Elves don’t have the same hatred human, dwarves, and halflings do for orcs. They might dislike you, but they won’t kill you outright.”

He finished packing the bag, then looked at me. “Keep packing. I’ll head upstairs. The carriage should be coming to take us soon. Answer the door when it does,” When I nodded, he stared at me for a second.

Then he came over and hugged me around the waist. I stiffened in shock. As much he cared for me, Art had never been a hugger. He stepped back, gruffly releasing me. “Not your fault, Char. You couldn’t have expected this,” he cracked his neck, apparently trying to do very masculine things to make up for the hug. “Now. Get back to work.”

I stared after him as he walked upstairs. When I realized I was smiling, I growled, then started shoveling things into bags again.

Moments later, there was a knock at the door. The house didn’t have windows, but I could hear the loud clangs of metal on stone outside. Horseshoes on stone most likely.

I hesitated. Even with all this, I didn’t want to leave my home. My workshop was here, with my armor. I had to leave it behind. Too much weight to carry. My reagents, so many of my tools, the small library of fiction and non-fiction I’d collected. Hours of my life, gone.

But we had to leave. So, I went over to the door. When I opened it, rather than a single man with a small carriage behind him, seven men stood outside with a rather large carriage. Six men stood behind the man on my doorstep in two lines of three. They were all wearing the impressive uniforms of the Chapel of Valor guards, with a tabard depicting a fist clenching the sun in yellow on a black background. They wore chainmail under the tabards, and helms that turned their faces into intimidating walls of still with slits for them to see through. All carried halberds, and had swords and daggers at their hips.

The man leading them was far less imposing. He was even shorter than the girl, I mean, the Prophesied Child, with a long hooked nose, hair slicked back by what smelled like some sort of expensive oils, and beady black eyes. His clothing was dyed entirely purple and made of what had to be silk. Both purple dyes and silk were tremendously expensive. Worth more than the forge, and even the entire building. And yet, he wore both a shirt and pants made with both. He glared at me pompously.

“Are you,” He took out a paper roll from a pouch by his side. He unrolled it, then stared at the paper disbelievingly. “Char?”

Here it was. The guards, come to take me to my execution. I’d hoped the Prophesied Child was a nice and naïve as she seemed. Even as I’d packed away my things, I’d prayed I could come back home one day, that I’d been ridiculous. But now it was too late.

I thought of attacking, running, anything. Then I decided against it. Arthur was upstairs. If I did something stupid, he might get killed. Better to surrender. Maybe I could make my escape on the way somehow?

With that thought in mind, I slowly nodded. “Yes. I am.”

“Hmm,” He looked me up and down, then snorted. “I see. Come with us please.”

“What is this!?” We turned to see Arthur coming down the stairs, eyes already blazing. “I won’t let you take him!”

“Art!” He turned to look at me. I shook my head slowly. His eyes widened in shock and understanding.

“No,” He shook his head, sadness on his features. “Char, no.”

“Take care of the shop,” I shrugged, trying to smile. “We knew it had to happen someday.”

“Oh, stop being melodramatic!” The man in expensive dress said. “Come!”

I had enough time to wave. The last I saw of Arthur, he was sitting heavily on the stairs, shoulders sagging as he watched me get guided off.

------

“This is a very nice carriage.”

No one replied. The official with the long nose was writing something. The three men who’d entered with us simply stared straight ahead.

“I haven’t been in many carriages, you see. Don’t even have a horse. So I’m enjoying this experience.”

Still nothing. Good. I wasn’t a talker on the best of days. And forcing it on today of all days was only making me want to hit something. As hard as the steel chains and locks they’d put on my wrists and ankles would make it.

I looked at the tabards of the men again. A fist clenching the sun in yellow on a black background. A very militant symbol for an order that claimed peace and love as its own.

Turab was a world of many religions.

Some, Druids and Shamans especially, worship the spirits, the creatures from which spiritual magic had gained its name. Spirits are the sapient forces that live across the world. They take the form of the elements, sometimes appearing as women made of water, animals of fire, or even simple gusts of wind. Because of this, people see them as the true rulers of nature, and worthy of worship.

Others, Warlocks and Sorcerers usually, believe the world is governed by magic itself. They believe it controls every aspect of the planes of existence, guiding the smallest and largest of events, from the explosions of a volcano, to the circling of the planets. I’ve even heard of monks who live on planes far beyond Turab, travelling the stars and controlling the purest forces of magic to defend the planes of existence.

The Chapel of Valor believe in an energy called the Light. Much like those who worship magic, Light worshipers think the universe is guided by the light. Paladins and Priests of the Chapel of Valor tend to manifest their magic as bright beams of light, and they see that as confirmation of the Light’s existence.

Hasha tends to note that magic manifests as one believes it will. And I’m with him on that theory. Honestly, the ‘Light-chancellors’ of the Chapel are more than likely just using magic the way they think they should. Nothing more, nothing less.

Of course, my judgement may be colored by the fact that hatred of orcs is one of the things the priests claim is of the greatest importance for their religion.

The Chapel is almost the government of Jarvin. The city council almost constantly listen to the Chapel’s own leadership. The only reason I haven’t ever been executed are the low presence I’ve been to maintain from childhood. I have done nothing to truly insult the Chapel, so they never paid me any mind.

Until today.

As for myself, I believe there is something controlling the universe. I don’t know the name, and I don’t know if there is a heaven that it controls. But I have seen the wonders of the world in my little workshop. I can’t help but think there is something out there.

Hopefully it likes half-orcs. Because I don’t know how to pray.