Floor 15

Valley of the Orcs

The place we arrived at on the fifteenth floor was a wide open space, one that had a nice vantage point on what could only be called a vast valley with steep cliffs. A small river cut through the middle of the valley. The vast majority of it was a combination of plains, forest, and hills.

Immediately around us there were no signs of orcs, save for footprints. It was almost as though the entry point had been left unguarded. I could only theorize it was either due to how it had moved recently, or the orcs simply didn’t care who came to this floor.

After I’d checked out what was nearby, afraid we might have ended up in a cluster of fight hungry orcs, I glanced at Kuzu. She’d run over to the stream and started to scrub at all of the viscera from before. Though her back was turned to me the slight shiver that ran through her body consistently was very noticeable.

I took the Flagra out of the holster and slipped a new magazine into it, making certain to chamber a round before I put it back. From one of my pockets I pulled a small piece of cloth and used it to wipe the blade of my sword. Once it looked properly clean, or at least clean enough, I put it away.

I walked over to Kuzu and gently placed one hand on her shoulder. “Kuzu, are you alright to go on?”

She jerked away from my hand, an instinctive reaction from what I could tell, and lifted her hands up into a defensive position. Her ears twitched and she realized that it was me and returned to scrubbing the blood off. “I’ll...I’ll be fine. What were those things?”

“They’re the Maw, the Goddess made them to teach patience and stealth,” I said, “they’re only found on that floor.”

“I’ve never heard anyone ever say anything about them ever!”

“Of course not, most divers prefer to forget they even exist.” I didn’t mention the fact that it was because of the nightmares.

I turned my attention from the kitsune and back to the valley. The cliffs were nearly impossible to climb, so we would only have one path available to us. A quick glance at the sky informed me that it was obviously day time, and roughly around the middle of the day.

“Once you’re done we need to move on, otherwise some orc parties are going to start popping in next to us.”

That comment made Kuzu go rigid, and then she rapidly stood up and shook her wet hands. The moisture clung to her clothing, but instead of enjoying the sight I worried more about how some orcs might perceive her. If the wrong kind of orc came along I’d probably need to emasculate him.

“Well, hopefully that’ll dry off fast enough,” I muttered as I started to walk away from where we’d arrived.

As we started our journey toward the inner depths of the valley Kuzu suddenly let out a cry and pointed ahead of us. “What is that!”

My eyes tracked to where she’d pointed and I only saw what I was used to, stakes that had skulls on them. The skulls weren’t limited to animals nor even orcs. Some were obviously from humans, and others had a slightly more slender look that’d mark them as kitsune.

“They’re skulls,” I calmly replied to her as I continued to walk. After all it was ordinary for the orcs to put a warning sign up to mark where their true territory was. “Come on, we don’t have all day.”

“Daddy, shouldn’t you maybe wait for night time?” Lisa asked from the watch.

“The only orcs normally active on this floor are the Bones and the wall guards,” I replied without a break in my stride. Behind me I could hear Kuzu as she scrambled to catch up after she had paused near the stakes. “Even if I wanted to avoid a fight there’ll probably be Umbras on guard.”

“Be super careful then!” Lisa called out cheerfully before she went quiet.

“Umbras?” Kuzu inquired from behind.

It was a question that I chose to ignore and instead I focused on moving forward. Eventually we found a slight path that had been beaten down into the grass. Even from where I was I had a good view of most of the valley and from what I could see there were no patrols active.

As we walked Kuzu tried again and again to ask me questions, often about where we were going or how we were going to get past the orcs. She even asked me questions about the animals she saw, the button nosed rodents and the winged cats that lived within the valley.

Instead of answering her I put my attention on our surroundings. Though we would most likely not deal with any sort of ambush there were orcs all over the place. Most plucked at the berries on the bushes, putting what they harvested into woven baskets. Others hunted the native animals of the valley, and a few even utilized nets to catch fish in the river.

"Answer me!" Kuzu suddenly shouted at me.

"Shush," was my only response. I was far more interested in the hint of brown that had started to become visible on the horizon, one that stretched from one side of the valley to the other.

We continued to walk for a couple more hours, unmolested by any of the orcs that were nearby. Kuzu grew more and more agitated, though she had stopped asking questions every few minutes. Instead she glared daggers at me and randomly muttered complaints under her breath.

Perhaps I was being a bit too rough with her, but Kuzu would need to gain a great deal more tolerance if she wanted to survive in the labyrinth. If she couldn’t toughen up she’d struggle with some of the later floors that attacked the mind.

We arrived at what could only be called The Wall, a massive wooden fortification that had taken years to build by the orcs. Next to me Kuzu’s open distaste for my silence had given way to awe.

Toward the central part of The Wall was a group of orcs who were in the midst of playing rock crush. They looked up at us and gave grunts of disapproval, before a couple of the larger amongst them swaggered over to greet us.

“Good day, we seek to use the portal,” I told them in their tongue.

"Oh, you speak like us?" the orc with the largest sword responded. He towered over Kuzu and I, a look of open curiosity on his misshapen face. "Are you willing to pay?"

"I lack the stones required," I regretfully informed him, "I seek admittance by right of arms."

The orcs all laughed at that though the leader remained silent. Instead he stared at me, before he gave a shrug of indifference. "Right of arms means you might die, are you sure about that?"

My right hand rested on the handle of my sword. "Right of arms means whoever faces me will die. This may be rude but I will need to cover her admittance as well."

"You speak mad words little Elf," the orc said with a shake of his head. He walked away from all of us and toward a small level section on the right.

"Stay here," I told Kuzu.

While she stood there with a confused look I followed after the orc leader. He led me over to a flat area that was in the shape of a rough square. It was twenty feet by twenty feet and instead of dirt there was sand.

Without instruction I stepped onto the square and walked to the furthest side, before turning around and pulling out my sword. I left my pistol holstered, as to use it in this fight would violate the rules followed by the orcs.

Two of the orcs who had laughed from before stomped over, eager to show off their strength in front of their leader. They stepped onto the sand and pulled out their swords, crude weapons made from a black material.

“You may pass through by right of arm only if you beat my men. Leaving the square or dying is a loss,” the orc leader said, as he jerked one finger in the direction of Kuzu, “and if you lose she becomes ours.”

"Agreed."

The leader of the orcs announced the start to the fight as one might expect, he simply yelled to all of us to fight. The two orcs that I had to fight edged in closer with wide ugly grins. The older orc on the left had a big scar that ran from his scalp all the way to the chin, while the one on the right could only be called a very generic orc.

The scarred orc went to make the first move, but his friend held up his sword to block him. A few quick words were muttered between the two before the obviously younger half-turned to spit a few insults at his elder.

Before his head turned back I’d already thrown my sword into it. The blade had no problem piercing the skull and it ended up buried all the way to the hilt. The older orc’s eyes widened at that, and then he turned and bellowed at me. With little thought to defense he made a mad dash for me, sword lifted up high above his head.

Instead of backing away I lunged in, taking advantage of the aggressive behavior of the orc. My elbow drove hard into his stomach, hard enough that my elbow would ache for a few days, but the orc barely felt it and instead laughed. He dropped his sword down like a guillotine for my head in retaliation.

I slid to the left in order to evade the sword. The weapon hit the sand with enough force to throw some of it into the air, which caused both the orc and I to squint. While he started to retract his sword I slid the stiletto out of my armguard.

The next time swing he sent at me was a horizontal slash, one that I ducked under. I jammed the stiletto up into his extended arm and pulled it back. As the orc tried to swing his arm at me in retaliation the sword fell from his hand, a side effect of the damage to the muscle cluster I’d attacked.

Perhaps from the shock of losing control of his hand the orc took a step back, a move unusual for most orcs. Before he could choose if he wanted to surrender or not I struck first. With a quick hop forward I drove my stiletto clear through his sternum and into the heart.

In one smooth movement I slipped the stiletto out, wiped it on the cloth of the dying orc, and then turned to walk away. Behind me I could hear the guttural cry of the orc as he collapsed to his knees on the sand. Before I walked off of the little orc arena I recovered my thrown sword and, once again, used the clothing of the dead orc to wipe off the blood.

The leader of the orcs stood there with his arms crossed, a slight look of annoyance on his face. He glared pointedly at the dead orcs I’d left in the arena. “Next time I should let you pass, I don’t think I can afford to keep losing men.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” I retorted, before I flashed a grin at the orc.

The orc laughed in response as he clapped me on the shoulder, a friendly gesture that nearly brought me to my knees. “A pity you’re a little Elf and not one of us!”

We walked back over to Kuzu and the others. The orcs watched me with a certain degree of respect in their eyes, though a few of the younger ones seemed ready to pull their weapons out at any time. If not for the fact that I’d already won the contest I was certain they would’ve challenged me on the spot, if only for entertainment.

“Are you okay?” Kuzu asked as she stepped up closer to me, her voice quiet.

"I'm fine, get ready for the next transfer.”.

The giant wooden wall ahead of us splintered open after the orc leader bellowed at it. The jagged looking gate swung inward and revealed the far side of the valley. There were dozens of orcs all about, most of them hard at work on smashing into the rocky sides of the valley. Even a few women were mixed in with the men, their slightly leaner bodies and thinner tusks the only way to tell the difference.

Off to our left and a bit distant we could see the portal. It would always spawn somewhere on this end of the valley, which had made it easy enough for the orcs to fortify where it was. The orcs glanced from what they were doing when the gate opened, but even though it was a kitsune and an Elf they went back to their task of mining shortly thereafter.

“Come on,” I told Kuzu as I walked toward the portal.

Floor 16

Gralk - City of the Orcs

To be fair to Kuzu I had made a very simple mistake. So when she started to scream I couldn’t blame her entirely. After all we appeared in the middle of a large plaza filled with orcs.

Some of the orcs were in the middle of fighting each other, some had fresh meat slaughtered on tables nearby the arrival point, and some of the orcs simply glared at us when we arrived. To me it was normal, after all Gralk was the home city of the orcs. I’d forgotten to warn Kuzu, though, as I was used to either being alone or with people who were halfway competent.

So she screamed, but that scream was cut off a second later when I put one hand forcefully on her mouth. With my other hand I grabbed her neck from behind, a move that made many of the nearby orcs relax. Kuzu shrank beneath my grip as her tail wrapped around her waist and her ears went flat against her head.

I could feel something wet on my hand that was over Kuzu’s mouth, and I realized she had started to cry. “Kuzu, calm down,” I leaned in and whispered, “I’m only grabbing you to make them see me as your owner. They won’t attack you or I so long as I do this.”

Kuzu gave a very small nod of her head, though she still seemed extremely tensed around the neck grip. As I moved my hand away from her mouth I also slightly loosened the hold on her neck, but I didn’t remove it. If the orcs perceived me as someone escorting a kitsune slave they’d stay out of my way, unless we did something to set them off.

Screaming obviously counted toward that, hence why I’d put my hand over her mouth. I began to slightly push her ahead of me, as I needed to stay behind her to maintain the illusion.

Our journey through the city was a slow one, as we had to wait for any orcs to walk by us. While I could’ve pressed through I had no interest in showing my dominance to every single one, especially since some of the better fighters would give me a very hard time. I’d been lucky enough to fight some of the dumber ones.

The city itself was made almost entirely from various types of rocks and mortar. The buildings trended toward the smaller, but they were far thicker than most and could easily withstand the extreme winters. There were sand arenas set up near most of the squares of the city, and orcs actively fought one another consistently.

“Where are we going?” Kuzu finally whispered.

“To see some old friends.”