An Orc charged into the room. This creature was squatter and more brutish than Samga, as if a giant sculptor’s thumb had slipped and pressed the clay of him into an awkward wad.

“Master,” it grunted. “Troll down.”

“What?” said Dimsbury.

The Orc gave the Orc-ish version of a shrug and said, “Down. No get up.”

“You mean dead?”

“No, down.”

“Samga, would you please?” Dimsbury asked, with an annoyed wave of his hand. Samga conversed with the Orc in their shared, brutal tongue.

Dimsbury rolled his eyes and said to Asarah, “I am sorry about this interruption. There are always more administrative tasks wasting my time. Details, meddling Adventurers. And Samga is the only one of them who has any intelligence…”

Samga had more than intelligence. He had cunning. He had been very careful not to be the one to deliver the bad news about the Troll to The Master. He knew Dimsbury for the violent and tempestuous man he was. Especially when he was not pleased. And this news would not please him.

All Orcs could talk after a fashion, but Samga was the only one who could talk that The Master had not vented his fury upon. This was because Samga was very, very careful about what he said.

“Master,” began Samga, “This one says the Troll in the upper passages has been killed. He tells me that there are three Adventurers loose in the lower levels.”

“The TROLL! BLAST AND SLAPDASH!” Dimsbury roared. “Have you any idea…” he started to say to the Orcs. “No, of course not. You have no idea. You haven’t a thought in your head. You are merely a stomach with legs that walks around making bad choices. My finest creation to date, indeed.”

Dimsbury turned to Asarah and lowered his voice. “Have you,” he began again, “any idea how hard it is to even find a Troll? Weeks away from work. Finding one, rendering the great big brute unconscious, having him transported here–tremendous expense of time and effort–and now someone has had the temerity to kill my Troll. I ask you, where am I going to get another Troll? At this hour? I don’t have time for this! I don’t have time for any of this!”

He pointed at the Orc and hooked his fingers so that his hand formed a ragged, palsied, fist-like object. The Orc writhed in pain as, inside its body, its bones were ground together by the unspeakable, sinister forces of the Wizard’s Evil Magic.

When the Orc whimpered, Dimsbury smiled. Then the corners of his mouth dropped, and he sucked air in between his teeth. As he did this, the Orc’s skin tightened, causing the creature’s eyes to bulge out as if they were about to explode.

Asarah recoiled in terror from the Wizard’s unspeakable cruelty.

“Oh no, my dear, you mustn’t worry. They don’t feel pain. Not really. Not any more than a machine or animal does.” There was a terrible juicy crunching noise. Asarah looked away and screamed. She heard a wet slap as what was left of the Orc hit the stone floor. She couldn’t help herself; shaking, she turned to look at the remnants of that poor creature. A low, wheezing moan rose from the fleshy pile on the floor.

“Dispose of this one, Samga. It is defective,” said Dimsbury.

Samga nodded. With one arm, he reached down and removed the heavy wooden cover from the floor in the center of the room. Then, with a clawed foot, he kicked the crushed and still wheezing Orc into the blackness of the pit.

Dimsbury said, “Creation is a messy business. One makes a great many mistakes, you see. But thankfully, I have a very deep pit in which to bury my failures.”

In the silence that followed the word ‘failures,’ Asarah could hear the crushed corpse of the poor Orc still bouncing off the sides of the pit far below. Each time, the report of it was fainter and fainter.

Dimsbury answered the unspoken question, “Bottomless.”

Samga dragged the heavy cover back into place.

“Samga?”

“Yes, Master.”

“Send out patrols. Catch them. Bring them to me.”

“They might get a bit killed during the catching, my Lord,” cautioned Samga.

“Whatever is left, you bring it to me. And then? We will have them roasted on spits in the main hall.”

“The Orcs won’t like that, Master. Spoils the flavor of the meat.”

“So I am told, Samga, but let that be a punishment for letting these dilettantes through in the first place.”

Samga nodded and turned to go. “Wait,” commanded Dimsbury, turning his attention on the wide-eyed Asarah, who was still staring at the pit in the center of the room.

“You. Yes,” Dimsbury snapped his fingers, “Yoo-hoo.”

Asarah looked at him the way a frightened rabbit looks at a fox.

“Have you changed your mind about entering my employ?”

Asarah trembled while she shook her head no.

“Really? Even after what you have just seen?” Dimsbury asked, more fascinated than upset.

Again, Asarah shook her head. Dimsbury’s eyes darkened, and Asarah knew in her heart that she was going to be crushed and tossed in the pit like the butcher’s scraps.

Dimsbury waved a hand in dismissal. “Oh, very well. Samga, chain her to that table over there. Perhaps boredom will change her mind. And give her some rags so she can clean up the blood on the floor. Excuse me, you stubborn woman, I must return to my work. Be quiet, and I won’t have to waste my time killing you.”