Chapter 3 - The Sleeper

The massive timber door creaked open slowly, the sound echoing throughout the squat hallway of Harrfell’s study. Careful but audible footsteps followed soon thereafter, each step a reverberation of the clomp and tap of boots.

On the end of the pearly white L-shaped hallway, barely furnished with console tables and artwork and being deceptively simple, was the Dome’s sole occupant—an old, frail, and unobservant orc. He hadn’t heard at all the rather loud announcement prior to the door and the footsteps, dazed and barely hanging on to consciousness.

Harrfell dug his nails into the hardwood table and bit the tip of his tongue to stay awake as a high-pitched ringing entered his ears and a growling stomach assaulted his senses. Again. For the third and final time, at least for a while, before waking up with a pounding headache later.

In stunned confusion, he bobbed his head up and down and blinked several times in less than a minute, focusing his blurred gaze and fogged mind on the floor to keep himself grounded and muttering indistinguishable nonsense. He exhaled shallowly, each rapid exhale a tired gasp.

Then suddenly, Harrfell clutched at his stomach and bowed his head to the floor, bumping his head on the desk’s edge, and leaving a streak of curses while doubling over in pain: both internal and external. That stomach of his, oh so hungry, began to attack with more savagery at his lining. And the minor bump on the orc’s head irritated his skin as he rubbed a wrinkled hand to soothe its condition.

But, alas, a dizziness overtook him as his last piece of willpower and practiced discipline crumbled beneath the weight of fatigue and hunger he’d been putting off.

His eyelids closed, and his head thudded to the desk, sending the brass inkwell on the table’s northern edge and classy, large-feathered quill he was slackly holding down to the ground, spilling the former’s inky contents on the lavish carpet and squeaky, polished wooden floor. Fortunately, the splash avoided ruining the stacks upon stacks of important paperwork on the table.

Harrfell's frail and wrinkled body soon followed as it too collapsed in exhaustion, loosening his command on his limbs and breathing slowly. The Elder was now sleeping and snoring, with a pool of liquid—liquids, plural—erupting from his upper orifices, saliva and snob, and gathering around the side of his face.

Disgusting and pitiful.

Some sticky bits clung to the orc's nose ring, tarnishing the silver circular band. And the tail end of his fishtail braid was soaked in the fluids as well, making cleaning a nightmare when he awakes.

Overall, it was a bad day for the sleeper.

Simultaneously, the moment that Harrfell thunks his head on the desk noisily, a languid half-orc rounded around the corner of the room as Gungmar jerked in surprise from the noise, expecting to see an Elder's reproving look for his tardiness, and imagining that it was a loud slap on something for an intimidation attempt when he took his time.

Instead, seeing the Elder face down on the maple desk was the furthest stretch from his imagination. He waited a minute or two to see what would happen next, but there was no sign of him getting up anytime soon.

“Elder Harrfell…?” Gungmar tried calling out the Elder’s name, but to which no response came forth. And soon, a drop of sweat trickled down his forehead.

A worrying thought raced through his mind. Shit. Is he dead? Reasonable to assume so, even though there was no trace of a weapon nor poison on him, nor was there an assassin inside the Dome and traces of the hypothetical killer exiting and entering.

Not that the Elder's subordinate would believe him, and it would be even more difficult to explain his non-involvement to that uptight guardswoman.

But two things were for certain. First, before finalizing his erroneous conclusion, he needed to check on the Elder's condition. And second, he sure as hells wasn’t going to clean the inky mess that the old orc had caused.

He approached the limp body while cautiously eluding the inked carpet and floor, careful not to disturb the assumed to-be crime scene.

He gulped as he pressed a finger to the Elder's neck, fervently hoping to find a pulse and that the Elder was either playing dead or just sleeping. Nothing came up.

Gungmar adjusted his posture and pressed his finger more firmly against the orc's neck... and quickly found it within seconds.

It was a faint beating, but thankfully, it was still beating, albeit slowly.

The half-orc released a sigh of relief and eased up his tense shoulders, safely dropping the package on the desk and popping his knuckles to relieve stress.

“At the very least, I'm safe now. Err, no, we’re both safe," he said, contemplating. His head wasn't going to roll on the ground anytime soon, saved from the executioner's ax by a stroke of luck.

Gungmar closely examined Harrfell’s condition to find out what in the hells exactly happened to him; eyeing his soiled toga and goo-coated face, who shortly groaned out in pain subconsciously, surprising Gungmar, until he became all snores.

Small, pathetic croaks resounded from his stomach in short intervals, synchronizing with the Elder’s breaths.

Gungmar heard the orc mumble gibberish in his sleep, or what he thought was gibberish, until he leaned an ear forward to his lips to hear some snippets of intelligible words.

“...zzz…. I-I ne-need… my sweets… Sshashina-zir… zzz… no? Fine… m-meat, hungry… a-and sl-sleep… zzz.” Those were, understandably, the causes of the Elder's sudden collapse. Hunger and sleep deprivation. Much like a recruit scared shitless on his first day, huh? Gungmar paused, sparing a glance at poor Harrfell.

It's a good thing then that he picked up Sshashina's package; no doubt the item will earn him some brownie points with the Elder.

He was about to turn away from the orc's mumbling when his ears twitched, and he heard something interesting about the Gratt Desert.

Intriguingly, he heard the mumbler out again, this time carefully listening for important and sensitive news.

“Zzz… *cough*, hrr… damn nomads, th-those damn killers. My precious babies. Cowardly bastards, grrr… zzzzz… eh, where am I? Wait, home!? Ugh… It’s burning! No! Y-you damn softskins, fight me—w-wait! Don't! Not my subjects!”

The Elder whisked momentarily and grew heated in his doze, shouting angrily and pleading miserably, presumably at the softskins, his sleeping face curling into a mutt's nasty snarl and then curving into a glum frown shortly afterward; a snarl-frown, until he was soon swept back into a peaceful slumber.

Crying himself softly to sleep. Jeez, talk about a nightmare scenario.

"Nothing new then. Just the same old nomads and humans." Gungmar said, but not callously. He simply had no idea what to do in this kind of situation.

At least the Elder was fine, no? As fine as he could be, except for his exhausted state. He'll just wake up later after a short nap or two, and Gungmar wasn't about to ruin that for the old orc.

The Elder deserved some much-needed rest.

The half-orc left the slumbering Harrfell behind, thinking. Gungmar wondered briefly about his punishment, but there's time for that later.

He could spare to wait for an hour or two because it was still hot outside; evidence being the afternoon sun's baking glare passing through the thick glass panes behind the desk, brightening up the study excluding Harrfell's entire haggard face, just the side of it—the drool-drenched half. "Damn heat," he grumbled.

Though he must admit, it's boring having to wait here without something to keep him occupied, so Gungmar had to use the bright idea that popped up in his head.

He looked around the Elder’s study, scrutinizing every detail and committing it to memory. He loved having his brain filled with new things, be it the boringly mundane type of information or war-centered techniques and skills.

It’s always a good workout to keep his mind in shape, giving him a metaphorically sharp edge over his opponents. As mother used to say, ‘The mind is a powerful tool, Gunn, use it well and use it often. It may pale in comparison to a blade’s sharpness, but nevertheless, it is just as equal or, if not, greater when handled perfectly. Remember it, okay?’ The half-orc smiled at the thought.

Gungmar understood the wisdom imparted by his dearly departed mother and agreed with it. He had always chosen to resort to physical violence last when things ever get dire. But, of course, peaceful talking didn't help both his old man and him back when they were still active soldiers. And during his petty brawl with that officer.

Fanatical, cold-hearted, and desperate enemies and unthinking beasts almost always attacked them first. Almost killing them even in many an ambush or in likewise other underhanded tactics. So, naturally, blood would be spilled and life would be lost.

And he was annoyed by that. He became a killer, not by choice, but by circumstances—circumstances of being a soldier under the Horde. Thank the Divine, he still has his emotions and reasoning intact.

“I’m lucky enough to be alive and me,” Gungmar sighed, and discarded his pessimistic outlook. It’s not so easy to forget old memories like that.

After the short survey, he saw that the study was a circular-shaped room (owing to its name of being a Dome), curving around the desk and its occupant, with the glass windows behind Harrfell. The thick windows, thick like an ogre's ass or like a heavy mist, showed not a peep of the Elder's silhouette when Gungmar was outside, even with the curtains hung to the side.

Shelves on opposing sides of the room were chock-full of numerous, dusty old official documents on the bottom rows. On each ascending row after that, books on various subjects replaced the repetitious papers.

History, myths, and fables (including a bestiary on the recorded monsters of Marrh), dull literature and poetry, and surprisingly, a cookbook? The last of which Gungmar had discovered hidden behind the harpy taxidermy, slightly dusty and with a worn-out cover.

THE CLASSICAL FEAST were the words displayed on the cover.

“Neat.” The half-orc just said, putting the book back where it belonged.

He turned his attention back to the harpy taxidermy near him. On the creepy, medium-sized dead harpy, which had been stuffed with whatever a taxidermy mount was stuffed with. Wool and the sort? Probably. And strange to have such an item inside their study, but, well, to each their own.

Gungmar returned the harpy’s glassy eyes, endlessly filled with bottomless pools of darkness. He recognized that the harpy in question had wickedly sharp rows of teeth (each as long as Gungmar's fingers), and had silvery-brown tufts of hair instead of a mere brown: being a broodmother, the matriarch of a clan.

It was large, even with only its upper half—the torso and head and clipped silvery wings and, oh, barely-covered breasts—cramping up space beside the open-gapped doorway.

"What a nightmare to fight one," he said, having only fought the lesser yet still combat-capable fledglings and juveniles, so Gungmar was fascinated to see the top dog, or in this case, the top mama bird on the harpies' pecking order.

He looked around, but there was nothing new in the study, nor in the hallway, he peeked out from the corner to see: it was bare-bones. A sharp contrast to the main room.

He returned to the Elder's main study and still saw no sign of the old orc waking up from his stupor. Howbeit, his lips were still mouthing off, which he saw. Most likely still in a dreamlike trance. Or a nightmare-fueled one.

Hopefully, it's the first one, Gungmar wished.

The half-orc was now walking around in deliberate circles, humming a tune and ruminating. He'd seen everything the study had to offer, from the creepy-ass harpy to the shelves full of books of all kinds and the snot-covered Elder who, from what he'd heard, wasn't particularly impressive.

So, all in all, he was quite bored.

Gungmar yawned loudly, stretching his legs and back. He raised his arms and neck upwards and stretched fleetingly, his eyes blinking in surprise at seeing the mural on the ceiling.

An exquisite mural was painted high above, bemusing him. It had delineated the laughing orcs in all their glory, riding on massive, bloodthirsty armored vurgrs, interlocked in blade and magic and claw against the heavily-clad humans, the gray emotionless knights, riding on their trained warhorses barded in steel on the sands of Gratt.

A chaotic mess of axes, claws, maces, magic, spears, and swords inflicted death and wounds, sullying the golden desert's endless scenery with the spilled blood and stacked dead.

It was entrancing and was sucking Gungmar into the overly lifelike plafond. But, unexpectedly, the half-orc’s intense stare was broken. His concentration, gone.

Gungmar sneezed suddenly, rubbed at his eyes, and coughed, overwhelmed with a pleasant surprise. "What the hells was that? It was too unbelievable…" He laughed.

Amazing, he looked up again, never less awestruck than before. The mural was a work of art—no, it was much more than that... it was a masterpiece.

An artistic rendition of a battle, possibly painted by a master, or even a mage-painter—the way it was so realistic and pulled him in. Dangerous.

“...and amazing,” he repeated, the words coming out of his mouth as sounds rather than thoughts.

Gungmar spent the next solid ten minutes staring at the ceiling above until his neck started hurting, and it became too nauseating just looking up high. He averted his gaze and rubbed the soreness in his neck, irritated.

"So real..." he said appreciatively, the mural’s vibrant colors seared into his mind.

But, all too soon, creeping boredom overtook his earlier astonishment: The Elder was still asleep, and was now covering the other half of his face in his disgusting fluids. Eugh. And Gungmar was just standing, so his legs were also starting to hurt.

With nothing better to do, he just massaged his legs and waited.

And waited.

And waited…

“Or maybe I could do something else…?” He mumbled, watching and considering the shelves of books on either side of him. It can't hurt, right? The Elder’s still in dreamland, and I’m getting tired of…. standing around. Waiting, he thought.

It would be a waste to squander this golden opportunity to leaf through expensive books, given that most of his knowledge came from practical and oral sources. As long as he was careful, then nobody could ever possibly find out, right?

And, he must admit, he was growing tempted to read a book, consequences be damned, seeing that the bestiary from earlier caught his eye. And the history books and myths and fables and even the cookbook, much to his surprise.

But the bestiary really interested him, most of all.

Monsters, then. Who wouldn't want to read about them? From the deadly basilisk which merely glares to kill its victim to the majestic griffin and its wings of equal majesty, and to the solitary Serpent-God (though, Gungmar wasn't exactly sure that one of the Divine should be classified as a mere beast), it was always captivating to learn about them from the eyes and accounts of travelers and scribes.

And even sometimes about the horribly depicted orcs and goblins in human-made bestiaries. Classified and labeled as monsters by the extremely prejudiced. And apparently rumored to be that they can commit all kinds of heinous crimes, despite being intelligent and civilized like, well, dwarves, elves, humans, and so on.

An outdated way of thinking.

“Pretty dumb,” he chuckled.

He snuck a glance at the sleeping Elder and debated whether to follow his desire or not. Ah, fine, to hells with it, I'll just have to keep an eye out, he reasoned after a moment's deliberation.

Gungmar tiptoed to the right shelf and quietly plucked out the book. “...it’ll be a quick read…” He said, trying to convince himself.

Opening it, he read the first page. “Chapter one… The Manticore, huh? Straight to business. I like it.” With a slight twinkle in his eyes, Gungmar thumbed through the book.

Harrfell, on the other hand, was in a constantly shifting nightmare.

•••

“Blergh! Godsdammit, Klenfell, you lunatic! Pah, phew, puh!” Harrfell hacked, coughed, and spat out the moist fur from his mouth, a bowl of soup cunningly flavored with the fine strands of soft, disgusting hair held in his hands.

He gave the cackling Klenfell a look of daggers before hurling the wooden bowl towards the ground in a fury, splattering the soupy contents across the seemingly solid floor and sending the bowl clanging a few feet behind the smug prankster.

He flipped off the grinning Klenfell and tried to rush him with an overhanging fist.

Until he was whisked away, again, to somewhere else without having laid a hand on the fat moron. Somewhere quite familiar to someone like him.

It was a blur of change, the landscape fading and morphing from the darkly lit room with him, the fat Elder, and the fur-filled soup to an unrecognizable, lonely place somewhere far out in the great desert. Where no civilization and animals thrived and roamed. Just the cloudy sky bearing down on everything with an oppressive sigh.

No outposts, no tents, no packs of wild animals, and no caravans.

Nothing. There was nothing but sand and air and him and the mountains.

Desolate and meaningless: a bleak and dismal emptiness encircled him.

“Harpy’s claws. Not again. I’m back here? Hells. It’s never enough, is it?” He exhaled tiredly, looking around the wild, unfamiliar parts of Gratt. He felt naked and cold even with his toga on, the sand soft yet firm underneath his finely stitched leather slippers.

Not a friendly dwarf, a feral vurgr, or a warlike softskin greeted him. At least, from what he gathered, which couldn't be willed into existence from his mind.

Locked in his paranoia and self-hatred, a looping nightmare for the past hour.

“...as always, how long is this going to be?” Harrfell muttered, and kicked at the ground angrily, cursing as he sent the sand flying.

Then, a grinding headache suddenly pummeled him, causing the Elder to groan out in pain and pressing his fingers to his temple to ease it—an ineffective action. Unfortunately, he fell face forward to the ground from the severity of the pain as his mouth breathed in dreamlike dust.

Harrfell jolted and snorted involuntarily in his sleep while knocking a paperweight off the desk, the orc mumbling something incoherent before falling back to sleep. Gungmar eyed him curiously but only continued reading when the sleeper made no further movement.

The Elder of the West rolled around the sand, turning himself over as he gasped at the sky. “Pah, peh! Feh! " Exclaimed Harrfell. "Why am I always getting something in my mouth!? The damn spit from that harpy, the fur, and then this? Broodmother’s eggs. I can never get a moment's respite, will I? Divine have mercy.” He struggled to his feet and tidied himself up weakly.

“Hah. Hah… what’s changed? ” He looked around as another wave of pain hit him; this time a piercing, sharp migraine.

“...argh, dammit. Don’t tell me… they’re here again…” As if on cue, a roving band of mage-nomads appeared from the distance, under the cover of their conjured dust storms and riding inside their steeds of houses, moving houses of sand and clay and varying sizes, with ugly-looking wheel-limbs and deformed, smiling faces barreling across the desert toward him.

The Elder sighed in resignation as he watched the same thing unfold in front of his eyes, powerless to intervene in this nightmare of his. His arms hung limp at his sides, and as he gulped, his lips felt cracked and dried.

Suddenly, precious and beautiful white goats raised by his loving family sprung up into existence beside him, bleating adorably at their owner when they saw Harrfell.

Until one was burnt to a crisp in an instant, shot by a fireball from a cursed nomad.

All the goats screamed like men-children screaming and took off running haphazardly, abandoning their owner and their charred, fallen sibling lest they become the next victims of the danger that was fast approaching.

The mage-nomads cackled and snarled like hyenas, their house-steeds speeding up the more they used their mana to fuel their magic. Blazing across the sands, the house-steeds began to laugh like their mad masters as well, laughing in delight at chasing and killing the innocent goats.

At least, that's what Harrfell thought so. Their mocking expressions taunted him to do anything, anything at all, to save his precious four-legged friends.

He didn’t do jack shit.

The charred, appetizing smell of flesh aroused the nomads as they hurried to grab the carcasses—which were dropping like burnt flies—from within the safe insides of their steeds, perfectly snug and fit as the nomads smacked their lips at the sight and smell.

Likewise, the Elder’s stomach gurgled from smelling the nauseatingly, inviting smell of roasted goat, which made him ashamed and angry.

With most of the goats dead, and only a surviving few remaining, the mage-nomads kidnapped the rest and bound their arms and legs with hardened sand to increase their own livestock back at their main, drifting camp.

Better a living, resisting few than the entirety of healthy, alive and, frankly, annoying, rebellious goats. Mmm… yummy burned and blackened meat.

"I can't seem to rid them of my mind. Damn goat-thieves-killers, I'm losing sleep because of you! *Sigh*. I never should have read the report that Merrak specifically told me not to. Why in the hells was it thoroughly described!" Harrfell sat on the ground, cradling his legs, and sobbing uncontrollably as the mage-nomads left him behind in his pit of sorrow.

He was now alone once more.

The landscape shifted around him again. This time, a tranquil whiteness replaced the golden-brown landscape of the desert. It was heavy on the eyes, not that the Elder noticed.

Harrfell's unsubstantial, sitting figure began to disintegrate quickly, as did his awareness of the nightmares: a gentle hand waking him up from his torture.

Tears streamed down the sleeping Elder's cheeks, adding to his pool of liquids. Sobbing and murmuring, the noise bothered Gungmar to the point he couldn’t help but return the book to the shelf and check up on his sorry state.

Pressing a hand on his shoulder and awkwardly patting it, he tried to wake him up.

Crimson eyes blinking the wetness away, Harrfell rubbed at his face with a sleeve and exclaimed in awkward surprise at Gungmar's impassive stare. Then, out of nowhere, a fierce and no-nonsense persona quickly appeared and shielded his tear-streaked face and pitiful mood.

“The fuck are you looking at?” He gave Gungmar a feeble yet aggressive greeting.