My last coherent memory was of Alwyn screaming and storming from my cave. Everything else was a blur of nuclear detonations that tore through my head, over and over again. With my body already involuntarily emptied, I hadn’t messed myself any further. I lay on the rock, the pain of it digging into my face a welcome relief from her torture. The pancaking of my toe had been bad enough, but this was truly indescribable. There were no words to convey how utterly corrupted I felt by her intrusions.

I did know one thing, though. I was going to kill that bitch, and make it fucking hurt.

A while passed before I had the energy to lift my head. I peeled myself from the floor, just as an orc entered, carrying more water and a plate. I’m not sure why, but the sight of the creature with honest to goodness tableware had me laughing out loud.

“You got a knife and fork too?” I asked, squeezing my eyes tightly shut as the last residual pulses of pain dissipated.

“No,” the creature replied. “Just the plate. And some clothes.”

He tossed them through the bars.

“Wait, you can speak properly too?” I quickly slipped the trousers and top on and tied the strings to hold them in place.

“I can,” he replied. “And why do you say too?”

“I might’ve exploded one of your friends. He was really articulate until the dynamite blew him up.”

“You’re talking about General Zord, aren’t you?” he said, reaching for a set of keys.

“That’s the one! Zord the Handsome. He wasn’t so good looking afterwards. In fact, I don’t think there was much left of him to even identify.”

“Why do you seek to bait me?” he asked, slipping the food and water inside. “Have I done anything to you?”

“Not personally, but your kind? They’ve done plenty,” I sneered.

“And it seems they have been made to pay for that, no?” he asked, locking the cage again.

I pulled up his name, intrigued by the bizarre exchange. It identified him as Kurdan. “You don’t seem particularly upset, Kurdan.”

He gave no outward sign of surprise at my calling him by name. Then again, I had been snatched as a powerful spellcaster by another immensely powerful spellcaster, so it wasn’t unexpected that I would have gifts.

“Let’s just say my time under Zord wasn’t overly pleasant,” he said, making to leave.

“Would you like to tell me about it, Kurdan? I’m probably going to die soon, and it would be nice to chat with someone who wasn’t tearing my brain apart.”

“Mistress Alwyn is a cruel sort, that’s for sure. Even the master respects her.”

“How long was I out? I mean, how long was she in my head?”

“Three days,” he replied.

“Three days?” I exclaimed. “Holy shit.”

“You were out for most of it. The mistress was screaming a lot of the time in frustration.”

“I’m glad I didn’t make it easy on her. The way she was speaking, you’d think she’s in charge around here. I wonder what your master would make of that?”

“Gutrender may be crazy, but he’s also shrewd. He knows the sorceress’s plans stretch far beyond Kherrash.”

“Then why does he keep her around?”

“Entertainment? Another way to keep the horde in check? I have no idea.”

That the pair were at something of a cross purpose was interesting. Maybe I could use it against them both.

“Anyway, you were going to tell me about yourself,” I said, changing the subject.

“As you wish. My friends call me Kur,” he said, sitting down on an outcrop of rock. “Or they would if I had any.”

“I doubt there’s much room for relationships when you’re fighting all the time, is there?” I asked, shifting to pick up the food. There was a smoking slab of charred meat on the plate alongside a handful of nuts. “Is this?”

“Boar. Caught and butchered yesterday. I know how you humans get squeamish about consuming the flesh of your own. I’ve never understood it myself. Meat is meat.”

“I guess you could say we aren’t as cultured as the greenskins,” I said, biting off a small sliver. It was most definitely a salty pork of some description, and extremely tasty.

Kur laughed. “Very good, Mark. I like that.”

I took another larger bite, then chewed, and swallowed. “This is where you tell me I’m actually eating people, right?”

“No, it’s boar. I can fetch the head if you wish?”

“It’s ok, I trust you.”

Kur smiled at this, his tusks twitching. “Is that wise?”

“Probably not,” I grunted with a full mouth, “but it’s not as if I have a choice, is it? Why are you feeding me, anyway? I’m the enemy.”

Kur’s grin disappeared. “Gutrender wants you strong.”

Uh oh, that didn’t sound good at all. “Strong for what?”

“The games,” he replied, sadly.

“What games?” I asked, the lump of meat suddenly very hard to swallow.

“I can’t say. You’ll see later. In the meantime, I should be going.”

“Wait!” I blurted, getting flecks of saliva and meat all over myself. Giving up on the meal, I spat the mouthful back onto the plate. “Tell me about yourself. This place. If you can, that is.”

“What would you like to know?”

“How are you… well, you I guess?”

“You mean civil? Not a raging machine of war and death?”

“Yeah.”

“Do the humans not have people who are… different? Who don’t belong in what you would call normal settings?”

I thought of all the neurodivergent, and how understanding and accommodating them was only now becoming commonplace. “I suppose we do. We used to treat them as strange, weird even.”

“Believe me, I get treated poorly too. Hence why I said my time under Zord was not pleasant. I don’t thrive in battle, I thrive in peace and solitude. It’s why they let me cook for them now instead of fight.”

“I doubt they were happy about that.”

“Let’s just say I’ve suffered a few broken bones and licks from the lash for my troubles.”

“Sorry.” I sighed. I actually meant it, which surprised me. This creature was an outcast amongst his own, mocked and bullied for being different. He might’ve been nearly seven feet tall and four hundred pounds of solid muscle, but I could see the softness in his hands that the others didn’t bear. Every orc I’d fought had damaged knuckles and thick callouses from practicing with their weapons. I expected this poor thing to break out the curling iron and start perming hair over a mocha latte. Or something like that. My knowledge of hairdressing was somewhat limited to a trim every six weeks. “What about this place?” I continued.

“You mean like how many of us are there and where are we located? Maps, layouts, that kind of thing?” he asked, smirking.

“If you like. Or just about how you come to be. Orcs and goblins, all under the mountain.”

“We’re grown like mushrooms,” said Kur. “They pop an orc egg in the ground and water it for six months.”

My eyes widened in surprise. “Really?”

“No, of course not,” he replied with a deep chuckle. “We have orc and goblin women.”

I shook my head at how gullible I’d been. “I haven’t ever seen one.”

“And you never will. They’re kept far away from the light.”

“You keep them prisoners? Force them to have babies?”

“Not at all. The females of our species are worshipped. We keep them hidden to keep them safe. They want for nothing.”

“Well that’s good to know. I expect the caves go down quite far. Lots of places to hide.”

“You have no idea,” he said, darkly. “This mountain is as old as the world. It is these unseen places that brought Alwyn like a moth to a flame. What she found with Gutrender is the reason for her powers.”

“What did she find?” I asked.

Before Kur could reply, a din erupted outside from a group of orcs that came barrelling into the cave, fighting each other. “Time ta play, softmeat!” yelled one, laughing manically.

“Git outta ‘ere!” snapped another, giving Kur a brutal kick in the spine.

He grunted in pain, before quickly scurrying away as two of the brutes chased him. My blood boiled at the mistreatment, even if he was a poor imitation of the Hulk, minus the smashing. “Let me out of here and I’ll play,” I warned the leader. “Just you and me. Get me a sword and we’ll go at it.”

His bravado faltered slightly as I held his gaze. “You’s runnin’ da gauntlet, softmeat. Dere won’t be nuffin left ta fight. But we’s boil ya bones fa soup.”

I snorted at him and checked his stats. He was a few levels above me; a warboss no less, but I wasn’t impressed. “You’re a fucking coward, Golag. Bring on this gauntlet then, and when I’ve beaten it, I’ll carve you up in front of all your little friends here, hardmeat.”

I could tell the creature wanted to attack me, but he was obviously under instruction to deliver me unharmed to whatever this game was. I’d played Gauntlet in the arcades. It was a brutal war of attrition against endless waves of spawning enemies. I doubted Gutrender’s version was any less dangerous.

Two of the hulks grabbed me as soon as the cell door had been opened. They had me on size, but they didn’t have my boosted stats. I held my ground as they tried to manhandle me like some common prisoner. Everything in me screamed to attack the orcs, and consequences be damned. A calmer, more rational voice in the back of my head urged caution, to play it cool, and try to make it through whatever trials were thrown at me. “I can walk myself,” I growled as they started to get more rough.

Golag glared, then grunted and motioned for the others to let me go. “E’ll suffa enuff. Dis way!”

I left the cell, and then my little cavern. When I hit the main tunnels, I noticed a series of shaking pipes running along them. They were rattling so hard I was surprised they didn’t come apart. Here and there, steam hissed through a broken joint, but nobody seemed inclined to make it safe or repair it. The whine of escaping gas became the dull roar of a large crowd. They frogmarched me to the source of the noise, which was hidden by a pair of massive doors set just inside the cave mouth. What I could see was that the space beyond was enormous. The rocky roof above was at least two hundred feet at the highest point.

“Time ta play, softmeat.” Golag chuckled. “We’s see how ya feel afta, yeah?”

A group or orcs on the gantry above the doors cranked them open, allowing the full force of the cheering to hit me. I was pushed inside a holding area, with dozens of mocking green faces looking down at me from the viewing platforms above. There was another platform that was attached to runners by thick chains. There was a pattern to the steelwork, which gave me a clue to the snaking nature of the gauntlet itself.

Atop it was a creature that completely boggled my mind. The words master tinkerer didn’t quite do Gutrender justice. His creation was beyond anything that should’ve worked according to the known laws of physics or engineering. He stood within the mechanical suit that gave him a height pushing twelve feet. One arm ended in a spiked fist, while the other was a pair of scissor-like curved blades that snapped open and shut involuntarily. Anything caught between would be cut in two. Hydraulic pistons controlled most of the construct, which operated on steam power. A team of orcs followed as he paced back and forth, eight carrying the coal tender on their shoulders and two tossing shovelfuls in to the open firebox that raged at the goblin king’s back. Smoke poured from a chimney behind Gutrender’s head. It just didn’t make sense. At all. Even Nikola Tesla with all his genius inventions would’ve had a stroke trying to understand the contraption.

“We got sumfink special for ya today, boys! Alwyn’s playfing is gonna run da gauntlet. Will ‘e be stabbed, burned, crushed? Place ya bets now!”

The crowd erupted and coin purses jingled. I had no idea what orcs needed with a monetary system, but I did know that Gutrender had given me a clue as to what I faced. All that remained was for me to make it from one end to the other without dying.

Seeing the manic glee in the goblin king’s face, I didn’t rate my chances that high.