Alliria_pandemonium
That had been unexpected. Smaller lizards that Xoknath had caught with his siblings and the other
orcs from the fortress back in their youth, sure, they could abandon their tails in a pinch, but larger creatures tended to hold firmly to all their appendages. This one not only stabbed him with
the spine, but abandoned her tail entirely to escape before the proper thrashing could begin, leaving the mighty orc dumbstruck as he stumbled backwards several steps, tail in hand wriggling with the last spasming commands of the host who had abandoned it for her own safety.
The spine pierced his dense musculature like a knife, something he could take in a fight, but instead was left with as an annoyance as the enemy scurried away just like the other
monsters. The mighty orc stopped and considered for a moment as the tail finally found its death without body, settling limply in his grasp, the spine stuck into his meat looking like some inadvisable fashion statement.
The
naga he had pulled off the
monster slithered closer, but the mighty orc batted her hands away from him, unsure of the intent behind her motions, "Off of me, snake!"
Naga and. . . Well, as he had learned, just about everybody had relationship problems. They kept raiding and abducting people, and though this one seemed to actually somehow understand the
common tongue, that did little to bridge the divide between those who moved on tails versus those with two legs. Whatever was going on, the naga might be on their side for now, but Xoknath still was not going to let one put its hands all over him.
He ripped the tail from his shoulder with a casual movement, wincing slightly more at the expectation of pain than any sensation of it. Actually, he felt little at all from the stab wound, more like the dull expectation of what should have been pain, and even for his tolerance, that was not exactly normal. Before long his shoulder was starting to feel numb, followed not long-after by his arm.
He tried flexing, but it was an alien sensation, the muscles trying to tighten but barely bulking past their normal thickness. His arm was sluggish, barely responsive, and felt floaty. Some sort of poison was trying its best with him, but he was far from the normal size of your average orc, let alone human. There was a lot of blood and muscle it would have to work its way through to stop him, but it could do its best to slow him down if they got into another fight before it was done.
At least that was all it was. Xoknath lifted the tail up and examined it, narrowing his blood-red eyes at the thing before throwing it over a shoulder, the thick fur he wore more than enough to keep it from hurting him without intention. Now, the orc had a chance to look at how the world had changed around them.
Or. . . Either the world had changed, or they had changed worlds. He was. . . At least fairly certain that he had not been poisoned with anything that would make him see anything abnormal, and since the other people within looked mostly as they had before, save for battle wounds and a change in lighting, he was slowly beginning to feel a little more confident in that assumption.
There were still monsters out and about, watching them, wary since the group had managed to kill their way to this new bog of a place, with what looked like large dead logs where the trees had once been, and even bigger monstrosities in the distance. It made the orc feel uneasier than the poison that seemed to have found its furthest reaches before it could affect his mind. Somehow, through the clearing of the mists, they had acquired new allies beside the naga female.
Then, a new monster arrived. Large, like a man in a suit of armor too large for him, like his flesh had grown to adapt to it in the most grotesque of ways possible. It. . . Spoke without speaking, words echoing in the mighty orc's mind, something of ascension with a promising feeling, but the orc remained weary, his adrenaline died down but he still felt uneasy, the venom slowed him but he still felt like there was a threat.
Then the girl monster returned, the one whose tail Xoknath currently held over his shoulder like a whip ready to punish, but he was not eager to get into a fight so soon after the last one, so soon after getting the numbing toxin in him. He listened to her words actually spoken more than he held onto the ones that had echoed in his mind from the bigger thing. Jair could handle it, but if they were following through into another fight so soon, he wanted a match with that smaller one.
He removed his battle axe from the ground and glared at the girl monster, bringing her old discarded tail like a whip against the ground before walking off to the side, sneering. The tail dragged behind him like a bloody reminder of what happened recently, the grasp he had her in that she escaped in such a bloody fashion.
The monsters offered a reflection of true self, but the albino called it a corruption. Apparently either way, there was change at foot, but it confused him to consider, his own self already being a hulking mass of orc, a brute even among a race of brutes, large, imposing, and strong. Corruption, maybe, but what else? People had a habit of insulting things, they insulted him, they insulted him when he chose to leave his fortress, they insulted him for being a big green beast of an orc. He never minded, it was easy not to mind when you were sure you were making the best choices.
Yet, that was part of the problem. His problem here, there, now, and then. Orcs were naturalists by nature, but also somewhat simple. Many orcs believed they could already change through becoming more attuned to nature, but others claimed it was just a magical adaption. To sniff better, to hear better, for some to even turn into beasts. If this was a change like that, would it be considered natural by the other orcs, an abomination, or barely considered at all? Was this cheating, skipping ahead to the end, or was it just a quicker way?
"Change, like what? I can get poison from a beast." He growled out the question past his tusks at her, holding the girl's tail off the ground for her to consider as he spoke, for either he or the big one to consider as he spoke, "Look at me. How could I be more myself than I already am, huh? Biggest of the orcs! Eyes of bloody fury! Voice like thunder! Swings like siege weapons! Stomps like earthquakes! Skin like armor! Bones like iron! Your tail woulda stopped anybody else but the giant, but here I am, axe in hand! What more to me is there?"
He wanted an answer, wanted to know if there really was more. The venom might not have stopped him, but he could still feel the sluggishness, especially on his right arm, which was why he was keeping his axe in his left. He would not run from a fight, not even like this, but if they were promising something then they better make it good enough to risk everything it meant to be an orc.
