Sobering Up.

"I have to admit... I've never actually seen an elixir like this..." Tyrea swirled the 'Cabalist Decoction' around in front of her face. Her red hair seemed strangely... colorless in the light of the blue-glowing potion, like the drink had somehow sapped some of reality itself out of the air around it. Her hands pinched the bottle gingerly by the neck as she carefully uncorked the plug that was keeping the Mana potion inside its container and lifted it up to her nose. She didn't drink, but the action was enough to make John worry and call out for her to stop. She just... sniffed it, and recoiled slightly when the scent of the sour liquid within filled her lungs. She still hadn't bothered to cover herself since the last time that John had seen her. In fact, she wore the same outfit. Her wavy crimson hair was tied up, at least enough to keep it hanging down behind her and out of her face. Her body was covered in a translucent white dress with a neckline that dipped too lowly to be of any actual use for hiding her bone-pierced nipples, and her legs were still wrapped in familiar black stockings. "You said it made you see things?" she asked, and John nodded.

"Demons mostly. Women with horns and red or pale white skin." When he answered, he had to shake his head to try and clear some of the remaining bits of haze from his mind. Most of the potion’s effects were gone by this point, flushed out of his system with an abundance of sex and sleep, but it didn't take his memory of the event from him... even though it had already taken other moments that he couldn't remember. He remembered what happened between him and Urga and Dofi, and the two slaves were still in the large tent with him... they were just sleeping it off longer than he was. Every now and then, one of them would move and brush him with a soft toe or an ankle and whine at the absence they felt now that his warmth was not besides them. It was little embarrassing to admit that he had started to adjust to the Orcish lifestyle, but for some reason he felt comfortable when he didn't bother with dressing himself either when Tyrea had showed up. He let her get her peeks and glances while he searched for answers to the new questions that he had.

"Hallucinations... interesting." Tyrea plugged the Mana bottle back up and then handed it back to John. He safely tucked it back into his inventory. Calling what happened a hallucination didn't feel right to him. Otrov made him hallucinate with her illusions, tricked with things that were so real that he couldn't spot the difference between them and the world around him.

"No. This... This was different," he answered and watched as Tyrea cocked a curious eyebrow at him. "It was..." He felt wrong in describing it, but the word he gave her was the most accurate one he could think of. "... nostalgic, kind of..." A couple of seconds passed before Tyrea joined him and sat down on the edge of his furry bed.

"What were the effects that you discovered about it again?" she asked, and John shrugged and quickly pulled the description for the Cabalist Decoction back up for him to look at and then read it off to her.

Cabalist Decoction.
This blue swirling mess of Mana is a potent revitalizer for the average mage. Unlike most Mana potions of the new age, the Cabalist Decoction is made mostly through medieval practices. The ancient means used for the creation of this potion were largely dropped and forgotten for the side-effects that the methods produced and because of the fact that it had a habit of sucking out a part of a person's soul during the gathering process... However, the alchemist behind the creation of this recipe has long-since altered it to provide the most appealing set of side-effects possible.
If consumed the potion grants:
+Restores 20 points of Mana.
+1 soul ration.
+2 Libido.

"A soul ration... I don't... What is that?" Tyrea asked, and John frowned. He tried casting Observe on the words itself, but it didn't reveal anything. All he could do was assume.

"I think... it's a part of a person's soul... I don't know for sure," he guessed and watched as Tyrea frowned and her brow bunched up. The minutes passed in silence as John tried waiting for an answer from her... or at least tried to wait for her best guess. Eventually, he regretted asking.

"Nostalgic, huh?" Tyrea mumbled under a soft breath and then looked over at John. She licked her lips as soon as their eyes met, but John quickly stood up and walked away to keep her out of the aura's reach for the time being. He wanted more answers... not more sex... yet. "Maybe it's... a memory? Something that happened to the person who that ration used to belong to? I-I don't know. Your guess is as good as mine."

"I need more than just guesses. I need legitimate answers. I need-" the tent's entrance flapped open softly as Mub barged into the room and interrupted the two of them before John could finish complaining. The muscles under his marred green skin rippled as he walked and his lone good eye was hardened and focused as he turned it on John... but his gaze softened immediately. Mub stood up as straight as he could manage and nodded at the Gamer and his waking slaves before Tyrea stood as well.

"If that is all-" the redheaded human started saying before John interrupted her with a nod and wave of his hands. Tyrea smiled and bowed respectively upon receiving John's permission to leave and brushed a slender hand across Mub's chest before she walked out of the tent.

"What's up?" John asked and watched as Mub glanced at Tyrea's backside as she walked out, eyed John's mewling slaves, and then turned to look at the naked Gamer himself. He huffed and sighed as John stared at him expectantly, but he didn't manage to bring himself to speak until after the quiet became unnerving.

"I... I didn't know if you were going to be able to do it," Mub stated once he finally seemed ready to talk. His massive frame shifted his weight around between each foot and his giant hands clenched and unclenched repeatedly. At last, he simply let his hands fall limp and nudged his head towards the tent's exit. "What's your plan now? Do you mean to walk to Bulgebottom or Dornwich?"

A city of Gnomes or a city of Elves?

"Honestly..." he didn't want to beat around the bush any longer after meeting Favoris. He could have been killed at anytime. "I want to go to both. I want..." he paused before finishing that statement. He hesitated for a moment, but it was gone just as quickly as it had come. He did want to do this. It was a habit by that point, and his gaming instinct drove him onwards. He had to win. "I want to conquer both of them. I just don't know which one to do first..." Mub didn't say anything. John didn't expect the Orc to shun him for the thought; by that point he expected pride from the Orc if there was anything at all to be felt. Ambition was probably a good sign for them. Once he said it though, John turned away and began to dress himself.

He had to walk around the room and retrieve his clothes for once since he had stripped out of them instead of choosing to slide the articles into his inventory, but he didn't care. At least he got laid one more time before dying.

"Dornwich. Fight the Elves." When Mub finally spoke his voice came out in the form of heavy, confident grunts, like he had already decided the answer for John. It was the only one that made sense to him. "If you go to Bulgebottom first and fight, then every loss and body will become Hallowed and help Dornwich."

"How many Hallowed does Dornwich have?" John asked and watched as Mub pursed his lips. He frowned and looked the Gamer up and down, but he didn't give John any bad or worrying news. He told John quite the opposite actually, once John had finished putting his clothes on.

"We can take them," Mub said and led the way out of the tent. "Easily," he huffed, and as soon as John followed him outside, he froze as a dozen Orcs immediately got up and shifted towards the two of them. His posture locked up, hardening into a familiar battle stance that caused the members of the tribe to hesitate when moving towards them, and John immediately snapped at the group of them.

"Back up!" he shouted and watched as many of the tribesmen stumbled away from the ferocity of his voice. His hands clenched into fists, and he was ready to ignite them to start swinging when another Orc stepped forward. He didn't recognize who it was, other than the fact that the green woman had probably leered at him once or twice after he had spent the night sleeping with Urga or Brenda... but he relaxed when the topless Orc lifted her hands in a manner that didn't seem threatening. Her heavy, swollen breasts were squeezed together between her biceps as she let dirt and ash pour out of her hands, but John tried not to let her nudity distract him.

"They are not attacking," Mub grunted, and John risked a quick glance towards the Orc. Mub had his arms crossed and tapped his foot impatiently while John looked back and forth between him and the woman.

"W... Why not?" John asked and risked a look towards the hands that the woman was holding out to him. Something shiny glinted at the Gamer as she held her limbs aloft, but he didn't dare to focus on it yet. Members... no... Warriors of the tribe had died in his attempt to pass through the Burning Pass. Beloved warriors. As far as he could tell, it made more sense for some of them to try to attack him than... whatever this was. "Aren't they mad at me?"

"Mad at..." Mub's sentence died off. His face fell as he looked back and forth between the rest of the tribe and John... and then his hands started clenching and unclenching again. Mub shifted his weight across the balls of his feet and he let the tone of his voice soften. "No. They are not mad at you. You promised to lead them through the broken pass and you did."

"But not everyone made it. Some peop-" John didn't get a chance to express his confusion before the entire tribe around him echoed one singular statement towards him. A unanimous growl echoed out across the crowd’s green-skinned faces and silenced John before he could finish... but Mub explained it for him, in the same way he had tried to talk to John about Michel's ****.

"They are not yours to mourn," the Orc growled, and John slowly turned to look at his last pack-member. Mub was growling at him too, just as fiercely. "Leave that to their families." They didn't stop growling until after John nodded at the group of them. They made sure that he got the message, that they didn't want him to think or talk like he had anything to do with the deaths of other tribesmen, and then the tribe started moving towards him again. The movement still put John on edge.

Whether he liked it or not, he had to watch himself. He was still surrounded by a civilization of
brutal barbarians.

"They're not going to hurt me?" he asked, and Mub shook his head.

"No. You have nothing to worry about from me." It wasn't Mub who spoke to him finally when the Orcish woman moved within an arm’s reach of John. It was the woman herself who talked. She shook her head and poured the dirt and glimmering item from her grasp into John's hands as she spoke. Her nipples hardened in his proximity after a couple of seconds, and her body shivered when their hands touched, but she didn't stay within the reach of his aura for long. After a moment, she bowed her head and stepped back long before any traces of arousal could start to drip down her thighs. She disappeared into the crowd and left John standing there and staring at his hands in her absence until his mind had finally caught up.

She had dumped a whole handful of heavy, metallic jewelry into his hands! Bits of gold and silver mirrored the shocked expression of John's face as he stared down at the tiny bits of metal and gems in his fingers and then scoffed when his Observe told him how very real the items were. She wasn't the only one to approach him and pass an item to him either.

"Can you really not be hurt?" the next Orc asked with a wide-eyed gaze and briefly groped at his arm where Favoris had burnt him. The wound had healed in his sleep, and while most of his skin seemed spotless, it was slightly darker in the area where the dragon's fire had touched him. It was one of the few scars that his Gamer's Body didn't have the complete ability to heal, it seemed. Once she was also done touching him, the Orcess took a pile of small golden chains from one of her nearby slaves and laid them across John's arms and neck. She coated him in the tribute, gasping and writhing as she stayed a little longer within the reach of his aura, and then left with a flush in her cheeks.

"You came from no island. No town. No kingdom. There was nothing to the south..." The next Orc to approach John was a man. He laid a weapon at John's feet, a sword with a golden handle and runes etched into its blade, and then stood and walked away just as quickly as he had come. He adjusted his loincloth as he walked away, like the pelt was suddenly uncomfortable, but he didn't stop mumbling in wonder until after he was out of earshot.

"You really can kill the Hallowed." That sentence alone was the one that John heard the most. The fact that the undead fell to the ground and stopped moving around him was something that the tribe seemed unable to forget, even as they covered him in silks and wools.

"He also broke chains made by the late Jabari himself..." After some point, John recognized one of the voices that spoke to him. It was one of the Elders who had come along, the fat one that had tried to offer John advice when Dullong had challenged him. The Elder in charge of the tribe's shamans showed up to deliver an offering at the same time but he didn't say anything. "Chains built to hold a dragon."

Orc after Orc after Orc showed up to deliver John gifts, actual gifts without any signs of insult or spite. John simply stood there stunned and received them. Even Lagash and Dullong appeared. Dullong came to give John the one thing he had left... which was quite simply a show of Dullong physically and verbally releasing all of his slaves, and then Lagash dropped a pile of fancy 'Elvish' control collars at his feet.

"W-why?" he eventually asked but didn't manage to say much more than that. He couldn't bring himself to ask the complete sentence of all of them, but Mub answered him all the same.

"You brought Glory, Alpha. Impossible Glory," Mub grunted, and the majority of the tribe turned to look at the Orc. "You don't bleed. You don't die. You disappear and reappear from thin air. You kill the unkillable." There was a small beat of silence, and then Mub raised his voice, "The tribe feels like you walk as a..." Again, Mub paused as he was talking. He turned to his redhead ****, Tyrea, who whispered back and forth with him for a moment before she looked at John.

"A god," Tyrea stated, and John froze. "They feel like you might be a god secretly walking amongst them... And, honestly? I don't blame them for thinking it," she said, and the tribe quickly fell silent. They stared at John with wide... unblinking... eyes, like he might smite them at any second for calling him out... and then Mub spoke up again.

"If you are going to Dornwich... then you take us too," the warrior told him and watched as the Tribe bristled at his boldness. They shifted just as nervously as Mub had been shifting, but John's last pack member had yet to give his tribute, so he steeled himself as he approached John. The Gamer simply stood there, dumbfounded, with his hands sticking straight out in front of him so he could continue to hold all the presents that they had given to him.

"The Bomasi Tribe is yours, Alpha," Mub told him, and John dumbly dropped all of the gifts that he had been given.