The Monster Of The Burning Pass... Part 2.

Despite the traditions of the Tribe and the views of his family and himself, Mub didn't spend very long in the Pass with John as soon as they came across the Dragon. He didn't want to bother with a being that could breathe magic, and none of the other Orcs blamed him. It didn't matter what the civilization was, or what the situation was, it wasn't natural to try and fight Dragons. A person couldn't do it, they were supposed to just avoid them. Everyone knew that... except for maybe the Ankreshi up North. The metal men were probably the only ones in the whole world who were foolish enough to live by an obsession of fighting Dragons. Everybody else was at least smart enough to leave the beast to their own devices...

...Which was why Mub didn't even consider going back in to the Burning Pass to try and get John after the rest of the Tribe had walked out the other side of it. Instead, he called out for the remaining Orcs and slaves to get to work and set up camp, preferably in a nearby forest where they could hide from the sky if the Dragon did somehow get loose. He spent his time watching the tribe and trying to clear his lungs of the fumes from the Burning Pass while they all cried and swore about whatever it was that they were going to do now. For some reason, John had been the plan for dealing with everything North of the Burning Pass. Dealing with all of the dead, all of the elves, it only made sense with John.

Now that he went off to fight a Dragon, though, the Tribe had to figure out what to do on their own since he was gone. They couldn't get to the Elves, at least not without first fighting the dead. They couldn't fight the dead, not without losing control of their eyesight and being overwhelmed by the hordes of Hallowed. Worse than that, they couldn't go backwards to the place south of the Burning Pass where a Dragon had kept most of the Elves and Hallowed at bay.

Mub was so obsessed with finding a new solution to their problem that he didn't even bother paying attention to Dullong as the ex-alpha grabbed Lagash by her arm and dragged Urga's sister away to speak with her.

The only legitimate option left was to flee like cowards... but the Orcs were no cowards. They had to fight. They had to-

"Get me water."

John could still feel Favoris's fire on his face by the time he stepped out of the Burning Pass. His face felt hot... and tight, like the skin had been pulled taut across his features as he stumbled out from around the last bend in the Burning Pass and came limping towards the huddled mess of Orcs and tents on the edge of the mountains. He coughed weakly into a curled fist as the Orcs hastily slapped their abodes down and tried to hide them with as many of the nearby bushes as they could... but they didn't do a very good job. Most of the Orcs were wounded and tired. They didn't bother trying to focus on comfort, but instead on simple medicines and nursing the seared wounds that they all held.

"Water..." he croaked and then coughed again. He had long since passed into cleaner air by that point, but he could still feel the burning sensation in his chest. None of the Orcs heard him, though. "Get me water," he snapped and watched as Mub turned on a dime to face the Gamer. The Orc's eyes nearly bulged out of his skull as John stumbled a few more feet, and then Dofi came rushing past the stunned Orc with a giant wine-skin in her hands. The gnome's giant breasts bounced hugely in the air as she ran, but John didn't focus on that at the moment.

He was just happy to see that at least one of his slaves was alright.

After John had made the lock and somehow managed to set Favoris free, the Dragon had indeed turned on him. She got angry when he removed one half of the chain from the other half, but John didn't blame her. He only had one lock and didn't bother waiting or thinking his actions through before he essentially split the chain into two pieces. She had roared and screamed with the magical collar still flailing about on her neck, summoning more flames in the depths of her throat that felt like it had burned John before the fire had even left the Dragon's lips. He had winced in the face of **** and fell to the ground... but he didn't die. The Dragon stopped at the last moment, collared with a limp chain leash still connected to her throat, like she was some kind of pet, and rumbled above him, like she was fighting against some urge to strip the flesh from his bones, but she turned away. She satisfied her hunger on the corpses of the fallen Tribe members, the people who didn't survive the journey into the Burning Pass, and gave John a single moment to escape.

He didn't doubt for a moment that if he hadn't taken it, the Dragon would have killed him as soon as she turned around to see him still there.

Among the dead tribe members that Favoris had started feasting on was Rugga, the second member in John's pack after Mub, and one of the Elders. Of the the three Elders that came with John, he found that the Dragon had somehow managed to take away the one that he had figured would be the most useful in a fight. Before the Elder died to Favoris, he had been tall and muscular, built like some kind of ancient Greek war hero. Now, he was no more than a meal. The last two Elders, the shaman and the fat Orc that had tried to offer John advice, were nowhere to be found with Favoris when he left.

He had lost more people than he had imagined he would in the journey through the Burning Pass, and now he was more focused on making sure that the other ones who he had become closer to were still alive. Dofi was fine, untouched actually, thanks to her small stature. Mub was burnt, but John could barely even notice the new scars that the Orc bore now thanks to the fact that he already had so many to begin with. Lagash ignored him, but she had to physically turn herself away from John after Dullong scampered out of sight when he realized the Gamer had come back...

... but Urga... Urga came to check on John before he managed to lay his eyes on her. Her naked green body somehow managed to find her way towards him, despite the fact that the armband on his arm barely made any noise anymore. The silver bells on it were largely melted and disfigured and the red cloth was singed at the edges, but she still heard it. Her large, soft, emerald-hued breasts enveloped the biceps with the armband around it as she squeezed against his side, her hands roaming across his stomach and chest in search of wounds. She grunted sharply as soon as the Gamer turned his head to look at her and wrapped an arm around her waist, but she made little more noise other than that. She had some singed blue locks at the end of her hair, but seemed mostly spotless as well. Mub reassured him that he had already told both of the slaves to duck out of sight well before the Dragon had even showed up.

"How are you alive?" both Mub and Urga made the same statement, but the ****'s question was soft enough that John got the idea that he wasn't supposed to hear it. She had wondered it to herself, but the Gamer was intent on answering them.

Fortunately for his voice, he didn't need to. As soon as he drained the leather skin that Dofi had brought him of the last of the water in it, another roar erupted throughout the Burning Pass. Members of the Tribe screamed out in horror as they turned back to the source of the cry as it got louder and louder until finally... a giant shadow passed above them. The Orcs all turned their heads to the sky as Favoris, wings spread wide in all of their glory, flew by the entire group. The sun reflected off of her metallic green scales as she flapped her wings once... then twice, and disappeared into one of the many clouds above. The only sign that the Tribe had to tell that the Dragon was moving away from them was the fact that she let out another roar when she moved, and the sound got quieter and quieter as she moved further away.

"She kept to the deal..." John answered and then handed the wineskin back to his Gnome ****. "Do we have any more water?" he asked and watched as Mub shook his head. Urga shifted briefly at his side, like she was considering stepping away from John before he squeezed her tighter again and she froze up again. Even though he had just been burned beyond belief, her warmth was not something that he wanted to separate from anytime soon. He knew that the aura was affecting her, he could feel her nipples hardening against him and the way her hips started to gyrate, but he didn't care at the moment.

He had almost died, again, and now the tribe was out of water. They couldn't stop and set up camp. They needed to move. Urga clutched at his side briefly, but John shook his head.

"Pack up the tents," he ordered Mub and watched as the Orc blinked away his surprise for confusion. "If there's no water, then we need to keep moving until we find some. Let's go to the next village." There was a brief note of silence as the Tribe all stared at John, but he didn't relent with the decision. He was right. He knew he was right, but they didn't listen. They were Orcs. They had to do things their own wa-

"NOW!" he snapped at the group before he could bring himself to finish the thought, and surprisingly, the Orcs moved. They looked to Mub for a moment, but Mub himself started to follow his Alpha's orders and began barking at his slaves to repack his gear. The Tribe followed suit.

"Dofi," he stated the Gnome's name before he had even realized that his newest **** had stepped forward to hug against John too. Her pinkish-red hair shifted slightly as she looked up at him from his waist, and he bit his lip as she leaned close enough to where she would have been able to feel his cock lurch against her cheek if his metal leggings hadn't been in the way. She asked her master what he needed just as he saw the way her nipples were hardening against him too, and he gave her an order before he lost track of the goals that they needed to meet too. "Try to see if you can get someone to find me a horse. We have to get to the next Hallowed village. Hopefully, there will be a well to drink from somewhere around there."

Even if there wasn't a well in the next village, the map told John that there should hopefully be a river nearby. He just hoped that the water in the river was drinkable.

"Urga," he turned to look at his other **** as Dofi reluctantly peeled herself from John's leg. He was surprised to find that the little Gnome had come to him so quickly for comfort after what had happened in the Burning Pass, but he understood it. Hell, all he wanted at the moment was to hug Urga a little tighter after seeing a fucking Dragon, but there was work to do. "Can you ch-check to see if there is any kind of water left? I'm still really thirsty." His voice cracked as he was talking, and Urga began leaning against him before he had even finished his sentence, but his need didn't change the answer. She shook her head and then touched her cheek to John's shoulder as the two of them stood there. Her breathing was already deeper than before, and she was clinging at John's waist now like she wanted to hold onto him just as badly, but it didn't fix anything.

"If Mub says there is no water, there is no water," she answered him... surprisingly calmly. She shifted with John as his hands began to move in the air in front of him, searching through his character sheet and inventory for something to drink as an Orc came up to reassure him that he could find him a steed within the hour, but the Gamer's focus was split by the time that happened. The only thing that John found to drink that he actually would consider trying was one of the potions in his inventory.

He didn't want to mess with the Succubus Elixirs. Those seemed too dangerous at the moment, and he wasn't **** enough to try his luck with the two simple poisons he had in his inventory.

No... it was the Mana potions that caught John's eyes. When he saw them in his inventory, he immediately thought back to the Mana factory in his hometown... and then pushed the thought as far from his mind as he could possibly manage. He pulled one of the drinks out of his inventory and hesitated long enough to squeeze Urga just a little tighter against himself, eliciting a faint murmur from the Orcess.

The Mana glowed with a deep blue light, even in the midday sun. The residual light it gave off was weak enough to just barely be noticeable in his hand, but that wasn't the part that made John stop. As he stared at the potion, the liquid churned in the vial, even while he was holding it still. The mana swirled and jumped like the mixture inside had long since become volatile, but it was the best thing he had available.

As far as he was concerned, the rainy day that he had been saving the potions for had come.

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.

He didn't like what his Observe information told him... but if he wanted to have the energy and strength to fight off the next Hallowed village, then he needed it. His Observe sheet was... vague, at best. It gave him information for sure, but the information it gave him referenced things that it expected him to already know. A soul ration... it didn't sound great...

... but he drank the potion anyways.

The potion took effect almost immediately after John took it. His mana refilled partially from the empty stores that had been left after his use of Craft in the Burning Pass, and John blinked as he watched it happen... and then he watched it happen again. A distant roar echoed in his ears as he stared at his character sheet for a long moment, but his sheet hadn't filled up anymore than it had after the first time. It was like watching a movie repeat the same moment twice in a row, like deja vu, only he felt like he was still watching it refill over and over again even after he lifted his head up and closed the character screen. The tribe came and went before him while Urga fidgeted by his side. Dofi approached and said something, hugged his leg once more, and then left. Eventually, an Orc approached him as well.

He was unable to make sense of anything that the Orc said. In one moment, it was like he had just started paying attention after the Orc had spoken to him, and then in the next he was already climbing atop the horse that the Orc had come to bring to him. He remembered the fact that he told Urga to climb up onto the horse’s back with him, but he didn't remember the act of actually telling her. Time... seemed to shift as the potion finished taking effect, and John quickly lost track of it.

He didn't remember travelling, but he found himself looking around as the Tribe arrived at a village known as Duskacre. There were no trees in the area, but instead the remnants of half-rotted stumps remained behind. Piles of dust surrounded each individual ruin of what used to be a nearby forest in the area, but there was nothing left to build or regrow the environment with. After they got close enough, he even noticed that the dirt itself disappeared, and the ground was made of no more than cold, hard stone and littered with ash. Zombies filtered towards the tribe from all directions, but at his order, an order he didn't remember giving, the Tribe cut them down.

John never saw how they whittled the number of enemies down to one. It was like he blinked and suddenly Mub was standing beside him, helping a dazed and horny Urga to dismount from John's horse while the Gamer readied for battle against the Beacon of Ruin in Duskacre. The large crystal goliath stomped towards them at a snail’s pace, but it was much larger than the first one had been. It must have been the size of an ogre, tall enough to flatten John if it got the chance to step on him.

He never found out if it did get that chance. When he opened his eyes again, the Beacon was already dead and John was standing over it, growling and burning as he ripped chunk after chunk out of the elemental's rocky torso. The Beacon exploded with a bolt of strange purple lightning, and John eventually waved his compatriots over to set up camp in the village. Someone found water for the tribe to drink, but he didn't remember whether or not he had his fill.

He just remembered what happened after the camp got set up.