Victory

"Come take a look at this," Mub barked when John finally got back to where his pack had said to meet up at. Rugga was already sitting at a nearby cracked wooden table as Mub gestured him over. He didn't even bother to stand when John approached; the new recruit just looked up at his Alpha for a moment and then went right back to nursing a hot steaming cup of ale. Mub was too excited to stop and get a drink. As soon as John was close enough to see, the Orc plucked a giant piece of paper out of the hands of a nearby **** and then unrolled it out on the table in front of Rugga. He had to shove the other Orc's mug aside to make room for the sheet and spilled some of the frothy grey liquid inside, but he simply ignored the Orc when he started swearing at him. "I bought this from one of the Elder's human slaves. This is where we are."

One of Mub's thick green fingers slapped down onto the table in front of him, pointing a small speck on the face of large, brown, papyrus map. The thick sheet moved slightly as he gestured to the Bleakfield on the map in front of them and then began to roll back up for a moment before he grabbed a few empty mugs to try and help weigh it down. He straightened it out and held it steady for a moment as John leaned in to peer at the picture in front of him.

Map Unlocked!

The first thing that John noticed was the image of Eldham. Despite how recently he had been there and how little was actually left of the city after the Beacon's demise, the map showed a fairly large symbol for a village in its place. It was a little bigger than the symbol that was used to mark Bleakfield, the first village that John had raided, yet the true state of the town was not that great. What was left had been simple, half-destroyed spires of brick and stone from fireplaces and walls that had not yet fallen. There weren't even true homes for the tribe to set up camp in.

Above that, true to Mub's word, was a mountainous region called the Burning Pass with dozens of little cities and big kingdoms north of it for John to worry about. He looked at some of them briefly, and with Mub's help, he learned the names of the kingdom of Bulgebottom, the original home of Gnomes and Dwarves that now also housed any refugee who might have lost their homes. There was the kingdom of Dornwich, the Sapphire City, and home to all the elves and the Tower of Brim, the last stronghold for Humans specifically and library to all of the barrier’s collected knowledge. Mub briefly mentioned a place sat in the middle of a river that had been called 'the Scythe' because of the shape of the river, but John almost skipped past what it was that Mub said lived there.

"They're called the Ankresh," he said with a small huff and waved it off; the conversation was unimportant. "Men whose skin has been stained with metal lines. Ex- Experi-" Mub struggled with another word to describe them for a moment before he shook his head and looked back down at the map. "Humans who were changed into something else by magic," he spat out the last word and then pointed at the Burning Pass again. "It would take more time to get here," he grunted, and then when Rugga looked at them both with wide eyes, Mub realized something and then turned back to John. "You... are going for the Burning Pass, right?" John nodded, and Mub's face lit up with glee.

"Yes, but hold on..." John said, but Mub didn't bother stopping. Upon getting the answer he wanted, Mub turned back to a nearby **** and barked at him to get them a proper drink. "I wanted to ask you about magic and some other things. Like..." he paused and put a hand to his shoulder. His chest started to ache and burn as he thought about it, but the memory of his branding was nowhere near as bad as it had been when it actually happened. "Like why I had to get that branding."

"You cheated," Mub stated simply, and Rugga nodded with him. "You used magic to beat Urga, a proven Orc of the tribe. The Elders said you were to be marked, so you were."

"Well, Urga could have used magic too. Any of you could, I think, you just shouldn’t be scared of i-" John started saying before Mub interrupted him.

"No," he growled and slammed a mug down onto the table for John. "No, we are not scared of magic."

"Then why-" he still couldn't get a word in edgewise. Rugga spoke up next.

"We used to be thousands." The new recruit didn't actually talk much. When he did speak, John found that his words were smoother than Mub's were. He spoke and... while he was still fairly curt, John understood him better than he did most of the other Orcs. "Before the tribe came down through the Burning Pass, there were thousands of us. Now... maybe three hundred. We don't use magic because magic kills. We may not live in castles or kingdoms... but we don't die off either like the cat people or the dragon men. We don't massacre villages like the Elves or desecrate the bodies of our dead friends for 'power,'" he spat on the ground on the last word. "We survive because we know not to use it." There was a long beat of silence before John spoke up again.

"Did Dullong use magic?" he asked, and both men blinked at him and then shook their heads.

"No. He uses potions and **** his opponents," Mub muttered and glanced over in the direction of Dullong's camp. The first Alpha John had met was thankfully nowhere near them. "Many have tried to stop him, but the only one strong enough to beat him, even while ****, is one of the Elders." John was almost hesitant to ask his next question.

"If I had challenged the Elders and won, could I have refused the branding?" Both men paused as they turned to look at him. Rugga scowled at the idea of a human so readily talking about defeating their leaders, but Mub... Mub humored him for a moment.

"No. It was your responsibility. If you could not take it, you would no longer be proven. The tribe would have captured you, even if it took all of us to do it, and then you would have been branded anyways." John frowned at that, trying to fight off a couple hundred different Orcs all at the same time didn’t sound like a great idea... but Mub kept talking. "You would have been punished and collared. Your magic stripped from you by one of the restraints, and if that couldn't be managed... then you would have been killed." John coughed at that. He stared at the two men, waiting to see if they were joking with him again, but neither of them even smiled at him. "Your belongings would have been taken, and then your slaves would be branded too." John swallowed hard, his throat suddenly very dry. Thankfully, Mub began to pour him a drink.

"I couldn't have just scared you all into submission or something?" Both men stared right at him. He tried to ignore the fact that his voice squeaked as he spoke to them.

"Would you like to try?" Mub said and grinned heavily at him. John immediately shook his head.

"I'm gonna take that as a no," he muttered, and both Orcs laughed in his face.

"You did the right thing. Magic is... dangerous. Just by being here, you have the potential to wipe us all out, even if it's something you don't want to do. All it takes is just one of your... 'spells' and Bleakfield is full of **** again," Rugga said, pointing to John's new brand. "You're still a cheater, but you did good, and now you even have your first mark! Now drink." They both shoved the cup over towards John.

The scent of the frothy greyish liquid inside made John's eyes water almost immediately. He coughed, and in that moment when he opened his mouth, his tongue and throat began to burn as he inhaled its heavy scent... which then sent him hacking and wheezing as he tried to clear his lungs. As far as he could tell on scent alone, there was no flavor that he could detect. A part dared to say that it was just ****, if not for the fact that Rugga tried describing the alchemical process a **** put it through just to make it.

He didn't get to wait long though to try and adjust or prepare himself for what was about to happen. Both of his pack members just shoved the drink up to his lips, urging him to try and celebrate his most recent victory, and proudly sharing the tales of the first time they were both branded while they sipped at their own cups. When the drink touched his lips, again he didn't taste much, save for the strength of the booze and how it seemed like it had turned overnight. He took a single gulp, and then both of his fellow raiders let him go so he could put the cup down as the drink burned all the down into his stomach. He exhaled, and the breath came out raspy and weak like his throat had been scalded for a moment... and then when it finally faded after what seemed like a minute had gone by, he noticed a gentle vanilla aftertaste resting on his tongue.

He coughed and wheezed a couple more times while his men cheered him on for finally getting a real drink, and when he could finally speak again, his voice sounded a little deeper because of how open his airways felt. He swallowed at nothing a couple more times just to clear the hot burning feeling in his throat, and then his men asked for his opinion on the drink.

"It- It's not bad... once you get past the first bit," he said, and both men cheered him again. A little inkling of a thought flicked through the front of his mind as he lowered his cup, warning him that he probably should not sip any more because of how strong the drink was. Another swallow would have just been asking for trouble. "It's just-"

And that was the last thing he remembered for the rest of that night.