Debauchery Worlds 71 (Patreon)

Commissioned by michael stitcher

Debauchery Worlds

Chapter 71

-VB-

A spy

Cylene, Coreward Principality

2984.05.06 (4 days before Alan’s talk with Aegwynn)

Where were the factories?

“Oi, Johnny, what are you doing here?” 

“Johnny” looked over his shoulder. “Ah. I got lost, boss,” he replied because he really did. “I took a turn over at Michael’s Briskets and then I just ended up here somehow?” 

“Ah, you took a narrow little alley, didn’t ya?” his boss at work, Emma Kettis, clicked her tongue. “I told the city they should plug up that little alley. People keep getting lost because of it thinking it leads to Takani Street.” She walked over and gave him a wallop on the back, making him cough. “Don’t worry! All of the newcomers get confused about the layout of the city. It’s been that way for hundreds of years! My jiji used to say that this town grew out of a mining town, so things got built organically. And organically horrible for newcomers.”

“But this is the fifth time I got lost in a month!” 

“I know! You’re doing better than most! It’s why we have so many police boxes around here.”

“We do?”

“Yeah. The blue boxes-?”

“Excuse me.”

Both of them turned around to look at … someone odd. Dressed in a trench coat and a blue casual business suit underneath it, he didn’t look like the locals. 

“Umm… haven’t seen you before,” Emma blinked. “How can I help…?”

“Ah. I’m the Doctor. Just the Doctor. Have you seen a blue police box around here?” 

“Ye, there’s plenty,” Emma said as she pointed at the corner. “There should be one that way.”

“... Plenty?”

“Yeah. There’s at least four every small street,” his boss said. 

Johnny learned quickly that the locals divided up their streets into four parts: small, large, main, and military. Small included any street that ran longer than a few hundred meters and military was any street that was wide enough for eight mechs to stride shoulder to shoulder. 

Weird ass system but that’s what he had to learn to live and spy here on Cylene. 

The “doctor” sputtered. “No, I mean like … an old timey police box! Sorry, I haven’t been able to -.”

“Doctor!” 

Johnny looked behind the “doctor” and saw a dark skinned girl. “What are you doing? Tardis is that way!” 

“Oh. I guess my mates found it. Thank you!” the Doctor said as he jogged after his friend, leaving Johnny and Emma to shrug.

But before he left, Johnny heard him mutter a few things. 

“It’s all wrong, all wrong. There’s definitely something weird to cause a split in the timeline…”

… Weirdo.

“Oh, by the way, Johnny.”

“Yeah, boss?” he replied. 

“I’m gonna approve that leave of yours just so you can learn where and what is in this city.”

“God, thank you, boss. I really needed that!” To look for the factory employing supposedly “otherworldly” people with odd shapes, sizes, and features. 

“Cool. Just don’t head too deep into the south, yeah? Them weird folks get antsy whenever someone new comes around.”

“Got it,” he said as he left towards the same alley that got him lost. But being lost got him some good intel. 

So they were all congregated down south of the city, huh? 

-VB-

Kadir Greenaxe

Lamb Hills, Halann

2984.06.03

The rest of his clan and kin considered him their speaker, mostly because of his achievement with translating the old Dwarov tongue. Even if most of that work was because their boss brute forced the translation with VI softwares. 

Being the unofficial speaker, however, also meant more work for me because people began to have demands. 

They wanted hot shower and bath, where was the goddamn beer hall, why were they still shitting in the porta-pottie, why weren’t they allowed to tame the clearly wild giant rams, wah wah wah wah…

Ugh.

But the loudest complaint of all was the slow work and progress into clearing and rebuilding Orlazam az Dihr. So much so that there was even a clan threatening to break with the company to form their own little expedition.

Not that they would have the supplies to survive more than a month. Not that they had the equipment, repair bays, and shelter to last more than a month. Not that they could readily buy the materials and haul them within a month. Not that there was anyone among them who was even knowledgeable with medieval castle reconstruction! 

Fucktards, the lot of them. 

Why did he have to be the speaker? He just wanted to occasionally shoot something and then go to work translating more interesting Dwarven history. Didn’t they know that he had a lot of work trying to decipher the intricacies of biases, traditions, and literature evolution that most of them wouldn’t even get? Did they even know how hard it was to understand why certain literature changes might even occur? 

And because most of the idiots their boss hired were musclebound adrenaline junkies, he was the only one capable of doing this job! 

And by God, he’d never work with an elf.

Then someone slammed his prefab office door open.

“Kadir, ya gotta see thi-!”

Kadir grabbed a rock from the one he’d built up next to his desk and hurled it at the offending dwarf. 

The dwarf squawked and then cried out in pain before keeling over.

“KNOCK ON THE FUCKING DOOR! I’VE SAID THIS A THOUSAND TIMES!” he roared and jumped at the dwarf. 

The said dwarf saw him and scrambled to get away. 

He did not get far. 

---

“So what did ya give me a heart attack for?” Kadir demanded grumpily, glaring at the bruised and limping dwarf. 

“A-Ah, the bosses found a tunnel into the mountains.”

“... If that’s really what you came here to say, then I’m gonna go get my jackhammer, cuz your nogging definitely doesn’t have anything under it so I may as well crack it open…”

The dwarf was quick to wave his hand quickly in front of him. “No, I mean, the bosses found a tunnel on the other side from Orlazam!” 

That made him pause.

And then his eyes widened. 

The old dwarov texts spoke of another hold that had built into a mountain, one that the Ramsteel Dwarves called brother. The texts spoke of a tunnel that faced Orlazam across the valley they were in.

The Eastern Entrance into Amldihr, the seat of the Aul-Dwarov, the Kingdom of All Dwarves. 

It was said to have been overrun by orcs, though.

“Oh shit, we have to warn the bosses,” he muttered. 

“What?” the messenger asked. 

“There might be a fuck ton of orcs in there! Go go go! Tell the bosses they found the entrance into a giant dwarven hold!” 

---

Alan Marris

Lamb Hills, Halann

2984.06.06

I needed a few days to prepare the troops because…

Because that was a lot of orcs hiding in that giant mountain in the middle of the “Serpent’s Vale” valley. That giant mountain, as my slowly expertising dwarf was calling it, was once the seat of a mighty empire known as Aul-Dwarov, the very same empire that fell to the orcs. 

There was a whole dwarven metropolis - not just a single hold - underneath that mountain, and none of us knew because it was under a mountain and we didn’t know where the entrance was, but it was also dominated by orcs. Lots and lots of orcs. 

Like in the tens of thousands, not the hundreds that tried to attack us in our first encounter. And some of them used magic. “Some” in this context meaning that there were hundreds of magic users among the orcish horde, and while I didn’t know exactly how powerful they were, the texts on dwarven mages spoke about how “renowed” mages, who constituted one in a million, were capable of bringing down an entire fort by themselves.

… But then again, I’m planning on bringing Shielded Firestarters to take them on. Four dozen should do with supporting artillery and infantry.

And once they arrived, I’ll begin my first campaign here on Halann.

The Liberation of Amildihr.