With his jaw tight and a fist clenching at his side, he looked back toward the heart of the village. The Chief couldn't risk killing him while the two-day ultimatum still stood. That narrow window was his only margin of safety—and his last chance to flip the situation. Taking a sharp breath, he pivoted and strode back toward the house.
Inside the house, the hours bled away as he paced the narrow space like a caged animal, pausing now and then to sit, scribble on the ground, and sharpen the edges of his fragile plan. When the moon finally hung high and bone-pale overhead, he stepped outside, and a crisp chime echoed within his skull.
[Optimization complete. Orchish fluency: 10%.]
"Ten percent from a twenty-one percent dataset? Not bad," he murmured, a trace of awe cutting through his nerves. "I wish I had more data, but this will have to do. No use chasing what I don't have."
He turned his focus inward, testing his vocal cords. A sharp itch flared in his throat, followed by a series of jarring, guttural vibrations. The sensation was wrong—as if his human anatomy were physically resisting the harsh phonetics of another species.
After minutes of strained practice, the lag between his thoughts and his tongue began to narrow. Satisfied, he slipped into the night. He moved through the rows of sleeping houses like a phantom until he reached the old wooden gates of the Chief's courtyard.
He took a sharp, steadying breath, then shattered the silence with a scream. "Chief! Chief, come out! The mighty Vorlag has appeared in my dream! Come forth and receive his mission!"
For a heartbeat, the village held its breath. Then the world stirred—shutters creaked, lanterns flickered to life, and wary eyes peered from the dark. The heavy gate groaned as it was thrown open with violent force.
The Chief stormed out, flanked by his two sons, their torchlight painting their faces in harsh orange and black, twisting their expressions into masks of barely-contained fury. All three sets of eyes locked onto Aris.
"You?" the Chief said, his surprise quickly curdling into suspicion.
"It is I," Aris declared, squaring his shoulders against the weight of their gaze. "The one who has seen the beyond. The one who has witnessed the majesty and the terrible might of Vorlag."
At the mention of the name, the Chief and his sons reflexively traced sacred signs in the air; stiff, automatic gestures born of a lifetime of habit.
"What do you want at this hour?" the Chief demanded as he stalked forward. He moved slowly, his features half-devoured by the moon's faint light, until he loomed just paces away. "And why are you screaming like a madman in the dead of night?"
Aris didn't flinch. He waited, jaw tight, until the Chief stepped fully into the biochip's optimal range. A data-overlay flickered across his vision, stripping away the shadows on the Chief's face to reveal the micro-expressions beneath.
[Target—Chief]
[Emotion analysis: Anger 78% | Suspicion 80% | Irritation 70%]
Shit. The numbers are too high. Aris's gaze flicked to the Chief's right hand; it was balled into a fist, trembling with the urge to strike. He didn't wait for the blow to fall. He swallowed the dryness in his throat and forced the air out.
"Ura'lio pimo, tersa." The words didn't sound human. They left his throat in a low, guttural growl that seemed to vibrate in the air. The effect was instantaneous. The Chief froze as if struck by lightning, his pupils shrinking to pinpricks.
Even without the biochip's analysis, Aris could see the old man's composure collapse, the shock rippling through him like a seismic wave.
Behind the Chief, the two sons stood paralyzed, their faces pale masks of disbelief.
"There is someone else..." one whispered, his voice thin and trembling. "Someone else who knows the tongue of the masters besides Father?"
The other son remained silent, his jaw hanging slack.
It was the Chief, however, whose world was truly fracturing. The absolute authority he and his forefathers had cemented through secret knowledge—and the sacrifice of their entire lineage—was crumbling in real time. He stumbled back, the urge to "teach the boy a lesson" replaced by a cold, soul-deep terror.
"Do they want to replace us?" the old man wondered, his mind racing. "Is it because of his sister? Does he have the sacred worm inside him? How did they do it so fast?"
"How?" the Chief breathed, finally forcing his voice into a rasping calm. "How are you doing that? And... how does it feel inside you?"
"Inside?" Aris's eyes narrowed at the strange phrasing. He stepped forward, closing the distance until the Chief was once again locked within the biochip's optimal scan range. He watched the digital overlay flicker against the moonlit dirt.
The emotional readout was a chaotic storm—shock and surprise spiked violently, while his previous anger receded, overtaken by a hollow suspicion.
Then, a new reading surged to the top of the panel, making Aris's pulse skip in genuine confusion.
[Target: Chief — Emotional Analysis]
[Primary State: Pity 88%]
Pity? The thought was jarring, a cold splash of water. Why would this old man pity me for speaking the tongue of the Orcs?
Aris buried his curiosity beneath a mask of reverence and dipped into a shallow, practiced bow. His voice shifted back to the humble cadence of a village youth—humble, yet strangely eloquent.
"Oh, Esteemed Chief, what I have witnessed in the silence of the night is far more harrowing than a few stray words of the Maste's tongue."
The shadows of the villagers seemed to lean in. From the dark gaps of doorways and the cracks in mud walls, eyes glittered with a volatile mix of dread and morbid fascination. Aris allowed a heavy, deliberate silence to stretch between them before continuing.
"The mighty Vorlag appeared to me in a vision. He has unsealed my lips, granting me the divine gift to speak the language of his children. But the connection is fragile." He paused, his gaze dropping as if burdened by the weight of the heavens.
"He has commanded me to seek the blood of his kin, so that I might anchor his voice to this world and speak his will with clarity." He let the blasphemous request hang in the air like a stone dropped into a deep well.
"I seek the blood of his children—Chief."
A ripple of hushed murmurs broke through the crowd like wind through dry grass. The villagers could not verify a miracle of tongues, so they turned as one toward the Chief, waiting for him to denounce the boy as a madman—or a corpse.
Aris ignored the peripheral noise. His focus was locked on a single, flickering data point on the biochip. The Chief's face wasn't twisting in rage; it was mourning a loss.
"So the theory holds," Aris thought, a cold satisfaction settling in his gut. "He indeed has Orc blood in his possession."
With a mental flick, he discarded the backup plans and countermeasures he'd prepared. The Chief's jaw tightened, a sharp twitch barely caught by the moonlight.
He turned toward his house, his movements suddenly heavy, as if the very air had gained weight. His two sons stepped into his path, their faces etched with frantic terror.
"Father, you can't give it to him," the eldest hissed. "Not the blood. What about you?"
"The full moon is coming," the younger urged, casting a venomous look at Aris. "What of the sacred Trial? And is this even true? Can he truly speak the tongue, or is this some clever trickery?"
"Do not worry for me," the Chief said, his voice hollow and weary. Yet the undercurrent of resentment—and the raw fear of his waning power—remained. "I will give him half. I can only hope what remains is enough to dull the pain of the worm."
He glanced back at Aris, his eyes haunted by a history the boy couldn't yet fathom. "And do you think I would entertain this brat for a single second if his words were a mere fluke? You know the truth of the Masters' language better than the others. Do not be fools."
Without another word, the Chief turned, parting the gate and vanishing into the darkness of the courtyard. The sons remained like twin sentinels at the threshold, glaring at Aris with a hatred that promised a slow, violent end.
But Aris didn't waver. He met their murderous gaze with a mask of serene, feigned holiness—an untouchable prophet waiting for his due.
The Chief returned moments later, his gait stiff and mechanical, clutching a segment of bamboo sealed at both ends with blackened wax. He stopped before Aris, his gaze a turbulent sea of doubt.
Through the biochip's scan, Aris tracked the shifting tides of the man's psyche—fear, suspicion, and that persistent, jarring spike of pity. The readings made the Chief feel less like a villain and more like a victim of a secret Aris didn't yet understand. But there was no time for empathy; even if he had the time, he wouldn't have wasted it on his enemies.
The Chief pressed the container into his palm. The moment Aris's fingers closed around the wood, a strange, unnatural heat radiated into his skin. It felt as if the ichor inside had been drawn seconds ago from a living, feverish body. He suppressed a shiver; the Chief appeared spotless, yet the blood pulsed with a fresh warmth.
"The blood is within," the Chief warned, his voice dropping to a low, vibrating hum. "Remember, boy. You have two days."
"Two days," Aris rasped, the Orcish syllables vibrating in the back of his throat like a predator's growl.
Then, he pivoted back to the village language, his voice rising with a layer of shimmering, false reverence that carried to the furthest reaches of the courtyard: "The mighty Vorlag is my shield and my shadow! He shall guide my steps to the disobedient child and bring her back to the altar to commence the sacred duty!"
He turned to leave, then paused as if struck by a divine afterthought. He raised the blackened bamboo toward the pale moon like a holy relic.
"Praise the mighty Vorlag!"
The effect was instantaneous. Like puppets answering a jerk of the wire, every villager within earshot performed the sacred signs. It was a terrifying display of ingrained muscle memory—their bodies bowing to the name before their minds could even register the command.
The village watched in a stunned, silent vigil as he turned to leave. But Aris wasn't finished. His gaze cut through the darkness, locking onto a familiar face partially submerged in the shadows of a nearby eave. It was one of the men who had helped beat Rill to death.
He changed direction, his footsteps heavy and deliberate. The man flinched, his posture collapsing into a frantic, shrunken thing as the "Prophet" drew near. He tried to tear his gaze away, but his eyes kept snapping back to Aris, snagged by a hook of dread.
"Do not tremble, brother," Aris said, his voice terrifyingly calm. "The mighty Vorlag is as merciful to the faithful as he is terrible to his enemies. He has ordained that I walk the path of forgiveness. And so, I forgive you."
He let the silence stretch, watching the man's Adam's apple bob in a frantic, dry swallow. Faith, huh? Aris thought, a cold, calculating glint flickering behind his eyes. A powerful leash.
"But the cause requires a tithe," Aris added, his gaze dropping to the man's darkened doorway. "You must contribute to the Lord's work."
The man's shoulders slumped, the last of his resistance draining away in a single, defeated exhale. "Please," he whispered, his voice cracking. "Name it."
"Cooked chicken. Rice. Fruit." Aris rattled off the list, but as the words left his lips, his own stomach cramped with an agonizing flare of hunger. He hadn't realized how close he was to his physical breaking point until the imagined scent of food hit his senses like a blow.
Moments later, Aris retreated toward his house, moving with a strange, balancing grace. Trays of steaming food were piled in his arms, and the bamboo cylinder of Orc blood was gripped like a holy relic.
The villagers watched until the night swallowed him whole, but the Chief and his sons stood at the gate long after he had vanished. One by one, the lanterns in the village winked out, yet the three remained.
"Father, what is our move?" the eldest son whispered, his voice tight. "Do the Masters intend to breed a rival for our bloodline? Are we being replaced?"
The Chief stroked his beard, his eyes lost in the deep, shifting shadows of the courtyard. "A sound idea," he murmured, heavy with contemplation. "I will travel to the Masters' settlement tomorrow. I must understand the source of this 'vision.' If his words hold even a grain of truth, we are powerless."
He paused, his gaze hardening. "But if he is a liar... then he has committed a blasphemy." The two sons exchanged a sharp, knowing look and nodded in unison. "Understood, Father."
With that, the heavy wooden gates groaned shut, leaving the village in a stifling, expectant silence.