Two hours later, Aris and Lilly stood near the mouth of the cave, wringing the water from their clothes. Aris's gaze drifted to the bundled herbs hanging from Lilly's back as she wrung out her tunic. He stepped behind her and took the cloth bundle containing the poisonous herbs, causing her to stiffen at his sudden approach.
"Go place the others beside my bed," he said, softening the command.
Lilly nodded and carried the nourishing herbs to his bedside. Aris turned his full attention to the bundle in his hands.
Prime, he called inwardly, studying the poisonous herbs as he unfolded the cloth. A few carried an earthy, putrid reek that stung his nose, though not enough to make him stop. Four contained the hallucinogenic compounds he'd been searching for. The rest formed a lethal mixture, paralytic, cardiotoxic, neurotoxic, thoroughly vicious.
"Using these herbs, synthesize a new recipe," he commanded.
His gaze shifted to his crude tools—the bamboo containers, the dagger, the stone pestle, the wooden board. They were the same tools he had used to prepare his previous poisons and nourishing concoctions.
Any new recipe had to be adapted to his limited tools, demanding the same careful extraction techniques. He knew not every concoction had to, or even could, follow the same method of preparation. But he was hardly in a position to argue with chemistry when survival was on the line.
[Ding!]
[Task initiated…]
[Estimated time: Four hours, thirty minutes, fifty seconds.]
"Four hours. Lower than last time."
As expected. The more data Prime possessed, the shorter its calculation time and the greater its accuracy.
His thoughts shifted to the chained orc. He turned toward the unconscious giant, a cold glint crossing his eyes as he imagined the secrets buried within that slumped head. Or perhaps there would be none. Either way, the chance of uncovering something valuable remained high.
He closed the bundle, secured it to his back, and strode toward Lilly's straw bed.
Her wide eyes flicked between him and the monstrous prisoner. Even unconscious and bound in chains, the orc radiated an oppressive presence that left her fear plainly written across her face.
Aris stopped beside her.
He didn't want to expose her to this lingering unease after everything she had already endured, but mental hardening was non-negotiable. He rested a hand on her head, gently ruffling her hair.
"Go eat. Don't worry about it."
She nodded hesitantly.
A faint smile touched his lips as he watched her for another moment before turning away. A heartbeat later, her stomach let out an audible growl at the thought of food, and her attention shifted from his retreating back to the cache of dried meat and foraged fruit they had stored away.
The smile lingered as Aris heard her shuffling toward the provisions. He turned back to the orc and walked until he stood directly before the giant.
Prime returned a quick diagnostic scan. The orc remained deeply comatose, though its body was visibly resisting the lingering toxins. Expected. Even so, the projected time until full consciousness remained unchanged.
Satisfied, he returned to his bed and placed his bow and poison-smeared arrows within easy reach, more out of habit than necessity. Then he sat beside Lilly, sharing the quiet as they ate. A strange, almost surreal scene settled over the damp cavern: two ants keeping watch over a chained elephant.
Minutes slipped into hours.
Aris wasted none of them.
While Prime synthesized the poison and the orc remained unconscious, he cleaned and prepared his tools.
[Ding!]
[New recipe synthesized…]
Before the notification had finished, Aris was already turning his attention inward to a new folder in his mind.
He opened it.
Knowledge surged into him.
Just as before, it felt less like learning and more like remembering, as though years of apothecary practice had suddenly become his own. He kept his eyes closed for several long seconds, absorbing every detail of the recipe. When he finally opened them again, they settled immediately on the bundle of poisonous herbs resting against his back, carrying the quiet confidence of an experienced apothecary.
Step by painstaking step, he followed the new recipe. With Prime guiding each calculation, he ground the poisonous herbs, extracted their active compounds, and combined them into a single, terrifying poison.
Five hours later, his right hand gripped a sealed bamboo container. The invisible fumes seeping through the wood were enough to make his eyes stream and his nose run, even through the three layers of spare tunic cloth wrapped tightly around his face.
Too potent.
He glanced over his shoulder toward the far end of the cave. Lilly stood rigid near the cascade, where the afternoon sunlight, refracting through the falling water, had faded into twilight. She watched him without moving, obeying the warning he had given her earlier: inhaling the vapors could rot her mind, leaving her no different from the old village lunatic who had wandered the forest muttering to himself after poisoning his mind with a wild herb, before Rill was even born. He was probably dead by now. Or perhaps he wasn't. It didn't matter. The story had done its job. Lilly wasn't willing to take the risk.
In his left hand, Aris held a wooden stick. He dipped it into the open container, scooped up a glistening dollop of grayish-black paste, then set the container carefully on the ground.
He stepped forward until he stood over the orc's slumped head. Reaching down, he gripped the giant's lower lip and pulled its massive jaw open, exposing rows of blunt, crushing teeth and the foul reek of a mouth left uncleaned for years.
A frown creased his brow.
Dark stains clung between the teeth. Flesh.
The stench left little room for doubt. It didn't take a genius, nor Prime's analysis, to know whose flesh it was.
A cold spike of malice pierced his chest. He buried it just as quickly. Anger accomplished nothing.
Carefully, he smeared the potent paste across the back of the orc's tongue, forcing it to swallow the dose.
Prime immediately began its analysis. The neurotoxin dissolved, entered the bloodstream, and spread toward the brain. Watch the threshold.
Too much poison, and its mind would fracture, leaving the orc a drooling beast incapable of coherent speech. Too little, and the toxin would lose its purpose, yielding him nothing.
After administering the initial dose, Aris returned to the remaining paste and sealed the container. He would feed the orc the rest in carefully measured intervals.
Darkness gradually claimed the corners of the cave, signaling the arrival of night. He motioned for Lilly to come over from her place beside the cascade.
"Brother, is it dead? Did the poison you made kill it? Can I sleep now? I'm too tired."
Aris smiled as he set the container and wooden stick on the ground before carefully unwrapping the thick layers of tunic cloth from his face.
"Not yet. But don't worry. I've made it completely incapable of doing anything. Your brother is strong now. I'll protect you."
He reached out and gently ruffled her hair. "Let's sleep for now." He gestured toward her straw bed. Instead, she climbed straight into his.
"No. It's still too dangerous," she murmured, pulling the coarse blanket to her chin against the night's chill.
Aris let out a quiet sigh, lit the three candles set into the cave wall, and cast a frail barrier of amber light against the darkness. Then he returned to his bed and lay down beside Lilly. She immediately snuggled closer, her small hand tightening around his worn shirt.
In the dead of night, Prime's internal alarm pulled Aris from sleep. His eyes opened. He sat up slowly and looked toward Lilly. She breathed in slow, steady rhythms, the orc's presence seemingly forgotten in sleep, perhaps because lying beside Aris offered her a fragile sense of safety.
Without a sound, he rose. He picked up the bamboo container and wooden stick before silently making his way to the orc.
He fed it another measured dose of the paste, then settled cross-legged beside the immobilized giant to wait.
Time crawled through the damp silence as he spent the lull practicing Orcish.
Since his encounter with the chief, his spoken fluency had risen from ten percent to forty. It was a considerable improvement, yet still insufficient. Understanding the language's syntax was one challenge; reproducing it was another entirely. The more intricate vocabulary Prime unlocked, the harder it became for his human vocal cords to produce the guttural, chest-deep resonance, even with Prime refining his pronunciation.
Aris didn't stop, repeating each word until his throat felt raw and dry.
The next day passed in the same relentless rhythm. He practiced Orcish in raspy whispers, drank water whenever his throat grew dry, rested his voice before it failed, and administered the poison paste to the orc at precisely measured intervals. Lilly watched from a distance, her eyes wide as the vile, guttural tongue of her tormentors rolled naturally from her brother's mouth.
When she finally gathered the courage to ask where he had learned such a horrific language, Aris lied without hesitation, claiming the chief had taught him during her absence. She nodded slowly but remained silent afterward, privately wondering when the ruthless old man who had offered her to the orcs as a sacrifice had somehow become a protective old grandfather in her brother's version of events.
As the hours slipped away, Aris sat cross-legged before the iron-bound orc, his fists clenched in his lap. His bow rested within immediate reach, an arrow already nocked.
He didn't need Prime to tell him the moment had arrived.
The orc's eyelids fluttered.
Its chains snapped taut as its massive torso strained against them.