Grak - Private Instigator: Orc PI, #1

Preface

People say that the war is over.

People say that we live in peace.

But the War of Shadows was only the most recent in a long line of wars past, with many more yet to come.

War will never be over until minds know no violence and are at peace.

Fat chance of that happening.

My mind knows war every day.

Resolving wars big and small is what I’m paid to do.

If I’m lucky.

More often than not, I come out broke but not quite broken.

My name is Grak.

I smash heads, fix disputes, unravel crimes, and try to end the petty wars wracking my city by surviving and resolving small wars every day.

Coming to Alyon was the hardest thing I’d ever done.

I had to leave my war behind.

The endless war of my people, the orcanda—most often called orcs or worse by outsiders—was raging across the macroverse, consuming world after world, fueled by an unending well of hate.

My well had gone dry long ago. I had to leave my people and their violent cause to find another place to drink.

Alyon was that place. A magic city, a cityship capable of swimming the void and dancing between the planes, Alyon had left her home world of Ea’ae and settled on Unea to found a new civilization, and I had come with her.

There was so much beauty here, so much delicacy, and so much that was uplifting.

My orcish instincts were to smash it all, to pillage, and to destroy.

There could be so much glorious ruination here.

My fingers itched to crush, to maim, and to kill.

I’d had to throw my axe away when I first arrived, lest I give in to who I was at the expense of who I would be.

Whether I was walking through the shaded lanes of Center City between the Dwimmer Mounts, underground in the dripping grottos and caves of Undercity, through the storied halls of the Undermount, or through the empyrean heights of Alyon proper in the sky, my fingers still itched to slay.

I settled for smashing faces.

Crimes needed solving, and the faces of ne’er-do-wells often ended up as collateral damage.

Face-smashing scratched that itch nicely.

1

I was at the King’s Crown, sitting on my customary stool, having a drink.

Or a few.

Some hulking brutes might be concerned about their reputations if they were seen perched atop a spindly four-legged chair while quaffing their beverage of choice.

My masculinity was in no way affronted.

I was just happy to find a chair that could support my weight.

The chairs at the King’s Crown are all magically reinforced.

This takes away the surprise of sitting—or, more often than not, crashing down to the floor that I usually anticipate upon encountering unfamiliar furniture.

Collapsing to the floor in surprise amidst splintered chair parts can affront my masculinity.

Or at least my reputation.

A nice sturdy chair is as welcome as any companion, in my book.

I had been coming to the King’s Crown, and enjoying its chairs, as long as I had been in the Undercity, which, at this point, was becoming not only longer than I could recall but also longer than I wanted to recall.

Although I had long been a regular here, I still did not know why the bar was called the King’s Crown.

I was not alone in my ignorance.

A staple of the Undercity, the King’s Crown is about as far from a king’s crown as you could get.

Unless a king had once come here looking for his crown.

Which would have been far more likely.

If a king’s crown had been stolen, then the people—or things—who had taken it would probably be found here.

The bar itself is large and open, with high ceilings. What once was fine woodwork is found throughout the interior, but long years of exposure to supernatural agents, smoke, and occasional violence have taken their toll. Most of the seating is available on benches and in booths arranged along the barroom’s periphery, with chairs and tables shifting as needed in the center. This allows the bar to most easily accommodate the various body shapes and sizes that can be present on any given night—from demons and imps to aliens and automatons, the bar serves all kinds.

Two secluded nooks are located in the back of the bar, farthest away from the imposing double doors that are the bar’s main point of entry. Wisp lights floating in the thick beams overhead provide a cool radiance that is perfect for nursing a beverage…or napping after.

Assorted trophies and souvenirs hang from the rafters. These are brought in by the patrons—or taken from anyone who causes too much trouble—and are rotated regularly, mostly per the proprietor Orthanq’s tastes and, to a far lesser extent, the donor’s suggestions.

The King’s Crown has a certain charm—and by that, I mean many magical wards to keep its clientele relatively safe and calm.

Those wards have little effect on me, but the ample, free-flowing spirits do, at least for a time, so we all come out even in the end.

At the King’s Crown, smugglers drink with mercenaries, thieves drink with conmen, and cutthroats drink with outlaws. Men drink with orcs, elves drink with ogres, and extradimensional horrors drink by themselves.

Because, let’s face it, few people, or even monsters, want to drink with a demon under any circumstances.

All in all, the King’s Crown is a festive spot, and people are only killed infrequently.

Mostly thanks to its charm.

On this particular night, however, the bar was almost empty.

As generous—and thirsty—as I was, there was no way that my meager tender would be able to keep the bar afloat for long if business continued as it was.

And had been over the past few weeks.

Normally, the place would be wall-to-wall with denizens of Darkness, lurkers of shadows, adventuresome or otherwise clueless tourists, and those who had forgotten to bathe. The air would be seething with enough varieties of smoke, body odors, and associated toxins to slowly kill just about any sentient species that took the wrong turn and ended up here.

Now, the air was strangely, abnormally clean, and not a single being was jostling for position beside me at the bar.

It felt as wrong as it was.

I’ll have another, Orthanq.

I shoved my empty tankard forward for Orthanq, the bar’s proprietor and barman—barmonster—to refill.

Orthanq hovered in the air before me willingly, his many slimy tentacles simultaneously wiping down the bar, restocking supplies, refilling my bottle, cleaning the mirror and shelves behind him, and whittling a fine piece of nonrepresentational art.

Or maybe it was representational wherever he’d come from.

Orthanq was good people.

My eyes watered just looking at him, but I thought that was more his effect on the subtle underlying nature of reality than the cloud of noxious vapors that vented randomly from the orifices on his rubbery hide.

One of his spare arms set the flaming Dragon’s Tears, one of my favorite concoctions, down in front of me. Dragon’s Tears are generally fatal to whoever is unfortunate enough to drink them, but I find that the brew goes down smooth and keeps my breath relatively fresh.

Plus, for a day or so after drinking one, I burp fire.

Although this does little to impress the ladies, belching flaming gouts of arcane fire is occasionally handy in my line of work.

I am something of an investigator, fixer, and enforcer rolled into one ponderously handsome orcish figure. Work is relatively steady and generally involves smashing a few heads to encourage repayment of debts, finding heads to smash for breaking business arrangements, figuring out whose heads to smash in the case of a crime, smashing heads to avenge some slight or miscarriage of justice, and otherwise smashing heads.

Not necessarily in that or any other order.

Most importantly, though, I am also in the business of not getting my own head smashed in the process.

As hard as my head is, I would say I have been fairly successful in my efforts.

Here ya go, Grak, Orthanq gurgled solicitously, his slavering tooth-lined maw but a now-gleaming but far too flimsy countertop away.

Cheers! I knocked back the simmering Dragon’s Tears in one satisfied gulp. Flames licked my lips and tickled my tongue as I wiped my mouth off appreciatively with the back of my green hand.

My skin smoldered energetically where the drink had touched my mouth.

Orthanq continued to float in the air in front of me, at least six pairs of his eye stalks locked on me intensely.

Although he was creepy, I knew he was not going to try to eat me. I was, after all, one of his best customers.

Plus, being well-nigh invulnerable, I would give him indigestion.

His choice of food, unsurprisingly, is whatever garbage was produced by the bar’s patrons.

This makes cleanup a cinch and keeps everyone happy.

Ya look troubled, Orthanq, I offered.

I find it hard to be stared at by more than a few handfuls of eyes simultaneously without becoming a bit conversational.

Orthanq snorted, and a plume of hideous putrescence wafted over me.

I was glad to have already finished my drink.

It is indeed as you say, Grak.

Before he could regale me with woes only a monster would understand, the door opened, and a small goblin sauntered in excitedly. Raising both arms toward the smoked-stained ceiling in a series of wild gestures perhaps intended to scare off packs of wandering humans, the goblin shouted, Give me some Luernog, double strength!

Troll spit had never been one of my favorites, but I had to give the little guy credit; he seemed to have a lot of moxie. He hurried toward the bar as fast as his little bow legs would take him. Agile enough to make a monkey jealous, he climbed onto the stool next to me just as Orthanq set down a tankard of the thick, mucilaginous fluid.

Long day at the Pits, he offered spunkily to anyone who would listen, washing his hands together heartily after he set a small pile of coins on the counter in front of him in payment.

While Orthanq scooped the coins up with a free tentacle, leaving a trail of clear slime across his formerly clean counter, the goblin tipped his drink back enthusiastically. Luernog being what it was, the drink complied unwillingly, only choosing to ooze out of the glass after the goblin had offered a few encouraging, if rather forceful, jerks of his arms.

The look on the goblin’s scarred and pitted face was one of pure pleasure as he gagged on the vile fluid.

Another satisfied customer, I muttered to Orthanq.

Orthanq, clearly anticipating what was to come, merely watched apprehensively.

Hoping things would be different this time, but knowing they would not, I waited patiently.

I did not have to wait long.

No more than a minute after choking his drink down, the goblin let out a mighty burp.

Although impressive, the burp was not what captured our attention.

With a sound like an army of fingernails tearing off while scraping on an entire warehouse’s worth of chalkboards, the goblin exploded in a violent cloud of frenetic motion.

The thing that finally erupted from this morass looked a bit like one of Orthanq’s long-lost cousins—if it had been beaten a few too many times with the ugly stick after being dropped on its head as a baby.

Repeatedly.

On both counts.

Not one to parlay when I could just as easily slay, I rotated from the hips and smashed the writhing creature full-on with one of my boulderish fists.

The monster imploded with a sickening squelch as my fist connected.

The once-goblin sailed through the air, its tentacles fluttering wildly like pennants in the wind, and crashed into the finely wrought wooden wall above one of the many unoccupied booths, splattering across the surface, adding yet another stain to the artistic selection already on full display.

At least I knew what Orthanq would be eating tonight.

Turning back to Orthanq, I said matter-of-factly, You were saying, Orthanq?

Most of his eyes still locked on the steaming pile of unnatural ooze dribbling down the wall, Orthanq said, I think I have a job for you, Grak.

That was, as always, music to my nubby little ears.

2

Orthanq is smart.

Far more intelligent than many people give him credit.

In truth, few people give him credit, because they fear one day needing to try to collect.

Which, in the intellectual arms race, shows how smart they are, for Orthanq always pays his debts.

Orthanq gurgled disconsolately, "The customers are all gone, Grak.

"They run in fear of their fellow patrons and do not join in the fellowship of consuming noxious fluids with their cohorts.

"They cower at home, imbibing only the soulless liquids they have safely summoned for themselves from the raw energies of Chaos.

They leave the King’s Crown with no subjects.

Orthanq had a point.

Several, really.

Who and what could you trust when whatever you drank was as likely to turn you into a bloodthirsty monster—or bloodthirstier monster, as was generally the case in the Undercity—as slake your thirst?

I had been at the bar several evenings—mostly those when I was not in a coma recovering from other evenings at the bar—when every single person (and I use that term in the loosest sense) without strong magical resistance who drank turned into a nightmarish abomination that attacked its former friends and drinking companions with a ferocity reserved for unholy fields of battle.

Or nights at the bar reserved for friendly competitions such as spitting for distance and accuracy or arm wrestling.

Or watching games played between favorite teams on the bar’s holographic projection systems.

Those nights could be almost as dangerous as having your bar mate turn into a slavering monster that attacked on sight.

Other bars and restaurants around Alyon were experiencing similar turmoil.

And if the bars, those bastions of social stability that kept many of society’s most unstable denizens in check, no longer corralled these Citizens in carefully maintained zones meant to cull their ranks, divert their energies, and control them, what would happen to society at large?

Anarchy and, even worse, out of business bars could result!

This was truly a threat of incomparable proportion.

I nodded gravely.

Orthanq was getting through to me.

Loud and clear.

The Crown must have its subjects back, Grak! Orthanq’s tentacles were gesticulating wildly. If he had not already been floating, I would have hazarded a guess that he was generating enough energy to take off.

What would you like me to do, Orthanq?

I played it cool.

I wanted the bars working again as much as the next guy, but I needed a reason to get involved.

My resistance to magic lets me keep my thirst quenched as long as I care to drink.

Orthanq gave me one.

Grak, he said, his halo of bulbous eyes imploring me beseechingly, "if you will find the source of this scourge and rid us of its evil, you will have an unlimited lifetime personal tab at the bar.

You will never have to pay for your drinks here again!

Now, that was an incentive!

It was the stuff from which dreams were made.

For that kind of reward, I would change the orbit of the sun, or burn my arms off trying.

Now, I just had to find people crazy enough to ruin everyone’s good time, people short-sighted enough to force their views on others.

This was the real challenge, because it described just about every person and organization in the city.

But I had an idea where to start, nonetheless.

I was getting thirsty already.

3

The Undercity is far nicer and more welcoming than many believe.

Sure, the city has its fair share of yawning abysses, sulfurous vents and spewing fumaroles, seething lava tubes, horror-infested caves, haunted passages, maniacal magicians hatching nefarious schemes from hidden lairs, extradimensional monstrosities lurking in somber shadows, demented cults fueled by devotion to irrational causes, and forgotten byways inhabited by soul-consuming terrors. But those are merely adventure zones to be avoided by the faint of heart and enjoyed by those seeking excitement, betterment, and reward.

The Undercity also has teeming bazaars filled with creatures from across the macroverse, thriving shops lining cavernous boulevards carved from the bones of the mountain, institutions dedicated to learning and improvement, serene caverns lit by phosphorescent fungi and luminous crystal formations, vast freshwater lakes for congregation and leisure, vegetation-filled parks for exercise, relaxation, and appreciation of nature, soothing hot water springs to cure what ails you, and diverse communities making their lives in homes molded from the raw rock.

And most of it is done fairly peaceably.

There is something here for everyone and everything.

And most of it will not kill you.

At least on first sight.

I headed home.

I have heard many people say that home is where the heart is.

My home is a small cavern roughly carved into the naked rock of Alyon’s Undercity.

My heart is not