Orc Lord

I still had several more promises to keep that day, so I didn’t waste any time after sending the scouts off. There were still people in the library and the crafting guild waiting for instructions, and it would be wrong to keep them waiting. On a whim, I made my way to the library first, using a teleportation pad to take me to the center of the city. However, as soon as my vision cleared, I noticed a High Orc running up to me.

“My Lord!” She shouted, stopping just in front of me. She took a moment to bend over, putting her hands on her knees to catch her breath.

She must have been running all over looking for me. I hope nothing bad happened.

“My Lord,” she started again, “Lady Fiara asked for you to come to the research tower right away. She seemed very excited about something.”

Perhaps it’s good news?

“Thank you. I’ll head right over.”

I found Fiara in the first basement level, surrounded by a group of apprentices. Everybody gathered looked very pleased by something. One of them noticed me, gasping a quiet, “Lord-Chief!” and everybody’s heads snapped to me.

“Did something happen?” I asked, walking up to the cold metal table they had all gathered around. “Your messenger made it sound quite urgent.”

“Chief,” Fiara beamed. “Quickly, come and try this magic circuit!”

I raised my eyebrows but said nothing. Walking around to Fiara’s side of the table, I saw a simple stone tablet with the no-attribute spell pattern carved in. It looked normal, dinky even.

I shrugged and touched the edge of the tablet, running a small amount of Magic Power through it. Immediately, an intense glow flared up like a floodlight. I had to reel back and shield my eyes, and it took several seconds for the light to dissipate.

“That was,” I slowly brought my face out of hiding, “intense. I didn’t put much Magic Power in. Why was the reaction so strong?”

Fiara nodded vigorously. “I thought so too, so I’ve already run controlled tests to find out exactly why that’s happening.” Her eyes glittered. “It’s your blood.”

“My blood?”

“Yes! The quality of the magic conductor used in a CSP is important. We’ve been using blood because Monster blood and Magic Beast blood both conduct Magic Power well and they’re abundant materials here, but it seems like a Queen Orc’s blood is an exceptionally good material.”

“Amazing,” I muttered, feeling inexplicably proud of my Race. “But this clearly won’t do as a training material for the apprentices.”

Fiara nodded, and several of the gathered Orcs pouted and lowered their heads.

“Yes, I’m afraid I’ll need a different source of blood for that,” she said sheepishly. “After taking so much from you, I feel rather bad about it.”

“It’s no problem. In fact, I’ve already made arrangements. Have someone head over to the Kobold farm before dinner tonight. They should have collected a fair amount of blood for you. Kobolds are weak monsters, so it should be a good material for training, but if it’s too weak, let me know. I’ve stumbled upon an easy way to get lots of materials.”

“Thank you, chief. I’ll send someone.”

I nodded. “They’ll need a wagon to carry everything, so I’ll leave one out front. Also, if you can work it into the apprentices’ training, I’m going to need a lot of enchanted tablets for the library. Somebody will be coming before dinner to pick up whatever you can spare.”

“Alright, I think they can handle it. I’d also like to test what happens if I use your blood in a Spacetime CSP.” The anticipatory grin on her face belied none of the inadequacy she’d been feeling earlier that morning. Frankly, I was relieved to see her cheerful again.

I smiled warmly, “Thanks, Fiara.”

I’d received good news from an unexpected place. It was a nice pick-me-up. Outside the research tower, I left a simple pull wagon for them to use later. To make sure nobody borrowed it accidentally, I carved ‘Property of Babylon Research Tower’ onto the back rim.

With that pleasant distraction over with, I could make my way to the library. There was a group of Orcs and High Orcs, as well as one female Goblin, taking refuge from the sun just inside the doors. I’d kept them waiting quite a while, which I felt bad about, but before going in, I made another wagon, carving ‘Property of Babylon National Library’ into it.

A few people poked their heads outside the doors, wondering why I hadn’t come in yet. I waved and didn’t delay things any longer.

“I’m sorry you all had to wait so long. Are you ready for me to explain your jobs here?”

They nodded; some eagerly, others hesitantly. I smiled and took a cursory look around.

“One of your jobs will have to wait until tomorrow. That job will be to write down any interesting facts you know or stories you can think of to help populate the shelves here. A library without books is just too sad after all. However, you’ll be using enchanted tablets to do that, and your first shipment of those isn’t until this evening. Someone will have to volunteer to take the cart out front to the research tower and retrieve them just before dinner time.”

“Another job of yours is to organize the completed tablets onto the shelves.”

Sitting in the entryway, in front of a long reception desk, was a small hill of tablets that had yet to be sorted. Behind the long desk was a wide room full of bookshelves. There were two more floors of them above, too. All the shelves were labeled according to the Dewey Decimal System. I briefly taught them how it worked and left written instructions for them to reference later.

The complete and incomplete works needed to be sorted, first of all, where the complete works were fully written and either carved on enchanted tablets or were short enough that they didn’t need to be. For the completed works where the author was known, the books could be assigned their Dewey Decimal numbers and put away. The others had to have their authors investigated.

The incomplete works needed to be transcribed once enchanted tablets were available, which was another of their jobs.

“Your last job is to watch the front desk and make sure nobody takes any tablets away without leaving their name. You’ll then take a note of that and the number of the tablet they borrowed. Until they bring the tablet back, they can’t borrow another, and they can only borrow three at a time. Later, there will be a fee for taking out tablets, but that has to wait for our new currency to start circulating.”

I’d already decided that this library wouldn’t have a restricted section. Information of national importance would be kept in the castle and in the second basement floor of the research tower, where most people weren’t allowed.

The job I’d given the new librarians had some difficult parts, so I stuck around awhile to help identify the tablets written by Fiara and me. There were still others waiting on me, though, so that was all I was willing to contribute. I left them to sort out their positions and shifts themselves.

My next stop, dealing with the crafters, was an easy one. I basically popped in and told them their job was to “make stuff.” For now, there’s no easy way to set up a system to send them materials, and there are plenty of crafters who weren't gathered there, so there was no reason to give these people special privileges.

“I had you gather here, but when you're working it will probably a good idea to join up with the others crafting in the market district. As long as you’re fair and friendly with others and you’re productive, I encourage you to make anything and everything you want to.”

There really wasn’t much else to say about it. I only gathered them as a message that productive activities are something I support. A good craftsman wasn’t any easier to raise up than a good warrior. I would be a bad leader if I looked down on them.

Those were all the people I had waiting on me, I think. What was the next thing on my list again?

I went into one of the basement rooms in the crafting guild and made a few golems there. I quickly enchanted some magic stones I had on hand so that two of the golems would make stone and clay in the correct amounts and the other two could shape them into the components for the basic tablets we use. A fifth and sixth golem were assembling the tablets and making styluses to go with them. One last golem was patiently piling the finished tablets with their styluses into a cart I made. It would deliver them to the research tower when the cart was full.

That took quite a lot of Magic Power to do all at once, but it reminded me of something important I ought to check on. I made my way to the bank, where I found a handful of golems surrounded by piles of sealights. They’d been manufacturing them all day and night, only pausing to let their Magic Power recover.

Oh dear, it’s a mess.

I quickly made a few clay racks, about one hand length tall, two wide, and four long, with columns hollowed out in the shapes of the different types of sealight coins. There were separate racks for circular, pentagonal, and hexagonal coins. I made four new golems to mass produce the racks. With only one golem making the materials for three to shape them, I hoped they wouldn’t come to outnumber the coins too terribly. Lastly, I made two new golems to collect and load the coins into the racks and then stack them along the back wall no more than ten high.

After dealing with that mess, my next objective wasn’t so clear. There were those loom golems I wanted to make to help out the women, but they could wait until tonight. As for now… my Law Power was fully charged.

I went to the cold storage and moved the bins until the Human spies showed up. One by one, I dragged out ten small bodies, lining them up on the floor in an orderly fashion. I’d healed their burns ages ago, but I had to heal them once more to remove damage done by the cold.

Using as a medium, I granted new life to their bodies. All together, ten ex-Humans opened their eyes and blinked dazedly. Very quickly, they noticed the unfamiliar ceiling, returning to alertness. They moved into battle ready positions, reaching for weapons that weren't there, and sized up the only other person in the room with them. Their faces blanched, and they looked for escape routes besides the door behind me. Of course, there were only the gaping holes leading down into somewhere dark and cold. The ex-Humans gritted their teeth and got ready to fight weaponless, but their faces paled again.

“Did you notice it? It's not an illusion: all of your skills are gone. Your connections to the spirits are also broken.”

The spies looked understandably shocked and one of them risked talking to me.

“What are you? What happened to us?”

“You died,” I smiled, “about two of your weeks ago. I restored you to life, but there was nothing I could do to retrieve your souls. Currently, you don't have any.”

One of the spies fell to his knees, eyes hollow.

“It's not that bad,” I smiled mildly. “Anyway, it's a pleasure to meet you all. I’m Vyra, the current Orc Lord.”

One of the spies still standing made a split second decision and charged at me. He had fingernails that were grown long and sharp, and he was able to jump quite high with just his physical ability. He used those assets to jump up and cut my throat, but fighting in mid-air like that was a serious disadvantage. Before he could return to the ground, I grabbed him by the shoulder. While he struggled in vain to escape, the wound on my neck healed itself before their eyes, leaving me apparently no worse for wear.

“Aren't you being a little too rough with a lady?” I chided him. “I'm not looking for a fight in the first place.”

To the spy’s great confusion, I set him down and gave him a pat on the shoulder.

“I want to have peaceful communication and trade with Humans someday. What are your thoughts on that?”

They remained defiantly silent.

“Oh come on. You've already died once. Your current Race isn't even Human anymore, but Living Dead. What are you holding out for?”

The man who’d fallen to his knees spoke up bitterly, “You don’t want to be peaceful with Humans. Even if you did, Humans will never associate with Monsters.” His head dropped, “I guess I’m a Monster now too.”

“Incorrect,” I shook my head. “You all are members of a new category called Soulless, separate from descendants, Magic Beasts, and Monsters.”

The kneeling spy didn’t look pleased at all by that revelation, and none of the others were talking. I let out a short sigh.

“For information gathering specialists, you all seem rather closed-minded. My peaceful intentions won’t change even if you don’t believe what I say. I really do think advice from ex-Humans would make cooperation go more smoothly.”

“It’s too late for that anyway,” a spy at the back said darkly. I looked at him pointedly and he sighed. “If two weeks have already passed, boss should have started his last resort. Rangers strong enough to run away from you will be coming anytime now to gather information. After that, even if fear delays them, the descendants will go to war with you for sure. Boss did everything possible to hold them back this long, but he must be at his limit.”

A rush of adrenaline shot through me. I quickly clamped a hand over my mouth and took deep breaths to calm down.

Did the thought of committing more genocides just excite me? Did the thought of war and death just excite me? Calm down, Vyra.

Through willpower, I reminded myself of the countless benefits of peace and the value of cooperation.

That was close. Is that how mother feels? I wonder if the Lord Spirit’s influence over me has grown.

“That’s… really… quite tempting,” I struggled a bit to get the words out and cleared my throat, “but I have a goal that’s more important to me than spreading destruction. Could you gentlemen kindly give me the benefit of the doubt? Evidence should speak for me that I have constructive intentions.”

The man who’d attacked me earlier scoffed. “What evidence?”

I smiled serenely and turned to the exit. “Come and look, then.”