Treasury

After the rough parameters of the alliance had been discussed in one night, Narzug and Morgash set off back to the Misty Mountains. They intended to take the same route back but allowed themselves significantly more time this time. Along the way, Narzug often had stories and legends of the orcs told to him, but he quickly found this boring. Each of the legends ended with the death of the main character and every story with this or that war. So he persuaded Morgash to teach him more about shamanism. Narzug absorbed this knowledge like a sponge and often demanded breaks to deepen or practice his knowledge. By now, he could already recognize negative feelings in his surroundings quite well and slowly let them flow into his source. Something that proved to be extremely difficult for the source of his axe. So far, he had not found a way to consciously influence the source of the axe.

Suddenly, the negative feelings in the surroundings flared up and Narzug heard a hissing sound. In the next moment, an arrow embedded itself in the ground next to him. Not a second too soon, Morgash had thrown himself out of the way, otherwise, the arrow would probably have hit him right between the eyes.

Then a voice called out from the trees: "Look, my dear Eldorin. A little old grandpa orc has gotten lost in our forest. And with him, he has his strong young loverboy." A second voice replied: "Oh, and just look, Lirandil, how scared they look. We just wanted to play with them and our bows a bit."

Then the face behind the first voice appeared. A young wood elf by elven standards stood no more than five meters above them in a tree, leaning casually on his bow. "I wonder if the orcs can climb or if I should just go down to them... Bluurrgh." He would never finish his sentence, because at that moment Morgash emerged from his shadow and drove a dagger through his throat from behind. Narzug had been able to observe everything from his vantage point. Morgash had muttered a single word and transformed into smoke and darkness. In the next moment, he emerged from the elf's shadow and let the dagger do the talking. "I'll get the second one shortly. Then you can practice using negative feelings on opponents on the go." He added with a dirty grin, "Besides, elves make excellent slaves since they never die of old age and can toil for all eternity!"

A minute later, Morgash returned with an unconscious elf over his shoulder. "Our little bird flew quite a distance. We should hurry and make up some ground. You carry the elf, and I'll keep watch to ensure we don't get ambushed by a whole army of elves."

For the rest of the way, they dragged the elf along. When they rested, they woke the elf, and Narzug learned how to weaken his opponents by exposing them to negative feelings and channeling these into his adversary. He seemed particularly talented in projecting fear. It was almost easy for him to radiate fear and penetrate through the skin pores of the victim with it. Morgash also taught him a special application of the feeling of fear, in which he wrapped his victim's heart in a thin thread of fear. Victims of this technique then felt such intense fear that they eventually suffocated from it.

Sometimes Morgash sent Narzug a few meters away. Then Narzug could always hear the insane laughter and heavy breathing of the Orc, mixed with the pain-filled screams of the Elf. But he didn't care what Morgash did with the Elf; every Orc had their own ways of dealing with strenuous workdays. Night after night, they came closer to the Misty Mountains until, after 16 days since their departure, they finally re-entered the Orc tunnels. Morgash locked the Elf in a dark cell and then quickly disappeared into the deep dark passages.

Narzug, on the other hand, first attended to his duties as the chief of the Orc tribe, which had accumulated during his absence. Several complaints had been filed about hard sleeping places, poor pay, and a lack of mushrooms on the menus of the Orc kitchens. Narzug couldn't help but chuckle at the silly naivety of the Orcs, which kept showing up in everyday life. He rewarded all parties, both the plaintiffs and the accused, with 10 lashes and 3 weeks of latrine duty. "Sometimes I love how wonderfully easy life as an Orc chief is."

The days seemed to fly by for Narzug because they were heavily filled. In addition to daily weapons training, learning new runes, and daily practice sessions with Margosh, Narzug had little time for other things.

He handed over most of the work as chieftain to Tragar, who was happy to serve his master and easily handled a 120-hour workweek, even though the rings under his eyes suggested otherwise.

A week passed in no time.

Narzug was meditating in the sanctuary when Morgash told him he was ready for the next big step on the path of the shamans.

"As you already know, shamans can absorb negative emotions from their surroundings and strengthen themselves with them. However, there is another way. It is much more difficult and dangerous, but it can lead to rapid growth of power."

Then Margosh took a deep breath and explained: "As you surely could have guessed, you are not the first person to let their emotions flow into an object while forging. There have been many who discovered this step before you. Objects infused with emotions are called artifacts. These artifacts often carry an incredible amount of emotions. Other artifacts were born through centuries of use. A simple sword that has experienced numerous wars and generated pain, anger, and hatred can awaken as an artifact. There are also numerous positive artifacts that we cannot use, but which are used by elves, humans, and dwarves for their own magic.

Your axe is also such an artifact and an extremely powerful one at that. You should give it a name. And it is possible that a consciousness might even awaken within it, although the chances of that are rather slim. (Feel free to help me with a name for the axe in the comments.)

We Orc shamans have developed our own use for artifacts: we destroy them with our source and devour the negative emotions within them. But be careful, if the emotions in the weapon are stronger than you, you will be devoured instead.

To learn this step, we need a weak artifact that best matches your source. Have you already explored and recognized the core emotion of your source?"

Narzug shook his head dejectedly. Even though he explored his source daily in meditation, he had not yet reached its innermost core. He also had not yet fathomed the core feeling of his axe.

"No problem. We'll simply see if you react to any of the artifacts. Perhaps that will also reveal your core feeling."

Morgash led Narzug out of the sanctuary and soon entered a broad corridor. "In recent years, we've had to keep widening the tunnel as the Great Goblin has become increasingly fat."

When asked where they were going, the answer was: "We are going to the former chieftains' treasury. Many treasures, gold and gemstones are stored there, but also many rare weapons and armors that have been collected over time. Hopefully, we will find a suitable artifact for you there. Otherwise, we will have to postpone your next step on the path of the shamans."

"The collection was initially small, but under the growing greed of the Great Goblin, it grew to enormous proportions in recent years. Although most of what the Great Goblin contributed to the collection is just cheap junk."

They stopped in front of a huge rock door carved into the stone. There was nothing but darkness around it; none of the common orcs knew about the door and came this deep into the tunnels.

"The door is sealed with ancient magic. It can only be opened with registered blood. Fortunately, mine is known to the door," Morgash explained, cutting his hand and smearing his blood on the rock door. It opened as if by ghostly hand, slowly and without making a sound. Then he led Narzug into the treasury. Behind the door, he let Narzug's blood drip into a bowl carved from black rock, so that he could also open the door in the future. Then the two of them looked around the treasury. Only in the back corners could Narzug feel the faint presence of feelings in some of the stored objects.

Morgash instructed him to close his eyes and search for a suitable artifact using only his inner senses. Narzug wandered with closed eyes through the heaps of gemstones, gold coins, jewelry, weapons, and armors.

Nothing felt right until he heard a faint whisper from a huge pile of gold coins. He rummaged through it until he finally held an antique, slightly tarnished gold coin in his hand. As soon as he touched it, the whisper turned into a sweet song. Proudly, he showed his find to Morgash.

"Ah, a coin that naturally became an artifact. I would love to learn its story. If I see it correctly, it is an artifact that awakened through the feeling of greed.

Perhaps greed is your core emotion. Seek it out the next time you meditate."

With the artifact in hand, Narzug and Morgash set off again towards the sanctuary. But then Narzug felt a dark yet pleasant melody in the air once more. Magically drawn, he walked to a corner, picked up a small object, and held it tightly in his closed fist. He didn't even know why, but he had an incredibly strong feeling that he had to do this.

"Did you find something else you like?" asked Morgash. "Remember, everything here belongs to you, and you can take whatever you want."

Narzug nodded and absentmindedly played with the object in his hand—a small ring with the texture of roughly forged metal. Without much thought, he slipped it onto his finger. Only then did his ability to think return, and he stared in horror at the ring on his right ring finger.

Morgash also noticed it but paid no great attention to it, as he felt no emotions from it. For Narzug, however, it was quite different, as he felt an incredibly strong surge of greed emanating from the ring.

Following an intuition, he began to panic and tried to pull the ring off his finger. But it was stuck as if glued.

If one could look into Narzug's thoughts, one would see only a single word repeating over and over: "Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuuuuuuuck!!!!"