The calm before the Storm

Glasha led the way through the compound of the Bloodletters. When the Bloodletter clan yielded and was absorbed into the blacktongues, the plot of land to the southeast of the arena was granted to them.

Three generations and that land became known as the Hellhar District. With the Hellhar stores and wares facing the outer street that surrounded the arena, the Bloodletters were known for hunting and most of all... Their butchery, the fine arts of meat cutting.

As Xa'Gun followed behind Glasha and flanked by Midka, he walked through an area of the Hellhar District unknown to him. When he went for an apprenticeship with Gorzoc, it was always out back of the butchery storefront. He would later know that as the workshops of the Bloodletter's direct family, Gorzoc and his mother.

Many Bloodletter orcs nodded to Xa'Gun as he followed Glasha, how did he know they were Bloodletters, even though this was the Blacktongue's clan? Each male Bloodletter would have a ritual scar on their arms or legs for each trophy they brought back from their hunts, or even if they went to the arena for whatever purpose that served the Bloodletters.

After a major courtyard and then through an alley between buildings, Xa'Gun finally walked into an area he knew. This was the compound of his Master Gorzoc.

"Just a bit further," Glasha spoke softly, as she opened the large door to what appeared to be a miniature barracks. It had the same building style as the barracks he saw on his way to the arena.

Midka closed the large door behind them, and the corridors opened into a burrow, where Gorzoc, Jukzuk, and Grandmother Bloodletter Ugora sat.

Ugora sat at the highest position and was dressed in her full shaman regalia. Obscuring her face, she wore a bone-bleached skull of some Cervidae linage with great antlers, with which many were decorated with fetishes and runes etched. Blood seemed to have at one time dripped from the eye socks of the deer bone mask, now dried. In her right hand, she steadied a gnarled tree root, that almost seemed to have been left to rot in blood... A creepy feeling emanated from the staff and Ugora as a whole, unlike anything Xa'Gun had felt before... but it did slightly remind him of the pair of spirits he saw before.

Ugora spoke, "Welcome Xa'Gun, Son of Jukzuk Blacktongue." She then indicated to where Xa'Gun could sit opposite of her.

As Xa'Gun took his place around the ring he sat between Gorzoc and Jukzuk. In the center of the room was a ritual altar, that seemed to glisten with a red hue.

"And... Glasha, why have you brought another shaman into my abode." Ugora's voice hardened, frightening Glasha.

"Uh..." Glasha cleared her throat, and as she was about to open her mouth to speak again, Midka stepped next to her and spoke before her.

"Xa'Gun is of great importance to me," Midka spoke with a firm voice, while Glasha felt frustrated by her disregard.

"To you, or to the clan?" Ugora's face was, of course, obscured by her bone mask, but her voice held a humor disregard for the princess's status.

"It is the same."

"Then if it is that important, then you know what you must do to attend here," Ugora spoke cryptically.

Midka nodded, as she reached into one of her pouches that hung from her sash.

Pulling out her ritual dagger, she drove it into her left hand. Startling Xa'Gun, though Jukzuk grimaced, Gorzoc's expression never changed.

Midka's blood dripped from her hands, but evaporated in mid air.

"I swear in the name of Ya'Sar the Fire Tyrant, that I will not speak of what happens within this room save for those that are involved." Midka spoke with a solumn tone.

The air turned hot within the room.

Ugora narrowed her eyes under her mask, "Change that to speaking of what happens here to only those that are present, and no one else, or try my patient youngling. Even your master the Fire Tyrant bows before my patron spirit."

Midka's expression soured, as she realized she couldn't out smart the old Bloodletter shaman.

"I'll amend." Midka took her ritual knife with her bloodied left hand and roughly grasped it and plunged it into her right hand.

"I further sear in the name of Ya'Sar the Fire Tyrant, that I will not speak of what happens within this room save for those currently within this room," Midka spoke with a hurried voice.

The bone mask of Ugora nodded up and down a few times as if to agree.

"I see you have resolved yourself until the end, is it princess?" Ugora, again, spoke cryptically.

"All that I do, I do. I never try."

"I see that your master and mistress of the Blacktongue arts are proud, but all I see is a child walking in the footsteps left in the sand of time without knowing the direction you are walking."

Midka bit her black tongue, as she thought to speak, but seeing the situation, she took a step back. Only then, could she achieve her objective... Xa'Gun.

"Can I ask what all this is about?" Xa'Gun cut into the air, as he was past the feeling of being hot, as brought on by the bloodied oath of Midka.

Jukzuk and Gorzoc looked shocked, as they both looked at the old Bloodletter shaman.

Ugora simply began laughing in an old husky voice, "Child you have the temperament of a bull."

Jukzuk and Gorzoc nodded as they heard her words, they both felt that Xa'Gun was stubborn, strong, and with the courtesies.

Xa'Gun thought for a moment and then nodded. He agreed, she might be right... He felt like he had always been a beast of burden.

Ugora smiled under her mask, as she understood that Xa'Gun misunderstood... But that didn't matter now.

"Xa'Gun, your master, my son, Gorzoc has asked that I peer beyond and find answers to your situation and your future," Ugora spoke with a smile in her voice, unlike her tone with Midka.

Midka felt out of place now still standing, as Glasha had left at some unknown time. She walked over behind Xa'Gun and sat down in a proper orcess manner.

Xa'Gun grunted in understanding. He too wished to know.

"Then I will not waste any more time. Let's begin." Ugora stood up from her high seat and waved her rotten staff in a ritualistic way.