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  It rained while I peeled potatoes. Voj’Kasak showed up soaked through while I sat at the bar. He pulled up on the stool beside me, cackling at the cuts on my hand. I looked at them. Only four. He should have seen my first day.

  Thick Orcish skin didn’t make up for my inept motor skills.

  “Why use spear before sword?” I asked. He flicked his cane at my ankle, a sharp, stinging pop, then cackled. He was literally the ‘two for flinching’ type, and thwacked my leg again when I shifted it, but the third, I timed right and avoided.

  “Move faster, Rau’dajal, or come death for you.” He tittered. When he got over the amusement, the creases of his face changed, like striations in stone from some tectonic upheaval.

  Little did he know, death had already given me a white room visit.

  As I finished my task, he ticked off the reasons why spears were better in war. They were easier to learn for a foot soldier, better in group formations, and could take on multiple opponents with less effort. He told me he’d teach me.

  His frail body started to tremble as we sat there. Orcs didn’t believe in hearth fires. I guessed from the baobab trees that they came from a tropical savannah. The torrent of rain was letting up. It was probably a field of mud out there, like my first day here.

  I grabbed two bowls of Alga’s potatoes and nodded toward the door. He shuffled after me, still trying to trip me with his damn cane. Seemed food was less important than fucking with me. I’d mostly gotten used to the size and shape of this body and how it moved, so I skipped over the cane’s swipe.

  “Better,” he grumbled.

  We stepped into the sun and sat on a rough bench outside. His thin shirt started steaming almost immediately. I tugged at the collar of mine, wishing I could get more exposure. The days when I couldn’t afford a new one were a little traumatizing, but the sun more than made up for it. I craved sunny days.

  I sat with him, listening to stories about old battles. He bore scars, of course. Every real orc did. Even Alga—who I’d come to realize was the kindest one of the bunch.

  She’d kicked some werewolf ass on the first day, so she was no shrinking flower, but in this society? She was. That made me a monumental loser by comparison.

  A new, undeveloped child—Rau’Dajal—as Voj’Kasak liked to call me. His name translated to Old Fang. I wasn’t sure if that was his name or his standing in the community. It was on his nameplate, floating like a specter over his head.

  He noticed me tugging at the shirt I’d bought to replace the one I’d worn when I got snipped like a flower the day before. He grunted at me, poking at my ribs.

  “Why wear that? Skinny, you. Strong, you. Show anyway. Pride good.”

  Because I was conditioned not to walk around in a bra and nothing else? Couldn’t really say that. My lips ticked against a tusk, and I shrugged.

  He jabbed at the city beyond the orc district. “No honor. No pride. Hide and lie, them. Be orc, even if ugly, you.”

  I snorted. I’d crafted what I thought was a cool half-orc—rugged, handsome in a way, lean and strong as a braided whip. I’d worked with my own aesthetics, not knowing what I’d find. My plan to be unremarkable was undercut by my own vanity—and my lack of knowledge.

  I should have rolled the elf princess. Ugh. Except the image didn’t fit my reality. I probably wouldn’t have been better off rolling a full orc female, either. To them, I would have been even more unsightly. I’d have been too smooth, too lean.

  “Ugly, I,” I acknowledged with an amused grin.

  He grunted. Funny, how quickly we’d fallen into the roles of grumpy grandpa and adult descendant. I’d never been close with my human family. Maybe because they hadn’t been like this. They’d been more like everyone else out there. Fake kindness and veiled judgment.

  I leaned my back against the wood slats of Bauring Dath, looking out at the street and the yurts, the mud huts, and the buffalo lizard pen. Why had I found a real home with these people when all I’d wanted was to leave?

  I glanced at Voj’Kasak, and his pensive stare reminded me. Because of the ghost of a past lost. It warred with my sudden desire for acceptance, but it was a fleeting consolation to have found something like it.

  His Great Cleaver had been our Hundred Year Comet. The unchanging days would get to me, eventually, like they had to him. My soul would thin; I’d be lost in the past with no future ahead, just like the rest of them.

  I was glad that my presence had roused him from the lethargic flow of unnumbered years. Our brief acquaintance had already made a change. He’d gone from vague curiosity to freely talking—about battle theory, about the past. Still, there was no future here, in a city where nothing ever really changed—except maybe once every hundred years.

  I remembered the bowl on my lap and finished it. His had been licked clean long before, so I grabbed it and brought both back to Alga.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Voj’Kasak was still sitting on that bench when I left to take care of my own affairs. I’d stop by Mr. Kim’s before meeting with the party. If there was a shortcut to learning how to fight well, I was willing to take it, though Voj’Kasak’s teachings wouldn’t go by the wayside.

  What I learned from the crusty old lizard was true warcraft. Mr. Kim had technical skills for sale, and I’d have been an idiot to pass that up.

  I’d sunned the egg on the way to Mr. Kim’s shop in the Colosseum Bazaar. My message got through to Mr. Kim when I showed him a diamond, then raised my sword. The familiar shop Colosseum looked the same as it did the first time I’d stopped there with Jake, a hollow in the limestone and travertine. Mr. Kim was wearing a different hanbok but still had a straw of some plant stalk in his teeth.

  “Ah,” he said, eyes lighting up with understanding. He stepped into the shallow recess of his kiosk and held aside a curtain. Inside, a spidery machine hummed to life. arms tipped with contact pads, like a neural net used in brain wave function studies.

  I stepped toward it, watching it activate with a shiver. Why did it have to look like a spider?

  I studied Mr. Kim in a new light. This guy from hundreds of years ago didn’t fear or shun this tech? I found that amazing. And yet, he’d been here a long time, maybe long enough to put fear and prejudice aside. He was willing to accept these things that the System gave him. Learn them. He was a rare person, an outlier that deserved the description more than me.

  I wished I could speak with him, ask questions, but that would require Jake’s help—at least until I could learn the language. Fucking Archive, thinking I was too dumb to learn. I backed into the machine and stayed still as the metallic arms came down around my head.

  My HUD dimmed, and a jolt of static shot through my head. I couldn’t tell if it hurt, but I had a moment of vertigo as data dumped into a part of my brain. My muscles twitched. It felt like the machine tested my reflexes, tapping different nerves that left me feeling jittery.

  I tried to track what was happening, but I couldn’t. The programming must have been downloaded to a part of my mind that wasn’t visual in nature.

  In all, it didn’t take long—maybe five minutes—and the neural contacts pulled away from my head, taking a few strands of hair with it. I rubbed the spot where a few hairs had been plucked and stepped away from the machine.

  “Kamsaamida,” I said, trying to be polite.

  Judging by his wince, I’d butchered it. He nodded, briskly shooing me away. I stepped out into the blue sun and looked around, flexing my arms. I felt no different. The bazaar looked the same, vendors with trinkets and food, the more serious shops like kiosks with their menus of inventory. I checked my skills.

  Under allowed weapons, my skill went from basic to moderate. It had a value number, 60. Basic had been 20, so it was a significant jump in mastery. I hadn’t seen the same jump with Voj’Kasak, but I believed in the spear techniques and the stories he told me. Maybe it would take more time than the insta-learning offered by the System.

  Until I could practice, I guess it wouldn’t be clear. It had to be practice because I didn’t have the meta-gamer mindset of a true try-hard. I rolled my shoulders and crossed to the bench. My next planned purchase was armor.

  While I waited for the others, I stretched my legs out and scanned my aspect screen, looking at builds. This time, I’d plan instead of haphazardly throwing my stat points anywhere. As much as the System’s rigid boxes left a distaste in my mouth, I had to learn how the whole thing worked before I could break it.

  My original plan of ‘just wing it’ had been a flop. This time I’d go and be the overachiever and consult my team on my build. The Fighter class had quite a few branches to choose from. Berserker could be my style, but it wasn’t ideal for the group. Protectorate didn’t hit right, though. If I could tweak Berserker with some compatible gear, I might pull off a hybrid branch class.

  I was still staring off into space when I caught motion in my peripheral. Big black wings, a purple splash of color, tawny hair. I glanced that way to see them all strolling up, with happy faces.

  “What’d you guys do while I was busy getting my ass kicked?”

  “Onsen,” Akilah smiled.

  Elora stretched like a cat and purred, “It was fantastic.”

  Jake shrugged, “I worked on my build, ate stuff, talked to the goths around the district.”

  I cocked a brow at him. “No public baths for you?”

  “I’m shy, and the people there give me dirty looks,” he admitted, looking away.

  I understood. Prejudice against non-humans was strong in most human districts. Just like anywhere else. Hate what you don’t understand was a concept that crossed all barriers, including the alien ones.

  I’d kill for a soak in hot mineral water. My skin wasn’t as sensitive as it had been as a human, but I still liked warm water over cold. One more time in the sewers, and I’d even dare Heartland for a spring to soak in.

  “Let’s go somewhere and sync our builds,” I suggested.

  Akilah’s jaw dropped. She blurted, “Is the fearless loser actually becoming a leader?”

  I gave her a bland, unamused look. “Inside thoughts belong inside.”

  She put a finger to her smiling lips. “Oops.”

  “Eww. Okay,” Elora said, her gaze moving around the bazaar. She definitely didn’t care. She was a true explorer, only interested in what there was to see and experience.

  Jake’s hands rubbed together, red eyes gleaming with delight. I got my legs back under me and rose, tugging at my collar. It was time to plan our return to crush the Den and reap some real rewards.

  After spending hours with our heads together, we’d plotted out a versatile layout that didn’t sacrifice individual interests but kept us cohesive. We pooled together funds and selected weapons and armor we could afford, but would offer the best, longstanding benefits.

  I got some kevlar composite stuff with ceramic plating and kote gauntlets with basic steel ribbing on my forearms. The last thing I needed was to get something else bitten in half. After that, I was broke.

  Akilah bought herself some light tactical OCP—in purple. Naturally, the System had everything a girl obsessed with purple could want, including fatigues. I never stopped being amazed at how it gave in on some things and stayed rigid in others.

  Jake got himself some dark OCP tactical gear and a light kevlar vest, giddily living his best CoD life.

  Elora got some bracers and boots for her basic buckskin outfit—then spent the rest of her money on jewelry and getting her hair done while we were hanging around at the armor shop, clustered around the menu.

  At the end of the day, we were outfitted. We strategized the infiltration to where we knew and made a plan to proceed further.

  The next morning, we’d wreck some bugs. We were sure we were ready.

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