Entry: 004
"The sixteen elements are the building blocks of the cosmos. Of these, twelve are paired into the six fundamental Dualities, each governing its own aspect of reality. A prime example is the Duality of Choice. Fate Myst perceives the branching threads of what is possible, while Chaos Myst is the unbridled force of probability that determines which thread becomes truth."
— Observations of the Wizard Borren Thonin
Sin did his best to wait outside the Mega-Munch-Mart without causing trouble. He stood on the sidewalk, hands in his pockets, eyes turned to the ground between his feet. The Witch had entered the corner store to pick up a few cheap meals for the lance once everyone was gathered.
The Witch had mentioned wanting to start on good terms with the new teammates. Sin knew full well that she was not including him in that statement. He knew the look she kept giving him when she thought he wasn’t looking. It was an expression that more people showed him than didn’t. Distrust, dislike, disdain, and disgust. Any combination of those four emotions was all most people showed him.
Sin had only just started his explanation of the situation between him and his twin sister when the Witch cut him off and hurried into the market. He recognized her ploy to avoid him, but Sin didn’t hold it against her.
The Witch stepped out of the Mega-Munch-Mart holding a plastic bag in one hand. Sparky, as she had named the drone, stuck with the Witch, hovering just over her shoulder. A defensive growl burbled out from the Witch’s hat as she stepped outside. “Hey!” she chided. “Enough of that, Potato.” The Witch gently flicked the hat, and the warbling growl stopped.
Sin eyed the hat with worry, but picked up his explanation. “To resume my explanation, I am afflicted by multiple curses. The nasty, nauseating nuisances make me maddeningly miserable.”
The Witch peeled open a meat stick wrapper with her teeth and bit off a piece like it had done her wrong. She spoke as she chewed. “Right, crappy luck. Sucks to be you. You’ll never win the lotto, cry me a moat.” She flipped a wrapped granola bar at Sin. “Here. Eat.”
Sin caught the food bar with a practiced weariness. “I believe your grasp of the matter is incomplete.” He examined the bar. “Did you procure this at random?”
“Yeah, why?” the Witch asked, swallowing.
“Black cherry, almonds, and salted chocolate,” Sin recited, holding it as if it were a venomous snake. “A simple demonstration. I possess a distaste for cherries, an allergy to all nuts, and my mouth is in such a sickeningly sorry state that the chocolate promises only pain.”
The Witch shrugged, taking another bite of her own food. “So don’t eat it. Problem solved.”
A tired sigh escaped Sin’s lips. “Now, for the next example. I shall attempt to take a bite.” Sin peeled the wrapper and moved the distasteful food toward his mouth.
Suddenly, a magpie swooped down and snatched the food bar from Sin’s grip. Sin watched the bird fly straight and true, crossing the street when a bus struck the bird. The fresh corpse lay atop the indirectly lethal prize, its gore and excrement covering the food.
Sin gave the Witch a knowing look. She eyed the ruined food with disgust. “Well… shit. Okay, that does kinda suck.”
Sin’s expression flashed with irritation before he forced control. “I have consumed far worse when necessity demanded it. I shall now retrieve it, as my own provisions were so recently destroyed.” Sin stepped up to the edge of the street and looked both ways for incoming traffic. The coast was clear, so he stepped onto the road.
Sin was bending over the tainted food bar when something blurred down from above. He was driven into the ground with a crunch of bone and cracking pavement.
“Oh, shit!!” the Witch cursed, dropping the bag of food and hurrying over to the impact site. A frozen turkey had embedded itself in Sin’s back. “Damnit, damnit, damnit! Faith is going to kill me! Oh gods!” she said in a rising panic. “Healer!! I need a damned healer!!” she cried, eyeing the damage. “…Or maybe a necromancer,” she muttered. “Damnit! I can’t lose this gig.”
“By the gods! What happened!?” The Mega-Munch-Mart cashier stepped onto the scene.
The Witch pulled the frozen bird from Sin’s chest cavity with a sickening sucking sound.
“Daaammnn,” she said in shock, drawing out the word. “I don’t think a normal healer can fix this.”
“Oh, it’s just Sin. He’ll be fine,” the shopkeeper said, waving off the incident.
“Hold up, WHAT!?” the Witch exclaimed.
“He is,” Sin started, only to be interrupted by another gush of blood from his mouth, “correct.”
“Hey, hey, hey. Don’t talk,” the Witch ordered, a blend of gentleness and panic in her voice.
“I’m charging you double for what comes next,” the ceangar called from his shop door.
“Wait. What?” the Witch asked. Then came crunching and popping sounds from Sin’s chest and back.
The color drained from her face as she slowly turned back to the immortal. Sin’s body was rapidly reconstructing itself. The Witch witnessed the agonizing process in horror.
“Do you comprehend now, Witch?” Sin asked once he could stand.
“What?” was the Witch’s reply, an offended note in her word. "Hell no. Where'd the damned frozen bird missile even come from?”
Sin rolled his wrists, emitting a series of small pops. “Likely dropped from a vehicle travelling overhead. It is not the first time, nor will it be my last.” He twisted at the waist, popping his hips. “My fortune is so phenomenally faulty that my survival through any given day is a statistical improbability,” he stated.
The Witch stared up into the sky, looking for any aircraft the frozen turkey could’ve come from, before shaking her head clear. “Okay, so wait.” The Witch held up a hand, cutting him off. “Immortal twins. Subcasters. She gets Fate, you get Chaos. She sees checkpoints in the future versus... random damned bullcrap. Damn. That means she can’t actually fix this.” Her eyes snapped back to him, wide with horror. “Gods, you’re not just bad luck, you’re a walking murder-machine! And she stuck you with me! Is she tryin’ to get me killed?!”
“That is not the entirety of the matter,” Sin corrected calmly. “The phenomenon concentrates its effects upon my person, for the most part.”
“And the imploded sub?!” the Witch accused.
“Had I merely soiled myself in my seat, all would have survived the submersible.”
“Right,” the Witch said slowly, her expression hardening. “Got it. From now on, you ask permission for everything. You wanna breathe, you ask. You wanna blink, you ask. Got it.” The last was a direct command.
“As you command, Witch,” Sin said in a tired tone.
“What was the shop dude talkin’ about when he said he’d charge double?” the Witch asked, crossing her arms.
Sin gave a hollow sigh and explained his need for sustenance after regenerating, including the incident with the windshield washer fluid.
“Geez,” the Witch moaned, pinching the bridge of her nose. “You are gonna be so damn high-maintenance.”
“You have my most sincere apologies for this profoundly peeving predicament,” Sin said. “May I request a favor of you?”
“No,” the Witch said firmly. “I’m not buyin’ you another meal. Your little sideshow just burned our time.” She turned her gaze toward the teleporter station. “We gotta head to the TTZ before our window closes.”
Sin knew that she was lying, but he held his tongue. Faith had put the Witch in charge for her own purposes.
Sin dusted himself off again. Splinters of his shattered ribs fell from his coat. The Witch watched him with open disgust.
“You gonna… ya know… change clothes?” she asked.
“These are the sole garments I possess,” Sin explained. “And they are cursed to remain upon my person.”
“…Oookaayyy,” the Witch said, drawing out the word. “Right. Hey, before you get out of the street, snag that bird corpse for me, will ya?”
With a hint of worry, Sin replied, “Certainly.” He collected the mangled bird. “Might I enquire as to your purpose for it? A component for some witch’s brew, perhaps?”
The Witch’s face soured. “It’s for my pet.”
Sin glanced at the drone until his attention was drawn to the Witch’s hat again. A low, guttural, and distinctly indignant grumble burbled from beneath its brim. “I… see.”
“No,” the Witch replied flatly. “You don’t. Potato, you can have the birdy snack.”
At her words, a nightmare sprang at Sin from beneath her hat. The carcass and three of his fingers simply vanished with a wet CRUNCH. Sin screamed, more out of pure shock than pain.
The creature was slightly larger than the average house cat, with an amorphous body shaped not unlike a potato. Each of its six legs ended in three-claw feet, the middle two legs being cybernetic. Its rat tail lashed back and forth happily while it munched on the roadkill. The creature’s eyes were an asymmetric patch of yellow-orange eyes, no two the same shape or size. But the worst part of the beast was its mouth. Its fang-ladden jaws stretched halfway around the creature’s body. As Sin watched the creature chomp down on the bird carcass with three quick munches, he noticed it had multiple rows of fangs and more than two tongues.
The Witch gestured to the grotesque monstrosity with a beaming, proud expression. “Meet Potato.”
“Potato?” Sin asked, his own fingers already reforming.
“Yep. He’s my best buddy,” the Witch said, kneeling to stroke the aberration’s fur.
Sin took a long step back from the creature. “What, under all the blue sky, is that thing?”
“He’s not a ‘thing’,” the Witch snapped, her tone fiercely protective. “He’s a chimeral. Or, an attempt at one of those cute Wolpertinger house pets. The kids call ‘em Tingers.” She rubbed the top of his head with soothing motions. She offered her hat to the creature, and Potato promptly hopped inside.
“Clearly,” Sin said, flexing his newly formed fingers, “the attempt to blend the genetics of… whatever constitutes that creature resulted in a categorical failure.”
“He’s not a failure. He’s adorable,” the Witch said, her tone daring him to argue. She jammed the hat back on her head. “C’mon, let’s get a move on. Can you ride?”
Sin hurried to catch up. “I possess no particular skill in it. I can manage a horse, or perhaps a road drake, provided it does not attempt to devour me.”
The Witch gave a disgusted grunt as she turned to storm down two blocks and entered the Road-Way Station. She returned moments later with an ignition seal. She marched over to the nearest motorcycle—a brawny, armored machine—and waved Sin over as she mounted. He dutifully followed, taking the seat behind the half-elf while Sparky gripped her shoulder. The bike roared to life.
“Hang on,” the Witch shouted over the rumble as they rolled off the lot.
Vex noticed that the TTZ was smaller than her initial landing zone, yet it was just as fiercely defended. A hard-learned lesson from when warring nations started teleporting strike teams or bombs into enemy cities. Vex knew why TTZ travel was strictly regulated, but she hated it all the same.
The teleportation process was quick. Security scans of each person, inside and out, followed by their gear. Normally, Vex would’ve had to input a destination and jump code, but she was never given one. She was about to message Faith for the key numbers when Sparky zipped up to the terminal for their teleporter and wirelessly plugged in the codes. One of the guards at their station eyed the destination and the length of the jump code before giving Vex a quizzical look, but she said nothing. She and Sin stepped onto the pad and signaled that they were ready.
There was a flash of light, a sensation like she was being stretched infinitely and simultaneously compressed to micro size. The universe spun in a whirling tunnel of darkness and stars. Then they were somewhere else.
Sin dropped to his side, vomiting and convulsing. Vex felt a spike of panic at the sight and took two steps to help the immortal before she remembered what she had witnessed not half an hour ago. If the man could bounce back from having his chest turned inside-out by a frozen turkey, then he’d bounce back from teleporter sickness.
Vex instead examined her surroundings. They were in a metal hexagon with a single siege door and wall-mounted gun emplacements. Vex also noticed a few more defenses that would make an intruder’s day reach an abrupt end. Metal vents lined the ceiling, either to fill the space with gas or, more likely, flood the chamber with seawater. The electrified mesh that laced the floor supported the latter theory.
Several cameras focused on the pair of newcomers. The crackle of an intercom activating filled the room. “State your business,” came a gruff male voice.
“I’m Vexxenna Hawkthorn, and this,” Vex gestured to her partner struggling to rise from the floor, “is Sin. We were sent by a woman named Faith to collect two inmates.”
“Names of the two you are here to collect,” the intercom voice ordered in a level and chilly tone.
“Alex Ashson, and…” Vex turned to Sin, “What was the other guy’s name? Archimedes?”
Sin spat discolored saliva and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand as he pulled himself to his feet. “Architallis Zeno,” he corrected.
A moment of silence. “Confirmed.” A buzzer sounded as the foot-thick blast doors ground open. Beyond them was a narrow hallway lined with automated turrets. Standing beside the opposite door were a pair of heavily armored Knyghts.
As soon as Vex and Sin started down the corridor, scanners booted up and tracked them. One of the Knyghts pressed the side of his helmet. “One caster, one subcaster. The woman is armed with hextech and mystech. The subcaster is registering high Chaos Myst leakage.”
The other Knyght gave a single nod. “Ma’am, we are going to need you to disarm before proceeding.”
“Sir, yes, sir,” Vex said in a chipper tone, though she hated it. Going anywhere unarmed was bad enough, but meeting potential serial killers with no personal defenses was worse.
Vex disarmed herself of her hex gun, a series of elementally infused throwing knives, several hextech grenades, a hextech trap, two daggers, and more. Each device was dropped into a metal lockbox held by one Knyght in a single hand. They even confiscated the bag of food Vex had bought for the new teammates. While the first Knyght held the box, the second looked Sin up and down.
Sin raised his hands in surrender, revealing an old brand scar on his left hand. Vex watched the design while he tried to persuade the guard that he was unarmed. She finished just as the second Knyght pulled two metal mystech collars from his hip.
“Hold still,” said the second Knyght as he closed in on Sin.
“Whoa! Whoa!” Vex said, raising her hands. “Why two?”
“One for each caster,” the guard corrected blandly. He latched the first collar shut over Vex’s neck, and the green light immediately pulsed. He then turned and latched the second over Sin’s neck. “Since both of you have access to Myst, you can’t be allowed in without additional measures. The last thing we need is one of you triggering a system failure.”
Vex stared at the collar with an explosion of rage. She, a Hexxen Bane, had powerful Chaos-aligned elements, just like Sin. The failure of her seals meant that Faith knew her powers were dangerous, too, and had lied by omission to save her profile. Her life was never safe. The collar felt like an executioner’s collar to her now.
With the pair secure, they were admitted into the facility, escorted by a Knyght named Bidziil and a Warden. The Warden was a half-orc woman with greenish skin and moss-like hair, introducing herself coldly as ‘Warden Wrathcarver’. Her advanced plate armor made Vex’s outfit look shabby by comparison. Vex never understood the Orcish thing of always having brutal or intimidating clan names.
The guards guided them down several flights of stairs before they entered a cavernous room with stories of prison cells lining the walls. “We’re going to start with the living inmate first,” Wrathcarver said blithely.
The guard’s words caught Vex’s attention. Living inmate? Is the second guy dead? Undead?
Vex was shocked back to the present when Wrathcarver started reading the inmate’s profile from her datapad. “Architallis Zeno.Prisoner number 31380R. Ascension Archetype: Scholar. Former career focus: Alchemyst, Geneticist, Chemist, Arcanist.”
‘Wow,’ Vex thought. ‘This guy has to be some kind of genius. He could be a massive help on this quest.’
“Documented criminal charges,” Wrathcarver continued. “Illegal and unethical experimentation on unwilling Sophic Species test subjects.”
‘Wait, what?’ Vex wondered, shocked.
“Sixty-four charges of first-degree murder.”
‘Dammit,’ Vex internally cursed.
“Sixty-four charges of illegal kidnapping, twelve charges of child abduction, twelve charges of first-degree murder of a minor, and one charge of attempting to evade arrest.”
‘Dammit, dammit, dammit!’ Vex was freaking out. ‘Faith just saddled me with some mad scientist psycho. He is for sure going to try and steal my organs.’
Wrathcarver opened the cell. What stepped forward was something Vex wouldn’t have ever expected. Architallis was a Vhenari, a Rat Beastman—emphasis on the was. Rat Vhenari were naturally dwarf-sized. This Architallis was almost seven feet tall, with white fur and patches of red and black scales visible under a red prison jump suit. His arms looked like they could bench-press an Orc. His rattail lashed with nervous energy.
He stepped to the open energy wall but didn’t step through, his hands clasped behind his back. “Greetings, Warden. May I enquire about this unexpected visit?” His accent was crisp and educated.
Wrathcarver gave the Vhenari a stern glare. “You’re being released under restricted conditions. Congratulations. You now have a sponsor.”
“Verified?” Architallis asked. “This isn’t some mad scheme to trick me into breaking regulations to have me executed?”
“You know that’s against our own regulations, Rat,” the Warden coldly corrected.
“Don’t pretend with me, Product,” Architallis verbally retaliated. “We both know that your thugs don’t behave according to regulations. We’re all monsters to you, regardless of circumstance.”
‘And what circumstances could possibly justify what you did?’ Vex, though with venomous spite. ‘Kids. He tested on and murdered kids. I’m gonna need to watch this bastard with one eye open at all times. The scales looked fresh, a patchwork map of his horrific need.’
Wrathcarver waved his comments off. “Well, if you play nice with your new handler, you won’t have to see this place again.”
Architallis turned to pin Vex with a suspicious expression. “So I take it that you are this ‘new handler’?”
“Yeeeaaah. No,” Vex said nervously. “A lady named Faith bought you out, I guess. I’m the lance leader of the team you’re being volun-told to join.”
Architallis quizzically cocked his head. “I have many questions about the circumstances and terms of this… situation. But if I am being removed from this place, there is a device I need,” he turned to the Warden. “May I inquire about my personal effects? While your in-house medical facilities could mostly manage my condition, I’d rather use my personal equipment for my medical needs.”
Wrathcarver folded her arms. “You’ll get what we let you leave with.” She turned and started back the way they came. “Next stop, Soul Core storage.”
The three lance-mates looked at each other before hurrying to catch up with the half-orc.
Vex noticed that the TTZ was smaller than her initial landing zone, yet it was just as fiercely defended. A hard-learned lesson from when warring nations started teleporting strike teams or bombs into enemy cities. Vex knew why TTZ travel was strictly regulated, but she hated it all the same.
The teleportation process was quick. Security scans of each person, inside and out, followed by their gear. Normally, Vex would’ve had to input a destination and jump code, but she was never given one. She was about to message Faith for the key numbers when Sparky zipped up to the terminal for their teleporter and wirelessly plugged in the codes. One of the guards at their station eyed the destination and the length of the jump code before giving Vex a quizzical look, but she said nothing. She and Sin stepped onto the pad and signaled that they were ready.
There was a flash of light, a sensation like she was being stretched infinitely and simultaneously compressed to micro size. The universe spun in a whirling tunnel of darkness and stars. Then they were somewhere else.
Sin dropped to his side, vomiting and convulsing. Vex felt a spike of panic at the sight and took two steps to help the immortal before she remembered what she had witnessed not half an hour ago. If the man could bounce back from having his chest turned inside-out by a frozen turkey, then he’d bounce back from teleporter sickness.
Vex instead examined her surroundings. They were in a metal hexagon with a single siege door and wall-mounted gun emplacements. Vex also noticed a few more defenses that would make an intruder’s day reach an abrupt end. Metal vents lined the ceiling, either to fill the space with gas or, more likely, flood the chamber with seawater. The electrified mesh that laced the floor supported the latter theory.
Several cameras focused on the pair of newcomers. The crackle of an intercom activating filled the room. “State your business,” came a gruff male voice.
“I’m Vexxenna Hawkthorn, and this,” Vex gestured to her partner struggling to rise from the floor, “is Sin. We were sent by a woman named Faith to collect two inmates.”
“Names of the two you are here to collect,” the intercom voice ordered in a level and chilly tone.
“Alex Ashson, and…” Vex turned to Sin, “What was the other guy’s name? Archimedes?”
Sin spat discolored saliva and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand as he pulled himself to his feet. “Architallis Zeno,” he corrected.
A moment of silence. “Confirmed.” A buzzer sounded as the foot-thick blast doors ground open. Beyond them was a narrow hallway lined with automated turrets. Standing beside the opposite door were a pair of heavily armored Knyghts.
As soon as Vex and Sin started down the corridor, scanners booted up and tracked them. One of the Knyghts pressed the side of his helmet. “One caster, one subcaster. The woman is armed with hextech and mystech. The subcaster is registering high Chaos Myst leakage.”
The other Knyght gave a single nod. “Ma’am, we are going to need you to disarm before proceeding.”
“Sir, yes, sir,” Vex said in a chipper tone, though she hated it. Going anywhere unarmed was bad enough, but meeting potential serial killers with no personal defenses was worse.
Vex disarmed herself of her hex gun, a series of elementally infused throwing knives, several hextech grenades, a hextech trap, two daggers, and more. Each device was dropped into a metal lockbox held by one Knyght in a single hand. They even confiscated the bag of food Vex had bought for the new teammates. While the first Knyght held the box, the second looked Sin up and down.
Sin raised his hands in surrender, revealing an old brand scar on his left hand. Vex watched the design while he tried to persuade the guard that he was unarmed. She finished just as the second Knyght pulled two metal mystech collars from his hip.
“Hold still,” said the second Knyght as he closed in on Sin.
“Whoa! Whoa!” Vex said, raising her hands. “Why two?”
“One for each caster,” the guard corrected blandly. He latched the first collar shut over Vex’s neck, and the green light immediately pulsed. He then turned and latched the second over Sin’s neck. “Since both of you have access to Myst, you can’t be allowed in without additional measures. The last thing we need is one of you triggering a system failure.”
Vex stared at the collar with an explosion of rage. She, a Hexxen Bane, had powerful Chaos-aligned elements, just like Sin. The failure of her seals meant that Faith knew her powers were dangerous, too, and had lied by omission to save her profile. Her life was never safe. The collar felt like an executioner’s collar to her now.
With the pair secure, they were admitted into the facility, escorted by a Knyght named Bidziil and a Warden. The Warden was a half-orc woman with greenish skin and moss-like hair, introducing herself coldly as ‘Warden Wrathcarver’. Her advanced plate armor made Vex’s outfit look shabby by comparison. Vex never understood the Orcish thing of always having brutal or intimidating clan names.
The guards guided them down several flights of stairs before they entered a cavernous room with stories of prison cells lining the walls. “We’re going to start with the living inmate first,” Wrathcarver said blithely.
The guard’s words caught Vex’s attention. Living inmate? Is the second guy dead? Undead?
Vex was shocked back to the present when Wrathcarver started reading the inmate’s profile from her datapad. “Architallis Zeno.Prisoner number 31380R. Ascension Archetype: Scholar. Former career focus: Alchemyst, Geneticist, Chemist, Arcanist.”
‘Wow,’ Vex thought. ‘This guy has to be some kind of genius. He could be a massive help on this quest.’
“Documented criminal charges,” Wrathcarver continued. “Illegal and unethical experimentation on unwilling Sophic Species test subjects.”
‘Wait, what?’ Vex wondered, shocked.
“Sixty-four charges of first-degree murder.”
‘Dammit,’ Vex internally cursed.
“Sixty-four charges of illegal kidnapping, twelve charges of child abduction, twelve charges of first-degree murder of a minor, and one charge of attempting to evade arrest.”
‘Dammit, dammit, dammit!’ Vex was freaking out. ‘Faith just saddled me with some mad scientist psycho. He is for sure going to try and steal my organs.’
Wrathcarver opened the cell. What stepped forward was something Vex wouldn’t have ever expected. Architallis was a Vhenari, a Rat Beastman—emphasis on the was. Rat Vhenari were naturally dwarf-sized. This Architallis was almost seven feet tall, with white fur and patches of red and black scales visible under a red prison jump suit. His arms looked like they could bench-press an Orc. His rattail lashed with nervous energy.
He stepped to the open energy wall but didn’t step through, his hands clasped behind his back. “Greetings, Warden. May I enquire about this unexpected visit?” His accent was crisp and educated.
Wrathcarver gave the Vhenari a stern glare. “You’re being released under restricted conditions. Congratulations. You now have a sponsor.”
“Verified?” Architallis asked. “This isn’t some mad scheme to trick me into breaking regulations to have me executed?”
“You know that’s against our own regulations, Rat,” the Warden coldly corrected.
“Don’t pretend with me, Product,” Architallis verbally retaliated. “We both know that your thugs don’t behave according to regulations. We’re all monsters to you, regardless of circumstance.”
‘And what circumstances could possibly justify what you did?’ Vex, though with venomous spite. ‘Kids. He tested on and murdered kids. I’m gonna need to watch this bastard with one eye open at all times. The scales looked fresh, a patchwork map of his horrific need.’
Wrathcarver waved his comments off. “Well, if you play nice with your new handler, you won’t have to see this place again.”
Architallis turned to pin Vex with a suspicious expression. “So I take it that you are this ‘new handler’?”
“Yeeeaaah. No,” Vex said nervously. “A lady named Faith bought you out, I guess. I’m the lance leader of the team you’re being volun-told to join.”
Architallis quizzically cocked his head. “I have many questions about the circumstances and terms of this… situation. But if I am being removed from this place, there is a device I need,” he turned to the Warden. “May I inquire about my personal effects? While your in-house medical facilities could mostly manage my condition, I’d rather use my personal equipment for my medical needs.”
Wrathcarver folded her arms. “You’ll get what we let you leave with.” She turned and started back the way they came. “Next stop, Soul Core storage.”
The three lance-mates looked at each other before hurrying to catch up with the half-orc.
