So the origins for this story idea came from a combination of Orko (and only Orko, with no vouch on this from anyone else) claiming that Trollans "never let water touch their bodies" and "use magic to wash themselves" and the fact that Orko basically is his clothing, with just a few tiny parts of "person" sticking out in hindsight. One thing combined into another, and this idea came out of it. This is meant to be in the era and "feel" of the Filmation series. All characters are owned by Mattel.
"…And then, when I was in my 350s, now THOSE were some crazy years growing up!"
It was a calm morning (so far) in the Eternian palace. As Duncan fiddled with an unknown creation, Orko was currently regaling Prince Adam and Teela with tales of Trolla, while Cringer napped near the seat Adam was sitting on.
"Are you sure about this, Orko?" Teela asked, a tone of disbelieving mirth in her voice. "Last week you said that all Trollans had secret candy stashes they were allowed to have."
"And there was the time last month you said that Trollans had an extra celebration each month to have extra birthday parties." Adam added, also sounding like he was laughing at the situation.
"I also recall the time you said that Trollans never had to clean their rooms?" Duncan added, not looking up from the project he was working on. Unlike the others, he didn't sound too amused.
"Yeah…well…" Orko stammered, quickly grabbing onto the drink cup he'd been nursing on before, swirling its contents in an attempt to look casual. "This one's different, I can assure you! It's the truth!"
"Whatever you say, Orko!" Teela said, still sounding like she was disbelieving him in good humor, as she stood up and left the room. When it was clear that Teela was enough out of sights, Adam turned towards Duncan and his technology.
"So, what exactly is this, Duncan?" He asked, finally in the company that he could drop his lighthearted façade.
"It's supposed to be one of a few of a new Tracker-Bot." Duncan explained. "I'm trying to give these a stronger AI, but no technology we have at the castle is working."
"Maybe a bit of magic could help?" Orko interjected in, still reflexively swirling the drink in the cup, slightly faster now. He started to wiggle the fingers of his free hand, though quickly stopped when Duncan gave him a curt stare.
"No." The Man-At-Arms bluntly replied. "Even if your magic was reliable, it wouldn't work with these at all. No, I think the only thing that would work are some Life Stones."
"Life Stones, Duncan?" Adam asked.
"A rare element." Duncan explained, thumbing open a book to the page.
On the page was a scientific sketch of a craggy magenta rock. Various diagrams and paragraphs of scientific research were strewn across that page and its neighbor, describing the element.
"If kept in contact with an inanimate object for long enough, it can bring the object to a facsimile of life." Duncan continued, pouring over the contents of the book. "Only thing is, there's only one place that harvests the stuff: the Stink Swamps."
"I've heard of that place." Adam responded. "Things kept there are so protected because no one can travel into them with how bad it smells. Getting that swamp water on you probably can't be too good either!"
"Swamp water, schwamp water!" Orko said, sounding a bit sure of himself. "I'll bet I could float over to where those stones are and not get a drop on me!"
"I suppose that's you volunteering to come along for this, Orko?" Duncan asked, only to be greeted with an unexpected clatter.
Orko, so out of touch with what he was doing with the drink container, had dropped it. Maybe by coincidence, maybe by chance, but it was the perfect timing. And the perfect way to get a patch of dark blue juice on his robes and cause Cringer to wake up with a fright.
"W-w-we're under attack!" Cringer shuddered, looking like he was trying to make himself invisible behind the too-small chair Adam was still sitting at.
"There's nothing to worry about, Cringer!" Adam assured, stroking the tiger's head to try and ease his nerves. "Just an accident, right Orko?"
"Yeah, right, accident." Orko said, sounding like he was trying to assure himself, while also staring at the spot on his robes.
"That stuff stains easily." Adam added. "You should wash that off before it sets."
"I'm sorry, "wash"?" Orko said, suddenly sounding a bit affronted. "That's another thing Trollans do that's different! We never have to wash anything! Not clothes nor body! Magic always does the trick!"
"Oh, boy…" Duncan said, sighing, as Orko was readying both of his hands to enchant a spell.
By pure chance, the spell…seems to have worked? A small patch of sparkles covered the area where the stain was. And, if by magic, because it was, the stain was gone, the red returning to the robe like the stain never happened.
"Well, I'll be." Duncan said, sounding somewhat impressed.
"See, I don't lie about what Trolla's like!" Orko proudly said, crossing his arms, which by chance put one of his fingers where the stain just was.
"We'll see." Duncan said, as he and Adam left the room, Cringer tailing behind.
Orko started to follow the three, as he uncrossed his arms. A small smudge of wet red paint-like dye was on his finger. He quickly wiped it onto the side of his robe and picked up his speed.
In due time, the Attak Trak, with Adam, Duncan, Cringer, and Orko inside, was headed to the Stink Swamp. Getting there was the easy part, the place wasn't exactly hidden. It was the remainder that was the tricky part. As soon as the four stepped out of the vehicle, the reason for the swamp's name was apparent.
"Phew!" Orko exclaimed, holding the section of his shadowed face where his nose should be. "They don't call it the Stink Swamp for nothing!"
"We only need three pieces of the Life Stones." Duncan said, also covering his nose up. "Try not to get too distracted when getting them, Orko."
"Oh…you were serious about me getting those…" Orko muttered to himself. "Well…all right, then."
Moments later, Orko was floating through the swamp lands. The stench bogged even further in this bog the deeper he flew in, as the Trollan plugged his nose all the way through.
"Phew, even holding my nose isn't doing a thing here…" Orko said to himself. "I hope these Life Stones get easier to find, I don't know how long I can stay in here!"
A few more minutes of flying, and Orko found himself smack dab in the middle of the gigantic swamp. There was a large rock formation, with crumbled-off, yet still hefty-looking, pieces of it surrounding its cliffs. It was magenta, just like the picture in the book.
"That's them!" Orko said, taking his hand off his nose and preparing to grab he Life Stones. Big mistake.
Turns out, the reason why these Life Stones are so rare was for a simple reason: the further you got into the Stink Swamp, the more stink it had, the epicenter of the swamp proving to be the worst. And this was the only place this element was in the entire swamp. Orko quickly plugged his nose back up. He had a choice now: risk the stink or attempt to grab three pieces with a single hand.
"I'm…sure I can carry all three with one hand!" Orko rationalized to himself, though it very much sounded like he didn't believe his tale. "Yeah. That should be easy to do."
Picking up the first Life Stone was easy. That only took one hand. The second stone was grabbed by wrenching the cranny of his elbow. That was trickier, and these were bigger and heavier than he expected. Finally, the third stone. He spun around and observed it, and then finally tried to sandwich the third stone he could find in between the two he was already precariously carrying. Keyword was tried here. What seemed to be a sudden success suddenly became a very weighty feeling. Turns out, carrying three giant stones with a single arm is a bad idea.
"Oh, they're slipping! They're slipping!" Orko cried out, and then realized another unfortunate fact. "Oh, no, I'm slipping!"
Before he could react, there were the sound of heavy splashes in the swamp. One…two…three…four? Not only did these Life Stones weigh like, well, stones, but they also brought Orko down with them. Sure, the swamp might be shallow, but three stones and a slightly heavier-than-a-stone Trollan is going to bring water upwards. And where things go up, they must come down. Drenched wet in a thick and slimy green water were three of the Life Stones…and one Orko.
"Eww…" He said to himself, pulling his dripping sleeves upwards. "I can't give Man-At-Arms these messy stones now!"
"Orko, are you okay out there?" A faint voice could be heard yelling from where he couldn't see. It was Adam.
"Uh, yeah!" He called back, scrambling to float back up. Subconsciously, he tucked two of the slime-soaked Life Stones into the pocket dimension of his sleeves, one per arm, and the third in the pocket dimension held up in his hat. He quickly grabbed three more Life Stones at random, ignoring the stench that still surrounded him, and dashed off back to the others.
If he had spent just a small amount of time more, he might have noticed a glistening aura floating in the sky. A glistening aura that looked like it was watching Orko…
This aura led to the screen of Skeletor's viewpoint in Snake Mountain. Through this, he had seen Orko taking the Life Stones, the new three at least.
"So, the imp was brave enough to collect some Life Stones, was he?" Skeletor asked to no one in particular, rewatching the bit over and over. "I think it oughta be time to pay that living bundle of laundry a little visit…"
"I got the stones!"
Orko's voice, sounding like he was panting, suddenly rang out from the swamps. As soon as he reached the others near the Attak Trak, he suddenly saw them recoil in disgust, and heard the noises that confirmed what they were seeing.
"Orko, what happened to you?!" Adam asked, reacting in shock, as he held his nose.
"You got distracted, didn't you?" Duncan asked, trying to sound stern, but it was obvious that the stench that permeated off of Orko from the center waters of the swamp was loosening that grip.
"What, no!" Orko said, getting defensive. "And I got the stones!"
Orko handed the three clean Life Stones to Duncan, who took them, albeit a bit tentatively.
"Let's get out of this place!" Cringer complained. "It's smelling worse and worse by the second here, and this doesn't help!"
"The sooner the better!" Orko added, floating towards the Attak Trak.
"Orko, I think you should follow OUTSIDE of the Attak Trak." Duncan said, as Adam and Cringer tried to hide mutters of agreement.
"Oh…" Orko said, sounding dejected.
Despite being able to catch up with the Attak Trak with no problem, Orko was still a bit embarrassed about this situation. Sure, he was soaking wet with a substance that didn't exactly seem like water, and sure, he smelled about as bad as Stinkor, and sure, this WAS far more than he ever had to hide with his magic before on himself, but as long as no one told him what to do, he should be…
"We're here." Duncan said, as the Attak Trak stopped at the entrance of the castle. The doors of the vehicle opened, as Adam, Duncan and Cringer stepped out, still recoiling in surprise unintentionally from the offending odor, as they kept a fair distance from the wizard.
"Ah, Orko." Adam said, sounding like he was trying to hide an apologetic tone to his voice. "Maybe you should use that trick you used this morning to get rid of that smell?"
"The trick?" Orko gulped. The trick. The trick that was just being handy with dye magic. The trick that had kept him out of the bathrooms of the castle for as long as he could remember. The trick that kept him wearing the same pieces of clothing longer than one should be doing. "Okay…here we go…"
Orko shut his eyes and wiggled both of his fingers, feeling sparkles coming from them. Suddenly his body felt lighter and dryer, as if the water was being pulled off of him. Tentatively opening an eye, he looked up at the direction where the water was: floating up in the sky! He had actually did it! In his glee, he didn't notice the swirls of red, orange, pink, and blue swirling through the very large slime puddle that was directly above his head.
"I did it!" Orko said, happily. "I actually did it!"
"Uh…Orko?" Cringer nervously asked, gesturing towards the wizard's robes.
"Huh?" Orko asked, now distracted, as he looked down. He probably shouldn't have looked down.
His scarf and robe, now free from the dye that he'd been "painting" with for this long while, now revealed their true colors. In this case, literally. Stains from meals past, accidental magic ash burns, and the occasional slip-up outside, was now plastered on his outfit. And, since he couldn't see this, it was also plastered on the small visible pieces of skin poking out of his basically-just-clothing build, the same dye trick was being used on his blue skin as well, along with his hat that he couldn't see at this angle.
"…Uh-oh." Orko said in meek shock, distracting himself from the spell he was doing.
Thanks to this lack of control, the swamp water, which was still floating right above is head, had nowhere else to go. Well, that is, nowhere else to go but down. A waterfall of stinking slime water, mixed with errant streaks of magical dye, soon dropped down in a torrent, soaking the wizard even further than when he simply fell into the swamp. Because of the distance the others were keeping from the now-returned stench, the entirety of the once-freed contents only hit one target: Orko himself.
"So, "magic always does the trick", does it?" Duncan asked, returning to his stern personality, as Orko stood in shock, dripping like a wet rat, his entire self painted a putrid green with ugly rainbow dye swirls that was very obviously soaking through his clothing onto skin unseen. "Now, I'm going back in to use these Life Stones as planned. Oh, and Orko?"
"…Yes, Man-At-Arms?" Orko meekly asked, dreading the inevitable, as he still stared in shock.
"You're going directly into the castle and dealing with, well…all of this." Duncan said, gesturing to his entire body. "Immediately. With absolutely no magic spells whatsoever to help you here, because it obviously won't."
"…Yes, sir." Orko quietly said, floating into the castle, dreading what was set to come…