Chapter 5: Stealth is Optional
Tarog was a patient boss. He knew when to wait for the wind to change before moving, knew when to cover his tracks and how to follow his prey's tracks, and knew what is safe to eat after forcing some of the unlucky gretchins to test the taste of some of the animals and plants they cooked in different ways. Living in the jungles of the deathworld known as Catachan was quite a challenge bordering on the impossible. However, he did notice long ago that if the humans could live on this world, using its natural resources to make the Catachan Jungle Fighters, then he would strive to be the first ever ork boss to have trained up a new kind of ork modeled after them. The Catachan ork jungle hunters. They would be the crowning jewels of the snakebites klans.
Tarog considers himself a more modern member of his Snakebites klan. His first foray into this world went about as horribly as one might expect. Despite dropping so many roks onto this world, the animals and plants swarmed to their fortifications and defenses, rending both structure and ork apart in equal measure. If a direct assault on the surface of the planet cannot yield an ork colony, then Tarog figured that they could make a colony underneath it. The mekboss they had kept alive used their talents to shovel away the dirt and stone to find ores deep in the underground, while Tarog cautiously lead many expeditions into the jungle environment to harvest, salvage, scavenge and gather various kinds of resources and rations.
It had been difficult, but with every new room created deep underground, the orks and gretchins would ensure that their presence would remain undetected from the flora and fauna of Catachan. He just had to make sure that the entrances that lead into his underground base were properly protected by several burna sentries, and that every entrance has a deep hidden pitfall, with the walls kept as slippery as possible, with the bottom of the pits lined with incendiary explosives and a strong cage door. Tarog named these 'The Catachan Devil Traps'. It was efficient against dangerous predators, including the Catachan devils, but it would be useless against a horde of hostile enemies. The entrances into his secret underground base were also protected by a special effigy. Tarog had the idea to cover these entrances with removable fake rocks which had a fake frog placed on top of them. They hadn't had too many animals try to break into their hidden entrances ever since those fake frogs were placed.
Furthermore, the underground ork base had dug out a network of several underground chambers, such as labyrinths, dungeons, and oubliettes. Tarog needed to build an underground ecosystem so that the ork spores can get to work in seeding the ground, spawn more orkoid organisms, and feed back into his army with troops and more rations. But then again, with using the underground environment to stage his army, there were caveats to living by this kind of lifestyle. One was the use of using the burnas to burn away any plants that try to grow in the subterranean environment, or using the smelters to extract metal from blood or ores to make into metal ingots. Having to rely on a series of smoke filters to hide the underground ork base was a logistical problem that Tarog had no idea to tackle, but Scraptooth had proven himself capable of addressing and managing that issue.
His rage was understandable when he learned that his mekboss is no longer alive, slain by the very bauble Skark's boys had brought in that they had mistakenly thought was a weapon. It instead turned out to be an incredibly dangerous enemy. He had already killed ten gretchins after listening to the retelling of the conflict from each one.
Tarog the Huntboss threw away yet another gretchen corpse to his personal pet squig. After hearing enough, he turned to his retinue of surviving gretchins, ork boys and nobs. "Alright you lot. Listen ere'. Dheres a man in blue armor runnin' around in my underground base dhat has killed my mekboss. He's smaller than a space marine, but about as strong as one. He gots a kannon on his right arm, and he can turn himself into a round ball fhing. I want him found. I want him brought to me. I don't care if ya catch or krump im', but by Gork and Mork if I so much as catch im', I'll make him wish he never ever angered me. I'll take his shiny bits and hand dhem off to dhe next mekboss I can find. NOW GET OUT DHERE AND FIND DHA GIT NAMED CULARITIES!"
The orkiod horde rushed off in various random directions, clambering over each other to be the first to find, and either capture or kill, Cularities.
Tarog clenched his jaw as he watched his army began searching for the intruder.
Cularities groaned in annoyance as they encountered yet another empty room filled with mushrooms, burning torches, and some weird animals inhabiting it. They left their morph ball form and stood up before using their newly acquired Scan Visor power-up to analyze the scannable objects in this room.
Name: Oily Torch
Description: None. Please access the logbook to create an entry.
Name: Mushroom
Morphology: Bio-engineered fungus/animal hybrid. Hyper mutative fungi variant.
Name: Squig.
Morphology: Bio-engineered fungus/animal hybrid. Hyper mutative animal variant.
Description: None. Please access the logbook to create an entry.
This is about the fiftieth time I scanned these lifeforms and the scanner keeps saying these are called squigs. I mean yeah, I know these are squigs! But why do they look so different from each other?! No way these can be related to the orks! Can they?! ... Then again, if I think about it more thoroughly, the 'bio-engineered' part of their morphology does imply that this might be a feature in the ork species. Does this imply the orks, the gretchins, and all these grubby little monsters are the same species? Why even go the effort to design these monsters in this way?!
A cave squig noticed Cularities entered into their den, which prompted them to hungrily attack.
Cularities parried the squig's bite, went to grab at its leg, and then hoisted it off the ground. The squig's growls protested against its handling, but it could do nothing against Cularities.
Been feeling a bit tired since I fled that engineer's workshop. I was hoping I could take my helmet off and get some fresh air for once, but then I had to be captured and brought into this underground ork base. Then again, I do wonder if my energy draining power isn't exclusive to my morph ball form. Sorry about this, little squig, but you did try to eat me first.
Cularities began to drain the energy from the squig hanging in their grasp. It screeched loudly and in pain, but was unable to snap and gnaw at the hand that gripped it. Before too long, the creature's struggling lessened before becoming completely still, its flesh darkening to a dead gray. When Cularities dropped the squig onto the ground, collapsing into a pile of powder as it landed, Cularities took note of their HUD. Their energy meter now read 599/599. They also took note of their upgrades.
Energy Part: cost 199
Energy Reserve: cost 499
Missile Tank: cost 499
Energy-to-Missile Conversion: cost 499
Aeion Tank: cost 199
Aeion Generator: cost 199
Cross Bomb: cost 399
Power Bomb: cost 999
Force Ball: cost 299
Death Ball: cost 449
Spazer Beam: cost 399
Wide Beam: cost 399
Laser Beam: Cost 399
Plasma Beam: cost 399
Wave Beam: cost 399
Ice Beam: cost 399
Diffusion Beam: cost 399
Rapid Beam: cost 199
Short Beam: cost 99
Solid Beam: cost 99
Stun Beam: cost 99
Spin Boost: cost 399
Grapple Beam: cost 399
Scope Visor: cost 199
Thermal Visor: cost 249
X-Ray Visor: cost 249
Dark Visor: cost 249
Echo Visor: cost 249
Command Visor: cost 499
Powered Armorsuit: cost 499
Oh my goodness those are a lot of beams. Also, why are the Spazer and Wide Beams listed on here? Aren't they the same thing? And why do I remember that? And what the hell is the Laser Beam? Isn't that a bit redundant? And can't I already fire pretty fast? Rapid Beams seems just as redundant. And what even the hell is Solid Beam? And what about the upgrade next to it?! Short Beam?! SHORT BEAM?! ... Okay. Calm down. Let's just use our current energy to buy the cheapest upgrades and figure things out from there. No need to have an aneurysm.
Cularities started with unlocking the Rapid Beam, Short Beam, Solid Beam, and Stun Beam upgrades.
The Rapid Beam did as Cularities expected. A line of rapid shots flew from their arm cannon and scored a line of scored marks on the wall of the underground chamber. It seemed to conflict with the Charge Beam.
As expected, the Short Beam upgrade was useless. It conflicted with the Long Beam, even when it did the same amount of damage. Inversely, if Cularities were to turn of one of these beams, then its opposite would turn back on. It was a peculiarly strange feature.
Curiously, the Solid Beam plunked against the wall and floated in the air before it dissipated. Was it some kind of tangible hologram? A projectile of hard light? Energy made into physical form? It seemed to do even less damage than the other beam types they have so far. With a grumble, Cularities continued with the next beam type.
Testing the next projectile type on the wall, the Stun Beam discharged an electrical shot. Cularities saw no damage that the projectile left behind. This beam would do little damage, and might as well be used as a means to disable an enemy temporarily.
As the energy alarm blared in their ears, Cularities went ahead and bought the Aeion Tank upgrade. A new gauge showed up next to their charge gauge and their energy gauge. It was empty. Cularities wondered how they would fill it. It was a dumb thought, as they just remembered that the Aeion Generator upgrade exists. Cularities surmised they could get more of this aeion energy from their usual method of draining energy from their prey. But then again, as per the pattern of upgrade tropes they have come to learn to expect, it would no doubt unlock some new upgrades that they haven't seen yet. Once more, Cularities looked at their Upgrade menu.
What they discovered seemed promising.
Scan Pulse Radar: cost 499
Lightning Armor: cost 499
Beam Burst: cost 499
Phase Shift: cost 499
Phantom Cloak: cost 499
Flash Shift: cost 499
Phantom Cloak seemed like an enticing upgrade to get. They would have to dedicate a lot of energy to acquire it.
"I fhink I heard some stuff happenin' down here!"
"Check it out, Garg!"
"What? Why me?!"
"Because you're closer to dhe door! Now get in dhere!"
Cularities sighed, jumping into the corner of the ceiling and turning into a Spider Morph Ball to hide.
An ork boy rushed into the room, brandishing their crude, yet sharp, axe weapon. The ork boy surveyed the room for a few seconds before relaxing and lowering his weapon. "It's clear."
Another ork came in. Cularities recognized this boy to be Norcol. "You sure? What about dhe squig dhat's squattin in here?"
"Gone. Must ave' smelled somefhin' good to eat and went after it." Garg said, stepping through the dusty powder pile that used to be a squig.
After spending a minute of searching the small chamber, Norcol went in to check on Garg. "Nothin's here. Let's go check dhe next room."
With a grunt, Garg left with Norcol. When the room was finally emptied of orks, Cularities rolled down the wall and stood up in their fusion suit. When they were certain that the coast was clear, Cularities made their way to the next area, glad that the orks were not smart enough to look up and spot them.
Thankfully for Cularities, there was an overabundance of overhead ventilation shafts that seemed to connect many of the rooms together, serving the purpose of siphoning stale air out of the underground, and letting them ball-crawl through tight spaces without alerting the alarmed orks and gretchins. Then again, that gave Cularities an idea. If they were to follow the flow of air, then they might be able to find an entrance that might lead out of this underground ork base. Something as simple as a piece of cloth torn from the clothes of the orks could be used as a wind-powered dousing rod. However, their more immediate concern was to gather enough energy to acquire two more much-needed upgrades. The Phantom Cloak and the Aeion Generator.
But then there was one problem that kept occurring for Cularities.
There was a lone gretchin that was using what could have passed as a broom. Cularities, as quietly as they could, snuck up to the sweeper and stopped his scream with a chokehold. After a brief struggle, their energy had been completely stolen by Cularities. Cularities released the gretchin, now gray and dead, and let him fall to the ground in a messy pile of dust. Seconds afterwards, the room was quickly populated by orks, gretchins, and nobs. They looked around, found nothing, and left a few armed guards in the area. Some gretchins seemed to have noticed the dust and scraps of cloth left by Cularities' latest victims, but they didn't assume much else, and assumed that some gretchins had clumsily dropped and forgot a set of their clothes while they spilled some dust they were shifting.
Apparently, the orks and gretchins have the ability to sense when one of their own had died.
Are these guys telepathic? They don't seem telepathic to me.
Rather than contemplate on the implications, or further risk alarming the orks by draining more squigs and gretchins, Cularities decided to continue following the flow of air and look for the exit of the underground ork base, using a strip of cloth from their latest gretchin victim. It took quite a while, followed by a few detours and dead-ends,with the seldom gretchin or squig energy snack along the way, but they eventually found themselves within the chamber they had first saw when they were brought into the underground ork base. Cularities wasn't able to see all of it the first time merely because the orks had blocked their vision when they hovered over their collected loot pile at the time. Now they saw that the room had various skulls mounted on the walls of this chamber, and one of the walls had a throne, built with bones and scrap as part of its construction.
There was an upper level to this room, and Cularities felt sure that the higher they went, the closer to the surface they will be. But then they also saw the incredibly large ork that sat on his throne. Huntboss Tarog. He was steeping in his livid anger. Cularities decided that saying hello to him might bring disaster. Instead, they opted to slowly crawl to the second level and begin looking for an exit on the next floor up.
Another ork came into the chamber, mumbling incoherently. Cularities decided to eavesdrop on their conversation. "Razza. Razza Razza. Frazza. Green. All green. Green always." This ork seemed to have a metal covering over their head, which had screws poking out from haphazard directions. They drunkenly carried a strange staff that had various coils welded onto it. Rather than the natural red of the ork and gretchen eye colors, this ork's eyes practically glowed a sparkling electric green.
Tarog growled at the ork intruder."Razza. I don't need yer visions. Go back to yer corner."
"Razza sensed it. Razza sensed it. A blue metal man came around and ate us, it did. Several gretchins did it kill with its arm kannon, but it ate a few gretchins too. It drank dheir energy like a thirsty boy widh a mug of mushroom beer in his hand, looking at a brewboy like dhey were dheir savior." Razza blurted.
Tarog growled even more at Razza. "What point are ya makin', weirdboy?"
Razza reached into his pocket and showed it to Tarog. It was gray dust. "See dhis, boss? It used to be a gretchin, it was. Now it a dead gretchin. Razza can feel it in dhe dust. Dheir last moments. A blue metal man came for dhem, it did. It drank dheir energy. Dhey turned into dhis, dhey did."
Tarog glared at Razza for several seconds before he rose up from his throne. "SKARK! WHEN ARE YOU GONNA STOP MUCKIN' ABOUT AND GET YOUR GITFINDAH!?"
Crashing sounds could be heard as Skark came into the room, running and then coming to a stop in front of Razza and Tarog. "Sorry, boss. I was trying to find my snazzgun."
"You don't need snazzguns fer findin' gits. You need a gitfinda ta find gits. Razza here says our intruder has been drinkin' energy from us, yeh? Says he's been turning dhem into dhis dust." Tarog said, pointing at the small handful of dust in Razza's hand.
Skark looked at the dust and scrunched his face in disgust. "And you touched it? What would happen if you turned into dhat dust too?"
Tarog shook his head and growled. "He ain't gonna turn ta dust, ya zoggin' idiot. He already touched it when he brought it ta me, but he didn't turn into it, see? So because he touched it, and didn't turn into dust, he's not gonna turn into dust. Got it?"
Cularities is surprised by how stupid the orks are.
Tarog turned to Skark. "Get yer gitfindah workin' and go look fer Cularities. I want him found. NOW."
Skark nodded before affixing some kind of headpiece with a red lens onto his head. "Right. Uh... What kind of settin' should I set dhis on?"
"What do ya mean 'what settin''?! Set it ta 'git'!" Tarog roared.
Skark nodded and fiddled with the device on his head. A short high-pitch whir of sound winded up before becoming silent. Skark then looked around in the room. Their gaze settled on Cularities that was motionless on the very lip of the second floor of the upper room. Skark then turned to Tarog. "Boss, put dhis base into lockdown now."
"Why's dhat?" Tarog asked.
Skark pointed at Cularities, hanging on the lip of the second floor that lead to the upper levels. "I fhink dhat's dhe git we've been lookin' for."
ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!
Tarog nodded with realization, and then went to his throne to press a few buttons. All of the doors leading out of the upper floors suddenly closed. Tarog then brought out a microphone from a hidden compartment from his throne. "EVERYONE! THE ZOGGIN' GIT IS IN DHE CENTRAL CHAMBER! GET IN HERE! AND AS FER ANY OF YOU LOT STILL IN DHA UPPER LEVELS, YER JUST GONNA HAVE TO WAIT OUTSIDE TILL I SAYS ODHERWISE!"
"Can I get a spear? I fhink I can knock it down from here." Skark asked.
"Hang on. I got a rock." Tarog said, picking up a large stone with their mechanical arm and chucking it at Cularities.
Cularities dropped from the wall, the rock creating a small crater in the floor on the level above the trophy chamber. Cularities left their morph ball form and landed on their boots. They then stood up to turn and look at Skark the nob, Razza the weirdboy, and Huntboss Tarog.
Name: Nob Skark
Morphology: Bio-engineered fungus/animal hybrid. Large leader variant.
Description: None. Please access the logbook to create an entry.
Name: Weirdboy Razza
Morphology: Bio-engineered fungus/animal hybrid. Psycher specialist variant.
Description: None. Please access the logbook to create an entry.
Name: Huntboss Tarog
Morphology: Bio-engineered fungus/animal hybrid. Larger leader variant.
Description: None. Please access the logbook to create an entry.
Cularities sighed. The thought of creating entries in this logbook thing would probably take a lot of their time. But pondering on this would have to be postponed for later. Tarog stepped forward. "You were dha one dhat killed Mekboss Scraptooth? You're dhe git named Cularities?"
"Yes." Cularities answered.
Tarog clenched their jaw so hard Cularities thought his teeth would break. He pointed at Cularities with their mechanical hand. "You had a lot of nerve krumpin' my mekboss. He knew how to maintain all of dhe stuff in my underground base. Now I gotta find a new mekboss to repair my stuff and make new fhings! But once I find a new mekboss, I'll be sure to keep yer shiny armor bits nice-like before I hand it to him."
"You can try, but I won't let you." Cularities stated.
"Is dhat a challenge?" Tarog asked with an leery gleeful smile.
"It's a promise." Cularities answered. They then gestured to Tarog. "But I have an offer. If you let me go, then I won't ever bother you again."
Tarog paused. A snigger left his tusked mouth. "You wot? Nevah' bofher us again? I ain't gonna let dhat happen. Look at it my way. You are a new kind of enemy dhat came into my underground base, see? And because you're new, I wanna know how good you can fight. If ya killed Scraptooth, dhen dhat means you're pretty tough and ard'. I want to have a chance at fighting you, to see if you're fun in a battle. Because of dhat, I wanna fight ya until ya either krump me, or I krump you. Simple as dhat."
Cularities paused for a few seconds. "I offered Scraptooth a chance for peace, but he threw it away. Are you all like this? Are all orks like this?"
"Peace? Pah. Peace just ain't our way, Cularities." Tarog aggressively growled. "We orks love to fight. To battle! To WAAAGH! We would radher fight till dhe end of our lives dhan to be peaceful like and die peaceful like. It just ain't very orky, see?"
"So there is no purpose to your warlike nature other than you like doing it for fun?" Cularities asked.
"Exactly." The trophy chamber was slowly filling up with more orks, which changed Tarog's expression to delight. "Now dhen. Let's see how you can handle my boys. Alright! One of ya! Come in and test dhis git's strength! Krump him if ya can! I wanna see how good he can handle himself!"
"I'll go get my snazzgun." Skark said, sharing Tarog's violent grin as they left the trophy room, pushing down gretchins and passing by orks smaller than him.
One of the orks cracked their knuckles and rushed forward at Cularities. The ork was two meters in height, carried a heap of muscles in their body, and had sharp tusks and sharp-nailed fingers to bear. Overall, the ork boy had more mass compared to Cularities.
Cularities internally sighed. They realized that the Phantom Cloak upgrade will have to wait.
A huge right hook shot out to meet Cularities, but they predicted the attack and dodged. A left hook followed, then a jab, undercut, overhead hammer, and then a rushing clothesline. Cularities sidestepped, twisted, ducked and jumped between each of these attacks with the grace of a bird. Cularities decided to get close with a high kick to their face, then followed through with an axe kick to force the orks body to slam into the ground. Once floored, Cularities' left hand picked up the ork boy's leg and pulled the body with enough force to heave it into the nearest crowd of surrounding orks.
"Very good. Now how about two more boys? GET IN DHERE, LADS!" Tarog roared. Two ork boys joined into the fracas next. One of them carried one of those chopping weapons, and they attacked first.
Cularities parried the attack of the first ork, swinging their arm cannon in a deft arc, only to twirl once and backhand the ork's back with their arm cannon, stunning them. The other ork attacker reached out for Cularities in a grapple, but Cularities rolled into a Ball Morph and dodged between their legs in one quick motion. Exiting the ball morph, Cularities then kicked the second attacking ork's knee and then elbowed their back, making them fall hard onto their face. Cularities then pressed their advantage onto the stunned ork they backhanded earlier and delivered a dropkick into them, launching that ork boy into the crowd of cheering orks and gretchins. Cularities then walked to the ork they floored, drained a little bit of their energy, picked them up from the belt with some strained effort, and then swung the second ork into the crowd. They hoped that the energy they drained from the ork was covert enough to not raise suspicion.
Razza blinked dumbly at Cularities a few times.
"Double time it! More boys! Have at dha git!" Tarog roared with maddening joy. Four orks came out of the crowd of violence-hungry orkoids. One ork, the first brawler from before, seemed to want another go. Two other orks had bright chopping weapons, while the fourth one had brought a crude pistol with a bayonet fixed onto its jagged barrel.
Oh this is hardly fair. Cularities thought derisively.
The orks with the chopping weapon came after Cularities first. In two quick motions, Cularities parried each of their strikes, but made sure to stay behind one of the orks so that they wouldn't be in the gun-toting ork's iron sights. The brawling ork lunged forward in an attempt to grapple down Cularities. Rather than let the ork pin them down, Cularities tucked their legs in, grabbed at the ork's neck with their free hand, rolled backward to pull the ork off-balance, and then kicked outwards hard. This maneuver launched the ork back into the crowd.
Pain lanced Cularities' right shoulder and in their abdomen. The ork with the bladed handgun managed to fire a few shots and got two projectiles to land, not caring that one of their missed rounds struck down a gretchin that was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Cularities notices that their Energy Meter had became dangerously low from the attack. It was a direct blow, and it reduced their energy to 132/599. That weapon might have been very inaccurate, but it can sure hit HARD. Cularities ran toward the gunner, rolling into a ball to dodge another shot and a swipe of their pistol's bayonet knife. Using a combination of the Short, Rapid, and Scatter Beams, Cularities unloaded a barrage of energy shots that quickly riddled the gun-toting ork's face.
Despite the violence Cularities had delivered to the offending ork armed with a ranged weapon, this only seemed to rile the crowd. The insane assemblage of orks were enjoying the show, and they wanted to partake in the violent madness.
The two stunned chopping orks shook themselves out of their stupors and began rushing at Cularities. Foregoing their pacifism, Cularities parried one ork and shot him down. They then parried the other ork and shot him down in a similar manner. The ork Cularities flung into the crowd, twice in a row, came back while carrying with him a pair of large pistols, both having bayonet blades affixed to their barrels. Cularities quickly switched to using their Stun Beam and temporarily paralyzed the ork. Checking their energy, Cularities noticed that they have enough energy to purchase an upgrade. Specifically, the Grapple Beam. A line of magnetized energy shot out and latched onto one of the ork's pistols. Cularities yanked it out of their grasp and caught it in their left hand. They then shot their stolen pistol at the paralyzed ork directly in his head, using his own weapon against him. That gave enough Energy for Cularities to buy another Energy Part. They're going to need a lot of them to survive this battle.
Tarog laughed with ecstatic glee as they watched Cularities killing his orks. "Wonderfully done! Ha ha ha ha ha! Get some more boys in dhere! More! MORE!"
The gathering of bloodthirsty orks continued to bellow and bray for the intruder's death, caring not for their own personal safety, or the death of their kin.
Cularities needed to find a way to end this madness soon.
A/N: An ork party is never really a party unless somebody dies.