Tales of the Trio: Unbroken

Chapter Six

Now it's Dominic's turn to explain his month, as you know he works in the library. He mainly makes sure the books are sorted, put away, helping people find what book they need. In his free time which is quite a bit but not as much as you would assume given it's a library, he would read books during that free time. He even made a list of all the books the library had on magic and history that he hadn't read yet so that he can make sure to read them. Once a week maybe once every two weeks the library receives shipments of books and as the newest employee he was assigned to go through all the books they received to figure out which ones went to the royal library, which ones were to be sold and which ones needed to be added to the library. It's quite a hard, long process because you have to check which books are already owned, the quality, who it's written by and more things. About three days before the night of the discussion they've been having, a fictional book came into the library through one of the shipments, usually those don't catch his interest but this particular one did because it was about the history of orcs. He wanted to know more about the monsters who nearly killed him, sure he knows a lot about them but he had never seen a fictional book based on history of orcs or even heard of one, he was also unsure who would write a fictional history book because history is supposed to be real.

     He had read something in it about how there used to be orc societies, kingdoms, how they ruled. Eventually being pushed back into the mountains and the dark caverns which had their own issues. Just like humans have 'royal' bloodlines, bloodlines with magic, and other types, apparently orcs have a few bloodlines themselves, all being really rare besides the typical barbaric nature of orcs. Apparently there used to be one line who could tame dragons and other beast, another who could use advanced magic that only the most powerful of magic users can wield, then there was a particular kind that applies to what he's heard from Lela, a kind that is smart enough to command orcs in a civilized manner, almost as if human, just like the orc kingdoms that used to supposedly exist in this fictional book. Brutal and ruthless but smart enough to be able to keep thousands, possibly even millions of orcs in line, and if given the chance they could make their own orc kingdom and society rather than the typical tribal orcs or orcs following cultist. Which according to this book, a orc like that rose up in power one time in one of the more dangerous lands and fortunately the resistance there stopped them before they could have an orc army. The dragon taming orcs could amass armies with the fear but they wouldn't work well together and were still tribal so in fighting would happen very often, the advanced magic using orcs could get big amounts of cultist orcs who believed the magic orc was a deity or a prophet for one of their gods but belief only goes so far in unity. Serving a orc as a king, living together without killing one another, living like other races is terrifying giving their nature. The reason why Dominic feels like this is relevant to bring up is because there's no way someone within the court would be working with orcs unless it's one of the many special blood line orcs, even if it wasn't one of the ones just mentioned, but he thinks it is especially the last type since they were able to set up a ambush. However these bloodlines are supposed to be fictional.

As Dominic was continuing to explain and tell his story the door bursted open and a few soldiers rushed in, all of them wearing the armor and emblems that the members of the guard wear. They drew their swords one saying to the rest "Remember, we're to kill them, no survivors!" They began to march at the adventurers with their swords raised and facing them. Maximus flipped the table towards the soldiers, grabbed his sword and shield getting into a defensive stance while Lela pulled knives out of from her hidden sheathes, the three of them backed against the wall. There was sounds of additional soldiers outside, but they were fighting and to the sounds of it dying. The soldiers inside got distracted by it, one of them taking this opportunity to begin killing their fellow soldiers quickly. Verdell walked in and the soldier who had just killed the others took off his helmet and turns out it was Wesley, the captain said "We need to get you guys out of here now, I've made sure to have the route clear of soldiers, follow Verdell, you have five seconds to grab your belongings!" The captain put his helmet back on to conceal his identity and he took off running out the door, a survivor fleeing.

    The three adventures  were confused and nervous but still listened, Lela sheathed her knives and grabbed her coin purse, Maximus slipped on the chainmail armor although still bloody and grabbed the pack that Dominic was packing for them, Dominic was tossing in food and trying to grab a book or two which he had to carry both of them since Maximus gave him no time to put them in, Verdell said "Follow me, don't stop for anything." He slipped out and the trio followed him, they were heading down the street stepping over the eight now dead guards who were waiting as back up, they headed through the crowds of people and down some roads all the way to the end of a abandoned alley way by the kingdom walls, Maximus said quietly and kind of upset "Do you even know where we're going? This is a dead end." Verdell smirked at him and said "I'll pretend like I'm not risking my life for you as well as pretend that I didn't kill eight men for you not even five minutes ago, but it's a secret exit that only the captain and guard know about to insure it's secrecy." He tapped a few stones and it was obvious this was a magical exit when the stones moved and formed a door way to outside the kingdom. Verdell looked at them and said "Run, don't come back, don't stop until you're in another kingdoms land. You will never be safe here. Someone sold you guys out and chances are you'll be wanted soon enough. You guys were framed to be spies and working with orcs and now killing guards, so just go and live out your life, the captain and I will handle things, we will figure it out, we already have allies." It was obvious the last two parts were a lie that he didn't mean to show. He shoved the three out and the stones closed and formed the wall again. The trio looked at each other and ran like they had done when their village was raided, except this time they were better prepared and knew what's actually happening along how corrupt the kingdom is and the real danger lurking.