The Orc's Treasure (desertpaladin & Lala)

[Lala]

Kira curled up on a chaise, nibbling on a date as she considered how, exactly, she was going to get out of this one. In all of her three thousand years, she had never once come across a mortal who could best her, yet this wizard had somehow trapped her inside a ring. A ring! At least it was a beautiful ring: a thick, gold band encrusted with a spray of rubies and sapphires surrounding an enormous emerald. Zhafir the Great - as he called himself; Kira did not think he was so great - had been after her for quite some time, though she didn't know why until recently. Of course, she was quite used to being sought out due to the magnificence of her powers. There were many Djinn in the area, but few could match her. And everyone wanted riches, power, girls. The usual. Zhafir simply asked her to find a missing cat and somehow she ended up here.

After throwing a colossal fit that would likely have gone down in history had she not suffered it in the silence of this container, she quickly set about fixing up her new home. The bare canvas became a lush retreat of opulent curtains and lounges, hanging lanterns, plates heaping with fresh fruits and sweets. She gave herself beautiful plum silks tied on with golden ropes that barely covered her curves and highlighted the shimmery pale blue of her skin. She could have everything she wanted in here, design herself an absolute paradise, but she knew she would be summoned from her refuge before long.

Zhafir had let his plans slip as he was binding her to the ring as her new container. He was desperate to prove himself to some powerful new ruler in the east, and intended to offer her as a gift. The very thought made her lips purse to a tight bow. She had absolutely no intention of going along with such nonsense! As soon as she was let out, she would burn the city to the ground and have Zhafir eaten by dogs!

Cool lilac eyes narrowed. No. She couldn't. Not when she was bound to an object. Whoever possessed the ring would possess her and all her powers, and that was that. She didn't like it, but there wasn't a thing she could do about it until she tricked the owner into letting her free.

A tingle rippled down her back and she jerked upright. Fingers laced in the silken cushions of her chaise, but soon she was being torn upward, out of her refuge. She poured into the visible world in a puff of periwinkle smoke and stood before Zhafir scowling, arms folded across her chest. "Die," she said, though he was wearing the ring on his hand currently so her command went woefully unheeded.

"Now, now, is that a way to greet your master?" the old wizard said, eyes crinkling in a wicked smile.

"You are not."

"I am until we get to the city," he said, wiggling his finger with the ring in her face. She leaned forward to bite it and he laughed, but still jerked it away quickly. "You know you can't hurt me with this. You better get into serving mode soon, little genie, because your new owner is going to be expecting the magical pet I promised."

Kira scoffed and flicked a sable lock out of her face. Thick waves tumbled all the way down her back with jewels woven in the dark strands. "His expectations are your problem, wizard."

"Oh, you're not still mad I tricked you?" he said with a grin. He was a hideous man with bleary eyes and yellowed teeth and a wiry beard that twisted down his chest. Luckily, he already had a Djinn of his own so didn't seem keen on keeping her for himself. She shuddered to think of the things this man might wish for.

"You better hope I never escape this ring," she said sweetly through gritted teeth.

"And you better--" He cut himself off, peering at a dust cloud on the horizon. Suddenly, he was rubbing the ring in panic and she felt herself getting sucked back into her refuge.

She landed in a heap on her soft cushions, knocking over a bowl of fruit. It landed with a clatter, spilling grapes everywhere. She banged on the golden walls. "Hey! What's happening?" But she had been put away, and had no way of knowing what he saw in that dust cloud that worried him so much. And here she would stay, until summoned again by the bearer of the ring.

 

[desertpaladin]

The old man couldn't use her abilities, after all the bindings he had used had been powerful but... unstable. It would not allow him to use her to grant any wish he wanted thanks to the magics and it would be this, along with his lack of guards which would bring forward his downfall. The swirling sandstorm quickly began to part as green skinned brutes burst forward from the massive sandstorm. Riding atop the backs of massive chitinous beasts of the wastes the orcs of the Sun Eaters clan poured forward like an emerald tide. For an old wizard he fought well, magic flying through the air, electricity stunning orcs where they stood, powerful flames melting skin and muscle from bone and leaving organs exposed, blades of wind slicing the brutes apart. However no matter how many spells flew forward and how many orcs laid dead in the sands it was all for naught as for each orc that died another seemed to come forward to take his place. Eventually the mage stood, exhausted against the final two members of the strike force, he turned his focus to the younger opponent as the two charged, the elder orc had lost an arm and was losing blood quickly so he would be an easier target the wizard thought... he was wrong.

As his companion was blasted to the eternal plane an axe flew through the air and dug deep into bone and brains as the wizard's frail body was carried with the momentum of the throw and tossed to the sun baked sands. The older orc stood and growled, "Fucking finger wigglers..." he cursed spitting as even with a missing arm he walked over to the corpse of the old man, pulled back his loincloth and desecrated the man's corpse with a golden stream. "Fucking shaman..." he growled looking around at the carnage once his insult to the man he had murdered had finished. Orc flesh and blood littered the ground as well as glassy sections where stray spells hit if not massive craters in the once uniform dunes. It had been their shaman, an orc who went by the name Maddok, who had predicted that a long stranger would be going through these wastes with an item of great power, one which would grant the orcs of his group greater sway in not only the land of the sun, but the whole world. The younger orcs had been excited while veterans like him had been keen to stay back, to try and size up the enemy. They had not expected this.

Flipping the body over as he kneeled down he began to rifle through possessions. Scrolls, pouches of random junk that the wizard used for components, some gold teeth, "nothing..." The orc let out a roar. Gods if the wizard had not done so Grim would have killed Maddok himself using his own severed arm. He had kicked the corpse however something caught his eye... a ring? Strange he did not recall seeing one before as he knelt down and picked it up. "This shiny thing?" he muttered growling as he was about to toss it to the sands when suddenly the ring changed size in his hand. Confused he looked down at it and sure enough the small metal band with the shiny rocks atop had grown bigger, big enough to fit on his finger... "Magic..." he spoke the word with both awe and some distaste... was this what the wizard was using for his magic to make it more powerful? The orc didn't know but he placed the thing in his mouth to help slide it onto his right middle finger as he looked at it. He gave a small frown though as he did, it wasn't doing anything, was it supposed to do something? He held the ring up and called out, "Ring do something!" but nothing happened, he growled making various commands as eventually he was about to tug it off but as he shifted his hand under the pit of the stump of his left arm it rubbed against the gems and once again Kira was in the mortal realm, though this time standing before a very wounded orc.

Now compared to her Grim was a massive orc, a huge sheet of green skinned muscle which stood somewhere between 7 and 8 feet tall. His body was barely clad in anything more than a loincloth and some strips of chitin and leather made from the beasts of the sands as armor. Sure he now missed about half of his left arm but orcs were surprisingly resillient. They didn't get sick or suffer from as many poisons as a human, hell it was even joked about among their kind that the only way to kill one of them was to actually cut off their head. With long black hair tied into warbraids they began to show the signs of his age as strands of grey began to run through them. His ruby red eyes however seemed to not lack in youthful wrath and vigor as he glared at the woman who appeared before him before he rose a hand up to scratch at his massive scruff covered jawline. His thick lips moving to form the words, "A Genie..." his tusks glimmering as his lips curled into a wide smile. Sure he was an orc but Grim had been quite well versed in the world and how things worked as well as listening to stories. Before the girl could get much of a footing in how the world now was he grinned as he said, "Genie, I want my arm back... I wish for you to make my left arm back to how it was before this battle against that old bastard" he said pointing toward the piss covered corpse of the wizard who bound her.

 

[Lala]

Kira was uncertain how much time passed while she lounged in her retreat. Time held no sway here, and she quite easily and happily could pass millennia in this sequestered space. She busied herself with painting for a time. Certainly, she could conjure a ready-made painting at any moment, but she enjoyed the feeling of the long brush held between delicate fingers. Colors leapt onto the canvas, evoking one of the lush green spaces she favored at the western edge of the desert, where sand fell away to tall trees rising from steaming basins in the morning. She would never admit such, but she found the mortal realm to have a certain beauty to it that she could never replicate in here. Though she would happily shun that realm for the peace of this place, if it meant she didn't have to serve anyone. That was the curse of the Djinn: beautiful, powerful creatures of smoke and magic who could very easily rule that world if it weren't for the one fatal flaw. A flaw that saw her now bound to this object she resided in.

Surely they were at the city by now, she thought as she whisked a stray lock of hair back behind her ear, leaving a streak of green paint crossing her cheek. And then she would have to serve this new master, who would be fat and old and ugly, who would wish for silly things time and again. And I will have to give them to him.

She sighed and rose from her chair to cross the room, spinning in a circle to change her clothing to silks and gems fit for a queen. She wouldn't be a queen of course, nor would she want to be, but she meant to look as stunning as she was powerful to put the sultan off guard from the start. The fabric of these aqua ombre silks whispered gently as she moved, billowing around her ankles. The skirt was fashioned from four embroidered slips of fabric tucked at the waist into a low-slung beaded band that showed off her taut belly set with a gem at her navel. The cups of her skimpy bustier were also beaded and glinting in the lantern-light, barely containing perky assets, with off the shoulder sleeves that settled against her upper arms. Her hair twisted up into a thick ponytail high on her head that still fell to mid-back. And she donned delicate anklets and wristlets with gold coins that tinkled slightly with her every movement.

When she was satisfied that she looked sufficiently noble, she sat once again on one of her chaises to wait. It was not long before she felt that telltale race of sensation down her back that meant she was getting summoned. As soon as she was made whole in the mortal realm, she sighed and turned toward Zhafir. "It took you long enough. I thought you--" Her words cut off in a soft gasp when she saw the carnage all around her, and that gasp magnified as she found herself face-to-face with an orc.

Well, not exactly face-to-face. She was a rather small thing in comparison, barely coming up to his torso. Those soft purple eyes peeled wide, peering from beneath a thick fringe of lashes at the huge brute before her. She took a step back, twisting an ankle in the loose sands around them and falling back onto her hands. To her surprise, when the orc uttered a wish, she felt that familiar compulsion to obey. But what was this? She caught sight of Zhafir dead behind him. Though she hated that wizard, it still filled her with sorrow to see him this way. Her attention jumped to the orc's finger and she drew a sharp breath. He wore the ring! Her wide eyes snapped back to his. This massive creature looming over her was now her master, and she had to do as he said.

She stood, brushing sand from her garments and shaking it from her ponytail. The grotesque sight of his arm turned her stomach a little and she tried not to look at it. "I'll give you that one for free," she said, intending to make him think he had a limit to wishes. Three was the general number most offered, though unbeknownst to him he had hit the genie jackpot with her since she had no limitation. "Your wish is my command, Master," she said quietly, though it hardly sounded enthusiastic. She gave an elegant wave of her hand to make his arm whole again, sending a cascade of glimmering smoke toward him to do so. "And what would you like for your second wish?"

 

[desertpaladin]

As she granted his wish he had wondered if she would grant him a new arm or give him his old one back... what he saw told him it was the later as his old arm flew up and over to him, shaking the sand off it came in close and pressed against the stump of what was left before muscle, nerves, blood vessels, all of it came back and began to force his arm back into a state where he didn't even have a scar to show where it had been removed. He flexed it, looking over the limb as he walked over to the corpse of her former owner and the man who imprisoned her before he removed the ax from his head and looked back at her.

As she spoke asking about his second wish his eye became raised "It's not like I have to make them all now..." he told her as he walked over to her flicking the crude weapon to knock off the blood as he looked down at her once more, his eyes inspecting her as he tried to think about the next few wishes. Sure he would wish for his clan back but it was against the orc way, if you die in battle it is seen as a great honor so to take that from the orcs who had fought alongside him would be the worst thing for him to do. "I am going to need a traveling companion for the journey back..." he told her as he placed two fingers into his mouth and let out a long whistle. After a moment one of the large insectoid mounts his clan used to traverse the desert rushed up to him, kneeling down to allow him to mount it. Looking over at the girl he gave her a small smile, "Come with me, that is not a wish but more a suggestion." he said smiling, "Since from what I know of your kind you are compelled to be near the object which holds you" he held up his hand, "And I know should I start riding off your body will make you want to run after me once I get to a certain point" he gave her a small nod, "I have heard about your kind and a bit of how they work, I know of some of your limitations and some that you try to say are limits but truly aren't" he said giving her a small glare as if he predicted she would try and tell him he only had three wishes.

"And quite frankly this area is now only an area of the dead, I figure we can get out of the sun and get a chance to properly introduce ourselves before we figure out what else I am wishing for" he mounted the massive beast as he walked over to her, holding out his arm to help her on making sure she would ride the area in front so he could make sure she didn't fall off.

 

[Lala]

She looked bored as sinew laced back together with absolute precision, restoring his severed arm in perfect working order in a matter of moments. That was the bad part about magic: after a while, one became inured to the wonder of it. There was little that thrilled or excited her anymore in this world, and she had long ago given up on mortal creatures being anything but predictable.

The ax made a sickening sound, squelching as he removed it from the wizard's crushed skull. She shuddered and pulled back from him as he came toward her. He'd be a fool to attack one of her kind, especially now given the knowledge that she could, indeed, grant him wishes. But she knew a little of his type, these greenskins who were boorish and violent. And yes, predictable. She cast her eyes skyward slightly as he looked her over, suspecting it would be only a matter of time before he realized exactly what he could do with her.

The sudden shrill whistle made her startle visibly, as did the appearance of this chitinous creature climbing up the rolling dunes. Armored legs clacked as they moved in synchrony to propel the beast forward. She regarded it with a sort of restrained curiosity, hanging back just far enough that she could dissipate into her blue smoke if it tried to charge. To her surprise, the thing bent down and the orc climbed atop it.

She eyed the outstretched hand like a viper. Lips pursed to a tight bow, pulling even more when he called her out about not being able to be far from the ring she was bound to. With a dignified straightening of her shoulders, she picked up the trailing edge of her silks and gracefully picked her way over the sands toward the insect mount, making it look very much like it was a choice she was making and not a compulsion of the ring.

"Perhaps you have heard the wrong stories about us," she said with a sniff, lacing delicate fingers into that huge hand as he helped her mount the creature before him. She settled elegantly in place, arranging her skirt fastidiously around her, though it did little to cover the wide swaths of blue flesh on display. She was keenly aware of the heat of the orc directly at her back, his chest an unyielding wall that kept her in place on the mount. "I would suggest the oasis lands to the west if you want to get out of the sun. And for your other wishes...I would suggest wishing me free. In exchange, I'll give you many additional wishes." Would he fall for it? Orcs were not exactly known for being thinkers, so maybe she'd lucked out after all that this massive brute had been the one to possess the ring.