We make our way to Frostbreak Fortress after having found a map and gotten directions, trudging across the ubiquitous rocks and yellow grass, lighting wayshrines across Wrothgar.


    “You remember when times were simpler while were exploring Auridon and putting out fires?” I say.


    “I don’t think that was ever ‘simple’,” Eran says. “And anyway, I expect to be putting out a lot of fires here too, both literal and figurative.”


    Along the way, we run across a camp with a journal discussing a theft and some buried treasure, which is definitely more important than conquering a keep or retrieving stolen supplies. The buried “treasure” returns out to be an ugly mug along with a note regarding the Thieves Guild and wondering why the hell this mug is so important.


    “And I see it’s business as usual,” Eran comments, peering at the mug. “Is this thing secretly made of gold, or enchanted or something?”


    “Not so far as I can tell,” Merry says. “Sentimental?”


    I shrug and toss it into my bag. “We’ll figure it out once we’re back in town. Let’s go find that fort.”


    We arrive at the fortress (with a convenient wayshrine on the road just outside) to find that it’s a warzone, by which I mean the sort of warzone where an alliance ineffectually tries to siege a castle instead of using any more sensible tactics. Catapults hurl flaming barrels that burst ineffectually against the fort’s stone walls. One Orc practically boasts about how they’re making progress inch by inch, but he sounds overly optimistic to me. I have to resist the urge to start barking orders and take command of this siege. This isn’t (yet) my jurisdiction. Still, it’s a perfect opportunity to show up “the other Orc King”.


    “You’ve got that look on your face again,” Eran says.


    “What look?” I say, touching my helmet. “Can you even tell my expression under this?”


    “I can see enough.” Eran chuckles. “And I know what you’d be looking like. That ‘someone is doing something stupid’ look.”


    “Yeah.” I sigh. “It almost makes me want to root for the Winterborn.”


    We’re directed to one specific tent where we get our first glimpse at King Kurog, who is currently having a large lunch while berating a couple of clan chiefs.


    King Kurog is fat.


    Now, I won’t criticize obesity. Many people live sedate lives and enjoy the pleasures of food or eat to relieve stress. However, a cook who samples his own stew more than his guests ever get to eat is not a king who is supposedly a great warrior who supposedly got his position in supposedly honorable combat. I probably didn’t need that many ‘supposedly’s.


    There are two possibilities here. Either Kurog is a legendary warrior who knows he can defeat nearly every other mortal warrior on Nirn in one-on-one combat, like me. Or he’s a fool who lets his desire for pleasure take precedence over his ability to fight. And I’d probably be a lot less overconfident if I were a normal mortal. I mean, I’d still probably use “technically not illegal” potions before battle, but that’s because I’ve had a lot of practice fighting under the effects of potions and I know exactly what they do.


    Anyway, yeah. I’m hoping for #1 there, but am afraid I’ll be disappointed and wind up with #2.


    Weirdly, he sounds a bit like Sheogorath. I’m sure it’s just coincidence.


    Even an idiot should know you don’t do diplomacy by opening up with telling everyone they’re wrong. Kurog is not just an idiot. Kurog is a fucking idiot. For an Orc, Kurog is really out of touch with what it takes to influence Orcs. I don’t give speeches about grand visions, abandoning traditions, and so forth. Change doesn’t happen just because you yelled it loudly enough. It’s a wonder that he got anyone to support him at all.


    Kurog wants to “see me fight” by going into the fort to kill Urfon together. If he really wanted to see me fight, he’d just suggest a spar. No, what he really wants is to show me following him and fighting at his side. Subservient. And he’s more in a hurry to get back to Orsinium for a feast than anything else. He won’t stop talking about food for two minutes. Every bleeding thing to him is food metaphors.


    And then there’s the Trinimac thing. He keeps insisting that Trinimac espouses values like honor, strength, and unity, as if Malacath doesn’t.


    “Have you actually spoken with Trinimac?” I ask. “Do you know what he expects of you?”


    “No, of course not,” Kurog says. “And I bet you haven’t spoken to Malacath either.”


    I chuckle. “Oh, I have, multiple times. I even visited the Ashpit once.”


    Kurog grunts, unimpressed.


    “Of course, I’ve also spoken to several Daedric Princes. And Akatosh I think, sort of? It was weird. You had to be there.” I give him a smirk. “But you weren’t. You didn’t walk into Coldharbour to stop a disaster much bigger than this. You didn’t even attend the conference.”


    Kurog is, of course, annoyed, but not so annoyed that he stops eating. Even after I don’t speak another word and simply walk out of the tent, my friends turning and following. Good.


    If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    One of the chiefs (Urgdosh) with the catapults thinks the Bretons who originally built this fort must have used Orc crafters who built it to last.


    “Or they warded the thing against fire,” I say, suppressing a sigh. “Bretons are good with magic and making sure stuff doesn’t burn down is a common enchantment.”


    Chief Urgdosh stares as another exploding barrel splashes harmlessly against the walls. “Maybe,” he grunts.


    The sieging force also seems to be light on archers and mages, as they keep losing people to harpies. And then there’s the briarhearts, which are some sort of plant-based undead. They need to destroy the harpy aeries, which for some reason they can’t land a proper strike on before they’re bad at geometry or something.


    “Would you really support Kurog if he was completely failing at this until I showed up?” I ask with a chuckle.


    “Aren’t you working for him?”


    I laugh heartily. “Fuck no. Didn’t I introduce myself? Sorry. I’m Neri gro-Drublog. And I’d sooner go back to Coldharbour than bow to him.”


    “You’re that Wood Orc ‘king’?” Urgdosh says. “You here to try to get people to support you instead of him?”


    “I’d rather you not support him, but whether you support me or not is entirely your choice,” I say. “I’m not here to make demands. I’m here to kick some ass.” I gesture to my friends. “Merry, Ilara-daro, keep those harpies off us. Eran, watch my flank.” I heft my axe and grin wildly. “For Malacath!”


    A flock of harpies swoops in to try to pick up a squad of Orcs, only to fall to the ground either roasted or peppered with arrows. I have no idea why these Orcs are having so much trouble with them. Then again, so far as winged menaces go, harpies are not nearly as annoying as Valenwood bats, never mind cliff racers.


    We meet up with a squad that had gotten cut off and took shelter in a tower. That Wood Elf we met before, Eveli Sharp-Arrow, is with them, and she’s a tad offended that they don’t appreciate her prowess at shooting things.


    There’s a Breton alchemist (Alinon) that’s working on figuring out how to destroy the briarhearts. We find him hiding behind some rubble. After collecting him and not-listening to his rambling about Reach weirdness, we head into the fort interior.


    “Merry, can you make sure Kurog won’t be following us?” I say quietly once the others are ahead out of earshot. “Idiot king must not get any glory today.”


    “I think I can use telekinesis to make this portcullis drop,” Merry says. “I won’t be able to lift it again. This is probably going to trap us, and our allies, inside here.”


    “The alternative is letting him in and murdering him, then claiming that alas, he bravely fell in battle against Urfon Ice-Heart and wants me to see through his dream to unite the Orsimer and lead them to whatever. And unless it’s absolutely necessary, I’d really rather kill him in combat before an audience.”


    Merry nods, and trips the portcullis. It falls to the ground with an ear-shattering (not literally) clatter. “If we do not find another way out, we can probably simply teleport. Or I can use telekinesis to move some rubble and we can climb out.”


    I pull out my communication orb. “This is King Neri.” Always important to note which me I’m being at any given moment. “Prepare a force to secure a keep. Make sure you can deal with hags and undead.”


    “Or that,” Merry says.


    We head in and catch up to the others. Ugly red shrubs are growing out of corpses that look like they were tortured to death. Alinon thinks the best way to deal with the briarhearts is to burn a bunch of corrupted plant things. I’ll take his word at it because I have no idea what’s going on and really don’t want to know. I leave Eran and Eveli to guard Alinon while he works on an elixir to kill the main tree. A real alchemist can do the real alchemy here. Right now, there’s stuff to be hit.


    “Let me know if you need any particularly exotic reagents,” I say. “My bag is stocked with ingredients from Valenwood to Coldharbour.”


    While the saplings are growing out of single corpses, the central tree is planted in an entire pile of corpses, with more fused into its trunk and limbs. Fruit the color of rotting blood hangs from its branches. It is considerably less flammable than the suckers around the basement. Alinon’s elixir uses some nasty plant I found in Coldharbour one time, and the resulting potent poison shrivels up the hideous thing into a blackened husk.


    Urfon Ice-Heart is past the courtyard with the now-dead tree, in a chilly cellar where I think he’s keeping the supplies on ice. The room is full of ice statues, which he starts shattering when he spots me come in as if trying to intimidate me. He’s far tougher than I seriously expected, his icy winds slowing even me. Merry manages to partially negate the effects and my healing and shielding abilities keep me alive long enough for the fetcher to go down.


    It is, however, a painful reminder that I’m lacking a dedicated healer. Eran and Ilara come out in the worst shape out of that. Normally, Gelur would be making sure they stayed alive as well as me. I can’t focus on healing my group as well as keeping myself alive and killing my enemy. I have a hard enough time just doing two of those. I’ll need to find someone that’s a good fit. (That is, someone who can put up with my insanity and won’t flee or try to get me arrested or something.)


    Once the most dangerous things have been taken care of here, I bring out my orb again and call in some reinforcements to mop up the survivors and claim the keep. The attack force is primarily made up of Wood Orcs who really want to show up their northern cousins, plus a smattering of High Elves, Wood Elves, Khajiit, and Goblins as support.


    With the fort under our control, we raise new banners to let the force that’s still failing at besieging the place know that it’s under new management. Banners for Drublog clan, Malacath, and the Aldmeri Dominion. They’re probably not going to be happy about that last one, but what do I know? They didn’t seem terribly fond of the Daggerfall Covenant as it is.


    I come out onto the battlements and hold up Urfon Ice-Heart’s head on a pike. King Kurog is so shocked he almost drops his chub loon drumstick.


    “We’ve been sitting out here for weeks and you just swoop in and capture the fort in under an hour!?” yells a chief whose name I didn’t get.


    I spread my arms wide and cackle. “This is how you take a fucking keep!”


    King Kurog is perplexed, not sure whether he should be happy about this development or not. And I’m sure he realizes outright attacking me would go poorly for him.


    I let my forces know what to do with the supplies we found and put them in charge of distributing them. Because there’s no way I’m trusting Kurog to do this. Plus, goodwill to Wood Orcs beats goodwill to this self-absorbed fetcher.


    One of the items the museum was looking for is called Frostbreak Chalice, so I ask if any of my people have seen a fancy cup around and get it located before somebody fences the thing for gold. The note that museum had given about it tells that whenever an Orc clan moves in, they claim the place is haunted and leave. Superstitious Orcs. If there’s actually ghosts here, I have people who can tell them to go away, but I haven’t seen any sign of them. I’ve dealt with a lot of ghosts.


    “These are the stolen supplies?” one of the chiefs I’d spoken to before says. “I’m surprised your Wood Orcs aren’t keeping them for themselves.”


    “Why would we?” asks one of said Wood Orcs. “We’re rich. We got plenty. If these aren’t enough, we can bring in more. Too bad this fort isn’t in a state for a proper feast. Hunt-Queen Grishka brought down a monster that could feed an army and I can’t wait to see what Hearth-Queen Roku does with it.”