Meat. Blood, thunder, and meat.
The sky fire is low and hot, and the ground is dry and orange. Dust fills the air and stings his eyes and his lungs. He grunts and tests the weight of his ax. It is a good day to die.
“I am Kugnar!” he shouts.
The orc before him nods gravely. He rambles on about honor and blood and thunder and the great orc god. Kugnar is sweating profusely now. He grunts loud and kicks the earth with his heavily shod foot.
The orc before him flexes. His leathery skin ripples under the low sun. “Kill six pigs,” he says. “I will give you some new boots.”
Kugnar raises his ax and lets loose a deafening guttural battle cry. He runs off, just a few loping steps from the village, and then stops. In every direction—besides behind him, where the huts and leather tents of the village squat around the great brazier at the center—the landscape is the same: a dusty, red-rock field, leading to a great mountain range in the long distance. Here and there, Kugnar sees something move, but as he tries to catch it with his eye, it vanishes into the waves of heat off the parched ground.
“Where are the pigs?” he shouts. No one replies.
“WHERE ARE THE PIGS?!” he shouts again, louder this time, in all caps and everything. He waits. Again, there is no reply.
Kugnar grunts. This time the sound from the back of his throat has an irritated air, and he runs farther from the village. His boots slam the earth as he jogs. His shoulders and hips rock and twist. He is not the picture of grace. He is the picture of fearsome death come to town.
“A pig!” he says. “Smash pig!”
Kugnar raises his ax and brings it down. He misses, even though the pig did not move. Perhaps he needs more practice. Now, though, the pig is angry, and it turns to face him. Though it is small, and its tusks hardly appear a match for Kugnar’s mighty ax, the pig is a worthy opponent. Kugnar withstands a terrible strike—presumably to his ankle or maybe knee—and his health begins to falter. As quickly as he can, he raises his ax once more. This time the strike is a powerful one. The pig limps briefly and attacks again.
Kugnar is thrown back. He is bleeding badly now. With a great shout, he raises his ax one last time and, with a flourish and a spin, brings it down on the pig’s already bloody head. The beast lets out a plaintive wail, and it falls to the dusty ground, dead. Kugnar catches his breath as he gropes the decimated corpse. He takes the pig’s tusks and a good chunk of pig meat.
It is a good day to kill, as well.
“I have killed many pigs this day,” Kugnar says, standing once again before the quest-giver in the center of the village. His gear is battered. His knees and ankles are badly bruised and bloody. His small bag is bulging with pig meat.
The quest-giver, seated cross-legged before the brazier, hands the young warrior a pair of boots and then nods slowly, and Kugnar is overcome with light and honor. He swells with pride and flexes his great and muscular chest, for he has reached level two.
“Only forty-eight to go,” says a voice near Kugnar’s head, and he grunts.
Kugnar stands beside the raging fire in the center of the village. His quest log is weakly populated: he must kill several humans and collect several pieces of fruit. The great warrior—swollen of chest and pride—sighs. Other new orcs—some warriors, some warlocks—are nearby, and they move quickly in and out of his field of vision. There is great purpose in their bearing, or sometimes there is great jumping up and down and spinning in circles.
Kugnar watches the other orcs, but he cannot speak to them unless they speak first to him; his is a trial account. So alone, he jogs afield of the village once again and raises his ax, for the human scouts will not be tolerated, and their end will be bloody. None presents a greater challenge than the tame little piggies, and soon a great many human corpses litter the landscape. Kugnar growls and glows with pride as he hits level three.
But he is not satisfied, and he slaughters now without thought, without remorse, and without reason. Human scouts, despite valiant effort, are no match. His ax is bloody, and his head is light with the intoxicating smell of death. There is great honor today in the fields around his village. Level four.
As the rush and light of honor flood his body, and then recede, his great shoulders sag. He sighs—it sounds like a wild boar exhaling through a pile of its own feces—and plods back to the village for his rewards. They are insignificant. He feels no sense of honor, nor of accomplishment at their receipt. He turns and faces the human—the one who controls him—and intones, “Bored now.”