Founding of Deania 4 (Patreon)

Dean whistled when they finally caught sight of the orc encampment.

"Is that a real castle?" Dean asked excitedly, grabbing Sam by the shoulder. "It looks like a real castle!"

"It's a real castle, Dean." Sam said as he too gazed at the orc encampment.

The walls were rougher than anyone was used to. After years of looking at smooth-walled elf structures it took them a moment to understand why. The walls were made of individual blocks, instead of massive pillars of smooth stone jutting out of the ground. Wooden stakes lined the ground outside the fortress and rope wrapped around giant logs suggested the orcs intended the walls to go far higher than they already were.

Yellow banners depicting a distant mountain adorned the fortress, and everywhere orcs could be seen carrying stones, sharpening weapons, and seeing to their tasks. Sam glanced at the encampment and found more orc women here than he'd expected, given most of the raiding parties they'd encountered had been men.

"It looks like they started using blocks of stone but have since switched to just using earth spells." Sam said as he analyzed the structure. "From what I've gathered, orcs aren't that good with spells. They probably had to capture a few earth-aspect elves before they could construct that thing without cutting blocks of stone and hauling them around. That being said, those blocks are the size of a wagon. Even their laborers must be incredibly strong to be able to haul blocks of that size around."

"They are definitely using captured elves." Anyatara said, pointing to a distant corner of the walls. "Do you recognize those wagons? It's the same kind the orcs we defeated were using to haul prisoners. I'd imagine that's where the groups we rescued were fated to wind up."

"Then we have our target." Dean said, ready to jump to the ground and go charging to the rescue.

"Not yet." Erula said, holding him back. "We want to obtain those teleportation array kits first. There will be plenty of time to rescue the prisoners once we verify that there isn't anyone stronger than a true mage."

"We'll have to leave that to you ladies then." Sam said. "Figuring out the strength of these orcs seems like it will be a difficult endeavor. If only we had some way to standardize their abilities into some sort of leveling system."

Anyatara, Erula, and Yonda sat down among the trees and shrouded in shadows as they divide up the castle into three sections and stretched their enhanced senses over it. Wizards didn't have to look to apply mage sight, they could feel things with mystical senses. One by one, they touched their thoughts upon every orc in the castle and ran their senses across their bodies, probing them to determine the strength their strength.

"I don't like this, Sam." Dean said gruffly. "We're stuck here keeping watch while there's elves in there that need saving!"

Sam chuckled softly as he glanced around, keeping an eye on the nearby orcs to make sure nobody had caught sight of them yet. "I think you just don't like the thought of Yonda and Erula running their minds over those muscular orc bodies."

Dean crossed his arms and pouted. "Just you wait. I found a few body cultivation techniques of my own. I bet if I gave it some serious effort I'd make these 'roid junkies weep in envy."

Sam rarely had the opportunity to tease Dean about anything, since most of the time it seemed like Dean had no sense of shame at all. An hour passed quickly and soon the the wizards had determined that the single Bronze Skin orc they'd found was the leader of this group.

"We're good to go then?" Dean asked hopefully.

"It looks like it. You're free to run around to your heart's content, Dean." Yonda declared. "Erula and I will make sure nobody gets a message off. Anyatara will capture the Bronze Skin orc for us to interrogate, and you and Sam can do whatever you want with the rest of the castle."

"I'd be curious to see if they have a library from their home." Sam said. "I'd love to learn more about another world."

"Come on Sam, you can't seriously be thinking about reading a book when we can show these arrogant show-offs what it means to be a real man?" Dean asked.

"Fine." Sam sighed. "We'll rescue the elves first. Then I'll look for a library."

Dean needed no further prompting to charge towards the castle walls. The cracks between the stones worked in Dean's favor, as he had no issue climbing up a twenty meter incline arm over arm, hauling himself up the wall's length before the orcs could even get a good look at him.

"Oi! Mind the walls, grunt! We just put those up." One of the orcs shouted from the inside of the castle, not bothering to look and realize Dean wasn't an orc laborer.

Dean answered the command by hauling himself over the side of the wall, landing next to the bellowing orc, and punching him in the jaw. The orc sprawled backwards, knocked off his feet by the force of Dean's blow, despite the fact that the orc was both taller and heavier than Dean.

"Come one and all!" Dean shouted, finally catching the attention of some of the surrounding orcs. "Face me if you have a spine between the hundred of you! I, Dean the Fabulously Well-Endowed, will slay each and every one of you on my way to rescue all the lovely elves you've captured!"

While Dean fought and hollered, the rest of the group simply flew over the walls. Erula and Yonda hovered in the air over Dean, and Sam jumped off Anyatara's flying sword to help his friend fight the horde of orcs that were quickly surrounding Dean.

Anyatara left to hunt down the Bronze Skin orc they'd detected earlier. Soon a horde of angry orcs were charging at Dean. Most were bare-handed or carried whatever tool's they'd been working with when Dean issued his challenge.

Dean pressed his fingers together and pulled them apart until a bar of electric current sparked between his hands. He thrust them forward, wielding the spell like a whip as he blasted a pair of orcs. Most of these foes weren't even as strong as mage acolytes, let alone a true mage like Dean. His every attack defeated half a dozen, and his fists knocked them aside by ten yards.

Finally some more challenging opponents arrived, armed and armored for battle. Six orcs wielding heavy axes stepped forward. Their speed and strength was clearly well beyond what any of the others were capable of and Sam judged them to be at a level he'd heard called Stone Bones, which was the orc equivalent of the peak of mage acolyte.

"Finally! A real opponent." Dean shouted as one of six orcs managed to deflect one of his attacks. The six of them coordinated their attacks so Dean never had enough time to strike a full-force blow on any of them. Dean brought out his aura but these orcs had tough skin and wouldn't be cut easily. Both sides quickly sank into a battle of endurance, with the orcs trying to wear Dean down until they could kill him and Dean waiting for one of the orcs to slip up so he could defeat them.

Sam stretched out his hand to the group of six. They were standing on a pile of grass that had gone dead and dry after the constant footfalls in the center of the encampment had broken their stems one time too many. The grass caught fire under Sam's direction, burning the feet of the orcs surrounding Dean.

It was a small spell, but it caused enough of a distraction for Dean to strike down one of the orcs. With one of their number broken, the rest fell to a series of furious blows from Dean.

"Thanks Sam!" Dean shouted. "I really think you should have opened with a massive fireball though. That would have had them scrambling for a change of pants!"

"Not every spell needs to catch every eye on the battlefield." Sam said as the pair of them stood back to back. The pair of humans cast their spells and the orcs around them began to realize they were fighting a hopeless fight.

One of the orcs in a more ornate uniform than the others shouted at what seemed to be his subordinates. "You! I don't know why the chief hasn't responded yet. Get to the transmissions tones and send a message!"

Erula's ears perked up at that. "I don't think so." She said as she pointed her finger. There was a blast of wind so quick and forceful it felt like a blast from an explosion. It cut the ornately uniformed orc in two, and the subordinate who'd been about to run for a transmission stone died in the same fashion an instant later.

Now the orcs had caught sight of the pair of wizards hovering in the sky and realized they were fighting a hopeless battle. One by one, the turned tail and fled. Most ran for the inner keep, where they'd find their chief already in the clutches of a third wizard. The lucky ones turned tail and fled the castle all together by running out the front gates and into the woods beyond.

"Ignore them." Dean said. "We're coming for you elves!"

On the hill there was a large warehouse lined with lots of chains and cages. Inside there were hundreds of elves, the sight of which had Dean positively overjoyed. Giddily, he struck the locks off cages and snapped chains with his bare hands as he rallied the elf prisoners and helped them break free of their captors' clutches.

Sam dealt with a few remaining orcs while Dean had his moment with the newly freed elves. The orcs had managed to organize a general retreat and there was no way to stop them all. He dealt with as many of the stronger orcs as he could safely and figured it would take the weakest and most numerous level of orcs weeks to get news to anyone, so he let them retreat. By the time orc reinforcements arrived they'd be long gone.

Sam headed into the castle's keep, which now had a massive hole blown in it from Anyatara's entrance. She was sitting on top of a particularly muscular orc's back as she pinned him against the ground and looked through his papers.

Sam glanced around the room to find it appeared surprisingly like an office. Considering the orcs barbarian-esque attire, it was strange to see something so civilized.

"Any luck?" Sam asked.

Anyatara sighed. "I think you'll have more luck than me. Dig through this paperwork while I try to beat some secrets out of this brute."

The orcs turned out to be surprisingly organized. There was a filing cabinet behind the desk containing hundreds of folders, all of which were neatly ordered with a crude drawing on the cover. Sam quickly found a folder that looked like a teleportation array and flipped through it. The texts themselves were in orcish, drawn in a wide, clumsy hand that looked little better than scribbles. Thanks to his unique ability to look into an item's past Sam was able to touch them and figure out the location of the teleportation array kits they were looking for, despite having a relatively crude knowledge of written orcish.

"According to these notes, this is the Yellowmountain tribe's northernmost outpost." Sam explained. "There's a bigger central base connected to this one by teleportation array. That's where the kits we are looking for are stored, as well as quite a few unique cultivation ingredients meant for increasing a body's physical abilities. Dean will be thrilled to hear that."

"Great work Sam." Anyatara said. "Let's tell the others."

<Scene break>

"This will be a bit of a risk." Sam cautioned as Dean bounced up and down excitedly at the thought of attacking an even bigger orc stronghold.

"But these Golden Muscle Fruits! You said they'd make me look tougher?" Dean asked, mixing in gruff orcish words.

"Almost certainly."  Erula sighed. "They tend to dramatically increase muscle mass and strength in equal measure. They're not of much value to elves because female elves don't want them and male elves are rarely strong enough to survive their affects, but you should be fine."

"Let's go!" Dean insisted, ready to start running for the teleportation array they'd found.

"We aren't completely certain of their combat ability." Sam protested. "What if they have someone as strong as a demigod? Or a divine ascendant?"

"Demigods don't grow on trees." Erula said. "And if one of them had come over to our world, you'd be certain all the elf demigods would be moving to take action. The fact that they're overlooking this little invasion means the orcs can't have brought anyone too powerful over. Anyatara says the strongest orc is only around the mid-true mage level, otherwise they would have made their base in a stronger location than this one. My guess is that this is the enterprise of a wizard equivalent, in which case Yonda, Anyatara, and I should be able to handle them even if they come over to this world themselves."

Among the items they found in the keep were a set of translation devices suitable for converting elvish to orcish and back again, similar to what Sam had found on his prisoner back in the village. Sam had already taken the liberty of learning a few orcish words himself. Skilled cultivators had enhanced memories and cognitive abilities, so the group was able to quickly pick up the basics of a new language after a little practice. They brought along the translation devices in case they'd need them, but Anyatara assured everyone she had a good enough grasp of orcish for them to get by.

"Yeah! You hear that Sam!? We're going!" Dean whooped. "I need to celebrate our next mission. I think some of the elves we rescued are still outside."

After clearing out everything informative or valuable in the orc castle and giving Dean a few hours to celebrate, the group dialed in the coordinates to the main orc base in the teleportation array they'd found inside the keep.

"Alright everyone, get close." Erula said. "Let's not spend more my my zeal crystals than we have to, okay?"

The group of five huddled close. Dean was about to declare a group hug when he noticed an unfamiliar figure taking up most of the space.

"Uh, Anyatara... are you bringing the orc along?"

The orc looked back at Dean, expression dazed and vision unfocused.

"We hashed out a plan earlier." Anyatara explained. "I have an enchanted necklace that will allow me to temporarily switch bodies with this orc. That will allow the three of us elves to travel around the orc encampment as we please, though you and Sam will need to use some of those invisibility talismans we found to stay hidden."

Dean glanced between the orc and the elves. "Maybe I should be the orc and you three girls can follow my lead."

Anyatara shook her head. "My necklace will only work on a wizard. Sorry."

Dean looked disappointed, but accepted the invisibility talisman Anyatara handed him.

"Yonda and Erula might be able to get it working if you'd rather have them become the orc." Anyatara said.

"No!" Dean replied immediately. "Absolutely, positively forbidden! No way!"

Erula giggled and Yonda rolled her eyes. "Yes, Dean." Yonda said.

And so Anyatara switched bodies with the orc by donning one necklace and placing a matching one around the semi-conscious orc's neck.

"One more thing." Anyatara said. "The orc might gain control over my body, so we may need to gag me to prevent it from saying anything."

"Won't that look strange to the orcs?" Sam asked.

"Trust me." Anyatara replied, "the orcs won't even bat an eye."

Soon they had Anyatara gagged and she activated the necklace. The orc shuddered for a moment, standing straight and stretching before he looked down at Dean.

"How's it going down there, Dean?" Anyatara asked with the orc's voice as she looked down at Dean. She was only a few centimeters taller than him, but she was still taller.

Still, Dean curled his hands into fists and glared back up at her. "I knew I should have picked up those extra thick-soled boots."

Anyatara had a good laugh. Meanwhile, the eyes on her real body shot wide and the orc inside started squirming. Whatever spell Anyatara had hit her with before had worn off with the body switch, though thankfully Anyatara had taken her wizard powers with her when she switched into the orcs body so the orc was mostly helpless. The rest of the group bound her arms to keep her from squirming and Anyatara tossed her body over her own shoulder as they stepped into the teleportation array.

Dean grumbled about Anyatara's orc body taking up too much room, but awkwardly shuffled in and triggered the teleportation. Layers of spatial zeal wrapped around them and pulled them into a cloak of billowing black and gray.

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Note: I went ahead and tried to finish this story and it ended up going a bit longer than I intended. I'm not quite done with the ending and most of it is unedited still, but I'm estimating it'll be about 30k words, so about six or seven more posts like this one.