Well almost. The first person he met here had been sort of a jerk, or at the very least not very friendly. He supposed that was what Athena had meant when she said all races would be considering him a “neutral”, neither a foe nor necessarily a friend, at least until he was able to impress them enough that they would think more highly of him. He was up for that.
~ ~ ~
“What the... just what the heck are you supposed to be?” The orc greeter grunted when Ranma first arrived from Athena’s staging area, a burly green fellow who went by the name of Kaltunk. “I was expecting trolls and orcs, but I’ve never seen anything like you. Just what kind of being are you anyway?”
Ranma frowned at the tone, but as most who had known him before would say was common for him, spoke reflexively without thinking. “I’m human, doofus!”
The orc snorted. “The hell you are. If you were human you would have been cut down the moment you arrived here. You’re too scrawny by far to be one of them, even if you do have the right sort of skin tone. You almost have a troll’s build, but too short in the arms and legs. You some kind of weird half-breed human?”
Though he bridled at the remarks, Ranma did now recall Athena mentioning that he was now a unique race, not recognised as one of the “humans” of Azeroth... which was probably a good thing, since they seemed to kill humans on sight here.
“I’ll have you know I’m a pure-blooded Japanese, you jerk!” Ranma snapped. Somewhere in the inner workings of the astral world’s system, a blank data entry field intended to define Ranma’s unique race filled itself. For good or ill, he was now Ranma of the neutral-to-all “Japanese” race... whatever those were.
The orc snorted again. “’Japanese’ huh? Never heard of those. Oh well, you wouldn’t be here if you weren’t supposed to be training to be of use to the Horde. You want your first task, or you going to just wander off back wherever you came from? Either way’s fine by me.”
Ranma growled. It wasn’t like he could go back where he came from, but he was sorely tempted to find some more hospitable race to kick off his new life with... not that he had any idea how to do that, since he’d gone ahead and told Athena he’d start out here already. “You looking for an ass-kicking, jerkface?”
The orc grinned. “Attack me, you little punk, and you’re officially declaring war on the whole orc race, so unless you have an army of a few thousand “Japanese” at your back, I wouldn’t recommend it. Not that I’d need any help from my people to swat down a totally green punk like you at your current level of (snicker) training. Come back when you’ve grown strong and I might teach you a couple things. I like your attitude though! The Horde has no use for spineless cowards, no matter how strange they look. You’d make a decent warrior with pride like that... which brings me to my next question... what class are you anyway? I can usually tell just by looking.”
Ranma, slightly mollified by the orc’s change of attitude, calmed down a little. He didn’t take to being called a green or untrained, but he had to admit his body felt very strange to him, and until he got a handle on it, it might not be a good idea to go picking fights with overmuscled green dudes. “I’m sort of a... generalist. I practice the Anything Goes school of combat.” He muttered.
The Orc blinked. “A... generalist? I’ve never heard of such a thing... Oh well, it’s not really my problem. My job is just to greet the new arrivals and send them in to Gornek to get their first training assignment. You are here for training... right?”
Ranma couldn’t think of any better way to figure out how this strange new body of his worked. “You got it.”
The orc grunted, nodding his head toward the mouth of a cave nearby. “Head into the Den then. Gornek is just inside. He’s in command here at the Valley of Trails. He’ll give you your first task to complete. Report back to him when you’re done and he’ll steer you to whatever trainer suits you. Bunch of other folks round here got some things they need doing that would make for good training for a beginner like you. They’ll start making eyes at you when they think you're strong enough to get the job done. Every task you do has a little something as a reward. Usually it’s a bit of money or some useful equipment. Mostly you’ll be hunting down some wild animals or minor demons that have gotten a bit too plentiful around here. Sell whatever loot or trophies you take off their bodies to give you a bit of cash to spend on training costs or some better gear.”
“Sell it where?”
“Any vendor will buy most stuff. There’s the Butcher and General Goods vendors just over there by the cooking area. The guys selling equipment are set up down in the Den. You got all that?”
Ranma nodded. “I think so. First thing I do is talk to this Gornek guy, right?”
The orc nodded. “First thing.”
Ranma nodded curtly and left.
“Try not to get eaten by the first baby boar you come across, punk. Good luck.”
“Jerk.” Ranma muttered to himself as he stomped into the den.
~ ~ ~
Most of the other orcs and trolls Ranma met in the Valley were a little more civil than that first one, though all seemed a bit confused about exactly what he was, and he had to explain himself several times before they inevitably shrugged and just treated him like any other new trainee.
Speaking of training, Ranma had picked up a few neat new abilities to augment his fighting style (which was, he sorely noticed, kind of lacking compared to what he’d been able to do before dying, leaving him reduced to a few simple types of strikes. He knew more manoeuvres he could pull off with a staff (and a lot more without one) but his new body wouldn’t perform them). The Shaman Trainer taught him Earth Shock, a quick spell that slammed his opponent with Nature energy, which Ranma felt made for a decent replacement for his now-lost Moko Takabisha. A pity he couldn’t cast a bunch of them one after another, but he supposed that would be too easy. It took about six seconds for the spell to “cool down” so he could cast it again, so he could usually get off at least two before his opponent died on him. Ranma was looking forward to finding tougher monsters outside the Valley that could give him a longer fight.
The same trainer had taught him the Rockbiter Weapon spell, which when cast on his staff (or any other weapon) gave it a big increase in damage for several minutes. The Warrior Trainer had taught him how to parry with his weapons, which was good because up until then Ranma hadn’t been able to make his new body move his staff to block an incoming attack. The Hunter Trainer had taught him Aspect of the Monkey (which reminded Ranma of monkey-style Kung Fu) that helped his dodging (a big help since he’d learned this a little while before he saved enough money to learn the Parry techniques). Finally the Mage Trainer had taught him Frost Bolt (for when he wanted a less-urgent, longer range attack, which also had the bonus of slowing down his opponents’ charge) and what Ranma considered the best use of magic ever conceived of by man (or Greek war goddess) Conjure Food. It was just a little muffin that this low ranked version of the spell let him make, but he could keep popping them out as long a he had mana to cast the spell. He didn’t seem to get hungry in this astral world, but he still loved eating!
There were other spells and skills he could have bought (in fact he was planning to go back to them or other trainers elsewhere to get Track Beasts, Arcane Intellect, Power Word: Fortitude, Stealth, Immolate, and Battle Shout, since each of them only cost 10 copper pieces; more than he’d been able to spare right at the time he’d picked up Rockbiter, but he was getting a better idea of how much money he could earn now, and figured he might as well buy all of them if they were that cheap). He was beginning to see what Athena had meant about having to pick and choose though. It wasn’t like he’d ever be able to afford ALL the skills the various trainers could teach him, so he shopped around a bit and compared what skills were available and then picked whichever one seemed most useful (well, except maybe that Conjure Food one. That was just because the idea of making food pop out of thin air was so cool it made him near to giddy. Now if only he could find a Conjure Full-Course Meal Made by Kasumi spell...).
Ranma looked out at Durotar. In every direction as far as he could see were dusty red cliffs and rocks, giving it a very desert-like look, though he’d seen several trees, bushes and plants scattered around as well. Nothing like grass grew out of the baked earth around here though. He would eventually decide it was a ruggedly beautiful land, particularly if you had an appreciation for natural rock formations more than trees and plantlife. All in all, he could have ended up in worse places, he thought. The folks here weren’t so bad, just not real big on having nice manners. Ranma barely had any himself, so it was a good fit.
Now he was off to find some place called Sen’jin Village, to help out the Trolls who made it their home. Now they were neat guys. Ugly as hell, but kinda cool at the same time. If only he could get away from the strange feeling that some of them kept looking at him as if wondering how he’d taste in a stewpot... He was probably just being paranoid. By and large, they were nice enough to him, if not quite warm. On the way to Sen’jin he passed some small (relatively anyway) looking orc who seemed to look at him hopefully once Ranma came into view. Ranma knew that look by now; this guy had something what needed doing. Helping him out shouldn’t take too long and Ranma would probably get something at least a little useful out of it.
Doing these little quests sure was an improvement over his Pop’s... his former fath... his late father’s methods of snatching food or stealing money. Heh, around here that would probably get his stupid old man gored by somebody’s tusks or into a Troll stewpot. Served him right! At least Ranma didn’t have to put up with the old fart anymore, though he suspected they’d run into each other sooner or later, out here in the world.
The orc Peon (a term for the lower-born, labour-caste of orcs that Ranma didn’t really want to know the origins of) needed a package delivered to the inn at the town of Razor Hill, which he told Ranma was just up the road to the north. Sen’jin was east, and Ranma spent a moment or two trying to decide which was more important; the need to report to Sen’jin for more tasks or the delivery for the poor Peed-on guy? Eventually he decided a detour north wouldn’t take too long, and then he would just double back and head for Sen’jin. He was about as eager to see a proper orc town as he was the troll village, and surely whoever this guy he had to talk to in Sen’jin wouldn’t mind waiting a bit longer, presuming Ranma was even expected. He hadn’t been told about any time limit for reporting.
With a shrug and a wave goodbye to the grateful small orc, Ranma turned his footsteps north, keeping an eye out for any of those boars or scorpids who might give him a good training fight. He hadn’t gotten far when...
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(Posted Mon, 19 Jun 2006 09:31)
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