The Only Good Orc is a Half-Orc

Chapter 40: The Reprieve – Part As Olivia and Lyrika just looked at each other after the late-night festivities, Olivia mentioned that she should clean herself up.

Lyrika wasn’t sure what she meant by this, having thought she managed to…catch it all, so to speak, but as she touched her face she remembered the first part. Jumping up, she made her way to the washbasin and rinsed her face, before grabbing a cloth to dry as she sat back down on the bed.

Olivia was about to start the conversation again just to say she missed a spot when she heard the door creek open. Looking over at the door to their room, she saw a man enter the room, holding a knife in his hand.

“What the-” Was Olivia’s startled reaction.

“Wha-, where’s Yoban.” The man quickly looked at the scene before him and realised he’d messed up about something.

Both froze for a few seconds as they tried to understand what was happening. Olivia had no idea how he got in since they locked the door and all. Given what he had at his belt, it was likely that during the time Lyrika had cleaned herself off, this man had used lockpicks to break in. Both groups had been quite quiet at the time, the thick wall and door helping with the soundproofing.

The silence couldn’t go on for much longer and Olivia realised she had to do something. Quick.

Jumping off the bed she ran for the man. Both her weapons, her spear and dagger were out of reach, something she would need to fix for next time.

The man seeing this entered the room fully and charged at her with his blade outwards.

As she got close, the man slashed with the blade, but he did so too soon. It may have been fear of the orc heading towards him that caused this or just incompetence as a fighter. Either way, Olivia was easily able to dodge the blade and took hold of his arm at the end of his swing, forcing him to continue on his path and twisting him towards the door. She then managed to throw all her weight into him, pinning the man to the wall. She held him in place, with one hand holding his arm which had the blade, ensuring he couldn’t wildly swing and stab her.

“Grr, get off of me you monster.”

The man kept shouting out at her all the while struggling to free himself. Olivia wasn’t sure how long she could keep him pinned, as he might have a trick up his sleeve. What she did know was she needed to disarm him.

Moving her hand up his arm, she took hold of his hand and pulled, twisting his hand as she did causing him to drop the knife.

“What are you-, agggh. Let go of my hand you beast.”

He managed to free his other arm which had been held against the wall by his body and started smashing it against Olivia’s side. Her own arm, the one not holding the man’s hand, was trapped against her own body, pushing against him. She had to take the punches as shifting it free might give him the opportunity to get out from under her.

While taking his hits, she eventually managed to twist his hand enough so that after a guttural cry he released the blade, where it clattered against the floor.

Olivia looked around the room trying to figure out what she could do to restrain this guy and she came across the cloth Lyrika had used to clean herself off. The only problem was reaching it. As she searched though, she also found Lyrika still frozen in shock from this man attacking them. She needed to snap her out of it.

“Lyrika!” She shouted across the room hoping it would break her out of her stupor, which thankfully it did, and after she had finished jumping out of her skin, she turned to look at her.

“Y-yes.”

“Get the cloth.”

“The wha-, Ah. Ok.” Lyrika said as she headed over to the other side of the room where she had chucked it.

“Ahhh!”

As Lyrika went to grab it, Olivia felt a horrible pain in her leg and cried out. Looking down she found that this man had stopped punching her, opting to take the lock picks at his side and jam them into her leg. He then proceeded to pull back and stab her with it again, but she managed to move her leg out of the way just enough that it scraped against her skin. She wouldn’t be able to keep doing that forever though.

As he was about to come down again, Lyrika got to her and took a hold of his arm, stopping him from making further attacks on her leg.

“Here’s the cloth?”

“Right, we need to restrain him, wrap it around the arm you’re holding.”

Turning to the side, Lyrika was able to keep some of her weight on his arm and reach up to wrap the cloth around it. The man swore and shouted as he felt this, and he knew he was fighting a losing battle. He struggled and shifted trying to free himself, where at one point this caused Lyrika to slip as his arm dropped, allowing him to get another stab into Olivia’s leg after scraping along Lyrika’s as well.

Once she had steadied herself again, she took hold of his arm again and made sure to wrap it tight, causing him to grunt in pain as he felt that.

Olivia then managed to help pull his arm back, and Lyrika took the one she had wrapped behind his back and was able to tie both arms together.

Now bound, Lyrika tied it as tightly as she could, stopping him from being able to move his arms at all, before taking both the knife and lockpicks so he had nothing should he free himself. Unable to fight back now, Olivia threw him to the floor, knowing it would be a little harder to get up without the use of his arms. This meant they now had ample time to figure out who he was and why he had tried to attack them.

“Who are you? Why did you attack us? Why were you looking for Yoban” Olivia seethed as she asked the man who struggled on the floor.

He grunted and rolled around, kicking as he did, and Olivia knew that with this man was focused more on freeing himself than talking. So, she needed a…motivator.

Picking up her spear, she walked over to the man. Lyrika saw this and had a slightly worried look in her eye, but this was quickly alleviated by Olivia winking at her to let her know it was all fine. In his struggle, he saw the glint of metal and started to pay attention. When Olivia positioned the weapon so it was right against his face, he stopped moving completely.

“Ok good. Now I have your attention. You are going to answer my questions. When you don’t I’ll start poking holes in things. Understand?”

“Y-yes.” It seemed that being a half-Orc half-Goblin had some benefits, the intimidation factor being a big one. It was probably very easy for him to believe that the monster would hurt him like that.

“Good. Now, who are you.”

“Hold on. He looks familiar…Wait. Ah, he was in the church.” Lyrika quickly added in. Olivia tried to place him but failed to do so. Lyrika had been with the group for longer, so it made sense that she recognised someone from it.

“So there was someone on the inside. I knew it.” It was at this point she realised she had kind of forgotten about that once the bandits had been brought back to the village, so she tried to just breeze through that. No one had to know she had momentarily forgotten.

The man seethed as he realised his identity had been found out.

“Now that that’s cleared up, why did you come to attack us and why were you looking for Yoban?” She asked. It was probably obvious why he had attacked them given that he was skulking around at night with a knife. He didn’t want to be found out.

“I-I needed to get his keys to free the bandits. I saw shadows under the door, so I thought it was his room. But when you saw me, I knew I couldn’t let you live. Why are you here anyway? And why are you both naked and in bed together?” “Err…” Olivia quickly looked over at Lyrika and found her looking down and blushing. This also made her very much aware that they were both completely naked as well, which Lyrika solved by wrapping the nearby bed sheet around her. She decided that not answering his question about the two of them was the best bet here.

“We don’t have to answer questions from someone like you. Now, I think we should get you into the cells your bandit friends are in. Lyrika, can you go wake Yoban and let him know what happened? I’ll watch over this guy.”

“Ah yeah. Of course.” Was Lyrika’s reply as she looked around figuring out what to do about the clothing situation.

“I think your clothes are over there. You may also want to…wipe your face a bit more again.”

Lyrika paused and blushed before heading behind the screen to put her clothes on and clean up a bit more. Once done she got back to the task at hand and headed off to Yoban’s room.