Marcus sat on his rock throne, turning one of the Bloodbriar thorns in his hand.
Smooth, straight, hard, naturally pointed.
The Goblins had cut over a dozen bundles yesterday and that was barely a scratch on the vast briar patch on the north hill.
Some were two meters long – perfect for spears.
Some were a meter – perfect for arrows.
He had told Gaptooth’s crew to go back every three days to cut more and collect the red flowers, with strict orders: No eating.
He said it three times, which meant the Goblins would definitely try to eat them.
On the way back down the mountain, he was humming.
A Snotling offered him a half-eaten cave beetle as tribute.
Life was good.
Back at the tribe, as soon as the other Goblins saw the thorns, their eyes lit up.
A Goblin snatched one, brandished it like a magic spear, screaming.
Others rushed to grab them.
Greed is the only true discipline among Goblins.
At that moment, the system dinged.
> **QUEST: GREEN-SKINNED BIG MIX-UP**
> Tribe too quiet!
Too peaceful!
Not Orky enough!
You need a good old-fashioned scrap to see who is da biggest!
Let da boyz fight!
> Reward: +10 Obedience, 100 Teef
Teef.
Orc teeth are money.
Orc teeth grow back.
If you knock a Goblin’s teeth out, you literally get richer.
Marcus loved this system.
He didn’t hesitate.
He sent Gaptooth to gather everyone, and shouted to Iron Egg, “Go catch two Spicy Squigs and roast ’em!”
Half an hour later, the whole tribe was gathered in the central mud pit.
Nearly two hundred Goblins and four hundred Snotlings, all chattering.
Iron Egg had two big, red, fat Spicy Squigs on a spit, sizzling, smelling like chili and burnt meat.
The Goblins’ mouths watered.
The Dwarfs, watching from their new stone hut, were completely bewildered.
“What in Grungni’s name is he doing?” muttered Brokk.
As usual, Marcus separated the Goblins and the Snotlings.
You can’t let Snotlings fight Goblins, they’d all die.
He stood on a rock and roared.
“Listen up, ya grots!
I got two Spicy Squigs!
One for Goblins, one for Snotlings!
But we only got two!
So only da strongest gets to eat!
Goblins fight Goblins!
Snotlings fight Snotlings!
Last one standin’ gets da Squig!”
“Now…
WAAAGH!
FIGHT!”
He waved his hands.
The pit exploded.
It was not a tournament.
It was a riot.
Goblins screaming, punching, biting, pulling hair squigs off each other’s heads.
Snotlings were even worse – a rolling, shrieking ball of green limbs.
Teeth flew everywhere.
Literally.
Every punch knocked out a few teeth, and the Snotlings scrambled to pick them up because teeth are money.
The fight lasted from noon until the sun was red, long after the Dwarfs had finished their dinner of hard bread and looked away in disgust.
When it ended, the victor of the Goblins was, unsurprisingly, Gaptooth.
He stood panting on a pile of unconscious Goblins, one eye swollen shut, holding a handful of teeth.
The victor of the Snotlings was a Snotling so small and mean that no one knew his name.
Marcus called him Little Veg Head because his hair squig looked like a rotten vegetable.
The two winners, oblivious to their injuries, sat down and devoured their Spicy Squigs whole, while the rest of the tribe lay groaning.
Marcus, following proper Ork tradition, had Snotlings drag over piles of mushrooms for the losers.
In an Ork tribe, even if you lose, you get to eat mushrooms and get ready for the next fight.
Everyone was happy, playing around a big fire, roasting mushrooms.
Most of them were too beaten to move.
Even Firebeard came over, holding his nose against the stink of burnt Squig, and said, “Grobi, we found your iron.
When are you going to brew that legendary drink stronger than Dwarf beer?
You promised.”
Marcus, his mouth full of mushroom, said, “Find ore is not mining ore, Stunty.
No grain, no Bugman’s.
But I make you Fungus Beer.
In a month, you will taste it and weep.”
Firebeard snorted and left, disgusted but curious.
Marcus went back to his hut.
The system said quest complete.
Reward: +10 Obedience.
He felt it immediately – the Goblins were less likely to run away when he shouted.
But the 100 teef reward was nowhere.
Frustrated, he went to sleep on a pile of furs.
The next morning, he was woken by loud knocking.
Iron Egg stood at the door with a small leather bag made from a rat skin.
“Boss!
Teef!
Da boyz’ teef from fight yesterday!”
Marcus opened it and counted.
Exactly 100 Goblin teeth, still bloody.
The system wasn’t giving him magic teeth; it was counting the teeth knocked out in the big mix-up.
The Ork economy follows the law of conservation of mass.
Teeth you knock out are teeth you can spend.
He laughed.
He could buy Squig harnesses with these.
Now awake, he had work to do.
He strolled to the lumberyard.
He had planned to go deep into the forest for bow wood, but luck was on his side.
In the clearing, the Goblins had dragged back two huge fir trees, as thick as a man’s waist.
No Goblin could cut a tree that thick.
The Dwarfs must have felled them while making room for the quarry.
Marcus inspected them.
Fir is not yew – yew is best for bows – but these trees had been air-drying for weeks.
It would do for a crude Orc bow.
He grabbed a stone chisel, a real iron knife from the Skaven loot, and called the best carvers.
For a whole day, they chiseled, scraped, and bent.
Ork bows are not elegant Elven longbows.
They are thick, rough, and pull heavy.
Marcus’s finished bow was about 1.5 meters long, ugly, but it bent without snapping.
The Goblins imitating him made smaller versions, only about a meter long, which was correct.
In Warhammer, Orcs rarely use bows – they think it’s cowardly.
Goblins use bows.
So thirty Goblin bows were made, using Skaven rat-sinew as bowstrings.
Rat-sinew, properly dried, is as strong as cow gut.
They used the Bloodbriar thorns directly as arrows.
No need to knap stone arrowheads – the thorn is already a needle point.
He only had to add fletching.
He had Gaptooth collect crow feathers and tie them on with sinew.
He drew the bow, nocked a thorn arrow, and fired at a tree twenty meters away.
The arrow flew straight…
and missed by a meter.
No fletching skill, no aim.
He needed feathers.
While fixing the arrows, he had an idea for the Snotlings.
He found a forked branch, tied leftover rat-sinew and a small piece of leather, and made a slingshot.
He called Little Veg Head, yesterday’s Snotling champion, and gave it to him.
He showed him how to put a stone in and fling it.
The Snotling got it instantly – Snotlings love slingshots.
He made a dozen more slingshots from rat-sinew and gave them to a team of Snotlings, sending them into the forest to hunt birds.
Snotlings with slings are a legitimate, if annoying, military unit in Warhammer.
The Goblins with their new bows also ran into the forest, shouting.
They wouldn’t hit anything, but they would learn.
Back at the tribe, Marcus started his other project – brewing.
He found several large hollowed-out logs the Dwarfs had left, the closest thing to barrels he had.
He gathered mushrooms, some cave roots, and caught a few Bubble Squigs – little blue Squigs that pop and fizz.
He chopped everything up, threw it into the barrels, added water from the river, sealed them with rat skins and mud, and left them in the sun.
Proper Dwarf beer takes months and grain.
Ork Fungus Beer takes a month, and every barrel tastes different depending on what fell into it.
Some will be strong, some will explode.
That’s Ork brewing.
A day passed like this.
The next morning, he had his boyz whittle all two hundred Bloodbriar thorns into spears.
Every Goblin got one.
Even the Snotlings got short ones to use as daggers.
Then he made a rule that was very un-Orky but very necessary: “No using da thorn spears for fighting each other!
If you fight, use fists!
If I see you stab another Gobbo with a thorn spear, I will use YOU as an arrow!”
He knew they would still fight, but at least they wouldn’t kill half the tribe before the Skaven came back.
Now he had: 30 Goblin bows, 12 Snotling slingshots, 200 thorn spears, and 100 teef in his pocket.
For the first time since being reborn in fungus, Marcus felt like a real Warboss.