“But the reports line up,” Twobble added. “There have been reports of cave systems collapsing where they shouldn’t. Meanwhile, swamps are drying out in some patches and flooding in others. Food routes have been disrupted and old hunting grounds… soured.”
I frowned. “Soured.”
Twobble nodded solemnly. “Like bad mushrooms. You don’t eat those twice. Something is wrong with their food supply.”
I let out a slow breath. “They’re being pushed out.”
“Exactly,” Skonk said. “Displaced. Pressured.”
“That explains the direction,” I murmured. “Not some random conquests spurring them on.”
“Migration,” Twobble said, pointing at me like I’d won a prize. “Very aggressive migration.”
I glanced around the hall, the Academy humming softly as if listening.
“I’m sorry,” I said quietly. “For what they’re losing.”
Twobble blinked. “Oh.”
Skonk shifted, surprised.
“That’s… not usually the reaction we get,” Twobble admitted.
“Well,” I said, “no one marches an army unless they’re out of options.”
He considered that and nodded. “That’s not always true, but sure.”
“Please don’t quote me out of context,” I said dryly. “But tell me more.”
Skonk cleared his throat. “You really want a history lesson.”
“Yes,” I said. “Brief. Preferably without… interpretive dance. I know what I read in the library, but personal experience is better as long as it’s coherent.”
Twobble looked personally offended. “I’ll keep it tight and right.”
He hopped down and began pacing, hands moving animatedly.
“Orcs aren’t one big homogenous group. They never have been. Some clans live deep in cave systems, among volcanic stone, mineral-rich walls, and lots of echoes. Those ones are builders. We call them Smiths. They carve their homes into the rock itself. They can be a little…loopy from the fumes.”
“And others?” I asked.
“Swamp orcs,” he said. They prefer deep, dark wetlands with thick canopies. They like the kind of mud that remembers your footsteps. Those orcs are trackers and herbalists. They’re very particular about their territory.”
Skonk nodded. “Both rely on stable land and predictable cycles.”
“And now those cycles are broken,” I said.
“Something’s disturbing the balance,” Skonk agreed. “Not a natural shift and not seasonal.”
“Something deliberate,” I murmured.
Twobble stopped pacing and looked at me. “That’s what the UnderSoot thinks too.”
My thoughts slid, unbidden, to a castle of stone and shadow. To a woman standing at a window, watching Shadowick breathe. To a drawer holding something that pulsed with foundational magic.
“Or someone,” I said quietly.
The room seemed to still, and Twobble’s ears drooped. “Oh. That’s… less fun.”
