Hero Dyes - Blue

Son of the Sage, Yosin: We didn’t stay long after Gulliver and his platoon joined Lord Ulrik. Apparently their chief sent more warriors to ensure that the land doesn’t get taken over by Count Masque. The village people and knights were in awe to be in their presence. Some people called them orcs, but were corrected as orcs are green in skin color, or blue according to Bridget. She told me that Lord Magnus was an orc. From the way she described him she seemed turned by his appearance. At the same time, she kept saying how disgusted she was to be taking orders from an orc. This made me question her thinking. Why was she so conflicted with her thoughts? Of course, this allowed for my father to tell her a story that would hopefully make her wiser. I’ve heard this tale many times over, I just didn’t know it was real, let alone the story of one of the tyrants.

“Young, uneducated, little girl! You will give respect to Lord Magnus whenever you speak his name! The fact that you know nothing of his kind or his appearance in this land, gives you no right to judge him. I don’t care what other stories you’ve heard, the only one that matters is the one I’m about to tell you.” My father paused as he regained himself from hearing her insults towards the orc.

“Old sage, we don’t have time to speak of tales and folklore. We need to stop Count Masque before-”

“I said silence!!” My father roared. A burst of wind came from his body and nearly knocked over several people that were around us. We were currently walking to the stables to receive some mounts that Ulrik provided for us. Those that were unfortunate to witness my father’s temporary display of anger simply carried on as they whispered and mocked us. I didn’t realize that most people of this kingdom were against our quest. They were happy to celebrate the death of Lord Magnus, even though it couldn’t be proven, but weren’t really thrilled about the idea of this actually working in the long run. They’ve most likely celebrated like that many times over, only to be back under Lord Magnus’s foot again. Honestly speaking, I don’t think Magnus was a horrible ruler. The fact that he held the title of tyrant was confusing for me. This land thrived and functioned very well under his ruling. Even the Foresters have an agreement with Magnus. Either way, his story needed to be heard by our fated hero. Hopefully it would empower her to look at this quest differently. If not, like everyone else has mentioned, she’ll die before she gets very far.

“Now, if you will lend me your ear, and silence your tongue, I will tell you the story of Lord Magnus.” He started off again. Bridget was relentless. She cut him off again and asked another question.

“How did you come to obtain this information? Was this passed down to you, or did Magnus himself tell you.” I saw my father’s eye twitch as he tried to remain calm. Now that I paid more attention to him, something was bothering him. It wasn’t just Bridget, something else had him angered or flustered. He closed his eyes for a moment as he softened his voice when he spoke.

“I heard it from Magnus, when he captured me and tortured me for several years before he released me. He wanted me to finish this quest. That way, we both could find death and leave this dreadful place.” Bridget stopped walking for a moment as her eyes widened. She quickly looked away from the sage as she wasn’t expecting to hear such an answer. This made her focus more as she continued to walk and softly spoke the word ‘sorry’ to sympathize with my father. He simply shrugged and cleared his throat as he prepared to speak.

“Lord Magnus was feared by all when he began ruling this land. He never revealed what he was to anyone. Not even to his trusted knights. He told me that when he first came here, he was mocked and treated poorly because he was an orc. Not just any orc, but a blue one. I tried to convince him that the people of this land didn’t fear him because he was shrouded in mystery. The people of this land respected him because he took care of them. Sure, he showed no mercy or favoritism to anyone. He was quick to kill rather than give a trial. He believed all humans should burn and die for their natural cruel hearts. Even when he fought one of his own kind and won, he still hated revealing himself because being unknown was better than being judged as a thing of myth.”

“Wait, hold on. What do you mean he fought another orc? Did his people come back for him or something? Did they raided this land in search of him?” All of Bridget’s questions were good. She had me thinking about all of these possibilities, and why haven’t these events happened already. Was he outcasted from his home land, wherever that would be?

“Also, how did the sage even find the orc to begin with, let alone have him selected as a Hero Dye?” I asked before my father could reply. This confused Bridget even more as she stared intensely at my father, waiting for an answer.

“Alright, settle down, one at a time.” My father replied as we mounted our horses and began our journey to Count Masque’s land. We needed to cut through the other part of the forest to do so, which should give my father time to finish this story.

“First of all, Yosin has already heard of this story, however I don't think he has heard every aspect of it. It is the tale of the red orc that killed a good number of the tyrants before facing Lord Magnus. You see, the sage that found the orc ignored all of the colors the amulet pointed him to, expect for red. We used to call him the Redden Sage. For one, he was always blushing and bashful when it came to women. Secondly, he would only follow the amulet when the red part would glow. It just so happened that most of his Red Dye Heroes were female. What a laugh!” My father chuckled as I smiled. I couldn’t help it. Seeing him reminisce about his life brought me joy. However, Bridget wanted answers.

“So what happened! How did he find a red orc! How did he lose!” She shouted her questions. This annoyed my father as she killed his enjoyable thoughts, bringing back his frown as he huffed and continued the story.

“Well, we don’t know where he found a red orc. All I know is from what Magnus told me. He informed me that red orcs were rare, and hated within his own race. They were always held higher than the other orcs simply because of tradition. Plus, most of them were snobs, according to Magnus. If the red orc did not outperform the others, or excel in any way, they were brutally beaten. Not only that, but their skin color would be taken by whomever slayed the failure.”

“Wait, stop. I’m not sure I head you properly… The other orcs would ‘steal’ the red orc’s skin color. Is that what you just told me?” As much as this was hard for Bridget to believe, my father simply nodded his head yes. He smirked as he prepared to explain this phenomenon.

“According to Magnus, red orcs were blessed by the gods. They had an extra ability or power that manifested within them. Some of them display magical abilities greater than some mages. Having said that, the truth of the matter was more baffling than their ‘blessed by the gods’ lie. You see, if an orc was born red, that meant that the mother was impregnated by another species. Most likely it was either by elves or humans. Either way, the second part still remained. The red orc would have special abilities that could be taken from them and moved onto another orc. That was the only way an orc could become red after his natural birth color.” I was in awe as I didn’t remember this part of the story. For one, I never really asked about the red orc and thought it was a wonderful tale.

“Anyways, my point is, Magnus defeated the red orc and didn’t take his red color. When I asked him why, he replied with this. ‘A true warrior does not wish or wait for power to be bestowed upon them. They do not seek alternate means to make themselves stronger, other than hard work and determination. Why would I need something from a warrior that has failed. Whatever power he possessed could not defeat my might and strength. Therefore, I am stronger with what I’ve been given. Why trade my power for something a failure used?’ From that moment on I understood Magnus’s heart.” My father looked at Bridget and became very serious as he narrowed his eyes to continue his speech.

“This is the lesson Magnus wanted you to learn. Stop waiting for an ‘ultimate power’ and use what you’ve been given. Otherwise, you’ll fail all because you doubted your own strength.”

“Ha! Seeing as this ‘lesson’ is coming from a dead tyrant, I would say he wasn’t taking his own advice into consideration.” How stupid can this woman be? I most likely mimicked my father’s glare after hearing her speak. The nerve of this foolish warrior.

“Right… As expected... Anyways, be on your guard, I see someone approaching.” My father stated as he cleared the forest and began following the main road into the first town under Masque’s rule. We could see people moving up ahead, going about their day like normal. At least, that was until we got closer and started to notice something was very off.

“Father, do you see this?” I asked as we slowed our horses to a halt. We were just outside the town’s gates as we watched in horror.

“I do, my son, I do…” He replied, to which we dismounted and began a slow and steady walk into the town.

“What does this mean? Why aren’t they attacking us? I mean, they all have masks on. Every single person, children and adults, all have masks on.” I could hear the panic stirring within Bridget's whispers to us. I couldn’t help but feel the same as the masked villagers were taking notice of us. As we passed by, their heads would snap in our direction. Some of them spun their heads around completely to the back as they kept walking forward, just to keep their eyes on us for a moment before returning to their activities.

“I don’t like this. What should we do?” Bridget was breathing a bit heavy as this scene unsettled her. Fear was squeezing my heart as I heard each beat it made. A felt a lump in my throat each time I swallowed. I had several questions yet none of them would produce an answer I wanted to hear.

“Are they puppets? I mean, are they all… Gone?” I selected one question and whispered it, trying to make sense of what we were walking into. None of them greeted us. None of them spoke a word. They all did and acted as normal, moving their heads as if speaking amongst each other but no words came forth. They exchanged goods, cooked food, played on the road, but not a single sound was uttered.

“Hello, weary travelers! Might I interest you in a mask to wear!” A voice called to us within an alleyway. My father quickly spotted the person and signaled us to follow him.

“Yes, that would be most helpful!” He replied as we rushed to the man, the only person within this town that wasn’t wearing a mask. He had a cart full of masks however which made me question his motives. At this point, it was too late to voice my objection as we dashed into the alley and hid ourselves from the entire town.

“Explain yourself, now!” My father asked as I grabbed the poor guy and slammed him against the wall. He lifted his hand up in surrender as he started to stutter a reply.

“You’re t-t-the Dye H-H-Hero Sage, right? And this is your hero, correct?” He asked, to which my father looked him over for a moment before slowly letting him go. Clearly he still didn’t trust the man.

“What happened here? Why is everyone a puppet in this town? Most importantly, why aren’t you a puppet?” These were all very good questions my father asked. The man only sighed as he fixed his shirt.

“Well, I’ll answer the last question first. You see, I’m Count Masque’s soul…”