Featuring Uggy and Shakhragh (both Yfelwydan Orcs).

Clearing in the Midgewater

The oppressive walls of the marshes open up a fraction to allow this tiny clearing on the edge of a wide, slow-moving stream winding its way through the cattails to the east. A stately willow tree spreads its umbrella-like pinions over a lonely fisherman's shack perched on high stilts. Its walls are of ivy-covered wooden planks, warped with age and eaten away in parts by the fetid swamp airs, while the roof is of sagging wooden shingles punched through in the rear with a blackened tin chimney. A narrow wooden porch fronts the shack, small thorn acacias clustered near the steps. A weary rocking chair sits on the porch, next to an earthenware jug. Swamp grasses clutch at the shack from all sides as if to tear the poor thing back into the waters from whence it sprang.

The night sky is clear with only slight wisps of clouds overhead. The moon is above the horizon and in its phase.

Contents:
Uggy
Obvious exits:
Front Door leads to Fisherman's Shack.
Southwest leads to The Midgewater Marshes.

Middle-earth time is:
Twilight on Sterday, Day 10 of July.
Execute the +TIMEFRAME command for year information.

Real time is: 12:20:51 MST on Tue Jun 12 2001.

-------------------------------Trollshaws Time--------------------------------
Real time is: Tue Jun 12 12:20:59 2001 - Elendor time is
Twilight on a Stormy Summer Sterday, July 10, 3023

Note: It is nightime out, so you can leave the the cover of the trees.
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Uggy
If you think looks are revealing to your basic character, a few things could give away this slouching character: petty greed, a nasty slyness. This goblin, because that is undoubtedly what he is, is as tall as a man of Bree, but his forward stupor , only slightly compensated by his lanky frame, makes him seem lesser. He also has the swarty, unsavory skin of his wicked race, made even more repulsive by the gleam of grease and sweat. Occasional hairs sprouts here and there, long and course like hog bristles. His long arms, thin, sinous but seemingly strong, could reach out in a wide embrace, if it weren't for the fact this his long fingered hands seems to be busy elsewhere, scratching and picking on various part of his body or with fingers entwined, writhering like eels in grease.

There is something absolutely annoying about the features of this goblins face. A flat asymmetrical nose with a bulging bridge looms over a cleft lip. The mouth, full of small sharp teeth, is so broad that seems to end up by his ears, It seems to be permanently locked in a gleeful smirk. Two bulging red eyes darts around in their sockets, never meeting your glance but dancing around as if watching flies buzzing around your head.

The orc has nothng on that people would normaly call clothes. Instead he wears layer upon layer of badly stained rags, so dirty and torn that it looks more like a compost heap than anything else. It indeed smells like one to! A pair of ill treated riding boots, a couple of sizes to big, flops as he ambles along. The orc's flat head is crowned by an orc hood; pointy, badly sewn and with long flaps hanging down by his large pointed and hairy ears.
Carrying:
Scimitar
Fur and Leather Tunic
Studded Leather Helmet

Shakhragh
Short, broad, and repugnant are three words that adequately sum up this strange individual.

His general build is almost ape-like in appearance: fairly long arms, bowed legs, stout torso. Width-wise, he is about one foot and a half across at the widest; in terms of height, some four and a half. His shoulderblades are broad and bony, jutting out on either side of his almost nonexistant neck, long and thick arms dangling therefrom. His arms are, as noted, long: the elbows bend just below the waist and the hands align closely with the knees. The legs diverge from the abdomen about two feet from the ground and bend at the kees little less than halfway up. His head is roughly square in shape, with a sloping forehead and jutting chin apparent under a hood.

His clothes are best described as rags: a great collection of rags that succeed in covering nearly all his upper body, stitched rudely together with gut of some sort. His arms are clothed by a pair of rudely-constructed sleeves in turn fastened loosely to the collection of rags and furs on his trunk; a pair of leather gloves (possibly stolen, given the rude construct of the rest of his garb) cover his hands. A skirt covers the individual's legs to just below the knees and a pair of untanned leather boots conceals the remainder of his limbs to his pair of large, broad feet. The aforementioned hood conceals all his head and face save a wide, weak, swarthy-skinned chin with patches of thin, black hair showing here and there.

Now this person's bearing is hunched, bringing his height at his shoulders down about half a foot. Arms dangle as though fastened rather loosely at his side, while his legs are bent and bowed. At any given time the odd smell of stale urine and body odor emanates from his general direction.

~~~

The sun finally lowers over the mistladden air over the Midgewater marshes. The gnats and mosquitoes are the uncontested masters of the eve this high summer night... Or is so? Other dangers seem to prowl as the night approaches.

The door of the old fisherman's hut creaks open a few inches and a exceptionally ugly head pokes up blinking at the last light of day. Seeing nothing more dangerous than himself out there a beastly orc knuckles out. The mosquitoes, usually drawn to all warmblooded creatures, falls dead in throwes around the creature, that bad is it's odor. "Shak, yer dungeater! What kind of forsken place have you taken us to? nothing to eath but swamp maggots and frogs!"

Across the small clearing in Midgewater from the small swamp building, the buzzing of insects and whistling of reeds creates a quiet din. In the newly-arrived twilight, trees bend slightly in wind. Neither moon nor sun are visible in the sky, just dark blue sky tinged orange in the West. The creaking of some cricket-like creature punctures the night. "Neek-breek. Neek-breek. Neek - " Snatch. CRUNCH.

A goblin waddles out from a clump of trees, holding the headless corpse of an insect the size of a rat in his gloved right hand. "Garn, Ug, tain't nothin' wrong with frogs, nor these loverly little morsels." He waves the insect toward the other, then takes a bite out of its side. "'Sides," he adds, "there's plenty o' manspawn not far t'the west, off past the woods. A tasty snack it'd make, an' plenty o' gold an' such to be had."

"Frogs cold... maggots cold... fish cold..." mutters Uggy petulantly "Garn! Any day now me ticker will freeze as my own blood turn cold" The uruk sniffs the air with his huge irregular nose before laying down as flat as his crooked back allowes on the porch bordering the water of the marsh. He then shows a long stringy arm deep down in the silt of the reeking water and claws around for just a few moments. He then hauls up a claful of mud, writhering with maggots, pale as death and fat as merchant's finger. He shoves them, with mud and all, into his gaping maw and while masticating noisily he slobbers: "Yer were talking of warm meat. Sweet steaming meat of hooman kiddies and all.." " Ain't seen nuthin' of that!"

Shakhragh snorts, and takes a bite out of the Neekerbreeker's abdomen, throwing the thorax with a few legs still twitching into the reeds. "Ufh. Nehr reshfeh Ih..." he swallows the mouthful, and wipes his lips on his dirty sleeve. "I say, no respect I get. I takes us all out o' the woods, 'cross the hills an' all, an' what thanks do I get? You'll get yer food soon enough, I'm sure. Even if we got to go into one o' their warrens in the woods or whatnot, we'll get a nice meal or two or three... maybe a month's rashers..." The goblin flips his heavy hood back and looks around the clearing. "Nothin' t'fear, we'll get ours."

Uggy, by nature quite efficient, takes the oportunity to both reply to Shakrag's statement and to rinse his gums from mud: "Pthewie!" He spits out a large gob of mud blackened mucus in the direction of his compadre. The gob hit a large toa,d which instinctively bounces away before landing on its back in a stand of irises, dazed and concussed.

"Well, well see about that...' he growls. With a jump very much like that of the aforementioned toad, he springs to his feet and trudges heavily over to a rope tied to a broken railing. "Here! Come'n lookit dis!' he hollers to Shakrag as he pulls at the rope. A shallow craft, old and filled with water but seemingly intact emerges from under the porch. "What do you say, eh! Look at what yer ol' pal Uggy's found." The orcs shows his horrible fangs in a broad grin:" It's what the humans call a "boat" he says authoritively. "'T'ill help us get around der swamp tonight!"

Stepping forward toward the shack, Shakhragh stares at the broken vessel with a raised eyebrow. "Boat? Never 'eard o' such a contraption." He steps up beside Uggy and nudges the boat's side, rocking it slightly, causing the water inside to slosh about a bit. Reaching inside, he pulls out a bit of pond scum, stuffs it in his mouth, and cocks his head. "Right," he says, swallowing, "so how's it work?"

Uggy rolls his bulgin eyes and aims a headslap at the ignorant companion. "No, you stoopid snaga!" he growls "It is for sitting in! You sit in it and you..." and here the orcs concept of seafaring seems to come to and end. "..you go" he adds vaguely. Not willing to show his lack of in depth knowledge on teh subject, he jumps in to the water and wades over so he stands alongside the craft. He looks hesitantly at the thing, very much as if it had been a bucking young wildhorse, but then gathers his curage and carfully he lifts a gnarly leg onto the craft. The marsh seems to go all quite in anticipation, even the ever singing neeker-breekers seems to jold ther breath as Uggy shifts his weight. "Ow-oow-oooooOOOW! Garn! " hollers the orcs as the boat turtles with a loud splash. A few yards away a family of swans take to the air honking with terror.

"Snaga me foot," growls Shakhragh, rubbing his head. As Uggy lands in the marsh, the smaller goblin stares at the capsized boat for a moment then bursts out laughing. "Hawhaw! Nar, look at that, would ye? I'm not travellin' anywhere in that thing! I hates water as that, anyways." The orc leans back against the side of the building, looking at the water, waiting for his fellow to surface. "Hey, Ug, yer there?" He shrugs, picks a centipede off the porch of the shack, and pops it into his mouth.

The swamp seems to join the goblin in his merriment, neeker-brekers and frogs have doubled their noise. A few bubbles raises to the surface before the ugly head of Uggy emerges, crowned with the obligatory waterlilly. The uruk coughs and reches a few good pints of stinking marsh water before pulling himself together. "Garn!" he manages to gasp between deep gulps of air, "Cursed thing attacked me! Twas a trap, I am telling ya! Set up by dem stinking Breelanders!" He pokes a clawed finger in his ear, wriggles it around and dislodges a lump of mud; luckily he didn't hear much of the other goblin's mocking cackling. "Lucky for you I had it tried out, before yer got yer self kilt!" he adds, taking on an air of self sacrifice.

Eager to steer things over on other matters he says: "Alright! Nigt is over us and no rest for the wicked! Lets wade over to the woods and look for Bunjik an his lads. You comin'?"

Chuckling again, Shakhragh steps to the shore of the water and hunches down. "Heh, heh. Right, Ug, yer a real martyr." He looks over the water to the trees and reeds on the other side, and then back at the shack. "Eh... I'll stay 'ere, an' hold down the fort. Gather rashers, supplies, all that. No one'll get the drop on us while Tetrak Shakhragh is on patrol!" He sneers at his waterlogged companion. "Aye, ye can find Bunjick alright on yer own, ye don't need me."

"Alright... Suite yer self... " he growls making an effortto ignore the othersgrinning face, "...but don't expect me to share any loot when oi come back!" With marsh water squelshing in his looted riding boots, the orc wades through the dark swamp, stirring up a clouds of fireflies, which seem to have replced the neeker-breekers for the nightshift. For a while the splashing of the creature can be heard as he goes forth through the reeds and water but soon the singing of frogs and buzzing of gnats hides his struggles.