The Godsworn Eye was a 600-foot-diameter portal built from bone and metal, standing 300 feet tall at the centre. From it streamed endless spirit legions marching in lockstep with war machines all rolling in formation towards the distant battlefront, and a fleet of airships cruised in the void above. “Reinforcements for an endless slaughter,” Siegfried mused. The fresh troops were immediately marshalled and marched towards their eternal death and rebirth on the front lines. Wave after wave of infantry roared battle cries as they ran forward, battle standards flying high. The enemy’s long-range artillery batteries, camouflaged and unseen, fired shells of canister and high explosives into the charging mass of orcs, shredding companies and obliterating brigades in a flash of rending flesh. Overhead, orc airships lumbered as they changed course, triangulating the Hobgoblin batteries and intending to rain destruction down on them in kind. Istvarhan, the walking fortress-city, was a distant glow on the horizon as lines of tracer fire arced out from it in all directions, seeking Hobgoblin targets. “This may not be the Nine Hells, but we can certainly see it from here,” Varien muttered. The heroes were as fish swimming against the current – a rising tide of visceral violence. The Arcetalos and Violance deftly dodged incoming aircraft and artillery shells as they approached the portal. “Proceed,” Siegfried ordered his mount. Then they were on the portal’s very doorstep, and the Godsworn Eye blinked. The temperature and air pressure changed immediately as the party members blinked in existence above the surface of Nishrek. The party was flying over what looked like a great mustering ground, a field of assembled warriors standing upon the steel surface of the cube. The void overhead was much like it was elsewhere in Acheron – a blank grey-blue haze upon which cubes great and small slowly rotated along their own axes. None appeared to be heading on a collision course with Nishrek, at least for the moment. Across the steel surface in all directions were tens of thousands of orc war camps, each populated by a different tribe of these war-hungry humanoids. Calling them war camps doesn’t do them justice – each tribe was headquartered in a fortified citadel that would dwarf Dark Arrow Keep. Each camp and tribe had their own name; Three Fang, Blood Armour, Broken Tusk, Rotting Eye, Iron Fist, White Hand, and other such grisly monikers. Here, the orc spirit legions served their deities after death, fighting in an eternal war against their goblinoid foes. Siegfried knew that some of these tribes were more aggressive in their quest for Gruumsh’s favour, like the Rotting Eye, White Hand, and Three Fang, while the Iron Fist and Broken Tusk tribes curried favour with Gruumsh’s son Baghtru, while the Blood Armour tribe favoured the god Ilneval. The party heard something they weren’t expecting – the sounds of orc war hymns carrying through the air, across the conical mountains and deep pits, and out into the infinite plane of Avalas. “This must be the Land of Assembly,” Siegfried said, “where the orcs amass in great hordes to assault the goblinoid host on the far side of the Godsworn Eye.” “I could have told you that, Siegfried,” Varien said. Siegfried turned to his axe and asked it for advice. “Where would Gruumsh be? And have you two been here before?” The Ettin Axe’s sentient consciousnesses argued amongst themselves. Then Ur cleared his throat and whispered, “What we agree upon is that Gruumsh may be found in his great Iron Bastion, because his eye sees all, he only deigns to appear on the front lines when he is personally engaged in conquest, which he does, from time to time.” “So, big tower?” Siegfried replied. “That shouldn’t be too difficult, given the rather flat landscape.” He ordered Violance to head in the direction that his axe advised. The geography of Nishrek began to vary as they flew beyond the Land of Assembly. The sound of hymns and songs almost drowned out the ever-present sound of battle. Siegfried felt somewhat drawn to the area below, as it seemed to contain smaller settlements and caverns built into conical hills that rose from the steel surface. Even the steel itself seemed to be covered with soil and tall grasses. Varien swooped lower and picked out petitioners on the ground, tilling the soil. “This actually seems to be a bit more heavenly than I originally thought,” he said. “Compared to what we’ve seen on the Battle Cube, that is.” “A respite from the endless cacophony of death and destruction,” Siegfried replied. “This is the Land of Kin.” He made note of half-orcs, orogs, and tanarruks on the surface below. “They who are not of purely orcish blood, but who worship the orcish pantheon appear to be blessed with a pastoral existence in the afterlife.” “Pastoral?” Bob repeated. “Maybe that’s hell for an orc instead of Heaven.” “That’s what I’m aiming to change,” Siegfried said. “But let us press onward.” All roads – be they the cattle trails of the Land of Herds, the penitent paths of the pilgrims of the Lands of the Godsworn and the Land of Kin, the wide warrior ways of the Land of Assembly, and the pipelines and trade corridors of the Land of Forges – led to the Iron Bastion of Nishrek. It was the hub of the vast orc war machine, the nexus of violence and victory, and the proving ground of every aspiring war chief and champion. The landscape changed yet again as the party flew across one face of the cube and dove down onto a perpendicular face with a stomach-dropping flourish. They could see complex trench towns carved into the surface of the cube in specific defensive lines, dug down and reinforced with squat barracks and redoubts that barely cleared the no man’s land and provided a low target profile for any would-be attacker. These armed camps were doubtless full of stalwart defenders. It was difficult to determine exactly when the fortress began to jut from the rusted surface of the cube, stretching for miles in all directions, its slope subtle until the first of its multitudinous towers began to raise their clenched fist shape to the unforgiving sky. It was a mountain of mountains, the pure force of Gruumsh’s will enacted upon the landscape. Rising from the surface of the vast cube was the Iron Bastion, created by the divine power of Gruumsh upon the Land of the Hearth. The countless towers of the city-fortress are each shaped like the head of a battering ram, in some cases styled to resemble icons such as clenched fists or auroch heads. The city-fortress itself stood upon a veritable mountain of skulls, which once belonged to the worthy of Gruumsh on the Material Plane, and were sent by the White Hands of Yurtrus to join the spirit legions in Avalas. These spirit legions and elite armies of mortal orcs drawn from the greatest champions across the multiverse tramped through the iron halls on tasks set by their gods in preparation for the Great War. Here was Gruumsh’s seat of power. The party flew towards a likely landing space atop the highest level of the tower. Siegfried cast mind blank and glibness on himself. Bob prepared a guilding bolt just in case. The noise of industry and invasion had returned, as though a great hammer made from entire forges were being struck against an anvil cast from even larger forges. The sound of steel on steel rang in the party’s ears. Beneath the mountain of skulls that supports the Iron Bastions was a network of caverns called the Mother Caves. These shadowed lairs were home to the Black Claw clan, and to Luthic, the Cave Mother. At the base of the Iron Bastion was a steel chamber that stretched for miles. The conical, flat-bottomed depressions in the metallic ground were called “The Pits,” and were the site of brutal, feral contests of strength between the orc bloodragers of Bahgtru the Leg Breaker. Above the Pits was a three-level training facility known as the Barracks, where the survivors of the gladiatorial fighting pens below were further refined through trials and bloodshed. The steel floor of the barracks was often slick with blood, as the training here was lethal. Overseers stalked the perimeter, carefully observing the fighters and punishing them for any transgression. The Barracks echoed with harsh drilling, exercise, and vicious commands, and was the lair of Ilneval the War Maker. Not far from the training grounds was the armory of the Iron Bastion, a sweltering forge and smithy where the weapons and armour of the horde were created. Gifted smiths forged cruel weapons with spikes and hooks to bring fear to those who see them and lend bloodlust to their wielder. The closer Siegfried drew to the Iron Bastion, the more invincible he felt. He turned back in the saddle to regard his companions, sporting a fresh pair of aviator sunglasses as he grinned triumphantly. “We approach the Hold,” he said with confidence. Home only to the most ruthless of orcs who have proven themselves time and time again on the field of battle, The Hold was home to Gruumsh Who Watches. The one-eyed god made his home in the highest reaches of the Iron Bastion, where he could survey the fields of battle and the camps of his horde. A great panopticon rose from the centre of the city-fortress from which he could scry, using his divine magic to see into the camp of any tribe on Nishrek, and on the great war on the Battle Cube. Despite his observant nature, Gruumsh was stranger to battle. The patron deity of orcs frequently took to the field with his elite forces to crush potential threats from the goblinoids, or to meet their deities face-to-face. The party approached the Throne Room of Gruumsh. Siegfried inhaled sharply and shouted at the top of his lungs. “ Ukavand nauk-adausan for mausan katu! ” which of course was Black Speech for “Stand ready for my arrival.” Gruumsh’s divinity suffused the entire atmosphere here, which weighed heavily on Varien, Bob and Erwen. At the pinnacle of the great iron bastion, the party entered the seat of Gruumsh’s power. The atmosphere here is one of eternal war – the heroes were buffeted by the clang and clamour of crashing blades and searing steel as the sounds of the endless war of Acheron seemed to surround them. Rather than land on the platform, Siegfried urged Violance onward into the Hall. Varien grit his teeth and spurred the Arcetalos after him. The air was billowing with smoke, as though the Hold were sitting directly above the great forges. The hall itself stood as a monument to all the victories claimed by the god of the orcs – battle standards and trophies from defeated foes – great elvish civilizations that were now nameless – ancient dwarven empires whose names had been lost to history in defeat, leaving behind only their signs, sigils, and spoils. It was an endless gallery of conquest – broken and bloodstained statues lined the walls ten deep, shredded artworks and entire vaults’ worth of treasure are swept into piles, seized weapons and armour were unceremoniously hoarded, and the skulls of the defeated were stacked like cordwood. The hall was lit by an impossibly bright blazing torch held aloft in mid-air, adding an aggressive flickering reddish hue to the surroundings, casting shadows that took the form of the supplicating damned, the soul spoils of a millennia-long campaign of vengeance and victory. There were orc servitors throughout the throne room, each of them an exemplar of Orcish valour, and each of them with one eye put out, no doubt ritualistically. Other creatures lurked in the shadows, each with their own agenda. Some of them stare at the party as they approached, whispering in tongues forgotten by mortal men and orc alike. The smoke before them cleared momentarily. Before the party was a great chair forged from the captured thrones of a thousand emperors, half-melted, half-hammered together into a seat fit for a god. Seated upon it was the great, gargantuan Gruumsh, who gazed at the heroes with one grave eye blazing with contemptuous ire. He was a massive, battle-scarred orc with a gray-green hide corded with muscle. His countenance was beyond any pictorial description ever crafted – his defining feature was his single, unblinking right eye – the left side of his impassive visage was blank and shadowed, but the flickers of his eternal torch illuminated an empty socket every few moments. The god of the orcs sat with a magnificent spear laying across his knees, stained and still wet with the essence of entire elvish bloodlines – the Bloodspear of legend. Gruumsh was flanked to one side by a hulking brute of an orc as wide as he was tall, no doubt Bahgtru, and on the other by a martial warrior whose cunning and brutality were no one’s equal – Ilneval, Gruumsh’s lieutenant, who is leaning on the hilt of a great broadsword that crackles with divine energy as he sized the heroes up. Before the great throne were long feasting tables, laden with the gory remains of unspeakable sacrifices. Violance alighted on the steel grating and Siegfried dismounted. “Are you sure about this?” Violance whispered to Seigfried. Undaunted, Siegfried stepped forward. “Fist Baghtru, Master Ilneval, Grandfather.” He said, “My travels across this plane has been educational for your vision, but you did not summon me to hear what I have to say, though I do have much to say. In your home, I will listen.” There was a crack of thunder as Gruumsh, who held the torch aloft with a free hand, shifted in his throne. At once his voice was as the hammering of iron on a great forge, yet barely above a whisper. He leaned forward slightly. “So, the boy who would be king finally graces us with his presence,” Gruumsh said. “And his retinue, such as it is.” Gruumsh gave the barest flicker of acknowledgment to Varien, Bob, and Erwen. He leaned back. “Nishrek receives you. We shall see if it relinquishes you.”