In one of the many caves of a Ork infested asteroid, the birthing pod of an Ork boy is reaching… Maturity? Ripeness? English does not have a term to describe the moment when a wet fungal sack growing from the wall is ready to have a sentient bio engineered warrior also made of fungus burst from it. But this pod is ready to pop, soon a new Ork boy will be born, ready for combat the very second it tears itself free from its fungal birthing sack.

The more experienced Gretchin in charge of growing and taking care of the fungal ecology of this asteroid have noticed this fact, and have already scarpered off to other parts of the asteroid. They don’t want to be around a fresh spawned Ork who might be peckish and want to eat one of them as its first meal.

He remembers graduating, and then arriving surrounded by unfamiliar faces, and then … nothing. It's probably all a psychic mal. He tries to fight it off, but he's out of mana and his his anima is missing. Not like a maleficer's shattered anima, like a mundie. And his body feels wrong. What.

Well, being in some kind of weird enclosed space is probably not what he wants. The case where this is a hallucination doesn't matter, he's already dead there and just hasn't realized it. He'll try his best to leave.

Thick and stubby, but very sharp, Orkoid claws easily help him tear his way out of his birthing pod. He escapes onto the ground of the cave along with a lot of green slime.

His body won’t just feel wrong, it’ll feel strong. Like a insanely roided up body builder was then perfected and tweaked so everything fit together better. Whole extra sets of muscle groups when compared to the human standard set, tensing and shifting under the green thick skin. There to increase strength and speed to beyond olympian levels.

There are new instincts telling him to eat whats left of the pod stuck to the wall. It’ll be good for him, probably.

Well, better to feel strong than to feel weak. Is someone … drafting him into a gate guard program? Where they're testing 'what if mundies, but really strong and aware of mal weaknesses' or something? He was hoping to rest after graduation, but hopes aren't plans. There's probably only the one way to rest available, and he'd much prefer the kind of rest where he can wake up again, so he'd better be alert and capable and look useful.

He'll give eating the pod a try. Food is food, and at least in his memories he still feels kind of starving.

…why is he green? He's never really heard of plausible reasons for this aside from mundane ones like paint, and this seems like pretty good paint if it's paint. Then again, it's been 4 years since he was outside and he was never a paint researcher. He'll think about it more in the future if he lives and has spare time.

The pod is pretty tasty! Sort of like a very meaty greasy mushroom with extra msg, but also not much like that at all because there are a whole bunch of new flavours his tongue can taste now, most of them pleasant ones.

Instincts are telling him this pod flesh is so tasty because it his his pod, and someone else's pod would taste bad. It would be be bad to break the other pods open for eating.

There are other pods on the walls, every few hundred metres or so. Other features of this tunnel include lots of bio-luminescent mushrooms that the instincts say don’t taste good, and big fleshy green-gray mushrooms with caps about as wide as his very broad face, the instincts tell him those are filling but bland.

There’s something small moving at one end of the tunnel, but it is too small to make out, even for the rather good eyes he now has.

Food! That isn't illusioned nutrient sludge!! And there's more, just around, which is presumably also not nutrient sludge, because he is not in the Scholomance! He was hoping to have a hamburger and a big smoothie when he got out, but still, food that is not nutrient sludge! He heads for the allegedly filling but bland mushrooms and starts eating some, because if someone wanted to poison him with fake food instincts they could have just killed him earlier, so probably the food instincts somebody shoved into his head are not designed to kill him.

Do his instincts know how long the mushrooms last after being picked or how to preserve them or what the small moving thing might be? Has anyone left out any clothes?

To human tastes, the wall shrooms have plenty of earthy flavour, they sure are very mushroomy mushrooms, but they don’t stimulate all the extra flavours he has access to now. Instincts agrees that all food is good, but more flavour better.

Instincts says mushrooms will have more flavour if left for -indeterminate long time-, but it is probably a strange moldy flavour, instincts doesn't seem to mind the idea of eating moldy shrooms.

No clothes around, not that there is anything to cover up on this body, since it is lacking genitals and nipples.

Instincts say if you want to see far away small thing, get closer. This is obvious. If the instincts were a person it would be disappointed. 

Interesting opinion about mushrooms, instincts. And he has plenty of things to cover up on his body, like his feet, which a faraway small thing might bite with a magical or very poisonous bite. There's a reason people spend so much of their weight allowances on shoes, y'know. Though there is all this unguarded food around, which is good for recovery, and this form is a lot stronger than his actual body, and possibly he actually has more spare resources to recover from injury than he's used to, though there's no cloth or disinfectants or thread and needle around, much less actual modern medical supplies, which isn't amazing.

He'll go inspect the small moving thing on the basis that it seems to be one of the more interesting things around here and he badly needs to get a sense of the area, unless there's some obviously exit-ish route, because going outside would be nice and also a good way to get a sense of the area.

When he heads closer he sees a tiny green person! Looking similar to Ibrahim in colour and general themes except for the fact this person would barely reach his knee and is very gangly and skinny, and its face is much more pointy with a big nose and floppy pointy ears. It is using a rope to try and desperately pull along a fat lizard-slug that is almost taller at the shoulder than it is, this animal is what Ibrahim actually saw moving in the distance.

The little green person is muttering to itself as he approaches, and it is audible from further away than you would expect. This new body has good hearing too.

“Move it you stupid squig, if you don’t hurry up the big hungry lookin ork is gonna eat us both! Only I gets to eats you!” The little green person is really straining to pull the lizard-slug along, but the animal seems unaffected by the pitifully efforts of the little green person and plods along at its own lazy pace.

Well, threats are a traditional information gathering technique and apparently his body has already made his! "I won't eat you if you answer my questions."

Is he going to eat a person if they refuse to answer his questions? Probably not, his parents have discussed the circumstances under which to resort to cannibalism and this does not qualify. There's abundant mushrooms, he doesn't need the disease risk, and enclavers get really picky about it. But the tiny intimidated green person doesn't need to know that.

“Aaaaaahk!” The little guy leaps almost his entire height into the air in panic when addressed. It turns to face you, its exaggerated body language practically shouting its terror to the world.

”I’z gonna answer anything you want oh greenest and mightiest ork! I iz nothing but tough bones, not even the fun crunchy kind, no reason to be eatin me.”

The expressive wide face of the creature hides nothing, it clearly has an idea, then looks pained at that idea, then resolves to go through with it.

“I iz a useful and good grot, brings you breakfast!” It gestures to the slug-lizard thing. The ‘grot’ clearly does not want to give up the lizard thing, but feels it probably has to to stay safe.

The instincts say the little guy is perfectly acceptable food, but it is right about being rather bony, should only eat when bored or to keep the other grots in line using fear. The lizard practically radiates an aura of delicious to the instincts, that’s a lot of good meat. The bones of the slug-lizard thing are also useful weapons if you have nothing better to use.

"Where am I? Who put me here? What do I do to get supplies?"

The lizard might be delicious-smelling, but there are plenty of mushrooms, and probably they will taste even better if cooked.

“This iz da big Rok!” Wow, easy question. Getting to tell stuff to an ork rather than the other way around feels kinda neat to the little grot.

Oh wait this next question doesn’t make sense, but you can’t just tell that to an ork or they get grumpy. “Yous waz just born? You is here cuz thas where your pod grew?” Aaaah he hopes that’s a satisfactory answer.

”Uhh to gets things, you takes whatever yous likes as long as you is bigger than whoever claims it already. Or sometimes da big boss gives out war things before a waaagh.” The grot is unhappy to say this next part, but answering questions is his way of not being food right now. “And yous could make crafty grots craft you things…” He doesn’t have any crafty skills! He hopes the ork doesn't demand he produce something right away.

This prompts additional questions, like "where is the big rock?", "who is the big boss at war with?", "where are the crafty grots, and do I have to fight someone to get supplies for them to use to make things?", et cetera. Presumably the answer to these will also prompt additional questions.

The grot is happy to answer follow up questions, the more useful it seems, the safer it is! Many answers get a little rambly or assume existing knowledge Ibrahim doesn’t have, and a lot of the time is wasted on shameless flattery. But eventually a rough idea of Ork society can be picked out from the noise.

The big rock is in fact an asteroid hurtling through the void of space, with the help of big ‘rokkits’ to help it sorta aim itself. ‘Da big rok’ is full of tunnels for growing things, while the surface is where Orks tend to live.

An entire interrelated fungal ecology is what everything on the ‘da big rok’ seems to come from. From the food shrooms, the slug-like animal varieties, called ‘Squigs’, the warrior and leader caste of ‘Orks’ and the servant caste of ‘Grots’. All come from the same spores. If its green its probably part of the Orkoid ecology.

Orks are led by a Warboss, to lead them to war with basically anyone with loot or who looks fun to fight. Whoever krumps (defeats) the Warboss gets to be the new Warboss.

Crafty grots generally are kept by the stronger Orks, who can trade their services for ‘teef’ (teeth), which is the major currency. Sometimes teef can be substituted by ‘bitz’, which are useful crafting materials. If you want anything of your own, including crafted goods or supplies, you either trade teef for it, or take stuff nobody is going to bother fighting you over, or just win the fight if you take something worth fighting over. Or, if you are a speedy and sneaky grot, run fast enough into a small enough hole that you aren’t caught. Obviously this kind of tactic will probably not work for such a strong and green and mighty Ork such as yourself.

There are some rare Orks who do skilled labour that can be traded with, ‘Mek-boys’ do machine stuff. Generally they do much better work than a crafty grot. A Mek-boy made ‘Shoota’ (gun) is much less likely to explode and blow your fingers off! And growing back fingers sucks, not fun at all. ‘Doks’ or ‘Pain-boyz’ do surgery and limb replacements, but are all universally known to be crazy and experiment on their patients, if it’s not life threatening you don’t want to go to one. ‘Runtherdz’ or ‘Slaverz’ control and corral Grots and captured alien slaves or animals, the grot does not seem to be fond of these ones when talking about them. There are other kinds of specialised Orks but none that really matter… or that this grot knows much about.

The big takeaways are, might makes right, obey the Warboss unless you think you can take him, grots actually have a disgusting taste and are not at all worth eating, and grots are definitely worth protecting because of how useful they are (the instincts feel this grot is a lying little shit about grots, but in an amused way), and don’t be left alone with a Painboy. 

Well. This seems concerning for his life expectancy, though apparently he does have minions now, which is neat. Why do his instincts not think minions are useful? Offering minions a bit of protection so that they do a lot of work for you is an obvious good choice, that's why everyone who can do it does it.

How does an smart ork go become a mek-boy or a pain-boy? If a pain-boy isn't crazy and doesn't experiment on his patients as long as the patients pay him, will that be good for getting resources and seeming useful? Is there a good place to practice fighting?

You just… sort of are a mekboy or painboy? If you don’t just come out of the pod wanting to fight, you already know what else you want to do and how to do it. Ya give a mekboy some bitz and they just make things. The grot mutters to himself how it’s unfair mekboys just get to know how to make ‘Big Dakka’ (overwhelming gunfire or artillery).

For fighting, just go up to any ork roughly your own size! Most orks will be happy to have a friendly scrap, no ripping limbs off or stabbing the brain, a proppa spar. Or if you want an audience and to bet teef, theres always the pit. This grot used to run bets at the pit before a bigger grot and his friends muscled him out.

Well, he knows some stuff about medicine. He'll ask the minion more about what pain-boyz do, and how long it takes to recover from a proper spar, and whether the minion has a name and wants to follow him around and keep being useful and maybe be protected from other orks if the other orks can't or don't bother to beat up a newbie ork. (The minion might be busy with tasks from some other scarier ork, he doesn't want to rule that out.)

Painboys put limbs back on, or other peoples limbs on, or sometimes parts of squigs or big metal mek claws on. Metal claws are cool but this grot wouldn’t want to end up with a squig for a leg, or a leg for an arm. Painboyz are crazy after all and like to experiment.

For healing, depends how hurt you get? If no bones are broken not very long at all, especially with something to eat afterwards. Some bones can take a few days to heal if they get especially badly shattered, if the other boy is really trying to turn them into powder. Sometimes bones can heal funny though, it’s rude to smash em up too much during a proppa spar.

Nobody has ever asked this grot for a name before! Other grots call it Blacknail because one of its nails is black. Blacknail judges him pretty big for a fresh spawned ork, and would gladly be its minion. Minions are sorta like pets, way less likely to get eaten. Blacknail declares proudly that he will be the most useful grot he has ever met. Then blacknail rather audibly mutters that he's the only grot he's ever met and chuckles to himself over how funny that is.

Well, the minion position only stays available if he keeps being useful, so good ambition. He's going to want cleaning and sewing and cooking and notetaking, and he can explain how to do all of those the way he wants. Does Blacknail know how to read? If not, is Blacknail familiar with drawing and the, uh, idea of symbols corresponding to meaning?

Also, his name is Ibrahim. If Blacknail can't pronounce it correctly yet, that's okay, but Blacknail should practice.

If cloth is kind of worn and dirty and not in very useful shapes, does that mean nobody will really care about fighting people who take it? Is there soap and clean water around somewhere? What's the thing Blacknail brought, is it useful, can it talk?

(He knows the outlines of how to make soap but not the details, and it's possible that producing and experimenting with lye is the domain of the strong, because the strong can regenerate from chemical burns. Do his intuitions know if grots can regenerate from that sort of thing?)

Blacknail can do cooking, and seems very nervous that you expect all those other things that he does not know how to do. Blacknail knows the symbols for Gork and Mork, the symbol for “Any grots that come past this sign get smooshed”, and that the ‘umie shiny skull symbol usually means it’s good loot.

Eeberhim is not a very Orky name, he should maybe perhaps as a suggestion that this lowly grot definitely does not mean as telling him what to do, pick something more scary so other orks take him more seriously. Descriptive names like deff chompa, or teef gnasher are good. There’s more soundy and less wordy names like gazkull and grishnak that don’t have any meaning to em, but it also feels right to have names like that. They sound appropriately killy and ‘ard.

If its cloth that’s lying around and not like… in a pile that is being watched over, then its probably fine to steal? even for a grot like blacknail that would be safe. A big ork like Ibrahim can take probably more from weaker orks before they decide that they need to defend their stuff.

Water just lying around is a legend for those who have been on a planet before, very old orks talk of water puddles. Meks have water for mek stuff but they wont let anyone have any. But if youz iz thirsty there’s juicy shrooms you can squeeze for shroom juice, and juice squigs you can also squeeze for juice, but only a little bit of squeezing or they die and you get blood instead. 

Blacknail is reluctant to talk about the squig he was herding, but it’s a bad idea to lie to orks in krumping range, especially if you are now that orks minion.

It’s a squig, squigs can’t talk, only madboyz think squigs can talk. This one is good for food. Maybe it’s got some bones good for decoration or sticking through things. Blacknail has been fattening this one up for ages in secret. It’s not ready yet, but once it was ready he was going to eat the whole thing and either have a week long food coma or die because his stomach couldn’t take it, and either outcome would be okay with him. He would have eaten more than any grot ever did maybe. It’s been hard growing this squig without it getting snatched by any other grots or orks. 

The squig is several times the grots body weight, the bodies instincts say even the incredible digestive prowess of orkoid stomachs, something grots also share, wouldn’t be able to handle that much food.

Instincts vaguely feel grots regenerate about as fast as orks, but they die way easier, what with the being puny and small. The Instincts are sure that anything weaker than weapons grade acid would not get very far into thick ork skin. Orks are the best and most resilient thing, you are the best, go show your superiority by krumping something. These instinctual urges are not very hard to ignore if you have something better to do than krump someone, but the instincts do want a display of orkish dominance sometime soon.

Yeah, yeah, he's going to go have a proper spar soon, sparring is good if you have the strength for it and he'd really like to get a feel for using this body in a fight.

"I expect you to learn the things you don't know how to do. The idea is that I show you how to do them, and then you try to do them, and I tell you where you did it wrong, and you try it again, and repeat a bit, and then you know how to do them. This way, you'll be useful even once I'm tired of asking all these questions and I won't want to send you away to try your luck without me."

Ibrahim likes his name. It's the only thing he really has left. On some level, which he's not sure whether is his new instincts or his old ones, he feels that if the name 'Ibrahim' does not strike fear into the hearts of his enemies, he will simply have to be awesome enough to change that. But also, he may be strong but he's not the strongest, and he's going to be roped into some pretty stupid-sounding war, so. Blacknail doesn't get told any of this, Blacknail shouldn't see him look weak.

"If you eat that much squig, you will die. When it's ready, I'm going to want most of it, but you can have some as long as you're doing very good work for me. I'm going to go spar. If I tell people you're my grot and I'll hurt them if they mess with you, do you think they'll listen even when I'm busy sparring, since I'm pretty big for a new ork?"

Blacknail expected his squig to be eaten by the ork, thats just the way it is. But the disappointment on his face is so obvious that it’s like watching a child get told that the trip to disneyland is cancelled. He perks up a bit when he hears he can eat some of it at least, at least all his work raising it hasn’t gone to waste.

”If I iz your grot, and they punt me, they know youz gonna find and krump em after the spar anyway?” Defending your stuff is important, especially when that stuff was him!

"Great, thanks. You tell them that, if they're not smart enough to guess. Lead the way to the surface."