The little grot hides his secret squig in a hidden side tunnel, before leading Ibrahim to the surface. Despite his small size he is easily able to match pace with the long legs of an ork, though by the time they reach the surface Blacknail is visibly a little tired.

The most blinding thing about the surface is how close the stars look, whatever atmosphere there is here is thin enough and close enough to the surface that the brightness of the stars is utterly unimpeded. So many more stars are visible and are so much brighter without the atmosphere of earth dimming them or hiding them away.

Even without a nearby sun, the surface of the asteroid is decently lit by the starlight, at least to the eyes of an ork. It has a couple of built up areas with sheet metal buildings and smokestacks, the mek workshops perhaps, but most of what is visible is camps of shoddy looking leather tents. Ork boyz are lazing around being fed by their grots, or getting into brawls for fun. Some of the leader orks are easy to pick out, they wear full sets clothes like leather vests and pants and have shiny spiky decorations on their clothes or embedded into their skin, some even have mohawks or mustaches of tough looking hair, and carry nicer looking weapons. But most of the ork boyz around this area are almost as naked as Ibrahim, a loincloth or tattered vest, or fanny pack pouch, they are roughly around his size, and at best carry a bone club as a weapon.

Blacknail seems a little more nervous now there are lots of other beings around to threaten him. He is shiftily looking around for threats at all times, his large ears perking up at every sound, even his large pointy nose is sniffing around just in case.

Very reasonable and relatable! He shouldn't show that it's relatable, though.

He'll approach an ork his size who isn't already in a brawl or otherwise busy. "Wanna spar?"

The ork looks him up and down, naked, no scars, fresh spawn for sure. He breaks out into a grin, his teeth are all kinds of fucked up or broken and grow in jagged rows like shark. Nothing like the orderly set of fangs Ibrahim has.

” ‘Ere we go then! Bet ya is right outta ya pod then? And the first thing ya do is ask to spar, thas a good sign that is. We spar with proppa spar rules then fresh spawn, no eye or brain gouging, no shivs or other stabby bitz. Since youz new, I’ll let ya have some shroom brew if ya put up a good fight.” The idea of losing to a fresh spawn does not even enter the orks mind. He remembers being a fresh spawn, all brutal and no kunnin, a good ork needs to be both brutal and kunnin, this is how he knows he will win.

Well, it's not the first thing, but this guy doesn't need to know that. "Yeah, right out of the pod! I don't have stabby bits and I won't go for the eyes or brain. I have to know how I am at fighting, y'know?"

And he'll take a fighting stance, and … do spars involve counting and going on a count, or some other rules about starting? If not, he'll take a swing at More Mature Ork.

The other ork might no be any larger than this fresh spawn, but e’s ‘ad a scrap or two. He takes the hit on his chest and kicks out with a hard snap towards the fresh spawns knee. Fresh spawns never expect the kick. It’s usually all wild haymakers and biting when all you have is the feral instincts to guide you.

He's actually been in fights before! Mostly but entirely not with humanoids, but still. He has a lot of experience with situational awareness and dodging. If he has the spare capacity he'll try a simple feint.

Wot trickery is this! He waz going the other way! Other ork falls for it completely. 

And can he leverage this kind of thing into taking his opponent down? …also he should be a bit less careful with his opponent, the rules here imply that causing a lot of bleeding or such is totally normal for a spar if you can manage.

Despite falling for (to what a human think is) a simple trick, this ork looks rather good at taking hits! That first hit barely phased him.

Ibrahims new ork body can punch a lot harder than human memories would prepare someone for, and he needs to pull punches less. The orkish instincts tell Ibrahim to put the whole strength of this powerful body into a hit to do anything that will keep this ork down. Being careful is un-orkish.

Ibrahim could either hit him real hard repeatedly in a weak point if he wants to take him down quick, instead of the long slogging match of back and forth hits the orkish instincts seem to expect from a playful spar, or if he has any experience with submission pins those would work too. Submissions work using leverage rather than just raw strength or stamina.

He's fine with a long slog if he expects it to be educational and he's not accumulating too much damage, but he'd rather dodge than be hit, and he's noticeably better at dodging than he is at hitting. He'll still be aiming for weak points, not something more complicated than that, he hasn't had a fight in this body before.

Both Ibrahim and the other ork seem be capable of taking lots of hits, the pain is muffled and the longer the fight goes on the better the adrenaline equivalent feels, like a runners high but tuned up.

The instincts tell him he is doing a good job hitting weakpoints, and that a lesser opponent would already be down. But this ork he is fighting is particularly stubborn and hardy. Each hit to a joint or solar plexus makes the enemy ork grunt in pain but he is smiling ferally the entire time. Even teeth get knocked of out the other orks face and it keeps going. Eventually the ork backs away and puts his hands up.

”Youz gonna win, I say we end this now. You iz too tricksy to land a proppa hit on, and ya wud ‘ave worn me down eventually. I don’t need to wait for a broken bone to know i’ve lost.” The other ork wipes some blood from one of the cuts on his face that was trickling into his eye, and licks it off the back of his hand idly. “You iz a tricksy bastard ain’t ya? Very Morky, very Kunnin. Smart for a fresh spawn.” The ork smiles with his jagged smile at Ibrahim. “Ye can ‘ave the teef ya knocked out of me, and if ya still want some fungus brew ya can.”

Obviously there are no hard feelings, this was good clean fun.

"I agree, we end this now." Do orks say "thank you"? He has the feeling they do not, but an honest compliment seems reasonable. "You are very tough! I am impressed."

He'll pick up the teeth, since these are trade goods.

"I've never had fungus brew! I want some so I can know if I like it."

The other ork grabs a leather sack full of something sloshy, even unopened it smells potently alcoholic. “Grog is the best thing other than fightin’ around ‘ere!” He passes over the sack to Ibrahim. “ ‘Ave a couple of swigs mate, ya earned em.”

…what do his instincts say about his alcohol tolerance? He really doesn't want to be impaired, but social conformity is important.

The instincts want to get shitfaced! And fight while shitfaced! But you'd need to drain the whole sack to get properly drunk. At least based on the smell.

The instincts seem to be giving very detailed info about whats in the sack just based on the smell, like a living chemical detector. About -specific amount- of -thing that gets you shitfaced-, and -smaller trace amounts- of -very mild poison from shrooms that makes tongue tingle- with the -majority amount- of -slightly dirty shroom juice-. The instincts don’t have words for these things, but the nose can pick out a surprising amount detail of what its smelling.

He'll have a bit. Not enough for any real cognitive change. …at some point he wants distilled alcohol as a material, probably, but "before acquiring literally any containers" is not the time to try to get started on this. Containerlessness is very bad.

"I think I dislike fungus brew. If you get more cunning tricks and want to try them with me, we can spar again later."

And he'll ask Blacknail if this is enough teeth to buy a bag and where he could buy a bag.

“The Boss is gonna ‘and out Choppas to boyz who do well in da pit soon, I already earned mine, Youz can earn one for sure. When ya get yours we can spar with Choppas!” The other ork seems delighted by the idea of introducing weapons into the mix. “I moight have moved camp by then, so ask around for Boner, Boner with da tough bones.”

Blacknail says he can probably find a bag for a few teef, but it’d be cheaper to buy a bag squig and dry it out into a hard container kind of bag if he doesn’t mind waiting. You can also treat a bag squig to make it more of a supple leather pouch, but he would have to wait even longer.

Blacknail used to run a side business making squig leather, but his supply of good bag squigs was nabbed by a Mek who wanted them for something,

Blacknail usually wouldn’t bother offering an option to an ork that involves patience, but Eberhim seems weirdly calm and smart for an ork.

So, that sounds like a great idea, but also, if he's going to acquire any more things, he really needs a bag. …maybe he could find scrap cloth, if that's around, and find or buy buy needle and thread, and he can sew a cloth bag and show Blacknail how sewing works? Does that seem likely to get a bag while maybe also saving some teeth for a bag squig?

Ibrahim could get multiple bag squigs for a single toof. When still alive they aren't worth that much. Cloth that is scrap and not something purchased or fairly claimed from weaker orks, is probably going to be too tattered or full of holes to keep all your gubbinz in it? Could use it for a bag strap maybe. Should Blacknail go roam around for scraps to pilfer? Blacknail can also go to the ‘drops’ for some hair squigs for thread if Ibrahim feels he should.

Alright. He does want multiple bags. He'll go shopping for bag squigs. He has use for both rigid containers and flexible pouches and while he is capable of foresight that doesn't mean he doesn't want resources now. His minion will probably be sent on errands involving carrying things at some point, so probably the worst of the lot of bag squigs should go to Blacknail, which is also a tidy performance incentive.

After that, he and Blacknail are going to go look for cloth straps to pilfer, because he has opinions about what makes scraps more or less usable which may not be fully obvious to Blacknail. Hair squig hair sounds dubious as a thread source but can be investigated. …he doesn't have a spindle, which isn't great. If he can buy some thread that'd maybe be wise. And he wants a needle with a little hole at the far side for putting thread through and some pins, which he also probably has to pay for.

Does anyone or anything interrupt this excursion?

Blacknail goes to another gretchin, and exchanges teef for goods. Live bag squigs obtained. Blacknail then proceeds to gleefully bash the live bag squigs against a nearby rock until their insides becomes liquified. This is followed by pouring out the internal organ slop, initially poured into Blacknails mouth for a snack, until he gets sick of skeleton shards in his mouth, then onto the ground. The sacks of skin without organs are the inflated and the lips tied shut, making skin balloons. Those will eventually dry into tough and hard containers to put things in, itll take about a day and half to dry. Softer leathery bags need way more time, and brains, lots of brains, to treat the leather, but you can treat a already hard bag into becoming a soft bag if you need to, just need to soak them longer.

Once they go hunting for cloth scraps, Blacknail ties the inflated bag squigs to a bit of string that he turns into a makeshift belt, so the inflated bag squigs wont get lost or stolen. Many bits of small cloth and string deemed too small or tattered to easily be turned into clothing big enough for an ork are acquired.

Blacknail goes to the ‘drops’ to find hair squigs. The drops turns out to be a great big hole filled with refuse, both biological waste and trash. Even to an Ork it smells incredibly foul. Blacknail seems used to it as he scales the sides of the pit picking out small scurrying things.

Blacknail comes back with little green reptilian bugs with large mouth pincers and a tiny body, with a stubby tail that ends with really really long hairs, about as long as Ibrahims big forearm. The grot explains you twist off the tails and thats what crafty types use as thread.

Many scraps which are too small for ork clothing are not too small for assembling into a bag or otherwise using! He'd ideally want a multi-strand thread longer than his forearm but he can, technically, work with this.

Blacknail gets told that searching the drops is also a useful skill Ibrahim values.

Now they're going to look for a needle with a hole at the blunt end. It can be bone or metal or some other rigid material. Bone is probably more common than metal here?

Also, who engineers all these squig types, and how often do squigs turn into scary ork-eating monsters? He'll ask his intuition before asking Blacknail.

Plenty of little bones that could be needle sized are laying around as waste. There is no metal lying around that is not part of some existing thing that someone would get mad at Ibrahim for breaking. There is very little metal in the tent camps at all. The ork instincts find this a little odd, strange that all the boyz around have no metal shiny bitz and live in shoddy tents and seem poor.

Asking around for already worked needles gets Ibhrahim weird looks, either because it’s odd for an ork to make clothing, or they worry this fresh spawn is a burgeoning painboy.

The Instincts don’t know where squigs come from. Squigs are just like that. But the ork eating monster squigs are born that way, hair squigs don't turn into bitey squigs. The instincts would find bitey monster squigs more fun though.

Yeah, all right, needle manufacture can happen. This is going to be tedious and he is going to delegate some of the tediousness to his minion. Maybe a mekboy can drill a hole for him or at least loan him some drilling tool if he uses it on-site the whole time, maybe he's going to have to go on a quest to assemble a primitive hand drill so that he can assemble scraps into a container when he still doesn't have any containers to put drill parts in, the idea of which gives him a sinking feeling that there's a metaphorical hole in his bucket. (Though at least in the song, they had most of a bucket!) Maybe thread can stay on the needle if he just gives it a bit of a notch or something, which should be easier than an eye?

But hey, there's food around. He's strong. He's not going to starve. Also, he doesn't have homework. Soonish he'll probably be drafted, but soonish isn't today. It's not the post-graduation rest he wanted, but.