"Oh, cool. So what can I do for you today, Dregolf?" Gregory asked as kindly as he could.

Sensing the orc's discomfort, Janette helpfully interceded for him.

“Dregolf and a few other war packs went to Rolk's encampment today,

Greg." She settled against his side as she spoke, wrapping his arm about his waist as they both regarded the orc warrior. "You see, Rolk has been pissing off a lot of orcs for a while now, and just skirting the Line with what was acceptable in taking other orcs stuff through some Legally dubious challenges.”

“Yup."" Gregory nodded; he'd been properly briefed on that matter already.

“Perolf was one of Rolk's targets, and lost a whole Lot to Rolk before

Dregolf could put a stop to it. You remember when The Berserkers had to spend a lot of time in the healing tents? Well that was this guy's fault, and his war pack.”

“Then as far as I'm concerned we're already friends." Gregory shifted his gaze back to Dregolf and grinned.

“You have no idea how much of a relief it was to get a few weeks without having to worry about one or more of those assholes jumping me whenever I was alone.”

That seemed to take the edge off of whatever Dregolf was nervous about, and he offered Gregory a small smile and a modest nod of his head.

“Right,” Janette continued, "so Dregolf and a few other packs who are friends or family with those orcs who aren't as, um... talented in the martial arts as they could be?" She kept a close eye on the orc as she said that in an effort to keep things civil, as such a statement might be read as an insult to his family's prowess. Thankfully, Dregolf took the summation of his brother's fighting talents in stride, so Janette continued. "Yeah, well they've been put in a difficult position. If they challenged Rolk directly, he'd have just refused without a slight to his honour because they're proven and he isn't. They also couldn't complain about it without risking further dishonour to that butthead's targets. So after yesterday when you openly challenged the fucker and then won, you kind of got yourself a shitload of goodwill not just with the orcs he'd challenged, but with guys like this."

She nodded to Dregolf and he remained silent. Gregory started to realise why the orc had been reluctant to lay this all out because it was quite a difficult and personal subject with quite a few matters of honour involved. It wasn't exactly Like an orc to say "thank you" since it implied they were indebted to whoever was being thanked.

“So, a bunch of these new friends of yours went over to see Rolk's camp this morning." Janette Lifted her hand to point at several orcs near the entrance of the camp who had been steadily collecting a large pile of items together whilst they'd been talking.

“They decided to facilitate the transfer of his ill-gotten-gains to you, so you didn't have to worry about any angry Berserkers trying to complicate the issue."

Gregory's eyes widened as he realised what that meant. He'd considered the growing pile of random objects at the entrance to his camp to be a bit of a hindrance. In fact, he'd strongly been considering telling those orcs something along the Lines of “quit messing up my front lawn!" So realising that they weren't just piling up random junk, but were in fact delivery men certainly made him do a double take.

“Hold on," Gregory rubbed his fingers nervously along his chin.

“Just how much "stuff" are we talking about here, Jan?"

"Oh there was quite a bit. Rolk made the rounds of most of the merchants in the camp. They weren't really able to defend themselves all too well against those goons, and they had a lot of stuff for him to take. I told them to bring over the gold and jewels last, because they're heaviest and we'd probably have to get a few barrels made up to keep them in."

Gregory laughed at that, until he turned to Janette who was only smiling at him with a steadying clarity of truth in her gaze.

"Oh fuck, Jan. Do you have any idea how big Emmet's List is going to get now?" he felt his heart sink into his stomach.