The sky overhead stretched endlessly, a vista of blue splashed with white in places. Tyska was laid out in a vast rolling hill of grass and gazed up at the sky, a light breeze tickling ever so. It was a peaceful moment of blissful silence with only the sound of a nearby babbling brook and the rustling of grass on the wind to fill her ears. It was a moment she didn’t want to break with words and evidently her companion agreed for a time. At least for a few minutes longer before a sigh escaped the lips of the one next to her. 

“Much as the wonders of the road are lovely, they don’t exactly pay. We should get up and get moving.” Remarked the woman at her side. 

“Should. Don’t really want to.” Tyska grumbled. 

“Pity we can’t always get what we want, my dear. If we could I’d be living it up in a mansion of gold and silver as servants pour the finest wines down my throat.” There was some humor to the words as her companion, Mara, stood up. 

Upon a hill a bit off the main road were two very different figures. The woman that stood up was dressed in a well worn toga with a tunic beneath it. A shock of dark hair was loose around her head and her form was willowy and pale. Really Tyska was often shocked she didn’t blow over in a breeze. She was a couple heads below the height of the average man, a short woman all told though she carried herself with the presence of one twice her size. Very much a classical ideal for many men.

Tyska herself was everything she was not. A pair of filed tusks peeked ever so from her lower lips and her green flesh very clearly marked her as an Orc. She was clad in rough looking iron armor that clanked when she moved and it covered a form twice as tall as the average human man. Her dark hair was pulled into a tight braid and adorned with claws and fangs as decorations. She was of a rougher bent than Mara though there was a savage beauty about her that suggested some elven or human mixing in her blood. It wouldn’t have shocked her, the brutality of Orcish clans rarely led to loving unions. 

Her red eyes shifted to Mara as she slowly sat up. Even like this, she towered over the petite human. “Sounds bad to me. Gold and silver are poor metals. That you pale skins use them as your coins is weird.” The Orcish woman grunted. 

“Yes well, I’d imagine it’s a bit simpler where you come from. Alas, we aren’t living in the mountains among the orcs. So the laws of civilization are what we abide by, and thus, gold and silver are as good as gods.” Mara remarked with some humor. 

“Soft squishy gods befit a soft squishy people.” Tysha shrugged, earning a chuckle from her companion. 

The orcish woman stood up fully and her full fourteen foot tall scale was on display for the human directly at eye level with her knees. She stretched a bit, her armor creaking and clanking loudly. Her shadow was cast long over Mara, though that wasn’t unusual for her. So many pale skins and knife ears and squat ones were so tiny. It did make getting through doors a unique hassle. Lowlander construction was to their scale and not so much thought was given to larger folks. 

Heavy boots sank into the soft ground as she turned and reached down, gripping the handle of an axe and hoisting it up. It was a huge weapon, heavy and crude and likely not something most folks could hoist up one handed but Tyska handled it with ease and set it against her shoulder as she started walking back toward the road. Mara followed after her in short order, her own lighter steps a bit brisk to keep up with the orcish warrior. 

They had a job to do. Standard affair where bandits were troubling the road and the local lord was too busy with other affairs to respond to it. So some townsfolk gathered enough coin together to pay for a pair of mercenaries. Mara was correct. Coins were necessary in lowlander society. The gold and silver of currency were the lifeblood of these human nations. Those without coins starved or resorted to banditry to correct the scales. It was very unlike her own society. Had taken getting used to but in the end, people were willing to pay for violence. Now that was a currency she had in abundance. 

“Hmm… supposedly they’re settled just off the road a mile ahead yes? I believe it was said an old watchtower was where they claimed their base of operations.” Mara mused. 

“That was what the grey haired pale skin said.” Tyska confirmed with a grunt of affirmation. 

“Probably built some crude barricades around it by my musings. Well. Nothing we haven’t dealt with before. I’ll juice you right up and then I suspect they’ll be regretting their life choices.” The woman said with an airy laugh. 

Mara was one of the Scholar-Mages of Arkosabal, the self styled City of Knowledge. An old lowlander settlement that had lasted through the ages. Her powers were strange to Tyska, but they made her stronger, faster, bigger. That was the sum of what Tyska cared for magic. Her powers were well beyond those of the Shamans of the Orcs. The orcish warrior offered a grunt of assent in response to that and just kept walking. Mara was undeterred and continued speaking. 

“Ahhh, now this road reminds me of…” Mara started going on about some subjects of scholarly musings. They were things that oft went over Tyska’s head, or simply things she tuned out. Mara’s voice was a pleasant one at the least, so she mostly let the human fill the air with words as she walked and focused her mind on the task at hand. 

It didn’t take very long for the pair to be able to see a watch tower off the road in the distance. In the immediate however there were about a half dozen men with rather thrown on armor and some weapons that sat ill in their hands near the road itself. Likely the ones to shake down travelers. One of them, a sandy haired youth, let out a loud whistle as they approached and Tyska took note of the distance between each of them. 

“Well, what have we got here? You taking this one to the circus or something, lass?” The man asked Mara as he pointed up at Tyska with a few laughs coming from his fellows. 

Mara meanwhile had a winning smile on her face. “Oh no! This is my treasured traveling companion and friend, Tyska. I did *try* to get her to sit through a circus show and that was a pretty big flop!” She laughed easily. 

Tyska snorted, recalling that particular fiasco. How was she to know they didn’t bring the bear out for bloodletting? Lowlanders were confusing. 

The bandit meanwhile laughed a bit. “Thats a *woman*? Well I guess monsters take all kinds. Anyway, lass, afraid these roads are pretty dangerous this time of year. Fortunately we brave lads are out here keeping things safe for you all. Course protecting the people ain’t cheap, so we’ll be needing you to pay the toll.” 

“Oh my, is this about those bandits we heard about? Heavens forbid such villains were to happen upon us. Would be terrible, wouldn’t it, Tyska dear?” She held a hand to her chest and affected a shocked expression. 

“Awful.” She grunted out as she leered down at the man that didn’t even reach eye level with her crotch. 

“Indeed! It's good to know there are such strong men like yourself out here to keep us safe. Ah, but we are rather short of coins as of late. Rather a run of bad fortune. I don’t suppose you’d be willing to make an exception?” She batted her eyelashes at the sandy haired man. 

The eyes of the bandits were rather very much on Mara. Wolves were what they resembled. It was a look Tyska was familiar with, having fended off more than her share of forceful orcish males. Of course since their gazes were fixed upon Mara it allowed Tyska to plot out which to go for first. The one with the crossbow. The others would be simple enough but a stray bolt could always be an annoying splinter to fish out. 

“Well… I’m sure we can come to some kind of arrangement.” The sandy haired man crossed over and laid a hand on Mara’s shoulder. 

Mara meanwhile smirked. “Oh I’m sure we could.” She said as she placed her own hand over his and his back jolted. A sign that Tyska responded to immediately. 

Her arm swung out and her massive axe was sent spinning through the air. The sheer force of the throw was enough to displace the air around and sent a blast of air out from where it passed. The crossbowman didn’t even have time to process his death before the axe cleaved him in half with ease. She reached down at two closest to her, stunned by the sudden violence and lifted them up. Her hands fit around their faces and she hoisted the struggling men up with ease. 

They squirmed and flailed in her grasp, having dropped their weapons immediately. And then she brought their heads together with great force, an explosion of red splattering out from between her gauntlet clad fingers. She dropped the bodies and looked at the two others rushing her, swords in hand. The lifted them up and brought them down upon her legs. The swings were good and the weapons were rather decent. Tyska also didn’t try to move. 

CLANG

They struck her legs and found their arms jarred as they impacted the thick steel armor. It didn’t even dent. Tyska snorted and lifted a knee in a sharp motion. The man in front of it got out a scream before he was sent flying back with a sound of snapping bones. The other one tried to run and fell over. The orcish woman simply walked forward, a metal boot coming down on his spine. A scream escaped him as she crushed bones and crushed through him and into the ground with ease. 

It had taken about half a minute and there wasn’t even a scratch on the amazonian orc. She snorted and walked over to recover her axe. Meanwhile the leader of this group had found himself turned to dust completely from the exposure to Mara’s touch. The mage rolled her eyes and walked after Tyska, her sandal clad feet trampling through the pile of dust she had rendered the bandit into without a second thought toward him. 

“You’d think they would run in the other direction when they saw you.” Mara remarked. 

“The weak often have the delusion they are strong.” Tyska said with a shrug. 

There was of course still the matter of the actual camp in the distance. The Orc looked at the watchtower beyond a line of trees. It would be a bit of a mess to deal with that many humans in one place. The tight quarters of a tower were not particularly ideal. She would be fine, but Mara was less suited to that kind of fight. She was already thinking through the best way to go about it when she noticed that Mara was etching something into the ground around her. 

She looked down and saw that the woman was using a rod to draw out a magical circle of some kind around her and once she was done she took out four strange looking gems and placed them at four different points across from each other. That done she stepped back a fair bit and offered the rather confused Orc a smile. 

“There we go, now you just sit riiiight there, I’ve wanted to test this out for a minute.” Mara said with a mischievous grin. 

“Now listen, I am no test-” The Orc started before a flash of light enveloped her and then she found herself having to reorient herself. “Subject.” 

The space in front of her resembled a lot of open air. A lot of it and it seemed like she was flying as when she looked down a bit she could see the forest and the watchtower. But as she continued looking down, and down, she found that she was indeed not flying. She lifted a massive metallic boot the size of a house and shifted slightly. Mara had to dive out of the way to avoid being squished as she stumbled a bit from the wave of vertigo that was briefly upon her. Evidently she had been grown. 

“Woah! That looks like… hmm… I’d say like 200 meters or so! A rousing success!” Mara laughed from below, setting her hands on her hips and gazing up the very very long length of the mountainous sized Orc warrior. 

Tyska’s brow twitched in annoyance and the vast shadow of her hand came down for the mage woman. She let out a squeak before the orcish woman’s fingers curled around her, gentle enough not to crush her. It was extremely fortunate she was used to having to hold back her strength, though the urge to pop the little mage was certainly there as she held out her hand and glared at her with some particularly displeased red eyes. 

“First. Warn me next time. Second. How long is this going to last?” She growled. 

Mara sat out in the palm of the titan and scratched her cheek. “Uhhh… probably a couple of hours?” She said. 

Tyska rolled her eyes and adjusted her breastplate idly. “In that case you can spend a few hours in here.” She said simply. 

There was enough of a gap opened between her armor and underclothes that she was able to dump a very nervous sounding Mara down below. The woman bounced behind her clothes and landed upon one of the vast green breasts of the orcish woman. There was a sound of surprise that was quickly sealed off as Tyska strapped her armor back in place and rolled her eyes. Typical of the mage to just do something like that. Well, she might as well make use of the scale while she had it. It would indeed basically make this whole thing trivial. 

With her companion snug and secured under her armor the woman started walking toward the watchtower that the bandit group called home. The ground beneath her heavy strides shook the trees and branches, the ground itself scarred with the imprints of her boots as she passed over it. Her eyes were fixed upon the tower. It had looked so far in the distance but now it barely came up to her shins. A snort escaped her as she came closer and closer, the bandits around it panicking. 

They had built up crude wooden barricades and such to protect their holdings in the event of an attack, something that their fifty man operation could hold down pretty well against most things. One of those things they were not prepared for however was a massive two hundred meter tall orc woman. There was a lot of scrambling and panic. Some people tried to loose arrows from the top of the tower and it basically plinked off her armored shins. The tower itself wobbled threateningly as her steps came closer and closer. 

From Tyska’s point of view, before she ever reached the barricades it was like a scattering of ants. It resembled when one lifted a rock up and a number of insects scattered from underneath it. The woman let out a snort and lifted her boot up, heel digging into the ground as it was pointed over a barricade and a number of fleeing bandits. They were waving their arms, crying out to the larger woman above them but she couldn’t hear them and didn’t particularly care. Her foot came down hard, smashing the barricade into splinters and the bandits that were caught under its shadow were smeared completely as well. 

“Hmph… maybe not such a bad spell after all.” The orc mused with a slight grunt of appreciation for the sensation. 

She stood before the tower and looked down at it, her feet on either side of the structure. Many bandits were fleeing around the vast boots, seeking shelter in the forest while those inside the tower were trying to flee from within. The woman idly unlatched one of her gauntlet and tossed it over her shoulder. The piece of armor came crashing down behind her, smashing through some trees and crushing a few bandits beneath it. That done she reached down with her bare green fingers and slowly started wrapping them around the base of the tower. 

There were screams from inside as the building was almost effortlessly ripped from its foundations. It was torn up into the sky and the people inside had to hold onto something as the building itself wobbed threateningly. It was very clear it was unstable in her grip, the fingers dug slightly into the walls and those near those sections were crushed as the walls were pushed in by the vast digits. 

A finger from her other hand dug up into the bottom and forced a few bandits to tumble out from it. She had an appreciative grunt from the feeling of the structure giving way soon after and everyone else was sent falling to their dooms as a rain of stones cascaded down below at her feet. Meanwhile in her other hand there were three rather frightened bandits looking up at this savage beauty as her red eyes focused right on them. They were not kind eyes, very much the eyes of a woman that would have been killing them even if she wasn’t big. 

“Hmph… been a while I suppose…” She grunted.

They didn’t have time to ponder what had been a while for the woman before her mouth opened up again and the hand beneath them tossed them toward it like they were peanuts. They screamed as they were heading toward a vast and slimy looking purple tongue and landed inside the moist and humid maw of the Orc’s mouth. There were a series of screams that echoed from inside her mouth before her lips sealed shut. 

Orcs certainly partook of pale skins from time to time when food was lean. They tasted rather like pork to her. That held true even with the scale difference it seemed. She swished the men around her mouth for a moment, getting that rather nostalgic taste out of them as she did. She could feel them writhing. Squirming. Trying to claw their way to escape. There was no escape for them however as the green skinned woman started to chew. 

Strong teeth cracked bones and chewed through muscle like it was basically nothing. She idly chewed, each crunch bringing a silence to the screams in her mouth. A slight trickle of red escaped down the corner of her lips, wiped away with a thumb as she swallowed her gruesome sampling. Little more than a snack really bit not bad. Was mostly for the memories than anything else. They needed more seasoning to bring out the flavor. 

She looked down at her feet and saw that the bandit camp was… pretty much completely wrecked. In no time at all it had been completely and utterly destroyed. Tyska let out a hum of pleasure from within the depths of her chest, something that Mara could absolutely feel and hear as it was made. She had to admit, this scale was pretty pleasant. It was Orcish nature to derive pleasure and enjoyment of dominating the smaller races and this rather dialed up the enjoyment factor a lot. 

“I take back what I said, Mara. Any time you feel like doing this, by all means.” Tyska said with a little laugh as she started stomping off back the way she had come, her steps crushing some fleeing survivors without her giving a thought to it. All in all, one of her more pleasurable jobs.