Wurrgutz...part three!

Moar Fluff! Moar Dakka! Moar WURRGUTZ!


Wurrgutz eyes snapped open in a panic. He found himself looking up at a flat, featureless steel ceiling. He tried to sit up, but found himself strapped down at the wrists and ankles. Wurrgutz pulled with all his might at the bonds, and after a moment of straining his bionic right arm abruptly snapped free. With a grunt he tore the squig-leather strap from his other wrist as well. He sat up ugently, scanning the walls of the small room, and seeing all sorts of strange objects scattered about. He saw knives, wrenches, shell casings, needles, rocks, jars, guns, scrap metal, buckets of paint, bottles, body parts, and blood, lots of blood. A skull glyph with a missing tooth smiled at Wurrgutz from the far wall, identifying the room as one belonging to Mad Dok Gorsnik. Whilst working his legs free Wurrgutz noticed that in the spot where he was accustomed to hazing a right leg now sat a crazy contraption that vaguely resembled a leg. The thing was covered in exposed gears, hydraulic lines, red paint, and what appeared to be a functioning Slugga. Wurrgutz immediately took a liking to his new prosthetic. He flexed it free of its restraint, did the same for his other leg, and strode into the center of the room to give his new leg a test run. While he put the leg through its paces the dok silently slid through the doorway behind him.

“I see ya like da bionik job.” The dok cackled. Wurrgutz, caught off guard, spun around to face the ork, nearly falling over in the process. Before him stood mad-dok Gorsnik, a tall, gaunt ork, who was covered in blood. In one hand he held a nasty looking wrench; the other had an enormous hammer. Orks normally don’t feel fear, but the sight of this grim faced ork made Wurrgutz very uneasy. Something about the way the spooky ork was grinning at him just didn’t seem right.

“Now, if yoo wuld pleez lay down, I need ta…do sum work on yer teef” Gorsnik sneered as he flourished his hammer menacingly. Wurrgutz stepped away and scanned the room for a way out, or, failing that, something sharp. He slowly inched over to the rack of choppas he saw adorning the back wall, keeping the dok in his peripheral vision. But before the mek traveled an inch Gorsnik lunged with the hammer, aiming to knock a few of the mek’s teeth out. Wurrgutz swiftly grabbed his attacker’s wrist, stopping the hammer’s deadly arc mere inches from his jaw. He simultaneously brought his other fist crashing into the side of Gorsnik’s head. The dok dropped the hammer, stunned, and reeled backwards a few steps. Wurrgutz took advantage of this moment to spin around and grab a wicked looking axe off the wall. As he wrenched the choppa free of its mounting he felt a heavy thump at the base of his skull as the dok swung the wrench. Wurrgutz wheeled around, swinging the axe in a wide arc as he turned. The dok leapt back, and then prepared to lunge again after the axe passed him. Wurrgutz deftly hefted the axe back into another wide swing, keeping the crazed dok at bay for another microsecond.

Suddenly a shot rang out, echoing loudly off the steel walls of the tiny room. Both orks stopped fighting and looked over to see Warboss Grimgob standing at the door with a wisp of smoke curling out of his slugga. There was a clatter as both of the dueling orks immediately dropped their weapons. Grimgob glared at the dok, holstering his slugga. All was still for a moment, neither lesser ork daring to move a muscle for fear of Grimgob’s wrath.

“ ’ee dusn’t need ta pay” The boss snarled at Gorsnik. His colossal frame dominated the room, standing a full nine feet tall with eleven hundred pounds of muscle and bone behind him. His voice deep and throaty, Wurrgutz could feel his powerful words rumbling in his gut as well as he could hear him. “‘ees wiv me.”

The dok turned to face Grimgob and opened his mouth as if to protest, but made no sound. Another long second passed as the boss stared down the significantly smaller ork. Then Gorsnik made like he had heard someone call his name, and scurried away hastily.

“Come wiv me Wurrgutz.” The boss said as he stomped outside. Wurrgutz obediently followed. Boss Grimgob was an imposing figure, but Wurrgutz wasn’t afraid.

Wurrgutz and Grimgob had known each other for ages. Back when Grimgob was a “yoof” he was a lowly trukk boy, but with the aid of the fledgling mek Wurrgutz he rose to a position of power in the tribe. The two orks were almost as close as two asexual beings could possibly be. All this is contained within a particularly stirring story of violence, cunning, and fellowship that will be covered later. But while Gorgob was an ork in his prime, Wurrgutz sadly was not. There was a time when Wurrgutz and his boys could build a great stomping Gargant in a little under what equates to a month, and loot a tank out from under its original crew. Since then however Wurrgutz has slipped from his prime mekkin’ days, reduced to an ancient ork puttering around his yard, tinkering with all sorts of odd projects. He did mostly small stuff now, just to fund his private projects: shootas, buggies and the like.

“Wurrgutz” said the boss as he saddled up in his personal trukk, the suspension sagging as the massive ork mounted the vehicle “what in da name ‘uv Gork is dat fing you built?”. Wurrgutz hopped into the passenger seat next to the boss and began to explain as they drove off. The boss frowned as Wurrgutz finished his explanation.

“Wurrgutz, you daft git” The massive ork snapped, “I thought I wus kleer wen I told ya. No more snotty fings. It just dusn’t eva werk out.” Wurrgutz sneered at this, thinking back on his other snotling related experiments: The snot-kopta, the snot tank, and the infamous snot dread. All were hilarious mishaps in his eyes, mere setbacks in the field of snot-weaponry. But the Boss didn’t see the wheels of progress grinding; he instead saw his favorite mek wasting his life. The collateral damage caused by Wurrgutz lately had been exceeding what the Boss perceived as an acceptable level. The loss of the Rusty Gubbin’ was painful, and if it were any other mek the Boss wouldn’t have thought twice about killing him. Wurrgutz put him in a bad position; by letting the mek live he was showing weakness, and by showing weakness he was inviting disorder amongst his tribe.

Wurrgutz was definitely one of the smarter orks, but empathy is a foreign language to orks. The mek had no idea what he was doing to the Boss’s credibility; he was simply living out his life, doing whatever he felt like, as is the orky way. He didn’t mean to undermine the bosses authority; he just thought he had figured out the problems with his past experiments. The way he saw it, all the other war machines he had crafted for his loyal snotlings were at the ork scale, therefore far too large for the little guys to be expected to handle responsibly. Or even for an ork to handle responsibly for that matter. Especially the snot-dreadnought he rigged up a while back, the snotlings he installed went mad with power and turned on Wurrgutz, leveling his workshop and several other buildings before it went stomping off into the mountains, never to be seen again. It was then that Wurrgutz determined that he should build a smaller, but just as deadly, weapon for Rivit. That way the little guy wouldn’t be overwhelmed by the sheer immensity of his machine. Wurrgutz found his logic sound at the time, but in retrospect he realized that his theory had a few holes. His musings were interrupted by Rivit swooping down low overhead, chasing the trukk playfully. Wurrgutz heard the distinctive whine of its screaming engines and smiled. He could almost hear Rivit shouting his crazy little head off over the loud droning as he swooped down low in pursuit of the trukk.

“When is dat zoggin’ fing gonna run outta gas?” shouted Gorgob as he futilely swatted at the little plane as it passed overhead.

“Et’s not.” Shouted Wurrgutz back over the roar of the trukk, “dat fighta is runnin’ on a plasma enjun, da air goes in ‘un side, an’ da enjun supa ‘eats et. Den ‘et comes out ‘uv da enjun real fast, an da fighta flyz. Pretty kleva system, eh boss?”

“Wurrgutz…” the boss sighed as the trukk screeched to a stop outside the ruins of the mek’s yard. “Why kant you put dat kind uv effort into yer mekkin’? Dat plasma enjun…et’s zoggin’ brilliant, but me trukk still runz on da squig joose. Dat snot dread yoo made? Et wuz ‘arder den any ‘uv me stompaz. Yoo could make a ‘eap uv teef if yoo just fokussed.”

“I ‘ad to stomp some ‘uv me best nobs jus’ ta keep yer zoggin ‘ead, yoo owe me Wurrgutz.” The boss menaced as Wurrgutz disembarked. “We’ll work out da detailz ‘uv yer payment later. For now yur job is tuh get that zoggin’ Snot out ‘uv da skies.” The boss sighed, looking at the sorry state of the mek’s yard. “If dat plane iz still goin’ kome sunset tomorrow, I’m callin in da flyboys tuh take et down da ‘ard way. Unnerstand?”

Wurrgutz nodded, and the boss pulled away in a screaming cloud of smoke and burnt rubber. Wurrgutz reluctantly turned around and began to assess the damages from the battle. His shed was a twisted, flattened wreck and many of his vehicles in the back lot had been stolen. He yelled for his grots, expecting to be greeted by silence. The scrap piles heaped behind the wreckage of his shack began to stir, and from them emerged a handful of grots. The mek chuckled at the loyalty of his runts, appreciative of their devotion. He confidently strode out into the center of his yard and began to shout orders to his ragtag crew, taking comfort in his leadership. His grots scurried to work, gathering the various materials Wurrgutz shouted for. Wurrgutz approached the building pile of supplies brought to him by his grots and twirled his wrench between his fingers in idle thought. Then it hit him. He had an idea.

An orky idea.