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Message: <blockquote data-quote="talien" data-source="post: 4462500" data-attributes="member: 3285">Belly of the Beast: Part 8 – The RingsThe prisoners left their afternoon's work at a quarter-past five, so as to be all collected by half-past. The slanting rays of the sun threw long shadows from the cutters over the water, and the evening light sparkled warmly upon the tide, and danced as it caught every polished point of the dense mass, while the boats advance towards the hulk.On the cutters reaching the hulk, the prisoners streamed up the gangway in single file as before - then poured down the hatchways, into their respective wards, where gruel was at once served out to them. They were allowed to rest till chapel-time, at half-past six o'clock.Kham was exhausted.  He was practically slumped over the table. “Ye should choke somethin’ down,” said Scarbelly.  “Or ye’ll only get weaker.”Kham looked up at the orc.  “Why do you care?”Scarbelly took a deep breath.  “Truth be told, I’d rather gut ye myself. But ye were done wrong, just like I be, by Kenzil an' his legacy. Ye lost a father t' him. Me, I just lost an eye an' a leg.”  He rapped one calloused fist on his wooden peg leg. “This doesn’t mean we’re friends, orc.”Scarbelly nodded.  “I wouldn’t be havin' it any other way. But if we’re goin' t' survive here, we’d better learn t' trust each other. If I wanted t', I could snap yer neck while ye sleep ye know.”Kham swallowed hard.After chapel, at eight o'clock, the men were mustered in their wards and the gates of the wards locked for the night. The officer cried, "The muster's over!" The men jumped up, tables disappeared, forms were ranged along the sides of the ward, and each man got his hammock from the corner in which they were piled in the afternoon by the boarders. In a few minutes all the hammocks were slung, and the men talking together. "The division is for school to-morrow," cried an officer. Shortly after, each man was beside his hammock, preparing for bed.“I found this,” said Scarbelly.  The orc placed something in Kham’s palm.“What is it?” asked Kham.  He peered at what looked like a small black marble.“I dunno, but it was with ye when ye got on board.”“I didn’t have any clothes when I got here,” said Kham.Scarbelly shook his head.  “I didn’t say it was on ye.  It was in ye.”Kham blinked.  He sniffed the marble.  Then he recoiled.  “Oh.”“So I take it ye didn’t know ye was carryin’ that around in your gut? Orcs can carry much more than that in their stomachs, ye know.”Kham shook his head.  “I didn’t,” he remembered Touldrix’s voice, “but I think I know what it is.”  He grabbed both sides of the marble and twisted.  It opened to reveal two rings.  “Magic,” whispered Scarbelly. Kham nodded.  “Well, orc, you’ve got more friends than I thought.”</blockquote>

Verification