The first time he was level 33, boasting about how he successfully managed to ambush me. I handily battled him up on the rooftops of Minas Morghûl and quickly defeated him. At first I wanted to recruit him, seeing how he was Legendary and all, but his Iron Will got in the way. So I burned my mark of shame into his skull and mind before I sent him on his way. But something about his voice and countenance just struck me in an interesting way.

The second time he was level 23, and when our blades met he roared in rage "What have you done to me?! Your elf-curse! I haven't been the same ever since!"

The third time he was level 12, and when I casually walked up to him he could only cry incredulousely "You ruined my body! You ruined my mind! You ruined my life! DIE!"

The fourth time he was level 4, and when I patted him on the back, he turned around and screeched "Why?! Why do you keep doing this?!" Finally his mind broke, and all he could do from there on was emit a wailing laughter.

Once again I went to look for him to repeat the process, only for his Blood Brother, an Olog-Hai to ambush me. He roared at me in fury how I turned his beloved friend into a broken wreck and that he would have his revenge. Laughing, I left the slow Olog behind without a fight, formulating a most fun and interesting plan in my mind as I went to shame the orc again.

The fifth time he was level 1, the orc only laughed.

The sixth time he was level 1, the orc only laughed, followed by a series of sobs.

The seventh time he was level 1, the orc laughed and cried, finally prompting me to enact my plan: I recruited him and sent him to kill his Blood Brother, the aforementioned Olog.

So the two Blood Brothers met, one too insane to even remotely realise what he was doing anymore. The troll-man looked at the broken mess his once-friend had become, a spurned wretch that would never recover, but nonetheless this was the Olog's brother, and he refused to lay hand on him.

Suddenly the broken brother I had sent halted, his beady, sanity-voided eyes staring up at the troll-man he had shared so many fond memories with back in more simple times and battles. Somewhere in his deranged mind, amid wholly insane laughter and sobbing, he remembered how the two of them had fought side by side, how their companionship had eased times of defeat and braved opponents priorly-thought undefeatable. He could no longer remember these times now, his shattered mind incapable of grasping any sane thought, but nonetheless he saw his brother, and for a last and final time his mind held fast onto the only sanity he could muster: Their friendship.

Shaking off my control, the two celebrated their reunion, certain that the power of friendship prevailed that day as they turned to me in vengeance, ready to strike me down where I stood.

Of course I immediately proceeded to slaughter the two for betraying me. Why is it that everyone keeps telling me I could become as bad as Sauron? Clearly I am the hero this world deserves.

Update #1: So that shamed commander I reduced to level 1 and then killed along with his Blood Brother has now managed to cheat death and returned to ambush me. He is level 45 again, and he keeps coming back to fight me while slowly replacing his limbs with metal parts.

He is still completely insane, only ever laughing, but there is now one subtitle whenever he ambushes me: Blood Brother Revenge.

I like to think that he keeps cheating death and claws his way up the levels just to avenge his brother and his own descent into madness.

I shall now repeat the process of shaming him to level 1.

Am I not a merciful god?

Update #2: I had a change of heart. After reducing the orc (his name is Ronk the Warden) once again to level 1, I decided to recruit him. By now he has ceased his laughter, he now only cries.

Finding my work to be satisfactory, I cast him into Minas Morghûl's fighting pits, confident he would fall quickly enough and I would be done with him. Predictably enough, the fight against a fire-spear wielding defender orc began pretty one-sided, the level 6 Ronk (he gained those levels due to my Sword of Dominion coupled with Refined Wealth Gem) was quickly pummeled and looked to be losing ground rapidly.

Then he suddenly got enraged due to mortal wounds and fought back with roaring fury, beating and tearing at the foe who found himself trying to mount a futile defence behind his shield. Ronk's rage didn't cease, instead he just kept attacking the foe, clawing away at his health bit by bit until finally he cut off his head.

Amused, I threw Ronk into more pit fights, seeing him defeat each and every foe and slowly gaining back his levels while at it. Having reached an adequate level again, I ordered him towards more refined prey: Two Blood Brothers, an olog and an orc on a hunting trip. He actually managed to kill both all on his own (I made sure to kill all the grunts that he brought with him), while crying the entire time.

My dear little Ronk, you need to understand my heroic mercy: The cruel Sauron would demand that you stand. I only demand that you kneel.

Update #3: Naturally, it was inevitable that Ronk would shake off my control and try to ambush me sooner or later. Disenfranchised Blood Brothers always cause such trouble. Why can't they be selfless and compassionate like me? Couldn't they think about someone other than themselves just once? I was hurt, my feelings were so very, very hurt.

Having grown heroically bored of him, I welcomed his ambush with a smile, even as he held my bodyguard, a level 44 epic Olog, at knife-point as he blubbered and flabbergasted his way out of my mind control. First I summoned a Graug as interlude, though he quickly disposed of the beast, as befitting a captain of his calibre, suffering only a few scratches.

Next I revived my bodyguard, who gave Ronk a much needed proper engagement. Though before long, I tired of the display and dismissed the troll-man before Ronk could finish him off. Now Ronk remained at half-health and was dazed from exhaustion of a long string of rage; of course I did only the properly heroic thing and immediately seized the opportunity to fill his hide with knives and arrows before getting work with the glaive to bypass the numerous adaptations he had amassed by now.

Before long I had filled up my Might meter to the brim, allowing me to enact the last step of my plan: With Ronk broken, I conducted a brutal execution, savagely cutting off his arm and legs before bisecting him at the waist. Chortling as I looked down at my handiwork, the torn mess of amputated limbs and pools of blood that remained of Ronk, I felt my heroism rise once more. Of course I was not without compassion, as I made sure to use the Destroy Followers skill after luring an Olog before his corpse. To remind him of the time I gutted his blood brother, I left the troll's decapitated carcass before his dying sight. I am certain he appreciated the gesture.

By all that is good and holy, the story really should end here. After all, the hero had successfully disposed of a villain in a right and proper fashion, little else needed to be said. I was certain Ronk wouldn't return, destroyed as he was.

I was wrong.

Update #4: In my mind's eye, Ronk didn't die right away. His trait of Epic Determination allowing him to eke out a few more shreds of life even as his innards began to pour from the remnants of his ribcage and blood flowed in streams from his mortal wounds. Using his only remaining arm, he slowly dragged himself towards the decapitated troll's corpse next to him. With his mind so broken and further sent to oblivion by the loss of lifefluid, he could at least give himself to the delusion that at long last he was united with his fallen blood brother.

Clutching himself to the olog's corpse, he simply waited as the life faded from him.

He had been a soldier and a slave. He had seen his fellows die in battle or die more slowly under the lash of the Dark Lord. He had looked into their eyes in their final moments. These had been orcs who had seen life as it was, yet they died despairing. No glory, no defiant last words, only their eyes, filled with confusion, questioning "Why?"

They didn't ask why they were dying, but why they had ever lived. When life itself seemed lunatic, who knew what madness was? Perhaps to be too practical was madness. To surrender one's resolve - that might be madness; to seek treasure where there was only trash. Too much sanity might be madness.

But the maddest of them all: To see life as it was, not as it should be!

Update #5: WHATEVER.

The thought that lifeforms as lowly as orcs could even begin to fathom emotions beyond hunger and rapacity? HAH! Next you would tell me they could even begin to compare to objective compassion such as mine! What a laugh! A train of thought befitting the inbred and ill-educated for sure - if it wasn't clear that these two adjectives were one and the same, hohohohoho! Next you would tell me they are actually capable of speech beyond the garbled nonsense they spout! Allow me another fit of mirth over this imagination; hohohohoho!

With my plaything broken, I decided to grace other regions of Mordor with my nobility: Gorgoroth seeming like a suitable start. I had already scouted another pair of Blood Brothers ripe for repeating my humble act of shaming them towards goodness - or insanity, but really it wasn't like there was any difference between the two.

My merry steps towards brightening the world yet further carried me over the charred plains of the blackened land, my mind leisurely fantasizing about all the happiness and friendship I would spread as I turned brother against brother and grunt against captain. My grandma always said that magical is who behaves magically, after all!

After that she usually also claimed she invented the question mark and the word 'fake', but I digress.

I would like to add that before this time, I had never even known that orcs can actually follow across regions in pursuit of me. I had heard of it, perhaps, but I dismissed it as hearsay. Oh, how wrong I was.

As I was closing in on my prey, creeping on the rooftop of an outpost's ruined tower, suddenly an iron-figure charged from behind, pushing me over as a jagged sword clashed with my own hastily-raised blade.

I could scarcely recognise the amalgamation of metal and flesh towering over me, the chopped off limbs I had so easily discarded now replaced with crude metallic prosthetics, the entire lower half an unholy mixture of iron and blistered meat - but I recognized the name all too well.

Ronk the Warden had become Ronk the Machine.

.

Update #6: Penultimate one.

Ronk no longer cried. Ronk no longer laughed. As I stared up into the only eye he had left, what greeted me was complete and utter conviction. It was the stare of someone that had gone beyond both sanity and madness.

"I was remade, tark." he spoke for the first time since so long, even his voice having changed from a former high pitch to a metallic grating "But really, you are the one that made me. Don't forget that."

Frantically shoving him off, I summoned my Graug and my bodyguard - except that in the case of the latter, I had unfortunately forgotten to select one, meaning I was only rewarded with three feeble warriors.

Ronk took one look at the Graug and spoke "That thing is no more terrible than I." before casually slaughtering the towering creature. Then he set to the task of carving through my warriors even as I fired all the arrows at my disposal at him. Before long only us two remained and we set to do mortal combat.

Of course, Ronk was an evil, cowardish murderer who didn't hesitate even for a moment before he set upon me in my lonesome state - me bereft of my loyal servants! Nonetheless I bravely faced the opportunistic villain on my own, certain that many bards and skalds to come would sing of my selfless virtue.

Ronk immediately flew into a rage, hammering me without abatement, his newly-cursed weapon draining my wrath and focus while dealing massive damage. Freezing and knives no longer worked and neither did vaulting, while his regular attacks were led with such rage that they couldn't even be countered! And with the rooftop so confined, I couldn't put enough distance between the two of us to begin double-charging the glaive!

Seeing my disadvantages mounting, I decided that the properly heroic thing to do was to launch a tactical advance into the opposite direction (though some of less able mind would probably declare it a cowardish retreat, not as if those fools knew anything!), facilitated by a quick shadow-strike at a distant foe.

But with Ronk's cursed weapon still having effect on me, my focus had been completely drained, robbing me of the life-saving slow-motion as I obliviousely aimed at a nearby archer. The Machine's sword struck deep, tearing away the last shred of my health and leaving me at the doubtlessly futile mercy of the orc.

I expected my deathblow with a mixture of perdition and expectation. I would die - certainly - but I would simply take my revenge after I rose again.

But the mortal blow didn't come. Instead Ronk simply stared down at me, with that same stone-faced expression accentuated by the unwavering determination written in his remaining eye. "I know what you're thinking, tark." he spoke with steady tone "Just another death. Just another revenge. Repetition deserving of a machine."

Another subtitle: Humiliation.

"Not this time." Ronk's voice carried a hollow satisfaction as he began to walk off "This life I give you will feel more painful than any death. May you live forever."

Speechless I watched as Ronk simply left, leaving me behind. Of course it wasn't my fault, just all happened because Ronk hadn't played by the rules. I wasn't going to blame myself, I'll be honest, yes. I balked at his self-righteousness, clearly just leaving me alive didn't cause distress to me, no no. Not my fault. I was going to get him eventually, yes. Not my fault though, who would ever assume it to be my fault? I was completely blameless, I didn't actually lose, after all, I didn't die, so I actually won, yes, don't got any blame, no blame to find here no no.

I'll get you, Ronk. I don't got any blame, but I'll get you. Not that anyone can blame me, but I'll get you, without blame to me, yes.

Foolish Ronk, thinking I'll suffer just from being left alive with no blame of my own. I don't have trouble sleeping just because I keep having nightmares of you standing over me, no, I don't have anything blameable. Stupid Ronk, I am completely blameless, so I am going to get you. I am completely fine and dandy and without blame.

Don't got any blame.

ENDING Update:

Deceptively few people actually possess a 'moral compass' in the sense that it is commonly understood. This is a fact that goes unknown because the average person will never make a single true 'moral choice' in their entire life. The world is governed by threats while a true 'moral choice' is one that is made absent the consideration of consequence.

Anybody can feign a conscience because what 'should be' is enforced by laws. Nobody develops a moral compass because simple risk-benefit analysis makes it unnecessary. Ergo there are deceptively few who know the contours of their own heart because they have never used it.

In this sense the very concept of 'morality' is a flawed premise. It cannot be studied. It cannot be universalized. It is unique to the individual.

The moment one finally learns it - the moment they finally learn the shape of their own heart, no matter what that shape may be, is the greatest kind of awakening a being can experience.

Ronk rested his marred back against the ruins of a machine-clan's housing, his metal-hand leisurely fiddling with his cursed blade. In the distance, the lock-step of several figures grew louder. It only took the orc a glance out of the window to recognize several captains, his artificial sight taking note of the ominous glow emanating from their eyes.

Sent by the tark, to make an example of him. The ranger himself probably somewhere further back to witness his struggle, as he usually did.

The machine-orc gave no sound as he resolutely raised his sword and exited the housing, marching towards the foes. There had been something liberating about the touch of death and madness. He had finally realised something.

Many orcs clutched themselves to the thought of attaining glory in combat, to climb up the hierarchy by using their peers as stepping-stones, corpses rendered cheap and easily-replaceable by the Dark Lord's many breeding vats. Glory, they said, was achieved by might and courage, or cunning and backstabbery as it was the actual case. It was both greed and desperation that drove them onwards.

Ronk could no longer find any glory in sacrificing for Dark or Bright. Glory was no longer to give battle in the bright noon of war. Glory was not to be surrounded by fellow warriors upon the field of victory.

Glory, he decided, was to fight alone in darkness, without hope for aid or even remembrance, and to spit defiantly in midnight's eye.

And with that, the tale ends. If anyone has any questions left, I will be happy to answer them. If not, then I will thank you all for the encouragement you gave me to keep going.

Though I am certain that a number didn't quite enjoy the direction the story took, what with starting out with quite the humorous tone before delving into the more serious, I hope you achieved some benefit from the overall conclusion nonetheless.