Battle Against the Orc

I took my time getting ready that morning. Fucked most of the camp and gave my meal plenty of time to digest. Then I paused, sticking out my tongue to sample the air. I could feel the beginnings of a blizzard maybe three days away, a week at most. This is what I’d been waiting for. I couldn’t afford to dally. Had to kill the orc today.

Returning to the same cave entrance as yesterday was risky, but necessary if I wanted to find the group I’d spotted as quickly as possible. Orcs might not be smart, but they were smarter than goblins. A lot smarter. If they’d figured out where I was coming from, then an ambush wasn’t unreasonable.

I eyed the entrance, using all my senses to try and figure out if anything was amiss. I couldn’t sense anything. Entering, I breathed a sigh of relief when I was proven right.

The orc village was a lot better defended that the goblin ones had been, with sentries overlapping their areas and staying within eyesight of each other. Overnight they’d even managed to raise up some wooden palisades.

I could have just charged in and tried to kill all of them, but realistically speaking there were just too many. A series of hit and run attacks was also an option, using my healing spell to wear them down. The goblin shaman made that option harder than it sounded. The easiest thing would be to route them like the clan yesterday, but I’d noticed a bump in experience for killing more people in a single battle. I needed to at least kill all the leaders at once.

With that in mind I settled in to watch the camp, eyeing the different sentries and when they changed the watch. The orc and the other leaders kept toward the back of the camp, with only a couple hobgoblins coming out to check on the defenses.

Goblins tended to slack off whenever they were given the opportunity. I’d been able to sneak into a different goblin camp by waiting until one of them started to doze. That didn’t seem to be an option here. Whenever one of the goblins started slacking a different goblin would rat them out, getting some food as a reward.

With that avenue gone I started to widen my search, looking for anything that could be of use. That’s when I noticed the ceiling. Most of these caves were covered in brittle stalactites. I couldn’t get close to them without sending a shower of rocks raining down. But up there were channels just wide enough for me to slip past. All I needed was one leading to the back of the camp. And then I spotted it, a winding trail that led right behind the orc’s tent.

Smiling I climbed up to the ceiling and started to move, keeping my tail tucked under my body so it wouldn’t hit anything. My ranger class was indispensable, showing me exactly where to grab and what to avoid. Once, when I moved into a particularly narrow channel of stalactites, I accidently brushed up against one. Rocks tumbled to the ground.

I held my breath as a goblin went to investigate, keeping as still as possible. None of the leaders were there, so the fundamentally lazy nature of goblins saved me. He quickly grew bored and moved on. the rest of the trip was smooth sailing and I soon found myself behind the orc’s tent. A ramshackle assortment of mismatched cloth badly sewn together.

How greedy do I want to be, I wondered. The battle would end as soon as the goblins ran, so the longer they fought the more experience I’d get. If I killed all the leaders while they slept, they’d probably run immediately. The longer they fought the more danger I’d be in.

I snuck into the goblin mage and the goblin shamans’ tents, killing them with a swift strike of my claws. They might not be as strong as the orc, but their powers were more unpredictable.

102 undetected kills

Returning outside I took a deep breath and unleashed a torrent of fire. The tents lit immediately, smoke pouring from them. It didn’t take long for the goblins to notice, their unintelligible chatter filling the cave. The orc burst out of his tent, hands swatting at his burning clothes. It would have been so easy to kill him, distracted as he was. I let him go but didn’t restrain myself when one of the hobgoblins bumbled by.

103 undetected kills

The goblin’s started to gather around the orc, pointing and waiving their spears. When enough of them had gathered I charged, letting out another burst of flame and cutting down two goblins. The remaining goblins started screaming, many of them turning to run. But the orc acted quickly, grabbing a spear and hitting the goblins closest to him. His roar called the rest back and before long they were bearing down on him.

It was more than a little unnerving, having over eighty goblins charge you with spears. And this was the plan.

I used my tentacles as flails, knocking goblins down and trying to keep as many of them off of me as possible. Despite my best efforts there were still more than I could deal with at once, trickles of blood already ran freely down my scales. There was a reason ordinary people feared goblins. Despite their size each one was as strong as a fully grown man, which meant it didn’t matter how stupid they were once you were surrounded.

Heal

Spurred on by the orc and the sight of blood the goblins charged mindlessly, not even caring as their losses mounted. Ten, twenty, thirty lay dead or dying, yet still they charged. Healing kept my injuries from mounting, but it couldn’t ease the fatigue. As the battle went on my strikes became slower and less precise. A goblin I thought I’d killed leapt up and cut a large gash across my side. I killed her with a flick of my tail.

Heal

A wound that large wouldn’t close immediately, and while it remained my movements were further hobbled. My magic started to run low.

Despite my struggle, the goblins weren’t fairing much better. Only about forty of them remained. Each lash of my claws or whip of my tail left one dead or dying. My fire breath had proven especially deadly, but I only had a few blasts left and wanted to save them.

When the goblins numbers fell to thirty, the same number as the village I’d eradicated yesterday, I turned my attention to the orc. He stood at the back of the hoard, having retrieved his own, much larger, spear. Eyeing me, trying to decide when he’d enter the fray himself to claim my head. The hobgoblins stood at his side, one eager to enter the fray. The orc kept him back.

I’d have preferred it if the hobgoblins were dead by now, but the orc was too smart to let them die needlessly. Best to end this now. I moved as if to escape, sending the goblins into a frenzy. They moved to cut me off, further thinning the line between me and the orc. Faster than they could think I reversed course and broke through the remaining goblins.

The eager hobgoblin charged before the orc could order him back, letting me kill him and separate the orc from the remaining hobgoblin with a single blast of fire. I bore down the orc. Unperturbed he raised his spear, ready to meet me. I couldn’t slow down, or the pursuing horde of goblins would catch up, and that spear was more than large enough to cause a serious injury.

Feigning to the left before moving right, I tricked the orc into swinging his spear wide. After that I was too close for the spear to be used effectively. My claw came in fast, aiming for his neck. Then, to my surprise, the orc dropped the spear. He grabbed my claw, stopping it dead. I tried again with my other claw, but that one was stopped to. We started to push against each other, muscles straining, trying to knock the other off balance.

We were evenly matched, unable to gain an inch of ground. When the goblin’s were almost upon us the **** on my side suddenly eased. Unwilling to miss an opportunity the orc dipped his shoulder and threw me into the wall. I came down hard on my right hind leg.

The goblins came on, drool flowing down their faces. I rose, unsteady, onto my feet, ready to meet them. Before they could attack the orc’s spear slammed into the ground, calling them off. He wanted this fight for himself.

Believe it or not this wasn’t part of my plan. No cleaver scheme to make the orc think I was weaker than I was. My muscles had simply given out, exhausted from the constant fighting. Still, I wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Heal

And with that, I’d used all of my magic.

I started to move, favoring my right hind leg to make the orc think it was more injured than it was. To my annoyance the orc came on cautiously, despite the obvious weakness. I let him strike at me, trying to build up his confidence by only dodging at the last moment. It worked and his attacks become bolder.

A particularly reckless strike at my side allowed me to reach my head around and bite his wrist. He drooped the spear with a scream, and I closed immediately, surprising him with the speed of my ‘broken leg.’

My claws arched in, and the orc was more than happy to grapple again, grabbing my hands. He smiled when I was pushed back. This let me execute my actual plan. Throat swelling, I prepared to launch another blast of fire. The orc saw this and twisted his head and upper body out of the way, causing it to miss him completely. What he didn’t notice was that I’d been aiming at the last hobgoblin, who was now a smoldering corpse, and that I’d picked up my leg.

I slashed my hind claws through his calf, causing his leg to buckle. This exposed his neck, which was just too tempting a target for me to ignore. As the orc fell the goblins started to panic. A few broke off, followed by more when l let loose my last gasp of fire. It was a bluff, I was too tiered to continue the fight. But goblins never were the smartest creatures.

I lay down to rest as the experience from the fight began coursing through my veins.

Ranger (Elf/Mountains) has reached level 100, evolution possible.

The only options I was given were Vanquisher and spiritualist. While spiritualist intrigued me I was about to try and conquer a village, so Vanquisher was the obvious choice. Besides, I’d get another shot at Spiritualist before too long.

Ten status points added

Vanquisher, a class dedicated to killing sentient beings, grants 100% bonus to attack stats when fighting sentient enemies and the ability to strategically debilitate your enemies. For example, a precise strike to the wrist making it impossible for a swordsman to use their sword.

I took a moment to consider before depositing my stat points. In the end my stats and levels looked like this.

Ranger (Human/forest) Lv 91

Vanquisher Lv 1

Priest Lv 84

Dragon Lv 15

Attack 14 (79.8)

Defense 12 (62)

M Attack 10 (50)

M Defense 10 (50)

Speed 14 (21)

Ah, sweet progress.