We don’t know how long it will be before One Eye returns. Another point of concern is that he may choose not to return here alone, and may instead just head back to the Orc Encampment and return with reinforcements. While that would be the smarter play on his part, I believe he is unlikely to do so since he seemed to want to try and save as many of the other Orcs as he could, and beyond that he did not seem to view us as a challenge.

Not that we did much to dissuade him of that belief, but if we are lucky, his failure to recognize us as a threat, combined with his desire to save his comrades, will see him returning here rather than spending the 40+ minutes to get back to the encampment, gather reinforcements, and return.

Ideally he will take 4 minutes to come back into sight. If he takes 10 minutes, we'll have no choice but to run. If I miss my guess and he returns to the camp after all we’ll be in for at best a very, very long flight. At worst of course we'll die. For now, I need to prepare as though he will return. Our odds of survival are highest if he really does come back, and we manage to somehow turn this into a win.

I review every spell I can think of that can combine effectively with spell release, and despite my limited experience there are many, many spells to consider. I would like to be able to imbue our weapons with a hatred for Orcs, making them strike true and significantly harder, I think that would probably be the best possible approach to improving our offense, but frankly even though I know it's possible, I don’t know the details of the magic required to actually make that happen.

More importantly, I am far more concerned with our defense than our offense. Even Regina, who has a significantly higher health pool as well as being harder to sink a clean hit into than I, collapsed within a few seconds of fighting him. Since neither one of us can stand up to him for long, figuring out how we can stand up to him at all is a very high priority for me.

I cannot afford to waste precious seconds considering my options when he could come back at any moment, so I start into the most effective defensive spell I can think of on the spot. I begin imbuing my armor with a spell release allowing me to create a life link shield between Regina and I.

It will make her slightly harder to hit, but more importantly life link shield will send about half the damage she should take towards me instead. If I can stay behind her and drink potions to heal myself, it will effectively double her health. That trick alone is not enough, not nearly enough, but at least it's a step in the right direction even if the act of imbuing a spell release leaves me previous little concentration to spare.

What else? The real problem, at its root, is that the Orc just does too much damage too fast. We hurt it. Not seriously, but noticeably. But we also know it can heal itself. Right, it will probably do that again while searching for us, so expect to face it at full strength again. I must come up with a way to stop it from attacking. As I wrap up my first spell release, I cast it right away. The life link spell has a duration based on hours per level, so it should have no problems lasting for the duration of any fighting we need to do, and if he does come back quickly I do not want to have to waste precious seconds casting it.

As mentioned before, spell releases are difficult, both to prepare and to cast, so doing so has taken up the vast majority of my concentration to avoid losing the slot without successfully casting the spell. Now that I've got one done I can spare a bit of thought elsewhere.

I really need a way to stop the orc from attacking, but I keep coming up blank. Pit trap? I can't make anything like that in a hurry. Some sort of a web or net? It might slow down movement, but It will not stop him from continuing to buff and will most certainly be little more than an inconvenience to someone as strong as One Eye. Same for entangling vines and so on; these are battlefield control spells, but they are more useful when you are using them to flee, or when there are large numbers of creatures, or you can capitalize on ranged attacks.

This guy is so close to being completely immune to ranged weaponry that to call him anything less is just playing semantics. I do not know how many spell slots One Eye has remaining, but he only needs one to remain effectively invincible to our ranged weaponry for far too long for a simple stop gap like those battlefield control spells to help.

Wait, this one might work. It's a longshot, but not hopeless. The touch of a ghoul causes paralysis. Evil priests, dark necromancers, and so on have replicated that ability in a spell form. It requires touching the opponent, which is dangerous, but more importantly it works somewhat similar to a venom effect in that sufficiently high toughness can cause the spell to fail entirely…

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But frankly it is the best idea I have right now for how to finish him off. One Eye has exceeded my expectations on several fronts already, but most Orcs seem to be glass tanks, so his toughness might be low enough for this to work. I prepare the touch of the ghoul for my next spell release. If nothing else, if it works it will be a good finisher for a guy that can heal himself.

Once the spell is prepared and readied in one of my gloves, I consider being able to hurt him more while he is paralyzed. Ok, I am useless. I decide it would be better to prepare Reginas shield with a spell that unleashes divine anger into the caster, making the caster both tougher and more destructive. Since it will be her shield the spell is released from, she will count as the caster, allowing the spell to target her.

I let her know how to use it; it is a very short bonus, lasting about a quarter of a minute, but it might help to keep her standing long enough to dish out some major damage.

One Eye has not yet reappeared, and it has been a bit over 3 minutes. Ok what else? I am already nervous, but my nerves at this point are stretched taut to the point I might be on the verge of a breakdown. Whether he returns here or to the encampment, our odds of survival are low.

Which do I prepare for? We may need to flee if he went back to the encampment. We may regret not fleeing if he does not. Do I prepare another spell release? I should, but which one? A spell that lets us run faster for a couple hours, to provide us a much-needed speed boost in case he went back to the encampment? No, we are probably dead even if we can run a little faster, the small bit of magical speed I could grant would not be enough to stay ahead of those wolves.

I prepare another touch of the ghoul; just in case one casting fails, the other might succeed. If he has free reign to attack us, even with Regina being shielded the odds are too strongly weighted in his favor. This time I am pressed for time, a full minute to complete an imbuement is a long time when you're fighting someone. Regina calls out when she sees him and begins to fire arrows at him.

The next 20 seconds are tense, as I rush to complete my imbuement before he arrives. I only need a few seconds more. Regina launches arrow after arrow, some of which hit, others miss, none of them hurt him, they are merely absorbed by his defensive spell.

Continuing to fire arrows at him is not an entirely wasted action she is taking; I know this spell and it can only absorb a finite amount of arrow fire before it lapses and needs to be recast. The amount of arrow fire it can absorb is absurd, but that limit does exist. In the event that he or we turn to run, continuing to wear down his magical defenses may end up being a critical action.

I complete my final imbuement at nearly the same time as Regina forgoes shooting her bow to activate the buff spell, I gave her, and then he is upon her.

Between the two of them Regina is faster, and she first jabs him with the adamantine end of her bow, before quickly swinging the electrical end around, jabbing him with it. It initially looked like she was going to perform another sweep of his legs with that second strike, he seemed to expect as much too, but with a shift of her grip and a remarkably fast change in momentum it instead struck him directly in the throat.

That was an amazingly clean hit, and you can see the shock of the impact coursing through his body. If this were on earth, the person who took that blow would almost certainly have had their wind pipe crushed, soon to die of asphyxiation. Though they call the dirt here earth, this is not Earth, that single hit is not enough to drop him.

The Orc clearly did not expect to take so much damage so fast, but being powerful himself he still manages to push the head of his axe into Regina's chest, forcing her back a full meter with his own jab, spike screaming and sparks flashing as it scrapes against her quicksilver armor. Between her divine buff and the armor, the strike was not very telling, I only took 2 health damage through the life link as a result of his strike.

Is this the difference between someone with a melee class and someone with a support class? Does she actually take less damage than me? I did not think it worked like that, but I also cannot wrap my mind around half of his damage totaling 2 health.

Regardless, I pull out my crossbow and fire it, contributing to the confusion of the melee, but my bolt bounces ineffectually off his armor. Wait, does that mean his spell expired? Or was it just such an ineffective shot it did not need to be absorbed? Once again, I simply don't know.

Regina quickly leaps back to the offense, knowing that her buff will not last long, this time she sweeps towards his head with the adamantine end, only to redirect and strike his arm, then she immediately brings the electrical side towards his crotch in an upwards swing. One Eye manages to shift his hips to avoid the worst of damage, but her strike was still a surprisingly solid blow in its own right. He had clearly been planning to continue his attack, but Regina is absolutely overwhelming him, and he fakes a lunge before stepping back instead, whereupon he chants a spell to heal himself.

Ok, good. He really is an Orc. His offense is incredible, but it turns out that his health pool is manageable. If Regina can keep getting blows like those first 4 in, we really might win this. I fire my crossbow, and it misses entirely. I still do not know if his spell has lapsed or if it is simply not activating because he wouldn't have been taking damage anyhow.

Regina follows the Orc as closely as she can, securing another glancing blow to his forearm before being deflected by one of the swings of his great axe; his terrifying back sweep glancing ineffectually off of her shoulder. I did not take damage, so she should not have either.

My mind is officially being blown. Regina is absolutely clobbering One Eye in this rematch. Did she eat her Wheaties? Is she furious at the result of their last encounter? Whatever it is, I am cheering her on in my mind, even as I fire another crossbow bolt into the chest of the Orc. Ah, it was absorbed by his still active spell. A pity, that.

I start creeping my way forward. The battlefield has shifted a little bit as Regina has been forcing One Eye steadily back, and I need to keep him close enough I can rush in and touch him before he has a chance to heal himself again once he is sufficiently injured to feel he needs the health.

Regina's offense continues, though not as fiercely as before. Her divine buff must have expired. It does not stop her from catching him hard on the shin, but she is a little less fast and a little less strong now. Similarly, her slight decrease in swiftness is enough of a difference that this time One Eyes axe cuts into her stomach. I took 7 points of damage, so clearly that last strike of his dealing so little damage was some sort of fluke, or it related to the divine buff she had previously had in place.

As amazing as Regina's performance has been, now that the divine anger buff has expired it looks as though further exchanges are on track to be a lot less one sided.