That was funny to Mal-Chin because he was very tall standing at 193 centimeters and lanky, one of the reasons why he chose to be a caster than a melee type. His body and lack of coordination didn't really suite the physicality of weapons-based combat.
Yet despite being so tall for a human, he was presently looking up at the ogre. An innocent smile on his face hoping to appear congenial while responding. “If you mean the acid and poison damage spell then yes, that was me.”
Mag-Feesa, the War Leader of the ogres looked at Mal-Chin for a moment while he went through an array of varied decision trees for interaction and potential outcomes. This being the first time he or anyone in the tribe had encountered human humans rather than other NPC's such as themselves. It was the equivalent of skipping a mental beat for a person.
“That spell, truly it was a scary thing to be inflicted with, doing so much damage each second and nothing my healers cast could stop it, just healing to reverse that damage. I have not been so worried by anyone so weak in a very long time. Truly a scary spell.”
“Thank you, I only have that one spell. I do think it's pretty good, so long as I get the cast applied to a target and can maintain its channel,” Mal-Chin replied quite surprised by the appreciation this sword toting ogre apparently had for his spell.
“You don't seem, afraid little human,” the war leader looked around at the carnage. “None of you seemed worried about throwing your lives away so carelessly. What is wrong with your heads to try fighting us when so weak? For that matter how are you all so weak, no human soldiers should be so easily crushed when throwing such numbers as you have against us.”
“We are just having a fun event, we came to this location randomly,” Mal-Chin stated. “It was good to see this place, amazing really to see another small part of the incredibly vast world.
“Indeed?” the ogre replied unsure how to respond further, having such a nonplused viewpoint was confusing, humans he thought, always strange.
While they talked, the remaining healers of the tribe cast their [Resurrection] spells on their members, starting with the healer Mal-Chin had previously killed. Seeing the ogre up, Mal-Chin walked over to the healer and offered him 5 mana regen potions. “Hope there are no hard feelings,” he said to the ogre healer.
The healer responded with a tilt to the head looking at the war leader coming up behind. “We are not killing this one Nag-Feesa?” he asked.
“Chatting,” he turned to Mal-Chin. “Your spell killed Kel-Phagh here?”
“Yes,” Mal-Chin answered. “I also helped drop one of the warriors.”
Chuckling in a low rumble Nag-Feesa shook his head. “What a spell, he almost got me too Kel-Phagh.”
The healer looked extremely shocked and drew in a sharp breath. “Truly? And your still,” waving his hands towards Mal-Chin as if to emphasise the disbelief. “Chatting.”
“We won, our hunters should not be too badly off with the experience earned today. If they come out at a DP loss then they can make that up in a couple of months so not much harm was done. With all these bodies we should get a fair amount of loot.” Turning to look at Mal-Chin, he asked. “Are there more of you around?”
Mal-Chin affirmed there was. “Four more groups of roughly equal size and assortment.”
“Any more with spells like you, or stronger than the fellows you were with, little human?”
“No, I am the only one with that particular type of spell and how it works, the groups are all about the same strength.”
“Good, we will be fine then.”
“All you ogres were here to fight that big creature our scouts spotted?” Mal-Chin asked.
“The Plateasaur, yes, it is very strong,” he answered, finishing with a grunting that Mal-Chin thought must be an ogre chuckle. We were struggling to take it. We would succeed in the end, but you humans attacked two of ours that were lagging behind with healing, attacking them ended that.”
“Yes, we all came out here looking for trouble, we found it.” Mal-Chin shrugged. “We got it in spades. By the way, there was another one of you back in the direction the first group attacked from.”
Nag-Feesa nodded. “The healers would have headed back to collect him but were interrupted. Once everyone here is up some will go find him.”
“Alright then, I just thought I would let you know, just in case. That Plateasaur must be crazy strong if it was able to knock a big guy like that flying through the air so far.”
“Of course, we are new to this forest trying to establish ourselves. We wanted the Plateasaur for its meat and materials. Especially its armored plates, traders would pay big for such components. That would create an opportunity for us to get more quality dwarven forged items,” while drawing one of the blades at his side.
Using the skill [Inspect], Mal-Chin took a look.
Dwarven Alloy, Ogre Short Sword (Rare)
???
[Inspect] skill is too low to delve more details.
Reading the name aloud, Mal-Chin shook his head. “I can't use [Inspect] to come up with anything more, its level is beyond my limited capability to delve items. (Rare), none of us have anything more than (Common) tier equipment.”
“Well, it is a great weapon, they both are. It took the tribe two generations of effort to get these two swords made. They will last many generations more. I want another of such lasting quality for my people, it would be a worthy achievement to claim as war chief,” Nag-Feesa proclaimed as he sheathed the sword. “We pushed so far into this land to hunt such creatures. To gather such valuable beast components, we can trade earning rapport with the right s who deal with dwarves. It was not successful for the Plateasaur. Still, all these items the humans dropped, even with them as common quality, will trade for a considerable amount. Thanks for helping in that regard.”
This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“So why are you being so nice to me, despite us attacking your hunting party and me attacking you specifically? Aren't you angry we interrupted your attack on that Plateasaur?”
“Like I said earlier to Kel-Phagh, we won. With so many of you all and being so weak we score a tremendous amount of looted equipment. With a few dying we have lost some DP but we who survived also gained a bit. At the end of the day you humans engaged us and we have profited greatly. What I am curious,” squinting his eyes and looking suspiciously down at Mal-Chin for no reason than he thought it would be appropriate. “If there are more of you, would your remainder want to aid us with the Plateasaur or would they just attack us like the first three groups. We would tank, we just need more spell damage to make the fight go faster and easier. What do you say?”
Mal-Chin did not like the position he now felt himself in. It was quite awkward. He believed, on the one hand it went opposite to how the beta testers would think of the situation. On the other it could be informative to try this, working with a large group of NPC's other than the ones they had summoned within the start area. It was something none of them had ever done before, a new experience, something worth testing. “I will ask right now if the rest would consider the joint attack, one moment.”
Mal-Chin's eyes lost focus, he mentally called up a new forum thread and made the inquiry. It was a mere five seconds later, he looked back to Nag-Feesa. “I have asked, the response is up to them and I am not sure how long it will be. Please don't hold the response against the messenger?”
“It's fine little human, hmm, you've been pretty cooperative and I have been rude, allow me to introduce myself. I am the war leader of the Feesa tribe. My name is Mag-Feesa.” The war leader held out his right hand to shake. Mal-Chin clasp the top two fingers of the ogre, the ogre didn't squeeze at all. “Bae Mal-Chin, call me Mal-Chin.”
“Nice to meet you, Mal-Chin. Let me know when you get an answer from your countrymen.
“Of course? Ahhh... so you would want help with the Plateasaur from us, how come?”
“That's simple, with a lot of magic targeting the beast it will fall much quicker than we could do ourselves. When we were battling it we expected the fight to last up to four hours to wear it down without damaging its armor plates too much. Those armor plates would be double the value of the items we currently have and be much easier to carry than the weapons, shields, and armor from 900 of your fallen countrymen. Lots of spells which keep the bones undamaged is perfect for such a beast. Likewise, that spell you used on me would be very effective, it seemed to do skin and internal damage only. That on its own makes your spell amazingly useful for such a hunt.”
“I don't know how we could gain access to a spell like that, ogres are not popular with most of the various races. It's understandable, most of our brethren are just low intelligence and wisdom brutes that invest in little other than strength and constitution. Basically, they are often considered meat and muscle morons with no capability to hold a conversation. They would rather grunt or raw while attacking, rather than consider saying, hello,” he said while scratching his head. “Maybe through we could make inquiries for a spell like the one you have. Something like that would certainly help the tribe out greatly. There is always something costly to invest in.
We have no such thing as a Mage Hall, making access to spells are extremely difficult. Getting [Fireball], [Healing Touch], [Heal], [Dispel] and [Resurrect] took our tribe three generations to find various traders willing to make an exchange for an extraordinary persistent spell. Same with my swords, two generations, very difficult to get,” sighing, he shook his head. “It is not easy being an ogre sometimes, looked at us, spoken of by other races with barely less contempt than the stinky undead.”
“I see,” Mal-Chin replied. “It really does sound difficult.”
“You've no idea.”
Mal-Chin was not sure how to respond, the sad fact was, with the beta test complete, everyone would be out of this test world by tomorrow. What's more, the forum responses he read were focused solely on attacking the ogres. There was not even the slightest inkling to aid them in their hunt. The weak humans were out for blood, ogre blood. He understood, they had worked hard for nearly two years and this event was their chance to just run wild. One big stress reliever before the live world starts.
In the end, he decided to be straight with Nag'Feesa. “I don't like your chances of getting help, everyone is just out for themselves right now, we have no repercussions you see. They won't help and will most likely gather to attack you all instead since you killed wiped out 3 groups. Even if you can kill us all, and they don't believe you can win against four more groups of similar size as the last three. Even if you can, they won't care, they will still attack.”
Nag'Feesa frowned for a bit rubbing his chin in thought. It seemed a strange observation to notice under the circumstances but none of the ogres had beards. Mal-Chin self consciously felt his own stubble, it was one of the things he truly found annoying in this world. Trying to shave with a dagger and no mirror or shaving gel was a frigging nightmare. “When you say no repercussions, what do you mean?”
“Until sometime tomorrow, we'll get a notification closer to the end, probably. Until then, we can die and come back to life as often as we like with no consequences accept losing the gear we ware at the time of death. We all will respawn at the place we...” Mal-Chin looked for the right word. “At the place we came into this world.”
“What ridiculous magic is that,” Nag-Feesa replied while shaking his head in disbelief. “If that is the case I understand the crazy actions. But still, dying because you can, seems extreme.”
“It is War Leader, yet at the same time, it is very eye-opening to see the gap between our weakness and your tribes' strength. It gives us perspective on the work we need to do to develop ourselves.”
“Strong, paaah. No, we are not strong. If we were strong we wouldn't have any trouble taking that Plateasaur down. A creature that is not aggressive, that prefers to run away. We struggle with it because we are not strong enough.”
“I understand, and yet your words add to my understanding of how weak we are, you have expanded my perspective and I can relay that to the others.”
Mal-Chin checked his forum thread, there were enough postings wanting to attack the ogres that he knew cooperation was impossible. He had figured that would be the case.
“Sorry, War Leader, they want to attack for the fun of it, they will not be assisting. I did not think they would be interested, everyone is looking to blow off steam with mindless violence on anything the can. You all have simply become the best target to enact said violence upon.”
“That is fine Mal-Chin, we are ready to crush weaklings. I understand if you don't answer and I won't try and force an answer. But, can you tell me where are they coming from?”
Mal-Chin considered for a moment then shook his head no. “I think telling you that would be considered a betrayal, even if they don't care today I won't do that. I think the best course of action is for you to dispatch me, then I can no longer report on your location either. That makes whatever happens fair, don't you agree?”
“Really, just like that, you are willing to offer such a thing so easily?”
“Well if you're going to be fighting four other groups each roughly the same size as the last three, I don't think you will be going after that Plateasaur.”
“You don't need me and I am a liability, it seems like the best option I can offer for your tribe and it is of no concern to me. No repercussions remember. Just make it quick, ok? I am not interested in suffering.”
“That I will make sure of,” Mag-Feesa drew his sword.
“Thank you for showing us the gap in our strength Mag-Feesa, War Leader of the Feesa ogre tribe.”
“A pleasure meeting you Bae Mal-Chin,” Mag-Feesa replied while bringing his sword arm up across his body, tip pointing toward the sky standing in a slightly crouching position. He smiled. “Thank your countrymen for their loot donation to the Feesa tribe.”
Mal-Chin was still looking up at Mag-Feesa's face when there was a flash of arm movement, the world spun in a triple loop before it impacted the ground, looking at blades of trampled grass up close. Everything went dark.
You have died.
You will lose 1 Development Point (DP) per minute until they run out and you autorelease.
You can accept a [Resurrection] spell to revive you at any time.
Autorelease Timer: 130h 41m 52s
You can choose to respawn at any time by choosing to:
[Release Now]