East of Osiris

1:20 P.M.

Then, the Orcs came.

Wielding ancient weapons, wearing the fur of wild animals, and screaming like deranged berserkers, they charged full speed at the three Revenants guarding the building’s entrance. The Revenants raised their blades anointed in Holy blood to stand against the charging mass of flesh.

The Revenants remained coiled like primeval predators as the Orcs advanced. Just as the Orcs entered the range of the Knights sabers, Ashcroft and Mozaic lunged into action.

The Orcs took a step.

In a flash, two Orcs were dead. Ashcroft flicked his wrist, and a large red smile split open the neck of the first grey-skin. Mozaic swung his sword vertically, striking an Orc in its torso. The unsuspecting Orc was opened from neck to navel. Gallons of viscera spilled on the ground as Mozaic casually stepped to the side.

The Orcs took a step.

Tantalus surged forward under a cleaving longsword. Usually, he preferred piercing attacks, but that would just cause his knife to get lodged. Instead, he followed Ashcroft’s example. Tantalus took his knife in a reverse grip and struck like a viper rising from the undergrowth. The combat knife made contact with the Orc’s unprotected neck for a mere moment. Tantalus was covered in a gout of blood as he severed the artery.

The Orcs took a step.

The three Revenants squeezed into the gaps they had created in the Orcs’ charge. A passing orc almost hit Ashcroft with a stray longsword blow. Ashcroft raised his own blade in a diagonal guard, causing the blow to divert harmlessly.

The Orcs took a step.

Tantalus stooped down low with his knife. In a single quick movement, he had hamstrung one of the charging Orcs. With an animalistic yelp of pain, it crashed to the ground. Mozaic, now behind the Orcs, cut one horizontally. The heavy cavalry saber, strengthened with Holy blood, easily cut through the unsuspecting Orc’s spinal cord.

The Orcs took several steps and came to a clattering halt.

Over the course of two seconds, four of them had been killed outright, and one of them laid on the ground screaming in agony. Naked fear had appeared on their pig-like faces. They were like highly intelligent animals. When faced with an entity much higher on the food chain, they faltered.

The three Revenants faced off against the five standing orcs. Both parties stood well out of the other’s reach. All eight of those still standing held out their blades.

“Just like when you fought ‘em, Ashcroft,” Tantalus chuckled.

Mozaic placed one foot upon the fallen Orc. It cried out in surprise as the foot pressed into its ribs. The standing Orcs looked down at the injured Orc with concern.

“They’re such predictable little piggies,” Ashcroft joked.

Mozaic casually thrust his saber into the heart of the fallen Orc. A death rattle escaped from the monster's mouth as the remaining Orcs gasped at the brutal death which had just occurred before them.

In its anger, one of the Orcs took a step forward. Ashcroft took a step of his own, clearly intending to intercept the Orc’s approach. The Orc halted its assault as it saw Ashcroft’s blade raise in anticipation.

“I’m still counting that one in my tally,” Tantalus said as the Orc on the ground stopped moving.

The three men slowly stepped forward as a unit, baiting the comparatively unskilled Orcs to make the first move. The intelligent monsters responded by slowly stepping backwards away from the approaching blades.

They wordlessly came to an agreement over who they would fight. Ashcroft moved to engage the two Orcs on the right, Mozaic attacked the two in the center, and Tantalus attacked the one on the left.

Tantalus locked eyes on his target, and the rest of the battle fell into the periphery. He was vaguely aware of what was going around him, but he knew that the rest of it could wait for a few seconds.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

In half a second, the Captain of the West Gate analyzed the Orc that stood snarling a mere ten feet away from him. The orc stood at about six and a half feet tall, and it must have weighed three hundred pounds. None of this weight was wasted. It was all designed specifically to apply maximum force to the art of killing. Tantalus compared his own body to that of the orc. Based on the statistical value the system had attributed to his own build, Tantalus estimated that the orc must have had an Agility of 15 and a Strength of 18 or higher.

Character Sheet

Name Melee Deluvian Level 10 Blood Points 150/150 Mana Points 3/3 Race Deluvian Fortitude 16 Strength 18 Agility 15 Wisdom 3

Attribute Modifier: Strength Training (3)

Special Ability: Profane Resistance

Physically, Tantalus was at a great disadvantage. He couldn’t even say that he was necessarily faster than the Orc. It moved with an agility that was roughly comparable to his own. In addition to this, the Orc had a significantly longer reach than Tantalus. The longsword and the Orc’s own wingspan meant that the Orc had a reach several feet longer than his own.

Despite this, Tantalus knew he would win.

Tantalus took a heavy step forward. He pulled his knife back as if to strike, and the Orc adjusted its guard to intercept the expected blow. This move was a mere feint, and Tantalus attacked from a different angle. Instead of the expected attack from the right, Tantalus attacked from the left. The combat knife flew to Tantalus’s off hand. A moment later, that same knife had plunged into the Orc’s liver. The hand which had held the knife a moment before was now clamped against the Orc’s wrist.

The Orc had pulled the sword far away from its center of mass in order to swing at the Revenant. Tantalus had gripped the orc’s wrist just before it started to swing.

The Orc rotated in order to get its sword back on target. Even though the Orc was significantly stronger than Tantalus, it could not get the leverage it needed to exert any of that strength. Tantalus, on the other hand, could put his shoulder behind the vector of force. Orc and Revenant both rotated slowly in place, but the Revenant's grip did not lessen.

The combat knife was withdrawn and, a moment later, buried into the Orc’s kidney. Screaming in pain as the Holy blood overcame its Profane Resistance, the Orc allowed its longsword to clatter to the ground.

The Orc adjusted its body to put its grappled wrist closer to its center of balance, allowing it to regain the advantage in the grapple. In the few seconds it took the Orc to do this, Tantalus was able to remove his knife and once again bury it into the Orc’s large, unprotected flank. When he was done, he danced backward away from the Orc’s grasping hands. As he did so, he kicked the Orc's longsword far out of reach.

Tantalus spared another half second to analyze the situation again. He had stabbed the creature before him in three vital organs: the liver, the kidney, and the lung. The pain would have sent a normal human into shock by now, but the Orc was still standing. It must have had a high Fortitude score. Tantalus’s rudimentary knowledge of anatomy told him that each wound independently would be fatal within a matter of hours. How long it would take for those three wounds together to kill something, he couldn’t be sure.

Tantalus turned his head a few degrees to see how the two Knights were doing. Ashcroft was in the middle of finishing off his second Orc, and Mozaic was about to engage his second target. They were finishing up. He would need to hurry up.

The Orc steadied itself on its feet. It was breathing heavily, and blood was flowing freely from its mouth. It put up its hands into an amateur boxing stance. It must have retained some of its basic combat training from when it was a Goblin.

Tantalus surged forward into the Orc’s range. Even unarmed, the Orc’s range was still longer than its Revenant opponent. It threw a straight punch at Tantalus’s head. How predictable. With his off hand, Tantalus knocked the punch to the side. For a moment, Tantalus held the Orc’s fist in place. He used this brief opening to slash open the Orc’s wrist. He intended to remove the Orc’s hand completely, but the bone stopped his knife.

The Orc stepped backward, reeling from the new wound. Tantalus matched the orc’s footwork step for step, approaching like a panther approaching a wounded gazelle. The Orc threw a wild punch with its good hand, and Tantalus easily dodged. Tantalus entered a clinch with the Orc as its muscular grey arms went over the Revenant’s shoulders. A moment later, the Orc felt the knife.

Tantalus had plunged the knife in just under the Orc’s accursed sternum. The wound squelched as the Revenant viciously twisted the blade inside of the Orc’s chest. Tantalus could feel his knife on its upward trajectory travel through the Orc’s diaphragm and end in the center of its heart. It was a strange feeling. One could certainly not experience such a visceral sensation in Ninth Oasis. Though, it wasn’t necessarily unpleasant.

Tantalus withdrew his knife and stepped away from the dying Orc. Its clinching arms did not provide any resistance. The Orc had no more energy to resist anything.

The Orc fell to its knees. It was inert, though it still had just enough life left to maintain some semblance of a posture.

“Hey T, you done with yours?” Ashcroft shouted from a few dozen feet away.

Tantalus stepped behind the Orc.

“Just about to finish the job,” the Captain of the West Gate grunted.

Tantalus grabbed the Orc by the hair and angled its head back. Without hesitation, he slashed open the Orc’s throat. The Orc fell to the ground, and Tantalus returned his knife to its sheath.

From the moment the melee had started to the moment Tantalus had sheathed his knife, sixty seconds had passed.