I could hear horns in the distance but they were moving away. It appeared that the orcs had finally realized something was happening. My guess was they would return to the village to protect the women and children.
It wasn’t my goal to wipe out the orcs and I wasn’t going to go around killing non-combatants if I could help it.
Seeing as our fight was concluded for the moment, Martin and I went in search of Ska and Fiona. I took the time to go over the skills I had taken.
Brute Strength: Enhance your musculature and grow your strength by 3 for the next 30 sec. Cost 100 Stamina. Cooldown 1min
Impact Arrow: Give your arrow three times the impact. Cost 25 Mana. Cooldown 20 sec
Kill Shot: Allow your arrow to strike the weakest point of your target. Cost 40 Mana. Cooldown 1 min
I read through the few others but nothing was even of note. Brute Strength was better than my own Giant Strength buff, but not even close to being as effective as Godly Might. I did try using them in tandem and Godly Might just cancelled the other out. It proved what Fiona had told me earlier.
As for the arrow skills they were useless for me. I had no intention of even trying to pick up a bow. I still had four open slots but I saw no point in leaving them occupied with wasted skills. I would sacrifice one using Reclaim and two for Void Lottery. I looked to see what I got.
Darken: Darken a twenty-foot area making it 25% darker than before, lasts 10 min. Cost 40 Mana. Cooldown 30 min.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t a winner. Oh well, perhaps next time.
The two of us found Ska and Fiona quickly.
“How was it?” I asked.
“Two smaller groups of four each. Lower levels, around ten.” Ska replied in derision.
“Well, let's go see what awaits us at the village.”
The orc village was surrounded by a palisade. I had to give the creatures credit, they weren’t slackers. Most other villages I had seen - human and non-human - didn’t even have that much defense.
The gate was closed and orc archers lined the walls. One massive brute of an orc stood outside the gate, next to an orc covered in a robe of some sort and sporting a headdress with antlers that were almost as tall as it was.
The larger orc was carrying a massive axe and even from the woodline, a hundred feet away, I could feel the power radiating from the weapon. A part of me thought it was rather wasteful to enchant a weapon to leak power, simply to inspire fear in your enemies. But then again had we not all been high level and with high endurance, perhaps it would have worked.
“Wait here, I want to see what they say.”
“I’ll come with you,” Fiona said, turning invisible as I nodded.
Sure I would be in the range of the archers but archer skills hadn’t impressed me overly much so far.
Fiona and I stepped out of the tree line and slowly approached the pair.
“Stop, that will be far enough, interlopers. Why have you come into our land and killed our kin?” the robed one asked, stopping me a good forty feet away.
“You refused to talk, so I was tasked with dealing with the problem.”
“Oh, so you are here to kill us all?”
“No, just the chief. I assume that is one of you? Or is he cowering in fear behind the walls?”
The large one stepped forward, growling and letting his axe fall to the ground, the blunt end causing the ground to crack from the weight.
“Filthy human, you will regret those words when I, Chief Gar, tear you apart.”
I raised an eyebrow as the large orc started running toward me. No, this wasn’t the chief, just some dumb brute.
“Fiona, deal with the idiot, while I talk with the actual chief.”
I turned away from the larger orc and settled my gaze on the cloaked one. If he was surprised that I had deduced his little trick, it didn’t show.
The large one only grew angrier as his large stomps started to shake the ground. I heard an angry war cry as he lifted his axe, ready to tear my body apart. That all ended with a grunt and the sound of air escaping. Fiona had turned physical and shoved her sword right through the orc’s lung and up into the heart. The warrior collapsed like a marionette with its strings cut. The massive axe falling to the ground with a boom as he toppled over, grabbing at his wound with his free hand.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
During this whole exchange, I never took my eyes off the cloaked orc. As he looked on in surprise, I used Identify.
Chief Mar’kar | Dark Shaman | Level 18
“Fools,” he hissed, as he started casting a spell.
Arrows started to rain down as I popped Area of Denial.
“You three deal with the archers, I’ll deal with the chief.”
I attempted to close the distance as a billowing cloud of gray burst forth from the caster, obscuring the area for a moment before it cleared up. I was momentarily confused as I saw no effect from the spell. Deciding not to wait, I rushed the caster before he could get off another spell.
I conjured an Orb of Darkness and threw it at the Chief as he prepared a sickly colored bolt of energy to throw at me.
The orb passed through his body and struck the gate behind him, winking out.
“What the hell?”
I didn’t have time to think about it as a dozen bruise-colored orbs crashed into my shield. Thankfully the orc chief didn’t have tier two intelligence or the orbs would have cracked my shield.
I noticed the orbs didn’t come from his location. I realized his first spell must have been some sort of illusion. I activated my eye tattoo and immediately the false image was gone. I swung my head around until I spotted the caster, readying another spell. This time the horns above his head were glowing a deep scarlet and a dark vortex was forming among the center.
I threw a quick Arcane Bolt at the caster, hoping to disrupt the spell, but it splashed against a shimmering shield.
I grunted in annoyance, it was like sparring with Martin. It was a good thing I had a skill for this. I slammed my staff into the ground, activating Disruption.
The wave of rock raced toward the shield and the immovable caster. It shook the shield and the ground below, causing the caster's spell to fizzle out but failing to break the shield. The orc now stood in a crooked circle of Earth as all around it the ground was shattered and broken.
I didn’t have any abilities to defeat shields other than brute force, but I did have a weapon. It was a race as the caster prepared his spell again, while my hand split and charged. I aimed it at the caster only a split second before he finished his spell. The burst of pure mana from my mana cannon slammed into his shield, causing the whole thing to ripple violently for a moment before it shattered like glass.
The only problem was, the shield had absorbed all of the energy of my attack. Dark bolts of lightning reached me only a moment later, flickering across my shield and turning the area around me black as they corrupted the very essence of reality.
My shield held against the magical onslaught but I was forced to leap back as the hole in reality spawned a dark horror, nearly as bad as some of Martin’s. The void horror clawed its way out of the ground as the caster laughed insanely.
“Nah, Martin, you handle this creature!” I yelled, activating Charge and Blink Step to appear next to the caster, surprising him.
My staff slammed across his head with a sickening crunch, causing his antlered headdress to go flying. I heard Martin in the background, chanting a spell before he yelled, “Begone, foul creature!”
The wounded chief tried to stand but I had had enough. I jammed my staff into his chest and activated Shockwave. The ripple of force smashed his body into the ground, flattening him slightly. Somehow he was still alive. I ended his life with Flurry of Blows, or I tried to. A dark pit appeared in his chest as I stabbed down, closing off and taking the end of my staff with it. I threw the weapon down and used my wings to escape the area.
The release of magical energy was violent and I wasn’t entirely successful at getting away as the roil of released magic washed over me. I felt Ska grab me as we ran. I felt the heat as a second blast rolled across us. Ska was thrown to the ground and I remember hitting my head on a tree. Everything was in a daze for a few seconds before my faculties returned. I cast heals on everyone as soon as I could concentrate enough to form the sounds of the spell.
“Everyone okay?”
“You really gotta stop setting off magical items like that,” Martin groaned.
I had to agree with him. I had thought that magical items could only be triggered to explode if they were overpowered. I guess I should have realized that wasn’t the case since I had used magical items as improvised explosives in the past. I made a note to add a cutoff circuit in all my future projects. I also realized that I had already built this into the fortress, thanks to the control station. I couldn’t imagine the damage that would cause if it blew up.
When I finally got enough energy to sit up, I saw a crater where the chief had been. Over a quarter of the palisade had been vaporized by the blast and fire was already spreading to the remaining wall. I could hear screams inside but I also saw warriors running around trying to put the fire out. Our work here was complete, the orcs wouldn’t be a problem again for some time. It was time to leave.
***
We were able to make it back to the fortress without too much issue. One group of orcs had tried to stop us but they were dealt with swiftly. Once safely inside we lifted off and I had time to finally take a look at the gains from the fight.
Paul Fuller | Mantra Enchanter/Maw of the Void | Level 20/15
Summon Chaos Elemental: This spell summons a chaos elemental equal to the caster's level. Requires the caster to have a totem linked to the elemental plane of chaos. Lasts for one hour. Cost 150 mana. Cooldown 3 hours
My second class had finally hit level fifteen, allowing me to switch my experience gain back to my main class. Which I did immediately. My second class was good, but I already had more skills than I knew what to do with.
Then came the skill I pulled off the Chief. At first, I was excited to use it, I knew how useful Martin’s summons were. But, I couldn’t use the ability. It seemed it required an additional skill that the Chief’s class possessed to make totems. I realized this must have been what that headdress was. Too bad it had been obliterated in the devastation of the casters final attack that broke my staff.
Speaking of staves, I now had no staff again. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. I had the ones that I used after the dwarves had stolen all our belongings. I still needed to go through that pile of riches to see what it contained. It was still just piled in one of the storage rooms. After I finished the next mission, I told myself.
For now, I went and retrieved one of the spare staves.
“Frathsar, do you think you could get me some replacement staves?”
“Sure, anything particular in mind?”
I told him about the stats of my previous staff.
“Hmm, might be difficult to find a premade one, but I know a few crafters that could make it. Do you need them right away?”
“No. Once we drop you off just let me know a price and you can send it to me down in Texas.”
“Sounds acceptable. It’s a pity there aren’t any established roads, I would have liked to take my business back on the road again.”
“Give it a few years, I’m sure new trade routes will be established.”
“That is true. Hopefully, the more aggressive wildlife will have been subdued around settled zones by then.”
I grunted in acknowledgment, but secretly I hoped it stayed like it was. I enjoyed the challenge.