Sorin moved up beside Serene. "Good work human. I appreciate the assist earlier with helping get things moving." Sorin smiled "Not a problem. Time is a resource that must be managed like everything else in warfare." She nodded to him. "Well said."
She turned and looked over the arena and saw different battles taking place. They were not the first group to kill a dummy. A group with a team of three ogres and a werewolf had ripped through a team and was beginning to survey the arena like them for a new target they began eyeing Sorin's group, but was watching them to see what they would do. "We are going to fall back to the rest of the team and be patient." She began moving and Sorin followed suit agreeing with the plan.
"Why do we not attack vampire?" Hagrasha asked with distaste. Still walking she turned her head. "Why do ourselves what our enemy will do for us? Let the other teams bash themselves together. That team has a werewolf and three ogres who I assume are just as hot blooded as you are for battle. They will probably take up the offense and either destroy the other teams for us and exhaust themselves or mess up and lose members."
"That seems cowardly!" the Ogre spat. Sorin seeing a potential issue spoke up. "In my world, we have a saying from a legendary commander who was feared for a while. He said, "Never interrupt your enemy when they are making a mistake." As it stands you are our biggest bruiser, and we do not want to expend the massive resource you bring to the table by throwing you directly at three of your kind and werewolf. We do not want to meet the enemy where they are strong but let them expend themselves and meet them while they are weak. There is more to bravery and honor to just brute force. Do not forget that war is also a battle of the minds, and we will try to win that as well." Serene was watching Sorin now with great interest not expecting insights into warfare that she herself did not understand fully until she was nearly 150. She didn't speak on it but kept her own counsel. If she was ever opposed to this human, she will have to be extremely careful if he were to be in command.
"I like you little human. You use large and fancy words, but they are not the words of the coward. You would make a good war chief if you were to get big enough and mighty enough. I will follow your words and trust in the vampires. If you support their plan I will too."
They met up with the defensive group. Ambriel was keeping a watch on the other teams. "Good work Serene on your quick victory. I assume you have seen what I do?"
Serene nodded. The far side has that team with a very strong physical offense and if I were to attack it outright, we do not have a good chance of victory and even if we did win, we would suffer more loss and leave the whole team unnecessarily weak. I am recommending a patience approach for a while. We have a whole day and hardly an hour has gone by. If that team makes a move, I would like to keep our team together to repel them and minimize risk. I do believe with the amount of battle lust from that team they will not be content to sit idle but to push the fight leading to our advantage from their combat loss, exhaustion, and/or overextension."
Ambriel listened quietly nodding along. "I agree. We wait, rest, and watch. Be ready for any attacks." Ambriel announced to the entire team. They took up positions to either side of their dummy to keep watch as they rested in the sand observing the other teams. In the next two hours the ogre heavy team defeated two more teams, losing one of their number to a soldier declaration of a cut to the inside of his leg where the femoral artery would be. The ogre tried to argue with the soldier but was immediately slammed to the dirt by the soldier grabbing his face and tripping him backwards by the heel before he could even hope to react. The general consensus is the soldiers were all tier 3 with the sergeant believed to be tier 4.
With four teams out and a line of them running around the edge of the arena and stopping to do different work outs Sorin's team continued to watch. To Serene's surprise the Ogres went back to their team and sat down staring and making vulgar gestures toward them. Ambriel motioned Serene over and after some talking, they both nodded, and He began walking over to the team directly to their left who had just watched since the start of the battle. At about the halfway point Ambriel stopped and waited. Sorin who had an idea of what he was doing stood up and watched in case of attack or movement from the team across the arena who was also watching. After a moment a barrel-chested dwarf with two hand axes stepped out and met with the vampire. After a brief discussion they nodded and walked back to their camps.
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"Attack team gather this way if you will?" The four of them moved closer and waited for the word while the two on the defense team kept watch.
"Skozad has agreed to a temporary alliance to take down that team. That being said, do not lower your guard during the fight and after in case they decide to turn on us. You will head over to the middle and meet with their team and advance on them. They will have no choice but to meet you with their full might. We will be pulling what remains of their attack team as we are the only one with anyone that can match even one of them in the physical category. They will be sending four of their own to attempt to kill their dummy knocking them out of the fight. Are there any questions?"
They all shook their heads, and the attack team moved out with Serene in the front backed up by Hagrasha with Sorin and as he found out during down time Evan who was the other human who used a standard sword shield combo. The other team comprised of two humans one male and the other female and two elves, both male, met up and began moving to the team they both wanted gone from the contest. The entire team consisting of six remaining members formed a "V" formation with both ogres and the werewolf taking up the front and with two humans and fox looking beast man.
The three teams faced off against one another then Serene gave the signal and Hagrasha moved to the front with Sorin and Evan flanking him. Serene as the team leader took directly behind them trying to pull the ogres and the werewolf. The other team began to move to the right to force the enemy team to split in order to defense their dummy. It was a partial success. The werewolf, beastman, and human broke off to face the other team and the two ogres with a human remained to face Serenes team. Hagrasha charged filling his axe with grey aether and was right before they met the other team which had the first ogre starting to swing his spiked club Hagrasha stopped as braced behind his axe as Sorin threw a full power barrier in front. As soon as the spiked club contacted the barrier there was a fiery explosion throwing the entire team backwards knocking two of them down. Only one ogre stayed on their feet as Evan and Sorin swarmed in from the sides as the barrier dropped. Evan was fast touching the dazed human on the neck with his sword for a declared death. The ogre in front of Sorin tried to clear his head from the explosion and bring his weapon up which was batted easily to the side and another declared death coming right after. The Ogre still on its feet was locked up with Hagrasha as Serene moved behind slashing a dagger at the back of his calves with a maroon aether causing spasms which led to a distraction leading to a violent strike to the bottom of his chin knocking him cold.
"Move to the dummy!" Serene commanded as the whole team collapsed toward the other team who was outmatched due to the ferocity of the werewolf and extremely fast beast man. Two of their members were down and only the human was down for the other team.
Sorin reached the dummy first and slashed it.
"Stop!" The soldier called as the dummy fell apart. "Your team has failed. Fall in with the penalty!" They dropped their weapons and disengaged moving to the penalty.
The two teams kept their distance as they returned to their dummies and then both full teams moved to the middle where the agreement was originally struck. As they faced off Skozad stepped forward and threw down his hand axes.
"We yield. They way you easily crushed the ogres with us unable to do our part save for be a distraction made it clear we cannot beat you especially down two members." He said as the rest of the team threw down their weapons.
Two soldiers came forward looking at both of the teams. One stepped out and opened his arms up with a smirk. "Congratulations to the winner! You have earned a fabulous reward. You get to have the rest of the night off and get to train again tomorrow! All teams dismissed! Go get cleaned up."
Sorin narrow his eyes.
How often had he heard that from leaders? You do something you think is pretty awesome and they tell you that you did so well you can have Saturday and Sunday off of work.
"Prick."