“We’re closing in on the designated spot, so prepare for combat.” Said Aywin, the party scout. With those words, the elf disappeared further into the forest, leaving everyone behind to get into proper formation.
Without anyone having to say anything, Halaetain, Amias, Ellen, and Llewel formed a square around Theodard, Mikhail, and Sylvia. Halaetain took the northern corner, wielding an axe that towered over herself by almost a meter, and with blade of such a size that it should’ve been completely unwieldly. Her short but stocky body was covered in a set chainmail with a couple plates of metal overlayed to protect her vitals.
In the south and east corners each held a human swordsman, but with widely different equipment loadouts. In the south, Amias was covered in full plate armor with a sword in one hand and a shield in the other, clearing showing his class as Knight. Ellen on the other hand, she had far less armor, sticking with a set of leather armor with a few metal plates. Far more interestingly, she was wielding two different swords. The right sword was long and extremely thin, while the left was a bit shorter but also a bit wider. When Sylvia had asked, she had called the former a rapier and the latter a side sword.
Lastly there was Llewel, the absolute tank of an elf. Even when compared to the plate armor of Amias, Llewel wore a seriously beefy suit of armor, though his movement didn’t seem particularly hampered. Rather actively than wielding any weapons, he wore a large kite shield on either arm, though with a cutlass sheathed at his waist. When she had inquired about his equipment, he had told her of his class, Wall; it was his job to draw as much attention as possible from the enemies and to step in and protect his teammates.
In the middle, both Theodard and Mikail wore leather armor similar to Ellen and Aywin’s, but the more interesting aspect was their weapons. Mikhail held a large war bow, whilst Theodard had a smaller composite bow, matching his halfling size better than a war bow would’ve.
After about 15 minutes Aywin was suddenly back, his weird green cloak having made it hard for Sylvia to spot him getting close; when matched with his longbow and knife belt, his class being called Ranger felt fitting and familiar to her. “They’re this way.”
Immediately, the formation changed. While Aywin stayed in the front to lead the way and the middle group remained in the middle, Llewel and Ellen took Halaetain’s sides behind Aywin, as Amias took the rear.
It took them roughly 10 minutes to get close to the orcs, but they didn’t immediately attack. Instead, Aywin first scouted out the orcs’ camp and identified the most important targets. From what he could gather, there should be 8 archers, 2 of what he called Elemental Orcs, and 1 Fighter Orc. All for a total of 37 orcs when including everyone.
“Mikhail, you’ll take the two Elementals, distract the Fighter afterwards; I’ll assist you as soon as possible. Theodard, Aywin, clear out the archers ASAP and get back in formation. Llewel, keep main focus on the Fighter whilst we clear out the minions. Also, if any of you guys find some weaklings and feel like you have time and mana to spare, feel free to restrain one or two. Sylvia, focus on staying alive, especially while there’s still a ranged threat.” Halaetain quickly analyzed the situation before efficiently distributing roles.
The three archers went on their way as the rest of the group began to approach at a slower pace. As they closed in on the camp, Sylvia could hear a commotion begin. Even though everything had just begun, the campsite already held multiple corpses. The most notable of which had to also be the smallest corpse, which was completely lit aflame.
Besides the corpse, a similarly sized ‘small’ orc, standing at a bit over 2.5-meters-tall, was busy calling forth walls of plants as the staff of its halberd was literally rooted firmly in the ground, with roots sprouting from the end. However, it was clear to see that he was already quite heavily wounded, though not a single arrow could be seen. A couple of sword-wielding orcs were on their way into the trees, but each of them fell to a sudden explosion of fire.
As the five of them joined the fray, the last few orcs with bows fell to the ground in rapid succession. Though that also seemed to be the limit of what their surprise attack managed to accomplish, as the remaining orcs split into four groups after a single shout from the largest orc, probably the Fighter Sylvia figured. Three of the groups set off for each of the archers, whilst the last and largest went straight towards their approaching group in advance the Fighter.
When they had first arrived at the camp and once Sylvia had gotten her bearings with the ongoing situation, it had struck her as a little odd that none of the orcs really seemed to carry their weapons, with the exception of the archers who were already attempting to counterattack. This question of hers was answered as the orcs approached them, different markings on their arms glowed and it was as if the weapons straight up grew out in their hands. The weapons ranged from swords to spears to great axes.
With ruthless efficiency, Halaetain, Ellen, and Amias went on the offensive and began cleaving through the approaching orcs, granting Llewel an opening to storm through and get to the Fighter who had just finished shouting orders. Shortly thereafter, Aywin and Theodard showed up next to Sylvia as they continued to fell the regular orcs with their arrows. Them having moved over to Sylvia made the groups of orcs sent after them change course to converge on Sylvia’s location.
Apparently having anticipated this, Amias had not pushed as far forward as the other two, allowing him to use Earth magic to mostly funnel both groups towards the centerline where he stood, with Aywin picking off those who circumvented the earth barrier. This was when Sylvia noticed that Theodard shifted from his regular arrows over to ones of ice, which spread out to cover parts of the ground in ice when they hit at the orcs’ feet. With efficient use of his sword and shield, Amias successfully held back the stumbling orcs as he deftly parried and dodged incoming attacks whilst cutting down each orc in a swing or two.
While Amias had held them back, Halaetain and Ellen had cleaned up the middle group and split up to demolish each side from behind. In addition to that, Mikhail had successfully put down the Elemental and the last few orcs approaching him. Towards the end, three of the orcs had actually been sucked down into the ground with only their heads sticking out.
While the sheer efficiency of the massacre had impressed Sylvia, the one who had impressed her the most had to be Llewel who had been defending against the Fighter throughout the entire fight. Every single attack from the Fighter’s great axe was expertly parried by the large shields. Whenever there was an opening, he had shot small but fast streams of water into its face, pulling them from a ring similarly to what Mikhail had previously used against her.
However, the time had now come for the Fighter to be taken out as well and it was clear to everyone that the Fighter knew so as well. Following a guttural roar, the already massive muscles began to glow slightly as they increased in size.
Just as the orc was about to strike at Llewel yet again, Halaetain let out a similar roar to its own and its attack stopped. “Llewel, pull back! Mikhail, assist if needed!” It looked comical to have the short Halaetain stand up to the orc of at least thrice her height, who wielded a great axe over twice the size of hers, but it did not feel like she was outmatched whatsoever. With a grin forming it turned towards her, clearly excited for the fight. Before the fight could begin, Halaetain gave one more order, “Aywin, get the runaway.”
With that said, she charged at the orc with her axe ready to swing. In what felt like the blink of an eye the orc’s axe was touching the ground and Halaetain was in the air with her axe having lit ablaze. Just as she looked ready to swing, the opposing axe had been pulled up to waist height with the tip pointing straight at Halaetain. Sylvia barely managed to notice that a spike had taken shape at the tip before it was stabbed towards the party leader.
In a split second, Halaetain had changed her attack from the intended horizontal slash to a downwards cleave that hit the axe head and managed to both lower it and push herself upwards to avoid the stab. Still in the air, she carried the momentum of the axe straight into another downwards strike, this time hitting the axe handle and cleaving it straight in two. This act made the orc scream in what Sylvia could only assume to be pain, which confused her a little, not that she had time to think about that now.
Now it became Halaetain’s turn to defend, as with pure rage filling its eyes, the orcs left hand flew straight down at her. Without a second to spare, she extended axe down into the ground just before landing and pillars of earth arose around her, barely hindering the hand from squashing her.
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Back on the ground, Halaetain took advantage of the fact that she was now within cutting range of the orc’s legs. As she pulled back her flaming axe, it definitely looked like the flaming axe head grew in size. In the single movement that followed, she swung the axe clean through the two pillars before her and each orc leg.
Suddenly losing both feet was enough to topple the beast, especially when combined with the momentum of its right hand that was aiming for a direct slap at Halaetain. Luckily, that slap did not come to pass, as it got overbalanced and fell forwards, with her dodging between its legs. It didn’t get to live long after it hit the ground, as Halaetain was already up by the side of its neck, and a single cleave was all she needed to take it out.
Confirming that it had died, she exclaimed, “Bastard’s only level 235; orcs are unreasonably good natural fighters.” Turning back to everyone, excluding Aywin who had left right after the duel began, she smiled and said. “Ya’ll did great, the world is now some thirty orcs safer. And as for ye lass.” She turned to Sylvia. “Ye up for a go with one of ‘em?” She gestured at the buried orcs.
It was only then that she realized why Halaetain had asked for a couple of orcs to be restrained. “I should be severely under leveled, but as long as you guys would be willing to step in should it look like it’s going awry, then I’m game; I won’t turn down free combat experience like that.” If she was honest with herself, then just watching others fight had felt a bit wrong, so even if it was staged, getting to take part in it excited her a bit.
“Everyone, circle formation! Mikhail and Theodard, prepare to intercept.” While the party formed a loose circle around Sylvia and one of the orcs, she noticed that a downwards ramp was forming before the orc, and it soon had a path up.
In what felt like less than a second, the orc had gone from in the ground to approaching her. Almost by instinct, she sent a pair of earth spikes towards it, but to little surprise, it swung its sword and cleaved them in two, giving it just enough time to get past.
Now just a step or two away from reaching her, it readied its sword just early enough for Sylvia to pull up a large defensive wall, barely remembering to actually enhance it this time around before jumping back. Despite her rushed enhancement, the orc cleaved through most of it like a knife through butter, only to have its momentum ground to a halt three quarters in.
Her magic doing this little to stop it opened the drain for any confidence she had, and her instinct began to signal flight over fight as she was reminded of the bear snapping her leg like a twig. Recalling that memory made pulses of pain shoot through her leg, despite how it should already be completely healed.
As she tried to logically convince herself that it’d work out since the wall did stop the attack and the weapon was now stuck, the orc just yanked its sword back out of the wall with seemingly little effort. With that combined display of force, it began to dawn on her how strong Halaetain’s party actually was, as they easily wiped out a group of orcs that all were at least this strong. A second later, the wall burst open as the orc shoulder charged through it, seemingly intent on damaging her morale as much as possible, and immediately transitioned into a new attack upon seeing her.
It was this relentless show of force that, in the moment, seemed to easily overwhelm everything she threw at it, combined with the intimidating presence of it towering above her at close to twice her height that made all logic go out the window. Everything around her seemed to lose focus as the imposing orc and its sword was all that mattered in the moment, and her focus dilated to 100% focus on survival, completely phasing out the existence of Halatain’s party as that wasn’t a factor she was used to.
As her mind had completely entered flight mode, she began to see the flame bear from back then overlayed and her mind went to the most tangible action to escape the situation, Bomb Shelter. Ironically enough, if she hadn’t practiced that spell just yesterday, then the most intuitive action for her would likely have been to just completely overwhelm the orc with earth magic, which could’ve possibly ended the fight. But at the end of the day that wasn’t what happened, and as such, when the sword came swinging down, she was already underground before Mikhail’s arrow had even struck down the orc.
Down in her Bomb Shelter, Sylvia had begun hyperventilating as her mind continued to replay that last slash and overlaying it with the bear, completely ignoring that she successfully killed the bear back then. It took her outright looking for anything tangible to do before she even noticed her hyperventilation, allowing her to shift her focus to coping with that instead of the endless replay. As her breathing began to calm, she could feel her subconsciously tensed muscles start to relax.
With her mind now having a little more room for logic, she recalled that the party was up there and would’ve likely dealt with the orc by now. By convincing herself that the threat had been dealt with, she was able to, at least for the moment, make herself calm down. Whilst trying not to think about the orc, the memory of the bear resurfaced, and she creased her brows in confusion as she tried to suppress the fear from back then.
It confused her that the fear from back then was resurfacing when she thought about the bear now, when it hadn’t every time that she had previously told someone about the fight. The only explanation that she could come up with was that it must be due to the orc reminding her specifically of the situation where she had no option for escape against an overwhelming threat, rather than her just recalling the battle in broad strokes without thinking too heavily about it.
All she could really conclude was that she needed to be able to handle herself properly when faced with such an overwhelming force. Which meant that both panic and a desperate or preemptive mutually assured destruction were out of the question, especially since she now had people relying on her.
As she was attempting to think of a way to handle it, the term ‘exposure therapy’ surfaced in her mind, though without any deeper knowledge about it or really any other therapy type. Despite her limited knowledge on the subject, or maybe actually because of it, she figured that, at least for now, the most effective way to tackle the issue would be to expose herself to similar situations, but with having to remain calm in mind throughout the fight.
Despite Sylvia feeling like a lot of time had passed, it hadn’t been much more than1 0-20 minutes before light began to shine down through the ceiling and Sylvia could pick up Halaetain’s voice. “Level 83 me ass. Oh? Finally reached ye. Ye really covered yeerself well up there, lass. We decided to give ye a couple of minutes to gather yerself, but we figured it was time to check in on ye.” She noticed the dwarven lady gesture over her shoulder to the top of the hole – more than 2 meters above her. “We can’t really help much if ye stay down here. So, ye mind joining the rest of us up there.”
The sudden reminder that the party was up there and had witnessed her panicked escape made her cheeks heat up in embarrassment. “Yeah… Let’s get out of here. Stand still for a sec.” In an attempt to push the embarrassment to the side, she focused on filling in the hole behind them as she pushed herself and Halaetain out of the hole, still surprised at how deep it had ended up.
Seeing the mixture of relaxed and slightly worried expressions on the party members, most of her embarrassment faded. The two most notable expression were Halatain and Mikhail’s, with the latter showing the most concern and the former seeming slightly confused. And as she had hoped, the orc had already been killed.
“First off, good job actually doing something back there; most adventurers at yer level would’ve just been completely frozen. Though I ought to say that rather than hide underground, if ye’d just used that force of magic to completely restrain the orc, then ye’d’ve easy killed it. Actually, why did ye make yer attacks and initial defense so weak when you can make something that much stronger?”
Unaware of the amount of mana she had poured into the ceiling when she entered the bomb shelter, Sylvia just looked at Halaetain in confusion. “I did attack with all I could muster in the moment, so I doubt I would’ve been able to do as you suggest, even if I was used enough fighting opponents of that size and strength to not panic and hide.
“Regardless of that, thanks, you guys; I’m really thankful for having had the chance to get this reality check in as safe an environment that one could hope for.”
“Yer welcome, lass. All adventurers have to through that at one point or another, and I’m happy we could help ye with that in return for the mission. Though I’d highly recommend that ye find a solution that isn’t a solo escape, for the future when ye’ll face a similar situation while in a party.” The seriousness of the last bit was not lost on Sylvia, and she was thankful that it wasn’t said in a judgmental tone.
It was at this point that Mikhail had something to say. “Actually, if you feel that you’re stable enough mentally, then what do you say to try again? We do have two more left over, after all.” Despite the concern in the start, he couldn’t hold back a smile as he continued. “After what you told me about your fight with that bear, then I’m sure that you’ll be able to figure out a way to kill one of these. I promise that should it look really bad, then I’ll kill it before it can seriously hurt you, so you don’t need to think about fleeing this time around.”
His sincere smile at the end was a little infectious, and she couldn’t help a small smile from forming. “Thank you for the confidence, and I think I’m stable enough for that. I was actually planning to ask you guys if I could give it another go or two. Though this time my intent isn’t to defeat the orc, as much as it is to simply handle fighting an overwhelming force that doesn’t hold back. So, I’ll likely need your help at least once.”
The rest of the group smiled and gave her words of encouragement. Still nearby, Halaetain gave her a solid pat on the back and grinned. “Now that’s the true adventurer spirit! and that’s definitely the best intent ye can have right now. Ye’ll have to tell me about that bear fight later, it sounds impressive. But now… now it’s fighting time. Take ye place and get ready, I’ll release in a few minutes.”
Both the mention of the bear and her new focus had definitely increased Halaetain’s interest, and she looked decisively more invested in the bout this time around. With a generally more interested and caring atmosphere than previously, the party, now including Aywin who had returned, formed a ring around Sylvia and one of the still-buried orcs.