Esther settled into the shadows by herself, thankful for a little alone time. She and Psycho had been hiding in the forest, two feet from each other, for several minutes, and it had gotten uncomfortable fast. He had asked where her bow was, and she had to invent a story about how the orcs had cut the string and burned it. Then he asked how she expected to fight the giant orcs with just a short sword and shield, and she had to devise another lie. After a few more awkward moments of silence, she suggested they flank the clearing to catch the orcs off guard. Esther trusted Jace would handle most of them, but if any got away, it would be better if they struck at them from opposite sides.
Psycho reluctantly agreed. He had gotten so used to spending time alone that even though he had desired to be with his sister for so long, there was a strange chemistry between them now, and he needed time to adjust. Esther breathed a sigh of relief once she was 100 feet from the elf, hiding behind a clump of bushes.
They had decided to wait near the clearing where the first battle occurred. Because it was so far from Psycho’s hideout, the orcs would be less wary here and would come running through without thought of defense. Then, if a skirmish broke out, there was more room to operate and less chance the orcs would try to burn down his home.
It had been 25 minutes since Jace had left for the orc settlement when Snowy came sprinting into the glade.
“How many?” Esther called back.
Esther and Psycho eyed each other from across the clearing and silently mouthed the words. All of them? The elf scrambled up a tree, and Esther hastily reprogrammed some of her spells. She would need to increase the size of her web dramatically. She also wanted to try out the Mass Charm+. She was warry of elevating it to Death, knowing what had happened to her last time she had used it on Carrak, but thought Paralyze should be powerful enough. The ground began to shake from the stampeding orcs, and she added a few new acid spells too.
First, a dozen of the creatures came into view. They had worked up a lather, sprinting for the last mile with divine-inspired strength. It didn’t look like all of them to Esther, and she held off on her spells, wishing, not for the first time, that she had her rapiers. The eleven-chain mail gave her almost the same AC boost as her old armor but didn’t have the Damage Reduction or room for the critical protection Jace always gave her.
Psycho used his Aim feat combined with Death Shot. The first attack was also a Stealth Shot from the shadows and was deadly at 200 feet. He hit the last orc in line, so none of his other brothers saw it. He didn’t waste time hiding back in the shadows again and took out two more as they raced right by his tree, none of the dead orcs making a sound as they fell. He turned and took out two more as they ran past, fearful that his home was in jeopardy, but felt the tremor in the ground through his tree branch and knew more were coming.
Esther let Psycho have all the fun with the first group, sensing from Snowy’s warning that more were coming, and her pulse jumped as 30 orcs sprinted into the clearing. Had Jace killed any of them? Her web spell wasn’t big enough to ensnare even half the crowd, but she cast it in front of the lead group, hoping to catch a few more running into it. Eight of the beasts were held fast from their necks down, critically failing the save, while others only had their feet trapped. Two orcs struggled through, stumbling out the far side of the spell. As they looked back in amazement at their stuck friends, arrows took each of them in their heads, and they dropped dead.
Esther sent another spell further into the crowd that had slowed to a jog as most of the stupid creatures were still smart enough not to run headlong into a 25-foot magical web. Their intelligence was rewarded by having to struggle against the second spell instead. As more orcs rounded the corner and had no idea what was happening, some of the first victims tried to warn about a trap, but arrows silenced the most vocal ones. And once Esther cast a massive acid cloud in the middle of the group, cries of pain drowned out everything else.
It sounded like a battle as the beasts with free arms tried to hack at the magical strands that held them, often hitting each other or banging against raised shields. The cries of anguish joined the clash of metal, and the last group of orcs thought the elves must have come back, and the war was in full swing. The stupid ones charged in. Most were lucky enough to get trapped at the edge of a web and didn’t make it to the acid. The unlucky ones saved against the spell, wandered deeper into the chaos, felt the acid on their skin, and then failed the web.
Every orc was now transfixed by the spectacle, with most of them on the far side of the throng from Psycho and Esther. The archer had easy pickings but could only ensure a kill once per round. He focused on the ones free of the web who only stood and watched their companions hacking at each other and screaming.
Esther snuck along the other side, picked one of the periphery fighters, and climbed up on his back. She had to hike her dress up high to get a solid grip with her legs and felt the fabric rip. She was out of mana, but that didn’t last long, as she drained the first level from the orc. She cast Enthrall on him and had him back into the woods before anyone noticed. She put another 20 rounds of mana into her illusion necklace, now that they were in combat mode, and kept feeding. All her spells were programmed to last ten rounds, and she bit into the orc’s neck twelve seconds into her acid spell.
The first web gave out, followed two rounds later by the second. The few orcs who had gotten a lucky save or two against the acid stumbled out of the maelstrom while the cloud still burned behind them. A dozen seconds later, the acid dissipated, and the ring of orcs stood transfixed at the carnage inside. Twenty orcs lay dead, each with acid scarring that turned their already hideous skin into what looked like piles of infected ear wax. The few arrows Psycho had fired into the mess weren’t visible amid the mutilated bodies, and no one noticed the eight other dead orcs outside the ring with feathered shafts in their head or back. Snowy had been working on dragging Psycho’s victims into the woods after a suggestion from the elf. Before the orcs had a chance to realize more of their number were missing, something else drew their attention.
An orc with an elf maiden on his back pushed his way through the ring and into the center of the carnage. It looked like she was biting on his neck, but she could also just be hanging on for dear life. Either way, once the pair made it to the center of the ring, the female jumped off, and the orc fainted to the ground, splattering the liquified remains of one of his companions.
Esther found a dry patch to land, holding her sword and shield high and brimming with more mana than she had ever absorbed before. She had a round to spend it and almost ran out of time, but the orcs regained their senses and charged at her, closing in equally from all sides. Esther released her spell with four creatures only five feet away, weapons raised. It was far more mana than she needed, and the excess was funneled into the spell’s difficulty, giving the attackers no chance to save. The Paralyze spell spread out in a radius of 25 feet, and 40 orcs stood stock still. Esther was pleased with the results but then collapsed in a heap.
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Jace had managed to catch up with the slower orcs. These were the mages and shamans. Jace attacked from behind, picking off the stragglers without the others knowing what he was doing. He didn’t want Esther and Psycho to worry about random fireballs, boons for the orcs, or banes against them. And after three-quarters of a mile, they wouldn’t have to. Ten magic users lay dead in a trail going back to the settlement, and Jace pumped his long legs to reach the rest of the crowd.
When he caught up, he was surprised to see most of the orcs standing still and looking toward the center of the clearing. Jace didn’t overthink the situation and started hacking anything that moved. As orcs cried out in pain, more creatures turned to look at him, but most still stood motionless.
Five orcs soon surrounded him, and while they didn’t have Swarm, they could still get a single flanking bonus, and he was forced to turn his parrying to automatic. As soon as he started getting hit, he heard a whistle in the air next to his ear, and an enemy on his right fell with an arrow through his head. In the next round, another died, and Jace maneuvered the remaining three on one side of him, resumed control of his parrying, and started doing real damage. Once he regained control of the fight, the arrows stopped coming. As he dropped the last creature, he heard a horrific cry from behind him and saw a horribly burned and scarred orc with only a handful of HP left come screaming at him.
“No protection from this!” he cried.
Before Jace could respond, Snowy leaped in from the side and tackled the orc to the ground.
“Where is she, Snowy?”
{In the middle of the orcs,} Gracie replied, able to give more description than the wolf. {I’m still trying to figure out what happened. My attention was on you. Psycho isn’t in your party yet, so I don’t know what he saw. I’m not getting any reading from Esther, but I see a still elven form in the middle of a ring of orcs.}
That was all Jace needed to hear and sprinted past the frozen enemies. A few had less than 100 HP, and he swung at them as he ran by, dropping them with one strike. In her elven form, Esther lay in the middle of the crowd, not moving. She appeared to be at full health, and he would worry about what had happened later; now, he straddled her body and raised his weapon. Five orcs were within ten feet, none of them moving. Jace didn’t wait for them to wake up. They were each Helpless, and the 20-slot on their still bodies was as obvious as if Jace still wore his old necklace. The Cleave ability of his weapon let him do a second Critical after he dropped the first, and he quickly realized it let him use his third action to attack another orc. That was powerful but only useful because these creatures couldn’t strike back; otherwise, he would still need his third action to parry.
After two rounds, the closest orcs were at least fifteen feet away, and Jace didn’t want to leave Esther’s side to attack the motionless enemies. He watched Psycho pick off several more stragglers running around the perimeter of the ring before the orcs thought it safe to find cover behind their motionless comrades. When they found Jace at the center of the ring, they met an equally swift death. Eventually, Psycho had to drop from his tree and draw his katana. The remaining orcs were fleeing into the trees, and he didn’t have a clear line of sight to take them down. The elf and Snowy were building a fighting relationship, and he called the wolf to help him hunt down the remaining enemies.
Once the pair got far enough away, the pulsing red border of Jace’s vision vanished as he left combat mode. It seemed odd since almost 30 orcs surrounded him, but they were all in a Helpless condition at the moment and couldn’t attack. Jace sighed and glanced at the still form at his feet. Esther’s illusion had expired, and Jace knelt by her and clutched the necklace in his hands. He loaded it with enough mana for 20 rounds, which would be two hours if they stayed out of combat, and she morphed into her elf physique again.
“Any idea what happened here?” he asked, rising to his feet and keeping Etcher ready.
{After Esther cast that Death spell at Carrack and passed out, I did some research. Any time you cast a spell over 1,000 mana, which is supposed to be rare, despite the frequency with which Esther does it, the game requires you to keep at least a third of what you cast in reserve, or you will pass out. It looks like she is still full of mana now, so she must have only cast from her reserve after feeding on one of the orcs. She has a pool of 624, so her spell must have been close to 2,000.}
“Last time, she had to regenerate her mana to wake up,” Jace said. “If she is already full, what will it take this time?”
{I don’t know. Remember, we only guessed that she needed to regenerate her pool to revive. In the end, Trixna cast a spell on her to wake her up. It might take that again. Neither you nor Psycho has that ability.}
“So, how do I wake her up?”
{If you only had a way to summon a large group of elves who are bound to have clerics and druids in their midst. That would come in handy about now.}
“Sarcasm is a tool for the weak,” Jace replied, but he bent down to his Helpless friend and retrieved the elf mana stone from her. “What about these orcs? When are they going to wake up?”
{Assuming she cast a Paralyze spell, since they appear Helpless, against level 15 characters at a spread of about 25 feet, that would cost 1025 mana. Since we know she spent about 2,000, the only place to put the extra is in difficulty. A thousand extra mana would raise it by 200, so each of these orcs probably failed with 20 criticals. The target of a spell can only fail with half as many criticals as the caster’s level with damage spells. So, at level 16, Esther could only get an enemy to fail a damage spell with eight criticals, multiplying the damage by four. But with non-damage dealing spells, there is no limit. So, 20 criticals would multiply the length of the spell by 50% for each critical. The standard length of the Paralyze spell is four.}
“Meaning they are frozen for 40 rounds?”
{They were in combat mode for 10-20 rounds before you showed up, so they probably have 20 rounds to go, but now that they aren’t in combat anymore, that will be two hours.}
Jace didn’t like the idea of what he had to do, but he couldn’t wait for these monsters to wake up and threaten Esther. Jace tightened his grip on Diamond Etcher and started killing. Cleave let him take down three in one round. He outright killed the ones that had already taken significant acid damage in one shot, often taking their heads. The rest he only reduced to below half health, and they fell to the ground, bleeding out. They were now in combat mode again, but it only accelerated their death, and they would never wake up.
“What are you doing?”
Jace stopped with about ten orcs left and turned to see Psycho and Snowy return. It looked like both of them had taken a few points of damage. The elf had a horrified look, but Snowy only expressed jealousy at the fun her master was having.
“What needs to be done,” Jace said, staring hard at Psycho, wondering if he would have to argue further. Snowy didn’t need any convincing and joyfully leaped at a stationary orc, knocking the monster to the ground, and started to feed.
Psycho saw the action in his peripheral but kept his eyes on Jace, giving the wild animal a pass. “But they are Helpless,” he said. “It is not right.”
Jace shrugged and cast dispel at the nearest orc to Psycho. He had memorized it to remove a level 20 spell, as Gracie had recommended, so it was more than enough to undo any of Esther’s magic. The orc had been rushing toward the elf maiden’s position, but he was on the outer ring and had 20 feet to realize the scenery had changed drastically since he had been frozen. He hesitated.
Psycho didn’t. When the elf saw the orc take three running steps toward his prone sister, he reacted, jumping toward the creature and skewering him in the back with his blade. The orc had started at half health, but the attack was not enough to kill him, so he turned to regard this new enemy and cried out as Psycho hit him again, this time doing enough to drop him.
“I could wake them all up if you like,” Jace offered. He actually didn’t have the mana for that, and Mass Dispel was a different spell. But he didn’t think the elf would take him up on the offer.
“No!” Psycho said, his eyes going from the handful of orcs left and their proximity to Esther. “Do what you must.” He sheathed his weapon. “I do not have the stomach for it.” Jace nodded and resumed his executions, hoping the actions wouldn’t build a permanent rift between him and the archer.