Esther approached the two females carefully, not having the advantage of Gracie in her head. With a knife in each of their hands, and their cat-like stance, she assumed they would have a similar fighting style as herself, but she was willing to bet the apparent sex slaves didn’t have half her skill. She was right.
They had no armor to speak of and were barely wearing any clothes. One had a skirt, while the other only wore a scarf across her chest. Esther dutifully named them Skirt and Scarf and tried not to let her curiosity get the better of her as she wondered how orc anatomy differed from hers. Since they were dodging, they each had only two standard attacks per round. They had initiative, and Esther deftly avoided both swipes, her hasted condition giving her an additional +5 to her Dodge skill. She struck back at Skirt and got a double crit. She sent it all to damage, keeping her Heavy Weapon ability at bay and testing the female’s resiliency. She was guessing she would need the Heavy Weapons against the male orcs. She did 65 damage, which dropped Skirt’s health by about 25%. The orc screamed in pain and neglected her second attack, dropping out of reach.
Esther needed to dodge one more strike from Scarf, which got lucky and hit for seven damage. Her ring absorbed it, and Ester returned with two more strikes that round, each limited to 17 per attack. Esther felt like she couldn’t miss, and truth be told, even rolling a 1 with her off-hand would still be ten over their AC.
The two females recognized how badly they were outmatched and yelled for help. “Kreeynk!” they called for the shaman. “It’s too bright in here.”
The male orc had just cast his attack boon for the group and was now watching the archer next to him get pummeled by one of their own guards, who seemed to be under some kind of spell. While searching for a boon to help him, he heard the two females calling. After a quick look in their direction, he saw one of them clutching their side while the other tried to face off against the woman in black and took a tremendous blow, followed by two more that brought her total health below half.
The females usually lurked in the shadows at night, visiting several rooms without Carrak’s knowledge. The lights Trixna had installed prevented that. Knowing this might happen if they were attacked, he had memorized something to counter the light and cast it quickly. Around the perimeter of the hall, the lights went out, leaving a shadowed ring around the center. There was still enough illumination from the wards cast high up on the domed ceiling to see, but they didn’t reach far enough to light the edges thoroughly.
Esther didn’t notice the change immediately and focused on Scarf, knowing it would only take two more rounds to kill her. The female orc gritted her teeth in determination but missed her next strike and took another 3x damage from Esther. She got lucky on her second attack that round, but Esther didn’t flinch as she struck back with another 17-point attack. She did flinch, however, as she felt a searing pain in her back.
Skirt had slipped into the shadows, gotten behind the woman, and then struck with a massive advantage, adding a +5 flanking bonus to her 18 stealth skill. She not only hit but got three criticals as Esther couldn’t dodge what she didn’t see. Skirt spent one to enact her weapon’s bleeding trait and did 29 damage additionally. All the knife attacks had gone into Esther’s ring so far, but the bleeding damage, which was equal to the knife’s base damage and reduced by one each round, went to her HP.
The wounded woman turned on the orc and caught her with her third attack that round, doing only standard damage. Skirt cried in pain again but cast a spell to disappear back into the shadows. “I can play too,” Esther said, enacting her own ability to hide, but it didn’t work. Esther forgot she couldn’t lurk in the shadows when hasted. Plus, as the next round started and a wave of pain rolled through her from the bleeding condition, that would have also taken her out of the shadows.
Esther turned desperately toward Scarf, but that female was also gone. She knew from experience that if she was looking directly at them, they couldn’t hide without magic, but if she turned her back on one of them, they could disappear in the shadows for free.
The foolish females laughed at their prey as Esther spun about, trying to locate the sound, but it came from multiple directions, and she couldn’t pinpoint it before both orcs attacked at once from opposite sides. They each got a flanking bonus this time, and both did double criticals. Her ring could take all the knife damage, but she now had three bleeding conditions. While it wasn’t that big a drain on her HP, the stacked conditions prevented her from doing criticals in return. She managed to hit Scarf with another strike, but when she turned toward Skirt, trying to catch the orc before she disappeared again, a stone post rose from the ground right before her, and she crashed into it. In addition to giving the orcs bonuses to attack, the Swarm Field also aided in dodging, and Esther flailed desperately at Skirt as she dove behind a post and evaded the woman for the first time this fight.
Once again, they both disappeared before the start of the next round, and Esther spun about in frustration. She didn’t know the purpose of the posts and assumed they would hinder her attackers as much as her, so she placed her back against one and turned so another stood just before her. It didn’t help. Scarf seemed to materialize directly out of the post in front of her as she leaped out of the shadows and through the stone. Her knife sunk deep into Esther’s chest, and she put it all to damage. From behind, Esther felt Skirt stab straight through the post into her back, weakening her knees. By the end of that round, her ring was empty, and the females had put two more bleeding conditions into her. Esther gave in and started using her Heavy Weapons, elevating her attacks to 30 damage, but now she had problems hitting them as they darted in and out of the posts.
Esther ran. She didn’t know where at first, but weaving through the posts with her accelerated speed, she knew she could put space between her and the females. Also, the center of the room seemed to be more illuminated. Her body jerked at the start of the next round as almost 20 HP bled out of her, and she nearly crashed into a stone post.
Instead, she just avoided it and saw Snowy whimpering before her in a similarly desperate situation. Grink was not without his own injuries, but Snowy looked near death, and the orc was getting ready to finish her off. Esther didn’t slow down, ran up the back of the distracted orc, took advantage of the flanking bonus Snowy gave her, and grappled the big orc into submission. She didn’t get a critical success to render him Helpless, but with Snowy’s help, they tripped him to the ground.
Esther knew she couldn’t engage with the orc for long, or the Females would attack her from behind, and she would be flat-footed on the male’s back. Instead, she led Snowy away from the scene, hoping the orc wouldn’t pursue. “Girl,” Esther said, gasping in pain as another round started. “I need to find these orcs.” She held out her blades, covered in the females’ blood. Esther had to stop to let the wolf sniff the orc’s scent, but it didn’t take long.
Suddenly the cavern shifted as Esther saw what the wolf did. It took her a moment to adjust, but soon she found the two female orcs stalking toward her. She saw more clearly now that they didn’t have to avoid the stone posts and knew they wouldn’t aid her in any way. Esther didn’t stare too long, lest the orcs figure out that she could see them but took off running on an intercept course that would appear random.
Right when the orcs were close enough to leap out at her again, Esther and Snowy turned toward them and attacked. Since they were seen while leaping out of the shadows, the two females lost the initiative and were caught flat-footed. By this time, Esther only had one active bleeding condition, and she was no longer prevented from getting criticals. Her blade sunk deep into Skirt’s chest, fully using the Heavy Weapon. She got a quadruple crit this time since the orc couldn’t Dodge, and the 5x damage killed her before she could strike back. Snowy had intercepted the attack of the other orc, doing enough damage to almost render her lifeless as well. With Scarf pinned beneath the wolf’s paws, Esther finished the job.
Snowy took a moment to heal herself and Esther while the woman looked around for their next targets. She saw her thrall still standing, but he wasn’t moving. The archer lay dead at his feet, but now the shaman was pounding on him with his staff after having cast some immobilizing spell on him. “Go kill the shaman,” Esther said, thinking it would be easy for the wolf. “I’m going to help Jace.”
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Jace needed help.
He had only been able to get the perfect parry / 20-attack combo one other time in the last few rounds, but Carrak had already healed himself back to full health. Meanwhile, he had taken several hits in return. The huge orc was getting +10 or +15 to each strike, depending on the posts they fought near.
Jace needed help, but when Grink came jogging over to join the fight, it wasn’t the kind of assistance he was looking for. This new orc had lost a few of his original 450 HP, but he was still in better shape than Jace. Since the lieutenant was a fighter, not a mage, he had better attack and damage stats than his master. The smaller orc didn’t have the defense, though, and since he was wielding a large shield, he didn’t get a second attack when he raised it. Carrak’s shield was considered a medium, even though it offered him more protection than Grink’s. Jace was tempted to turn his attention to the smaller orc, seeing that he could do damage, but he found that parrying the mace the fighter used was too different, and he couldn’t combo a good counterstrike.
Jace’s mana was now high enough again for him to cast his Damage Sink totem, but without the quick cast feat, it would take him a full round. After maneuvering himself around Carrak to block the lieutenant, Jace was only standing next to two posts, and he wasted his round to cast the totem. With dozens of pillars in the room, he reached out to one shorter and wider than the rest and placed the totem sideways on the pedestal that held the demon stone. He saw Snowy fighting the shaman not too far from his totem, and he knew she would have to get clear before he executed his plan.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
The reward for his effort was a full round of attacks from Carrak, and one from Grink, as the second orc made it around his master just in time. Since he was casting, he wasn’t parrying. Jace took a double crit from Carrak, which dealt 90 damage, and then a second attack for 22. Grink added his own triple crit, taking advantage of the flanking bonus Carrak gave him. His 4x damage strike did 120 damage. Before Jace’s totem was one round old, it had already taken 232 damage of its available 260.
Jace hastily went back into his parry mode, bocking both of Carrak’s attacks but failing to deflect Grink’s mace. He did 21 damage, taking Jace’s totem to within 7 points of failure. For his plan to work, Jace needed to absorb another massive attack without dying, but he couldn’t take two. He needed one of the orcs to hit him for a triple crit but couldn’t figure out how to ensure that without opening himself up to a potential quadruple crit that would kill him.
In the end, he said a prayer to Dexmachi, blocked Carrak’s first strike, and then parried Grink’s. When the lieutenant raised his shield, letting Jace know he was done attacking for the round, Jace stepped between the two fighters to give the battle mage a flanking bonus, sent a message to Snowy to seek cover, and stopped parrying to dump whatever mana he had left into his healing ring.
Carrak hit him for a triple crit, doing 124 damage. Seven went into the totem, and it exploded with the other 117. Jace still took the damage, dropping him dangerously low, but anything within range of the totem also took it. Snowy had listened to her master, leaping away from the shaman she had been fighting and diving into the dining room. Kreeynk had been taken below 100 and dropped dead on the spot. The thrall died as well.
The concussive blast was so loud that everyone in the hall had to make a magic save or be stunned for one round. Carrak didn’t need to roll to pass, and Esther and Jace had no problem either. Grink failed. Esther was only a few dozen feet from the fighting trio and sprinted the last few strides to leap back on the stunned orc’s back. Now that he was flat-footed and suffered a penalty against combat maneuvers, he failed the grapple check critically, and Esther had him.
Carrak recovered quickly and saw what the vampire was trying to do. He moved to knock her off with a strike that could potentially kill her, but Jace stepped in and deflected it. He also defeated the second attack that round and looked beyond the orc toward his handiwork. He expected to see the pedestal shattered into pieces and the demon stone lying on the ground, free to take. If he could give it to Esther or Snowy to race out of here, he felt confident he could beat this battle mage.
The stone pedestal stood without a scratch.
Carrak backed away from his adversary for a moment and followed Jace’s gaze toward the source of his power. Realization dawned on him about what Jace had tried to do. “Nice try, but I am stronger than that. Dresth’Nal gives this entire cavern power. A simple trick will not defeat us.”
Carrak continued laughing for a moment and then searched the cavern for Esther and Grink. He couldn’t find them.
{Esther has wrestled the other orc into the shadows and is hiding,} Gracie advised. {She is working on something that might work. You need to hold out for several more rounds.}
“I am not finished yet!” Jace replied to the orc, though his health at 50 told another story. “There is still time for you to join me. We do not have to fight.”
“You attacked me!” Carrak bellowed. “I invited you into my home, fed you my food, offered you my females, and you repaid me by slaughtering my army and attacking me.”
Jace frowned as he realized this wasn’t his best stalling option. “I was testing you,” Jace tried.
The bigger orc laughed again. “More like you tried to kill me and failed, and now you are offering me peace. What, should I follow you back to your army? I am not stupid.”
“Then I will bring my army here,” Jace countered, wondering how long he needed to stall. From the red border around his vision, he could see that whatever Esther was doing kept them in combat mode. That was a good thing, as his Athletic boon had just expired, and he needed another seven rounds to generate enough mana to cast it again. In combat mode, that was only 42 seconds. “I have many more orcs and over a dozen females,” Jace continued to buy time. “The gnomes will have to carve out many more rooms. You will not be master of a band but the king of an empire.”
“Enough talk. I trust nothing you say. You only lie and kill.”
Jace shrugged and smiled as he saw his mana creep above the 150 he needed. “As you said when we first met, it is the orc way.”
“So is this!” Carrak cried, launching into a vicious attack.
They were far enough apart that Jace had the time to refresh his Athletic boon without losing a round, and he wondered if Carrak had cast True Strike on himself because the sword came in lightning fast. He gave it his best parry, but it still broke through, dropping his remaining HP by almost half. He could only take one more hit like that before he was dead. Unfortunately, it came with the very next attack, as Jace tripped over one of the posts, putting him in range of three of them.
Down to half a dozen HP, Jace had no room for error. Every parry needed to be a 20. He didn’t even try to fight back, trusting that Gracie was telling the truth and Esther was working on something. Without worrying about Grink attacking him from behind, Jace mapped out a path through the posts that kept him away from clusters and often only next to one.
When Carrak finally leveled an attack on him that couldn’t be mathematically blocked, Jace was ready with a 20 parry, giving him two criticals. The battle mage’s high-level canceled one, but the other saved Jace’s life. At the end of that round, the posts disappeared. They had lasted for ten rounds after the shaman’s death but now faded like pillars of ash in the wind. Without that advantage, Carrak had no chance to hit Jace, and with his improved parrying, Jace could take the time to counterstrike.
Each parry was executed with a 19 or 20, and when Carrak rolled low enough, Jace could beat his attack by 20+, often giving him two criticals to attack back with, three if he got a 20 in the parry. Then he constantly hit back with an 18-20, increasing the total of criticals to as many as five. Carrak would always cancel one, and another was needed to actually hit him, but one attack finally got through with a 4x damage multiplier, doing 160 damage.
Jace knew he couldn’t kill him. He was a level 20 battle mage and probably had half a dozen spells at his disposal that could shave off his last six hit points. And If Jace ever whittled him down to half health or below, his script might call on him to cast them. But Jace just wanted this orc to know that he was better. It didn’t matter what level he was or whether he had a shaman or a massively powerful demon backing him up. Jace was still better.
When Carrak’s HP was finally whittled down to around 600, the big orc stepped back with an odd look. Jace realized this was probably the threshold and braced to try and roll a good magic save, but the battle mage didn’t lift a finger to cast a spell. Instead, his eyes opened in amazement as he stared at something behind his opponent. Jace turned to look and almost fainted.
The angel of death stepped out of the shadows. It was Esther, but it wasn’t. Her eyes were solid black, and her skin glowed like the dawn. Her skirt and hair blew about by some secret wind. Wings appeared on her back, but not like the demonic or angelic ones Jace had seen before. These were ethereal as if the shadow she stepped out of clung to her back like spiderwebs. She lifted her empty right hand and pointed past Jace and directly at Carrak.
“You die,” she said in a harsh whisper reverberating through the cavern.
A tiny black sphere left her hand and raced across the hall toward the paralyzed orc. It splashed against his chest, and Jace watched the mighty enemy wilt where he stood. He remained upright for a second, a desiccated corpse, and then fell over and disintegrated into the stone, his magical items dissipating into wisps of shadow.
Jace turned back to Esther and ran to her as she suddenly looked too weak to stand. He saw she was fully healthy, but she collapsed into his arms from the exertion. She blinked a few times as color returned to her eyes. She focused on Jace’s orc face. “Did we win?”
Jace nodded and hugged his invaluable companion. “Yes, we won. You did it.”
“I . . .” she started but passed out.
Jace lifted her into the air and carried her into his room. Trixna was anxiously waiting inside. “What happened out there?” she asked.
Jace guessed she was some kind of priest, and that last spell probably shook her to her core. He wouldn’t be shocked to go outside and find dead grass around the mountain. “It’s over,” he said, lying Esther on his bed and sitting beside her. “I will explain it all to you later. For now, I need you to return to your room.”
Trixna wanted to argue but nodded her head. “Can I at least heal you?”
Jace wondered if this was a trap. He would feel foolish if they did the impossible only to be outsmarted by a temple prostitute or whatever this female was. However, if he wanted to use her after this was over, he would need a level of trust with her. Jace had considerable Mana Generation, and during the last bout with Carrak, he had regenerated most of his maximum. He dumped it all into his ring. It only brought him up to 106, but he felt safer now and nodded. Trixna approached cautiously and put her hand on Jace’s bald head as he sat next to Esther. He felt a warmth pass through him and quickly checked his health to see it back at maximum.
“Thank you,” he said.
She only nodded and then hesitated as she looked at the beautiful woman on the bed and then again at her new master. Jace remembered what Gracie said: orcs viewed males who slept with human females like pedophiles. Trixna must think that Jace was rejecting her companionship for this fragile human. Whether she did or not, she obeyed and retreated to her room. It seemed cruel to keep her in the tiny space, but according to this module, she had spent weeks there already. A few more hours wouldn’t matter.
Jace turned his thoughts back to Esther, wondering how long the woman would be unconscious. He had a sudden urge to caress her shoulder or hold her hand, but with his oversized orc hands, it did feel like he would be touching a child, and he fought the urge. “What did she do?” Jace finally asked.
{You haven’t figured it out,} Gracie asked, genuinely surprised.
“I have a lot running through my mind right now. Humor me.”
{She must have memorized a spell specifically for killing Carrak. It is a massively elevated version of her Charm spell. To kill a character, you need 50 mana per level. That would be 1,000 to kill Carrak.}
“So, she had 1,000 mana flowing through her? That is why she looked like that?”
{She had way more than 1,000 mana flowing through her,} Gracie corrected. {That is just the base cost. She probably designed it to go at least 100 feet and had to pump up the difficulty. I’m guessing she set the spell's difficulty setting to All-In so that whatever mana she had left from feasting on the orc contributed. Looking back at the stats, Carrak’s death defense was a whopping 112. Esther’s normal difficulty for a Death Spell is 40. Even you would have a 50/50 chance of saving against that. She would need to pump it up to around 150, which would have cost 550 mana. But, as I said, she probably used everything she had.}
“Which was how much?”
{Grink had about 400 HP when she wrestled him into the shadows. I think she needed about 25 HP to bring her back to full health, and the other 375 was changed into mana at a rate of 1:5. That comes to 1875, plus she was probably close to her full compliment of mana when she started, so she released a Death spell that had over 2,000 mana in it. Any time you have zero mana, you feel winded, but that kind of release might knock her out for a while. I assume she will need to generate all her normal mana back before she wakes up. Since she isn’t in combat mode, that will take about 85 minutes.}
Jace focused on Esther’s calm and beautiful face. He had saved her life often enough. He supposed it was her chance to return the favor. “But will she be okay?”
{She should be fine. Maybe a few nightmares, but she’s a vampire. She’s used to it.}
Jace got up from the bed and took a deep breath. “Good. Now, how do I make this cave system my stronghold.”
{I thought you’d never ask.}