The next morning breakfast was great yet again, and it was another meal made by Lefty that was familiar, but I couldn’t figure it out. I just had to ignore it.

I’d know eventually.

Kusho would fix my memories and I’d be able to know why.

So I just had to ignored the unknown cause of the warm feeling in my gut.

After eating, we headed onto the next floor.

“We’ll be together for this one, but I’ll explain the plan for you when we get there,” Sailhin said as we entered the door.

I only nodded holding Mezu’s hand as he bounced on his toes next to me. It wasn’t long before the world built around us. It was a bit different than the last times it was all a bit more distorted and not easy to make out until it solidified.

We were standing in a jungle. It was humid, the sun just breaking through the tree canopy high above us. The light that poured through the leaves dotted the ground nicely.

A ding rang out and I looked up for the banner.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Welcome to the 29th floor! The high Orc Encampment

Description: Deep in the Kal’dur mountains lives a clan of high orcs. Their lack of stimulating entertainment has left them seeking challengers to fight. All beings that previously resided within the mountains, have fled in fear of being chosen. The king has sent your party to recapture his lands.

Completion Requirements: Rid the lands of the orc encampment

Completion progress:

High Orcs: 0/200

High Orc Knights: 0/28

High Orc Knight Captains: 0/4

High Orc Mage King: 0/1

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There were the usual sounds I’d associate with a place like this, but they still seemed less abundant than I’d expect.

“Ooo, high orcs, I’m excited.”

Dodger was grinning.

Brick signed a couple things to her, and since Alcoroth didn’t tell me, it must’ve not been too important.

“I know, I know, it’s too many to just rush in.”

Dodger pouted a little.

“Brick’s right, we need to form a good strategy to get through this. Like our seniors said, if we get too close to the mage king too early it will make things almost impossible. Let me explain how things will work to Quartz.”

She picked up a stick and squatted down and started to draw a diagram. It showed the layout of the encampment and the placement of the orcs. It was nestled between three mountains. The Orc king was at the far back near the back mountain.

The knight captains would be next and then there was a collection of normal orcs. Infront of that was a wall that closed the gap between the two mountains. On that wall there were some orc knights. Outside of that wall was where the rest of the orcs lived. And all that was surrounded by another wall with more knights.

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“The specific numbers are, sixty orcs in the first part of the encampment, ten knights on the first wall and eighteen on the second. The second part of the encampment has about eighty orcs. All the other ones are out hunting for everyone.

“What we need to do is slowly draw out some of the knights from the wall. High orcs are smarter so it won’t work for too long, but it will give Paeris and Dot enough time to prepare a spell for the main grouping of orcs.

“If we kill all the ones hunting, about half of the knights should be sent out to look for them. Leaving the other half to guard the wall. We need to kill the knights in the wall quietly before Paeris and Dot use their spell. Once the spell is used, the remaining knights and some of the other population will come out from the next section to support their attacked people. We need to keep the fight there.”

“Won’t the mage king do something about it?”

“No, he’ll stay put. He doesn’t care too much about the others. And he sees it all as a source of entertainment apparently,” Paeris explained.

Sailhin nodded, “As long as we don’t go physically past where the captains are stationed, he won’t do anything. Once the general population is starting to be killed off and all the knights are gone then the captains will act. As long as we fight them without getting too close to the king, he won’t do anything.

“Fighting the king will take most of our energy. Paeris and Dot will be providing ranged support and call outs for the spells he’ll use. The rest of us will need to attack him physically.”

Dodger rose her hand but spoke before Sailhin acknowledged it, “What if we accidentally wake up the mage king before we kill all the captains?”

“It just makes things more annoying, and it won’t be as predictable. Weren’t you paying attention to our seniors?”

“Nope.” She said with a grin, “you were so I figured I could just ask later.”

She sighed, “As I was saying, stepping in range too soon makes him act unpredictably. He could sit and watch us fight or actually help them by providing his captains buffs or heals. Best case scenario is obviously the first thing, but it’d better to avoid it. So, we’ll need to separate into teams.

“Lefty, and I will be one team. Paeris and Dot will stick together, Brick will be support for them until we’re at the wall, and Dodger and Quartz will be a team. At all times Paeris and Dot should stay in between both teams if we’re split up, that’s the best way for the artifacts to work right?”

She looked at Dot.

“Yeah,” she fished around in her void bag, and pulled out seven bead sized things, “these will be how we can communicate. Put them in your ear and they won’t come out until you take them out. Well, they shouldn’t. I only made them recently and I didn’t have too much time to test them but…”

She fished around some more and pulled out a whole bag.

“I made more, just in case.”

Sailhin had a half smile on her face, but the rest of her face was unchanged.

“I’m acting as the main piece, so I need to stay in the middle so that you guys just move on the edge of my range. Once we set up for the first spell though I won’t be able to move so if you get to far away, you’ll be out of range.”

“If you stick to the plan though, Dodger and Quartz will be done with the hunters and just fighting the knights by the time you’d need to start so they’ll be able to set themselves up in a position that going out of range won’t be an issue.”

“Yeah, right. Just stating a possibility.”

“Until we’re all in the encampment you won’t get any healing. Paeris won’t be able to have a good visual of anyone else. That’s why Dodger and Quartz are on their own together. Quartz can heal himself, and Dodger rarely gets injured.”

She grinned her face a bit reddened, “Awww, I wasn’t expecting a compliment like that.”

“The other reason is because the two of you happen to fight the loudest.”

Dodger glared immediately.

“Well, what’s the point of sneaking around when we need to fight them all anyway.”

“You’re just making my point. Now take a few of the artifacts.”

Dot passed them around and we one in our ear, putting the spares wherever we had pockets.

“You two better not get too close to the wall. And if you see any of them with a horn go for that one first. We don’t need them signaling the others. Another thing, high orcs really like elves so Quartz, they’ll probably go for you before they go for Dodger. You can use this to your advantage.”

I nodded. I saw Mezu swaying back and forth out of the corner of my eye, and I was bouncing on my toes a bit. I really wanted to just get started. It seemed like they already planned to not have me, and Dodger do any of the thinking and just let us have fun, and yet Sailhin still was taking all this time to explain everything.

“We’ll have to do quite a bit of hiking to even get near their hunting grounds first, don’t get antsy, and if Dot says you’re drifting too far, go in the opposite direction for a bit.”

“Alright, we get it can we get going already?”

“Yes, we can. Quartz, will Fluffy be helping at all?”

“Nope, he’s just excited to watch.”

“Alright, this is going to be a long one. If anything in the plan changes, I’ll update you.”

She bent over and destroyed her drawing in the dirt.

“Let’s get going.”