Harb jogged back to the corpse of the Sorcerer. Shendis had said that these essences had some sort of shelf life, so he wanted to attempt to get one himself. The Sorcerer’s body was outside of the camp, so he chose that body, hoping that his activity would go unnoticed.

When he reached the corpse, Harb accessed the loot options for the body again. He saw the prompt to extract the essence as he had on the previous attempt, so that was a good sign. He gave his mental assent and began the extraction process anew. The essence was fainter than what he remembered from earlier, and it was definitely more difficult to grasp, if that was even the right word for what he was attempting. The essence moved towards him, but there was a fight to it that had not been there on the first attempt. It was not trying to go back into the body, but instead it seemed to want to pull away entirely.

Harb’s mana was dropping quickly. He continued to struggle with the essence, and his mana finally ran out entirely. Oddly, he was still able to continue on with the extraction process even without any mana at all. He briefly wondered if the activity itself didn’t require mana. But what would be causing the use or loss of his mana then?

He started to grow light-headed, his energy was decreasing rapidly, and he couldn’t focus on what he was doing. He decided to end the extraction and mentally let go of the essence. Instead of snapping back into the body as it had the previous time, the essence burst apart and flashed before his eyes, looking like the explosion of a firework.

He went back to the camp and sat down as a sudden wave of exhaustion hit him. He rested while the Orcs finished looting the camp.

Harb accessed his HUD and thought about his inventory. Immediately, a box with small icons appeared in his vision. Among the icons, there was one for each of the book, crystal, and potion that he had obtained from the Sorcerer, as well as the weapons that he had stored. There were no icons for the pouches, but at the thought of the money, an accounting of all of his coins appeared: 84 SP; 3 GP. He verified that these values stood for 84 silver pieces and three gold pieces. He thought about the silver to gold conversion rate in the hopes that he would be supplied with that information, but nothing happened.

Next, he checked to see what the notifications that he had minimized earlier were. He had two identical notifications letting him know that he had increased a level, so his character level was now three. With that came a point to his Vitality attribute for each level and four additional points to spend on his attributes for each level gained. He certainly wanted to focus on Strength and Vitality, since he was primarily a tank that used a weapon that relied on Strength. On the other hand, he did have some skill in magic, so it would not be prudent to ignore the spell stats entirely. Intellect was also important: it determined how much mana you had as well as increased the potency of some spells. He had run out of mana trying to extract the essence from the Sorcerer, so Intellect could not be ignored.

The two female Orcs had been busy extracting essences instead of healing the wounded, so the essences must be important. The other spell stat was Psyche. This attribute sped up mana regen as well as increasing the potency of beneficial spells. Both Intellect and Psyche also helped with resistances against specific forms of magic.

He decided to ignore the three remaining stats for the time being, because none of them fit his build or were attributes that he currently needed. Ultimately, he put five points into Strength, two into Intellect, and one into Vitality, putting it three higher after the leveling. With the bonus from his robust ability, his HP was now at 600.

The next group of notifications was all related to skill increases that he had amassed during the night. He had not gained any more levels in his endurance skill, but during the run, he had gained a level in both the direction sense and survival skills. During the fight, he had leveled his axes skill twice and his take it like a man and blood magic skills once each. Also, at some point, he had made it to level four in his intimidate skill. Harb didn’t know if this was normal leveling, but he felt good about his progress.

In the meantime, the Orcs had managed to find and capture enough horses to pull one of the carts, so they put everything that they considered worth taking into one of them. The women had finished their essence gathering shortly after Harb had sat down, and they did finally begin to administer healing to those in need. Vultag began supervising the looting once the women had made the transition. He looked over at Harb but didn’t say anything.

The scout Narg did approach Harb. “I saw you take out the Wizard and his guards,” he said.

“Sorcerer,” Harb corrected.

“What?”

“He was a Sorcerer, not a Wizard,” Harb clarified. “Was it you who darted the guard that I was fighting?”

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Narg nodded. “Yes. I seen you go for the Sorcerer and I followed to help.”

“Well, then I owe you one,” Harb said gratefully. “Hey, do the women always ignore the dying Orcs after a battle?”

“Only till they are done harvesting the souls of our enemies,” Narg said. “They use ‘em to make powerful magic items.”

“I would think that saving a clan member would take precedence over some magic materials,” Harb said with a bit of scorn in his voice. “What can you tell me about the women?”

Narg initially looked confused at the question but answered it anyway. “Well, Dura is the one with the staff. She is a powerful Shaman and just became chief. The other is Shendis, who is a healing specialist.”

“How did Dura become chief?” Harb asked.

Narg looked more confused now. “She challenged and defeated the last chief,” he said slowly.

Harb realized that this should be common knowledge for an Orc, but he had only been one for less than a day. He had an intrinsic understanding of his abilities, but there were some voids in his basic knowledge of being an Orc. Is that because I’m a Dire Orc? “I meant who was the last chief,” Harb said quickly in an attempt to cover.

Narg nodded. “It was another Shaman.”

“What about Vultag?” Harb asked. “He looks pretty competent. Why hasn’t he tried to be the chief?”

“A Warrior is no match for a Shaman in combat,” Narg said. “The vines keep ‘em in place, and the poisons and rot do the rest.”

Harb had seen what the vine spell could do. Many games had root spells, which was the term for immobilizing a monster or other character, and that was a powerful root spell. Once their opponent was rooted, a caster could cast their damage spells without the threat of their opponent getting to them. When done well, the opponent either died before they broke free or before they could reach the caster. Harb understood how this style of fighting could be devastating against anyone without magic or ranged attacks. He assumed that the vines spell would work on even someone his size, but his flicker ability could get him out of the vines if they happened to take hold. He wanted to test that ability out, but he needed to wait for some privacy to do so. Harb felt confident that he could activate the ability, and he knew the range of it, but he wanted to experience it and practice with it before having to use it in battle.

He then wondered at his line of thinking. He realized that he was actively plotting to challenge the chief to claim the clan for himself. Was his desire to do so due to the fact that he was now an Orc? This seemed a bit reckless for his normal strategy, but he was already making plans to make the challenge. He was debating whether it would be better to do it immediately, now that Dura was low on mana, or back in camp after he learned more about the clan. It would be bad if he were to win only to be immediately challenged by Vultag who was certainly the most talented fighter in the group and would undoubtedly prevail in a fight with him. He had some fighting skills and a lot of HP, but the men that had been guarding the Sorcerer had far outmatched him. It was only his extra abilities and Narg’s help that allowed him to defeat the men.

By the time they were finally ready to depart, Harb had regained all of his mana and energy, but his HP was still very low. The Orcs had gone to Shendis for healing throughout the looting period, but he had remained seated in place. He rose, wet with his own blood, and strode off to follow the cart being pulled by the two horses that the Orcs had recaptured.

Harb walked by Shendis without pausing to look at her.

“Do you not want healing?” Shendis called after he was several paces past her.

Harb stopped and turned around. “You can if you want,” he answered nonchalantly.

Shendis cocked her head, appraising him. “Do you think to make it back to camp without healing?”

“That depends,” he replied. “Are you going to run us like animals again?”

“Do you have a problem with running? I hear that you left your clan to the north; could you not take orders?”

“A good run is fine by me. Being ordered to run for hours is also fine. The order to fight immediately after said run when everyone is nearly exhausted is the one that I take issue with. The order got many of us killed and almost lost us the battle. Even my old clan chief would not have ordered something that reckless.”

“The weak fall and the strong survive,” Shendis said, as if quoting something.

“That’s a terrible waste of resources,” he chided. “You need to have superior forces or superior numbers to win a fight, and it’s best to have both. There’s nothing wrong with having lesser men fighting alongside the strong.”

Shendis pondered his words for a moment before replying, “You are called Harbinger. Harbinger of what?”

Harb shook his head. “Just Harbinger,” he said.

She shrugged and walked over to him, touching her hand to his chest. She murmured an incantation and began glowing softly. The magic flowed into him, and he felt a chilly sensation spreading throughout his body. His wounds began to close, and his HP meter began to fill. Shendis cast the spell twice more before saying, “You have a great deal of health points.”

“I have 600,” he said. He wasn’t back to full health but felt rejuvenated from all the healing.

She stared up at him. “You must have a very high Vitality,” she said. “I have too little mana for another heal. You do look much better, though.”

He looked down and saw that his many lacerations were closed—even the large chest wound administered by one of the bodyguards. He nodded in agreement and said, “Well done,” before turning to follow the rest of the group.

“Hold a moment,” Shendis called, and he stopped and turned to face her again. “The human caster and his guards were killed by you.”

It had been a statement, but Harb replied, “That’s correct.”

“I am told that their bodies lacked anything of value. Did you loot the bodies?”

Harb patted down his nearly naked body. “I don’t seem to have any pockets,” he said. “Would you like to look under my loincloth?”

Shendis looked at his body admiringly. “Perhaps another time.” She waved a hand, dismissing him, and he turned to follow the rest of the group.