“Don’t ya just stands there gawkin, throw something at dat humie and kill ‘er afore she burns us up!” Top ordered. He followed his own advice, pulling a throwing axe from his belt that he hurled at the human mage. One of the elves jumped in front of the axe sacrificing himself to buy time for the summoned being’s magic to help turn the tide of the battle.

Unfortunately for my opponent, the orcs didn’t need much prodding from Top to attack. Each of the warriors grabbed their spears and hurled them at the mage. To my surprise the hog wranglers did as well. Marvin Glum also joined the party and fired off a sling stone. Several more elves tried to save the summoned being, but the sheer number of missiles thrown and shot at them meant that more than a few would strike. One after another, the spears flew in.

At first, the incoming missiles that made it through the sacrificial elves bounced off some sort of protective shield. After a half dozen strikes, the shield shattered with the sound of breaking glass and a flash of light. Three more spears hit the mage in the chest. She must have had some kind of armor under her robes, or the garment was enchanted in some way as those weapons didn’t seem to pierce very deep. Whatever was protecting her robes, it did nothing against the spear that hit her in the mouth, or the sling stone from Glum that blasted into her eye.

Another fire spell launched just as the summoned being was pummeled by the incoming missiles. It was like her hands turned into flame throwers, toasting Top and the first ranks of orcs before the mage stumbled under the assault, losing control of her spell and burning half of the remaining elvish workers to a crisp before she disappeared in a puff of mana vapor.

With a shout of rage, the surviving orcs charged, hammering their weapons into the shocked and leaderless elves. It took a moment before the system rendered its judgement, but I was given a very welcome system prompt that caused my orcs to immediately stop their assault.

You have eliminated another challenger. Their village is now under your control, though all structures and defenses will be razed. From these razed structures, you will gain a small fraction of their cost as resources due to your faction’s Pillage and Plunder trait.

You must rebuild from scratch but will have the assistance of any surviving elf workers and warriors, who will now join your faction as loyal servants. The elves will not replenish their numbers, and anything they construct will be up to orcish standards, not elvish. These newly gained forces also do not count against your population cap.

You have acquired the following servants.

1. Elf Workers: 19.

2. Elf Warriors: 1.

The buildings began to crumble to dust, and my resource count spun upwards. When the last building, the command post, fell, I was up to 514 resources. More hog meat was constantly coming in as the farms continued to produce, but what I had was just enough to start a new command post. It was the largest, most expensive building in the village and would take a while to construct. I assigned all 19 elf workers to the project and added one of the orc workers from the attack force to give me the correct number of builders.

Only thirteen elf workers were here at the village, the remainder, along with the single warrior, were still making their way back from the center of the valley. The warrior I had scouting the center of the valley was dead, so I couldn’t tell which of the other two factions had taken control of it, or whatever that control might have given them. For now, I was going to have the survivors of the attack stay at the elf village and help to defend it if any of the other summoned beings made a move against us.

I was glad the system didn’t announce the fall of one of the contestants, as it would surely trigger an aggressive response from the others who would have to guess that the victor was weakened from the fight. Out of my attack force, I now only had five warriors and six workers. Marvin Glum and the hound were still there, but I decided to recall them back to the orc village. I wanted my minions back home to protect me if we were attacked here.

Replacements for my losses were being produced by the farms. There were now six farms, as the one under construction was finally finished. All the replacements were workers, and they would have to cycle back through the barracks to turn them into warriors again. As I built new buildings at the elf village, I could run at least some of the structures with the surviving elf workers which would free up more of the orc population to take on the role of warrior. A replacement for Top was already being worked on at one of the barracks, but it would unfortunately tie up that building’s production until he was done.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

Turning my attention back to my foes, I found that the warrior assigned to scout the human village had arrived. He was reasonably well hidden behind some brush, and he gave me a good view of what was going on there. Like with the elf village, the human village had farms outside the town walls. They were growing wheat, just like the system description of the faction claimed, and the place seemed to be functioning efficiently. Workers harvested the fast-growing crops, depositing them into a wagon that was placed next to the command post.

Human warriors walked along the village wall, keeping an eye out for any attacks. The summoned being controlling the human faction must have had some kind of production efficiency advantage, as they seemed content to sit tight and build up. Since the farms were outside the wall, it was easy to see that the humans had six of the structures, but I could only make out a single barracks.

I counted six warriors on the walls, and everyone else that I could see was a worker. It wasn’t long before the remaining troops that had killed my scout and skirmished with the halflings over the item in the center of the valley returned. They didn’t appear to have been successful, and only a single warrior and a pair of battered-looking workers shuffled their way back to the village.

My scout heading toward the halfling village was gone. I only caught a glimpse of his demise when several halflings with long spears leaped out from the undergrowth and stabbed the orc to death. I wanted to get eyes on the halfling village, and maybe spot whatever the prize was that the halflings had secured from the center of the valley, but I wasn’t willing to risk more of my warriors to do so.

I was in an interesting position now. My faction was normally less efficient than the two surviving opponents, but now I controlled two villages to their one. Instead of playing the aggressor, sitting back and building up was going to be a valid tactic for the remainder of the fight. Inefficient or not, I had double the building slots that the others had, and that meant double the population. Given time, I’d have a huge force of orc warriors that could run right over the other factions which would be hampered by having a maximum of eight farms for population growth, when I would eventually have sixteen.

With time on my side, I waited and let my resources stockpile, planning to add structures whenever I had enough hog meat to do so. The command post at the elf village finished, and with it, I unlocked a second commander. Top had regenerated at the barracks, and a twin, also named Top, finished soon after the second command post went live.

The command post also boosted the combat values of all my troops by 10% and granted a 10% efficiency boost in meat production at the farms. The efficiency gap between my resource gathering and that of my opponents had dwindled.

My next buildings were another farm, this time at the elf village, and then the first level of defenses there. I felt naked with the village not having any sort of wall. I’d not seen anything, but I had no doubt that both my foes would have scouted my position by now. The fact that the captured elf workers allowed me to keep a higher percentage of warriors on hand seemed to help dissuade any immediate attacks.

The defenses eventually completed, then another farm at the elf village, as well as an armory. With two armories operating, I started to see my forces get upgrades to their gear. The regular warriors now had the steel reinforced leather armor that Top wore, and Top had chainmail to protect him as well as better made battleaxes. My workers’ tools also seemed to improve, and everything looked sturdier than the poorly made items they’d been using before.

After the newest farm was complete, my population cap shot up to 200. From that population I had to keep 110 workers at the structures to keep them going. Nineteen of those workers were the free elves I’d gotten, so my actual orc worker count was at 91 with 107 warriors and 2 commanders. I had a sizeable force, and it was only going to get bigger as time went on. I had the warriors and commanders split evenly between the two villages. My two villages weren’t exactly close, but with Forced March, I figured that reinforcements would have enough time to arrive and help out if one of my villages was in trouble.

I finally spotted several halfling scouts, and tasked my elf warrior to shoot at them if they got within range of the wall. One of my worries was that the two surviving summoned beings would team up to attack me. As strong as I was getting, I didn’t know if I could take on both their armies at once, at least not yet. My scout positioned at the human village caught sight of something that helped me to allay those fears. I watched as a large force of halflings slinked through the grass toward the human village.

If they wanted to fight amongst themselves, I was more than happy to let them. After they weakened each other, I’d move in and take out both summoned beings.