Chương 65: Chapter 66: Next steps

Ash is warm to snuggle up with. She's warmer than a normal body. If I had to guess, I'd say her resting body temperature is about a hundred and five degrees. She's like a space heater. I bet she'd be of great help in the cold. No one says anything about us sharing a bedroll. When we all get up the next morning, the discussion is entirely focused on what we want to do next.

"We could range out a bit more, do some hunting of bigger and nastier monsters, get some experience that way," I suggest. I don't know why, but I'm hesitant to go back to Elmspire too quickly. Maybe I'm expecting Wrax to find me and want to kill me. Not before I get two more levels.

"Or we could go back to Marketplace, see what there is to buy there equipment wise."

"Do you need better equipment?" Vincent asks me.

"You can always use better equipment," I say.

"My armor isn't bad, but I'd like something with more benefits to it."

"Marketplace does have a lot of good shopping," Ash says.

"And you guys haven't been there. But we haven't been to Elmspire yet. I'd kind of like to see this tree city and go shopping there, if you don't mind."

"We could try to find more treasure first," El says.

"That way we'll all have more to spend when we go back to Elmspire."

"There are other strongholds in the forest," Gigi says.

"We could go find one of them and take it out. There might be a treasure chest there if we get a big one."

"Let's go somewhere a bit out of the way, though," Ash says.

"Somewhere with higher level monsters. I don't want to take a fortress from some level nine bandits or something like that." That is probably the fastest way for us to get money, but I understand her hesitation. With so many levels between us, it feels unfair to fight something so much weaker than us. I can kill most things below level ten with a single shot, regardless of the grade of monster it might be. And those aren't worth much in the way of experience.

"We're a day and a half outside of the city already," Vincent points out.

"The creatures in that dungeon were pretty high level."

"Yeah, I don't know that I could've soloed one of those minotaurs," I say.

"I think he would've taken me out eventually."

"So maybe we don't need to head outward too far to find our outpost," Ash says.

"That's good. Let's go to the main trails and see if we can pick something up." She looks at me, as if expecting me to be able to find whatever we're looking for. Which I suppose makes sense. I am the ranger, after all. When we get to the main path, or at least to a path that has seen the most travel by humanoids, it's not hard to sift through the smells. There are elves aplenty, a few humans, and then something new that I don't think I've found before.

The smell is vaguely like goblin, but with a definite porcine element to it. It's thick and heavy, and it goes along with prints that appear to be from booted feet several sizes larger than any of us. From the depth of the print, I'd say that this person was about six and a half or seven feet tall, and probably weighed close to three hundred pounds. I use Highlight Trail, and soon we're off and following the path of this creature, whatever it may be. It reminds me a lot of the hobgoblins, but the smell is off.

Similar in size, though. Hopefully not similar in intelligence or willingness to speak, though. I don't want to slaughter something intelligent just because it's there. I'd rather kill a monster because it's threatening me and my friends. Or because it might be, if we end up using stealth as part of our approach. We follow the trail for about an hour before spotting what's making the trail. Orc. Uncommon rare elite monster level 22. HP: 5, 500/5, 500.

There is a large group of them, and they seem to be military minded. The one we've been tracking is dressed like a scout and seems to be moving around a predetermined patrol area, but as we get closer, we see signs of military movement. Large groups of trail, like an entire unit was moving through an area together. Possibly killing smaller monsters. I do find one of the battle sites, and it seems like the orcs are well organized and well disciplined.

They surround the track of the animal, which appears to be a large bear, and take it out with minimal loss of life themselves. They surrounded the bear in two lines and fought it with overwhelming force. I leave the group behind for a bit and activate Blur, then move steadily closer to the fortification itself. What I see is an actual legit fortress, with wooden walls and only two gates. The gates are defended by four orcs each, and it looks like there might be as many as a hundred of them inside.

I don't know if this is something we can take out. Mab's Rage will be able to do a lot of damage to a lot of them, but not enough to kill any of them. Do we want to fight against such an overwhelming force? More to the point, what is this massive force doing? They seem like they're preparing for something, but I can't be sure what. I move around the fortress until I can see the back entrance. There's a road leading out of the fortress, and there are fresh wagon ruts in the road.

Then I notice a whole patrol of the orcs, about twenty five of them, heading down the road, like they're moving to intercept something. And there's a whole group of other orcs working to clear out the woods around their fortress, chopping down trees and piling the wood up like they're going to build more of a fortress with it. They're spreading out, and they're preparing the area for tents. Already, I can see them setting up rows of tents. And it finally occurs to me what they're doing. Enjoying this book?

Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. It's a staging ground. This isn't just a group of orcs. This is the forefront of an army of orcs. I spot three other orcs that further confirm what I'm saying. Orc lieutenant. Uncommon rare elite monster, level 24. HP: 6, 000/6, 000 Orc captain. Rare rare elite monster, level 24. HP: 12, 000/12, 000. Orc major. Very rare rare elite monster, level 26. HP: 26, 000/26, 000.

I give the base a wide berth and then head back to my friends, who have withdrawn far enough that we can talk without fear of being spotted or overheard.

"It's a staging ground," I say.

"For an army. I saw three higher ranks spread out among them. There are maybe a hundred of them here now, with god knows how many more heading in this direction."

"Sounds like they're getting supply wagons too," Gigi says.

"I'm not sure the five of us can take this place on."

"Why not?" El asks.

"Just because there's a lot of them doesn't mean we can't take them. We've taken on larger groups before."

"No we haven't," I point out.

"We've been through groups in the fifties or sixties, but never in the triple digits."

"Think of the experience," El says. She's got a point. Even without the higher ranking orcs, taking out the hundred orcs would be enough to level me at least twice, maybe more. Hell, it would probably be enough to level everyone twice. But at the same time, you can't spend experience when you're dead.

"Only if we win," Ash points out, though she does give me a look.

"And if we don't, we lose all of our equipment."

"Anything not in the bag," I agree.

"Except for one item. You get to keep one." El looks down at her two axes, as if she was just asked to choose her favorite child.

"I still say we do it," she says.

"We can start with ranged attacks and pick off a bunch of them before they know we're even here."

"There's military discipline," Ash says, shaking her head.

"They'll check in with each other regularly. They'll notice if we start wiping out small groups of them."

"Maybe not," Vincent says, scratching his chin. There's not even the hint of a beard there. I guess his type of demon isn't very hairy. Either that or he's meticulous in his shaving habits. I feel like my beard is always going to have a thin covering over my muzzle – I mean my cheeks – and I'm okay with that. I don't need to shave real close every day. I'm fine the way things are.

"What do you mean?" El asks, her eyes sparkling.

"You said that they sent out a patrol," Vincent says to me.

"Why not go ambush the patrol? We can take out a decent number of them that way, and we won't have to worry about infiltrating or overcoming a fortification."

"We should get inside and get some proof of their intentions," Ash says.

"If they're planning to attack Elmspire, it's important that we warn the elves of the threat."

"And we might be able to get some of that information, some kind of proof, from a patrolling unit," Vincent says.

"Plus it's a way to get the experience without nearly as much risk." I lead the way back around towards the road that I saw the patrol take. We can either try to outpace them and catch them while they're still heading out on their patrol, or we can set up some kind of ambush for them on the way back. Ambush sounds like a much better idea, since the numbers will definitely be on their side. By my count, there were about twenty of them in the patrol unit. That's a lot of orcs.

More doable than a hundred, but still something where we would be well served to try to skew things in our favor. So we find a place down the road that is far enough away from the fortress that they won't be able to see us, hear us, or be able to send reinforcements in time. We have to wait until the road curves, just to be sure, but we end up about two miles away from the fortress. I wonder briefly how long the patrol is going to be if we can set up an ambush two miles away.

How big an area are they passing through? Are they even going to come back through the same way that they left? Doubling back seems likely, though, so we start setting up our ambush. I dig pit traps in the road, lining them with spikes and digging them deep enough to cause real damage when they fall in. My trap making increases to 8. We set up a crossfire that will allow us to strike from multiple directions, so that they can't take cover from all of us at once.

Ell chops down a tree to make a large log trap that will block off their retreat. The only thing we need to make this even more to our advantage is like oil and fire, but we don't have time or the resources to do something like that. It's enough that we can set up traps on the road and a killing field. They'll have to pass through this area to get back to their camp, and we intend to make it incredibly costly for them to do that.

I wish there was a way to set the pit traps where they wouldn't be triggered the first time the orcs walked over them. That way, the traps could help prevent them from retreating, rather than punishing them for advancing. But I can't think of a way to do that, so I have to be satisfied with setting up my sniper nest a good distance ahead of the traps, so that they will pass me by before the fighting begins. Then I can shoot them as they try to run, and they'll be running right into my own trap.

Assuming they run, that is. If they're really good with the military discipline, they'll porcupine up and throw shields in front of themselves, maybe turning into one giant shell of shields that protect them from all angles. Though if they do that, they'll be vulnerable to spells. So we're ready for that. But I don't think they're going to run. I think they'll be pretty organized. Unless I take out their leader as soon as possible. Then there might be chaos.

Without their lieutenant or captain, they might not have an established chain of command. There might be a chance that they'll break then. We set up and wait. It shouldn't be that long of a wait. An hour passes. Then two more. There's no sign of the orcs returning. What if we got it wrong? What if they're withdrawing? No, that doesn't make any sense. If they were withdrawing, they wouldn't be clear cutting more of the forest. I start to move as sneakily as I can through the woods to try to find the unit.

It takes me about two more hours of moving before I catch up to them, and I see what's really delaying them. The unit of twenty or so orcs is leading a pair of supply wagons. They're guarding the wagons on the way to the fortress. This is definitely an army. I can smell all the food on the carts, and can see things like bushels of arrows and rows of swords. They're moving supplies in ahead of the rest of the army. An interesting strategy.

But I'll bet Vincent is right; there will probably be evidence in this group that it's an army, not just a fortification. I sneak back to the site of the ambush and warn everyone about the carts. They're slowing down the unit of orcs by a lot. I have my doubts that they'd be able to get the carts back to the fortress before nightfall at the pace they're going. Certainly not once we get in the way.

"What do we do with the carts?" I ask.

"Loot them," Ash says.

"Then burn whatever we don't take. Destroy as much as possible." I settle back into my little nest and wait for the wagons. They're being pulled by large pack horses, and driven by regular orcs. There is one orc lieutenant that seems to be in charge of the whole group, and I count a total of twenty five regular orcs marching along with or riding the carts. We've been outnumbered by a factor of five before. We can do this. Mab's Rage can do this.