We got up early, with the sun, and after quick breakfast departed. People took yesterday's spring through the forest rather well, but we still had at least a day of travel ahead of us.
In the beginning, everything seemed to go well, we covered a lot of ground, but with a bit more time it became clear that we won't make it before dark. Pushing so damn fast only pulled more orcs over our heads. Which was a good thing. Still, we preferred to put our hands on the camp where the fight would be more stationary, than chase after greenskins for a whole day.
We managed to go really far, but still, there were few hours between us and our destination, and the night came.
We decided to camp for the night and travel the rest of the distance the next day. It didn't matter if we invaded the orcs settlement early in the morning, or sometime after midday. We only needed enough daylight to fight and then pick the score.
The next day we repeated the routine of getting up early, and a few hours later we finally reached the closest safe spot to the barricades. We ate, prepared our equipment, and then departed to pick a fight with a horde of orcs.
The plan was the same. I left them by the first chokepoint and sneaked my way closer. When I reached the point from where I could have a good look at the cam, I stopped and scanned through, looking at my initial targets.
It all looked like last time. Tents made out of heavy leathers. Armed guards, and some regular greenskins, working or rather pretending to work.
I found a group at a good distance and then charged at them. They noticed pretty quickly, then shouted, raising an alarm. The next thing they knew, I was behind them, and quickly put down all four.
The party started, so I used Shadow fusion, and Ki, and charged at the next few. Some arrows went my way, but dodging them was not an issue, since I was using Shadow walk to shorten the distance anyway.
I had a good strike of few groups before the whole camp got ready to face the intruder, but I was not backing down yet. I was stronger now and was gonna do all I could to put less burden on my friends.
I changed the angles of my assault several times, looking for cover behind the tents, and coming out from unexpected places. I brought chaos to the camp. They had no idea what was going on and soon started to look for me everywhere.
During this time I saw something. A cave at the other end of the settlement. It was a bit hidden since this whole place curved a bit to the side, and was actually quite long. I immediately knew what that was.
My actions went on for several minutes before I finally started retreating. I kept repositioning and cutting down enemies on the way. If I needed some space, I would just run inside a tent, to just shadow walk to the outside of it and trap my pursuers inside, tens of others blocking the exit.
Eventually, I led them towards the first barricade, and climbed the wall, to catch a breath. Now my friends needed to do some work. A quick glance down, and I knew things are going well. I killed a good number from start.
Experience and new powerup made a huge difference on just my part. On top of that, I didn't have to worry about shadow essence, since I had plenty now, so I just could go nuts, and I did. I launched another attack coming at them from the back. I imposed a high tempo from the get-go, cutting down a few dozens during just a few moments.
The barricade also seemed to hold very well, so I just kept coming and coming. Eventually, they had to retreat, so I went up again, and from my position looked at numbers. It seemed like we got around half of them just in the first phase.
With everything going on so smoothly we could actually wipe them out on the next barricade. I was definitely at least gonna attempt that.
When they lured them further, I went down again, this time though, I finally summoned my new friends. They couldn't do much. Killing even a single orc standing in line with others was too much for them, but they bought me more space to move and distracted at least some orc from me.
When they died, turning to smoke, I summoned them again. A few minutes later I actually could see the barricade through the ranks of monsters. From that point, the fight became very easy, and my friends eventually broke their line of defense, and just charged, wiping the remaining enemies.
The fight came to an end.
- Wow. That went surprisingly good - said Will.
- Yeah. Great job everybody.
- You did most of the work Peter - stated Nobuo.
- I know. I put in an extra bit of effort, so this time we can hunt here for an entire month. Enjoy this while it lasts, cause with time it will get harder, and herder - I responded.
- It's no fun if it's not hard - said Nil with a smirk. - We will rock this place, don't worry.
- I hope so. Let's get our carts and pick up the crystals, so we can rest.
- Sir, yes sir, ha ha - said Midnight with a wide grin and even saluted me in a casual manner.
There was a bit of bickering, but we eventually grabbed the carts and started collecting. I used the shadows to make it faster and then showed everybody the cave. The less experienced seemed rather eager to go inside, but Will brought few words of wisdom to this conversation and calmed them down.
With that, we retreated to the safe spot and set up our own little camp.
The day came to an end with 652 521 points remaining on my account, and plenty of crystals on our carts.