Chapter 10: Chapter 10: Strategic Assault

Jace, Faylon, and Xavier continued up the slope.  The ranger was still looking for signs of the goblins and occasionally saw them, but they weren’t necessary.  A winding gravel path leading away from the archer’s post went up into the hills and angled toward a sizeable rocky outcropping about a half mile ahead.  Climbing up the slope was easy for Jace, but his two companions struggled, and the going was slow.

“What do you two know about Caitlin?”

“She had this coming,” the priest said a little too quickly, as if he were waiting for a chance to speak ill of the girl.  Faylon looked like he wanted to argue her case but held his tongue for now.  “She moves about town as a respectable daughter,” he continued, “most of the time.  She works at the mill and is skilled with a loom, but at the town balls, her dress is always the lewdest, and she doesn’t behave as a lady should.  And in the last few months, there has been an odd sense about her, like some evil spell was shrouding her.  With an aura like that, it is no wonder goblins were lured out of the hills to grab her.  Like bears to honey.”

Through the speech, Faylon itched to say something, and Jace worried he would lash out at the priest, but he managed to keep his anger in check.

“Did you know her?” Jace asked the half-elf.

“Not well.  I saw her at the balls, and I know her family is in good reputation in the town.  I spend most of my time in the woods around the city, scouting and hunting.  But from what I’ve seen, she is just a beautiful young woman with a free spirit.  Hardly something an ordered priest would understand.”  He had to throw that last line in there.

“Listen here, young elf; order and predictability keep our town safe and secure.  The townspeople don’t like those who rock the boat or do the unexpected.”

Jace stepped in again before the two men came to blows.  “Why did you take an interest in this disappearance?” he asked the priest.  “Shouldn’t this be something for the city guards?”

“I felt something last night disrupting the peaceful order of the night,” he said.  “I didn’t know what it was or where it came from, but first thing this morning, I checked with the guardhouse, and they told me the captain was investigating a missing person.  When I showed up and saw the symbol on the floor, I knew we were dealing with some powerful magic, and my help would be required.”

“Does it surprise you that if the goblins could cast spells, they didn’t have something more formidable protecting this lower guard station?” Jace asked, thinking it odd and doubting the goblins made the symbol.

“No one knows what drives these chaotic creatures,” he grumbled.  “Could be that their shamans and warlocks are all busy preparing whatever sacrifice they have planned for the girl.”

This brought a strong reaction from Faylon, and he stumbled on some loose rocks.  Jace waited until he had regained his balance and turned the question back on him.  “Why are you here?”

“I found the tracks in my morning patrol around the city and followed them back into town and Caitlin’s house.  No one knows the outskirts like I do, and the guards thought it natural for our group to have a tracker.”

With all the combat they would do, Jace thought it more important to have some fighters, but he supposed that was what he was for.  After hearing both men talk, he was sure they were each lying about something.  Jace had watched Faylon inspect the tracks in the upstairs bedroom and identify the goblins from their prints on the floor.  If he had followed those tracks from outside of town, he would have already known what they were.  And Xavier’s distaste for the girl had to be more than just a priest’s rejection of her free-spirited lifestyle.  There was magic at the heart of this, and Jace wasn’t quite sure what it was yet.

Before he could ask more questions, Faylon held the party up.  The outcropping they assumed was their destination stood just over the next rise and was out of view for the moment.  “Do you see something?” Jace asked.

The half-elf shook his head.  “I smell something.”

Jace focused on the ranger and saw a few menu items pop up.  Since they were all in the same party, he could share information with them.  It wasn’t the list of options he had with Snowy, but he decided to try them.  There wasn’t a choice to Link Senses, but he could Share Senses.  Once this was selected, Jace got a prompt.

[There is a foul odor on the breeze.  You haven’t smelled it before, but Faylon believes it comes from trolls or ogres.]

Jace couldn’t smell anything, but this was almost better.  When he could hear and smell what Snowy could, he was responsible for interpreting the sensations.  Now they were explained to him based on Faylon’s interpretation.  Of course, the half-elf could be wrong.

The ranger signaled for them to be quiet and crept up the slope to peer over the edge.

[Faylon sees four ogres, each holding large rocks.]

Jace understood the prompt and kept his eyes on the ranger to see what he would do.  It looked like the half-elf was searching for some route that would take them around so they could come up behind the guards, but the layout was well-designed, and they only had one wide-open trail before them and a cliff wall behind the guard station.  Once they peaked the rise, they would be in the open for about 50 yards before they made it to the outcropping.  The whole length of their approach would be in full view of the ogres, and the giants could hurl rocks down at them as they struggled up the last portion of the ascent.

Faylon finally slid down the slope to inform his group of what he saw.  “I don’t see any way around but straight ahead.”

“Do you think you can hit them from here?” Jace asked, looking at the bow slung over the ranger’s shoulder.

“It’s got to be 150 feet at least,” Faylon said.  “But they are large targets.  I don’t know how much damage I can do, but I can try.”

“I can race up the slope faster than you, and I think I can take a few hits from those rocks.  Xavier, if you come up after me when I’ve engaged them in combat, they shouldn’t be throwing anything at you.  If you have a few spells to slow them down, then between Faylon’s arrows and my sword, I think we can take them out.”

“Don’t you remember what happened with the goblins?” the priest asked.  “Four of them nearly took you down.  Now you think you can go up against four ogres by yourself.”

“I won’t be by myself,” Jace smiled.  “You two will help, right?  Faylon, you put a few critical shots in their faces, and Xavier, you freeze a few in place or lower their defenses, and I promise to do the rest.”

He could tell the priest didn’t believe him but didn’t care enough about Jace’s well-being to oppose the plan.  Faylon doubted it would work too, but since he wouldn’t be put in any real danger, he didn’t put up much protest either.  To end the debate, Jace stood up and walked right over the rise into complete view of the distant creatures.

The Share Senses function hadn’t let Jace see the ogres through Faylon’s eyes, so he took a moment to evaluate them now.  They stood just under nine feet tall, with arms much too long for their height.  They were the quintessential knuckle-dragging monsters with a drooling façade to highlight the low intelligence that would probably make Jace’s orc a Rhodes Scholar by comparison.  They wore loose chainmail under large animal hides secured by one strap over their shoulder.

Their low Intelligence turned them into some of the realm’s worst guards, and it took several seconds before they spotted Jace trotting up the slope toward them.  He felt he presented a huge target that was hard to miss, but he also realized that they probably didn’t perceive his orc form but the human one he saw back in the trough’s reflection.

Jace took the few seconds the monsters gave him to pull up his spells and choose the Damage Sink Totem.  He could cast it well over half the distance between him and the ogres, meaning he would still be in range once he was up on the rocky shelf battling the guards.  He dropped the totem halfway up the slope and then dodged to the side as a rock exploded on the ground before him.

He was barely in range of the boulder attacks and saw two more flying errantly in his direction.  He wondered if he could make it up the climb without taking a hit when a fourth rock came screaming in at him and struck solidly against his chest.  Instead of flying backward as physics should have demanded, Jace only shrugged it off.  Ahead, the totem blended in perfectly with the rocky landscape and shed a few pebbles but otherwise looked unharmed.  Jace wanted to know how much damage that was, but he had no way of figuring it out without Gracie, so he just continued up the slope, taking three more direct hits before he reached the top.

Jace saw the mouth of a cavern behind the four ogres, and as they wasted a round dropping their rocks, pulling massive shields from their backs, and unhooking clubs from their belts, Jace took a few seconds to drop his Armor Totem just inside the cave opening.  That should bring his armor class up to 26, but he felt it wouldn’t be enough.  He knew his sword had a Parry rating of 3, and while he didn’t know how to make that effective, he was willing to try to block a strike or two.

“Die human!” the lead ogre cried as all four monsters came at him, but arrows stuck fast into the two in the rear, and the stupid creatures paused to regard the small shafts that couldn’t have done much more damage than a bee sting.  This left Jace with the lead pair, and he expertly sidestepped at the last second, so the front guard cut off its friend.  The orc shaman lifted his sword and stepped forward to swing through the pulsing purple 20 he saw.  His strike cut up under the arm of the ogre on the opposite side of his shield.  The beast screamed as the weapon sank deep into his ribcage.

[Triple crit.  4x damage?  Stun, 3x Damage]

Jace saw the 10 and 260 over the head of the ogre, representing its level and Hit Points, and knew it would take more than two 4x critical strikes assuming they didn’t also have some level of damage reduction.  He chose to stun the ogre.  The creature’s low Wisdom and Spirit ensured it failed the save and stood stock still, its return attack still several feet away from hitting Jace.  The shaman knew he could get some easy hits on the frozen target but ignored it for now, spinning around the large fighter in the opposite direction its friend was taking.

“Where are ya?”  The second ogre sounded confused that Jace wasn’t standing in front of its frozen friend and then looked even more confused at its motionless companion, giving Jacen a free swing through a 20 that connected with the second guard’s backside.  The ogre only grunted in pain.

He did not get a critical this time and saw from the Hit Points above his head that he had only done nine damage.  Jace filed that oddity away for now with the growing list of game-related questions he had for Gracie.  As the target of his latest strike turned to find this elusive fighter, Jace once again used the stunned adversary as a visual shield, effectively hiding from the second ogre still, but saw that the third guard was no longer concerned with the arrows sticking out of it (there were three now) and had its club raised to squash this small invader.  Jace took a step back, bringing this third foe in line with the first, and he attacked, choosing again to stun his opponent.

He was building an effective wall of frozen ogres but hadn’t done too much damage yet.  The second guard was still playing hide and seek with Jace and stopped in puzzlement at the second frozen guard.  Jace tried not to chuckle at the stupidity and instead sought out the fourth monster on the ledge.  It was back to hefting rocks off the ground and looking down the slope.  Jace guessed Xavier was coming up behind, and this ogre probably felt that its friends could handle the lone fighter.  Jace attacked from behind. It wasn’t a crit again, but it did enough damage to cause the creature to hesitate, dropping the rock on its head.

Jace leaped back as the boulder bounced at his feet and then stepped forward again to attack.  The creature looked dazed and wasn’t holding its shield.  The shaman took advantage, blasted another attack through a wide 20-slot, and chose the 5x damage option.  Gracie had told him that when you lose half your Hit Points from one strike, you need to make a Death Save against the damage.  Jace’s sword did 11 damage, and he had +20 bonus.  That meant a 5x crit did 155 damage.  That was way more than half of 260, but Jace was sure these creatures had significant Damage Reduction.

The ogre had lost 10 points from the rock it dropped on its head, and after Jace’s strike nearly split its torso in half, the Hit Points dropped from 250 to 117.  Jace was right about the damage reduction, but his attack was still enough.  The ogre clutched its side in horror and then dropped to the ground.  It still registered 117 Hit Points, so Jace wondered how it could be dead but didn’t take the time to think about it.

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“Behind!”  Xavier shouted as his head came into view just over the edge of the clearing.

Jace turned even as he sensed the priest casting a spell.  The second ogre had gotten sick of playing Ring Around the Rosie and had finally found its prey.  Jace desperately brought his sword around for a block, but the creature froze in place as the priest finished his spell, and the shaman turned his parry into a strike.  It wasn’t through a twenty, but it hit.  He then took his time and brought another vicious attack at the paralyzed opponent.  He got another 5x crit and dropped his second ogre.

The first enemy had recovered from his stunned state and looked around puzzled but soon saw the priest as a much more inviting target.  Xavier shuddered as the vicious monster came toward him but didn’t break his concentration as he completed his protection spell just as the ogre attacked.  A shimmering globe of white light formed around the man, and the huge club bounced harmlessly off it.  Jace let this monster waste its time against the priest, who wielded a luminescent hammer into the knee of his foe and turned instead to the second ogre he had stunned.  This one was still motionless, and after two more strikes from his sword, it was bleeding out on the ground too.

He turned to look again at the priest and shielded his eyes as a blast of pure light flashed from the sky, dropping the ogre’s current health by half.  An arrow to its face took another big chunk off, and a focused strike from the priest’s glowing hammer dropped him to the ground.  Jace didn’t need to help.  Instead, he turned back to look at the first ogre he had defeated and saw that its health was now down to 29.  As he continued to watch, it dropped again to 15.  It must decrease by half every round after failing the death save.

Jace wondered if the dying ogres could be stabilized with a healing spell, but he didn’t have one to try and wasn’t about to ask Xavier.  Instead, he turned to watch Faylon climb over the ledge to join the group.  “Much better, Jace,” he said as he observed the four motionless ogres.  Jace wondered if the NPCs could also see the level and Hit Points above the monsters.  “You learn quickly.  Did you even get . . .”

Jace was busy watching the monsters’ Hit Points slowly dwindle when the ranger’s voice cut out.  He looked up at the half-elf and saw his face was frozen in shock.  He was staring at something over Jace’s shoulder.

“Behind!” Xavier shouted as he dove out of the way.

Jace turned and ducked simultaneously, but the attack wasn’t aimed at him.  It was another ogre, bigger than the ones they had just defeated.  He was standing in the cavern entrance, his head just under the twelve-foot height.  He had a rock in his hand, larger than any of the other ogres had thrown, and he hurled it forward.  The boulder flew over Jace’s head and crushed the life out of Faylon.  The ranger was flattened, and, even with his gore settings turned down, Jace saw the blood fly from the hit.  It took his health from 110 down to 30, and now he was on the ground dying.

“Pathetic,” the colossal monster said.  “All of you.”

Jace didn’t wait for a more specific insult and vaulted off the ground at the ogre.  The 20 was a narrower slot than with the other foes, but he was getting good at predicting where it would be and already had the weapon angled correctly before the number appeared.  However, he didn’t get the satisfying hit he was used to.  This ogre wore tailored armor that looked magical, but Jace didn’t miss; instead, his blade bounced off a shimmering shell that hugged the creature’s outline.

The brute laughed.  “That isn’t going to work,” he said as Jace recoiled from the failed attack.  Instead of retaliating, the ogre waved his arm as he cast a spell.  As the magic completed, images and numbers flashed through his mind.  He saw wounded men on a battlefield, a nurse adjusting an IV in a hospital, a boy with a scraped knee, a monk walking slowly over hot coals, and an injured athlete struggling through pain.  Each of these pictures and a dozen more had a number associated with it, but before he could figure out what they were for, the images were gone, and Jace was yanked back to the game.  He saw a number change in his peripheral, and he turned to see that three of the fallen enemies had their Hit Points jump by 5.  Xavier and Faylon had killed their foe, and that ogre stayed dead, but the other three got up.

Jace turned back to the chief ogre and saw him brandishing a massive flail that looked like a spiked wrecking ball that belonged to a crane.  He tried to attack first, but the larger opponent beat him to the punch, smashing him with his weapon.  Jace flew backward and bounced into one of the rising ogres.  The huge beast barely noticed the collision as the smaller fighter rebounded to the ground at his feet.  Jace recovered quickly and managed to win the initiative battle to strike first.  He was too rushed to line up a 20 but still got high enough to earn one crit, and a double damage attack dropped the ogre back to the ground, where it would stay for good.

He should only need one more good attack on each, as the five Hit Points they received came when they were each in single digits.  And none of them had more than 12 now.  Before he could test that theory, one of the two remaining ogres attacked from behind and swatted him back into the air with his club like he was playing golf.  The hit actually saved him from an attack from the other ogre, and as Jace rolled to a stop at the edge of the clearing, he saw the two stupid beasts fighting about it.

He picked himself up quickly, taking a peek at his health to see that his totem was still taking all of the harm.  He did the math as he stalked back toward the two arguing ogres.  One was at twelve health, the other eight.  Based on his earlier attacks, they each had a Damage Reduction of 22, so he needed 34 damage to kill the healthier one and 30 to kill the other.  For whatever reason, he was only doing criticals on his first attack each round, and his maximum damage was 31 without a critical.  He angled in on the 12-Hit Point ogre first, who only noticed that its prey was back in front of it as Jace’s sword swept into its side.  The monster fell, and Jace stepped around it to deal a normal strike against the second beast, who also died.

The massive chief ogre stepped out of the cavern and into the noon sunshine.  Jace didn’t have a strategy against the invulnerable foe yet but marched forward anyway.  The giant smiled at him, casually spinning his flail by his side.  Sprinting the last few feet, Jace launched into an attack, but the spiked ball met him first, and he flew back again.  That hurt, and he checked his health to see that he had lost a few points from the strike.  His totem was down, and everything was on him now.

Jace wondered if he could cast it again and glanced down at his spells.  The Damage Sink Totem was grayed out, and he couldn’t select it.  Instead, he saw movement to his left as Xavier reached out to him.  He had a small metal sphere in his hand.  “Take it,” he said.  “You’ve got more mana.”

Jace took the sphere and watched the priest move to Faylon, who was down to eight Hit Points.  The shaman understood that Xavier was lower on mana and couldn’t afford to spend the necessary amount to operate whatever device he had just handed him.  Hopefully, he had enough to stabilize Faylon, or the half-elf would die in four rounds.

Jace stood and looked at the massive ogre before him, who seemed content to let his opponent charge him again.  Instead, Jace looked back at his spells and saw a spherical icon that must represent the device he was holding.  He selected it, and he felt a rush of mana leave him.  A circular ring of white energy pulsed out from the sphere and washed over the monster before him, seeming to do no harm. Hopefully, it did something, and Jace charged again.  This time he got to attack first, and his sword no longer bounced harmlessly off the creature’s armor.

[Triple Crit. 4x damage? Stun. 3x Damage]

Jace chose to stun his opponent, knowing that would all but end the fight.

[Ogre Chief Stun protection.]

“Crap,” Jace said as his opponent’s attack sent him flying again.  That was a new wrinkle he was going to have to deal with.  Also, that last attack did 84 damage.  He could only afford to get hit once more like that.  Two more attacks, and he would be gone.  He picked himself up and tried to reason what was happening.  The chief was level 15, started with 465 Hit Points, and was now down to 400.  Jace’s triple crit should have done 93 damage, meaning the ogre must have a damage reduction of 28.  So his standard hits would only do three damage.  How in the world was he going to kill this thing before it killed him?  The problem was the throwback attacks.  That had to be a critical ability the ogres had, and it stole a round of attacks from Jace.  And if his guess was correct, they were alternating initiative each round, and this next attack would be the giant’s reducing Jace to under 30 Hit Points and one more attack from death.

Jace’s only hope was that the Stun Protection was a one-time use and he would eventually be able to freeze the creature.  “Xavier,” Jace said.  “Can you lower this monster’s magic resistance?”  Gracie had said opponents would be able to save against his stun attacks, and surely a magic using ogre like this at level 15 would have more protection than his grunts.

Xavier rolled his eyes.  “I can try.”

As the priest cast his spell, Jace took a deep breath and charged again, angling in from the cliff wall bordering the back of the clearing.  The chief turned his body to the attack, and as Jace readied his sword, the spiked ball came in again.  He tried to parry with his sword, but he might as well have been trying to deflect a prize-winning pumpkin with a toothpick and was launched back before he could blink.  This time he only flew ten feet into the cliff wall, bounced back within striking distance of the ogre, and blasted a 20-attack into his side.

[Triple Crit. 4x damage? Stun. 3x Damage]

Jace held his breath and chose the stun again, hoping the priest’s spell had done something.  The ogre froze.  Jace didn’t waste time and took his second attack, which only did three damage as predicted.  While stunned, the beast couldn’t move or attack, but he wasn’t completely paralyzed and smirked at the ineffective attack.

The beast was down to 332, and Jace launched another 20-strike at him and got four crits thanks to the stun reducing his AC.  The 5x damage dropped him to 200, and Jace realized he would need two more rounds to kill him.  If he woke up during that time, Jace would be dead.  He rechecked his spells, saw his Damage Sink was available now, and spent a precious round to drop it deep inside the cavern.  No sooner had the totem sprung into existence than the ogre woke up and smashed Jace back into the wall.  His health held at around 30, and he returned a 4x crit.  They traded weakened attacks in the second round, and the ogre unleashed another massive attack to start the next.  With his health so low, the brute tried to finish Jace off and neglected his critical ability, focusing everything on damage.  Jace saw his newly created totem explode into rubble and felt a dozen points of damage overflow into him, but his next attack ended it, and the chief fell with a crash.

Jace dropped to his knees in relief and felt out of breath.  He saw a floating satchel icon over the ogre, but when he tried to collect it, it said [Unusable.]

“You mean I don’t even get any loot for that,” he mumbled.  “How is that fair?”  He did take a peek into his status screen and saw that despite Gandhi telling him he wouldn’t get experience for this quest, he was up over 100k now.  He guessed he wouldn’t be awarded any extra for completing the module, but he still collected it for killing monsters.  He wasn’t sure if experience points were shared in his current party of NPCs.  The goblins had probably only been worth a few hundred, and the ogres had to have been a few thousand, and he didn’t doubt this chief was over 10k.

Jace got up and walked back to his other two party members, anxious to see if it was still a party of three.  Faylon was alive, barely.  He had gotten down to 2 health before Xavier had spent the rest of his mana to stabilize him.  Jace guessed if you healed someone as much as they were losing that round, the loss stopped.  He wondered if there was any way he could tell if the priest was holding out on them.  He could only see his level and Hit Points: 10 and 120.  It looked like he hadn’t taken any damage yet.  The longer he looked at Xavier, a choice came up to Review Party Member.  There he could see all of his stats and found out the priest only had a Mana Generation ability of 4.  It would take the priest a long time before he had enough to cast any meaningful spells, but he did have several magical items on his person that Jace might be able to use.

“Do you have anything I can use to heal myself?” Jace asked out loud.

Xavier looked up from Faylon, who was still unconscious.  Clearly, he didn’t want to part with anything, but if they continued the mission, Jace was the best chance he had at survival, so he reluctantly removed one of his rings.  “I see you do not follow a god yet, but this should work for you.”

Jace saw the small ring in the priest’s hand and thought there was no way he could fit that on his finger, but when he took it, the jewelry expanded three times in size, and he easily fit it over his enormous knuckles.  Jace dipped into his spells and saw the ring.  Unlike the priest, Jace recovered 20 mana a round and had already replaced the 80 points he had spent on his last totem.  He dumped all his 184 available mana into the ring, and his health jumped by 72 points.

“Keep it for now,” Xavier said.  “I can see you will need it.  What can we do with him?”

Jace looked at the fragile half-elf.  If a goblin sneezed on him, he would die.  “Can I use the ring on him?”

The priest shook his head.  “He has a chaotic soul.  The ring won’t work.”

“Then we need to move him.  We must hide him and hope he does not wake before we return.”

“I put him in a deep sleep with my last spell.  He will heal a little as he sleeps and won’t wake for over an hour.”

Jace nodded and gently picked up the light ranger in his arms.  He carried him over to the edge of the clearing, where a shallow depression in the cliff wall offered some shade.  After laying him down, he went to the ogre that Xavier and Faylon had killed.  It was the least bloody of the four smaller bodies, and he bent to lift it also.  The ogre was much heavier, and Jace lamented that he didn’t have a higher score in his Carry skill.  He would have to give Gracie a hard time about that.  After a minute, he had arranged the dead ogre to hide the ranger’s sleeping body, and they were ready to continue.

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