The discussion that night got pretty philosophical as everyone offered their opinion on what it meant to be living in VR. It was probably the first time everyone, including me, sat around and just chatted and joked about stuff. My favorite was when Maria asked how I would know if we were the locals and Mary was the player. Weird and wild stuff.

We were of course attacked during this by a level 15 giant scorpion, that instead of poisoning you with the stinger, it gave you a disease that sapped your endurance and left you pretty much unable to move. It got Dalmar and one of the warrior women, and I ended up throwing health spells their way until the group managed to kill the thing and we got disease potions into the two. It was a pretty bad ass attack because it left Dalmar, a level 22, in the same state as Neara, a level 4, with both of them totally unable to move. I thought at first it was paralysis of some kind, but they could talk and Dalmar was able to describe the issue.

"Get to enjoy being eaten alive" Neara said with a shudder. She was a warrior, but I had heard her talking with Maria about going the ranger route, something this might reinforce since it meant standing back and shooting arrows.

"Note to self, avoid scorpions" Maria said with a grin, then gave everyone a pointed look and added "and always travel with friends"

I got a chance to talk with Maria as we were walking the next day and explain the whole meet with the goddesses thing, and her first question was "Wait, you mean I need to kill myself?"

I nodded solemnly and said "Yes, and the more painfully the better" But I couldn't keep a straight face as she gave me a suspicious look so I added "or, we could just set your spawn point there and you could visit that way"

"Asshole" she said with a grin, punching me in the arm for good measure "So who's coming, do you know?"

Actually I didn't, so I shrugged and said "Not sure, Telina just said all of them seemed interested, so I would expect at least a couple. Which reminds me..." I looked around, but couldn't see Dalmar in the taller crowd, so just said "Tarra sent Dalmar a message I forgot to give him"

"I see" she said with a laugh "you managed to forget to pass on a message from a goddess. I'm thinking my bestie is probably starting to wonder if her priest is a little slow in the head"

"I may be slow" I said with my own laugh "but I'm better than the next guy...oh wait, there is no next guy"

The next four days were spent doing pretty much the same thing; walk, fight, sleep, fight, walk, and of course, fight. By the time we came into sight of the castle I had decided that Bob and I would skip going back to Riverbend, and just head straight north to get out of the Forbidden lands before buying some horses somewhere and heading to Mudtown directly. I was guessing it would take ten days, with only two or three in the Forbidden Lands. After the last couple months of travel I was pretty much over the walking thing, even if you didn't have to put up with aches and pains.

The afternoon of the fourth day was the first sight of the castle for the women, and they were pretty impressed with it being carved out of the side of a mountain. It still looked sort of spooky, though not as bad as it had at night, something about the dark grey stone it was carved out of. There were no windows, but I could make out where the balcony was, so I was thinking Maria would need to see about doing some renovating if she didn't want it to seem like a dungeon.

We stopped at the top of the small hill we had camped at previously, but only to allow Maria to address everyone. She had Dalmar, Bob, and me post ourselves around the group to keep guard as she hopped onto a boulder to be seen. Putting her hands on her hips, she looked over the women as the light breeze stirred her hair and caused her magic cloak to fluff out a little, making the whole thing a little bit impressive.

"Alright ladies, this is where the shit gets real" Maria said, uncharacteristically serious "All of you have said you want to be part of something better, and I'm going to be offering you a chance at that very soon. That's my castle down there, and you and I are going to go make sure no one has taken up residence since I was here last time. That's also going to be home for our group, and there are a couple of things you need to know before we go any further" she raised her arm and held up a finger "First, Jake is setting a portal in my castle, which means anyone who is part of my group will have access to those" she raised a second finger as the women muttered and a few cast glances my way. They quieted as Maria said "Two. It's possible to change spawn points" the uproar that information caused got Maria to stop and wait, ignoring the yelled questions. When it was obvious Maria wasn't going to say anything until they shut up, they...shut up.

Nodding, Maria said "As I said, it is possible to change spawn points. I'm not going to tell you how, so don't waste time asking me about it. It can only be done once a week, so it will take a while, but if you stay with me I'll arrange to move your spawn point here with me" she grinned at the muttered comments from the crowd, but just held up a third finger and said "Third. I'm going to be making you all an offer later, but when I do, I want you to take as much time as you need to consider it. But...even if you turn me down, as long as you don't turn into an evil douchebag, I'll have your back. It used to be that people said that the strong survive, but here in Tarinath, that's a lot of crap. In this world, those with friends survive, and I want you all to look around and think about what life was like without friends"

She dropped her arm and put it back on her hip, pausing to look the group over before saying "Ok. It's time to put on our big girl panties and start kicking some ass on our own. Jake, Dalmar and Bob are going to stay outside and let us do what needs doing in there. I know the layout, and we have a hell of a lot of firepower, so this should be quick and easy as long as everyone keeps their head out of their ass"

Dalmar and I exchanged looks, then shrugs as we heard Maria's plan. I thought she had the right of it; that many warriors and mages should walk over just about anything up to a dragon, and even it would probably go down after eating half of them. I grinned at the thought, but followed the group as they headed down the hill behind Maria.

Maria got everyone in a half-ass line, then got a pair of warriors to open the door. Two level 7 skeletons stepped out, only to disappear under an absolute swarm of magic missiles as every one of the mages let loose on them. I was pretty sure they did a lot more damage then needed, which got Maria to yell out "Ok, everyone got that out of their system?" at the quiet, somewhat embarrassed muttering, she said "Zara's team is leading, so no one else attacks until told to. We'll be swapping leads as we clear rooms, so everyone will have their share of experience"

Bob was hiding a grin behind a hand as he stroked his mustache, and Maria rolled her eyes at Dalmar before turning to follow her first team into the doorway. After the women all filed in, the other guys joined me in the doorway, with Bob letting out a chuckle and saying "At least they didn't all target the same skeleton" That got a deep laugh from Dalmar, who nodded and said "God, wouldn't that have been funny. Maria would have probably laughed herself unconscious"

"What was that, like sixty some missiles?" I asked with a grin "hell of an artillery section if it ever came to an actual war"

Dalmar set up to cook some food as Bob and I kept a casual watch to make sure nothing came out the door, or across the plain to take a bite out of our asses. We could hear fighting inside for a little bit, but it quickly faded away, leaving us to sit and wait. I had told Dalmar about Tarra's message, and he and Bob started talking smithing as we ate.

"What's a forgemaster?" Bob asked

Dalmar shrugged, but said "Don't know. Closed mouth group, and none of them talk about their craft. Got the whole secret society thing going on. Dwarves, Elves, Orcs, and Humans all supposed to have different smithing skills, or at least that's what I've gotten out of some of the conversations I had since visiting the capital. The books are mostly generic stories and legends, but nothing that addressed actually how to do something. I'm beginning to think all these specialty skills are quest based, and you won't find anything until you meet certain criteria" he frowned in thought, then said "I'd never seen someone like that librarian guy until Jake and I visited, and I'm beginning to wonder if he only appeared because we met some checklist of some kind. The smiths I talked to in Riverbend told me the stuff about the different races, but I'd asked them before about smithing and they never offered even that much" another shrug followed as he said "The librarian told Jake the elves forged the blessed weapons and armor he was looking for, so I'm guessing there's levels to this that I haven't found out about. Has to be some way of making magic weapons, and I really want to be able to make some armor out of Zac's scales"

"Maybe some smithing version of an enchanting skill?" Bob asked. My confused look got him to say "Some games let a smith put enchantments on weapons and armor, others make it a separate skill path. I know a bunch of the other eternal mages have looked into enchanting and come up with nada, but there's got to be something. Who makes a sword and sorcery world without having the ability to make magic items?"

"The low bidder" I muttered, getting another chuckle from Dalmar. He shrugged and said "Most eternals I've talked with are looking into various skills, and maybe someone's already figured out how to do the blacksmith thing. Weeks of travel to the west side of the empire, so no telling what the eternals out there are doing"

It took maybe two or so hours for the girls to finish up and a blonde, shield carrying human warrior come down to tell us "Everything is clear. We didn't lose anyone, and Maria said to join her in the Lich's room" she flashed a pleased grin as she turned back and headed up the stairs. Bob and I followed as Dalmar shut the door, then trotted up to join us. Women were everywhere, kind of wandering around and having the mages use their trap finding spell to see if they could find any hidden doors and stuff. Maria was alone in the main room, and nodded for us to shut the door when we came in.

"I told them to give us some time" Maria said as we joined her in front of the Lich's throne "I want to do this goddess thing now, then have the girls come back in here a little before I get back. This needs to be a private thing between me and my people, so I'd like to ask you guys to wait somewhere else until we're done" she seemed a little embarrassed to ask that, but all of us just nodded agreement as Dalmar said "No problem"

Maria gave me a questioning look, so I asked "Ready?" At her nod I pulled up the resurrection spell and cast it on her. The bright light formed, and very soon we heard Maria say "Change my spawn point" then add "here" before disappearing.

"Maria and a bunch of goddesses" Dalmar said in a laughing tone "bet that's going to be an interesting conversation"

We all turned toward the door together, though no one said anything. I waved one of the women mages wandering around over and said "You'll want to have everyone in this room in less than an hour" She gave me a suspicious look, though I had no idea why, but just nodded and headed back down the stairwell. Dalmar and Bob were headed up the balcony stairwell, so I joined them, wondering if I could find someone who sold ale in a cask that I could carry. It would be perfect for these down times.

I found a spot to sit down and lean back against the wall so I could look outward, though the balcony wall kept me from seeing the plains below. The stars were starting to become visible as the light faded, but my elven vision meant it still seemed fairly light out. I pulled up my drafting pad and worked on finishing the drawing of Ariel and the wolf guy. I had decided on showing things just after the wolf hit the wall, his face turned toward Ariel, mouth open in shock and fear, while she had her left side facing me, shield sort of angled outward a little. Zac was in her right hand, held upright as she was preparing to swing again, flames flickering around the head of the hammer. Somehow the picture managed to capture her greater height, though I wasn't sure how I did it with nothing but the wolf guy as a reference. Ariel lacked Maria's joyful, laughing expression, the one that made all her pictures so much fun to look at. Instead, Ariel had an intent, almost predatory glare, her teeth showing in a sort of snarl, eyes glowing slightly with Telina's power, making you understand why the wolf guy was afraid. I thought it did a good job of showing one of Telina's paladins in full on ass kicking mode, and would make a good addition to the ones at the Inn.

I had finished Ariel's drawing, and had started roughing out one of the bone dragon fight, when Maria joined us. I hadn't realized it had been that long, but It had to have been a couple of hours since I had a good start on a drawing showing all three of us attacking the bone dragon. I slid the pad and pencils back into my inventory and stood up to give Maria a good look.

She had something like that diadem thing Sienna had found, but Maria's had four, small colored stones set in a sort of filigree, leafy kind of design, with the stones kind of looking like flowers or something. I wasn't much of a jewelry guy, but had to admit it looked pretty damn cool. She was grinning as she turned and settled her butt on the balcony rail, giving us a couple eyebrow waves before saying "Is that any way to greet the queen of the Guardians of Tarinath?"

Dalmar chuckled, then did a sort of bow, sweeping his arm down and back up before saying "A thousand pardons your magesticness, we poor peons are quite overwhelmed by your royal self"

Maria giggled, then waved her hand dismissively and said "Quite alright, I'm feeling quite forgiving today" She hopped up to give Dalmar a quick hug, then did a twirl, her cloak flaring, before she settled back on the rail and said "Wow, who would have thunk? Do you know, everyone of my girls signed on, isn't that great?"

"Never doubted they would" Bob said seriously, then grinned and gave his own arm sweeping bow and adding "Your majesty, you honor us with your presence" He got his own quick hug and laugh, before she turned to give me a look.

I chuckled, but followed the other's example and did my own sweeping bow, saying "Most radiant queen, I am humbled by your beauty and grace" Maria gave us a laugh before giving me my hug, then twirled back to her seat on the rail and getting a little more serious, though she didn't lose the smile.

"Four goddesses showed up, and it was really cool getting their take on things" she gave us a rueful grimace and shrug before adding "can't talk about much of it" her smile flared again as she looked at Dalmar and said "But Tarra was all about it, and she's expecting you to help her out"

Dalmar blinked in surprise, but only asked "Help her out?"

"Telina's kind of got the lock on a lot of things having Jake on her side" Maria said, crossing her arms and nodding at me "and the rules of this place have it so that each goddess had one priest, what was called a healer priest when we started. Supposedly that priest created paladins, but we eternals operate on a different set of rules, so a goddess can snag an eternal paladin if everything works out right. Tylara got lucky and got herself one when he was either told, or figured out what needed to be done. Weird ass rules say the goddesses can't tell us what to do, you have to figure it out" she rolled her eyes before continuing "Anyway, supposedly I've got the others covered, but Tarra says you're the only one doing the right stuff for her, and thinks if you take an apprentice they'll pick up what they need to know"

"An apprentice?" Dalmar muttered, then frowned and said "you mean have someone follow me around?"

Maria giggled and said "Exactly. A sort of Dalmar mini-mini-me" Both Bob and I laughed at that, and even Dalmar chuckled before saying "I'm not really against it I suppose, but if your talking one of your people they might not be comfortable with that"

That got a "Piffle" followed by "I have someone who would jump at the chance, and there's only a couple of my girls who would be leery of you" from Maria. She nodded at Bob and me and added "These two yeah, but you're just a cuddly ole teddy bear" That got another round of chuckles from Bob and me at Dalmar's expression.

While Dalmar considered her words, she turned to me and said "The goddesses wanted a bunch of agreements and stuff between you and I, but I told them that would be a waste. We back each other's people when needed, and I'll make sure my people look out for Mary and Mudtown. We let each other know if any of our people are getting out of hand, but we act as equals"

I nodded, rather pleased with the informal attitude, and said "Works for me and mine. Once I get the portal set I'll be back, and we can get all those damn portal access blessings for your people out of the way. Potions and stuff will still be in Mudtown and you can get whatever you need, and I'll try to be back once a week to do a resurrection spell" I shrugged and added "it might also be a good time to do an individual retention rune if you want your people to have one"

We actually didn't spend much time discussing Maria's new status as she didn't offer any details about what had been said or done. All the women with her were wearing cloaks now, black hooded cloaks that made them invisible when needed, and a pair of silver and gold bracers that had four symbols engraved in them, two on each bracer. A warhammer, sword, bow, and what turned out to be a staff. I thought it was a spear at first, but was told by an impatient sounding warrior woman that of course it was a staff, the symbol for Tanira, goddess of battle. I had no idea what the bracers did, if anything and I wasn't sure how the staff was associated with battle, but didn't really care enough to ask. It did make me wonder if Telina had a symbol and if I was supposed to be spreading it around.

Maria decided to put the portal entry at the base of the stairs leading to the balcony. It was sort of a central point and would allow easier access in an emergency. Then I did blessings. Four days of stupid portal blessings. Dalmar and Bob did forays out into the local area with different groups of women, but I didn't want to risk getting killed and having to travel all the way back to do it again, so I sat around and spent my days drawing. The women were still leery of me, though I had a lot of fun when our original four gathered at night.

I did a drawing of Maria getting her tiara thing from the four goddesses, showing her kneeling in front of four figures, her hands out to receive it. I didn't know what the goddesses looked like, so I made them human (and one dwarf) like shapes that you couldn't see in detail. I had the goddesses holding weapons to match their symbols to ensure everyone understood who was who. I planned to post it at the Burning Mage Inn and have Bob do one of his story telling's so the tale would get disseminated.

By the fourth day I was more than ready to go. It was one thing to relax and do nothing in Mudtown, but a whole different thing in a castle full of people who treated you nice enough, but didn't want to spend time with you. Maria and Dalmar joined us outside as Bob and I prepared to leave, with Maria handing out hugs and Dalmar shaking hands.

"Going to be a tough trip" Dalmar said as he stepped back "Only two of you moving through the Forbidden lands"

"Yeah" Bob said with a shrug and grin "but it won't be boring" I nodded my agreement and added "We each have a holy flame gem and a clobberin rune, so we should be good against everything but a dragon"

We set off at a fast walk at Bob's suggestion "Running uses endurance, and we don't want to get into a fight at half endurance. Walking at any speed is something you can do forever and still be fresh" he chuckled as he looked over at me to say "we just look like some of those weird ass speed walkers at the mall" He had that right. Bob looked the total dork as he speed walked in his platemail chest armor and other pieces.

Our first encounter didn't happen until almost evening, when we walked out of a dry riverbed and found a huge ogre looking thing sitting and leaning back against a boulder. The thing's head was higher than mine, even sitting down, and when it stood up, it probably reached twenty feet. I was kind of blinking in a sort of shocked surprise as Bob said "Well damn, a hill giant"

Hill Giant

Level 16

Health 420

"Are you kidding me?" I yelled as I jumped backward as the thing swung a tree like club down to thump into the ground between us.

"Stay back and heal me!" Bob yelled as he darted forward to slash his two-handed sword across the things left knee, then spun to do it again to the back side. The damn things club was bigger than I was, and the wind of it's passage as Bob ducked it caused his hair to get blown along. The giant was fairly slow moving, though not like you would expect from it's dull expression and awkward appearance. Bob's dexterity allowed him to get in a couple swings for every one the giant did, but Bob was doing like 50 or 60 points of damage, and when the giant finally connected, Bob went flying about fifteen feet and lost about a hundred points of health. Bob staggered to his feet as I tossed a healing his way, bringing back a little more than half his lost health. A second swing just missed as Bob ducked and lunged forward to stick his sword into the things right leg, and I sent a second healing his way.

"Holy shit that hurt!" Bob yelled with a laugh, running between the things legs, then turning to stab it in its right thigh. He wasn't expecting the backhand slap as the giant leaned down and swatted him, so he went rolling across the ground again. I held off on a healing as it only did thirty points of damage, kind of getting into the excitement of the fight now. Bob jumped to his feet and ran to avoid the club as it slammed into the ground where he had been, then spun and dashed in to stab the giant's arm, getting the thing to let out a roar, either in pain or anger I couldn't tell. The things wounds were all bleeding, so it's lower legs and arm had blood dripping down as it stepped forward and stomped Bob flat into the ground.

Crap. As it raised it's leg over a stunned Bob, I cast a holy fire spell, knocking the thing down and taking off about half its left over health. Unfortunately it fell right on top of Bob, probably doing a good bit of damage. My attack had drawn the things attention, so I took a few steps back, drawing the thing toward me as it regained its feet. Bob was looking pretty beat up, and had lost two thirds of his health, but was in the process of drinking a potion as the giant moved away from him. Toward me.

I ran like hell toward to my left, circling back toward Bob as the giant club came around and hit me right in the back. I flew past Bob, maybe screaming a little as I did so, then slammed straight into the boulder the giant had been leaning against. Ouch, that really hurt. Bob was attacking again as I pushed myself upright, drinking my own potion as I realized I had lost a third of my health. I turned to see Bob dancing back from the giant, laughing as he dodged the things swing. It looked like the giant was down to about a quarter of its health, so I cast Fist and ran forward. The giant had both hands on its club and was raising it over its head to pound Bob, when I did a two handed swing that hit it right in the back of its left knee. The knee folded, causing the giant to drop onto it, then fall forward to catch itself with one hand. I wound up and took a second swing, hitting it in the ass (covered by some kind of fur loin clothe), as Bob stabbed it in the eye.

The giant disappeared, leaving behind a nice pile of gold, and a ring. I let Bob scoop everything up as I cast a quick heal his way, topping him off, before doing a restore. Didn't want to get caught low on mana.

"This is a ring of giant's strength" Bob said, holding it up

Ring of Giant's Strength

+6 Strength

Not usable: Mage

"I've got a +3 strength, +2 Dexterity ring I'll swap for this one" he said, giving me a questioning look. I considered the possible benefits, and eventually decided the bonus strength numbers would be more useful to Bob than me, so I swapped out my 1 point wisdom ring for Bob's ring

Warrior's Heart

+3 Strength

+2 Dexterity

+4 Armor

The armor bonus was nice to see and the additional strength and dexterity should make me a little more effective, though I was still shy of that magic 18 points that everyone talked about. The numbers were so weird here, why level 8 to choose a specialty? Why 18 as the point your attacks seem to do full damage? Why not fives and tens for goddesses sake? It made me wonder if the people who made the games had a weird number of fingers and toes.

In the morning we had to deal with a level 15 giant snake that spit some kind of acid, but I healed Bob as quickly as the snake did damage, so it was actually a pretty quick fight. We weren't attacked again all day, and just as I was about to eat my dinner, starting to feel better about surviving things, our buddies the ogres came stomping up to our camp site. This was kind of a mixed thing, since the ogres seemed to mark the outer boundary of the Forbidden Lands, but they were also level 18 butt kickers.

"Same thing again, I think" I told Bob as we jumped up to deal with the creatures "If you get knocked down I'll draw down fire on them" Bob just nodded as he pulled his sword and charged the two. It turned into a bit of a tedious fight for me since Bob did a great job of moving so only one of them could attack him at a time, and his dexterity meant they missed more than they connected. He took some hard hits, but they weren't as brutal as the giants, and they didn't stun Bob, so he was never helpless. It got so bad I eventually took a seat on a boulder and just flicked healing spells his way as he laughed and danced around the two goobers. Bob chuckled every time he looked my way, but he was having fun so I didn't try to get involved. After he took out the first one he spent some time doing his trick shot stuff, doing rolls and spins, or trying to do running jumps up the things back. Guy was a bit of a show off.

"You should see your face" Bob said with a laugh when he finally stood over two piles of coins "you look like your watching some kind of boring reality tv show"

I rolled my eyes as I headed back toward our dinner, just saying "It feels like I'm that kid left standing when the pick up football teams are picked. I have a lot of benefits here, but they're not fun benefits most of the time"

Being just the two of us, the experience from the higher level creatures had pushed Bob into his next level up, and I was actually close to level 12, which surprised the hell out of me. "Makes a huge difference having Dalmar in the group" Bob said the next morning when I mentioned it "Being in the twenties, he really skews the experience you get, and what you do get is split four ways most times. Maria's girls made out great because we kept them safe, but they still got all that high level experience. It's probably why you didn't see eternals doing that guild experience sharing thing. A couple of level 10 people get their gained experience chopped in half because they're teamed with higher level players sitting back in the city drinking ale"

Since all of this seemed kind of arbitrary I couldn't say he was wrong, and we had done that sharing thing with Susan the last time when we did the dragon and those experience points had seemed to come darn slow. I shrugged it all off, not really worrying about it. The whole thing seemed like the taxes and things in reality, they were there, you dealt with them when necessary, but no one really paid attention to how it all worked.

We were pretty sure we had gotten out of the Forbidden Lands, but confirmation came a little after noon as we were walking through some wooded, hilly country. We stepped out of the trees at a small stream, and a large group of orcs walked out of the trees on the other side. The stream was only about ten feet wide, but had eroded the ground so there was a five or six foot deep trench with light shrugs on either side. Bob and I stopped immediately, but the orcs all worked their way out of the trees until they were in a two deep line facing us on the other side of the stream. My rough count had ten of them, four axe holders, four bowmen, a huge orc wearing a helmet, and some kind of magic type carrying a staff with a skull on top.

"Orc raiding party" Bob said

"Seems someone told me that meeting them was a bad thing" I muttered back as our two groups stood and looked at each other.

"Yep" Bob answered as the archers all reached back and pulled arrows from quivers and set them to their bows, though they didn't point them at us yet.

"Run away?" I asked as I pulled Bruce and Bob pulled his sword. Bob gave the orcs a big grin as he mumbled to me "Never make it. Kill the shaman with your fire or he'll wipe us out"

I called up my gem with holy fire stored, then said "Pull back into the woods so the archers have a harder time. I'll cover your back" The big orc growled something, the shaman glared at me as he lifted his staff, and I yelled "Flame on!" as I targeted the Shaman. The axe guys were all level 10, the archers level 9, the leader appeared to be level 14, and the magic guy (tag said shaman), was level 10. My white flame came down to impact on the shaman, knocking him and a couple archers down, staggering the rest. I yelled "Flame on!" once more, pausing to make sure the shaman bought it, taking an arrow in my leg from one of the outer archers as I did so.

"Back" Bob yelled, stepping in front of me, then moving backwards as I did so. He took two arrows, his doing about 15 points each, whereas mine did 19 points. I waited on healing him as the orcs all let out loud yells and began charging forward, a couple actually making the jump across the stream. Bob did his blessing on me as we backed up, but I held off on doing one, wanting to keep my mana for healing.

The first orc charged straight in, swinging hard as Bob slid to the side slightly and thrust with his sword. Bob was obviously a lot faster as the orc missed and Bob didn't. The thrust didn't kill the orc, who had 130 health, and Bob had to dodge another swing from one coming from his left. A darn arrow hit me, so I quit standing still and yelled "Keep moving back" since the axe guys attacking Bob were blocking the archers from hitting him and I wanted to keep them grouped to his front. It was a sort of stumbling fight backwards until Bob got to a spot with a tight grouping of trees, then stopped retreating and began attacking. There wasn't enough room for a full swing, but that affected the orcs worse since Bob could thrust. I cast a heal his way after he took an axe to his side, then another when two more hit him as he stepped forward and killed the one he had wounded at first. The darn archers had put their bows away and pulled one handed axes as they worked their way around the outside, most of them looking at me. The leader stepped in to take the dead orcs place, so I used the last flame spell on him, taking him to about half of his 210 health and staggering Bob's other opponents.

I put the gem away and turned to swing at the first orc, managing to hit him at the same time he hit me, making us both stagger. I tried to push forward, but he was a lot stronger than me, so all I managed was to bounce away and put a tree on my left side as I swung sideways at an orc on my right. The first one hit me again, this time on my left shoulder, drawing a grunt of pain from me as the one I swung at spasmed from the electricity in my hit. Bob was surrounded like I was, making me realize this wasn't working. I cast a quick heal at him, taking an axe to the back, then used the push from the hit to stagger forward enough to break my circle of attackers. I healed myself as I ran forward, then swung hard to hit one of the orcs attacking Bob in the back of it's head. It fell, though it wasn't dead, and I spun to put my back to Bob, just as one of his other attackers, hit me right in the freaking head.

Axe to the head. Not a good thing. I stumbled to a knee, but Bob did a big circular swing that cleared space for a second, allowing me and the downed orc to gain our feet. I healed myself again since that head shot had did real damage, then swung at the one I had knocked down. I connected, but I took another hit from my right, something I ignored (sort of) so I could dodge the guy in front of me's swing. I did a side swing at the one beating the snot out of me, missing, but turning enough to toss a heal Bob's way, then swinging back the other way to connect with my previous victim. He finally went down for good, but another one took his place as the damn guy on my right hit me again.

It got confusing for a while. It seemed like I was being hit constantly with axes as I swung at anyone close, healed myself, or tossed a heal Bob's way when I could turn to see him. He must have taken out the leader at some point since I got a level up message that I ignored as I took an axe to the face at the same time. The initial pain of taking any hit was really intense, but unlike reality it faded fairly fast, so I could fight through most things, but not an axe to the face. I went down for a second, tossing a heal at Bob when I got a sort of bleary look his way, then went to heal myself and had nothing. Three of the orcs were pounding on me, making me feel like I was in some kind of machine, as I tried to pull a potion and found I couldn't. Every time I called one up, I'd get hit and the interface would close.

I did that like twice, then rolled to my knees and began swinging, yelling "I'm out!" I was busting kneecaps for maybe a half a minute before I realized there was no Bob behind me, and there were four orcs still using me like a piece of firewood. I would have gone out in a blaze of holy fire, but couldn't get a free second to cast it, and my health was down to nothing as I took a last swing and yelled "It's Clobberin Time!" The bang was the last thing I heard.

I sighed as I stepped out onto the sands of the courtyard, still twitching a little from the excitement and pain. I had a new respect for orcs, and decided next time I would need to look at that run away option a little more closely.

You have died

Death incurs a ten percent loss of level

You have been reset to the beginning of level 11

Didn't even get a chance to see what that level 12 thing was going to offer, though I suspected it was probably something useful like Telina's Holy Hemorrhoids or something like that. Hell, maybe I would've been able to cure male pattern baldness!

I wandered around for a bit, then settled in the spot I'd had last time and pulled out my drafting book. 24 hours of doing nothing, got to love it.