I look at my opponents once again, marking out who looks the most dangerous and who looks like the weakest.

The Ogre is probably the biggest threat, especially with that mace that he's wielding. I know from experience that they hit hard and could take almost any type of damage laid on them. Quite a lot like Trolls except that Ogres didn’t have the natural weapons that Trolls did, and were usually shorter.

The next threats were probably the robed tentacle things, they look like the fire throwers that the other piddly race had.

After them are the Orc Urs and those of the race that I don’t recognise. The Orc Urs are strong but their blades can’t pierce my hide, as for the others all they have are big books!

I growl and start to walk towards them, I think that I can take them but it will be hard. Very hard.

They make the first move, three Urs run at me head-on well the Ogre and the other Ur start to flank me. The others in their party start to spread out as well, colours appearing in their hands.

I jump forward at the Urs charging me, colliding with the one in the middle and knocking the other two back.

They recover quickly, the two that I knocked back take out daggers and start to jump on me. While the one I collided with reaches up and puts his finger on my forehead.

His finger does nothing, and I crush his head. The other two Urs have tackled my legs and are trying to cut at the back of my heel. I ignore them and focus on the Ogre and the other Ur, the bigger threats.

The other Ur arrives and starts to hack at my legs with his sword, I savagely backhand him and watch the Ogre carefully. It is the real threat after all.

The Ogre comes in swinging, his mace moves downward quickly and savagely, I step back, barely dodging the thing. The Orcs are more of a nuisance then I first thought. The mace hits the dirt and destroys it, huge cracks spreading.

I grab one of them and throw it toward the Ogre, I grin as it impacts him and stops his next attack short. I prepare to grab the next one when huge vines burst from the ground and start to wrap around my legs. It seemed that the others had struck, I look at the Ogre and then at the vines, then jump backwards trying to get some distance between me and the enemies.

I try to jump backwards at least, I end up tripping. The vines have grown fully now and they are starting to follow me. The Urs are still grappling me and I decide to get rid of them first. The vines should get in the way of the Ogre long enough for me to finish them off.

I grab the first one and rip his head off, the other jumps backwards and tries to put distance between me and it. I scratch him as he goes and watch in anger as red light covers the wounds and starts to heal them.

The vines come shooting toward me, and I grab the Orc Urs sword and slash the first one right in half. That’s all I manage to do because the Ogre arrives and comes in swinging once more. I duck underneath it this time and tackle him around the waist, bearing him to the ground, pinning him.

The Orc Ur that I had backhanded comes running back, alive and well, and starts to slash at my back. Trying to find a chink in my hide that it can exploit.

It will find none.

The Ogre struggles underneath me, rolling this way and that, he’s not going anywhere though. I’ve held down Trolls twice his strength.

All I need to do now is figure out a way to kill him, the vines have caught up at this point and are starting to wrap around both the Ur, the Ogre, and myself.

I’ll need to end this quick if I’m going to come out alive. I growl and stab my nails into the Ogres eyes, making him scream in pain. Then red light wraps around his eyes and I feel his flesh start to heal around my fingers, start to crush it. I growl rip my left finger out of his eye and use it to make a bigger hole in just one of his eyes. The red light bathes the Ogre, and he screams in pain. I don’t stop though and keep ripping, then slam both my fingers into his now widened eye. I keep pushing until I feel his brain, then, with one last push, I kill the thing.

The vines start to wrap tighter around my body and I work quickly to rip them off, starting with the ones covering my legs. Ripping them to shreds, I roll off the corpse right onto a spike that erupts from the earth.

It shatters and actually manages to pierce my hide a little. This is not good. Not at all. I jump up into a hail of ice, putting a hand over my eyes I start to press forward, crushing spikes and weathering blocks of ice. My hide can only take so much.

I sprint forward out of the hail of the ice, and right into the last- and very surprised- Orc Ur, I knock him down and step on his skull, instantly killing him. The hail of ice comes back, and I resume my charge, this time coming out in front of the last of the group. They dodge, and I go stumbling by and trip over the body of the Hex. It isn’t where It was before, they must have moved It.

I maintain my balance and grab the Hex, just after I grab her, huge vines come and wrap themselves around me. They have spines and dig into my hide. They also dig into the Hex.

[Possible breach of System Order: Serve the Hex, detected. Analysing.]

[You are not responsible for the death of the Hex but was a variable. Analysing.]

[You have protected the Hex with your body, but have also engaged in combat with her servants. You have been found not guilty but not worthy of reward either. System Order Stands.]

I hear screams and see that one of my enemies has exploded, the others look on in horror before looking at me. The vines relax and I grin, charging them, I rip into the things and kill them easily, then kill the other two with books. They hardly put up a fight. I stand there breathing heavily looking at the carnage that surrounds me.

Something is off though, I feel like I’m not where I’m supposed to be. Someone wants me, no, someone needs me. The feeling is strong that I completely forget about eating the corpses and start to sprint toward where that feeling is coming from.

It’s like an itch that needs scratching, but worse, it pulls me and I sprint toward it. I move through the forest and even manage to not care about the squiggles that appear in my vision.

[Battle Prompts Start:

[Hex Touched Orc Urs x5 killed. Experience gained.

[Hex Touched Ogre Killed. Experience gained.

[Hex touched Yun x2 Killed. Experience gained.

[Hex touched Fornians x2 Killed. Experience gained.

[Level up x6

[Title Gained: Against the Odds-Fight against Ten higher levelled opponents and win. All attributes improved by 5% when fighting against five or more creatures.]

I don’t know how long I sprint for, but it is at least a couple days. Just running toward that feeling that itch. I run and run. Through a complex cavern, over a hill, through a river.

I feel myself getting closer and closer, and then... the itch comes no longer. Thing is, there's nothing here. Nothing. I continue walking until I hit the top of the hill that I’m on… Then stop.

A huge camp lies in the middle of a valley, and within that camp are huge amounts of Hex. Feeding. Their fingers touching the head of whatever poor creature was closest most likely.

That’s not what gets me the most though. That distinction belongs to the enormous amounts of slaves. Collared slaves. I can’t see their faces but I’m willing to bet that all of them have blood tears meandering there way down their faces.

The itch comes back again. Not as strong, but still there. It’s leading me to the centre of that camp, it’s telling me that it is there that I need to go.

I just stare for a while. I spot a Troll then, getting consumed, and I growl. This… This is bad. I don’t want to go down there.

Thing is though, I might not have a choice. I make a decision then. I make one while looking at that Troll land lifeless on the ground.

I need to assuage the itch and I also need to find out more about the camp and how it’ll affect me.

If the Hex get out then I can kiss my freedom goodbye, the strongest of them can just release a single word and a whole army of Trolls will come running.

The only thing that ever stopped them were the shamans. No shamans are here now though. Only me.

I breathe in and start to walk down.