Regina’s arrows continue to fire as they close at a breakneck rate, the next arrow missing, the one after that digging into the leader once more, leaving a second arrow deeply embedded in his chest. At this time Buckys first arrow comes into play, targeting one of the lesser Orcs, who collapses after an arrow buries itself into his thick sloping skull. “14 left” I think to myself.

Regina lands another arrow into the biggest guy, who despite being in a rage fueled frenzy stumbles under the withering, continuous assault. To be completely honest, with 3 arrows in the chest and one having punched through his neck entirely, it's shocking that their leader is not only still standing, but is continuing to charge us. Bucky lands an arrow into the stomach of another of the weaker orcs, this one also continues his charge, and my imbuement finally completes. A spell trigger.

Magic is a game changer. Jims dominance over a group of orcs really made an impression on me; I can only hope that my poor man version of his cone of flame will be enough to make an impact here. The Orcs' reckless charge finally brings them close enough that I think I might be able to get a hit in with my sling. Regina, Bucky, and Joaqims' missiles all fly wide this time. I think they are worried about the javelins we expect to be coming any second. I begin to move back towards the cover of the carriage door. My stone fly’s true, smashing into the eye of the Orc Bucky had grievously wounded with his arrow, causing his head to snap back while his legs try to continue forward, before he slams into the ground. 13 now.

This should be the last ranged exchange we have, I think to myself. “Prepare for counterfire!” I call out.

Regina fires an arrow into the big boss; it hits the other side of his neck, and he goes down hard, his sheer momentum leading to his collapse digging a furrow in the ground in a dramatic and near cartoonish fashion. Bucky fires his bow… Somewhere. That was a comedically bad shot; I don’t think he aimed at all, it cut out at a near 90 degree angle from where the enemies are located. He drops the bow, and pulls out his shield, trying to move behind the door on his side of the carriage. Joaqim on the other hand launches a masterful strike against one of the weak Orcs, a true David and Goliath moment, the stone shatters the skull of the unfortunate Orc, leaving a gaping hole in his head. 11 remaining.

Joaqim does not stop to enjoy the results of his handiwork, and barges past me to dive into the carriage as though his life depends on it. I also try and launch one final shot before pulling out my shield and ducking behind the cover of the carriage door; but between Joaqim having clipped me on his way by, and the sheer number of things I’m trying to do simultaneously, my stone launches directly into the ground only a few meters away from me. I guess I will not be making fun of Bucky for his shot once the battle is over.

As expected, at about 10 meters the remaining Orcs launch a barrage of Javelins. Their military discipline shows: the rain of javelins is terrifying, and for half a moment I feel like I'm a spartan in the movie "300". Although none of us are explicitly dressed so as to be clear spellcasters, I’m the only one they saw casting a spell while they were approaching. Perhaps they would have targeted Regina if they could since Regina dropped their leader, but they don’t even have line of sight on her after she moved behind the carriage, and neither could they feasibly target Joaqim since he dived into the carriage. Meaning they only have 2 targets, myself and Bucky, both of whom have shields out and are using the carriage doors to reduce our targetable area. Hitting either of us would make for a very tough shot. So, they all chose the target that made the most strategic sense. Me.

11 Javelins fly my way. My current defense is an 8 due to the armor and shield I am using, and the door should also help some, but 11 is a lot of attacks, and they rain on the carriage door, fracturing and splintering it, and eventually tearing the door entirely from its hinges. Some of the Javelins make it to my shield, knocking away chunks of wood and splitting it along the arm strap, sending splinters flying all around me. Some of the force from the many javelins make it to my armor courtesy of the splintering from the door and shield… And the remaining force is absorbed by my leather. Holy shit, are you kidding me?! I didn’t take a single point of damage from that?! The orcs are trained professionals; they launched the Javelins while on the run, and they finish closing the distance to me and Bucky barely 2 seconds behind the Javelins they led with, smoothly drawing their Falchions out along the way.

I do not know what I did to make these guys angry; actually I do, they identified me as a spell caster after all. Sentient creatures believe that if you ignore a spellcaster, they will cause massive amounts of damage to you, or heal people that should have been about to die, or generally make life miserable for those they are opposing. That's a pretty sane thought process, because they're absolutely right about the effectiveness of magic.

Regardless, all 9 of the "normal", "weakling" Orcs come at me, while the two lieutenants head around to the other side of the carriage, with one stopping to engage Bucky while the other continues, presumably to tie up Regina in her location behind the carriage. I count myself fortunate that although they are well drilled, the base tactics they are drawing from are somewhat lacking. If I did not have any spells, meaning just like every other battle we have ever been in, this would be the right way to ruin my day. But today is not that day. Because we had so much notice, I was able to complete an imbuement, and I have an area of effect spell ready to go. The cone of fire spell would have little impact on a small number of stronger enemies, but it should be helpful against larger numbers of weaker enemies.

With them being on different sides of the carriage, I cannot keep track of how Regina and Bucky are faring. That's fine, I have plenty to keep me occupied right here with my 9 weenies. I hold the fractured and only nominally functional chunks of remaining shield tight, fending off their ridiculously strong blows, and whisper the short incantation to release the cone of fire I imbued at the start of the battle. I can immediately see that my spell casting strength is nowhere near what Jims was, the fire simply isn’t as hot nor as bright. But my range is just as good as his was, because that is a characteristic of the cone of fire spell rather than being a variable dependent upon my magical power, and my current target area is filled with creatures, more of them on hand than were even involved in the fight where he showed me how good this spell was.

As the cone of fire releases, I manage to angle it to hit 6 Orcs at once. The one directly in front of me must have realized what I was doing, or at least that I was releasing a spell, because he drops to the ground as my spell releases avoiding the worst of it. The other 5 fair much worse, catching the full effect of the spell. They also fall to the ground, but their fall is accompanied by wretched shrieks and screams, soon followed by silence, their only motion being occasional twitches, and tendrils of smoke and steam, carrying the acrid stench of burnt hair mixed with a nauseatingly sweet scent reminiscent of grilled pork. Just like that, there are 5 fewer Orcs in the fight, with a 6th Orc heavily injured. 6 remaining.

The counterattack is swift and brutal, with the three uninjured orcs rushing in and slamming their falchions against what's left of my shield, forcing me to keep it high, while the injured orc, still smoking, delivers a vicious upward slash underneath my guard tearing into the inside of my thigh, cutting the femoral artery wide open, and continuing up into my abdomen. It is colder than I expected. Despite the intense heat that this orc was just subjected to, the blade feels cold. Not cold, cold, it also burns. It feels like a cold fire is tearing through my legs and stomach, burning everything in its path. I rate the experience at 3 out of 10, would not recommend.

I think I may have jumped directly into shock, but it doesn’t really matter, because as his blade finishes its sweep my vision goes black, and I'm left to focus on the view of my health floating from the corner of my vision to the center of my vision, a red “-1” bright and glaring in my quickly fading view. What is wrong with this system? That is just insane. One hit. That’s all it took, was 1 hit. From a mook. That’s all that was needed to take me from full health at level 2, with a fully maximized toughness attribute, to deaths door. It does at least serve as a reminder that while the upper bounds of monsters seem to be impeded by species based class levels, those classes really do provide a power boost while you're on the lower end of the spectrum, monstrous classes are simply sacrificing potential power for immediate gain. I really, really hope that was at least a critical hit though, because that was still ridiculous, and right now I am feeling like this system is horribly designed…

The “-1 Health” has not finished fading when I feel the warmth of healing energy entering me. Joaqim was really on top of his game this time, I’m back up to 7 health. If it's as bad as the last one it's obviously not enough to survive another hit, and another hit is very likely, considering my current state of 4 versus 1, but the healing received is enough for me to try and return the tactic. With the wood around the straps already damaged, my shield fell out of my hand when I lost consciousness, so I go straight for the old razzle dazzle. My first claw is aimed at the throat of the Orc that cut me open like a fish. He jerks to his right avoiding that claw entirely, which leads him right into my other claw. Ha! My claw attack worked and I was able to separate the seriously injured Orcs larynx from the rest of his body with it! Woot woot, my claws finally claim a kill! Look, I'm in a really bad position right now; regardless of how the rest of the fight goes I'm pretty screwed, so I might as well enjoy my little victories. 5 remaining.

As expected my celebration is cut short immediately, I haven't even finished getting to my feet and my attempt to snap at the next closest orc doesn't fair well. He was more than sufficiently alert to interpose his falchion along my attack path. Not wanting to cut my own throat against his weapon I pull back, but he is faster, and his falchion stretches forward and cuts deep into my exposed face. My health says “-5”. It's not a surprise, but I was hoping to be able to at least inconvenience someone else before I went back to black.

Once again, I wake up to healing magic. I am expecting to have to start scratching and fighting for my life the moment I wake up, but that ends up being entirely unnecessary. The battle is over. Was I really so useless that they didn’t bother directing any more healing spells my way? Well… Actually that would be the rational approach, I probably would have been completely and utterly useless for the rest of the fight. Yes, I took 6 of them down, 5 with fire, one with my claws, and I might even be able to claim 7 if you count finishing off a wounded foe with my sling while they were rushing up to us, but it was magic that did the heavy lifting for me here. Even if I had not dropped my shield, my defense is nothing to write home about, and Orcs hit ridiculously hard in melee.

Over the next few minutes, I find out the rest of what happened during my nap.