It's not just me that had trouble staying awake this fight: Bucky was absolutely clobbered by the lieutenant that was attacking him. The second time I went down, Bucky was busy getting brutalized and he was also knocked out at almost the exact same time. After Bucky fell, the lieutenant that was targeting him noted that I was down, so he moved on to join the other leader against Regina, leaving Joaqim to fight the remaining 3 "normal" Orcs by himself. Joaqim did not fare any better than Bucky or I did, and his health dropped below 0 within a few seconds of Bucky and I.

Regina on the other hand? She was the absolute MVP of this battle. Not only did she cut down the biggest and toughest Orc before he was able to demonstrate how overpowered he was in a standup fight, but she was also able to finish off the first lieutenant that went to face her just as the next lieutenant was coming around to attack her. As discussed prior to the start of the battle, she had already started moving away from the carriage when he came after her, and she was able to riddle him with Arrows, followed by all 3 of the mooks who were on his heels. It was a near thing even for her, she says she only had 2 health left when the last Orc dropped. Close or not though she, by herself, without healing or any other direct assistance, killed 6 out of the 15 Orcs, including all 3 of their leaders.

Using ranged weaponry and magic to the greatest extent we could was the key to our success this fight, but I must admit this woman is uncannily competent. Between her near prescient ability to avoid unwanted fights, her ability to consistently find game along the way, her knack for selecting routes so tame we are able to lug a carriage around everywhere we go, her capacity to track down creatures that passed weeks ago, her talent for remaining unseen when it suits her even when she’s riding a horse, her knowledge of herbs, her judgement in selecting excellent shelters that are sufficiently well hidden even my armor smithing efforts usually seem to go unnoticed, the list goes on and on for what she brings to the table, even without considering that she precisely and thoroughly murderizes single targets from dozens of meters away.

Come to think of it, Regina is downright scary. I am not as intimidated by her as I would be of an angry Jim, but I wonder how much of that is just a cognitive bias caused by the highly visible and generally flashy nature of his combat contributions? I digress.

Bleeding and seriously injured, Regina returned to find the carriage had not moved. Why the horses didn’t run as we’d expected them to? I am not completely certain, but since it happened I can only speculate that it is due to their rather limited field of view only having offered them a few seconds to be concerned with the sight of the Orcs. As for the sounds of battle? Perhaps listening to my hammering played a role in toning down their response. I would expect that at least the smell of blood should still spook them, but perhaps that’s attributable to the many scents they smell all throughout the day whilst I brew potions? This is all speculatory of course, and I would rather not run additional experiments to determine if this is a fluke, or if the horses truly are just so desensitized to things that would normally scare them that it is safe to battle around them in the future.

When Regina returned to the carriage, she found Joaqim, Bucky, and I were all in critical condition. She went around and fed us each one of the healing potions we were carrying in order to stabilize us, and then she fed another one to Joaqim, which was enough to bring him back to consciousness. Once our Healer was awake, he was able to bring me and Bucky back to consciousness with his remaining spells, though only barely, and he has thoroughly exhausted his healing for the day. Every one of us are in terrible condition. Regina and Bucky are at 2 health, I am at 3, and Joaqim is at 4.

Being knocked out multiple times makes me feel like we have been here for quite a while, but at this point even including the time to heal and share our stories it has only been a couple of minutes since the battle first began. Now we are exhausted and weary and still need to find a hiding place. Doubly so since we just prevented a patrol that was almost back to their camp from returning. They will probably send another, larger patrol to investigate soon. Even though none of us want to do anything but rest, we cannot afford to. We go to each and every one of the Orcs, we strip off their armor, weapons, and gold, and at my insistence we check to see if they are still alive.

You may wonder, why do I want them alive? Because we have insufficient actionable intel, much less evidence of the validity of that intel. A camp location is great and all, but that's not what the commission is for, the camp itself is neither the source nor the purpose of the increased number of Orc sightings. Most of the Orcs bled out and died while we were recovering and looting, but there were a couple survivors.

One of the Lieutenants was not yet dead when we checked him, and 3 of the normal orcs were also still alive. We bind the wounds of all 4 survivors. I hate to say it, but we do not have a safe way to contain so many people, much less travel with them. When they do wake up, if we are still anywhere near our current strength, even unarmed they may be able to stage a successful revolt. I spend my next 2 imbuements on spell releases trying to prep another healing spell, succeeding once, and I manage to get Regina back up to 10 health. In retrospect I probably should have used a slower but more consistent and powerful healing spell, but that die was cast. Having already expended my imbuements, the healing provided up to now is the best I can do today. Regina still has 2 healing potions, and Bucky still has 1, but since they are time consuming to make and valuable I suggest Regina gives her second potion to Joaqim and that we don’t drink any more. It would be better to save them for when we know we need healing, like when 80% of the team is bleeding out on the ground.

Tomorrow Joaqim will be able to level another battery of healing on us, and the next day we should be back to fighting shape, or near to it. But we cannot handle any fighting right now, and the fears about additional patrols are real, especially since this patrol should be making it back around now, so it is certain that there will be people actively hunting for the orc slayers soon.

We cannot leave for fear of running into additional patrols, and we cannot stay because not only are we uncomfortably close to a large group of them, they will be actively searching for missing patrols along the path we are on. We need to decide immediately on which bad decision we are going to take. The group is silent for a few moments weighing the options when the decisions are laid out.

Joaqim and I both go to speak at the same time. He motions for me to go, and I explain that my opinion is that returning to Diamond Lake is the best decision right now. We have several members of a patrol with us, enough to interrogate, enough to cross reference and validate. We don’t even need to interrogate them ourselves, just keep them alive and bring them back to Diamond Lake with us and let the authorities handle the questioning. Since captives for interrogation should be sufficient to meet the requirement of the commission, I suggest that we collect the reward money and give this hornet nest some time to settle back down.

Joaqim it turns out was going to suggest that we kill one of the orcs first, to make managing the number of prisoners a bit easier, but otherwise he also agreed with returning to Diamond Lake. If nothing else, he says, Orcs shamans are known to be able to perform low level auguries. If we stay close, he believes we are likely to be caught when the search teams get serious.

After a brief discussion, the party ends up deciding to let all the orcs live. In small part because even though I am not a good man, I am also not a fan of the idea of killing sentient creatures we have already captured. In a much larger part because the more sources that can be used for validating our intel, the more likely we are to get the full reward and possibly a bonus.

There were no Geneva conventions here. These prisoners did not even surrender, they were merely captured while in the process of trying to kill us. I am not a huge fan of leaving people that want me dead, alive, so I would not have cared strongly if the rest of the group wanted some of them dead despite having bound their wounds followed by their legs and wrists. However, the biggest reason to leave them all alive right now? It is wasteful.

If we are going to kill one or more of the captive Orcs, we should at least get some value out of it. Like using a recalcitrant prisoner as an object lesson for the others. My carriage is very cramped for the first part of our return journey. I end up using the unconscious orcs as a bench while crafting potions because as horrible as that is, it beats dragging them along behind the carriage or not crafting at all.

Once again Regina proves her value, and we manage to avoid Orc patrols and undesired monster encounters alike. We don’t avoid all monster encounters mind you, we actively want to kill creatures to gain experience, after all. But only when the battles are favorable to us. Within a day, the first of the Orcs wakes up, and we have him tied to the carriage and walking behind it soon after. Over the next few days, the rest of them wake up and similarly find themselves having to walk from that point on. It’s nice to have my crafting carriage back.

Joaqim, manages to gain a level during one of the smaller, easier fights. This is good news for me because that means I should only be one or two bigger battles away from a new level as well. I ask that we detour a bit so that I can get a level before we make it back to the city. It seems a bit reckless considering that we have a bunch of prisoners who are coming closer and closer to full health, and who could combine to be a legitimate threat to us… But more levels likely means more or better crafting options, and I might need to buy additional or special materials to be able to take advantage of the capabilities the new level would make available.

The justification is weak, but they acquiesce. I am not entirely sure why they are so willing to let me do some of the dumb things I aim for, but I am grateful. Bucky should be only a few bigger fights behind me before he also reaches level 3, but no one even mentions staying out long enough for him to level. These are some truly generous humans, and I count myself very fortunate to be with them. It's not just a matter of them being competent or capable, I'm increasingly impressed by the quality of character demonstrated by my team mates.