Internally thrilled, I lead the way towards the exit, currently leading in the direction Regina lays in wait, though prepared to detour if he brings too many guards for us to have any chance of taking on. As we walk, the ancient shaman gestures at some of the Orcs we see along the way, telling them to follow. They do not hesitate and follow him immediately.

I do not know if this complete obedience is because he is a shaman, or if he is just that high ranking. If it is due to his class, I am a bit envious. Lizardfolk are generally respectful towards shamans, more so than to most other weak lizardfolk at least, but they command very little actual power in Lizardfolk Tribes.

Even the high shaman for the entirety of the Lizardfolk tribes would need to politely ask one of the nobility or the chief to be able to get an escort, and though they will probably choose to help, there are no guarantees. This shaman, however, is clearly allowed to command.

“How far away is it?” He asks me.

“Short walk, sun move little. 15 minutes?” I do not want to give detailed or accurate information until I know how many guards he is bringing, and how many of them are leaders. It would be easy to overwhelm Regina, and I am still too weak to contribute meaningfully to a fight. At most I should only expect to slow one or two of them down for a few seconds. By the same token, if he thinks we are very close, he is not as likely to grab an overwhelming force, so it behooves me to undersell the distance.

Hopefully, he is not overly paranoid. Also, hopefully, Orcs count in minutes like the other civilized races I have learned about. That's an assumption that always gets made in novels I read, that other races who are supposed to be alien to the protagonists culture always end up being almost identical in every way. They use the same time systems, know and abide by the same days of the week, experience emotions in the same way, and so on. I don't like relying on assumptions like that until and unless I can confirm them as valid… Though if Lizardfolk use minutes to measure time, I believe it is likely that Orcs do as well.

Barring some minor error like using the wrong measure of time doesn't trip me up, and if Orc society is anything like Lizardfolk society and Shaman challenges are not typically violent, he should not be overly concerned that I am leading him into a trap. Battles for control that end in the death of one of the participants is more of a warrior thing for us, and I am guessing the same is probably true for Orcs. Shamans are not common in either of our societies, so I believe they should be unlikely to waste Shaman lives as easily as they would their warriors.

We make it to the entrance to the encampment and it looks like the entourage will indeed be light. Counting myself there are only 5 of us; myself, the shaman, and 3 random Orcs he had drafted along the way. Seeing that the grouping is better than I could have possibly hoped for, even though I do not know how strong this shaman is, I feel that there will not be a better opportunity.

We head eastward until line of sight with the rest of the encampment is broken, which mercifully does not take long, before I begin guiding us South by South East. It is not a thorough decoy by any stretch of the imagination, but if pursuers are told we went east rather than south east, it might slow them down a little bit as they try to find the correct route.

Even in the best of possible circumstances, it has no chance of being more than a mild nuisance, but from my vantage point every second is likely to matter. Those wolves are fast, and they are terrifying. We still lack an effective counter for them.

As we approach the ambush location, I can only hope that Regina realizes that I had changed targets to one of their Shamans, that she is able to identify the new target, that she does not trigger her ambush too early… There are just so many things that can go wrong, even now.

If for some reason the Shaman decides to run, or if any of the Orcs make it back to their camp, our odds of survival are low; we absolutely require a head start if we are to have any hope of escaping all the way back to Diamond Lake. We reach the open area, and I continue guiding the rest of them towards the escarpment.

Ideally, we will make it all the way to the ridge so that Regina will have the best balance between having time to shoot them down before they can close to melee and having ample time to shoot any fleeing targets. We get closer and closer. 100 meters, 50, 30, 10. Wow. This really is a best-case scenario. At this point the Shaman, face dark, looks at me intently and says “Is it supposed to be on this wall? I see nothing, not even the guards you should have left here, explain yourself!”

The gig is almost certainly up; the Shaman has clearly realized that there is something wrong. Nonetheless, I will play my part to the end and get them as close to the ideal location as I can. This is close enough already, mind you. It is nearly the closest they can be to the ideal location. Nearly. If I can get the last 10 meters I will.

Neither Regina nor I expected to bring them all the way to the base of the escarpment, that was merely the goal. As long as nothing happened to Regina, she should already be targeting us, ready to unleash hells fury. Not that I see her, but I never expected to see her before she began firing. When she wants to be difficult to find, she is like a ghost.

“What you say is correct, it is on the wall, at the base right over there, it is merely difficult to locate without being directly beside it.” I say, pointing at the wall.

His eyes go wide, and I realize the error I made. The role I have been acting out should have been incapable of clearly elucidating a rebuttal. This gig is most definitely up.

Since the fight is beginning anyhow, I waste no further time and I launch into the closest orc. He is a normal one so even though he will hit like a semi-truck, his health should be very low. Since I am in disguise all I am carrying are a Falchion and a Javelin, and my class ensures that I would be unable to use either of those in a competent manner, so I dig my claws into his neck, and bite into his face.

All my attacks land where I wanted them to land, but even though his defense is pathetic and I was striking vulnerable locations, he is sufficiently tough to remain standing and retain his wits against my even more pathetic attacks. Within fractions of a second of my own attack, Regina begins her grim work, with an arrow flying directly into and then through the shamans abdomen.

The shaman lets out a grunt, blood draining from his face, and begins to stagger backwards, clearly very injured. That was an excellent shot, catching him completely by surprise and tearing through his superior quality chain shirt, while the rest of the Orcs try to make sense of what is happening.

I am more than happy to take advantage of their confusion and shock, digging my claws more deeply into the neck of the unfortunate orc I targeted. Based on the spray of blood that gushes out of his neck, it seems that I managed to hit something important this time, and he sags down under the assault. He will not be dead yet, but his outlook is not the greatest unless he gets some medical care soon.

I pull my claws free and turn to face my next foe. He is still fumbling with his Falchion, but the last of the normal Orcs had no such issues and swings his Falchion to cut right through the layers of padding in my disguise to cut deeply into my tail, cutting almost entirely through it.

I would be lying if I said it did not hurt. It did. But it only dropped my health by 11, leaving me at 18. Far from perfect, but I am not likely to die on the next hit. I may even stay conscious for it, though I have not had much of a success record when it comes to taking a second hit from these guys when the first one fails to drop me.

The Shaman, furious but gravely wounded, waves his hands, and casts a spell. If I am not mistaken that would have been a battle blessing, making the swords of his allies in a broad area strike home more frequently. He then collapses.

Huh. I would have expected him to use healing magic if he'd been capable of it. He must not be a healer? Beyond that, I guess Reginas arrow must have put him down to exactly 0 health? It's possible he's just acting, but that looked pretty real to me. This shaman was far weaker than I expected.

It may not seem like it since it has happened to me a few times, but being brought to 0 health really is rare, and it becomes ever less common as you continue to gain levels. For what reason? Well, as your level increases, your attacks will typically do more damage.

Eventually, instead of a moderate number of people whose injuries were serious enough to knock them out but who were able to stabilize and slowly recover on their own, and a significantly larger number of people who were knocked out that would have lived if they had access to healing, the paradigm changes to where it takes an active effort to avoid killing the people you are fighting.

In other words, the health buffer between being unconscious and dead becomes increasingly less relevant as levels accrue. Speaking of Reginas arrow, another one flies out and nearly takes the arm off the Orc that just hit me; he spins around like a top before collapsing into a heap.

This ambush was amazing, it has only been a couple seconds, but everyone is down except for a single regular orc, who may not even be able to knock me out in the time remaining before Reginas next arrow finds him.

Wait. Son of a…. How did we miss that? The Orc War Chiefs' second advisor, the battle scarred and brawny One-Eyed Veteran, followed us, and he is far closer than I would consider reasonable. He is only about 30 meters away from me, and he… Does not look intimidated. At all. No that's not fear, that's not even caution.

He is looking directly at me, no longer hiding his presence… And while the sheer amount of rage in his eyes is unsettling, he is clearly not consumed by it. His anger is calculating rather than mindless. Whoever this One Eyed Orc is, he is very different from any of the other Orcs we've met until now.