I stood there looking at the interface. Of everything that I had created up until this point, I was sure that this was the most powerful of my personal creations. The dungeon was terrific, but I just lucked into that. I knew the forest was cool, but this was powerful and could grow more of its own.

I smiled and patted the thicket. “Once I put a dungeon in you things will get fun.”

I was in a better mood as I gazed around the room. Sure it was a mess, but also, there wasn’t much. It needed to be swept out, but there was no broom. It needed the wood stacked, but there wasn’t a rack for it. The table was covered in nut shells, but it looked like she was using a rock to break them.

I shook my head, “She’s not doing too well for someone who was sent by a god. Then again I wasn’t when I first got here.”

I wanted to tell her what was going on with me, but Lannah’s warning about not trusting people rang loudly in my mind. I couldn’t even take her to the safe room as that would show her that I had power over the dungeon, and I wasn’t sure I wanted her to know that.

I reached out to Blink’s mind as I headed down. “Time to go hunting.”

Blink quickly responded back. “HUNTS!”

As I got halfway down the steps, I saw Kasidy stand up. She had been sitting next to one of the base trees. As she stood, I took in what a sorry state she was in. She had been in the wild for a while and didn’t look like she was ready for it at all. She was obviously a town dweller and not country folk. Not that I had been until I was through here.

She smoothed her dress and gave me a faltering smile. “Maybe, we can try for a third time. Hi I am Kasidy and I am lost. I don’t know where I am but I got here because my god brought me this way. Perhaps just to save me from some orcs. I don’t know if I can help but I would like to try.”

I looked at her. I knew that I still wasn’t happy with how she attacked me, but I could understand why. I thought through some of my options, and most of them seemed reasonable. Not fully what I wanted on anything, but perhaps not as bad as I had thought to start with.

I nodded at her, “I’m Arn. This is a tree house I built it should keep you safe for a while while I go and see if there are any orcs or goblins that are where I am living. Once I make my rounds I’ll come back and we can talk some. If we are lucky I’ll bring some meat as well.”

She was hardly holding back the tears as she nodded her head to me. “Thank you. Can I just go up an wait?”

“Yup, you’ll be okay up there. Maybe you can ask your god what he expects you to do.”

“Okay”

She walked past me with her eyes down. She might have made me mad and started everything off on the wrong foot, but she wasn’t doing well. I would make sure to bring some food up here for her and perhaps some other things.

I walked out of the thicket into the upper valley. It was time to check to see if the vines and trees were keeping the goblins in check or if they were still hunting up here, just where I couldn’t see.

“Blink you with me?” I asked the air as I started to move.

I felt her reply in my mind, “Yess! Bait times?”

“Yeah, bait time. You would think with all of the sneaking I have tried to do and the care for how I walk I would have gotten the stealth skill by now.”

I felt her smugness through the bond. She was happy that I had to be bait simply because I couldn’t hide, and she could. It made sense, but still, I wished once again that I could be a better tank if I couldn’t hide.

We moved down the game trail reasonably quickly. As we came across the stone cube trees, I smiled at the simple mistake I had made. I had thought that the runes I used would throw created stone. They did that but what I hadn’t done right was have the right intent when carving the runes. I had been thinking too much of my dirt to stone which made a cube of stone. So when the trees started to shoot, they weren’t shooting spheres like my ring. They were shooting cubes.

I slowed down as I got close to the place where the goblins had been hacking through the vines. When I got up close, I could see that the tunnel was gone along with the goblins. The wall was completed through this area again.

I whispered to the air, “Don’t know if they are gone for good or just this spot. Let’s check the whole way around.”

Blink appeared a few feet in front of me and nodded, then she started to waddle down the edge of the vines. Every few feet, she would stick out her tongue and lick the air. After about twenty minutes, she vanished again.

“Baits, theys here Daddy.”

I nodded and prepped my mind. I wasn’t sure where the attack would come from, but I knew it would come soon. I squeezed the Defensive Standard in my left hand. It would activate if I was attacked, which was good. I cupped one of my throwing knives in my right hand. I wanted to be able to attack back quickly, and my knives were a good enough counter for most of these monsters. Then I willed myself forward.

I moved down the defensive line that we had put in ever so slowly. Then I stopped and stood up some. If I was going to spring this, I needed to walk normally. So I stepped forward with my standard slightly forward and my shoulders more relaxed.

Another hundred yards down the line, I saw the new hole. It was just like the last one. Goblins were inside it, hacking at the vines, while a few orcs were on the other side directing them as to what to do. This time, however, they saw me almost as soon as I saw them.

On the other side were 5 orcs. The one that worried me was the one with the robes and staff. The others didn’t make me feel all warm and happy inside either, but he was the guy that didn’t have to come through the tunnel. The other four all were in heavy armor and appeared to be some of the best-armored troops that I had ever seen.

While they each had a different weapon, their armor all appeared to be uniform. One had a Sparta-style helmet made of iron with huge sweeping cheek pieces. He, like the rest, was dressed in heavy iron armor that had a single-piece chest plate. In the middle of the chest plate was a huge red handprint. When they saw me, the armored four charged.

They were around thirty feet away when I felt it was time to check them out. I hadn’t tried to pull stats on an orc in a while, and with all their armor, I wanted to know how badly I had messed up.

Orc Warrior

HP 420

Weight 270 lbs

Armor rating 22

Weapon

Steel sword

Orc Warrior

HP 375

Weight 250 lbs

Armor rating 22

Weapon

Steel tipped spear

Heavy Orc Warrior

HP 435

Weight 280 lbs

Armor rating 22

Weapon

Oaken Maul

Blooded Orc Warrior

HP 570

Weight 370 lbs

Armor rating 30

Weapon

Steel War Axe

Orc warriors have several levels that they climb once they have started to have victories. While they all get to wear the hand print of blood from their first victory they are not fully blooded until they have killed at least twenty foes.

Yeah, I had messed up again. Those I had fought and killed so quickly before weren’t this kind of power. These guys were something I didn’t want to fight where I was and how I was. They were each over four times as strong as the first orc I had fought. I started to back-peddle when I saw my shield flash on.

The spear thrower had just sent his spear into my stone air dome. Unlike other attacks that tended to turn a whole side white and block my vision, this one made just a tiny white area and a hole. The spear continued through and slammed hard into my left shoulder. I felt the tip bend and break the breastplate and the chainmail under it. It felt like it tried and failed to go out the back, but I wasn’t sure.

My health bar flashed and dropped by about an eighth. Then I pitched forward a bit as the weight of the full-sized orc spear pulled on me. I hadn’t gotten a chance to see what the tip looked like before it was in me. I didn’t know if it was going to smoothly come out or if I needed to push it all the way through.

What I did know was right at that moment, my shield was taking hits. I could feel the mana rushing out of the standard. So I dropped my throwing knife and changed hands on the standard so that it wouldn’t go out. Then I planted it with my right hand.

I was seeing spots as the bleed debuff was showing 20 per second going out. I could only bleed for a few moments before I was done-for. I looked at the spear and was happy to see that curve of the leaf was still out of my body. The spearhead was larger than my hand and so while it did a great deal of damage was too big to get caught inside my armor. I yanked hard, and the spear slid most of the way out. Then I stumbled back, and it fell out as I caught myself from falling.

The bleed debuff jumped from 20 to 50 as my face started to feel drained. Then my leather skirt flashed once and then a second time. The hole in my shoulder closed up enough that I could bring my left arm up enough for me to fish out a healing potion. I downed the potion and then the next as well. The hole closed up, and I was down to 120 health just that fast.

I snagged my knife that was on the ground and pitched it at the lead orc. He was the one with the war axe and the helmet. My blade didn’t even bother him enough that he would try to block it. He just sneered at me as the axe slammed onto my shield. My knife hit him, and he stopped moving.

Then I fired off all five stone spheres. Two to each knee and the fifth to the orc’s face. I hoped I would finish him, but if I didn’t, I wanted him out of the fight quickly. I saw him un-freeze and start to fall, but he was screaming. Less the I am hurt, and more the I am going to kill you type of yelling.

I pulled him up again to see how I was doing.

Blooded Orc Warrior

HP 490/570

Weight 370 lbs

Armor rating 30

I started to cuss. I didn’t know what I was saying, but I snagged up my standard in my now working left hand and grabbed the spear that had all but killed me in my right, and I started to run. I was weaving left and right while cussing like never before. I had emptied all my big attacks and hadn’t done a hundred damage.

* * *