Siege State

The next morning, Tom and Val set out with urgency.

They needed to reach Cub’s forge as soon as possible, and from there try and get the word to as many Hunters as possible. They needed to both spread word of the Lord of Blood’s treachery, let people know that Wayrest was aware of both his plans and that they believed the growing orc threat was real, and try and organise as many of them for long-term scouting as possible.

They had a lot to do, and not much time to get it done. Cub’s forge was way up north, near the Nails. The journey there would take them several weeks, again. There was nothing for it but to move. And move they did.

Tom felt accustomed to the Deep now, in a way that was hard to describe. Spending so much time out here, living and breathing it, surviving in it, had led him to an understanding. He was a long way off Val’s proficiency, but still, he moved as a ghost through the trees.

Sere was indispensable. The mere fact that she could range so far ahead, and map the upcoming terrain for them, saved them hours and hours every day. There was no backtracking, no brute forcing their way through stubborn obstructions, no losing time figuring out how to navigate ground as they came upon it. They flowed across the landscape like water through a riverbed.

The same was true of monsters. Sere warned them of most of the ones in their path. Only exceedingly stealthy creatures could bypass the sparrows, Sesame and Smitten’s noses, and Hunter-Gatherer. Any monster so heavily predisposed for stealth was generally either unwilling to fight, or not able to threaten two Idealists and their familiars.

They travelled this way for a week, avoiding any monsters or terrain too difficult to pass quickly, and bulling through any that posed little obstacle.

The brief fights they had were many even so, and even accounting for the short duration of each, Tom began to wonder if he wouldn’t uplift a skill or two soon. It was a good way to keep his mind occupied, off worrying about Scriber and Jace. He couldn’t do anything about them, not yet, and it was good to be prepared for an uplift when it happened.

The only potential hitch he could see to uplifting his skills, was that most of them required him to take a decent beating to get the full use out of them. None of the fights he had been in lately had pushed him to the limit in the way his drake hunt had. Even his fight with Honeyfield had been over quickly, without him taking much damage.

Sweet Suffering, Agony, and Wild Strike all got a fair workout, and his two familiar skills were being used constantly though. Misery and Hush he only tended to use in longer fights, but he had plenty of mana to spare, and so he began using them frivolously too. It was, perhaps, bad practice. You never knew when something unexpected would happen, and you would be forced to fight for your life in truth. But these encounters were not so dire, and he judged it better to try and push what skills he could for an uplift while he had the chance. He would just have to leave his passive skills in Goddess’ hands for now.

He might have an epiphany for one or another or of them. He didn’t have the time for much meditation or deep contemplation or reflection on their hurried journey, but you never knew when inspiration would strike.

He had a few ideas for the direction he would hopefully like to take his skills when uplifting them.

In general, Idealists were presented with three different options during a skill uplift. One was pretty much always just a direct upgrade, simply strengthening the skill overall. The other two were usually tweaking the skill in some way, and occasionally, the option for some new effect to be added would be given.

Some skills were easy. Agony and Hunter-Gatherer he would just like to make stronger. Hush he would increase the duration, or decrease the cooldown of, if possible.

Some were harder. His defensive skills: Misery, Echo, Grit and Whisper, would all benefit from strength upgrades, but he was also quite stacked defensively. New effects on those skills to render them more aggressive could potentially be good.

Familiars were often a bit of a wildcard, and there were usually many different ways they could be improved. He would have to wait and see what his third familiar was before making any decisions about them.

Wild Strike, being a cycle, would definitely have the choice to add more options to it at each uplift. At a certain point though, the increased versatility would become less attractive, and he would have to see if he could reduce its mana cost or cooldown.

Lastly, was his pinnacle skill. Pinnacles were only given uplift options at every second uplift, so he wouldn’t have to worry about that for a while. It was a relief, in a way. Pinnacles were the signature of any Idealist with a fall, and he didn’t want to make any firm decisions about his until he had fully gotten used to his entire skillset, started to make initial adjustments to it, and determined which direction he would like to take each of his other skills.

It was a lot to think about, but it kept Tom’s thoughts busy during their travels, at least.

After a week of travel, they began to run into less enemies and make better time. It was a boon, at first, but Tom soon began to feel strange about it. There were too few monsters about. It was unusual. He mentioned as much to Val one night when they’d stopped to camp.

“I was thinking the same thing myself,” she said, chewing her lip. “Damn strange, although I’ve seen it once or twice before. Both times, there was some apex predator in the area, and most of the other beasts had cleared out. We’ll need to be careful.”

Tom took the warning to heart, and paid close attention to the information Sere sent him, and any unusual scents Sesame picked up, putting aside his musing on potential uplifts.

It was only due to the extra scrutiny that he picked up the first signs of trouble so quickly. Movement flickered far off in the trees in an image Sere had sent. He noticed it, in his hypervigilance, and immediately sent Sere towards it. His blood ran cold.

“Val,” he hissed. She skidded to a stop ahead of him. “Orcs! Coming from the north east! Twenty minutes out.”

“How many?”

“Twelve, thirteen… shit! Sixteen of them! Moving fast. What do we do?”

“Any Idealists?” she asked.

He mulled it over, and sent another of Sere’s close-by bodies to help scout them. He couldn’t tell.

“I don’t know. Nothing obvious,” he said, a little calmer, now that the shock of the discovery had faded a little.

Val thought about it. “They’re far further out than their scouts were ranging before. We can’t let them past us. It’s too close to Wayrest.”

“Ambush?” he asked.

“Ambush,” Val confirmed with a steely grin.

Tom quickly rearranged the rest of Sere’s bodies, and soon found an ideal location, not far off, right in their path. He and Val rushed there, and then hurried to set themselves up.

Val climbed a tree and strung her bow, leaning back against the trunk for cover. Scorn took position in an adjacent tree for crossfire. She subsumed Smitten.

Sesame lay down in a small divot, and Tom quickly covered him in brush and deadfall. It was sloppy, but they didn’t need the camouflage to hold up to scrutiny for long. Tom placed himself behind a tree further on. The four of them made a diamond, with Tom and Sesame to the west and south, and Val and Scorn at the north and east points. The orcs would arrive from the north east, taking them right into the middle of them.

They waited patiently. Tom went to take his spear from his spatial storage, and then remembered it had been broken in his fight with Honeyfield. He scanned the man’s ring, and found a replacement. It was not enchanted, and had a longer, thinner blade, but it would do. He took slow, steady breaths, and was pleased to find he wasn’t sweating, though the air was warm and there was no breeze.

Practice makes perfect, he thought to himself. Looks like I’m getting used to life or death situations.

Another five minutes and he caught the first signs of the scouts. Their baying carried well, especially in the echoing depths of the Green. Soon he heard their footsteps, crashing through deadfall, running helter-skelter.

They ran straight into their trap.

Tom heard a larger crash, and a moment later, he saw hints of green light flashing at the corners of his vision. He counted another few seconds, and then stepped around the tree, pinging his bond with Sesame.

He had watched the scene unfold through Sere, and so he needed only a second to appraise himself of the chaos before him.

Val had shot an orc in the back of its head -the source of the larger crash he had heard. Scorn had followed up with his deadly beams of light.

The orcs had skidded about, confused and wild, searching for the attackers. Val felled another two orcs by the time they’d found her.

Tom cast Misery on the closest orc to him, a smaller male, and then Agony on one rangy female with a brace of stone knives. He remembered all too well how lethally accurate the orcs could be. It barked in pain, pink lightning flickering about it.

Sesame made his traditional greeting, rising from the earth, leaves and dead branches raining from his massive figure. He roared, and the shock of the noise had the orcs turning circles, flinching from unexpected wounds, dropping where they stood in some cases.

It was pandemonium. The orcs were encircled, and it didn’t know where to focus. Val and Scorn were taking full advantage of the indecision, raining down more attacks from on high.

A vicious, scarred looking female sounded off a harsh bark, pointing at Tom. The nearby orcs turned to him, focusing.

He identified her as their leader, and so he had a second’s preparation. Shimmering, slick-looking coils of shadow began to gather to her from the ground, slithering like oily snakes.

Tom cast Hush, ready for her. The coils broke apart. The leader’s scarred face broke into surprise, and then was permanently frozen that way when an arrowhead burst through her nose. She died.

The orcs engaged Tom, trying to overwhelm him, but Sesame’s dependable presence stymied them. Any that devoted too much attention to him were ripped apart, and none could land a lethal blow on him without giving him their all.

He made a circle of dead orcs with beautiful flowing sweeps and sudden, linear strikes with his spear. In minutes, every orc was dead.

Val made her way down to join him. Scorn was not long behind her. Neither were injured. Tom himself had taken some minor cuts and bruises, but he had drunk one of Harvey’s concoctions in preparation for the fight, and his boosted regeneration was already healing him.

Tom sent Sere back on patrol, spreading her out, in case the sound of the ambush had drawn any attention. He and Val looked over the bodies.

“An Idealist with them, this time. No mistaking that skill it used,” Val said, inspecting the body of the scarred leader. There was nothing about it that would indicate it was an Idealist, excepting, perhaps, its size. It was a little bigger than most other females they had seen.

“Definitely,” Tom agreed. “They seem better equipped too.” He gestured at their weapons and armour. Where previously, some orcs didn’t even carry weapons, every single one of these did. Even more worryingly, some of them had crude swords and axes forged of rusty looking metal, instead of the stone weaponry they had seen before.

“They’re getting more confident. Scouting closer and closer. We need to hurry. If they’re this far out, they might have found Cub’s forge.”

It was a sobering thought. They left the bodies to the forest, and once again began to run.