Siege State

Tom and the group made it back to Rea’s cave in just under three days. They ran into one more group of orcs along the way. There were only six of them, and they were kitted out for hunting instead of raiding. The four Idealists dealt with them easily.

The sheer size of the orc army meant that there were plenty of them moving about in small groups, or even ones and twos. Tom couldn’t understand what some of them were doing, but he assumed the random individuals were those whose feral natures lay closer to the surface, as opposed to the more cunning, calculated orcs, and that they had simply wandered off in search of violence.

As they travelled, Sus and Sol worked in tandem with Sere, the latter picking out any individual orcs wandering about in the Deep, and the two owls silently dispatching them. Cass began to summon her panther more often, who promptly joined in the efforts.

The one benefit to there being so many orcs around, was that they were pushing the other predators in the Deep away. Any that stayed would be competing with the orcs for resources, or in danger of ending up in an orc stomach themselves.

The orcs, not being specifically adapted for life in the dense forest, were easier to spot than its regular denizens, and it meant they could move with even more speed. Rosa’s control skill helped there too. The benefit was only tiny, but it added up over the long distances they were travelling.

Tom’s group was one of the last to make it to Rea’s cave. Most of the different teams had returned at least a day prior. Some of them, those who had been tasked with circumnavigating the Deep around Wayrest to look for surviving Hunters, had not yet returned.

Seventy of them had been at the last meeting, where they had discussed initial plans. Now, there were just over fifty people, with those circling Wayrest absent. Where before, the cave had been stretched to its limits holding them, it now felt much more comfortable.

Scriber, Cub, and the soldier with Hiding and Building had all been hard at work in the week the rest of them had been away. Scriber had layered the exterior of the rockface around the entryway with attention-deflecting enchantments, as well as some to disable intruders.

Scriber would not say what they did exactly, only that they would only trigger for orcs. Apparently, he believed if he told anyone what the enchanted traps did, no one would risk entering, even knowing they should only work on orcs. They had set two guards on the entranceway to the caves, to help returning teams find their way past the new attention-deflecting runes, and both of those guards had been standing well away from the entrance. Tom understood why, once Scriber explained about the traps.

The interior of the cave had been transformed too. The pool of water had been widened and deepened, and the trickle of water feeding it was now a small waterfall. A second pool had been dug out of the rock in the wall behind the fall, connected to the main pool, but downstream from it, for people to wash in. The second pool fed into a latrine, washing it clean continuously, and from there, draining into a larger network of caves beneath them.

The soldier with Building had been working to expand the room all along two entire walls of the cave. The entirety of the space now was at least fifty percent bigger. There were doorways off one wall, where Scriber explained they would be building simple dormitories.

Another doorway, on the opposite wall, led to a workshop which the builder had already finished. Scriber and Cub had been spending most of their time in there. Val’s squad had been successful in their journey to Merin’s Shaft, and had returned with several spatial storage items absolutely overflowing with metals and ores. They had also collapsed the mine entrance on their way out. If the orcs wanted the resources within, they’d need to work for it.

The team that had been sent to Mik’s Pasture had been even more successful. They had returned with their spatial storage items full of beef and milk and fine quality leather and hides. On their way out, they had found several parties of orcs slaughtering the remaining cattle and sheep in the village pastures. They had managed to kill them all and escape, and had poisoned the carcasses before they left.

The end result was that Scriber and Cub had no shortage of materials to work with, and had been toiling non-stop to produce gear and weapons for the teams. All of them had at least a basic weapon to use, courtesy of Honeyfield, but most were missing armour after their capture.

Tom and Rosa took a brief tour of the improvements to the cave, and then shared dinner with Val, Scriber, Cub, and his mother. It was nice. As bad as the situation was in general, Tom couldn’t help but feel good. He had a little family, of sorts, out here.

After dinner, Val and Scriber went to discuss how the initial operations had gone, and to figure out their next plans of attack with the squad leaders. They deliberated well into the night, and the next morning, they had new missions for everyone.

~~~~~

The next fortnight saw Tom and his squad running back and forth all over the Deep. They had several different tasks to accomplish, and most of them went off without a hitch.

First, they travelled back to Val’s oak, to retrieve her stockpile of essences, and a few other valuables she had stored there. Several other squads had similar missions out to various Hunter’s abodes. They were like squirrels, storing up useful things that they had found over the years, and now they would be put to good use in Scriber’s enchanting and Cub’s forging.

Next, they formed back into their full, eight-man team with Val, and began carrying out raids against the orcs logging near Corin’s Rest. They would move in, slaughter as many as they could, set fire to the felled trees, and the logging equipment, with Rosa’s Fire, and then melt back into the Deep like wraiths.

For a week, they continued this, basing themselves out of Val’s oak. Eventually, the orcs began to keep Idealist guards with the logging teams at all times. It was only a slight hindrance. They did the same thing as before, except that they would watch first, marking the Idealist, so that Tom could immediately neutralise them. After that, each logging party would include two Idealist orcs.

At that stage, Tom would silence once, and Cass would try and outright assassinate the other. It worked, most of the time. They began to get drawn into some more protracted fights, and had some difficulty getting away.

They ceased their raids when they ran up against three Idealists. One had some sort of Shadow-adjacent Ideal, and was lurking nearby. They killed all three, and the logging party, and escaped, but Errol took a serious wound in the process. He had to use one of Scriber’s miracle mice to save himself, Val’s one healing skill not being quick enough to save him from the persistent, shadowy tendrils digging at the wound.

Now that Scriber had figured out how to set an orc-based trigger for enchantments, he had come up with some prototype devices and passed them out to different teams. When Val finally decided it wasn’t worth pursuing the loggers any more, they set every one that they’d been given in the forest near the lumber operations. Tom hoped it gave the orcs some nice surprises.

They split back into two four man squads, and spent the rest of the time until the next meet trying out a tactic that had been suggested by one of the other team leaders.

They worked their way up to the village rings, and waited for a large enough group of orcs to come by. Then they’d smite them with everything they had. Rosa’s skills were perfectly suited for the work, great plumes of smoke and gouts of fire visible for miles around, while also slaughtering the orcs in question.

Once they’d dispatched the first group, they’d wait some more. As soon as more orcs were drawn towards the violence, which they always were, they’d pepper them with more attacks whilst slowly retreating into the Deep. Once they’d gained the attention of a decent amount of orcs, they’d escape into the forest, leading the orcs through enchanted traps until they lost cohesion. Then, it was a simple matter of hunting down the scattered survivors.

They had huge success with the tactic, but cut it short for the next meet. They were riding high off their victories, and eager to share the glory around with their fellows.

When they returned, they found everyone in much the same mood. Their raiding had been a resounding success across the board. Teams using hit and run tactics had struck at orcs gathering supplies from several different villages, as well as their logging operations. Two teams had been tasked with infiltration, and though they hadn’t managed to get anywhere close to the heart of the army, they had poisoned several wells and food stores.

The only bad news was that two people had died. One, a student who had chosen to remain, after spending close to a year captive, to fight the orcs. He had been dragged under a pack of screaming orcs and torn limb from limb when he’d gotten overconfident kiting orcs into the forest with his squad.

A merchant guard had also died during those same tactics, coaxing orcs out into the Deep where they could be picked off more easily. They’d run into a clod of earth sprites and been caught between them and the orcs.

It was a sobering reminder of the risks they were taking. They had made what felt like huge inroads in the last few weeks, but the balance was precarious. At any moment, foul luck could send them to Goddess.

Although two members had died, their overall group had grown. The two teams that had circled around the Deep had been successful, finding another nine Hunters that had survived the Lord’s purges, mainly to the west of Wayrest.

One of them in particular was a real boon, having almost enough healing skills to be considered a Healer. Their Ideals were Blood, Bone and Flesh, but just over half their skills were combat skills with nasty applications, which had gotten them exiled.

Wayrest was often more pragmatic with taboo Ideals if they could heal, with Healers being such a rarity. The poor man’s manifestations had left him on just the wrong side of the Council.

Only a few of the other new Hunters had a smattering of healing skills, but they were a great addition to the force even so. Nine, fully trained and experienced Hunters would be an incredible asset.

The beginning of the meeting brought news for everyone. The merchant at Rea’s cave had received news from the Lord General.

The orcs had been consistently testing the walls, throwing growing amounts of manpower at the problem they represented. They had tried all manner of things: sending different sized groups and at different times, and different sections of the walls.

It was suicide, for the orcs. They never wasted Idealists on the attacks, and the regular orcs were expected to make do with long, rickety ladders that they had no hope of even raising when under the barrage of the Guards’ skills.

It was not the point though. The point was for them to find the parameters on which the enchantments in the walls operated on. Worryingly, there had been a new development.

The orcs had begun to send Idealists to test them. This, in and of itself, was not concerning. What was concerning was that the Idealist orcs had surge skills. Several times, they had thrown some outlandishly strong skill against the walls, and every time, the enchantments had held.

The Watch had managed to assassinate a few of the orcs in question, but usually, they were too well protected by a group of fellow Idealist orcs for them to take a chance on it.

It represented a measurable escalation in the orc tactics. General Steel was worried. The Watch, with their sensory skills, had reported an increase in building in the orc camp, with parties bringing huge amounts of resources into, and out of, the mines at Ren’s Delve.

It was clear that they were up to something, but no one was sure what exactly. The Lord General was certain that once they had tested the walls enough with their surge skills, there would be another escalation coming.

He was unsure if they would be able to handle it. The Lord and his followers were still playing cat and mouse with the resistance efforts of the nobles and the church in Wayrest. Apparently, an old inquisitor had risen up with a group of resistance fighters, and was making life difficult for the Lord’s take over.

For the moment, Wayrest hung in the balance. But eventually, something would give.