A battle to the last

Looking around behind the barricade, Jay found the left passage there had completely broken down. With lots of concrete, wood and other rubble blocking the path, Jay had to take the right one. The hallway was not long and ended in a turn left.

After checking the two doors at that corner, Jay found one unmoveable and the other had something behind he hadn't wanted to see, or smell!

Even Sira who had closed up again made an abhorred face though she had been still a good bit away. Leaving the dump-site, the two proceeded down a longer hallway.

The blank stonewalls and sparse illumination made it look slightly spooky, but at least they hadn't encountered more Orcs up until then. But as they had heard them, Jay and Sira decided to use (Hide) for the time being and proceeded.

Their choice proved right as they saw at least two more Orcs in the big central room they passed bye. Because there was no door to the hallway they were on, only the thick walls and some stairs downwards blocked their view, Jay and Sira could silently proceed only thanks to their (Hide) skill.

Though he had to either way check and clear the room, Jay first had wanted to check the door straight at the end of the hallway as to not get encircled later.

As they arrived at the door, Jay was glad it hadn't been locked. Though that was only until he opened the door and got a peek behind it.

Of course the sleeping quarters wouldn't have been locked!

Glad that at least there weren't too many green-skins awake in the spacious room, Jay slipped in and had Sira wait at the door. Getting close to the first brute snoring there, Jay sliced his throat and like this gave his presence away. The Orc closest by didn't manage to fully wake up when Jay pierced his sword through the huge chest.

At that point a fireball came flying what Jay completely ignored. Like always the unstable seeming magic got reflected and grilled the caster himself. Jay used the moment he had gained to intercept the last of the melee fighters that had gotten up and was trying to reach the door.

His fire loaded sword neatly cut through the Orc's lower back and made him stumble forward. But just as Jay was about to stab down and finish him, his danger sense kicked in and instead he dodged to the side. An arrow flew past where he just a blink before had stood.

Kicking up the half dead orc and tossing it forward, Jay used the meat shield to cross the room and arrive at the source of those arrows. Of course his "shield" had stopped breathing in the meantime but enabled Jay to arrive at the first (and sole in this room) Orc Hunter.

Not very impressive in close combat, the green-skin died to a single slash, even if it was an enhanced, loaded and critical one. In the meantime the sorcerer had once again attacked but seemingly not understood his magic always getting reflected as he already cast yet a third fireball.

At least the only remaining orc, a Summoner how Jay learned when he looked at him, seemed a bit more intelligent. He waited to see the result of the mage and once the spell got reflected again, began to chant something else.

While disposing of the mage with a single (Arcane Missile) from himself, Jay walked over to the summoner. Latter didn't have the chance to finish his summon as Jay beheaded it some seconds too early.

The head made an awfully loud bumping noise when it hit the ground…

Turning around to look at the real source of the loud sound, Jay found Sira leaning backwards to the door, panting a bit. As she looked over to him a bit flustered, the small woman finally uttered what was on her mind.

"I guess we might have a serious problem. They heard you!" S.

Thinking to himself that there was no way the Orcs next door wouldn't have heard him fighting if they weren't deaf, Jay walked over to the door. Nudging over to the corpses he left behind, Jay told Sira she knew what to do and to stay in the room. Then he slipped through the door but didn't proceed further.

Jay had already heard heavy steps on the wooden stair behind the wall, as well as clanking of weapons and shields getting grabbed. Not to get surrounded should there be coming reinforcements from the yard, Jay decided to stay there in the hallway and push through.

A second later the first two armored orcs barged around the corner, but had to take a look for where the attacker was first. That on the other hand had been enough time for Jay for rush in and get out a (Chain Lightning) as well as a nice slash along the ankles of the closest one.

With his mana boosting and loaded weapons, as well as some spells mixed in, he took on the first wave of five Orcs that were each stronger than those before. Their level of 25 to 26 and good armors gave this away before Jay even engaged combat with them.

But as the first fell to a single more slash and the second didn't take much more as well, Jay got slightly surprised.

Sure, he had the chance to go all out, at least in terms of melee fighting, but the tough to be said green-skins were a slight letdown. Even the second wave that arrived a few seconds later wasn't any better. Like this Jay barged into the central room, hoping to find more and stronger opponents.

The two more that came rushing from the basement didn't even make it up the stairs. Jay had seen they were the same as the first groups and disposed of them with (Arcane Missiles).

Then he turned to the five that had taken position at the foot of the stairs leading up.

While they all were of at least Level 26, that wasn't the peculiar thing abut this group. The one with the highest Level of 27 looked different. There was no time to watch for it further as the group charged to him all at once.

Thanks to not being too confined, Jay dodged the first and parried the second sword incoming. Then he unleashed another (Chain Lightning), followed by a (Arcane Blast) with some additional mana. The result was even better than he had hoped for as Jay watched the Orcs getting hurled back.

While two of them hit the relatively close left wall hard, one on the right fell down towards the basement. The closest right one had not only gotten the full brunt of the lightning attack but also hit one of the wooden stands at the stair, cracking not only it but his skull as well.

The only one that got out well was the different looking one. With enough time to use (Analyze), Jay learned it was a female Hunter, though the female part was questionable to him. With a muscular build and as tall as the other brutes, the only difference was that she didn't look so burly and bloated.

In two steps Jay went over to the closest figure that still leaned paralyzed onto the wall. After simply cutting the Orc's throat he rushed over to the next. That one was bleeding profoundly from his head but could at least move again.

But only to the moment when his head stopped bleeding after it burst thanks to an arcane spell incoming.

When Jay was just about to walk over to the next one, a table came flying that he catched thanks to his strength. The inertia still shoved him back a good bit and Jay lost his beloved Wingblade in the process.

He still was glad he hadn't dodged the heavy wooden furniture as three consecutive arrows hit it seconds later.

Has he not had the table in his hands, Jay would have had no chance to fend them off. But as it was, he used it the same way as the Orc and threw the table towards the stairs she tried walking up. That resulted in her rolling down the stairs and then jumping to the side as she got followed by the wooden table.

She directly tried to fire off another arrow onto Jay, but he sidestepped her and brought in a heavy punch.

About to bring in another hit, Jay once again dodged when a spear flew in from behind. It was the Orc who had fallen into the basement that, nearly dead, made a last attempt to defeat Jay.

While Jay easily evaded the attack, the only female orc he found until there did not. The spear had bored through her leather armor and stuck deep in the by then dead Hunter. Jay pulled it out in one swift motion and gave it back to the attacker. With the pointy end first…

After a few seconds, Jay noticed the whole room had become quiet again. He first of all left and went back to Sira who was still hiding in the room. She had dutifully collected all valuables and more, then waited for him and grinned happy when Jay came back.

The moment she saw the orcs in the hallway she looked a bit doubting though. There were 13 brutes, four hunters that were with those from the basement, four of the armored guys and one more Orc lying on the ground, leaving a trace of blood and devastation.

Jay tried to soothe her and stated he wasn't hurt at all but failed to notice him making the situation even worse.

As Sira wordlessly went to search through the first corpses, he went over to the single female Orc. He was slightly unhappy with the outcome, but there had been no helping to it. When he pulled up her spiked leather helmet that had hit most of her face, Jay thought it as less of a loss.

The woman was ugly as hell.

There had been no way he'd ever have "interrogated" her, even if she didn't have her muscular and barrel like figure but a nice one. Just as he was about to put the helmet back on, Sira right next to him asked what he was planning to do. The helmet really was no bad one, though Jay would have gladly refrained from taking it if he could just hide the face that still combined with his previous ideas for her in his head…

Instead of going up the stairs from there, Jay first went to the other side of where they came from. Though he was pretty sure there were no more orcs, he had seen a quite big hall there on his updated mini-map.

And just like he had guessed, it was the former dining hall.

Though most of the furniture was broken, a few tables and benches were still good and seemingly got used by the orcs. To his left on entering, Jay found the reason he could only go one way at the entrance as the ceiling had come down there and a third of the hall lay in debris.

After glancing at the rest of the ceiling to see if it looked like breaking, the two of them proceeded to the other side.

Sira began fetching things like silver plates and whatever she could make to money while Jay proceeded to the back of the room where he had seen another door. He nearly reached it when suddenly it slowly opened and a bloodstained Orc came walking out.

They both looked confused for a second, but Jay regained his senses faster than the Cook and before the Orc could even raise his kitchen knife, Jay fried him with his fire spells. While that also scorched the door and was a bit of a flashy reaction, nothing serious happened. Aside from an Orc turning to ashes that is...

After throwing a glance on the chaotic kitchen, Jay left Sira to look through he hall while he proceeded back to the stairs and climbed them. Sira was to follow in stealth once she was done as like this it was more easy for Jay to fight while she kept in range for XP-sharing.

At the top of the stairs, a balcony connected to the other side and with another three stair steps through an open door to another passage. The dimly lit hallway was located above the dining hall and as Jay stepped onto it, he saw another set of stairs directly to his left. To the right a few steps from there was an open door with a circular staircase up and daylight shining in from the side.

Instead of going up the stairs where Jay expected his main target in the big room displayed behind him on the mini-map, he decided to check where the daylight shone in. The small room he entered had nothing but long winding stairs leading up to most certainly a watchtower.

Ignoring the way up for the moment, Jay pulled the half closed door where the light shone in from open ...And looked into the big, ugly, dark green and surprised face of yet another Orc.

Out of sheer instinct, Jay stabbed his -picked up again and newly enhanced with magic- sword upwards. He used so much force that the hilt slammed the orcs jaws together when the blade penetrated the hard skull and peeked out from the top of his head.

As the patrol fell dead backwards, Jay saw the long lookout area the Orc had come from. He only looked around for a second as he moments later heard grunted shouts from up the tower. Back at the stairs Jay heard the heavy and hurried footsteps of another Orc running them down.

Not waiting to get spotted, Jay hid under the open and simple constructed stairs for a moment. Just when a big leather boot stepped down on head height, Jay slashed at it through the gap of the stairs.

The result was a toppling over Orc who crashed headfirst into the towers wall where the stairs made a turn. As he rolled down the last two steps, Jay already waited for the green-skin with a lifted high blade.

Back on the hallway he spotted Sira's head peeking around the corner and was glad he had taken care of the patrols first. Hinting her that he had more victims to check for her and she should take a look up the tower as well, he passed her. Once he was on his own again, Jay silently proceeded up the stairs in the hallway.

Taking a peek around the corner there, he found two really outstanding big Orcs standing at the side. Though he couldn't see it from his angle, Jay knew from his map that they guarded the door to the big room.

Both of the guards there were level 27 Barbarians, wearing a tough looking metal armor and had one a broadsword and the other a spiked hammer in their hands. Though he had expected a bit more of it, the fight they posed was once again nothing much. If anything, the charge from the second Orcs that connected and send Jay flying back a few yards was the most mention-worthy.

The first went down after a series of cuts and two perfect (Slashes) while the second went from a no brainer to a no header. He fell seconds before Jay's little companion arrived and reported she found nothing worth mentioning.

Having her stand back again, Jay then went to the big wooden door the Barbarians guarded and opened it.

With the first short glance, Jay spotted four figures in there. But before he could analyze any of them or take a real look at the room, his vision got engulfed by flames for a second.

As it not only vanished a split second later but flew back to the mage-like looking Orc on the left and burst him into flames, Jay knew it had been a magic attack.

No wonder his danger sense didn't go off.

Using the moment the orc needed to extinguish the flames and collect himself, Jay once again glanced through the room to analyze his opponents. But though the mage on the left and the heavy armored one on the right were both of level 28 and probably way stronger than any of Jay's previous encountered green-skins, his eyes directly got pulled to the last one.

A bit in the back stood the huge and burly Orc he had been tasked to get rid of, with his sword and shield at the ready.

Even Jay's system gave the orc out as exceptional individual, indicated by the golden marking around the target picture once his sight fell onto him.

It was the same thing it normally showed for elite monsters and the analyzing screen proved his hunch right.

__________

Gath'Ilzog (Warrior LVL 19)

Base LVL 29 (elite)

* Orc* Age: 43 * Gender: male *

HP 9875/9875 * Mana 0/0

[Sword LVL 4]

[Shield LVL 3]

[Bow LVL 3]

[Taming LVL 2]

[Hunting LVL 2]

[Commanding LVL 1]

[Common]

__________

The aura the Orc leader emitted was on a completely different scale to the other two, not to forget the equally enormous Worg seemingly waiting for commands right next to him.

Just then a fitting rough and sonorous voice had Jay dismiss the status screen he still had open.

"Interesting…" G.