Sword of Justice part 3

Chapter 11:  Leaving town

“He talked?” said Nadia.

“Yup, quite cooperative when I explained the situation to him” I replied.

“You were very persuasive, it appears,” she said looking down on the orc boss who was currently chained up in a horse stable.

“I can be quite forceful if the need arises,” I said pulling out my map.  “The resistance is located at a place called Tarrytown.  It was apparently an old hunting lodge but they now use it as a labor camp.  I will be going there to liberate the prisoners and sending them back this way.”

Nadia nodded, “I would never have guessed it would be that close, but the route there is treacherous.”

“A knight laughs at treachery,” I said.  Then thought about it and shrugged.

“Not your best saying,” replied Nadia.

“In any case, I will be departing shortly.  It is light out and I should be able to make a good distance before dark.  This will be a trip of several days, are there any other towns between here and there?”

Nadia looked at the map and traced my route with her finger.  “In a manner of speaking, yes.  This is the last ‘free’ city after the conquest.  That simply means we do not have an orc warlord running the town, particularly because we are too poor to merit the attention.  There are settlements as you move further into the kingdom.”

“Will they be friend, or foe,” I asked.

“It depends on how boldly you make your claims.  If you are just a traveling swordsman, you should get around just fine.  If you go out declaring yourself a Magical Sword Knight, then all the forces of the kingdom will be raised against you,” said Nadia.  “Without the resistance to back you, I fear you shall be captured, or slain.”

“Alas, a bold knight like myself will be hard pressed to remain stealthy, yet I will try,” I said.

Nadia snorted.  “Just rescue them.”

“As you will, princess,” I said and stepped out of the backroom of her shop.  The fact that I got the orc to talk had been impressive, the stories of how had hurt my local reputation somewhat.  Combined with my unconventional victory, I was on thinner ice here than I wanted.  It was best to leave and come back with the potion trainer, and the rest of the resistance.

That would solve one of my problems, and only leave the annoying one.

I grabbed the belt and tightened it.

“How dare you, Sir,” spat Justice.

“I didn’t torture him, I just implied that I would so I don’t see what your problem was,” I said.

“You left me,” yelled the sword.

“Garuk didnt’ believe a Knight would torture him as long as I had you, there wasn’t any chance he was going to tell me what we need to know to save this world,” I said.  “I’m playing it by ear here, I really want to help everyone, but this is my first time.”

Justice seethed, which was a good sign.  Hopefully he would decided that he was the problem and I could be retrained better.  I could, and I would if my sister wasn’t busy dying.  I needed to get her that potion, soon.  Heck, if it turned out I needed to come back after I got it to her, then I’d do that too.

But I wasn’t about to forget my sister.

“What loot did we get,” I asked.

“More armor, nothing you could wear without significant modification,” said Justice.  “A bow from that one orc who kept trying to shoot you in the face.  The big one was carrying a ring and the hilt of Backbiter.  We should give him a proper burial.”

“The sword?  Did a different knight come here,” I asked.

“Not a full knight, Backbiter was more of a scouts weapon.  He was probably trying to figure out what happened to this world,” said Justice.

“Any chance we could fix him,” I asked.  I wasn’t sure about dual wielding, but it seemed possible.

“No, once the blade is shattered, the mind of the weapon is destroyed,” said Justice.  “We should give him a proper burial.”

“We do have all those crypts, would that be sufficient?” I said.  Without an alchemist raising the dead, the graveyard was entirely safe and mundane again.

“Of course, a proper burial for a nobel blade,” said Justice and we walked over to the graveyard.  Already people were tending to it, repairing the gates and trying to figure out what to do with the massive pile of corpses I’d left behind.

Zombies did not smell, because they did not rot.  It was much different than I expected.  That many bodies you would figure clouds of flies and disease, but flies that ate from a zombie died, so there were actually less of them in the local area.

I went to the first crypt, mainly because I knew there were a few somewhat intact but empty tombs.  This entire chamber was full of mostly empty crypts.  I found one that was intact, placed the hilt of the sword on it, and then reclosed the chamber.  When it was closed, it appeared to be entirely intact.

“There you go, should you say something,” I asked, bowing my head.  I wasn’t sure what kind of prayer a sword needed, but Justice was enough like a person I did a quick one mentally.

“The greatest sacrifice a weapon can make is the sacrifice of their blade in combat, I hope that Backbiter finds solace in the great forge,” said Justice.  I kept my head bowed for a minute, then slowly started backing out.

When Justice didn’t comment, I hurried out of the crypt.  I hated graveyards and now that it was not full of undead, I didn’t want to stay in this place.  We climbed the stairs and quickly got to the exit of the graveyard.

“Thank you,” said Justice.

“No problem, we are a team,” I said as I walked over to the road and looked back at the town one last time.  It may be the last time I ever went there.  Looking at the map, I shrugged and started going north.

“I have been granted a new power,” said Justice as something flickered into the center of my vision.  It was a map, a very rough map, of the local area.

“That’s kind of annoying, can we push it to the side or something,” I asked.

“Oh, yes, you haven’t commented on the interface so I assumed you liked Henrys,” said Justice.

“There could be some improvements,” I said and felt something unlock mentally.  I concentrated on the map, shrunk it down and shoved it into the corner of my vision.  I noticed several glowing dots on the image.

“What are the dots,” I asked.

“Spiders, I believe.  I gained the ‘Scan’ power, a great addition to my already tremendous suite of powers,” said Justice.  “It is the first new one I have acquired in ages.”

“So what are your current powers,” I asked.

“Well, I know Heal at the rank of Expert, of course.  That allows me to repair your injuries.  I also know Cleanse at Expert proficiency, this allows me to cleanse your body of toxins as well as your clothing.  Now I have earned Scan, which allows me to detect local threats and show it to you, my Knight.  It is at trained proficiency.”

“So it starts at Trained,” I asked.

“Yes, then Expert, then Master, then Legendary,” said Justice.  “While a Knight may earn a spell up to the Legendary Rank, few Blades go past Master.”

“And you have three mana points,” I asked.

“Yes, effectively.  My mana reserves are deep, but not limitless,” said Justice.

“How long does it take for you to recover a mana point,” I asked.

“As you know, Mana recovers slower than STamina.  It takes me, a Magical Sword, about half an hour to recover each point after they have been spent,” said Justice.

“I recover a point every half hour,” I said as I fiddled with the map.  The spiders were now a solid light red indicating possible threat.

“You recover your points sequentially,” said Justice.  “I recover my points concurrently.  If you spend both of your mana points it will take you an hour to fully recover.  I recover mine 30 minutes after I used them regardless of how many I used.”

“Can I share my mana with you,” I asked.  He did have the healing magic after all.

“No, at least not yet.  Henry could share his mana with me, but he was far more physical in nature.  You seem to at least consider a situation before going in, which has strengths and weaknesses,” said Justice.

“You would hope that carefully assessing a situation would be beneficial,” I said.

“In Henry’s case, I did all the thinking for the both of us,” said Justice.

“Ah,” I said as we continued walking.  The road continued far into the distance with the woods thinning out and exposing a broad plane with several hills scattered throughout.  The scan feature was nice because it showed off threats so I wasn’t constantly paranoid about having something attack me from behind.

Unfortunatly, it turned out to be less accurate than we hoped as I spotted a wild cat hiding in the grass close to the road that Justice totally missed.  I drew the sword and pointed it at the cat, and the animal vanished.

“I am surprised you did not shoot it with the crossbow,” said Justice.

“Out of bolts, and that large bow will require some practice to get used to,” I said.  I drew it once, and only once.  I needed to spend a stamina point to use the thing, plus my armor got in the way of the string.

I banished the armor after the second hour, it was getting hot and I was getting annoyed with it.  I wanted to get used to wearing the suit, but it wasn’t comfortable and ultimately I decided that I was going to either have to get a skill that allowed me to wear armor without penalty or I was going to have to go for a lighter set.

“Surprised there aren’t more villages on this road,” I said looking around.  There was a road, a river nearby and plenty of open land.  This looked like premier farming village territory, yet I didn’t see one.

“The map did not seem to have may towns this far south,” said Justice and I pulled out the main map.

“Any chance we could scan this in and make a bigger map,” I asked.

Justice vibrated slightly, “Not yet.  I believe I can improve the skill later with practice but the map you are suggesting is too large.”

“Well, show me what you have,” I said and Justice brought up another map.  It was maybe 2 square miles worth of space, much larger than the small mini-map in the corner of my eye but not big enough to matter.

“It started off as one mile, so this is an improvement,” said Justice.

“So just using a magical spell improves the function of it,” I asked drawing the sword and casting Magical Strike.

“No, it does not,” said Justice.  “Each spell has their own conditions for improvement.  Some spells like Scan simply work by doing, but require a commitment of Mana.”

“Commitment, you mean one point of Mana is tied up in the spell,” I asked.

“Yes, I can only restore your health twice while Scan is active,” said Justice.

“Well, that sucks, any way for you to get more Mana,” I asked.

“In a manner of speaking.  As a Magical Blade, I operated under different rules of magic than a human.  As my Knight expands in power I gain the ability to freely maintain a number of spells, so Scan would not require any of my active Mana pool to maintain.”

“And I take it Magical Strike only improves if I strike something that grants experience points,” I asked.

“You get it,” said Justice.

“And the Magical Armor spell,” I asked.

“Gains a small amount of advancement when used to repair, but that spell’s main use is damage reduction,” said Justice.  “You could ignore a ballista bolt to the chest with that spell active.”

“But it only works for three seconds,” I said.

“At your level, yes,” said Justice.

“Well, some experience is better than none,” I said and brought justice down hard on my armor’s thigh, bending the plate.

“What are you doing,” asked Justice as I cast Magial armor, causing the plate to pop out.

“Gaining magical advancement,” I said.

Chapter 12: Finding Drek

“This is most unbecoming of a knight,” grumbled Justice as I clanged him against my armor again.  It was almost nightfall and I’d gained about a quarter of the points needed to bring my Magical Armor spell up from Trained 1, to Trained 2.

Magical Armor: Trained 1 |  24%

Grants bonus 300% armor for 3 seconds.  Armor is considered magical during that time frame.

Repairs armor, 25% total repair.  Will not replace missing parts.

So I learned a lot during the process of hitting myself over and over with my own sword.  Mostly that this was a slow, but steady, way to gain advancement in my spells.  Magical Strike was a no go, of course, but what really bothered me was the Heal spell did not count self inflicted wounds for advancement.  Seriously, otherwise I had a great idea.

I also tried out my skills.  Power would gain very slow progression if I was trying to lift something too heavy to move otherwise.  Unfortunately the gains on that were so slow it didn’t merit attempting.  Likewise Dexterity developed slowly if I ran super fast, which was fun but tiring.  Justice could cast cleanse which did clear my body of the toxins caused by over exertion, but that was limited to once a half hour because I didn’t want him to run out of mana in case I needed healed.

Basically I could run for about 12 stamina points worth of Dexterity assisted sprints before I stumbled around so much that I fell down and collapsed.  That was useful information, also that falling at top Dexterity assisted running speed would break bones.

I could realistically jog for extreme amounts of distance, but the road was basically a path littered with stones here and I’d stumbled twice while moving.  Since I didn’t have a set distance I needed to cover, I just walked.

This was the first time in forever that I wasn’t doing things all the time, and it was nice.  Justice even shut up, which I loved.  I was used to working 18 hour days, and anything that was not doing that was so much better I could scarcely imagine it.  I exhaled, feeling the tension flow out of my shoulders.  I just walked, and listened to the wind.

And the orc shouting something.  Orcs had a distinct voice.  Something so deep that you could instantly peg the talker as not human.

“Why is the orc not showing up on the scan,” I said, dropping down and listening more.  I only caught a word or two of the conversation, not enough to figure out what anyone said.

“I don’t know if he is hostile,” said Justice.

“We need a better system here, all humanoids are potentially hostile until we confirm that they aren’t,” I grumbled and three dots appeared on the minimap.  They were in front of me, down the road and over the next hill.  I was out of my armor allowing me to move quietly, so I decided to go check to see what was going on.

The top of the hill was no object, I cut into the short grass and searched for predators.  They were pretty good at keeping off the road, and Justice had gotten slightly better at spotting them.  There were none here that I had to worry about.

I glanced over the hill and spotted one orc with two humans.  The two humans were tied up and the orc was pushing them towards the road.

“Bleeding runaways,” hissed the orc.  He was one of the thinner kinds.  They were lanky, but had enough wiry muscles that gave them a menacing quality.  My experience with them so far was that they were fair shots with their bows, I did have to dodge every arrow they shot at me.

“Please, we’re starving,” said a young voice.  A girl, I thought.

The orc laughed, “I don’t care, you’ll get back to the camp and eat what we give you.”

“We should go help them,” said Justice.  I considered that for a moment.  I wasn’t in a good position, and the orc looked like he might be dangerous.  The smarter thing would be to go around.

“Ahoy, who are you,” yelled the orc turning to face me with his bow drawn.  Shit, the wind shifted.

I stood up, drawing Justice, “I am a Magical Sword Knight, release your prisoners and I shall let you go.”

“Idiot,” muttered the orc as he released his shaft.  I sidestepped, even without spending Stamina I could see an arrow and they didn’t move fast enough that I was actually threatened by anything at that range.  Then the arrow started twisting towards me.

I still dodged it, but the arrow was close.  I wasn’t going to be able to get much closer and still dodge his attacks without spending Stamina.

“That is a broad head arrow, it will do tremendous damage to your flesh,” said Justice.  I considered summoning my armor, he might not be equipped for armor and those arrowheads didn’t really hurt metal to my recollection.

Summoning my armor wasn’t instantaneous though.  It took several seconds and he could probably get me during that timeframe.  I could duck behind the hill.

Then the two prisoners ran, the orc spun around still holding the bow and I activated my first point of Stamina.  Using a dexterity enhanced run, I charged towards him at incredible speed.  He spun around and fired an arrow at me, but Dexterity didn’t just enhance my footspeed.  As he fired I leapt to the side, avoiding the arrow.

Somehow the orc drew two arrows and fired them the instant I activated my second point of Stamina.  The arrows seemed to slow, but they were fired much better.  I dodged one but the second was going to connect with my leg.  The tracking feature allowed the arrow’s flight path to shift towards my favorite knee, but I had Justice out.  I flattened the blade and ran it straight into the arrowhead.

The arrow exploded, the fragments exploding away in every direction.  However, To dodge the attack I had to leap far to the side.  I landed in a heap as the Stamina point ran out mid way.  By the time I was back on my feet, he had three arrows ready.  Now I was close though, I could get to him with Justice on if I was fast.

I burned Stamina and flew towards him even as he released the trio of arrows.  I could still dodge one, and I swung justice around, smashing away a second.  The third, I activated Magical Armor and my shirt and parts glowed blue, becoming the strongest possible fabric they could be.

So the arrow went right though my shirt, because strong linen is still linen.  It tore through my arm and Justice fell out of my now useless hand.  The orc’s concerned expression turned to triumph as I stumbled towards him, but for the moment I was still in control and I aimed my fist right at his belly as the stamina point ran out.

I hit the orc hard enough in the gut that I felt more than my hand pop.  I dislocated my shoulder, and probably broke my forearm.  This coupled with a massive, bleeding wound where the arrow tore down pretty much the length of my right arm was just making this a terrible day.

I got off lucky.

The orc had been struck in the belly by me at full force while traveling faster than a human could sprint.  He went down on his hands and knees and was spitting out blood from the force of the impact.  Outside of anime, spitting out blood wasn’t there to show a moderate injury.  I’d probably crushed part of both of his lungs.

Blood spilled out of his belly where I’d actually hit him so hard the skin hadn’t held together.  I looked at my broken hand and realized that I’d actually torn it up pretty badly on his ribs.

But I was bleeding, badly.  I crawled over to Justice, dropped down and placed my less damaged hand on the blade.  Instantly I felt better.  My broken hand restored and the long bleeding wound on my arm vanished.  I grabbed the sword and stood, ready to finish the orc off.

He was already dead.

“Good job, squire,” said Justice as I looked around.  The two kids were both looking at me.

“I am a Knight, I am here to protect you,” I said.  One stood.

“He has food, can we have it,” she asked.

“Yes, take all of it, I have questions, can you eat and talk?” I asked, sitting down.  Objectively it might have looked like I did that to be less frightening.  In reality I was so winded from the triple sprint that I needed to sit before I passed out.

The girl stepped out defiantly, she glared at me then walked over to the orc.  She started going through his pouches and pulling out several pieces of jerky.  She showed them to her brother.

“You didn’t loot him,” I asked.

“I can only loot targets I am used to kill. It is a baseline ability for a magic sword,” said Justice, then he caught the edge of my plan. “You wouldn’t?”

“I would have given them some of our rations if needed,” I said.  “After they answered my questions.”  I couldn’t see a kid starving, but I also needed to find out where a village was.

The girl had a tattoo on her face, as did the boy.  She might have been sixteen, he was decidedly younger.  They were gnawing on the jerky, and it was designed for teeth much stronger than theirs.  I was afraid they were going to lose teeth, so I pulled a few rations from storage.

“Try these, you can answer my questions quicker,” I said holding up the rations.  The boy looked to his sister hopefully, and she stepped towards me and took them.  She retreated back to the safety of the orc corpse with her brother.

My rations weren’t too much better.  There consisted of hard tack, which was basically travel bread with all the good parts backed out of it.  There was jerky stored in oil, so it was at least edible by a human jaw.  There was also something that looked like dried peas in there, and tasted like them too.  I didn’t care for peas, but I also knew they were trying to balance out a diet.

The kids did not care, they were both members of the clean plate club.  After they finished they both looked at the orc jerky again.

“I have more rations if you can answer my questions,” I said producing two more rations.  That was digging into my supplies further than I liked.  Apparently while Justice could store things, he couldn’t refrigerate them.  I had a large sack of beans, dried peas, and some other things I could use to make food, but I only had a few travel meals because I didn’t figured I’d need too many and they were only good for so long.

I’d have to pack more next time.

The girl looked at my rations and stepped closer.  “What do you want to know?”

“Names, I’m Tim,” I said.

“I’m Daria, that’s Sully,” Daria said.

“Where did you guys come from,” I asked, holding onto the rations.

“Drek, it is a slave camp,” said Sully.  He still looked hungry.

“Is it close,” I asked.

“Yes, we only made it an hour or so away before he found us,” Daria said, gesturing towards the corpse.  “He tied us up, we were going back.  Food has been scarce, so people are trying to run.  Not everyone made it.”

“Are there any skill trainers there,” I asked.

“No, not that I’m aware of,” she said, eyeing my food.

“How many people,” I asked.

“I don’t know, many,” she said.

Sully was looking at my sword, “Are you a knight, are you going to rescue them?”

“I might be,” I said.  “I might need to go rescue other people first and then come back to Drek.”

“It doesn’t matter who he is,” said the girl.  “There is no place to go.”

“Nordrin is south of here, they will take you,” I said.

“Nordrin is a myth, every year or so the orcs march down there and make sure no one survives,” said Daria.

“I came from there, after I killed the orcs, if you go down there you will be safe,” I said, then remembered the cat.  “Are you skilled with weapons.”

“Slaves aren’t allowed to have weapons,” said Sully.

“Are there any slaves that are skilled with weapons,” I said.

“Some certainly,” said Daria.  “But we cannot escape, there are too many guards.  They captured our mother.  I’m sure she is…”

“How many,” I asked.

“Two squads,” said Sully.  “Can a Knight take two squads?”

“Of course, a Knight can do anything.  Wait where you can see the road,” I said looking to the north.  I could see something that might have been chimney smoke.

Chapter 13: The unlucky ones

“Your bravery knows no bounds,” said Justice as I marched towards the slave camp.  If there were more than forty, I was just going to leave.  There was no way I could handle that many, and I wasn’t even here to save a camp full of slaves.

We found the slave camp easily enough, it was massive.  Hundreds of slaves tending large fields, despite the fact that it looked like the slaves were all starving.  There were dozens of orcs walking around the outside perimeter and at least thirty more inside.

“A squad must be forty,” I said, nodding at the 80 or so orcs.  “This looks impossible.”

“For a Knight, the impossible is expected,” said Justice, the idiot.

“If we die, we can’t reform the resistance,” I stated.

“If we leave people to perish in these conditions, we are no better than the orcs,” said Justice.

I could live with that, but as he spoke I spotted an orc running down the northern road towards the base.  He was blasting a horn, and he brought friends.  Lots of them.  The orcs in the camp all went to arms, and many of them moved to the north side of the camp.

“Why are they forming up like that, they are all on the same side,” said Justice.

“I think they are about to fight,” I said.

“We should use this opportunity to free the slaves,” said Justice.

“Shit,” I replied as the orcs guarding the southern side of the camp began to redeploy.  There were still some there, but the coverage was no long overwhelming.  Especially with that new scan power to show me where they were.

I hopped down, still regretting that my heavy armor clanged like an engine that had never known the sweet taste of oil, and headed towards the camp.  By the time i got to the camp, everyone knew something was up.  The orcs guaridng the humans being rounded up knew there was going to be a fight and they weren’t picked.  The humans knew there was going to be a fight and no mater who won they were going to lose.  Even the giant mutant dogs that were walking with some of the orcs knew there were going to be problems.

The only person who thought this was a capital idea was Justice.

“We are going to save them, and this is the proper duty of a Knight,” said Justice.

“Do you have a hidden invisibility spell I should be aware of,” I asked.

“No, that would be dishonorable,” said Justice.

“Then be quiet and let me sneak over there like a thief,” I grumbled.

When I managed to hit the fields, things got easier.  Most of the crops were shorter, so the guards could see through them.  There were a few patches of grain that I managed to sneak into, and those were tall enough to hide a man.  Unfortunately the orcs were not stupid and so they were actively searching through these crops trying to find anyone who was hiding.

They found me instead.

“Ahoy, who goes there,” said an orc as I apparently failed my hide check.  “If you come now, I’ll only beat you a little.”

Before I left the kids, I’d looted and buried the corpse.  Well, I told them I buried the corpse.  I threw it into the tall grass well away from them, and that was close enough.  I also took his bow.  Unlike the other orc bow I had, this one I could draw without spending stamina.

I still spent a point, but that was mainly to shoot the orc in the mouth.

He slumped down, and I looked around to see if anytone noticed that.  Another orc walked over, trying to figure out what was going on, so I shot him too.

“Is shot the right word,” I asked.

“Henry always used it, just don’t use fire,” said Justice.  “Unless you have a fire enchantment on your arrows.”

“Obviously,” I said shooting another orc before one of the reamining archer might have seen me.  I burned stamina and loosed an arrow at him too, missing my target slightly.

“Right through the throat, good call,” said Justice.  I was aiming for the forehead.  Burning stamina to activate Dexterity made me a comically good archer, still pulling a bow was much harder than it looked and I was happy there were no more targets.

I took another step and noticed a red tinged icon appear on my minimap.  I glanced over an a human looked up at me from where he was hiding.

“Make the people light green,” I said, and three more green dots appeared in the field.

“Who are you,” hissed the man.

“I’m Tim, the Knight,” I said looking around.  “This is a jailbreak.  Probably going to kill all the orcs, if you wanna help.”

“I’m not sure a knight will be much help,” said the man.

“Magical Sword Knight?” I asked.

His eyes went wide and the other two people hiding both stood up.  “Truely?”

I realized I was fighting with a bow, an glanced down at Justice, “I don’t see why I’d have the magical sword otherwise.”

“We can liberate our families,” said one, “everyone knows Magical Sword Knights cannot fail.”

“We do lots of stuff, failing is not one of them, are there any skill trainers here,” I asked.

“No, only our families and a large supply of food,” said the tallish man.  “I’m Darren.”

“Excellent Daren, we should remain quiet, but you can show me where the people are so I can liberate them,” I said.

“Of course,” said Darren.

“Hey, did you know Daria,” I asked.

“The girl who was killed, not really but her mother was taken to the torture pit,” said Darren.

“I saved Daria and her brother, I need to go rescue their mom so lets go there first,” I said.

Darren grabbed a weapon off one of the dead orcs and started towards the camp.  I instantly noticed the problem the humans were having.  The orcs were all big, and not just height.  Every orc I encountered was slightly taller than me, all the way up to massively larger than me.  That was from being an American with modern nutrition.

The humans around here were short, by my standards.  I was six feet two freedoms tall,  whereas Darren was only around five and a half feet.  He was also the biggest guy I’d ran into so far expect for deer departed Frank, who had been only several inches shorter than me.

Each orc had maybe thirty or fourty pounds on a human, and that was telling.  In any straight up contest, the human was going to lose.

Which made me look way more impressive when the first orc spotten Darren and I grabbed the green skin in an armbar and slammed his head into the base of a watch tower several times.  Then stabbed him with Justice because I didn’t want to loot that.

“I didn’t kill him,” said Justice.

“Common, I only bashed his head in three or four times,” I grumbled and continued walking.

“Careful, there are some guards in there,” said Darren gesturing to a tent.

I drew Justice and walked into the tent.  The guards were getting into their armor, one of them had his back to the tent door.  I went for three neck strikes, and stepped out next to Darren.

“Anything worthwhile i here,” I asked.

“Some of those crossbow bolts you enjoy,” said Justice.  I grabbed one and reloaded the hand crossbow.  I loved that thing.

“Any more,” I asked.

“Just the archers on the battlement,” said Darren eyeing me in wonder.  I looked over and they were killing other orcs.

“How’s the battle going,” I asked.

“About even,” said Justice.

“We’ll get em later,” I told Darren and we continued towards the torture pits.  They turned out to be a series of holes dug into the ground with spikes pointing inwards to discourage anyone from climbing out.  There were several nests of a wasp like creature feasting on pieces of meat I hoped were from farm animals I had not seen.

“Blood wasps, the will not kill the people, but the pain of their sting is legendary,” said Darren.

“Good to know,” I offered looking towards the single building that was constructed here.  It was effectively a log cabin that was made by someone who’d never played with their Lincoln Logs.  Such a poor childhood.

Glancing around I summoned my bow and shot the other two archers on this side of the camp.  Eventually someone was going to figure that out and the angle was just about right.  I waited, and then shot a third orc that was walking by to investigate before handing my bow to Darren.

“Lazy security,” I grumbled and drew Justice.

“Now we shall show these orcs what for, I am prepared to show them Justice!”

“Cool cool,’ I said and placed the flat of the blade against the wasp covered meat and flung it into the cabin.  Then I closed the door.  Then there was the screaming.  I shoved justice into the wood, pinning the door shut and waited as whomever was inside started clawing at the door.

Another orc ran over to figure out what was happening and I shot him.  Then another.  With Justice out of hand, the scan map stopped updating and I was looking around with my eyes when an arrow flashed towards me.  I moved my head slightly and it slammed into the door as I drew back and arrow and burned stamina.

The screaming stopped, so I pulled Justice out of the cabin.  The door didn’t open, because no one was alive to try to open it.

“Darren, find Daria’s mom this side of camp is pretty empty, I’m going to go release everyone else,” I said and started toward the battlment.

“This is very different than I expected,” said Justice.

“Yeah, charging in head first seemed painful,” I said as I got to the base of the battlement.  “I think I’ve taken enough mortal wounds today.  How is the battle going.”

“This side is winning,” said Justice as I got to the base of the battlement and looked up.  There was a ladder, but they’d be watching that so instead I burned stamina for power and leapt off a barrel before grabbing the edge of the railing before pulling myself to the top.  There were eight orc archers here, and well I was pretty quiet.

I also needed to be pretty fast so a burned a point of stamina for the enhanced speed and smashed both of the nearest orcs with Justice.  I was getting pretty good at that forward downward chop tot he middle fo the skull, and they did not much care for it.  A single swing would certainly kill them, often by totally splitting the helmet.

What I was doing wouldn’t have really worked with a conventional sword or if I was humanly strong.  My muscles had developed significantly since I arrived, but the Power skill was really more useful in this.  The bonus to weapon damage translated to more explosive force when I was doing anything physical so while I could hit even harder, I often found it more useful for mundane things like picking up bodies or jumping higher.

In this case, the added speed from dexterity didn’t quite make me a blur but it was close.  Time would seem to slow and my control over by body seemed to amplify.  That was how I was able to make ridiculous shots with my bow.  It was also how I was able to make three rapid strikes against the next three orcs before they really knew what was going on.

In the span of 6 seconds, I’d killed five of the eight orcs on the battlement, and only one of the remainder actually knew I was here.  He was yelling though, like a wuss.

I feinted a strike at his head and then brought it down on his arm.  His armor partially resisted Justice, meaning that I didn’t actually remove the limb.  It was still broken.  The orc stumbled, trying to block me and that gave his remaining friends a chance to aim at me.

I lifted him to use as a shield and waited, but neight orc was inclined to shoot.  They were looking for a better target, and I was still here.  So I spent my last point of stamina and flung the orc at them.  They were standing next to each other and the spinning orc hit the first one dead on.

He was probably unconcious when he hit the ground.  The other orc manage to avoid the strike, but did so by jumping to the side.  That spoiled his aim and I did have the sword so I stepped over to finish him off when an arrow slammed into my leg.

My leg turned to jelly and I fell off the battlement, smashing to the ground.  That stunned me for a second, and I didn’t know where the whomever shot me was.  I also forgot about the orc on the battlment.

He was a simple guy, he went for a center of mass shot.  The arrow missed my hear, but not much else.

“Dick,” I grunted as the darkness began to overtake me.

Suddenly there was a blue flash and everything was right with the world, except I still had two arrows in me.

“Those don’t come out,” I gasped, it hurt to breath.

“No, you must remove them, I only cast heal because you died,” said Justice.

I rolled to the side, avoiding another shot and tore the arrow out of my leg.  You might think I should have done my chest first, but I was afraid of passing out with the one still in my leg.  I was nearly right.

My vision was down to a pinprick as I grabbed the arrow in my chest and realized that since everything healed around it, I needed to go out the other way.  I lined the arrow up to the ground and dropped my full weight onto it.

Someone might think that was a terrible idea.  They would be right, but in my defence I was in an absurd amount of pain.  I was in so much pain, actually, that I didn’t pass out which was handy because after I pushed the arrow through I had to finish pulling it out of my back.  One handed.

Then the healing magic came again and when I came too I was wearing my armor.

I only had one free life left, so I needed to make the most of it.  Several orcs ran over to where I fell and I stood there with Justice at the ready.  Then an arrow slammed into my pauldron.  The asshole was still shooting at me.

Since I was out of stamina, I decided the best approach was to just charge them like an idiot.  It was a real  ‘we’ll last longer than starfleet than we will against that death star’ moment.  The archer decided shooting into his friends was not a great idea and I got to the first orc right as he got his weapon up.

I slammed him in the skull.  My strike was simply too fast for him to respond properly.  I drew up and swung a second time at his neighbor.  He managed to get his weapon up to block, but only managed to slow down my strike to non-lethal levels.  His helmet still rang when I struck it and he stumbled backwards.  The next orc rushed me with a shield, trying to keep Justice away from himself.  I chuckled and tried to see if I could cut a shield in half.

I could not.

“Don’t attack a shield like that, they are designed to stop swords!” yelled Justice.

My sword went about half way into the shield and got stuck.  I didn’t get his arm.  The orc grinned at me through his now ruined shield and spun it around trying to pull justice from my hands.

Physics was not my friend.  I attacked with the tip of the blade almost exclusively, so that was what was stuck meaning that he was at the optimum point of leverage while I was on the decided wrong end of the stick.

So I kicked him, the fight had given me just enough time to recover one whole point of stamina and I used that to drive my foot into the shield sending the poor orc toppling over while I still retained the grip on my sword.

I was out of place for his friend who swung a mace at my head.  I dodged back, avoiding the first strike and then the follow up which banged against my armor.  I tried to swing Justice in a low to high slice, but the orc managed to beat the blade before swinging at my chest with his very heavy mace again.

“He has the Mace skill,” said Justice.  “He will be very skillful.”

I finally got some distance and brought Justice around for a swing.  I was aiming for the orc’s shoulder, but he smashed his mace into the sword again and nailed my shoulder hard enough to cause me to stumble.  Then I took another hit as he aimed for my arm.

He was trying to stop Justice like I was trying to stop his mace, that was my trick.

The orc smirked and swugn again, I tried to beat him back by striking his weapon, but I was not up to the task and the strike nearly ended me.  Sparks shot from his mace, showing the supriority of Justice, but the mace continued straight towards me.

I activated MAgic Armor the instant before it struck.

The mace rebounded powerfully from my chest, causing the orc to stumble.  Justice was already in position so gonged him in the head.  His helmet was made of sterner stuff and that didn’t brain him outright, but it was uncomfortable.

I followed up with several more swings, trying to find a weak spot in the orcs admittedly better armor.  There were none.

“It is magical, you will not be able to breach it with Magical Strike,” said Justice.

By now, the orc was back on balance and he wasn’t smirking.  He looked frothing in the face mad?  Was there more made that that?

The orc screamed and charged me, swinging his mace faster than I’d seen him before.  I blocked several more shots, mainly through my armor reducing the damage down significantly but I was getting cut up from the attacks and I hadn’t really done any useful damage to the orc.

The main problem I was having was the orc could swing his mace about as fast as I could swing Justice, and it always seemed to be right where I didnt’ want it too.  And that archer had decided pot shots were in order.

I’d won all of my other fights through being clever, or the use of cauldrons, and in a contest of brawn I was coming up short.

“Wait, Justice can you see when that orc is going to shoot us with an arrow,” I said.

“Yes,” replied the sword.

“Cool cool, tell me when to duck,” I said moving my back so that it was facing the orc.  It was a great shot, I’d been doing my level best to avoid giving him one the entire fight.  Now I had to trust Justice.

Not my first choice.

I was in the middle of a series of thrusts and feints that were driving me back, closer to the archer, when Justice said now.  I burned a point of stamina and pulled back into the only thrusting stance I knew with justice, which was still decidedly Japanese in origin.

Considering Justice was a hand and a half sword, that just felt wrong.

The frothing mace wielding orc didn’t even slow, he took my sidestep in stride.  If my fancy maneuver bother him, or the enhanced speed, he didnt’ show it.  What did bother him was the arrow smashing into this breastplate.  It was an orc fired arrow, so the draw was tremendous and I had been bashing the crap out of his breastplate for quite a while.

Needless to say, the arrow didn’t penetrate.  I left a dent, something I’m sure the orc would have cared about if the purpose of the arrow wasn’t a distraction.  As soon as the arrow struck I thrust forward with my sword straight into the visor slit of the confused orc.

I probably didn’t need to burn stamina for power at that moment, but I had and Justice found the orc’s mind.  Brain really.  The tip of the sword exploded out of the back of the back of his helmet, killing the orc outright.  I learned that if I used power I had to twist the blade while power was active if I wanted to have a ghost of a chance to pull the weapon out later.

That wiggle is probably what finished him off.

I turned back to the orc and started running towards the stairs.  The orc, to his credit, tossed the bow to the side and jumped off the front of the wall.  By the time I got to the top of the battlement, he was running and I had a clear view of the battlefield.

Someone had won that battle, but I really wasn’t sure who.  There were a lot of the best kind of orcs there, the dead kind.  I looked around and the slaves were free and were busily fighting the few remaining orcs.  Most of those orcs were wounded, and all of them were badly outnumbered.  Darren and six others stopped at the base of the battlement as the final sounds of battle ended.

“We’ve come to help you against the orc boss,” said Darren.

“Guy with the mace,” I said.

Darren nodded.  I gestured to the orc’s body.  The barbed mace was laying next to him.

“By yourself,” said Darren.  “That’s impossible.”

“I’m a Knight, we make the impossible possible.”

Chapter 14: Victory of a sort

“And the rest of the wagons will be finished loading soon,” said Darren the next morning.

“No worries, good idea bringing all that food and supplies with you on your trip south,” I said.  “My scouts have returned and you should probably find every weapon you can.”

Daria and Sully were both still hugging a hungry looking middle aged woman who was in tears screaming about her babies.  I suspected she was a babysitter, or maybe a distant cousin.

“Are you sure you don’t want any extra spoils,” asked Darren.

“I got the armor and the mace, I’ll be fine, you did say there were no potion trainers here, right,” I asked.

“Again, no.  I believe there is a camp somewhere to the north west that is where all of the speciality trainers have been sequestered.  The orcs are planning something dark and terrible,” said Darren.

“And we all need to be ready for that, those foul orcs' treachery is treacherous," I said.

“Truly, you are indeed a Knight with a Magic Sword,” said Darren.

We grasped wrists after I figured out he wasn’t doing a handshake.  It was possibly the most manly time I ever grabbed a part of another man and stared deeply into his eyes.  Darren’s were blue, and haunted.

Then they left and I started north west, well, more westenly than north west.  There was a road and it connected to another road and I wasn’t going fucking cross country.  That was suicide by spider.

“I’m pretty sure there aren’t spiders everywhere,” said Justice.

“I’m pretty sure I told you we don’t go into forests,” I said.

I walked for a while in silence.  Justice never shut up.  He liked to talk, and I tuned him out most of the time.  The only time I really paid attention was when he started yelling out his name repeatedly, because he thought those were important.

“The pursuit of Justice,” he finished.  I looked behind us.  We were not being followed.

“Great, you do that too,” said the sword.

“Yup, what was the haul,” I asked.

“There was the orc’s suit of magical armor, it is better than what you are wearing but sized for an orc,” said Justice.

“We could try,” I said and suddenly found myself in a metal coffin.  I couldn’t see anything, and I was pretty sure my head was in the neck.  I fell onto my face and the armor vanished.

“I do not believe it will fit you,” said Justice.  “Unless you learn the armor smithing skill.”

“I’m saving my next skill upgrade for potion making, so I have healing potions,” I said, getting back to my feet.  I’d love to lay down, but I really wasn’t tired.  If I was, Justice would have cleansed me and I’d feel right as rain.

“I don’t see what that would be a problem, You can learn up to five non-combat skills,” said Justice.

I hated that sword.  “Do you know any non-combat skills?”

“Well, Smithing of course, then Armor smithing and Weapon smithing if you advanced that skill,” said Justice.  “Then mining for the ore, but I also know scrapping so you can recover metals from existing suits of armor.”

“Why didn’t you mention that earlier,” I said.

“You never asked.”

“I assume I have to learn smithing first, then get it to a certain rank before I learn the others.” I said.

“Yes,” replied Justice.  “I knew you were clever, in fact any skill you get up to Expert skill I would be automatically able to train the next Knight.”

“Wait, so Henry never learned Potion Making,” I asked.

“Of course not, I can cast Heal,” said Justice.

“We could have learned Alchemy,” I said, remembering the book.

“That is an evil practice, we should not learn of it,” said Justice.  That I kind of agreed on.  Alchemy in this world just felt wrong.

“Well teach me Smithing and Salvaging,” I said and felt something ping mentally like I just downloaded how to do something new.  It was like it had been part of my skills the whole time.

I was trained one in both skills, which let me know how to make some very basic armor and dismantle said armor for the metal.  Overall neither thing was particularly useful, yet.  The next fight I got into was going to be more useful and I regretted giving all of the weapons to the townsfolk a bit.  Not much though, I’d have probably died if they were any less armed than they had been.

Checking the remainder of my skills I founded that I was closer to ranking up for Dexterity than Power, it looked like I was using that more.  Magic Armor was progressing towards rank 2, which Magical Strike remained pretty low into rank one.  Finally I checked my level and I was well over the 30% mark in this low XP grind.

I continued on the road, until I found the road to the west until I found the road to the north.  Overall, most of my time being a knight was spent walking, and while I’m sure that was therapeutic, it was also boring.  The crossroads did contain the remains of a small hamlet though.

“So the orcs are burning the outlying settlements,” I said as I walked through a burnt out building.  There were no people here that I could find, though I suspected if I went through the remains of the buildings I was not going to be happy with the results.

“Yes, my quest indicates that Grimdar, the conqueror, has conquered the human kingdom in this region, so the Magical Sword Knights were summoned to respond,” said Justice.

“Is it usually just one guy,” I asked.

“Our numbers are few, but our skills are powerful,” said Justice.

“Of course,” I said dropping a piece of wood and continuing up the road.  “It just seems that more than one Knight would respond to something like this.”

“Lest you forget, Blade Backbiter was here, undoubtedly scouting for another Knight,” said Justice.

“So do we get a scout,” I asked.

“Not at this time, squire,” said Justice.  “We are only doing easy quests until such a time as you are properly advanced.”

“Yes, and there was a scout,” I said.

“Scouts are only available for quests of great peril,” said Justice.

We continued walking for a bit, proprably ten, fifteen, okay three hours before Justice finally cleared his throat.  You’d think that I’d have prodded him earlier, but that sword talked a lot and I was just happy for the silence.

“We may be in trouble,” said Justice.

“Whatever do you mean oh Magical Sword,” I said as we stopped at a creek and I splashed some water on my face.  The road was overgrown here and there was obviously no traffic on what should have been a busy road.

“What you may not have realized is that scouts only go on dangerous missions, and Backbiter was slain,” said Justice.  “That means his companion, a scout or possibly even a ranger, was slain as well.”

“The person holding the weapon,” I offered.

“Yes, which means there is another knight here,” said Justice.  “Which means that this place is dangerous enough to have a scout.”

“Should we leave,” I asked.

“Not yet, though I can bring up a portal to return us to the Earth Fortress,” said Justice.

“I think we should keep looking, possibly restart the resistance, at minimum that would help the Knight doing whatever it is he is doing,” I said.

Justice was quiet for a moment, “You may be right.  We shall continue to the next camp and free the prisoners.”

“Excellent, and the potion trainer,” I said as we continued down the road.

Chapter 15: Another glorious town

“So that’s grimdar,” I said looking at the painting on the gate.  It was dark, and I was being quiet so no one had noticed us, yet.  The town looked similar to Nordrin, just slightly smaller and somewhat uglier.  If that was possible.

Two healthy sized orcs were watching the gate, but couldn’t see me from the road because I suspected they really weren’t paying that much attention.  I could have easily offed both with my bow, but I didn’t really want to deal with the outcome of that if I could avoid it.

The area around the town was fairly normal, with large fields surrounded by yet more fields.  People liked to eat, and hopefully nothing interesting was going to happen here.

Then I heard the scream.

“We need to help that woman,” said Justice.

“Do we really?” I asked looking at the gate.  It was closed and made of stout wood.  The wall was well over my maximum jumping height, even if there was something nearby I could use for extra height, and there wasn’t.

“Of course, it is the sworn duty of all knights,” said Justice.

The walls looked similar to Nordrin so I supposed we could get out easily enough.  I went to the side of the wall and lassoed one of the bastions.  Again, competent guards would have noticed but the orcs didn’t seem to be paying much attention.  I climbed up the wall nearly effortlessly.  I could do about twenty pull ups on Earth.  Now I could fully climb up a rope just using my arms and I was gaining more than an arm’s width of distance each grab.  I guessed somewhat close to right and found the stairs quickly enough.  Two hops later I was in the town, where hopefully the whole population wasn’t orcs.

That would suck.

I hid an alley until I spotted several humans rush past.  They were heading towards something and I decided to follow, from the alleys of course.  It wasn’t hard.  The buildings were constructed with regular firebreaks so I had plenty of space to work with.  There was a platform with several orcs on it.  They were holding court and a single young man, with a very high pitched voice, was begging for his life.

“This man was found guilty of the crime of usury,” said the orc.

“That is lending money without a license,” said Justice.

“I thought it was for a high interest rate,” I said watching the orcs.  There were four, two large ones that looked about the same size as the slave captain, and a thinner one with a lanky archer’s build.  The lead orc was a medicine ball of an orc.  He was a total unit of ice cream.  He was pulling the other orcs into his orbit.

He was fat.

I hated minimizing someone’s life down to a singular point, but the big fat fatty was eating a drumstick while he talked.  He didn’t need a drumstick.  That little kid needed a drumstick.

“We should rush out there to aid that man,” said Justice as I watched the crowd.  They weren’t as upset at the man’s predicament as I’d expect if he was helping anyone.

“He was ripping them off and not giving the big guy a cut.  Are there any more orcs,” I asked.

“Yes,” said Justice.

The patrol was grabbing everyone and forcing them to go to the center of town.  It was four orcs, and they all looked positively bored at their mission.  No one really protested, and their beatings were purely proforma.

This town was pacified, we could probably go.

“We must help them,” said Justice.

“What is it with you and all this violence,” I grumbled, looking at the orcs.  As the people in the last house cleared out the big one spoke.

“We need them all in the center of town for the sacrifice, we will split up to hit the remaining homes.”

The lanky orc shook his head, “We should just be killing them in their homes, it would be faster.”

“Without the ritual, it does not matter,” said the big one.  “We must hurry before the warlock gets here.”

“Warlocks are bad news,” said Justice.  “They do not care about human life,  they will kill everyone in their mad persuit of pwoer!”

“What should we do,’ I asked.

“Kill all the orcs, it si the only way you will become powerful enough to fight the leaders,” said Justice.

I shook my head.  Fortunately, I didn’t like orcs so it wasn’t too hard of a sale.  I snuck up behind the first pair as they moved towards a nearby house.  When they started pounding on the door, I simply walked up behind them and burned a point of stamina.  The two strikes were at blurring speed.

The door opened and a young man stared at me, and the two dead orcs.

“I am a knight, they are brining in a warlock to sacrifice the whole town,” I said.

If the man had any questions, they ended there.  “We must warn everyone.”

“Do so but quietly, if you were a warlock where would you be,” I asked.

“Probably the boss’ house,” said the man, pointing to a room on the second floor of the biggest house in town.  There was a purple light flickering through the windows.

“That tracks,” I said, walking down the street until I found the other two orcs.  They sent away one couple and were going to the next house.  I crept up behind them with my sword at the ready and burned dexterity.

I aimed for the bigger one first, severing his neck form the rear.  The follow up strike to the lanky one missed as he spun to the side at extreme speed, where he drove a dagger into my belly.  Justice clattered to the ground.

“You can’t think none of us possess skills, you loud stupid idiot,” laughed the orc as he pulled up on the blade.  “Any last words?”

“Knee,” I groaned and used power to drive my foot into the orcs knee, bending it backwards with an audible crack.  The orc screamed, pulling the dagger free in a spray of my blood.

I landed on the ground next to Justice and grabbed the hilt of the sword as a wave of blue energy washed over me.  I thrust the sword into the orc’s face, killing him and realizing that everything felt wrong.  An instant later cleanse washed over me.

“You were poisoned,” said Justice.

“That asshole, I’d kill him again if he wasn’t already dead,” I muttered getting back to my feet.  The dagger was gone, absorbed by Justice.  I’d look at it later.