//------------------------------//
// Chapter 6: Orcs Are Basically Green Cavemen, Right? 
// Story: Dungeons and Dazzles 
// by Eyeswirl the Weirded 
//------------------------------//

"WHY-"

CHOP!

"WON'T-"

HACK!

"YOU-"

THUK!

"STAY-"

CRUNCH!

"DOWN?!"

WUMP!

And off came the head of the last orc in the outpost, following an effective show of Barbarian Berserking. Or maybe Adagio's panic just bubbled over into a blind, frantic rage? Sunset did tell her that orcs were like tougher versions of goblins, and not just because they were three times as tall and had much more health. Maybe she could have spent a little mana to cast some kind of crowd control magic, like Slow or Poison if she had them, to make things a little easier on Adagio, but at least she made sure they weren't hassled by archers from the other side of the battlements.

Luckily, she had an idea of how to bring Adagio's focus to something less stressful. "Also similar to goblins, orcs' equipment isn't worth much."

Resting the blades of her battleaxe against the ground and using the hilt to prop herself up, Adagio huffed. "Thought as much, their weapons look shoddy and their armor is just a mess of bone and rough leather."

Sunset smiled. "Is that your developing adventurer's instinct, or do you just critique others' fashion choices by default?"

Adagio snorted with amusement. "I was looking for weaknesses to exploit and couldn't help noticing a few details. Most of them had their sides and necks unarmored, but it was difficult to get a swing in with their arms raised. Their knees are usually completely uncovered, though, so I can at least floor a few for a moment to fend off the rest."

Sunset blinked in surprise.

She was... taking in that kind of info and making tactical decisions while wildly flailing her weapon? Does she use most of her brainpower on scheming by default?

And then Sunset remembered that this was the girl who quite possibly composed and enacted her plan to take over CHS on the fly, the only time it didn't work being when her enemies were bailed out by dumb luck. 

Would she have made for a more effective black mage if she'd been given spells, not strength? I'd have had to tell her about the kinds of spells available, but if-

"Hehe," exclaimed a giddy Adagio, now kneeling by a dead orc and holding up an ornate vial of bright, blue liquid, "just as I'd hoped; these 'orc' creatures carry potions too, and they look much more valuable than the ones we found on the goblins!"

Brushing off unwanted thoughts, Sunset smiled again. "Let's look for a treasure chest, too, they're bound to have had at least one stash around here."

They did, but without Aria to pick the lock, Adagio had to hack a hole in the box and pry the wood apart to get at the contents. Something about seeing a smart girl like Adagio reduced to brute force methods and the general, violent spectacle of the thing entertained Sunset far more than she felt was justified. That Adagio was wearing a chainmail miniskirt might have helped.

Their score was a half-dozen new potions, some gold, and a particularly shiny broadsword. As she was just getting used to the axe, Adagio opted to bag the sword and sell it later.

Continuing on the path from the outpost, they made their way toward the mouth of a canyon, the road leading downward into a cave.

"This is an ambush."

Sunset smiled. "Probably, but what makes you say so?"

"There are big, orc-sized holes in the walls leading down this ramp and I can see more of them standing on ledges along the sides of the canyon."

Glancing up, Sunset saw that she was right. Most likely archers, because most of them wouldn't survive if they jumped from where they were. "Huh, good spot check."

"What?"

"Hehe, nothin'! I'll take out the ones up high, you chop up any that get in close?"

"I-If they come from the caves and the path behind us for a pincer attack-"

"I'll be right here next to you," Sunset assured her with a soft smile, "okay?"

Adagio took a slow breath, then tightly gripped her axe, a determined look on her face. "Okay."

Patting her head or hugging her probably would have undermined the feeling of the moment, so Sunset settled for blasting the first orc she could see.

And the fight was on! 

Almost instantly, orcs charged out of the caverns, as anticipated, but a glance over the shoulder showed that none were charging in from the back, at least not yet. Archers took aim, but the adventurers' blocking spared them any damage, at least while the melee orcs were out of range. Sunset carefully aimed to fry each one with lightning until the others got close, then resorted to blasting the rest off the walls with explosive fireballs. By the time the last screaming, burning orc smashed against the floor of the canyon, Adagio was sinking her axe into the neck of the first melee orc. 

With some frantic swinging and careful use of icicle projectiles, the two dispatched the mob, looked around, looked at each other, smiled, and performed a high-five. 

They quickly looted the orcs at their feet, Sunset was given some mana potions, then they carried on, but when they were halfway down the canyon, many heavy, hurried footsteps were heard. It only took a glance to see more archers above and even more beady eyes in the caverns at their sides, rapidly getting closer.

Adagio was particularly distressed. "W-Why did they come back?!"

"Second wave, Dagi!"

"'Second'?!"

"No time, here we go!"

Once more, Sunset started with the archers, but with the difference in angle due to where they were standing now, she couldn't hit them with lightning as easily. Luckily, well-aimed fireballs could still reach around corners, and even blow away the rocky outcroppings on which the archers stood! She scored a free double-whammy attack when the stone and burnt orcs came sailing down to crush more orcs, though some did so worryingly close to her and Adagio. She didn't catch any sass for this over the sounds of snarling berserkers and clashing blades, so maybe her partner didn't even notice in the chaos.

Even when the archers were all gone, the orcs from the caves just kept coming, so she tried firing more explosive blasts into the caves in the hope of collapsing the tunnels. This worked for a few caves, but before Sunset knew it, she was out of mana.

"Dagi, can I get a magic poti-ack!!"

She was hit hard in the back of the head, sending her face-first to the dirt. Disoriented, she managed to flip over just in time to avoid a warhammer and see the orc that clearly did not respect tanking rules!

...Or maybe Sunset had worked up a lot of aggro with all her fireballs. Hard to tell. 

Either way, she still didn't have enough magic points to cast anything, again calling out as she shuffled away from the orc on her back. "Dagi, mana potion, please!!"

Looking her way, Sunset didn't get more than a panicked noise, Adagio being surrounded by at least five orcs that she desperately fended off while stepping over the ones that had big gashes on their legs. It was possible that her strategy was to knock down as many as she could and have the rest trample them with her, but either way, she was in no position to play Potion Duty. 

Things were getting exciting!

"Okay," Sunset said under her breath as her heartbeat quickened, "then let's try this!"

Throwing her weight forward to get to her feet and using that momentum to ram toward the advancing orc, she thrust the pointy tip of her crystal wand forward, puncturing his hide armor and drawing a satisfying squishy noise. The orc was still moving, so she quickly ripped it out, stabbed it into his torso again, then into his eye when he doubled over.

Proud of herself though she was, she was immediately set upon by three more orcs, who didn't give her any time to gloat over her latest triumph. Stepping back to avoid their swings as best she could, Sunset took a few hits anyway, which probably hurt less than real wounds from rusty hatchets and jagged machetes, but were still painful enough to make her hiss and grit her teeth. Immediately seizing that anger, she threw it all back at them with a very literal vengeance, stabbing her wand through fleshy orc throats even as she continued to lose health, which only made her stab harder and faster.

During one particularly fierce swipe, her wand snapped, leaving her unarmed.

Glancing around, she spied a broken spear, the splintered, wooden end connecting to the blade just longer than it needed to be to work as a handle. Noting that her mana had regenerated enough for one spell, she grabbed it, pointed it at the orcs between her and Adagio, and shouted "Fireball!"

To her immediate joy, the spear-tip cast her spell, immolating and blowing apart the bulk of the remaining orcs. 

"Yyyyyyes," cheered Sunset as she thrust the spear-tip into the air, "this is my wand now!"

She was startled by a little blue blur painlessly impacting her face, bursting into little shards of glass and a blueish effect. Connecting the dots between that and her mana bar now being close to full, she beamed, quickly blasting every standing orc with lightning, Adagio frantically chopping those on the floor. When the sound of orcish grunts and howls finally stopped, the two looked around, looked at each other, and smiled in relief. Sunset stepped closer, raising her hand for a high-five, to which Adagio responded by reaching into her satchel, raising her arm, and smashing a health potion against Sunset's hand.

With the added effect of glittering, glass shards and colorful effects in the air, Sunset broke into a wide grin. "Health potion high-fives might be my new favorite thing."

"Noted," she giggled while throwing a potion straight up, the healing vial coming right back down and shattering on her head to mend her own wounds, "let's see what they had on them."

It took almost ten minutes to sort through the loot of about two dozen dead orcs, especially when Adagio insisted on using her barbarian strength to move the rocks that had obscured some of the bodies (another sight Sunset could only observe in silence), but they came away with more potions than they'd used, a magic necklace of defense (which Adagio insisted Sunset have, both because she was the magic user and because her endurance stat wasn't as high), and a fat sack of gold.

When that was finally sorted out, it was onwards to the cave entrance!

"So, I don't know if it's going to matter, but most RPGs have a leveling system."

"Which is a...?"

While she was aware that, eventually, it would have to come to an end, Sunset continued to take great delight in Adagio's naivete about these things. "It's like staircase, but with power. You ascend in levels, get more abilities, higher stats, more health, all that fun stuff. I bring it up because after a fight like that, we definitely should have leveled up, but I don't think anything about us has changed."

"Hm. I suppose that could be a feature for the final game, but I assumed that our 'leveling' was based on our equipment, and there hasn't been much of that so far. I thought we'd at least come across things Aria or Sonata could use so we could give those to them later."

"Probably a smart loot system; only drops stuff those present can equip."

"Hm. Convenient."

"Convenience usually makes for better gameplay than frustrating realism."

She took a moment to think about it. "I do prefer some of what we've seen here to what would have happened were all of this real. Health potions are definitely far quicker and easier to use than first-aid kits."

Sunset beamed. "And that's why games are popular."

Smiling herself, Adagio rolled her eyes. "So, this place we're going; it's supposed to have one last boss monster, right? What kind of creature normally ends these adventures?"

"It varies. Like, a lot. Sometimes it's a big dragon, sometimes it's a flying sorcerer, sometimes it's a nightmarish Hell-beast of twisted flesh, protruding bone-spikes, exploding, acidic, pus-bubbles, bulbous eyes, chittering-"

"What the Hell is wrong with these people?!"

Sunset just laughed, but if this game really went the Dark path, they might end up having to fight something like that. Luckily, it seemed pretty light-hearted in its approach to fantasy violence, so maybe they could help Adagio build up some resistance before anything really gruesome appeared.

Come to think of it, how are Aria and Sonata with gore? Dagi was freaking out just seeing zombies.

Before she could ask, they walked into a big, wide, circular stone chamber, utterly vacant of anything but sand on the floor and torches on the distant walls. Though looking forward to the reaction, Sunset kept her voice gentle anyway. 

"Big, round arena with nothing else in it. You know what that means?"

Adagio gripped her axe tighter. "Plenty of elbow-room as we walk through, unmolested?"

It was all she could do to keep herself from giggling. "N-no, it-"

A rumbling sound shook the area as a large pile of sand steadily grew taller, revealing a towering, stone golem, its joints connected with big, glowing, yellow crystals.

Still smiling, Sunset pointed to it. "Boss fi-"

The flat look on Adagio's face was priceless. 

"I gathered."