The plan was simple which was the hallmark of a good one, or at least that's what my dad said. Too many moving parts made plan fragile as it needed very precise requirements in order to be enacted properly.
It was as follows, me and a hundred elites would sneak up on the what appeared to be the most isolated small settlement belonging to the High Ogres. Their Settlements seemed to built around the Bioluminescence oases of light against fields of night. This was important because we could sneak up on them without their knowledge as long as we moved slowly, about a pre-intergration Human's running pace, we could strike and retreat under the cover of darkness.
Meanwhile Anastasia would focus on watching the Yeties and Giants well also fortifying the stone palace in case we where seriously outgunned.
Wishing farewell to Anastasia I turned and the puppets followed. We descended the slope of the hill before turning in the general direction of the target settlement. Using the small light of the ruin to guide us we walked into the desert of night. Small pockets of bioluminescence plants and shining crystals had small shrubs huddled around them. I used my [Geomancy] to guide me as I moved through the thick blanket of blindness. There's an anxiety that sat at the back my mind as my eyes where I could barely tell the difference between them being opened or closed. Are slow pace made the journey even more mentally unstimulating.
However I saw more accurately, sensed a hill up ahead. Nestled below it tall walls of roughly cut stone created a ring of fortification. Climbing up the hill slowly to overlook the town with more vivid detail.
Cresting over the top of the hill I saw the make up of the town. It looked a lot like one of those Hollywood stereotypical hippie communes. Pitched tents littered hapazardly inside the walls. Around the tent town the rare trees and foliage of the landscape grew freely. They reminded me of olive trees in the way they grew but there leaves where completely pitch black like tears of midnight dripping from the branches.
Honestly I could see why they lived around them they held some level of gravitas to them. My thoughts where interrupted by a system notification.
...
[Tutorial Quest]
You have stumbled across an encampment of [High Ogres] a species of Elevated Monster and most numerous of the three species. You may ally them or Kill them.
Exterminate the [High Ogres]: [0/10,000]
Exterminate the [Deep Yetis]: [0/6,000]
Exterminate the [Low Caste Cave Giants]: [0/250]
...
The quest provided great detail on the numbers of each and it was pretty standard layout though their where a lot less Cave Giants than I thought but most likely do to them being stronger individually and having a easy to defend fortress I could fathom them holding up but that meant we were going to probably be on the sieging side of the battle this time.
Once again my attention was caught by the local life though this time it was the animals that grazed freely. They where numerous and large each one rising to the chin of the Ogres.
Moving on from the momentary distraction as my nerd brain tried to figure what might have driven thoss particular evolutionary trees and how the Ogres managed to feed themselves. Now that I thought about the chemical reactions of the microorganisms that created these osases of light must be using magic in order for these trees and vegetation to photosynthesize even with their deep black leaves absorbing more light then Earths green light.
Snapping out of it I finally focused on the inhabitants. They seemed to range between seven feet to the largest being nine feet. Though I had a feeling that these guys where the runts of the tree species. Moving on I saw that each one of them believed in some sort of neolithic second amendment because each one had a giant billy club of stone. Their weapons where strong but brittle, and would have been completely impractical if they didn't have the system enhanced strength to back them up.
Their appearances where a mix of human and a hairless hog with the lower portions of their faces slopeing out into a stunted snout with sharp tusks. Their eyes where pitch black with a very thin iris of brown. Each one had their own unique smattering of scars running up and down their bodies.
...
[High Ogre] Lvl: 20
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Rank Two Elevated Monster
...
Confirming that was a steady average took only a handful of minutes. Climbing back down into the abyss of night I formed a long shield wall each puppet standing abreast. Clutching my shield I activated the [Stygian Durability] ability of the shield. Next I activated a more than slightly ignored ability [Knight's Bulwark]. It was used less mainly due to it being better then [Force Field] only when I fought with others in formation. Which kinda made sense for a Knight class ability. As we pushed forward under the protection of my class ability once we hit the wall me and the puppets glided through the stone appearing on the other side. The far left flank of the puppets immediately came into contact with an ogre.
The Puppets stepped forward and speared the Achilles tendon of the ogre as it froze in shock before being cut down. A blood like fluid poured from the corpse I say blood like because their blood was completely transparent.
Like water but still as thick as blood. Their where sounds of commotion as the Ogres noticed the disturbance as me and the puppets cut down any we came across and knocked down tents as we came closer. A rather large ogre came hollering from the other side of the encampment raising his club high before it slammed down onto the barrier which held as the long blade of my sword cut him to ribbons before the puppets put him out of his misery.
As we mopped up the town the puppets began to pile up the bodies. Essentially I would be lugging back a huge amount of ogre corpses for the mad scientist Anastasia. The Ogres had nothing of interest to me besides the nuts of the trees that I was a hundred percent taking with me as well as few trimmings here and their of certain flowers and such.
Moving on from the Ogres me and the puppets moved back towards the ruins we had spawned at. The journey back was just as dull as the travel to the ogre town nothing but darkness and soft footfalls of the puppets to stimulate the senses.
Arriving at the ruins I saw as we climbed up that Anastasia had left the outside indistinguishable from when we arrived. The insides though where repaired with long silk webbing that held up the loose rocks. Anastasia was currently overseeing puppets as they hauled stones out of a collapsed hallway.
'Hey Anastasia I cleared the Ogre town, nothing out of the ordinary, well actually their was one thing I got the Tutorial Quest screen look...' as I got Anastasia's attention I shared the screen with her.
'Only two hundred and fifty Giants? That's odd but they'll probably get picked off last In case of any surprises.' Anastasia dismissed the screen In favor of inspecting the Ogres using puppets to move them around to get a better look.
'these will do wonderfully, do you need anything before you go and attack the Yeti?' Anastasia asked me looking up from her new materials only briefly.
'not really though I am going to take fifty more elites with me just in case.' I stated to which Anastasia nodded before dragging off the corpses deeper into the ruins.
Turning back I stopped by the 'Barracks' which was really a half standing tower where majority of the puppets stayed standing completely still. Grabbing the fifty more elites that I said I would I formed them up and checked their weapons. Seeing as everything was in order I moved on, once again plunging into the Inky black sea of shadows.
Our target was a Yeti fortification that had a bridge spanning to a nearby rock formation that acted as natural staircase to the rest of the cavern. Their were very few to no bioluminescence osases In this part though they still shined in the distance every now and then.
My small contingent of puppets made our way to the staircase that we would use to make our ascendant. The first thing we saw were torches made of some strange crystal that gave off a soft sea green glow.
Their I saw my first Yeti, massive was a simple and apt description of them. Each one had bright red monkey like faces with greyish fur with tails curled around them and stood roughly twelve feet tall with some. Ranging to fifteen feet tall. Each one was clad in bits of metal armor and wielded spear in their hands and had a strange knife like contraption on their tails as well. Looking above the guard outpost I saw a shelf of somewhat unstable rock. It would barely cost me any Mana to cause a rock slide, and if they did notice it they could write it off.
With an actionable plan I sent out a tendril of Mana, it stretched far and thin until it grazed the rock shelf. At this distance it took fine control to not over do it. Their where screeches of alarm as the rocks shook and fell causing it to bulldoze the fortifications.
Mentally commanding the Puppets into a tight rectangular formation I slammed the class ability [Knights Bulwark] into place the shimmering magical shield lit up around them as the puppets each had shield and was ready to go. The Puppets in the middle began to huck makeshift spear and rocks at the surviving Yeti.
It was chaos and easy pickings right up to halfway up the rocky staircase. A line of Yeti formed and tried to attack, to which I simply caused the earth to slant off to the side. A few completely lost their balance and where killed by the sharp rocks below however a few managed to catch them selfs on the rock by sticking their tail daggers into the ground. When they did so the earth around it glowed as torrent of hostile magic blocked my [Geomancy].
However that didn't stop me and my puppets from cutting them to pieces. They were slowly cut away, piece by piece before they too slid off the rocky formation. From their it was a slow methodical battle for a little bit but with most of the small settlements guards being caught in the rock fall once they died the others didn't stand a chance.
When the last Yeti in the settlement died I began to loot. I found out that their armor was made out of pig iron which contained very little to no carbon making it brittle. Once again I packed up the yeti on a rock sled but this time I had the Puppets pull it and only used my Geomancy to hide the sound and tracks as we left the metal settlement intact.
This trip came to an end soon as I once again made out the silhouette of the ruins against the back drop. I couldn't find Anastasia in the maze of hallways and the puppets moving around but I stacked up the dead and had the puppets peel of their amour for study as they where far to big for me to give to the puppets.
