After the disapointment that was looting that orc, I cut it's left ear off and threw it into my storage. According to Nix, we would need that as proof that we had actually done the job.

  Resuming our sneaky approach, we followed the tracks that the orc had left behind. It was fairly safe to assume that they would lead us to the orcs' camp.

  We were proven right even faster than we had expected, however, when we heard what sounded like nonsensical yelling. Clearly, those came from our targets. Unfortunately, there seemed to be more than a few orcs screaming, judging by the volume. It did make it so that we didn't really need to worry about being quiet, at least.

  "Is it me or are they a bit loud? I wonder what's up with that." (Dragonfly)

  "I don't know, but it's annoying." (Nix)

  Her ears were pinned back and she had a very obvious scowl on her face. Beastfolk generally had sharper senses than other races, but that obviously had it's drawbacks, as shown by Nix's reaction to loud noises.

  It didn't take long for us to find the camp. Unfortunately, while the quest had announced that we would be dealing with about half a dozen orcs, there were clearly far more than that. In fact, after doing a rough estimate, I calcuted that there were around thirty orcs in there. There were a couple tents made of pelts here and there, so I couldn't know the exact number.

  "We absolutely can't just charge head-on." (Dragonfly)

  It was annoying to admit, for some reason, but this simply was not a fight that we could win. We needed some sort of strategy here.

  "This is weird, orcs normally don't form groups this rge. They spend too much time fighting each other to be able to do that. Oh, I know! They must have some sort of big boss keeping them in check!" (Nix)

  "That would make sense, but what do we do here? If there's a boss, it will probably be far stronger than regur orcs." (Dragonfly)

  This was an issue. We just did not have a way to deal with this.

  "Good point..." (Nix)

  "Well, let's go over our advantages. First, they don't know that we are here. Second, we can easely beat one orc each. Third, we are way smarter than those monsters." (Dragonfly)

  "We also have the power of friendship! Meanwhile, they all hate each other!" (Nix)

  That was a good point, actually. The orcs were all screaming, but it looked more like they were yelling at each other than anything. They weren't really sticking together.

  "True, we could probably trick them into leaving the camp one by one. How would we do that, tho..." (Dragonfly)

  "I know! I could throw small ice balls at their heads until they start to investigate! And then we pick them off when they are alone." (Nix)

  Working out the exact details of our strategy took a bit longer, but that didn't really end up being important.

  Nix sent a small ice projectile at the back of one of the orc's head. It turned around with it's fist raised, accidentally punching another one in the face. The victim fought back and that's how we accidentally started a brawl in the orc camp.

  "I guess that that works too." (Dragonfly)

  "This is pretty fun to watch!" (Nix)

  About half of the orcs had knocked each other out when what looked like a rger orc stepped out of one of the tents. It was about 1.5 times the height of the other orcs and had more than 2 times more muscles. It was still just as ugly, however. It let out an extremely loud roar, causing all of the conscious orcs to stop fighting.

  "What's that thing?" (Dragonfly)

  "An high orc, maybe? I don't really know much about those." (Nix)

  The high orc then proceeded to go around attacking all of the other orcs who were still standing and knocking them out. That was probably some sort of punishment for disobeying a rule or another, but the result was pretty convenient for us. We only had one opponent to fight now.

  Our pn had worked out brilliantly. Sure, it hadn't given the intended result, but we wouldn't compin.

  "So, we go attack that guy now? I want to stab him." (Nix)

  "Yeah, he's alone. We can probably take a high orc in a fight. Actually, do you know how strong they are?" (Dragonfly)

  "No, but they can't be stronger than the power of friendship! The power of friendship is the strongest force in the world, nothing can defeat it!" (Nix)

  I wasn't too sure as to how true that cim was, but I decided to not argue about it. It was, after all, a really good skill. Probably not the strongest, but it was still extremely useful.