"See told you the came from eggs, I am the bestest dragon!" Violet proudly announced to her resigned companion who had now been hearing variations of the same thing for the past 10 minutes since the battle with the 12 Orcs.
"Yes as you have told me multiple times already Violet. I get it your great. Can we please move on to figure out what we need to do next?" Luna finally responded with a exaggerated sigh.
"Well that's obvious, we just need to kill more of them!"
"I mean, your technically not wrong but that just seems a touch too simplistic no? Shouldn't we try to investigate what is causing the orcs to produce so many? Or at least learn how fast they do reproduce."
Violet thought about it and did see the logic in that, after all you needed to know about your foe if you wanted to defeat them efficiently. "Okay so do we keep hunting down here or do we go have a look from up on the cliff to see what we can figure out from up there?"
Now it was lunas time to be thoughtful, whilst it might be worthwhile staying down here killing any hunting parties that wander out if they don't figure out more then this could just become an endless slaughter. "I think let's spend a few more hours down here and then head up the cliff to see what we can figure out. They will need to replenish their numbers more if we kill a lot of them today."
Violet saw no issues with that plan of action so agreed to it without any fuss. And so the deadly duo proceeded to engage in 2 more fights that day. The first was with a similarly sized hunting party with 2 experienced orcs building 10 fresh recruits. Only this time the 'Hatchlings' were on between lvl 14-18 marking a noticeable step up from the first group they encountered. The last was just a small party of 4 orcs who posed no real threat to our companions and without much issue they cleaned up the fight. Only Violet gained a level today as they were just too far below Luna in level.
Whilst Violet technically was 10 levels higher than what her level suggested, thanks to her first evolution which reset her level she was significantly stronger than any regular creature her level.
With that last fight the two girls made their way back to the switchback path up the cliff side, they didn't bother being as stealth as before and with their improved stats the time it took them to make it to the top of the cliff was drastically reduced. They made it back to the spot that overlooked the orcs village just as the sun was beginning to set.
Looking down over the village quite a lot had changed since last they looked. Now the number of orcs had indeed decreased, not by the same amount as they had killed though. All in Luna and Violet had defeated around 50-60 orcs which should have been around a half of the total population. Yet looking down the duo made some worrying observations. Firstly their were a lot more undead. Whereas before their were maybe 30-40 wandering around now their numbers had dramatically increased numbering almost 60 from what they could see. That didn't even take into account the number that was likely hiding within the cave that they regularly rotated in and out off.
As for the orcs well they looked to be sitting just under 100. Which meant that they could replenish their numbers at a terrifying rate indeed. Couple that with the ever growning number of undead that are appearing and things started to become quite troublesome indeed.
"Well that's really not looking great, how are they getting their numbers back so quickly!?" Luna bemoaned, after all her and violets multiple days of extended battling had resulted in a net loss of 10-20 orcs even when they had defeated triple that number.
"Well we always could just charge right in from the front?" Violet suggested. "We don't have to go in too far just go in kill everything that we can and then retreat when we start to get overwhelmed."
Luna chewed her bottom lip as she thought that over for a moment, her eyes never leaving the village below. "That could work. It would be risky but we know we can fight off a large amount of them at once by now."
However, as they were saying this Violet's eyes widened as she spotted something that seemed quite important. "Hey Luna do you see that group of hatchlings exiting from that central building? No orcs entered that place since we have been up their but now a group of 10 just happen to walk out of it all at once. Seems suspicious."
Indeed Luna had spotted it, the building in question was the largest building in the entire village located right in the centre. For that number of orcs to suddenly exit from it all at once meant that it must be where the orcs keep coming from.
"Well I think we have our target for what we should be attacking first. We should try to destroy that building or whatever is inside of it. Might give us a better shot at defeating these orcs once and for all!"
Luna could only agree, and with at least the barebones of a plan in order now they only needed to decide when they would launch their attack. "I think we should head down the cliff tonight and launch our attack just after first light. Unless you have a different idea?" Luna asked of her dragon companion.
"Hmm no that works for me. So shall we head back down then, don't think we will learn a whole lot more from up here any time soon."
With the final decision made the two companions turned away from the edge and began to make their way back to the now all too familiar decent. The mood was high but tindged with a hint of nervousness, after all this would be the first time that our two girls would be willingly rushing into such overwhelming numbers. But at least for Violet she couldn't get the grin off her face as she wondered how much fun tomorrow would be!