<Ranak POV>

Ranak had one broken arm, his left. He had small cuts all over his body and was exhausted. In front of him lay the corpse of the huge ork that had a huge club. He looked around and saw bodies of his men and of orks. Less than half of his hunting group were now standing.

This was near to the worst situation he could think of, even though they had won the fight.

Ranak started to look back on recent events.

 

Ranak had led his hunting group to hunt for the pale man. He left Lothark behind because he was older and a bit slow now. Also Lothark could be helpful in camp. They soon found traces of the pale man and followed him going southwest. The direction made him nervous. He hoped that no orks were in the contested lands.

Ranak decided to continue the chase, mainly because he could tell they were close. He could let his men hunt independently in small groups but he decided not to. This is because the pale man had already defeated a group of three but also because he was afraid that those groups would run into orks. It was best to keep his group together to limit the possibility of meeting the orks and to fight together if they did.

They found where the paleman had slept the night before, they were probably within an hours' distance of him. They picked up their pace a bit. However, somethinginterfered with their hunt.

A fire started, not far in front of them. Ranak led his group quickly towards the smoke and soon saw the flames. It had gotten big quickly, since he did not see the smoke earlier. Ranak cursed his bad luck….. but was it really luck? Something told him that this fire was not natural. 

He thought of going around the fire, but it seemed to be getting bigger at a fast enough pace to make them have to take a huge detour to go around it. He then looked at the sky, after a bit of thought he realized that it will probably rain soon.

Ranak decided to conserve the strength of his group and to use that extra energy to run when the rain starts. 

He did not have to wait long, only a day. The rain fell. They waited until the fire was put out and the rain was no longer pouring. They then ran.

Ranak found the trail of the pale man and chased it. Soon this hunt would be over.

Again, the hunt was disrupted. Ranak and his group heard some roars. It was obviously the orks.

He had his group crouch down and was preparing to break off the hunt when someone broke through the bushes. It was the pale man.

Somehow the pale man escaped the spear storm alive, and Ranak could not stop the young pups from charging forward after the retreating paleman. He cursed them under his breath. He will punish them later.

Ranak led the rest of his men to chase them. They soon found themselves in a confrontation with an ork group.

There was yelling and curses. Ranak was able to talk to the ork leader. He hopes of not having a conflict with the orks so as to avoid war, but it was a fruitless endeavor.

The Ork Leader demanded that the Ulf warriors leave “Ork land”. Ranak argued that according to the peace agreement, this land was neutral land. He also added that they only wanted the pale man. The Ork Leader asserted that this was “Ork land” and he added that the pale man was on their land so orks will deal with him in a way they see fit. 

Ranak considered leaving the paleman to the orks, but he knew that his Great Jarl would never be pleased that he gave into an ork threat. He might even be punished.

When Ranak refused, the Ork attacked. 

It was a bloody fight. Both sides were about even in number. The orks were bigger and stronger, but the Ulf warriors had slightly better weapons, and worked better together. The fight was even for a little while, until Ranak managed to kill the Ork Leader. Then most of the orks were killed but a few escaped. 

Ranak was not in a good mood. He soon found something else to be upset about.

Right after the fight began, Ulok, one of the young pups and the only one to survive a confrontation with the pale man, charged forward chasing after the pale man as he escaped. He now found his corpse.

Ranak really wanted to kill that pale man. He blamed him for this entire trouble, however, there was nothing he could do. He lost most of his group and all of the survivors were injured. More importantly, he had bigger problems.

They were going to have another war with the Orks. 

Ranak needed to rush back to inform the Great Jarl of what happened. It did not matter if he was punished at this point.

Ranak gathered his men and went back to the camp.  

 

<MC POV>

I kept moving, trying to run when my energy allowed it for the rest of the day but had to stop for the night. I had become used to avoiding monsters but I could not do it at night because I could not see almost at all.

My side bled the entire time, but I had managed it enough to not bleed a lot. However, by evening I was incredibly faint. I was also soaked from the rain. I had been wearing my poncho but it had a big slash whole from that last guy I killed and it had smaller holes from the battery explosion. It was starting to get cold so I feared that because I was wet that I might freeze to death. Lacking blood and food did not help.

I ate everything I had until I only had  one each of the oatmeal and potato packets. I was still slightly hungry, but I had to continue. 

I desperately looked for a place to take shelter. 

I found a cave when it was nearly dark on the side of a hill. It had a small entrance. I pulled out a hatchet and one big knife as I entered. I soon found bones, quite a few bones. However, I knew it was not from a beast. They were traps. 

I was stunned and my first thought was to leave, but that was a quick no. I was pretty sure I would die outside and I would rather test my luck here.

I started to think. This made me realize that these traps must be old, since the bodies are bones. Next no one cared about these traps anymore since they did not take the time to remake the traps and take care of the bones. Which means that they might be gone.

I then calmed my breath and prepared to venture forth. I pulled out my lighter and entered the cave. I had my big knife in the other hand.

In a cave without light, surprisingly a lighter can give a decent amount of light. 

I found a few more bodies as I went as I avoided the leftover traps. Most of these traps seemed pretty sophisticated but already used. It looks like most of them needed resetting. I was thankful for the beasts that died for me. 

I then heard a click as I put my foot down which scared me shitless. Then I heard a BANG and felt like I dropped a bit, but only a bit. I quickly moved off that part of the ground. I heard what sounded like gears getting stuck.

I guess that these traps are so old that maybe they don’t work anymore.

I sighed with relief. 

I kept moving and saw a door. In front of the door I saw a dead guy. This guy had tusks like that other guy I had killed before. I wondered how this guy managed to fit inside this cave. I had no idea at first but then I felt stupid. 

I could hear rain hitting stone in this cave, that means there is a hole. I guess this guy fell in. I then returned my focus to the door, I was careful because it looked like that guy had been killed by a trap right by the door. As I was looking at the door and around it. I saw a panel like thing made of stones that had buttons made of stones as big as my hand. There were carvings which I could not decide what it was. It could be drawings or writings I guess, it was hard to tell because they were faded. I had no idea. 

I wondered if those stone buttons were the method to open the door, but I had no idea if there was a certain order to press to open. What if I did it wrong?

I then looked more closely at the walls of the cave. They were not cave walls, but stacked stones. I was greatly surprised. 

I did not expect this entire cave to be man made! How old is this place?!

I now knew that I was in a ruin of some sort. 

I looked at the door again and noticed that even though it looked intact at first glance it seemed to have a huge crack. 

I tried to push the door and most of it did not budge, but I felt a tiny bit of movement on the upper right side.

I grabbed my hatchet and used the backend to hammer the door.

Now why was I being so risky? I was not entirely sure, I had a feeling that this place and especially behind this door was something dangerous but at the same time I felt like that there was an opportunity. This feeling was kind of instinctual and last time I ignored it I nearly died.

Also, I was in a rough spot and needed to be risky. Maybe I could stay in this portion, but it was a bit windy and the wind was making this portion of the cave a bit cold. I hoped that farther in there was a somewhat warmer area.

Whack Whack Whack.

The stone door started to give way, but also I started to bleed more.

I persevered and soon the door collapsed on the right upper side. I then crawled through.

 

I was inside, it was almost pitch black besides my lighter. It was less windy, so that was nice. I slowly walked forward exploring a bit before I settled down.

After a few minutes I had an idea of what this place could be, a laboratory. There were vials of stuff that was probably liquid at one point, there were blades, axes and other weapons that seemed to be the focus of this lab and there were crystals that looked like the fire crystals I used to have. I had lost the crystals I had gotten from the chicken and that deer when my backpack exploded.

I now knew that those crystals were important or at least a matter of research. 

I then noticed a big table to one side that was mostly clean except for one sword. The sword was a bit longer than the knife I had gotten from the guy with tusks I killed. It was a solid sword, obviously not a rapier, but besides that I did not know much about swords. All I knew was that the blade looked well crafted, better than anything I had seen so far in this world so far. The sword also had several crystals, like the chicken crystal, embedded in the sword guard itself. 

The sword seemed to call for me, or maybe it was just me wanting something that looked like it was good quality goods. Either way, I reached for the sword. As I did I was shocked and jumped back.

There was a chair by the table and there was a skeleton sitting on it that I did not see until I had gotten closer.

I calmed myself down and studied the skeleton a bit. It was small, obviously shorter than me, but the bones were thick, alot thicker than I thought bones of a human would be. It seemed to be wearing a robe, necklace and a few other things. In its hand was a book.

I carefully grabbed the book. It was sealed and self contained, in other words it was a boxlike book. I had no idea how to open the book.

I put the book on the table and grabbed the necklace. It had two stones in it, like the chicken stone, one was red and the other was blue. As soon as I touched the necklace, I felt a strange feeling but it did not feel bad. 

It feels like my body is a little warmer when I hold this necklace. Is it a healing device or something?

I did not know, but I knew that the necklace could not make my situation much worse. I put on the necklace. 

I then reached and grabbed the sword. Again that strange feeling like when I grabbed the necklace, but it was different. I still felt it was not bad, but I could not describe the feeling this gave me.

I then began to look through the room again. I needed to find a place to sleep.

I soon found another door. This one was completely intact but it only had one push stone like button to the side with no symbols or drawings. I pushed the button.

Bang, crack and other mechanical/stone noises soon followed.

The door then moved to the side. I carefully entered and looked inside.

This room was much smaller and its purpose was obvious. There was a bed and a few chests inside and one small corner table made of stone.

The bed was made of stone, but on top were blankets to make it soft and there was a pillow. 

I was relieved, I put the sword down, took off my wet clothes but still wore the necklace. I found the push button on this side and pressed it to close the door. I then got on the bed and in between the blankets. It was a bit hard, but it was better than I had been dealing with in the direct wild recently. 

I soon fell asleep, or maybe I passed out.