Chapter 31: Elsewhere – Angela Melcroft

Angela sat staring into the campfire as the camp seemed to slowly come alive around her. She was a woman of smaller stature standing around 5'4" (162.5 cm)and weighing around 135lbs (61.2 kilos). Her brown hair moved with the breeze as she squinted her blue eyes in thought. She hadn't gotten an ounce of sleep last night as she had been up all night looking at the maps her scouts had bought from the closest Minotaur city.

Sipping on the surprisingly good coffee that her group had gotten from another city they had passed by, she stood up and stretched. She had a lithe warrior's body with muscles cording down her arms, stomach, and legs. After a little over a month being on this hellhole of a planet she wouldn't even recognize her old self. Straightening her outfit, she brushed off her butt from any dust from the stump she had been sitting on. Her legs were clad in leather pants while she wore a vest that left her arms free over her upper body. A bow was strung across her chest with the string in front of her and the wood of the bow on her back. An engraved quiver sat at her hip, the three engravements allowed for any arrows fired to be returned to the quiver, any broken arrows to slowly fix over time, and even if she flipped the quiver upside down no arrows would come out unless she purposefully grabbed one to pull it out.

Walking back to her main tent she observed as the other women in the camp began their own daily routines. She hadn't given the order to move out yet so none of them were trying to tear the camp down as of yet.

There was a total of 117 others in the camp other than herself, all of them but one were women. The group had started when she as a collective noble had summoned 10 women on the first day she arrived in the world. They had been doing well but because she hadn't thought to place her gate in a safe area she didn't realize she had placed it in Ogre territory. After 4 days she had a total of 37 citizens under her, it was that day everything had changed.

The Ogres had attacked their camp where 12 people had been left to build and watch over it. By the time she and the remaining 25 people had returned from hunting and scouting they found the ogres drunk on alcohol they had brought when they raided. She and her people had fought and won, but it was a pyrrhic victory. All that was left was herself and 12 others, 7 men and 5 women. Knowing that one of the Ogres had run when the fighting was dying down Angela made the tough decision to take the stone from the summoning gate and lose her nobility.

She had left and become wanderers in the Ogres territory, making their way around at night while avoiding Ogres in the day. Eventually they had come across another noble who had lost almost everything. His name was Kevin and he had 15 subordinates. He was very arrogant even after losing his own summoning gate to ogres just like her. He claimed that since he brought more subordinates he should be the leader of their new group of 29 total. The men under her also agreed that Kevin should lead them as "a man is stronger than a woman." Hearing her own people side with Kevin she had conceded and allowed him to take charge of their fledgling group. They had wandered around picking fights with Ogre raiding parties.

It was not easy fighting Ogres, they stood 8' (244cm) tall and wore only loin clothes. Hygiene was definitely not in their dictionary as you could usually smell them before even hearing them, which said a lot as Ogres were extremely boisterous, they were loud and constantly speaking with their booming voices that could be heard over a mile away. They had pale beige skin and what looked like callouses or boils covering their bodies. Most of them fought with primitive tools such as tree branches or clubs. Never once had Angela seen an Ogre archer. She, however, had seen an Ogre Shaman, and that was when she started losing hope of coming out of the area alive.

Kevin had charged in like usual wielding no tactic whatsoever as he claimed, "there is only 5 of them and 37 of us stop being a coward". Well, turns out a Shaman is an Ogre who had evolved once and had gotten enough magic training to learn how to use it. She still remembered the smell as those around her burned alive as the Shaman had spit fire from his hands as of they were flame throwers.

Their group had run away from that fight and when they regrouped they found there were only 23 people left. Of those left there were 11 women (6 from her village, 5 from his) and 12 men (4 from her village, 8 from his) including both her and Kevin. It was at this point the others voted for her to lead them out of the Ogres territory, of course Kevin wasn't happy with this, but one of the men who had been a silent bystander in everything voted for her along with all the women, so she won the vote 12 to 11.

After that incident they began making their way in a straight line, her thought was eventually they would have to leave the Ogres territory. Along the way they found some Ogre camps and in these camps they found prisoners, both male and female. The males had been beaten badly, but the females had it worse as most of them had been used for the Ogres entertainment.

She and her band of people had slowly freed more and more people from these camps or caravans until finally after 3 days of seeing their last Ogre their scouts found a city ahead. Upon the wall were Minotaur's standing guard in full plate armor with specialized helmets that fit their horn and bovine head. At this point there were around 276 of them in the group and Kevin had been a constant thorn in her side as he had been whispering in people's ears about how bad of a leader she was whenever she would make a decision.

She had sent a scout to the city to act as a diplomat, they returned with the good news that the minotaur's were friendly and invited them to stay in the city. Not wanting to fall into a trap Angela was hesitant to allow her group into the city as she was worried it was a trap to get them in the walls and enslave them or worse. She decided to send a group to use the Ogres currency made of gold and silver to buy food, water, and supplies for their group. At this decision Kevin finally made his move on her, he denounced her and said she just didn't want to lose control over them now that they could all be free. He claimed that the minotaur's were friendly and that they all deserved an equal share of the gold and silver collected from the Ogre corpses.

Angela tried reasoning back, but Kevin would just talk over her as a majority of the men would drown her out with booing and derogatory quips about women. Eventually she gave up and allowed them to divvy up the gold and silver equally amount the 276 of them. She said anyone that wanted to go to the city with Kevin was welcome, they were free to do as they pleased.

With that Kevin moved off to head to the city and all, but one man followed him. There were some women who had also left with Kevins group too. She was left with 76 subordinates after that, not wanting to have a target on her back she quickly sent the 5 women left form her original village to tag along with his group at the back and gain entry to the city. Their goal was to get as many resources as possible with the remaining gold and silver pooled together. Angela would retreat a day's journey with the remainder of the group back towards Ogre territory and wait for the 5 there.

She didn't realize how tense she was until the 5 showed up at their camp a day and a half later riding on horses. They let everyone know the offer from the Minotaur's was genuine and they had even seen other races in the bustling city. They reported that Kevin had befriended the War Chief of the city and had already begun living a hedonistic life.

After hearing this update Angela gathered the others and told them what the scouts had said. She offered that they could also leave and go enjoy themselves in the city. Surprisingly no one had decided to go back, but they instead doubled down that they trusted her leadership over Kevin's and if she thought settling in that city was a bad idea then they would agree.

After that she led them on multiple raids into Ogre territory from the edge of the Minotaur territories. They would resupply in a city and buy a few horses here and there as they would ride into Ogre land and utilizing their bows from the backs of the horses they would rain arrows down upon the Ogres who could never catch them. It was from these raids that they would gain more gold and more subordinates to fight.

They mainly found women in the Ogre camps with the Ogres having killed most of the males, but the few males they would find would always decide to join a city instead of riding a horse and shooting a bow. The only man who stayed had been the silent one named Jerric, one of her original summons. He had taken on a guard-like role, standing guard, and watching her back. He was always silent though and nerve once said a word, just gesturing when she directly addressed him.

Weeks of raids had led her to where she was now, with 117 subordinates that all carried bows and had at least two horses a piece. They all had rings of holding, that they bought from the Minotaur's, where they stored months of rations for themselves and their steeds.

Angela had been looking at a map that one of her scouts obtained from a city close by, it showed that about 6 days journey into Ogren Territory there was a mountain range called the crater mountains. They made a ring around a deep crater that had been created around a thousand years ago. The Ogres wouldn't go into the mountains as they thought them cursed based on the stories their elders passed down over the years. So even though these mountains were surrounded by Ogre territory they were uninhibited and left alone.

Her plan was to go into this "crater", explore it, and set up a permanent base in it where she could then attack the Ogres from. Giving the order to her second in command Angela began breaking down her tent to move out.