Spiteful Healer

Chapter 110: Welcome to Kolz

“There it is, the river that Vihaan told us about.” Darkshot motioned ahead through the thick forest around them towards a clearing, where the group of five could hear the sound of running water.

It was morning, the sun was just now peeking up over the horizon and giving the sky a dark blue hue, with a chilly breeze blowing through the giant trees towering over them with their wide, sturdy trunks. They’d walked throughout the night without resting and managed to go undisturbed by the wildlife. The enemies around them transitioned overtime from low level 5 enemies up to level 20 and 25 enemies as they traveled further and further south.

Aegis was no longer holding Lina’s hand, as Pyri had suggested they practice their unarmed combat more and he’d agreed. The result was that the two of them had walked through the night while doing punch-kick-pose movements with every step. It didn’t slow the group down much, and luckily no one but Aegis’ viewers were around to watch them do it. Darkshot warmed up to it after a bit and started giving pseudo-advice on their form and technique, though in actuality all he was doing was repeating things Travis had said to him, Sherry and Rakkan.

As they passed from under the cover of the forest and into the clearing near the river they spotted several wild animals drinking from the calm flowing water. Some of the creatures scattered upon spotting them, but others just looked up, and then went back to drinking. Aegis recognized the lagnuks that did this, but some of the fleeing creatures he’d never seen before. One group of animals looked like a strange fantasy version of an elk and its family of young.

“So if we keep following this south, we’ll reach the Kolz forest.” Aegis confirmed outloud once the'd spotted it. The group continued without stopping to rest, following along the bank of the river as they were instructed, but by the time the sun had fully risen into the sky, the forest was noticeably beginning to look different around them. The trees which were once old, large and sturdy-looking were replaced by a different types of trees that Aegis had never seen before in his life, undoubtedly a fantasy tree that only existed in the game world.

One tree in particular that began to appear sparsely in the forest nearby drew his attention much more than the others when he spotted it for the first time. The trunk and bark of the tree was a reddish-orange color, and the leaves growing up on the top of it were yellow in the center, but the stems, veins and the outer rim of the leaves were bright green.

“Whoa, those are limren trees, right?” Rakkan said curiously as he pointed them out.

“I think so…” Lina looked at them curiously, causing Aegis and Pyri to stop punch-walking to look more closely.

“They look pretty.” Pyri said as she checked them out.

“Are they good for crafting?” Aegis asked curiously.

“Not sure, if I remember right, iron tools don’t work on them… If any player has chopped them down, they haven’t released to the public how they did it.” Rakkan answered. “We found some back in Puagas, but couldn’t put a dent in them.”

“I think you might need Mithral tools.” Lina said as she turned to smile at Aegis, but Aegis had a look of determination on his face suddenly and pulled out an iron woodcutting axe from his inventory, approaching the nearest limren tree as the others stopped to watch him. He pulled the axe back, and with all his might, swung at the tree with full force. It made a loud clunking sound as the blade of the axe bounced off the tree, not even making a scratch.

“Holy shit, that is weird.” Aegis said as he saw it happen.

“Told you.” Rakkan shrugged. Aegis turned to look at the group with a curious expression.

“Uh oh… I know that face.” Pyri said reluctantly with a sigh as she started going into her inventory while turning to check on Melon who had been following alongside her.

“What’s that face?” Lina asked her as she pulled out some feed for Melon.

“We’re gonna be here awhile.” She replied.

“He’s taking that as a challenge.” Darkshot groaned as he took a seat on the grass and took his unhatched egg in his hand, cradling to see how it was doing whilst losing interest in Aegis.

“Guys, relax, I’ll figure it out in no time. It can’t be that hard.” Aegis reassured them as he began pacing in front of the tree and looking at it carefully. In this time, Rakkan let out a shrug and joined Lina in walking to Aegis, and the three began looking at the tree intently.

Aegis put his ear up to the trunk and knocked on the wood to listen to the sound it made, trying to get a sense of the thickness and density, but by all accounts it sounded like normal wood. He looked around at the ground around it and saw that no leaves from the tree appeared to have fallen to the forest floor, so instead he started to climb the trunk up high enough to reach the lowest hanging branch, then grabbed at a leaf and attempted to yank it off, but he couldn’t.

Stubbornly, he got a good grip on the leaf and then let go of the trunk, hoping that his weight would do enough to yank the leaf off the branch as he fell to the ground, yet, that didn’t happen at all. He hung swinging off the leaf in the air as it remained stiffly attached to the branch - the branch didn’t even so much as bend downwards from his weight despite it not being that thick.

“Hah, that’s funny.” Darkshot pointed as he spotted Aegis swinging from the leaf.

“What the hell is up with this tree?” Aegis said in disbelief as he let go and dropped back to the ground. “Look, the leaves are swaying in the wind,” He pointed out as a gust of wind blew past them. “But they don’t react to me at all? I couldn’t even budge them? It’s like it’s just a sturdy statue pretending to be a tree.” Aegis said out loud as he thought about it, pacing around the tree again.

His next step was to check the roots. He pulled an iron shovel he’d crafted out of his inventory and started digging up the dirt around it.

“Seriously?” Darkshot watched in disbelief.

“C’mon, don’t tell me you aren’t curious as well.” Aegis reasoned with him.

“Yeah, but, we’re supposed to be on a quest.”

“The trees are right here. Think of the bows I could craft with some new high quality wood.” Aegis smiled from ear to ear.

“True…” Darkshot nodded.

“So, wanna help?” Aegis said as he offered a second iron shovel pulled from his inventory.

“Nah, gotta take care of eggy here.” Darkshot waved off the suggestion. “You got this.” He nodded at Aegis.

“I’ll help.” Lina smiled and took the shovel, digging alongside Aegis. Rakkan joined in as well shortly after, whilst Darkshot remained cradling his egg and Pyri had taken a big spell book out of her inventory and was reading while leaning on a bored looking Melon.

“Where’s the roots? This doesn’t make any sense.” Aegis said as they cleared a good area around the base of the tree, only to find that the trunk just continued to go downward into the ground, but at an angle. “How deep does that thing go before the roots start sprouting?” He rephrased his question as he thought out loud. Lina and Rakkan both looked at it, confused just as much as Aegis was.

“It’s not just going straight down, look, it’s curving in that direction.” Rakkan pointed it out.

“Are they all like that?” Aegis wondered as he looked around and spotted another limren tree nearby. “Check those ones over there.” Aegis directed Lina and Rakkan and they nodded. The three dug out the dirt around three separate trees only to find they all had a similar thing going on under the earth. No roots, just an extension of the tree continuing deep under the ground, curving in a direction. It took an hour's worth of digging just to reveal this much information, but luckily it was paid back in the form of a +1 strength up for all three of them.

“All four trees are the same. They haven’t even so much as tilted since we started digging up the dirt around them.” Rakkan pointed it out.

“Yeah… but, look.” Aegis took a step back and checked them out from a distance. “The roots don’t just curve in random directions underground, they’re all going towards the same location.” Aegis pointed it out, and as he did, Lina and Rakkan spotted it too.

“Where’s it leading?” Darkshot asked curiously as he stood up with his egg in his arms, trying to see himself.

“You’re the one with the tracking skill.” Aegis motioned him forward.

“Ok, ok.” He relented as Pyri stood up with interest now too. All eyes fell on Darkshot as he used his Ranger tracking to carefully map out in his mind where all the roots would converge, and started walking forward into the forest, away from the river. Aegis, Rakkan, Pyri and Lina followed behind him as he walked slowly and quietly through the forest, silence falling upon them as they got far enough from the river that they could no longer hear the rushing water.

“It’s there. Assuming they don’t bend any more underground and keep going where they were pointing, they all converge right there.” Darkshot said as he pointed to a clearing in the forest with a small, plain grassy hill in the center. “There’s nothing there.” Darkshot shrugged. Aegis looked at the hill carefully as he approached it slowly by himself, stepping out from under the forest and into the clearing. Looking around, he saw quite a few limren trees growing in the forest around this hill, in all directions. They stood out due to their strange glowing leaves in contrast to the other trees in the area, so he counted them up, and totalled exactly 16.

“16 limren trees growing around this clearing, and this hill. They’re almost forming a perfect circle around it, that can’t be a coincidence.” Aegis said as he looked at the hill suspiciously.

“What do you think it means?” Lina asked him curiously.

“I don’t know…” Aegis said as he slowed his steps, approaching the hill with extreme caution. Everyone held their breath as he took his first step onto the grassy hill, but nothing happened. A few more steps and he was at the top of the hill, but still nothing. He waited in silence for a moment before he let out a shrug. “Seems like just a regular hill.” Aegis called back to the others.

“Maybe try digging?” Rakkan suggested.

“Good idea.” Aegis brandished his shovel, then plunged it into the top of the hill. The moment he had, several things happened. First, the entire ground around them began to quake violently, second, a loud deafening high pitched screech rang out through their ears, and third, the hill began to rise up into the air with Aegis still on top of it. And lastly, right where Aegis’ feet were, a nameplate appeared, displaying the text [Limren Keeper - 50].

“Oh fuck!” Darkshot shouted as he stumbled backwards, hurriedly putting his egg and egg pack back in his inventory to equip his longbow and quiver.

“Aegis!” Lina shouted up at him worriedly as he rose higher and higher into the air, until he was well above the canopy, standing on top of the hill-monster. Aegis couldn’t see what it looked like beneath the hill as the monster rose up from below him, but the others on the ground could.

It was an angry amalgamation of tree roots, vines, and clumps of dirt made up into what could only be described as a disfigured troll's face. It was huge, and had long trunk-like arms growing out of the sides of the head where the ears should’ve been and branches for fingers, no torso. There were also no legs, instead the head transitioned downward into the earth as 16 large stem-like roots that angled in the direction of the 16 limren trees that were apparently a part of this creature's body.

Pyri put her book away and snapped her Cinderbolt into existence, Lina drew her daggers from her sheaths, and Rakkan hastily equipped his longsword and spear.

“GOOD IDEA, TRY DIGGING!” Darkshot shouted up sarcastically at Aegis as Aegis watched one of the bulky trunk arms swing up at him and attempt to crush him into the hill that remained atop the creature’s head like a hat. Aegis quickly rolled forward off the front of the Keeper and landed on the ground near Lina and Rakkan, equipped his shield and spun around to face it.

“Bless, bless, bless, bless, bless.” Aegis quickly casted it on everyone as he backed up.

“What’re we doing, we fighting that thing? It’s level 50!” Darkshot pointed at Aegis hysterically as he watched him buffing everyone.

“I know, tons of experience, right?!” Aegis grinned excitedly. “Aura of Beauty!” He activated the spell with a burst of light, and the battle began with Aegis lunging forward and throwing his shield up to brace an incoming swing from the Keepers’ trunk-sized arms. The arm hit Aegis’ shield from the front.

You take 4321 Bludgeoning damage.

He braced it, but the game didn’t seem to care. He went flying off his feet and rolled backwards several meters across the forest floor until he crashed into a tree. He couldn’t feel anything but excruciating pain for the following two seconds, but once it was gone he was able to start recovering.

“Why is it always fucking bludgeoning!?” Aegis shouted out angrily as he stood back up.

“Aegis, that thing nearly one shot you!” Lina shouted worriedly.

“I know! So you guys better kill it fast!” Aegis ordered them with a grin as he recomposed himself, and this was the go signal they needed to begin their assault. Pyri shot forth her cinderbolt and began burning the creature, causing it to recoil and screech at her angrily as Lina and Rakkan flanked around to its back and Darkshot began firing arrows towards its eyes.

“It really doesn’t like my fire!” Pyri pointed out as she watched the aggression of the Keeper immediately swap to her.

“CHALLENGING ROAR!” Aegis shouted, and his voice echoed loudly throughout the entire forest around them as a shockwave reverberated outwards from where he stood. Once it had reached the Keeper, it turned its attention back to Aegis. “Damn that skill is awesome.”

“Aegis, your health!” Lina shouted worriedly as he looked at the Keeper cautiously.

“It’s ok, I don’t think it can reach me back here, it’s rooted in place with no legs.” Aegis pointed out.

“BEHIND YOU!” Rakkan shouted, and Aegis turned around at the last second to see that one of the limren trees had suddenly shot upwards like a tentacle and was whipping down at Aegis from behind. Aegis just barely managed to dash and roll out of the way at the last moment as the tree slammed into the ground where he had been standing. At this time he looked around and saw that all 16 of the limren trees were exhibiting this whip-like behavior and had formed a large cage around the Keeper with them trapped inside.

“Ok, this might be harder than I thought.” Aegis looked around worriedly. “Avatar of Eirene! Healing Wind, Heal!” Aegis casted them all in quick succession as he exploded in a burst of light and took on the glowing form of the Avatar.

The Keeper had its focus fully on Aegis now, but he was right in assuming it’s main body couldn’t move. It made up for this with the fact that the limren trees had incredible reach and two were in range of striking Aegis at any given time, regardless of where he positioned himself.

Now that he was able to hold threat without healing himself though, he thought it best to try and dodge the attacks due to how hard this enemy was hitting him for.

“Challenging Roar!” He shouted several times to build up aggression over his allies, whilst he began focusing solely on avoiding the attacks from the whip-like limren trees. The leaves which had been stiff before were now razorsharp and Aegis watched as one tree barely missed him and the leaves cut through the other normal nearby trees like butter.

The Keeper continued to make strange creaking wood-like screeching sounds as his party beat on it. That was fine, Aegis thought, as he started to get into a groove of how to dodge the tentacle strikes. Until suddenly he heard a 2nd loud roar that sounded nothing like the Keeper, and he turned around and saw a strange furry beast charging towards them through the forest some distance away.

“Uh, Aegis, all this noise is attracting other monsters!” Darkshot pointed it out. [Kolz Lynx - 42] was floating above the beast's head. It looked like a giant tan-colored lynx, but it had 6 legs instead of four, and large spikes protruding out of its spine all the way down its thick, lizard-like tail. It was charging forth towards Darkshot with intent in its eyes, moving at incredible speed.

Aegis rushed towards Darkshot, dodging a limren tree strike with a roll as Darkshot dashed out of the way to avoid the Lynx from pouncing on him, but once he had the Lynx quickly switched directions and pounced at him again before he could recover from his dashing movement.

“Guard!” Aegis shouted, projecting his shield up in front of Darkshot at the last moment, causing the Lynx to pounce into the shield projection instead of Darkshot.

You take 1932 Slashing damage.

“Heal.” He shouted, standing still to recover as much as he could as the Lynx dropped to the ground, having lost all of its momentum from hitting the guard projection. The moment Aegis had finished casting his heal, the Lynx’ aggression turned to him and another strike from the keeper came crashing down on him. He had no choice but to dodge them both, “Healing Wind.” he shouted as he rolled away from the two of them.

“I can’t keep this up for long! Darkshot, Lina, can you switch to the Lynx?” Aegis asked them.

“Got it.” Darkshot nodded as he turned his bow on the Lynx and fired several shots. A second later, Lina shadowstepped to a nearby tree and threw a smoke bomb at the Lynx, blinding it from Aegis momentarily as she stabbed at it furiously within the darkness. The smoke didn’t last long though, as a whipping strike from the Keeper came down and the force from the tree slamming on the forest floor cleared the smoke out. This gave Aegis enough time to heal himself again, though, and aggression from both enemies were firmly on him.

“Fire and slashing attacks seem to be working well on the Keeper. Piercing, not so much. Keep at it on the big guy, Rakkan and Pyri.” Aegis ordered them and they nodded back. Rakkan swapped his equipped spear for his battle axe, then echoed himself so two Rakkan’s were slashing furiously at the back of the screeching Keeper while it continued to focus on trying to whip Aegis.

Aegis was able to dodge a few more strikes from both enemies, but his stamina was starting to dip even with the help of the Aura of Beauty. He went into his inventory to pull out a direwolf steak, only to see that it was his last one, and ate it quickly.

“You gotta take one of these things out fast!” Aegis shouted.

“Okay, it’s a long cooldown, but let me try something! Rakkan, stand where I can see you please!” Lina shouted towards the Keeper, where Rakkan was behind its bulky head out of their line of sight. Rakkan quickly jumped to the side so that Lina could see him, and she shot a tendril of black smoke out towards him. “Shadow steal!” She shouted, and the smoke hit Rakkan, then pulled itself back to Lina.

“Shadow copy! Rune: Echo!” Lina shouted, surprising everyone as a shadowy version of Rakkan’s Echo rune appeared on Lina’s forehead, causing a second Lina to appear.

“You can copy other people's skills?” Darkshot watched in disbelief.

“Only some skills, and not spells. I wasn’t sure if the runes counted as spells or not.” Lina shrugged as she looked at her copy, weirded out for a second. “Rakkan, how do I control this?” She asked him urgently as he went back to fighting the Keeper.

“No idea!” Rakkan shouted back with a smirk. Lina awkwardly tried to move her copy around and it started walking in the opposite direction of the Lynx. She huffed at it with frustration, but Aegis thought it was funny - it was the first time he’d seen Lina not be able to do something perfectly already. He couldn’t help but stare and watch her thinking face as she struggled to figure out how to control the echo whilst still dealing damage with her original body, and he had a big dumb smile on his face while he did. He couldn't stare for long though as he was forced to dodge several more strikes from the Keeper and the Lynx.

“You’re not the only one with cool skills now.” Darkshot leapt back from the Lynx and creaked his neck. “Check it. Vinerope shot!” He shouted, and released an arrow that pierced the Lynx. Once it had, it shot out vines that wrapped themselves around the trunks of nearby trees, binding the Lynx in place for three seconds.

“Oh, I saw Quinn do that!” Aegis said as he dodged another limren strike, and this caused Darkshot to let out a huff.

“Oh yeah? Oh yeah?” He shouted competitively. “I bet she didn’t use this. I have a long cooldown as well!” He glared at the Lynx as his bow suddenly began to glow red. “Ranger’s Mark!” He shouted, and fired an arrow at the Lynx that exploded into a red symbol that embedded itself like paint on the fur of the Lynx, causing it to let out an angry roar. “And, now, when I use my best AoE skill, watch what happens!” Darkshot said excitedly as he pointed his bow up to the sky.

“Rain of Arrows!” He shouted as he fired an arrow up, and as it soared high enough into the sky above them that it began to curve back down, it split itself into roughly 20 separate arrows spread out over the sky above. However, as they closed in on the ground, all of the arrows tilted towards the Ranger mark he had put on the Lynx, and a second later they had all homed in on the mark rather than landing around on the forest floor around them, causing all 20 arrows to hit the same spot on the Lynx and dealing massive damage, killing the Lynx.

“Wow, that was impressive!” Pyri said as she’d watched it happen from the corner of her eye.

“Yeah, I call it the Darkshot combo.” He bragged as he took a moment to pose.

“But, you’re out of mana now.” Lina pointed out.

“Not important.” Darkshot brushed this off.

“Good, the Lynx is gone, hurry up and kill the Keeper!” Aegis shouted. Darkshot and Lina nodded before going back to striking the big tree-monster. A few more challenging roars later, the Keeper let out its final angry screech as it crashed downward onto the ground, its whip-like limren trees falling lifeless around the forest.

Aegis got a few notifications of skill ups with his new, low ranked skills, but he was more interested in seeing how his axe would work on the limren tree now that the creature was dead. He canceled his aura of beauty and marched over to the nearest limp limren tree and pulled out his iron axe. The others walked over to watch, catching their breath as Aegis pulled his axe back and swung down on the tree laying on its side. It made a loud clunking sound, but this time it didn’t bounce off, it cut into the wood.

He repeated the action several times, the wood was tough even against his high quality iron tools, and it took a long while before he’d managed to get a usable log into his inventory.

Acquired: Ironwood [Quality: 0%]

“Huh, it’s not called limren wood, it’s called Ironwood. Never heard of that before.” Aegis said as he looked at it. “Quality 0%, I haven’t learned how to gather it properly yet I guess.” He looked up to Rakkan and Lina who looked back at him with curious stares.

“Never heard of it before.” Rakkan shrugged.

“It could be a tier 3 wood! Not a lot of those have been discovered yet.” Lina suggested excitedly.

“Interesting…” Aegis grew a grin across his face as he started glancing around the forest for more limren trees.

“We’re never leaving this forest, are we?” Pyri sighed.