Spiteful Healer

Chapter 114: Beastmaster Mak'rog

You take 3530 Bludgeoning damage.

The message appeared the moment that Mak’rog’s club smashed into Aegis’ shield, causing his knees to buckle from the force. Excruciating pain shot through his arm down his spine to his knees for two seconds. He struggled to recover from the blow quickly, but he had no choice as Mak’rog pulled back his other arm and lashed the whip out at Aegis. Aegis quickly sidestepped the strike, causing the whip to slash into the ground and leave an imprint in the earth where it had hit.

Looking around, he saw that there were too many other enemies left for him to expect any assistance anytime soon, and knew he’d be handling Mak’rog on his own for awhile. Not wanting to just be a punching bag any longer, he charged forward between the whip and the club as Mak’rog pulled them both back to prepare to strike again. Aegis lept into the air and thrust his shield forward into his chest, dealing 600 bludgeoning damage and causing Mak’rog to fall back a step.

“Yeah, bludgeoning damage doesn’t feel so good, does it?!” Aegis shouted at Mak’rog angrily as he fell back to the ground. “Heal.” He cast it on himself in the time it took Mak’rog to recover. Several poachers with spears maneuvered around Mak’rog and Aegis and attempted to flank him, but Rakkan stepped in with his echo to cut them off, parrying their strikes and forcing them to engage with him, despite their desire to attack Aegis due to his challenging shouts.

In addition, Aegis watched as two poachers with crossbows had climbed onto the roof of a nearby log hut and were taking aim at him, but just before they shot, a smoke bomb exploded around them and Lina teleported atop the hut with shadowstep to engage them. He was in the clear to focus on just Mak’rog, thanks to his party members.

Mak’rog recovered from the blow and prepared to lift his club arm back and swing at Aegis once more, but Aegis wasn’t in the mood to get hit with bludgeoning attacks, if he could help it.

“Guard!” Aegis shouted, projecting his shield under the bicep of Mak’rog, which prevented him from building up any forward momentum with his club arm, and stopped him from swinging it forward entirely. Frustrated by this, Mak’rok took a step back away from the shield projection and pulled his whip arm back instead, lashing it horizontally at Aegis, but Aegis ducked underneath the strike, then jumped up into the air and this time kicked off of Mak’rog’s chest to get more height and slammed his shield into Mak’rog’s head, dealing critical damage.

You deal 1203 Bludgeoning/Holy damage.

As Mak’rog stumbled backwards and lost his balance from the strike, Aegis began to fall back down to the ground, now three meters up in the air from his jump, but he was at perfect eyeline with Mak’rog’s huge body.

“Guard.” He shouted, creating a projection of his shield underneath his feet to catch himself, then launched forward off of the projection towards the backwards stumbling Mak’rog, only to bash him in the head a second time with his shield.

This second critical hit was enough to make Mak’rog lose his balance completely, causing him to fall backwards and crash onto the ground, two poachers getting stuck underneath his large body. Aegis followed him down with the forward momentum of his leap and ended up landing on his chest as he lay flat on his back.

“Sucks, doesn’t it? Bludgeoning hurts, right?!” Aegis shouted angrily, all of his pent up aggression from taking painful bludgeoning attacks up until this point in the game was being released on this poor, unsuspecting area boss. Aegis quickly stepped up Mak’rog’s chest to his neck, then leapt into the air above his head and slammed his shield down on Mak’rog’s face with his full weight behind the strike, dealing another critical strike. He was getting ready to do it again, but looked up and saw a poacher charging at him with a spear. Aegis jumped forward off of the head of Mak’rog to land on the ground behind it, just barely letting the spear slide past him as he slammed his shield into the poacher, sending the poacher stumbling backwards.

Just as the poacher was recovering from the strike and preparing to lunge at Aegis again, a big ball of cinders flew down from above and engulfed the poacher in flames, causing him to flail about and try to brush them off himself in a panic. Aegis turned to see Pyri standing on the wall several meters away, and she threw him a thumbs up, then Aegis saw that Mak’rog was attempting to stand back up.

“Oh no you don’t. Guard!” Aegis shouted, creating a projection of his shield on top of Mak’rog’s chest, causing him to bump into it and lose his momentum he was using to stand back up. The projection shattered and caused Aegis to take 200 bludgeoning damage for blocking his movement in this way, but it was enough to force Mak’rok back to the ground where Aegis could slam his shield into the top of his head.

“Puny human!” Mak’rog shouted angrily. He dropped his club and tried to grab at Aegis with his large chubby fingers, but Aegis jumped backwards to avoid it, whilst Darkshot fired several arrows at more poachers that’d begun to surround him. Mak’rog used the time to quickly get up onto his knees though, and turn to face Aegis in a kneeling position while lashing his whip out at Aegis. The whip came at Aegis at an angle that he couldn’t dodge.

“Guard!” Aegis blocked the whip with the shield projection, which freed him from having to use his actual shield. He wanted to use his actual shield for bashing, given that Mak’rog’s head was still close enough to hit whilst he was in this kneeling position. Aegis leapt into the air as the whip wrapped around his shield projection.

You take 4116 slashing damage

Unable to brace attacks with guard meant that guarded attacks usually hurt more, but Aegis had enough health and mana to sustain through that easily. He was more eager to feel the satisfying impact of his shield bashing into Mak’rog’s face. It made a loud whacking sound as he dealt another critical strike.

You deal 1219 Bludgeoning/Holy damage.

He wondered what Eirene would think of him, if she’d seen him repeatedly bashing this ogre in the face, but decided she must be okay with it, as he wasn’t losing favor with her. That ran through his mind as he watched Mak’rog open his mouth to roar out angrily at Aegis after this last strike.

“Healing wind, Heal.” Aegis cast on himself, filling his health back to nearly full.

“It’s fun right? This is what I was trying to get you to do from the very beginning!” Darkshot shouted to Aegis across the battlefield as he saw the satisfied smirk on Aegis’ face as he prepared to bash Mak’rog’s head with his shield again.

“I’m just giving them a taste of their own medicine. These bludgeoning monsters, they don’t know how painful it is!” Aegis yelled back. This time, as Mak’rog stumbled backwards and fell on his back again, he took the time to look at his party interface and saw that both Rakkan and Lina had lost some health. “Healing wind, Healing wind!” He shouted, aiming the spells at them to help them start recovering health. “Challenging Roar!” He shouted after, trying to make sure the enemies stayed focused on him rather than his allies.

From that point onward, the battle only got easier. The number of poachers began to lessen thanks to the onslaught of attacks from Aegis’ party members, and due to that, Aegis had an easier time keeping Mak’rog off of his feet and preventing him from landing any serious attacks on Aegis.

Without any elite or boss enemies in the camp, the group was able to, after 15 minutes of fighting them, wipe out all of the poachers, and focus their attacks on Mak’rog alongside Aegis, long after Aegis’ Avatar of Eirene spell had worn off. One by one, Aegis recast bless on his allies as they started their assault on Mak’rog.

Despite Mak’rog being higher level than them, once they’d all started focusing their damage on him he went down in less than a minute with a final blow from Aegis ceremoniously slamming him in the face with his shield for the last time. Mak’rog let out a painful grunting roar as he fell down, and his body disintegrated into nothing, leaving behind a blue item orb. The orb cracked open and revealed a scroll case.

The party looked at it as they gathered around, Pyri and Darkshot hopping down off the palisade walls whilst Lina, Rakkan and Aegis took a minute to grab their breath. Even with Aura of Beauty and high quality food stamina buffs, they’d been flirting with their empty stamina bars towards the end.

“I gotta keep leveling that aura and make better food.” Aegis said between breaths as he looked at Lina and Rakkan. Lina put her hands on her waist and leaned backwards, looking up to the sky with heavy breathing, while Rakkan looked at him and gave him a nod.

“Why’re you guys looking so tuckered out?” Pyri smiled deviously as she approached.

“Magic users.” Rakkan shook his head at her when he saw her stamina was still nearly full.

“What’d he drop?” Darkshot asked excitedly while motioning to the scroll. Aegis walked over and looked at the item card.

“It’s another land deed… for this camp.” Aegis said as he added the scroll to his inventory, looking at the encampment around them.

“Oh, that’s interesting.” Pyri commented.

“You gonna register it?” Rakkan asked.

“No, Rene’s enough… probably just sell it to the Night Hunters or something.” Aegis shrugged. His voice trailed off as he’d gotten distracted by all of the cages of various beasts spread about the camp, mixed in between the tents and cabins. Inside them, bound by manacles, were not just gryphons, but lynxes and elk-creatures, and even things that resembled crocodiles. Most were around level 50 to 60 and looked badly wounded, with low health or with some form of sickness.

“Let’s free all these guys.” Aegis instructed them, and the group nodded. “Start with the gryphons, just incase the other beasts turn hostile.” He added as they fanned out around the camp. As Aegis heard the sound of Rakkan breaking one of the cages open with his longsword, Aegis found himself gravitating towards a large iron cage with a snowy white gryphon huddled in the corner, manacles around its front legs that were connected to a chain that wrapped around the bars at the back of the cage.

Something about the gyphon felt familiar. He knew there was no way it could be the same one from the Hrath’mir quest, but as he approached, it looked up at him with its wide blue eyes without lifting its head. Aegis stared back at the beast, mesmerized for a moment, before taking the bottom of his shield and slamming it against the padlock that was keeping the cage door shut. It took a few strikes to break the lock, but once he had, he opened the cage.

The gryphon apprehensively stood up and cowered as far back into the cage as it could go as Aegis took a step inside of it.

“It’s ok, I’m not going to hurt you.” Aegis held his hand out in a friendly manner as he slowly stepped forward. He used what he had learned from leveling his taming skill on the Hrath’mir gryphon to try and keep this one calm. It was smaller, looked younger, and weaker than the other, but also much more fearful of humans. “Healing wind.” Aegis whispered, and a light white magic shot out of his fingertips and wrapped itself around the gryphon, slowly restoring it to health.

From there, Aegis knelt down and stopped moving closer, and instead waited patiently with his hand extended for the gryphon to make the next move. It was a few moments of the two staring at each other, the gryphon sniffing the air around Aegis with the nostrils on its beak as it jutted its head forward towards him, then cautiously pulled it back.

Finally, it let out a weak squawking sound and took a step forward with his manacled talon front legs, the talons tapping on the bottom of the cage and drawing attention to them. Aegis could see that, despite it being a beast in a game, the game had simulated the effects of long term captivity realistically, and the talons looked weakened and blunt with cracks.

Seeing this, Aegis figured it was likely very hungry, and he went into his inventory and pulled out a high quality lynx steak that he’d prepared. He held it out for the gryphon to eat, and the gryphon sniffed it before pulling back disinterested.

“Oh, right, it’s seasoned. You probably prefer this.” Aegis said as he put it back in his inventory, then took out a raw piece of lynx meat that he hadn’t cooked yet. This, the gryphon happily accepted, quickly snatching it out of Aegis’ hand and gulping it down its throat a second later. “You must be really hungry, being stuck in here so long, huh lil guy?” Aegis whispered to it as he took another piece of meat out, and the gryphon snatched that up and ate it too.

“I’m going to break this chain so you can step outside the cage, okay?” Aegis said to the gryphon, motioning his shield towards the chain that was bound to the gryphons manacles. The gryphon moved to the back of the cage again, and Aegis took this chance to slam his shield down on the chains. It made a loud metallic slamming noise and took a good 10 hits to break one of the chain links, in turn causing Aegis to lose way more durability on his shield than he’d lost throughout the entire fight.

“Ok, you’re free to come out now.” Aegis said as he backed out of the cage and motioned the gryphon outside. The gryphon apprehensively stared at him, then slowly stepped out of the cage behind him. Just as the gryphons feet touched the dirt, Aegis got a quest notification that the quest had been completed. He looked up to the sky and saw dozens of gryphons were flying away off into the sky, and looking around he saw that his party were making quick work of the cages.

“Let me try to get those off of you, okay? I’m not going to hurt you.” Aegis said as he pointed at the manacles around its legs. The gryphon sat down on its bottom once he’d said this, and stretched his talons out in front so Aegis could easily see the manacles. “Oh, right, I remembered. Gryphons can kind of understand talking, right?” Aegis asked, but to this the gryphon just stared blankly back at him. He knelt down and began to fidget with the manacles. He was happy to see there wasn’t a lock, only a mechanism that kept them closed. They were designed for specifically beasts, and anyone with opposing thumbs could easily squeeze the mechanism and release the manacles.

Once he had, the gryphon squawked excitedly and pawed around in the dirt, enjoying its newfound freedom, looking up at the flock of gryphons soaring away in the sky above.

“You probably want to join them. But, if you want, you can stay with me. We could be friends.” Aegis said hastily, once he’d spotted the gryphon looking up at the sky. “I’ll give you all the meat you want, and we can explore this world together. I won’t ever put you in a cage.” Aegis promised, and the gryphon looked back in his eyes again, as if considering the opportunity. The sound of a few more cages being broken around the encampment echoed against the walls of the palisade around them as Aegis and the gryphon stared at each other.

Eager to get his own flying mount, Aegis decided to work hard on convincing the gryphon, this time pulling out 5 uncooked lynx meat and holding them out to the gryphon. The gryphon was much more apprehensive about snatching and eating them this time. It looked between Aegis, and the other gryphons flying away, then back to Aegis. Eventually, though, it snatched the meat out of his hand and gulped it down its throat, then in a friendly manner it moved forward and nudged the top of its beak and snout into Aegis’ chest.

Level Up!: Taming has reached Level 32!

“Hah, I guess that’s a yes.” Aegis smiled as he gently stroked the top of the gryphons head. It let out a friendly light squawk as Aegis stroked it, gently shaking the feathers of its wings. “Once we free every animal here, we’ll go back to our camp near the river where you can drink and wash up.” Aegis said, and it squawked back at this.

“Oh, it likes you! That’s so cute!” Pyri said excitedly as she’d finished with the cages on the side of the encampment she’d gone to, and arrived back at where Aegis was. Her voice drew the attention of the others who were finishing up and they all approached, looking at the gryphon that sat beside Aegis proudly and glanced between them.

“These are my friends. That’s Lina, Pyri, Rakkan, and Darkshot. Guys, this is my new friend gryphon. They’re pretty smart, I think they understand what we say, mostly.” Aegis introduced everyone.

“Hi Mr. Gryphon.” Lina waved with a smile.

“Sup…” Rakkan waved awkwardly.

“Hey buddy.” Darkshot said.

“He’s a big ol’ cutie. I mean, he’s no Melon, but the wings are pretty.” Pyri waved, to which the gryphon squawked at her.

“What are you going to name it?” Rakkan asked. Aegis suddenly got incredibly anxious.

“Uh, I don’t know…” Aegis shrugged. “Gryphie…?” Aegis suggested.

“Seriously?” Pyri looked with disapproval.

“What? It’s better than Spoodie.” He said defensively.

“Not really.” Pyri replied.

“I hate coming up with names. Do you guys have any suggestions?”

“How about, Darkwing.” Darkshot suggested.

“It’s a snowy gryphon, that makes no sense.” Rakkan replied to him, but to this comment, Lina’s eyes suddenly went wide with excitement.

“You could name him Snowflake…” She suggested, though she lost her confidence towards the end of her sentence.

“Ooh, that’s a good one!” Pyri said excitedly.

“That’s a good pet name.” Rakkan agreed.

“What do you think, you like the name Snowflake?” Aegis asked the gryphon and it squawked excitedly. “Okay, it’s official, his name is Snowflake.” Aegis declared. “Let’s finish up freeing the other animals and head back to our camp so Snowflake can get some water, I think he’s thirsty.” Aegis instructed, and the others did exactly that.

They had to be cautious against releasing the other creatures from their cages, as most of the others were hostile monsters typically, but none showed any aggression to the party and were all eager to escape the poachers camp.

“Do you think the poachers will respawn?” Aegis asked as the party exited through the gate that they’d entered from, making their way north across the clearing towards the treeline of the forest.

“Nope, I think it’s a quest area. Like the Darxon hideout. That’s why it dropped a land deed.” Lina replied.

“That’s good, that means the gryphons will be safe in this forest from now on.” Aegis said as he gave one last look at the palisade walls. Snowflake let out a playful squawk after hearing this.

It wasn’t long before the group had made it back to their campsite, seeing Melon still waiting around patiently. Aegis led Snowflake over to the water and watched as he stuck his beak into the river and started gulping water down, and shortly after he jumped in and soaked his fur and feathers, spinning in the slow flowing water excitedly and pouncing in it, causing water to splash up at the others as they watched from the riverbank.

Watching the gryphon reminded Darkshot of his own egg and he opened up his inventory to check on it, only to see the itemcard had an alert on it.

“Guys!” Darkshot shouted excitedly. “Aegis isn’t the only one getting a new pet today!” He quickly took the egg out of his inventory and cradled it in his hands. All eyes turned to the egg, including Snowflake's, and they watched as the outer shell slowly began to crack, the egg shaking in the palms of Darkshot’s hand.

“Oooh, I wonder what it's going to be!” Lina said excitedly as everyone gathered around, leaning in and looking closely at the cracking egg.

“I bet it’s going to be a chicken.” Aegis said.

“A dove.” Rakkan said.

“Phoenix.” Darkshot said confidently. A few more cracks and shakes, and the top of the egg broke off, allowing for a tiny head to poke through, and slowly, the nameplate of the bird became visible to the group.