Spiteful Healer

Chapter 73: Shield Mastery

Aegis approached the exterior of the Kordas Training grounds to hear the sound of blades clashing and arrows flying from inside. The Training grounds were built near the western outer walls of Kordas and they themselves were surrounded by 3 meter high walls with a single doubledoor entrance that was left open, two Kordas guards flanking it.

Looking through the open gate Aegis could see a wide open flat space filled with training dummies and archery targets on one of the far walls. There were quite a few players and NPCs all training using wooden weapons, and off to the side in an open section there were a few players dueling each other using real weapons. On the wall opposite the entrance was a barracks structure and a staircase leading up to its front doors which were also open. Having asked a few Kordas guards already on where he could learn Shield Mastery, he knew he’d need to enter that building, but he walked through the training grounds rather slowly in order to watch as much of the other players duels as he could.

He saw a wizard player dashing around attempting to hit a class he’d never seen before shooting strange black and purple spells from his palms while runes lit up on the back of his hands, rather than wielding a staff. Aegis could only assume this was a warlock player, and his casting speed appeared much faster than the wizards, forcing the Wizard player to dodge the warlocks attacks until the warlock’s runes on his hand stopped glowing and his spellcasting stopped. The wizard took this chance to stand still and fire his own spells, and then it was the Warlocks turn to dodge. He watched this back and forth go on for a bit until he reached the staircase leading up into the barracks and ascended them, looking in through the open doors to see on the inside a large hall with a high ceiling. A purple carpet with yellow lining led him straight down the hall with large pillars flanking it on either side, champions in armor carved into the pillars so that they looked to be holding up the ceiling.

There were several sets of double doors to the left and right leading off the main hall into side chambers. Each of the sets of double doors were closed with an NPC standing watch out front, and near each of the NPCs Aegis saw a line of players waiting in front, most of them level 30 players but some a bit lower or higher. A symbol was carved into the keystone of each doors archway, each carving different from the other doors. The carvings were of weapons - Spear, Axe, Sword, ect. In addition to this, Aegis noticed the NPC standing on front of the door and the players lined up at each door were all wielding weapons matching the carving.

Taking this as a hint that these side chambers were each for a different weapon type, Aegis kept an eye out for the Shield engraving until he spotted it near the back of the hall on his left. When he looked he saw that a small gnome NPC was standing in front of a closed door with a shield nearly the size of his entire body on his back. His arms were crossed and he was waiting patiently, but there were no other players lined up.

Aegis took this opportunity to approach and form the start of his own line as the gnome [Marvin - Level ??] gave him a respectful nod.

“I’ll be with you in a moment,” Marvin said in a high pitched voice, motioning to the closed door behind him. Aegis nodded in acknowledgement as he stood patiently. The longer he waited, the more in tune he came with the sounds of his surroundings, and he began to pick up on the sounds coming from the otherside of the door. He heard stomping, clashing steel and explosions, then a sudden high pitched howling which caused Marvin to suck his teeth.

“Another fail.” He turned as he pushed the set of double doors open, giving Aegis a glimpse of what was beyond them. Marvin walked forward a short ways into the room until he was at a ledge overlooking a 2 meter drop into a large round arena with a stone tiled floor blanketed with patches of sand. The arena had a diameter of 20 meters, with a ledge and upper walkway going around the entire outside of it, a row of benches built for spectators to watch the action inside the arena, and on the far side was a single portcullis that was in the process of shutting as Aegis looked. The portcullis was in front of a large doorway leading down a dark ramp. Aegis couldn’t see beyond the portcullis due to it being dimly lit and far away from his vantage point, but he looked up to see that the room had no roof, allowing the sun to shine down on them and illuminate the arena.

“Restart it, I’m ready to go again.” A male voice shouted from the center of the arena up towards Marvin. Aegis looked to see an Elf player, [Yeras - Level 30], standing out of breath in the middle of the arena with his shield out. He had a large iron shield equipped covered in scratches and dents, as was his iron armor pretty badly banged up. Sweat was dripping off of his forehead and he looked exhausted, but as he said this he tried to recompose himself without turning to look in the direction of Aegis and Marvin.

“You will need to step out for now, Yeras. Another has come to test his mettle with a shield. You may go again once he has had his try.” Marvin said, his arms remaining crossed. This caused Yeras to turn and look up to see Aegis, and he gave a nod of acknowledgement. Slowly Yeras walked towards them to a thin ladder close to ledge Marvin stood at, and climbed out of the arena.

“A priest going for Shield Mastery? Must be a cleric player, right?” Yeras asked as he eyed Aegis up and down. Not wanting to outright lie, Aegis gave him a shrug.

“I’m going Guardian, the fighter intermediate. Name's Yeras.” He held out his iron gauntlet for Aegis to shake, and Aegis obliged.

“I’m Aegis. This quest, is it hard?” Aegis asked him.

“Huh? Y-yeah, been here for a while now. It’s tough.” Yeras sighed. “Luckily, not a lot of shield mastery players, so..” He motioned to the lines in front of the other training halls, they were all several players long. “You mind if I watch? He’s going to ask if you want the doors shut.” Yeras motioned to Marvin.

“Uh, no, I guess not.” Aegis shrugged as he looked at Marvin and Marvin waved his hands in the direction of the arena, his fingertips giving off a light yellow glow. As he did this, several pillars within the arena that Aegis hadn’t noticed before began to reform, forming a circle of 8. The reason Aegis hadn’t noticed them, was because they had been broken and crushed into tiny fragments, and seeing them reform made Aegis wonder just what exactly would be happening in that Arena that resulted in them all getting destroyed like that.

“Alright, Aegis, Priest of Eirene. I can already tell you are worthy to begin this test.” Marvin turned to face him while crossing his arms again. “The techniques I can teach you are not easy to learn, and they require one with a true protectors heart. You must be willing to sacrifice everything to guard those behind your shield, including yourself. If you cannot do that, then you shouldn’t even be holding that thing. It’s not a giant dinner plate, its purpose is and always will be to protect.” Marvin said as he stared deep into Aegis’ eyes, as if reading into who he was as a person.

“I understand.” Aegis nodded.

“Good. To preform this test, you must leave your weapons and magic behind. The moment you step into that arena, you will find that the divine light of Eirene will no longer reach you. It will be just you, and your shield.” Marvin said.

“Got it.” Aegis nodded again.

“The test itself is simple in concept.” He snapped his fingers and in the center of the arena, a strange looking large white cat creature appeared. It had light blue stripes on its back and what looked to be feathers sticking out of the end of its tail and top of its ears. A moment after it appeared, it sat down facing them and began licking its front paws. [Snowgir Cub - Level 1].

“If you can protect that Snowgir cub for 10 minutes, I’ll consider you worthy.” Marvin said with a devious grin. Simple in concept, but Aegis could only think of the crushed pillars and knew that this wouldn’t be simple at all.

Quest: Marvin has requested that you prove yourself to him by demonstrating you have what it takes to become an intermediate Shield Master.

Objective: 0/1 Marvin’s Test Passed.

Quest Giver: Great Protector Marvin

Reward: Shield Mastery(Intermediate)

Difficulty: Hard

Restrictions: Shield Mastery(Beginner): 30

Aegis hit the accept button without hesitation and Marvin gave him a nod of acknowledgement shortly after.

“Would you prefer to conduct the test in private?” Marvin asked while stepping beyond the threshold of the double doors. Aegis looked to see a hopeful expression on Yeras face.

“I don’t mind if the doors are open.” Aegis shrugged.

“Very well. Once you step into the arena, the test will begin. Good luck.” Marvin said before turning away to look into the hall and crossing his arms again.

“Do you want some tips?” Yeras asked as he moved to sit on one of the benches lining the upper level of the arena.

“No, thanks. If I can’t figure it out on my own, I don’t deserve it.” Aegis said, and Yeras nodded respectfully at him. Aegis moved to stand on the edge of the arena to look at the Snowgir cub still absentmindedly cleaning itself with a big pink tongue, and watched as the portcullis on the opposite end of the arena slowly raised up. He unequipped his shortsword and fastened his shield to his left arm, then gently hopped down into the Arena, his leather boots sending up puffs of sand where they had landed.

The moment he had entered, he felt it - the complete absence of magic. His mana bar immediately drained to 0 and when he briefly looked at his character sheet he saw that all of the enchantments on his items were disabled, and he wasn’t allowed to equip anything but a shield. He didn’t have much time to look though, as he heard the sound of chittering steps echoing from the chamber beyond the portcullis. The Snowgir cub stopped licking itself and its hair and tail stood on ends as it jerked its head around to look in the direction of the sounds just as Aegis had done.

From out of the dark hallway came something Aegis wasn’t expecting whatsoever - a giant centipede covered in thick black chitin, large yellow pointed legs, two huge yellow antennae and several beady red eyes glaring at the Snowgir. Its pincers clashed together making an ominous cutting sound, saliva dripping out of its wriggling maw as it scurried across the arena floor towards the Snowgir.

“Time begins now.” Marvin shouted from the open doorway, without bothering to turn and face Aegis. Aegis caught a glimpse of a red 10 minute countdown timer appearing at the top of his interface in his peripheral vision, but he didn’t have time to look at it, he dashed forward across the arena floor to try and get in front of the Snowgir in time to protect it.

The Snowgir however, nervously jerked its head backwards at Aegis, and panicked, perceiving him as a threat as well, and it ran to the right side of the arena to get away from both of them.

“No, c’mere kitty!” Aegis shouted, but the Snowgir didn’t listen, it ran in complete terror, and the centipede, who Aegis could now see above its head [Underrealm Crawler - Level 30], steered itself to the right to follow it. They were both completely avoiding Aegis, and it dawned on Aegis where the true difficulty of this task lied.

Aegis ran as fast as he could to intercept the Crawler, seeing it was clearly much faster than the Snowgir, and just as the Crawler pulled its head back to prepare to strike the cat like a snake, Aegis slid across the sand into position to block the attack with his shield.

You take 0 piercing damage.

Aegis saw the message and understood, he could take as many hits from this thing as needed, he just couldn’t let it hit the Snowgir. In the time that Aegis took to block the strike, the Snowgir managed to get a good distance around the arena, and the crawler’s antennae moved to follow it, still ignoring Aegis. Once it had recovered from its lunging strike, it attempted to scurry around Aegis to get back to the Snowgir. Aegis moved to block its path head on with his shield and the creature crashed into the shield like a bulldozer. It wasn’t an attack, it was like the Crawler was trying to force its way through him, and Aegis was losing his footing to the force of its movements.

Unable to keep up with the centipede’s movement speed, he knew that if it got past him he wouldn’t be able to catch up in time to protect the Snowgir, he had to hold it. His feet slid across the sand-covered arena floor tiles and he was losing ground quickly. Desperate, he forced a brace into the hard pincers of the centipede, and he felt the ability trigger. His feet dug into a pair of tiles that cracked and held his feet in place. Against the immovable brace, the centipedes forward momentum was forced downward into the ground, pincers piercing the tiles, and the rest of its body and legs were slow to get the message that it couldn’t move forward anymore, causing it to curl inward on itself and upward, until the mid and back sections of the crawlers body were up in the air. The forward momentum carried it,causing it to flip completely forward towards Aegis, and he had to dash to the side to avoid the body of the crawler smashing down on him.

In this time the Snowgir panicked from the crashing sound of the over-sized crawler, pouncing to the furthest pillar from the centipede which happened to also be closest to the open portcullis where the centipede had come from. Aegis recomposed himself as he watched the Snowgir struggle to dig its claws into the pillar and eventually get on top, standing with its legs all close together on the small circular top of the pillar as it curled its tail back and cautiously glared at both Aegis and the upside down crawler.

Aegis took a few steps back away from the crawler and watched as the legs wiggled in the sky, its pincers thrashing about desperately. Given how the legs protruded out of the bottom of the creature's chitinous body, they couldn’t bend downwards to grasp anything and flip itself over. That didn’t stop it from trying, whipping its body wildly left and right as it struggled against gravity. This gave Aegis a reprieve, he could walk away from the creature and take in the situation more carefully.

Had he won? It surely couldn’t be that easy, the one threat to the Snowgir was disabled and the Snowgir was unharmed. He looked at the timer counting down in his interface to 9 minutes remaining and still nothing happened. He had nothing to do for the moment aside from watch the crawler thrash about on the ground, but when Aegis glanced up at Yeras, he had a focused serious expression, watching the open doorway near the Snowgir. The portcullis was still raised, and it didn’t take a genius to guess why Yeras was focused on it.

Aegis slowly moved towards the open door, repeatedly glancing back to make sure the crawler was still upside down. The Snowgir was keeping an eye on Aegis, but most of its focus was on the loud and violent thrashes coming from the crawler as it kicked up sand and loose stones, smashing one of the pillars nearest to it suddenly and startling Aegis. Aegis watched the chunks of the pillar collapse to the ground. Though it was shattered, the pieces were still large and noticeable. He recalled the state the pillars had been in after Yeras’ attempt - whatever did that to the pillars wasn’t this crawler monster. At exactly 7:30 time remaining, Aegis heard a deep breathing sound coming from the dark hallway beyond the portcullis. As he’d suspected, this wasn’t a one on one challenge.

Stepping out of the darkness of the hall ahead of him, another strange but intimidating creature made its appearance. [Lanuskian Dustcharger - Level 30]. The creature was large, shaped like a buffalo with huge frontal leg muscles and walking all fours, its hooves stomping onto the stone tiles of the arena. It was walking slowly and patiently, taking in the scene before it as it clearly spotted both Aegis, the Crawler, and the Snowgir up on the pillar. Once under the sunlight shining down through the open roof of the arena, Aegis could make out the most distinct feature of the Dustcharger. The front of the Dustcharger’s skull and horns were a single large flat surface, and rather than fur or hair being visible on this flat surface, it was a strange reddish-brown bone that gave off a shimmer as the sunlight reflected off of it, the rest of the Dustcharger covered in short gray hair.

As the Crawler had done, it ignored Aegis and turned towards the Snowgir. Aegis raised up his shield and moved to stand between the Dustcharger and the pillar that the Snowgir stood on, as the Dustcharger began to paw the dirt and lowered its heads, spreading its legs. Aegis’ recognized that stance, it looked just like the boars did before they began a running charge, but getting hit by the front of this Dustcharger looked a whole lot more dangerous than a boar’s tiny tusks.

The Dustcharger let out one final huff of air before it broke into a charge, moving well beyond what Aegis was anticipating. For the first time in a long time, he mistimed his brace as the Dustcharger smashed head on into his Iron shield.

You take 605 Bludgeoning damage.

You take 363 Nature damage.

It was agonizing, significantly more painful than being punched by a golem. The impact of the Dustcharger’s skull caused his arm to pinch into his chest and felt as if his bones were breaking, but if that wasn’t bad enough, he saw and felt a puff of red dust explode out of the impact, engulfing Aegis as he flew backward off of his feet. His back smashed into the pillar dealing another few points of bludgeoning damage as Aegis felt the red dust eating away at his skin, causing an intense burning sensation all over. He was thankful that it only lasted two seconds, but because he’d failed to land the brace, he wasn’t able to fully stop the Dustcharger’s momentum. He’d slowed it down and caused it to redirect away from the pillar, but it was circling back around and building up speed, preparing to aim back at the pillar once more.

Aegis took the time to think - the crawler was still thrashing on the ground, but the bigger issue was that he took a lot of damage and couldn’t heal. The only conclusion he could come to was that he failed the brace - he’d take damage from any attack he didn’t brace properly. He needed to test this theory before he planned out how to deal with this Dustcharger. Watching as it looped around a few pillars to get an angle on the Snowgir’s pillar, Aegis could get a better grasp of its movement speed and moved to stand between the pillar and the Dustcharger once more.

Without stopping, once it had lined itself up with a straight shot at the pillar, it did its quick charging movement again. This time Aegis was ready, he landed the brace properly.

You take 0 Bludgeoning damage.

You take 0 Nature damage.

Despite the messages, the dust still caused his skin to burn and itch for a moment, but he was able to dig his feet in and stop the Dustchargers charge outright, redirecting it to the side as the creature lost its balance and tumbled to the ground a few meters away. It didn’t take long before it got back up to its feet and trotted away from Aegis slowly to get some distance before it turned to face him and began pawing the ground once more.

Aegis cracked his neck and repositioned himself again, making a quick check on the crawler and Snowgir to see them both still in the same states, but the Snowgir seemed to be watching Aegis now rather than the crawler, its tail had come down somewhat. A few seconds later the third Dustcharger’s attack came. Then a fourth, and a fifth. With the linear pattern of its attacks, it was easy as long as it was just the Dustcharger - the crawler being out of commission was making this quest seem trivial, but still, when Aegis glanced at Yeras, he had a look that told him it wasn’t over yet. When the timer counted down to 5:00, Aegis heard a flapping sound coming from the dark tunnel, and a second later he watched as a small winged creature flew out. Red scales, long snout, tiny horns, big yellow eyes, large sharp claws on its front and back feet, and a long thin tail. Aegis didn’t need to see its name to know what it was. [Young Red Whelpling - 30]. It wasted no time flying up into the sky, high above the arena floor as it scanned the area, letting out a loud screeching roar when it spotted the Snowgir.