Spiteful Healer

Chapter 88: Spite

Aegis pulled a direwolf steak out of his inventory to replenish his stamina as he ran full speed down the side of the mountain towards the city of Arallia. After seeing the messages from the Night Hunters and seeing the destroyed Island Stone, he’d been able to piece together why his viewership numbers had suddenly shot up. He made incredible time, passing by the trade buildings on the river near at the top of the waterfall only to see that they were completely empty, not a guard in sight. The only sound coming from them was that of the running water and the creaking water wheels along the river. He continued down the ramp past the mist of the waterfall, but where there were many players hanging around at the base of the waterfall previously, he saw none at all now. No one was gathering copper, chopping trees, or hunting, it was barren and empty all the way down the mountain. When he reached the city gates, they were closed and several guards were watching him approach.

“Get inside, quickly!” One of the guards shouted down to him from the wall as they opened the door just slightly so that Aegis could squeeze in. Once inside Arallia he saw a battalion of Arallian guards all fully armed on the other side of the gate, they were in the process of setting up siege weaponry, but Aegis knew that wouldn’t be enough. If this island was really falling back down into the abyss, then these people stood no chance. If Silver dragons couldn’t stop them, what chance did some level 30 guards have? Aegis thought as he continued past them.

Aegis couldn’t find any players, there were none left anywhere, until he reached the city square of Arallia. The long line that had once formed in front of the famous tailor’s shop was gone, and the windows of the shop were broken into. The mannequins had no clothing on display anymore and the shop was for the most part empty. As he looked, he heard a loud crashing sound behind him and turned to see a group of three level 30 players running into a blacksmith's shop after having broken the door.

“C’mon, grab all the ore you can!” One shouted excitedly.

“Check this out, Iron tools!” Another said.

“Yo there’s Iron weapons over here!” they continued to shout as Aegis approached. As he got closer, he recognized the symbol on their tabards - the black lion head. It was members of the same guild that had tried to attack the Sky Darling when it had landed in Arallia. The names above their heads though, he didn't recognize - [Slogger - 30], [Redrust - ??], and [Daggerking - ??]. They were all wearing pretty basic looking leather sets of armor with simple copper weapons sheathed on their belts.

“What are you guys doing?” Aegis asked, confused. "You're not defending the island?"

“Hah, F- that, those things are way too strong.” Slogger replied as Aegis stood in the doorway and watched them loot the blacksmiths shop.

“You should grab everything you can. When that other island went down, everything that got left behind was gone for good. But stuff in your inventory you’ll get to keep.” Redrust suggested to Aegis.

“Yeah bro, just fill your pockets and log out, we’ll get a free ride to a new island,” Daggerking added.

“What about the NPCs?” Aegis asked them as he saw a few guards running through the streets behind him, heading in the direction of the Palace.

“They’re finished. They'll all be dead when the island goes down.” Daggerking laughed and the others joined in.

"I heard Garrik got the King's crown though, said it's worth millions." Redrust said.

"Lucky bastards, wish we coulda snagged some drops. Joltblade supposedly got a bunch of jewelry from the Great Prophet of Eirene too." Slogger said as they continued rummaging through crates in the shop.

"Wait, what do you guys mean?" Aegis replied aggressively now. "Your guildmates, Garrik and Jollyblade, they killed the King and the Great Prophet of Eirene?" Aegis asked.

"Hell yeah, bunch of chumps. The White Flames actually thought we'd team up with them, and brought all those rich fancy NPCs right out into the open." Slogger laughed back at Aegis, then saw his Eirene symbol on his shield. "I mean, no hard feelings right?" He continued laughing and the others joined in.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Aegis shouted at them angrily, causing them to stop and look at him in surprise.

"Sheesh, relax dude. It's just a game, don't take it so seriously." One of them replied.

"Do you know how hard that qu..." Aegis stopped himself and tried to hold back his frustration, and they went on looting and ignoring him. "You assholes are the reason I can't complete it." He said to himself under his breath. "You're going to get put in jail though, right? Or some bounties on your head. You guys are just killing NPCs and stealing stuff." Aegis said to them threateningly.

"Hah, nope." Redrust smirked.

"Who's gonna be around to put bounties on us? All the Arallians are about to die." Slogger said.

"Yeah, so, lighten up bro. Take some stuff, its free. Can't get in trouble if there's no-" Daggerking was interrupted by a loud rumbling. "Oh shit, looks like they're here."

"Log out, quick, or we might drop our items." Slogger said hastily, and Aegis watched as a few seconds later, all three players disappeared from the gameworld. Aegis stepped back out into the street and saw that the black mist had reached the western walls of the city off in the distance, but was too pissed off to care. When he looked up and down the streets he saw that it wasn’t just this shop and those three players, there were a lot of low level players breaking into the Arallian shops and houses and filling their inventories with stuff. Just as he was staring, he got a party invite from Quinn and accepted it.

“Aegis, we see you on the stream. Stop standing around and get your ass back to the ship so we can leave.” Quinn said through the party interface. Aegis looked and saw he was in a raiding party. Included in the group was Quinn, Leonard, Herilon, Sapphire, Ren, Tullan, Gregory, and Trexon.

“I couldn’t complete my quest, those idiots killed the Great Prophet of Eirene.” Aegis said frustratedly through the raid party interface.

“Yeah, sorry. We saw it happeon on a livestream, the bandit guilds turned on the White Flames and killed the NPCs for loot.” Quinn answered him apologetically.

"And they're just going to get away with doing it?" Aegis asked.

"All of the Arallian Royalty and guards are about to die, so, yeah, no one will be left to put bounties on them."Quinn replied

"They're taking advantage of Arallia's downfall in the worst possible way." Trexon said.

"So if we save the Arallian NPCs, those idiots would get bounties on their heads, even if they're on new islands?" Aegis asked as an idea popped into his head.

"Well, yeah, Arallia is an allied kingdom so... Yep. Every island except Puagas would want to hunt them down. Killing a King and a High Priest are big no-nos."Quinn replied matter-of-factly, she seemed to understand where Aegis' mind was going.

"So let's save them." Aegis said with aggressive determination in his voice.

"Hold on," Trexon interjected. "The Sky Darling can hold 100, maybe 150 people maximum. You'd need to save more than that, AND a member of Royalty for Arallia to still even be considered existing by the game."Trexon explained.

"The portal circle onboard, Quinn said you enchanted it on the Airship to link back to Kalmoore in case of emergencies. How long can you keep it open for?”" Aegis asked.

"Well..."Trexon hesitated. "I suppose, I can hold it open for about 5 minutes with my mana pool, but it's Leonard's portal. He paid for the materials to enchant it. It's a one time thing, and it wasn't cheap." Trexon replied.

"Leonard?" Aegis asked in a pleading voice. It went silent for a moment as Aegis stood watching the last of the looters around him running through the barren streets of Arallia. He got the sense that everyone on the Airship was staring at Leonard while he was making his decision, though Aegis couldn't see it. During that moment of silence, his mind began to race over the last few weeks. He thought back on how anxious he was about discovering this class, how hard it was to level up all of his skills, and how much he had to do to get to Arallia. And on top of that, the Extreme(II) quest that he'd managed to complete - all of his efforts brought to screeching halt by a couple of idiot bandit players. They were going to go on to new islands with their stolen goods and suffer no consequences for their actions, while Aegis would have to continue to struggle and find a way to complete the quest, if it was even still possible. On top of that, all of the promises he made to Eirene and the memories of how he'd fought to survive against the Avatars of Darkness - it felt immersive and real to struggle alongside the NPCs in Hrath'mir, and these guys were making a joke of it by killing them for loot. The more he thought about it, the angrier he got. 'Relax dude. It's just a game, don't take it so seriously.' , he recalled one of them saying. He hated people who hurt others without any thought, and he hated people who only thought of themselves, and not the damage left behind in their wake due to their selfish actions. His heart filled up with nothing but pure spite.

“Ah pish posh, you all really think I’d choose NOT to be a hero?" Leonard reluctantly sighed. “ I absolutely adore the Arallians. Of course we'll save them, how else will I keep getting my Arallian wine?” Leonard smirked at Quinn.

"You weren't kiddin' when ye' said this lad would be makin' things interestin'." Tullan chuckled.

“Are we really doing this?” Ren asked excitedly while hopping around.

“Heh, and here I was thinking this trip was going to be boring.” Herilon pulled out his greatsword.

“Okay, okay, everyone calm down.”Quinn shouted at the group. “The abysslings are swallowing up this island, Aegis. I’m not going to stay longer than we can. You’ve got about 15 minutes, tops. We’ll secure the Skyport and hold out as long as possible, but if we get over-run we’re taking off. You hear me? You’ve got 15 minutes to get as many NPCs to the Skyport as possible.”

“They’re all in the Palace!” Sapphire said quickly. “The Arallians, I mean.” She added. “The guards are taking them all to the Palace. You have to go there and tell them to evacuate to the Skyport.” Sapphire said enthusiastically.

“Got it, thanks.” Aegis said as he took a deep breath and sprinted in the direction of the Arallian Palace as fast as his legs could carry him. His livestream viewership ticked up to 1 million, but in the mood he was in it only served to annoyed him, so he went into his interface to hide the number again. By the time he reached the Palace gates, the sounds of battle could be heard echoing throughout the city. Aegis looked northward and eastward and saw that the dark mist was now at the outerwalls in those directions.

“Get in, everyone in, we need to shut the Palace gates!” A guard shouted, and Aegis looked up at him.

“No, you can’t shut the gates, you’ve gotta leave!” Aegis shouted up at the guard.

“Are you mad? And go where?!” The guard replied from atop the Palace walls, pointing frantically at the eastern gate where reapers were swooping over the cities' lantern lights and grabbing at guards. Aegis and the guard both watched in the distance as one reaper picked up a guard off of the eastern wall and flew him up into the air several hundred meters before dropping him to his death.

“If you stay here, you’ll all die!” Aegis shouted angrily.

“No, if we go out there, we’ll all die.” He shouted back. “We’re shutting the Palace gates, either get in or get lost!” He said and Aegis reluctantly ran inside before the gates were shut. He watched the last of the citizens ushered into the Palace through the gardens by a line of guards, one of which he’d recognized to his relief.

“Celestian!” Aegis called to him as he was helping an elderly NPC into the Palace.

“Aegis, thank goodness you are alright.” Celestian said as he spotted Aegis.

“Celestian who is in charge here? Who can give orders that these people will listen to?” Aegis asked as the sounds of screaming and battle were getting closer.

“I, uh, I don’t know. The only one left is the Princess.” Celestian replied nervously as he looked around, not spotting any guard captains among the Arallian guards remaining.

“Can you take me to her?” Aegis asked.

“Yes, yes…” Celestian replied as he continued to help the elderly NPC, but a sudden loud explosion from the western gate shook the ground and caused them to stumble.

“Now, Celestian, right now!” Aegis shouted urgently.

“Yes, yes, of course.” Celestian hastily leaned the elderly lady towards another Arallian soldier who took over, then began pushing through the rushing crowd of civilians into the main hall of the Palace. It was packed full with people and they were all rushing to move further inside the majestic building, but Celestian lead Aegis towards the throne room straight ahead. It took a great deal of effort to force themselves through the dense crowd but eventually they made it into the throne room. In it, Aegis saw the three thrones at the back with a young girl sitting on one leftmost and smallest throne, being comforted by the only other player Aegis could see in the Palace, a high level [Yuki - ??] who was well dressed with beautiful long black hair tied back into a ponytail.

“That is the princess, she is in charge.” Celestian pointed out [Princess Savika(Elite) - Level 5] on the throne.

“Okay, thanks.” Aegis nodded as he pushed through the crowds in this room. “Princess Savika!” Aegis shouted, but he couldn’t be heard over the loud chatter and screams of panic. “PRINCESS SAVIKA!” Aegis shouted again, still no response. Suddenly, a second loud booming explosion shook the entire room violently, echoing through the hall from the city outside. And in the wake of that explosion was silence. Aegis followed it up as the only voice in the room.

“PRINCESS SAVIKA!” Aegis shouted angrily, and all eyes turned to him. “The Island of Kriene is plummeting into the Abyss. There is an Airship at the Skyport with a portal to Kalmoore, it’s your only chance to survive.” Aegis shouted out clearly, and he was sure that everyone inside the throne room had heard him, including Yuki and Celestian.

“My father said he would come back. We are supposed to take shelter in the Palace during an invasion.” Savika responded anxiously.

“If you stay here, you will all die.” Aegis replied coldly.

“N-no, we’ll be safe. Father will return after they’ve-”

“The King is dead. The Great Prophet is dead, and everyone who was defending the Island Stone is dead. The only one left is you.” Aegis shouted, and this was followed by complete silence. “She’s just a…” Aegis said as he caught a glare from Yuki. “You’re just a kid, I know that.” He softened his voice.

“Milady, they’ve breached the north, west and east gates. If we go out there now, we’ll be lambs to the slaughter.” A guard from near the entrance of the room shouted.

“If you go out there now, you might not make it to the Skyport, that’s true. But if you stay here, I can guarantee you will not survive. Instead of waiting for your father to come back, instead, think about what he would do in this situation.” Aegis shouted at Savika urgently.

“You promise that the portal on your Airship will be open?” Yuki asked on behalf of Savika as Savika looked at her with hopeful eyes.

“I promise.” Aegis gave Yuki a nod. Yuki turned to Savika and gave her a nod, and Savika took a deep breath, while a message popped up for Aegis that he quickly waved away.

Level Up!: Leadership has reached level 32!

“Ev…” She cleared her throat to strengthen her voice. “Evacuate the Palace, make for the Skyport. Secure the roads as best you can, leave no one behind.” Savika shouted, and it was met by momentary silence.

“Go, NOW! OPEN THE GATES AND GO!” Savika screamed, and she finally got a reaction. The citizens of Arallia and the remaining guards began rushing out of the Palace to the outside gardens.

“Stay with the Princess, guard her at all costs, make sure she gets to the Skyport.” Aegis said to Celestian and he gave a nod. Aegis made his way out of the Palace back into the garden to see the darkness already flooding deep into the city, nearing the Palace walls. He looked on worriedly for a moment as he watched the guards open the Palace gates and two abysslings ran through it from the streets. The guards drew out spears and bows and fired upon them, managing to kill the abysslings before they’d hurt anyone, but it caused the citizens to be apprehensive about stepping out of the Palace gates.

“The longer you wait, the worse it will get!” Aegis shouted at them as Yuki came to his side. Aegis spotted the odd giant Iron needle strapped to her back, a weapon he’d never seen before, but didn’t have time to ponder it.

“You really think they are going to make it through that?” Yuki asked him as she motioned to the black mist overtaking the city, suddenly spotting a loud screeching reaper swooping down towards them. Aegis couldn’t help but agree, it looked hopeless, the distance between the Palace and the south gate, and then to the Skyport was nearly a kilometer. Aegis looked around and saw many young children and elderly among the NPCs, and hardly any guards were remaining to protect them.

“Can you kill that reaper for me?” Aegis pointed at the reaper swooping closer and closer to them, its underside illuminated by the light of the city street lanterns.

“I’m a tailoring class player…” Yuki replied anxiously, but Aegis just continued to stare, waiting for a clear answer. “O-okay. Let me try some of my skills.” She stepped forward and pulled out her large needle, aiming it up at the reaper. “MAN HARI!” She shouted in Japanese, and suddenly a ridiculous amount of tiny sewing needles appeared in front of Yuki and shot forth at the reaper, turning it into a porcupine and dealing exactly 10 thousand damage. Aegis looked at her in surprise, and she returned the same expression. “I never used that skill like that.” She replied nervously as the Reaper crashed down into some nearby bushes in the Palace garden.

“Perfect.” Aegis charged forward towards the reaper and used his creature harvesting on it to gather parts of it. Once he’d finished, he ran over to the bodies of the abysslings that the guards had killed and did the same thing while Yuki watched him, all the while several guards had stepped out of the Palace gates and began securing the road just outside of it.

Once Aegis finished what he had been doing, he started going into his inventory, but as he did, he caught himself looking at his livestream icon again, knowing he had just seen nearly a million people watching him right now.

“Players of Arallia, it was fun being the bad guys, wasn’t it?” Aegis said angrily as he fiddled around in his inventory and pulled out several of his incomplete lures. “You probably thought, who cares if we kill a bunch of innocent people and rob them, and destroy an entire kingdom. It’s just a game, right?” Aegis said as he began mixing in the parts of the reaper and the abyssling into his lure bottles, and Yuki quickly realized what it was that Aegis was planning to do. Once he'd finished the mixture, Aegis lifted several completed lure bottles above his head and prepared to pour them on himself, Yuki’s eyes going wide in disbelief. "Well, unfortunately for you guys, I just happened to be here in Arallia when you committed these crimes. And I don't like people who kill innocent NPCs." Aegis said as he doused himself in reaper and abyssling lures, and as he did, the sound of thousands and thousands of creatures screeching in his direction echoed throughout the city. "But relax. Sure, you might all get huge bounties put on your heads and become wanted criminals on every Island in the Shattered World, but, it's just a game, right?" Aegis grinned devilishly towards his livestreaming camera.

Quinn and the other Night Hunters saw the lure buffs appear over Aegis in the interface and Sapphire couldn’t help but laugh as they stood aboard the Airship, preparing for the wave of darkness to reach the city on the south side.

“This kid is fucking crazy.” Herilon grinned excitedly.