Chapter 148: A Mosmiracle
“Darkshot, which of those Royal Mosmir are the ones we left at low health?” Aegis asked him as he dodged out of the path of a slow moving void sphere.
“The one on the left!” Darkshot replied as he continued to fire arrows. “Incoming Voidreaver Larva.” He added as he saw a hatcher toss another one in the center of the cavern.
“Shit.” Aegis said as he eyed it, then looked up and saw the Queen attempting to lunge out at Snowflake. “Guard!” He blocked her pincers at the last second, causing the damage to himself instead.
“Heal.” Aegis cast on himself quickly. “I’ll take out the low health Royal. Everyone else, execute the fight as you were before, just make sure you don’t get hit by those void spheres! Play it safe, but also, go all out! 1 minute left on my Avatar.” Aegis instructed the group as he rushed forward across the sticky, strand-covered cavern floor. Without missing a beat, Pyri was still managing her cinderbolts to keep everyone's footing clear while dealing damage to the eggs and the Queen.
The idea of holding back was so far out of Pyri's mind now as she saw the intensity at which everyone was fighting with. Going all out with everything they had to take out this high level, never before defeated boss - it’d be an insult to do anything less than everything she could. What excited her the most though, was that even when going all out, the fight was still extremely hard. She couldn’t help but grow a gigantic smile over her face as her spell control was being pushed to its limits.
Aegis managed to reach the weakened Royal Mosmir after guarding two more strikes from the Queen that were directed at Snowflake and Lina. He bashed his shield into the side of the heavily armored Royal Mosmir a few times before he saw the Queen preparing to shoot a stinger attack at him.
She had sped up, her attacks were coming faster and the stinger shot more quickly through the air when she fired it at him, but still he just barely managed to get out of range of the explosion. Part of him hoped that the explosion, which engulfed the Royal Mosmir he was attacking, would’ve finished it off - but the Mosmir took no damage from the void attack. Instead, it turned its antenna towards Aegis and fired its next sphere at him.
The balls were no longer being fired only once every 30 seconds. Instead, the Royal Mosmir were shooting the void spheres out at a rapid rate. The balls were impacting the walls and floor of the cavern all around them, and the more they fired them out the more difficult it became to move about the cavern without touching one of them. The fact that the balls moved so slowly through the air was becoming a very very big downside as opposed to what Aegis initially thought, that it was good they were so slow and easy to dodge.
Still, Aegis’ party’s damage was abnormally high. Despite being about 10 levels below the Queen, their gear and enchants, coupled with the bless buff, as well as Darkshot’s tier 3 bow and obsidian arrows, meant that they were able to keep the larva under control and burn down the health bar of the Mosmir Queen quickly.
Anytime Aegis looked up to see who needed to be guarded, he felt like he was looking at a light show due to all the purple void spheres flying around.
Snowflake maneuvered around them majestically with Rakkan on his back and managed to avoid getting hit by any of them, while Lina controlled her Shadow Dance spell perfectly as she slashed at the Queen from all sides, avoiding accidentally shadowstepping into an oncoming sphere. Pyri was able to keep herself, Darkshot and Aegis nimble and mobile through the use of her cinderbolts.
Ultimately, somewhat to Aegis’ disappointment, the group managed to kill the Queen before Aegis was able to shield-bash the low health Royal Mosmir to death. She let out a final, painful screeching cry as her wings gave out and she crashed down to the floor of the cavern. The moment she did, all of the void spheres floating about the room vanished, and the four Royal Mosmir suddenly turned their pincers downward to the ground and began tunneling into the floor, burrowing their way out of the lair.
Congratulations! You have defeated the Mosmir Hive Queen!
Quest Completed!
You gain 500 Favor of Eirene.
You gain 500 Favor of Shiva.
You gain 2500 Favor with Pakro’Vielle.
You gain 10,000,000 Experience!
Congratulations, you have reached Level 88!: 5 attribute points available, +456 health, +157 mana!
Level Up!: Leather Armor Proficiency reached Level 91!
Level Up!: Shield Mastery reached Level 91!
Level Up!: Heal reached Level 91!
Level Up!: Healing Wind reached Level 91!
Level Up!: Avatar of Eirene reached Level 65!
Level Up!: Aura of Beauty reached Level 76!
Attribute Up!: You’ve gained +1 Constitution
Attribute Up!: You’ve gained +1 Agility
Despite the notifications, Aegis and his party stayed on edge for a moment, glancing around the room. Snowflake and Rakkan landed near Aegis and the body of the Queen while Lina shadowstepped beside Aegis, and Pyri and Darkshot walked over with Darkwing letting out an absentminded coo - as if he had no clue what was going on.
The party continued to glance around at the Hatchers moving about the walls of the cavern, Pyri manipulating her cinderbolts around the room to illuminate their activity.
“Should we take them out too?” Pyri asked.
“They don’t seem to be bothering us.” Darkshot commented.
“Hm…” Aegis pondered as he watched them closely for a bit longer. He saw them tending to various eggs, picking the larvae up in their pincers and rotating, then adjusting them, and it all seemed harmless and pointless. It wasn't until suddenly one of the Hatchers spotted a larva that had been pierced by a stray Darkshot arrow that their true purpose was revealed.
Aegis watched as the Hatcher yanked the arrow out of the larva, then curled its stinger up towards where the puncture was, and from its abdomen it released a small stream of the sticky white strands to mend the hole in the larva.
“No fucking way.” Aegis shouted in excitement as he saw it.
“What? What is it?” Rakkan looked at him confused as Aegis dropped to the ground and began grabbing at the strands of sticky silk that covered the entire cavern around them. He ripped a few of the strands out and put it into his inventory.
Name: Cured Voidsilk Strands
Type: Crafting Material
Option: Increases Agility or Casting Speed (Depending on Weaving Technique)
Quality: 7%
Description: Cured by magical flames to remove its impurities, these voidsilk strands can be woven into silk and thread by skilled weavers, then used to create very powerful, high level clothing. The quality of strands are based on the skill of the Mosmir Hatcher and the purification method.
“This is…” Aegis' jaw dropped as he looked at it. “You said no one had ever discovered a Mosmir Queen Lair before, right?” Aegis confirmed by glancing at Rakkan who nodded back. “Then it only makes sense we’re the first ones to find not just a Mosmir Queen, but also the first ones to discover tier 3 tailoring materials.” Aegis grinned as he saw his viewership sitting comfortably at 550,000.
“What?!” Darkshot shouted in disbelief as he looked around the room. “You mean all this sticky white stuff is…”
“Oh my goodness.” Pyri’s jaw dropped. “How much gold is this all going to be worth? Can you craft me something?”
“Wow.” Lina’s eyes went wide as she panned around the room.
“Guys, guys, that’s not what’s important here.” Aegis stood up and looked with intent at the Hatchers wandering the walls. “Of course, we’re going to harvest all this silk. It turns out to use it, you need to cure it first. And Pyri’s magical fire was, by coincidence, the exact thing needed to do it.” Aegis took a few steps forward. “But why take the golden eggs, when we can take the geese?” He pointed excitedly at the Hatchers.
Stolen novel; please report.
“Huh? I’m not following.” Darkshot replied apprehensively.
“He’s saying he wants the Hatchers.” Pyri explained.
“Oh. What?” Darkshot replied.
“Not the ones on the walls. These.” Aegis approached a Hatcher Larva that was near the ground of the cavern, stuck in a bundle of sticky silk on the wall. “Let’s see… It’s pretty small… so maybe…” Aegis pressed a few buttons in his interface, and sure enough, he was able to add it to his inventory.
Name: Mosmir Hatcher Larvae - Level 20
Type: Egg
Incubation Period Remaining: 2 Weeks
Description: A Mosmir Hatcher Larva will hatch into a young Mosmir Hatcher at the end of the incubation period. Certain spells and skills are able to speed up this process. Eggs must be taken out of your inventory in order to hatch.
“Guys.” Aegis turned back to look at them, “Grab as many Hatcher eggs as you can find and add them to your inventory. Pyri, burn away all the stickiness from the silk on the cavern floor. Don’t do anything to piss off the hatchers, though.” Aegis motioned up to them as they continued to wander about the cavern roof and walls, oblivious to their presence.
“Do I really have to touch that stuff?” Darkshot recoiled at the thought of it, looking at the nearest pulsating wall of Mosmir larvae.
“Fine. Darkshot, go check the tunnel those Royal Mosmir dug. See where it leads, but don’t get too close to them if you hear them stomping around.” Aegis instructed him and he nodded.
“What about the Queen? She dropped some items.” Rakkan pointed at her body, where two item orbs and several Pakro’Vielle guard emblems had appeared.
“Oh, right.” Aegis nodded as he walked over and tapped the orbs so the item’s would come out. One was a purple orb, the other was blue. “A pair of blue quality leather gloves, and a purple quality spear. I’ll check them out when we get back to Pakro’Vielle.” Aegis explained and the others nodded. He then took out his creature harvesting kit and got to work on the Queen. It was a struggle, but eventually he got all the valuable bits cut loose and added them to his inventory.
“Hm. Her pincers add void damage to a weapon, and her plating adds void resistance to an armor piece. Got one of each, pretty good quality.” Aegis announced once he’d finished. At this time, everyone was standing around watching him, recovering their stamina while putting off grabbing the sticky, pulsating eggs for as long as possible.
“Come on guys, chop chop. Get to larva collecting.” He turned and egged them on. Pyri, Rakkan, and even Lina looked extremely reluctant to do it, but they hesitantly made their way towards the nearest cavern walls and began looking through the may Soldier, Voidreaver and Drone larva to single out the Hatchers.
By comparison to the other types, there were very few hatcher larva, and it didn’t take long before the group had collected all that existed at and around the ground level of the cavern walls. In total they’d gathered 20 of them.
In that time, Aegis got to work on harvesting the silk strands that Pyri had already purified during the battle. Seeing him doing this, Pyri got started on purifying the rest of it.
It was a long, tedious process, but Aegis was eager not to miss out on gathering a single strand of it. He was already wondering what sort of reaction Yuki was going to have when he showed it to her. He wasn’t sure how he’d go about weaving it, but imagined a high level tailor class player like Yuki would have an easy time figuring it out.
“The tunnel the Royal Mosmir’s burrowed into the floor leads back to that circular tunnel we were wandering in for the past 24 hours. Turns out, the Queen's Lair was way way way up above the hive. Like way up. That tunnel goes almost a kilometer down, through that hard rock stuff.” Darkshot explained once he’d re-emerged from the tunnel.
“That explains why Feng couldn’t find it by just searching.” Rakkan nodded. “So the Queen somehow finds a pocket in the island and teleports to it, then uses her void abilities to warp her fully grown Mosmir to a nearby location to start digging out a hive. Pretty interesting.” Rakkan said while scratching his chin.
“Realistic survival strategies for not-so-realistic fantasy creatures.” Pyri nodded along with him. It took a while for Aegis and Pyri to get through all of the strands, but eventually he had cleaned the cavern floor of the silk and his inventory was stuffed full of loot.
“Alright.” Aegis stood straight and stretched, turning to his patiently waiting party members.
“Can we leave? Those bugs crawling around above us and the pulsating eggs are not my ideal ambiance.” Darkshot asked.
“Yup, we can leave.” Aegis nodded.
“You don’t want to finish off the other larvae and the hatchers?” Lina asked him.
“Nah, without their Queen I doubt they’ll cause any trouble. I’m on Darkshot’s side a bit here, eager to get out of this hive.” Aegis replied with a shrug.
“Amen.” Pyri nodded. With that, the group made for the newly formed tunnels in the floor made by the fleeing Royal Mosmir. It went down at a sloping angle, making it easy to traverse, and eventually all four tunnels converged into a single, large downward sloping tunnel.
After about 5 minutes of walking, they heard the familiar stomping sounds of the Royal Mosmir patrolling about the tunnel below, as if nothing had happened to their Queen.
Aegis and his party timed their descent into the tunnel to avoid the patrolling Royal Mosmir, and managed to get back to the tunnels leading out of the hive without getting noticed.
They walked on through the tunnels while falling back into their standard formation, but Aegis came to a halt once they’d reached the very first intersection on their way out.
“Weird.” Aegis commented as he stepped forward. The tunnel around them was illuminated once again by Pyri’s Lumina spell, and on the ground of the cavern Aegis could see that the black mist of the abyss had somehow crept up and overtaken the floor of the intersection.
“What is that? Is that the mist of the abyss?” Darkshot asked as he eyed it.
“Yeah.” Aegis replied as he looked around. He saw its source - the tunnel in the intersection that curved downward into nothingness. Only, the last time they’d passed through this intersection, the mist wasn’t this high, it was restricted to just the tunnel. Now it had spread up from the tunnel and fully submerged the floor of the entire intersection.
“Why is it higher up now?” Pyri asked him curiously.
“I’m not sure…” Aegis replied hesitantly “We were down here for about a day…” Aegis thought out loud.
“Maybe it’s like the tide? Is it higher at different times of day?” Rakkan suggested.
“Yeah, probably…” Aegis pulled his lips up on one side as he thought of this. It was odd, but there were too many possible explanations and unknowns on why the mist had risen. He decided to shrug it off for now and continued leading the party forward.
It took some time but eventually the party ascended up the hollow, silent tunnels of the cleared Mosmir hive. Peering out of the entrance and staring out into the large cavern of Reltrak Forest in front of them was a welcome sight. They were still underground, but the Reltrak cavern’s openness and natural bioluminescent lighting made it feel like they were ‘outside’ as opposed to the claustraphobia-inducing tunnels of the hive.
Making their way back towards Pakro’Vielle was a simple affair from there, they simply had to hug the cavern wall in the opposite direction they had done to find the hive in the first place. Notably, though, Aegis was surprised to see how on edge that Pyri, Lina and Rakkan were on their journey back.
“You guys alright?” Aegis asked as he turned to look back at them following behind him. Snowflake, Darkwing and Darkshot had no clue what he was talking about, but Lina, Rakkan and Pyri replied by first looking at his viewership numbers, then giving him odd, out of sync shrugs.
Aegis looked up and saw his viewership was tapering off now, dropping back below 100,000. It was clear that the majority of Feng’s viewers had gotten what they came for, but some were sticking around.
“We’re carrying really high quality, rare items. They’re extremely valuable, one of a kind. Even though this is Kalmoore, a very peaceful, friendly island. The temptation to attack us is going to be really high.” Lina explained.
“Yep.” Rakkan nodded back.
“You should at least anticipate that much.” Pyri said to Aegis.
“Oh, yeah. I guess that makes sense.” Aegis replied with a nod. “I’m lucky in that Darkshot sent us to Kalmoore, then. We’ve been able to grow and learn and discover the game unimpeded. Rather, the Night Hunters have helped us out more than anything.” Aegis thought out loud.
“Yup, but it's also because you’re popular.” Darkshot pointed at the viewership icon.
“And likable.” Lina added with a big smile.
“Don’t stroke his ego.” Pyri shook her head at the two of them.
“Too late. I’m the best.” Aegis replied sarcastically while flexing his muscles jokingly. “We oughta put all of our items in the Rene storehouse though, once we turn in the quests. Maybe with the Pakro’Vielle favor we can convince them to make a Portal Altar…” Aegis added as he opened up his interface and sent a message through his friends list to Trexon. “I’ll see if Trexon is free to enchant one, just in case.”
“That’ll let anyone teleport to Pakro’Vielle, though.” Rakkan replied.
“Only if they visit it first, right? Shouldn’t matter too much, we’re done in this area. Once we get the map we’ll be moving on. It’ll be good to help out the Night Hunters and Blades of Kalmoore get stronger, you know… In case an invasion comes here.” Aegis replied.
“You think it might be coming here?” Lina asked him with concern.
“Can’t rule it out…” Aegis thought out loud. “Here, I think this is the place. The Pakro’Vielle entrance.” Aegis began feeling around the cave wall nearby until his arm slipped into it. “Yup, it’s here.” He nodded backward to his companions behind him before walking in first.
One by one they passed through the muddy-sandy-liquid wall and came out the other side completely clean. Ulaipu and several Plashrim guards were waiting for him on the other side.
“You’ve returned! I am pleased to see you made it safely back from the hive. Tell me, were you able to retrieve any of the guards' emblems?” Ulaipu asked with hopeful eyes.
“Right.” Aegis said as he stepped forward for the group, then turned to face them and opened up his inventory. “Guess it’s time to sort the loot and turn in these quests.” He declared as he began dividing up the emblems between his party members to turn in.
“The only thing better than collecting a bunch of quests in a quest hub, is turning them in.” Darkshot grinned while rubbing his hands together eagerly.