Chapter 177: Counterattack
Lina quickly shadowstepped back outside of Kagil’aktos’ office and across the tavern floor until she was standing back beside Viella.
“It’s done, we can get out of here.” Lina said to Viella as she continued to hold her hands in front of her body, emitting an aura of shadows that wrapped around her fingertips as she maintained the shadow trap spell on the bound seekers.
“Not yet.” Viella replied with a strained voice.
“What do you mean? They are going to need our help with Mayeria and Kagil’aktos.” Lina replied.
“Yes, but if we leave these seekers as is, they will continue to spread chaos throughout the city. We need to take them down before we leave. I have a duty to protect all people within the city.” Viella replied, and Lina looked at her with hesitation, briefly glancing between her strained eyes, and the angry glares of the bound NPCs. She could see in real time as the solidity of the shadow tendrils that bound them all in place began to slowly become transparent.
Lina was being forced to choose between helping Viella, or leaving her alone to go back to the battle atop the tree and assist there. The only thought that entered her mind, though, was what would Aegis do. That thought alone was enough to make her take a deep breath, bend her knees, and prepare to engage the seekers in their immediate vicinity. Seeing this, Viella glanced at Lina and gave her a weak smile.
“Give them the opportunity to surrender peacefully. If they refuse, use whatever force necessary to stop them. Let’s deal with them quickly, the others will need our help.” Viella instructed Lina, and she nodded back at her.
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“Your weapons should work on them now.” Aegis declared to Krael and Kur’aktos. The moment he had, all six of the seekers, including the two corrupt Royal Guards, halted their reckless attacks towards Aegis and the two elite NPCs, and suddenly stumbled backwards away from the encounter with looks of fear in their eyes.
“Ah. Perfect.” Kur’aktos grinned as he straightened his back and glared at them.
“What is the matter? You are backing away. Are you afraid of us, now that your ancient magic has been nullified?” Krael taunted them as the two leading Dark Elves stomped forward towards them. The six continued to stumble anxiously, nearly tripping over their own feet as they backed away down the entry hall of the palace, towards the open front gates leading outside.
“How adorable. Perhaps we should show them mercy?” Kur’aktos suggested to Krael.
“I don’t believe they would have shown mercy to us. In fact, they had every opportunity to do so, but the only words I heard them utter were ‘die’.” Krael replied.
“Let us return the sentiment, in kind.” Kur’aktos roared, and with that, Krael and Kur’aktos lunged forward at them, swinging their razorsharp mithral weapons down on the six NPCs who immediately turned and broke into a sprint, attempting to flee the battle. It took only a few swings of the mithral blades to cut them down and kill them while Aegis just watched calmly from the back.
“Ah, that felt good.” Krael sighed once they had been slain, stretching his shoulders and neck.
“Come on, the rest of my party is keeping back Kagil’aktos and Mayiera, but I don’t think they’ll be able to hold out much longer.” Aegis ordered them, running past them and out of the palace. Kur’aktos and Krael followed behind him and the three found themselves on the landing of the Palace, outside the gates and above the Royal Ring.
Around them, they could see the chaos brought on by the seekers’ onslaught. The upper royal ring was littered with the bodies of the White Tree guards, and the ringing alarm bell signifying the wall had been breached was echoing off the tree and banging on their eardrums.
“The seeker’s must’ve breached the wall to create a distraction.” Kur’aktos explained with a worried look on his face, before running to the edge of the landing and looking down off the side. Aegis and Krael ran to follow him and look down.
It was difficult to see the ground level under the branches of the tree, due to the many layers and branches of the city below them that stood between the upper level they stood on and the bottom of the city. They couldn’t make out any real details about the commotion going on down below.
“Our priority needs to be the tree. Once you have your inner sanctum key back, then we can worry about the breach.” Krael instructed Kur’aktos firmly. Aegis looked at the two NPCs and saw determination in Krael’s eyes, and hesitation in Kur’aktos’.
“He’s right. Stopping the breach won't mean anything if the tree is destroyed.” Aegis chimed in, and this caused Kur’aktos to nod back.
“The way to the inner sanctum is this way.” Kur’aktos turned and broke into a sprint across the landing, and Krael and Aegis quickly followed behind him. They didn’t need to run very far before they curved around the tree trunk and got a view of a gigantic gathering of angrily shouting seekers.
They had gathered around in a makeshift circle at the base of the ramp leading further up the tree. All of them seemed to be engaged in combat with someone, or something, at the center of the commotion.
“What are they fighting?” Krael asked in confusion as he looked upon the scene. Aegis counted upwards of 30 seekers wielding various weapons, swinging and firing them wildly.
“Good. You’re here. Lil’ help please.” Pyri shouted from the center of the circle, her voice strained.
“It’s my companion. Clear them out, save her!” Aegis shouted at the two elite NPCs before himself charging forward. The moment he caught a glimpse of Pyri at the center of the crowd, he targeted a healing wind spell at her. Then, using his shield, began forcing his way into the gathering of NPCs, knocking them to the side and making sure she’d gotten in range of his Aura of Beauty to gain its benefits.
Pyri continued to swirl her split apart cinderbolts around herself in circles at incredible speeds. She’d taken some damage, but was still rather healthy, to Aegis' surprise. The only thing really low was her mana and stamina.
Krael and Kur’aktos jumped into action quickly with their mithral blades and began cutting through the gathering of Seekers, and it wasn’t long before the attention of the crowd began to split up. With all the commotion, it took awhile for Aegis to realize that even though they were humanoid, the enemies attacking her were still just non-elite NPCs.
“Challenging Roar!” Aegis shouted, once he’d realized it. The moment he had, his voice carried up and down the tree so that not just the NPCs heard him, but Rakkan and Kagil’aktos up on the upper inner sanctum landing heard him, as well as Darkshot and Mayiera who were battling amongst the branches below them heard him too.
It immediately caused all of the seekers to turn their attention from Pyri onto Aegis.
“Thanks.” Pyri gave Aegis a knowing nod and smile, grabbing her knees to catch her breath and recompose herself. As the seekers converged on his location, he lifted his shield and Krael and Kur’aktos stood on his flanks to help guard him from incoming attacks.
They were easily holding their own - the power of their mithral equipment put them miles above the strength level of the seekers, but the tides of the battle really truly only began to turn when Pyri had finished collecting herself and stood back up straight.
“Alright, you little shits. Time for some payback.” Pyri roared angrily as she launched her cinderbolts out at them, engulfing every last one of the enemy seekers in four separate flames, causing them to take four sources of fire damage every few seconds.
From that point, it was less than a few minutes before all of the seekers at the base of the inner sanctum ramp had been dispatched. The moment the last one fell, Pyri rescinded her cinderbolts and the two Dark Elves paused to catch their breath.
“You... You managed to hold your own against that many seekers this whole time?” Kur’aktos asked her with wide eyes.
“Yes… yeah…” Pyri replied, hesitantly glancing between the NPCs and Aegis to gauge his reaction.
“That’s incredible, mom.” Aegis praised her with a big dumb smile.
“Yes. Krael was having trouble with just six.” Kur’aktos replied, to which Krael coughed.
“I wouldn’t say I was having trouble.” Krael grumbled back at him.
“But, you managed to come up with an antidote for the poison that quickly? That’s way more incredible.” Pyri replied hastily, motioning attention back onto Aegis.
“Yes, quite. I would say you surface dwellers have shown yourselves to be quite impressive in a number of ways.” Kur’aktos gave Aegis a knowing nod.
“Where’s everyone else? What’s the situation?” Aegis asked Pyri, ignoring the praise.
“Darkshot took a dive off the side with Mayiera to stop her black magic from messing with my spells. I’m useless against her. Kagil’aktos went up there, but Rakkan and Snowflake are holding him back.” Pyri explained.
“Alright, you guys go up and help Rakkan, I’ll-”
> “Aegis, you gotta get up here. This Master of the Tree is out of mana healing me, and this Kagil’aktos guy hits hard.” Rakkan sent a message through the party communications, interrupting Aegis.
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> “Right, on my way.” Aegis replied reluctantly. “Darkshot you gotta find a way to disengage Mayiera and get back up here. We’ll be able to handle her now.” Aegis continued.
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> “Uh, yeah, right. I’ll try. I kinda made her angry though.” Darkshot replied.
“Let’s go.” Aegis nodded to the others before sprinting up the ramp. Pyri, Kur’aktos, and Krael all ran up the ramp behind him, heading towards the landing in front of the inner sanctum below the roots of the tree.
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“So, it turns out, you can take damage now. I bet that scares you, huh? You probably are thinking about running away?” Darkshot shouted up at Mayiera as she was giving off a dark purple aura, hovering in the air amongst the nearby thin branches of the white tree.
“RYYRREAAAAAAAAAAAEEHHH!” She screeched out at him with a wild expression. Her eyes were wide, her teeth were bared, and she was hovering forward towards Darkshot while multiple small black bolts of energy repeatedly fired out of her finger tips, barraging Darkshot with attacks that he desperately dodged by running and jumping between smaller branches nearby, occasionally resorting to using grappling shots to swing away from her.
“Coo coo!” Darkwing said from Darkshot’s shoulder, clearly anxious about the psychotic NPC pursuing them.
“I know, she’s completely nuts.” Darkshot replied to the pigeon. He landed on a thin branch and used his footing to do a quick spin around and shoot a red mark on her chest, which she made no attempts to dodge. “Rain of arrows!” Darkshot shouted desperately, firing out a single arrow which multipled into dozens. All of the arrows then converged onto the red mark he’d imprinted on her chest, hitting her and dealing massive amounts of damage. Despite this, though, Mayiera appeared unphased and continued to hover forward towards him, barraging him with magic.
“We gotta find a way to get back up to the top with the others. I can’t beat this lady alone.” Darkshot declared to Darkwing, who didn’t respond at all but instead had his head turned backwards on Darkshot’s shoulder so that he could stare at Mayiera. “Pinning shot!” Darkshot shouted as he fired an arrow forward in front of himself, but then used some subtle finger motions to redirect it backwards and caused it to pierce into Mayiera’s arm, binding her in place.
He glanced back briefly to see she was bound, then began firing grappling shots upwards at branches above him, swinging around the side of the tree until he spotted a branch jutting out from the base of the Royal Ring above him. He grapple shot the branch and quickly climbed up the rope to get atop it, and from there was able to run down the top of the branch to the wall on the outer rim of the Royal Ring, and hopped over it.
Once on the ring, he saw the results of the commotion caused by the seekers. Several guards were laying slain on the ground nearby, and the noble NPCs had all fled and were hiding inside the buildings, leaving Darkshot alone on the rich fancy streets of the ring.
He didn’t have time to stand around though. After briefly glancing back over the side of the Royal Ring to try and spot out Mayiera, he noticed that she was no longer where he’d bound her- in fact he couldn’t see her anywhere down below him at all anymore.
> “Uh, little problem. The crazy warlock disappeared.” Darkshot quickly messaged into his party interface
The moment he’d finished sending the message and turned around, a huge explosion erupted from the floor in front of him, as a blast of void magic blew through the ground of the Royal Ring, and Mayiera rose up through the hole that the blast had created, glaring at Darkshot.
> “Never mind, found her.” Darkshot added to his message before closing out of his party interface and nocking an arrow.
“You will die a most painful death for how you have insulted my great lord.” Mayiera hissed at him as she prepared to charge up another powerful spell.
“I think we got off on the wrong foot. Maybe if you told me a bit more about your lord, I might like the guy. He sounds really interesting.” Darkshot replied with an awkward smile.
“DIE!” Mayiera screeched at him as she released a huge ball of void energy in his direction, too large and fast to contemplate dodging. Luckily, the moment it hit Darkshot, it dispersed into nothingness thanks to Darkwing activating his Fae ability. This, however, only enraged Mayiera into yelling out incoherently and charging up the same spell again.
“Oooh boy.” Darkshot bent his knees, preparing himself to dodge the next attack. “Pinning shot!” He fired an arrow out at her, and hit her easily. The ropes bound her in place as she continued to hover above the hole she’d created in the Royal Ring, but she didn’t seem to care.
A moment later, the large black ball of energy had formed once more in front of her hands and she was preparing to shoot it out at Darkshot like a bullet. He prepared to dodge out of the way of it, despite knowing its incredible projectile speed and unlikeliness that he’d get out of its way.
Luckily, though, he didn’t need to try to dodge it - the spell was interrupted by four daggers that began slashing out at Mayiera from all sides, as Viella and Lina had appeared near her using shadowstep.
“Time to go back to prison, Mayiera.” Viella shouted after dealing decent damage and landing on the ground nearby, just at the edge of the hole that Mayiera had blasted through the floor. Lina landed similarly close.
“You okay?” Lina turned to Darkshot and he gave her a nod, throwing a thumbs up.
“Thanks for the save.” Darkshot replied.
“No problem.” Lina smiled.
“YOU INSECTS WILL NOT STOP MY LORDS WILL!” Mayiera screeched out at them, releasing an outward shockwave of void energy that pushed all three of them backwards off of their feet, losing balance from the force of it but taking no damage.
By the time they’d recomposed themselves, Mayiera was already hovering upwards away from them at incredible speed.
“She’s heading up to where the others are.” Lina announced.
“Aegis said they’d be able to handle her now. Let’s join up with them to fight her.” Darkshot replied.
“Right.” Lina nodded back, before both her and Viella began shadowstepping away, leaving Darkshot and Darking alone in the middle of the Royal Ring.
“You… you could’ve waited for me…” Darkshot grumbled to himself with disappointment before letting out a frustrated sigh and breaking off into a sprint towards the ramp that led up to the palace landing.
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Rakkan’s stamina was getting low, as was his health. His focus was strained on timing his crossbow shots from atop Snowflake to stop any spell casts, making it difficult for him to time his parries of the rapidly attacking Kagil’aktos.
“I’m sorry… I… I don’t think I can mend your wounds anymore…” Seliolara cried out anxiously from behind him.
“It’s fine. When I go down, just run away. Don’t die alongside me.” Rakkan instructed her as he took a deep breath and blocked another strike.
“You really think I will spare her life, after she stood in defiance of my lord?” Kagil’aktos cackled back at him.
“Spare this, jackass!” Pyri shouted out from behind him, causing Rakkan, Kagil’aktos, and Seliolara to all look over towards the top of the ramp leading onto the inner sanctum’s platform.
Standing there stood a staff wielding Pyri, a shield wielding Aegis, and two angry looking, mithral wielding Dark Elves. The moment Kagil’aktos saw them, he turned back to Rakkan and encased his sword in dark void energy before swinging it down at Rakkan, but a burst of cinderbolts formed in front of the blade and halted his downward swing just long enough for Rakkan to turn and grab Seliolara, then pull her out of the way of the sword’s path.
A moment later, the sword overpowered Pyri’s cinderbolts and continued its downward slashing motion into the dull grey planks that made up the floor of the platform, cutting cleanly through them and exploding void energy outwards from the impact point.
“Brother. What a pleasure it is to see you again.” Kagil’aktos shouted out jovially, turning from Rakkan and Seliolara as Rakkan used his echoes to create distance between himself and Kagil’aktos.
“You are not my brother.” Kur’aktos replied, stepping forward with weapons drawn.
“Easy, stay behind me.” Aegis quickly grabbed Kur’aktos shoulder and nudged him to step back while simultaneously stepping forward with his shield held out in front of himself.
“Ah, that is the symbol of Eirene, is it not?" Kagil'aktos asked as he eyed Aegis' shield. "Do you want to hear something ironic?” Kagil’aktos asked in a mocking tone, eying Aegis. “These fools have banished all worship of your surface gods, yet have failed to realize that this very tree exists due to their magic. They have banished from their city the very thing that gives their city life. Such is the way of their closed-minded ignorance.” Kagil’aktos said while motioning to the tree behind him.
“Yeah, well…” Aegis glanced at the tree curiously for a moment, before turning towards Krael and Kur’aktos and seeing the anger in there eyes. “Ignorance can be cured by shared knowledge, and a willingness to learn. There’s no cure for being evil, though.” Aegis replied as he fastened the straps on his shield and stepped further ahead of Kur’aktos. “You’re sure he’s not you’re brother? You’ve got no problems fighting him?” Aegis confirmed with Kur’aktos, without turning back to see his face.
“I am positive. I killed my brother and buried him with my own hands. It is a painful memory that I will never forget. This is a monster that is simply imitating his appearance.” Kur’aktos explained.
“Right, then.” Aegis nodded towards Rakkan, and Rakkan nodded back at him, but a second later, Lina and Viella shadow stepped up to the platform, appearing on either side of Aegis.
“Aegis, are you okay?” Lina asked him worriedly.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” Aegis nodded back at her.
“Mayiera is on her way up here.” Viella declared quickly, but the moment she had, an explosion erupted from the ground beside Kagil’aktos, and out of the hole it had formed came Mayiera.
“Oh hey, yup. There she is.” Pyri said with sarcasm. Kagil’aktos and Mayiera glanced at each other with big smiles growing over their faces.
“They have destroyed the protection runes and defeated all of our seekers. Now they aim to stand in our way and stop us from entering the inner sanctum.” Kagil’aktos explained to Mayiera.
“Then it is time we show them the true power of our lord.” Mayiera screeched back at him.
“Uh oh. I don’t like the sound of that.” Aegis shouted out worriedly. “Whatever they’re about to do, don’t let them do it!” He yelled to everyone on the platform. No one needed to be told twice - Lina and Viella shadowstepped forward, while Krael, Rakkan, Aegis and Kur’aktos charged at them with weapons drawn, and Pyri sent her cinderbolts flying across the top of the platform at them, and a bolt shot from atop the flying Snowflake.
All of it was too slow, however. Mayiera reached out and touched Kagil’aktos’ shoulder, and the moment she had, a huge blast of void energy released from their contact, sending out a powerful shockwave that knocked everyone backwards off of their feet and covered the platform in dark black smoke and debris, leaving a loud ringing in Aegis’ ears.
It took a few moments for the dust and smoke to settle, allowing the light of the tree to penetrate it and reveal what had happened.
One by one, everyone got back to their feet and composed themselves, including Seliolara, as they looked over to where Mayiera and Kagil’aktos had been standing. They were no longer there, and in their place was a gigantic round creature hovering above the platform.
The creature had a large, singular eye in the center of its round body with multiple eyestalks swinging around out of the top of it, each with its own small eye. All of the eyes had different colors on their pupils.
Below the central eye of the main body was a gigantic large opening for a mouth with large razor sharp teeth that were clenched together as it opened its mouth to grin at them.
Most distinct, though, was the color of the creature's skin. It was as if the creature’s skin was made up of void magic itself, like staring into empty space that absorbed all of the light around it. The worst part of all of it, for Aegis, however, was the name that was now floating above the creature’s head. [Raid Boss(Elite)] in dark red text.
“I told you that wasn’t Kagil’aktos.” Kur’aktos said hesitantly as he stood back up beside Aegis, alongside Krael, Lina and Viella. Across the way, Rakkan stood up with his echoes and helped Seliolara get back to her feet, while behind him stood up Snowflake, Pyri, and Rakkan’s crossbow wielding echo.
“Sorry I’m late. What was that large explosion jus-” Darkshot called out, gasping for air as he made the final steps up onto the platform, taking in the scene before him. “Whoa! HOLY SHIT! What the hell is that? Is that a beholder?!” Darkshot shouted in disbelief.
“Not just any beholder, it looks like some weird hybrid void beholder.” Pyri declared, though as Aegis glanced back at his mom he saw nothing but excitement on her face.
“More importantly, it’s a raid boss.” Aegis sighed.
“We’re not gonna fight that thing, are we? Aegis, I’m all about those quest rewards, but this extreme 3 shit is getting out of hand. We don’t even have a raid group.” Darkshot shouted out hysterically.
“What’re you talking about?” Aegis grinned back at him as he fidgeted around with his interface and sent raid party invites to Viella and Seliolara. They both accepted the invites without hesitation, bringing Aegis’ party size up to 9 members. “We’ve got a raid party right here.” Aegis said as he bent his knees, preparing to engage the boss.