Chapter 187: Not-so-calm Before the Storm
Tommy and Hae-won stood side by side in the Fanta-see Network studio's main office room. Several interns had been hired and were now scurrying about the office around them as the two looked at a large flat screen hanging on the far wall of the room. Tommy had a coffee in his hand wearing his standard respectable gray business suit, while Hae-won was munching on chips out of a small rattling bag in her sweatpants and baggy shirt, hair looking as if it hadn’t been washed in weeks.
On the screen displayed an interview in progress between the Virtual Gaming Network’s top broadcasting interviewer, and Makaroth. It was not live, but rather a recording. The interviewer sat in a fancy chair in an office, talking to Makaroth through his livestream which was displayed on a screen beside the interviewer.
> “Are there any plans for the Sages of Destiny to head back to Kalmoore, now that it’s all but confirmed that the next invasion will be taking place there?” The interviewer asked.
>
> “Listen…” Makaroth faked a smile and shook his head dismissively, but this was followed by a moment of silence that Hae-won filled by crunching her chips loudly. “There’s nothing that’s been confirmed. I know a lot of people are taking that new streamer's words to heart, but he’s just spouting theories. It’s common for new streamers to be the target of malicious players. Most likely, just a few of those trying to get a rise out of him by messing with Kalmoore. From what I’ve seen, Kalmoore could use a reality check in the PvP department.” Makaroth chuckled.
“What an ass.” Hae-won sighed.
“They know the invasions are coming, he just doesn’t want to help Aegis. He wants to see him fall on his face.” Tommy shook his head as he waved his hand to switch what was showing on the screen with his wrist implant, then taking a sip of his coffee as an interview with Feng appeared.
> “We cannot take the risk of leaving the people of Lanusk defenseless. I have a duty as the leader of the Vindicators to protect our own. If this is a false flag, I would leave my people vulnerable by heading to Kalmoore to help.” Feng explained to the interviewer, after being asked a similar question.
“Yeah, right.” Hae-won let out a huff of frustrated air.
“He’s kind of got a point…” Tommy shrugged reluctantly as he waved the wrist implant around again, this time changing it to Yumily in an interview.
> “Yes, I’m doing my best to finish my next few concerts, then I will head back to help Kalmoore as soon as I can… I just…” Yumily looked uncomfortable at the interviewer, then to someone off the side of her broadcast that wasn’t in view. “I can’t let anyone down…”
“Rumor going around is that Makaroth is pressuring VGN to schedule concerts for Yumily on islands as far away from Kalmoore as possible during the next weeks.” Tommy explained Yumily’s uncomfortable glances. “If she doesn’t show up for them, they’ll have grounds to cancel her contract with VGN.”
“Bastard.” Hae-won angrily crumpled up the chips bag, crushing the remaining chips inside. “I really hate this guy.” She chucked the bag into a nearby recycling can in the office.
“How’s it looking for Aegis, in your professional opinion? You know more about the game than I do.” Tommy asked Hae-won hopeful.
“How’s it looking?” Hae-won growled as she grabbed her own wrist and fidgeted with the implant inside to take over the screen, then quickly changed the display to a livestream broadcast of a random streamer walking around Kordas, in Kalmoore. The NPCs visible in the stream were all shouting and yelling at each other angrily, arguing over petty things and throwing objects at each other as the guards and several Night Hunter members struggled to keep the peace. “The moment Aegis went back to the underrealm to grind, the NPC behavior got exponentially worse. It’s like they’re saying, ‘even if you know we’re coming, you can’t stop us’.” Hae-won explained as the streamer, a low level bard player, struggled to help the Night Hunter members calm the NPCs down.
“At least Aegis’ viewership numbers are up, right?”
“Yeah, at least. But they’ll plummet right back down the moment Kalmoore crashes and burns. I just hope that kid can really handle all this pressure.” Hae-won sighed worriedly before strutting across the main office room towards her own.
“Where are you going?” Tommy asked her.
“To get back to work. Someone’s gotta keep the stream entertaining while he grinds Elementals and Salamanders all day.” Hae-won waved at Tommy, who nodded back. But rather than stop watching, he found himself staring up worriedly at the livestream of the chaos in Kordas. He took another sip of his coffee, then let out a nervous sigh before flicking it off.
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“There’s more and more lining up outside, it’s already longer than it ever was before.” Chax shouted into the town hall as he burst inside, looking at Travis, Yuki and Savika sitting in chairs on the far side of the round table in the center of the room, ready to receive the complaints of the NPCs.
“Have the guards not found anything?” Travis replied with a tone of annoyance.
“Nothing.” Celestian shook his head, standing watch beside the open doors that Chax had entered from. “They’ve checked the Monastery where the orb had been, and all other possible spots.”
“They wouldn’t use the same place twice.” Chax added.
“There’s no guarantee they’re even still using an orb, they could be just messing with us.” Yuki explained, but before more could be said, another angry old Arallian NPC charged into the room.
“I’VE HAD ENOUGH OF IT!” The NPC shouted angrily at Savika.
“Enough of wh-” Yuki began to reply, but Savika motioned her to stop.
“It’s okay, I can handle them.” Savika said to her with a nod.
“Are you sure? They’re angrier than before, and it’s endless…” Yuki replied to her worriedly.
“I’m sure.” She replied with confidence. “It’s evil magic making them like this. Aegis is counting on me to keep the peace while he and his friends get stronger, and I won’t let him down.” She said while looking at Yuki with determination, before turning her gaze onto the angry old NPC that was practically foaming at the mouth with rage.
Yuki let out a reluctant sigh as she glanced between Travis and Chax, who looked concerned but had nothing to say.
“Please, let’s do whatever we can to keep them as calm as possible.” Yuki said to Chax.
“I’m on it.” He nodded back before leaving the room.
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“Enjoying yourself?” Anazia asked Emerill. Emerill sat on a stool at the bar of a tavern in Kordas. All around them, players were attempting to drink and enjoy themselves in spite of random arguments that were breaking out between the NPCs nearby.
“Hm?” Emerill turned to smile at her, grabbing a mug of ale and taking a sip from it as he glanced across the tavern floor at two NPC barmaids shouting at each other.
“You don’t deserve to get any gold tips! I work much harder than you!” One dwarven barmaid yelled at the human barmaid.
“Are you kidding me? I’ve been working here much longer than you! It’s only natural that I get more gold tips. It’s not my fault I’m prettier than you.” The human barmaid replied.
“Hah, jeez. These NPCs are getting really feisty, aren’t they?” Emerill smirked, turning to Anazia to look her in the eyes deviously.
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“Yup. Your friends seem to be really busy. You sure it’s okay you’re just loitering around, drinking ale?” Anazia asked as she crossed her arms.
“Friends? What friends? I don’t know what you're talking about.” Emerill shook his head dismissively. “Like I told you last week, I’ve gone clean. I’m leaving the life of crime behind me to enjoy the immersion. And, let me tell you…” Emerill paused to take another drink of his ale and glared at Anazia suddenly. “It’s about to get very, very immersive around here.”
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12 Days Later…
Aegis knelt down over a pile of salamander corpses and got to work on harvesting their scales and leather. Despite the notification appearing in front of his face that he’d hit level 150, he didn’t say a word. Behind him stood a level 150 Lina, Pyri, Darkshot, Rakkan, Darkwing and Snowflake, who were all breathing heavily from their recently ended pull of mobs.
“Anyone missing any skills they might need to get their advanced class?” Aegis asked once he’d finished harvesting the last bit of high level Salamander leather, then stood upright and turned to face his companions.
“Nope. I’m good. All of my rune skills are 150.”
“Same.” Darkshot nodded.
“Me too, I think.” Lina replied.
“I’ve got a lot of spells still I could train, but that won’t be a problem to do on my own.” Pyri said.
“Good.” Aegis said as he panned his eyes over the slow flowing magma river nearby. “I haven’t leveled all of my crafting professions yet, but that won’t matter much until I can find a Silver dragon.” Aegis shrugged as he looked towards the eastern end of the river. “Before we head off to start on advanced quests though, we’ve got one more thing to handle.”
“The flame giant?” Darkshot asked.
“The flame giant.” Aegis nodded back. "Just to be safe, though. I think you oughta head back to Rene with Darkwing." Aegis turned to Snowflake, who squawked curiously at him. "Could you open a portal to Rene for them?" Aegis turned to Pyri.
"Sure." She replied before promplty casting the portal spell.
"Sure it's a good idea? Darkwing's skill is pretty strong..." Darkshot asked.
"Yeah, it'll be safer this way." Aegis replied.
"Alright." Darkshot shrugged, then motioned Darkwing to flutter over to Snowflake. Once Darkwing had landed on Snowflake's saddle, though, Snowflake hesitated and looked at Aegis with concern.
"We'll be fine. We'll be meeting you back in Rene in a bit, don't worry." Aegis smiled. It took another moment of hesitation before Snowflake reluctantly stepped through the portal back to Rene that Pyri had opened, and once they were through she cancelled the spell. "Alright, let's get too it." Aegis said to the group, and with that, the group began walking together eastwards along the obsidian shore of the river. Aegis took the lead, with Rakkan and Lina behind him, followed by Darkshot, and Pyri. They hadn’t needed to walk long before they went around a large bend in the river’s cavern and a giant came into view.
Its rocky red glowing body was leaning up against the edge of the opposite side of the river. The legs and torso were submerged, but everything above that could be seen. It had huge bulky arms made of jagged stone skin that had streams of magma flowing between the cracks and lumps. It had no neck, and its fists were the size of everyone in Aegis’ party combined. The only good news was that it appeared to be sleeping as its eyes were closed and it was leaning back, not reacting to them as they approached the edge of the river across from it.
“So, how’re we going to handle this thing?” Pyri asked.
“When it chased me and Snowflake, it ran really fast and kept scooping up magma from the river and flinging at us, then trying to punch us.” Darkshot explained.
“We can assume it’ll do that to us until it gets in range to use its fists, similar to how the magma elementals were behaving.” Aegis thought out loud. “Can you hit it from here?” He turned to Darkshot.
“Is the sky blue?” Darkshot smirked back as he nocked an arrow.
“Wait, we’re just going to pull it like that?” Pyri asked with raised brows.
“Yeah, why not?” Darkshot shrugged.
“We’ve got no time to waste. We’re almost done down here, we just need a giant heart.” Aegis motioned to the giant across the river.
“Yeah, but that thing is level 165. And Elite.” Pyri pointed out the name above its head. “If there was ever a time for those bandit players to start messing with us, it’d be now.” Pyri explained.
“We’ve been practicing PvP movement during our last grinding sessions…” Aegis looked over his companions. “Why do you think I sent Snowflake and Darkwing away?”
“You want them to come?” Rakkan asked.
“If they’re not too scared. I mean, come on, we’re just weak Kalmoorians, right?” Aegis spoke, this time his words were more directed at his livestreaming audience that he glanced up at to see was sitting at 250,000 viewers. Hearing him caused Rakkan, Lina, Pyri and Darkshot to all grin at one another. “Pull the giant.” Aegis said as he began blessing everyone and erupted in an aura of beauty, encapsulating his nearby companions.
“Roger.” Darkshot said before taking a deep breath, pulling the obsidian tipped arrow back, and releasing it. It soared across the cavern, high above the molten river, and pierced into the head of the giant, causing it to wake up and roar angrily. It took a moment for its eyes to open and orient itself on who had hit him, then it glared at Darkshot across the river.
The forward stomping began promptly, as large ripples formed in the magma river that traveled outward from the giant as it moved forward towards them. But about halfway through the river, the giant stopped moving suddenly, and began glancing around.
“What the hell?” Darkshot asked curiously.
“Something else has got its attention.” Aegis explained as he tried looking to where the giant was looking.
“How? Nothing hit it…” Rakkan joined in looking around. After a moment of glancing around frantically, the giant landed its eyes on something down the eastern side of the river, around the bend and slightly out of view of Aegis and his companions, but it didn’t stay that way for long.
Very quickly, a wave of black mist began flooding into the cavern of the Red River, overtaking the red glow of the magma. From within the dark mist, the loud screeching cries of hundreds of various creatures could be heard. More specifically, along the obsidian shore, they heard the clattering of footsteps stampeding in their direction.
“That’s the mist of the abyss, isn’t it?” Darkshot asked as he saw it.
“Yeah. The island must be getting pulled lower, now. They’re able to flood the mist into the underrealm this far up. Not low enough to get it up to the roof of this cavern yet, though.” Aegis pointed out as he motioned to the large gap between the top of the mist, and the roof of the red river cavern. “That means, they must be pretty desperate to try something like this.” Aegis smirked.
“They really don’t want you to complete that eternal flame.” Pyri chuckled as she tightly gripped her staff.
“Aw man…” An unfamiliar voice called out from behind them, on the western side of the cavern, opposite the direction the mist was coming from. [Joltblade - Level 150] stood above his head, and standing beside him were a collection of players donning the Black Lion’s guild tabard. Some of them, Aegis recognized from back in Arallia, though they appeared to all be higher level than he’d remembered. “I was really hoping the giant wouldn’t consider them dangerous. That’s an elite for you…” Joltblade sighed.
“What a class A gank attempt. Wait for us to engage the elite, then send in your abysslings?” Aegis turned to face the approaching players.
“Yep, yep. We’re pretty creative.” The Black Lion guild leader spoke, [Garrik - Level 150] standing above his head.
“I’d say cowardly.” Darkshot replied.
“I wonder what items you guys are going to drop, though?” Garrik replied, ignoring Darkshot.
“It’d be a shame if you lost all that salamander leather you’ve been farming the last two weeks…” Joltblade added mockingly as they continued to step forward, while the dark mist flowed towards them ominously and the flame giant looked anxiously towards it, letting out a fearful roar as the screeching of the abysslings from within the mist got louder.
"Not to mention those elemental cores..." Garrick nodded along.
“That necklace…” Aegis caught a glimpse of a pendant hanging off of Joltblade’s neck as he approached. “I’ve seen that before, haven’t I?”
“Oh this ol’ thing?” Joltblade looked down at it and shook it around. “I found it on the corpse of some dead prophet.” He grinned at Aegis devilishly. “Finders, keepers.” He added, causing a few of the other bandit players to chuckle.
“Want me to portal out of here?” Pyri asked Aegis in a whisper as they were quickly being closed in on.
“If we run now, we’ll probably never get another chance at a giant’s heart. That mist won’t go away until after the invasion, it’s only going to get worse.” Aegis whispered back.
“They’ll also just mock us even more.” Rakkan sighed.
“Yeah. We’ve got no choice. We’re standing our ground and fighting.” Aegis tightened the straps of his shield onto his left arm.
“Good call.” Another voice shouted out from nearby, as a portal from Kordas suddenly appeared near the cavern walls next to Aegis, and out of it stepped Herilon, Artaphernes, Sapphire, Quinn, and multiple other high level members of the Night Hunters and Artaphernes’ guilds. The one who was speaking was Artaphernes, and he had a big dumb grin on his face.
“Oh!” He said with a forced look of surprise in the direction of Joltblade and Garrick. “There you guys are! I’ve been looking all over for you!”
“How the hell’d you get a portal open?” Garrick asked with a look of worry, while Joltblade’s jovial expression had gone serious.
“I’ve had one of my sages trailing Aegis’ party with invisibility on since the beginning. Honestly, though, I didn’t think you guys would be stupid enough to really try and gank him. The abyss is a nice touch, I must admit. Kinda overplayed your hand, but still, a nice touch.” Artaphernes grinned while motioning to the approaching black mist.
“Don’t worry Aegis. We’ve got your back.” Cheryl smiled and winked at him as she stepped through the portal alongside the others.
“Baffo!” Aegis noticed him coming through the portal, the guardian player for the Night Hunter’s guild. He quickly glanced from the Black Lion members to Aegis. “Can you handle tanking the giant? I’ll use my aura of light to hold back the abyss. You guys,” Aegis motioned to his party members, “Focus on taking the flame giant down. I’ve got a feeling they still have some sort of trick up their sleeve, but as long as we get the giant's heart, it's our win.” Aegis explained, causing Darkshot, Pyri, Rakkan and Lina to nod back.
“You guys can handle these bandits, right?” Aegis turned to Artaphernes, Quinn, and Herilon.
“Huh? You kidding me? These guys are barely a warm up for me.” Herilon cracked his neck as he stomped forward excitedly, pulling out his greatsword and preparing for combat.