Chapter 197: Out-healing
“You know…” Emerill leaned back in a red cushioned chair, set in the midsts of a large, eloquently furnished brothel floor. The chair was positioned in a circle around a large iron pole that was bolted in place from the floor to ceiling. It was one of many circles of chairs that had been arranged around poles within the establishment.
Dancing on the pole was a female elven player of level 26, wearing nothing but laced black underwear as she moved provocatively closer and closer to Emerill. There was an ever present smog in the air as multiple other patrons were smoking from pipes, laughing, and cheering on the dancers in front of them. A topless male orc worked several instruments using his bard skills atop a stage on the far side of the room, providing a beat for the dancers to move to.
“You’d probably make a lot more gold in this game doing what she’s doing,” Emerill motioned to the dancer, while looking up at Anazia. Anazia was standing behind his chair, arms crossed while glaring back at him unimpressed. “Instead of just keeping an eye on me all day.” He grinned. “You’d probably have more fun, too.” He added a wink, to which Anazia returned a look of disgust.
“I’m fine doing what I’m doing.” She replied coldly.
“Suit yourself.” Emerill replied as he reached for a mug of ale resting on a table beside his chair, taking a sip. “I’d like the ‘special’ dance.” He suddenly leaned forward, pulling a pouch of coins out of his inventory and handing it to the elven dancer. She smiled and leaned forward, taking the gold from Emerill and adding it to her inventory.
Once she had, she climbed down off of the pole and winked at him while simultaneously reaching behind her back to unclasp her bra.
“Hope you got your profanity filter on. It’s about to get immersive.” Emerill chuckled at Anazia.
“I always have it on.” Anazia sighed. Despite this, though, as the dancer moved in closer and began rubbing up against Emerill, she couldn’t help but feel embarrassed and briefly glanced away. The moment she had, the dancer made an odd squeaking sound.
“That was quick… hah.” The elven girl giggled, causing Anazia to turn around and see Emerill was gone.
“Shit.” Anazia dashed towards the door of the brothel as she saw it still swinging open from Emerill’s quick movement, bright daylight shining into the otherwise windowless establishment. Just as Anazia got to the door, she caught a glimpse of Emerill’s foot disappearing onto a nearby rooftop as she looked into the surrounding streets of Kordas.
Using her strength and agility stats, she was able to find footholds on the building to quickly jump up, despite it being four stories tall, and land on the roof. From there, she saw Emerill dashing over the rooftops towards the north eastern section of the city and quickly pursued, while opening up her interface to bring up her friends list and message Artaphernes.
“Art, Emerill’s on the move. Heading towards the fancy section of the city. I’m pursuing.” Anazia messaged him, but once she had, she got a warning message in response.
[Warning: The player you are messaging is currently under the effects of a Silence spell and will not be able to respond at this time.]
The moment she read this, she stopped in her tracks, arriving atop a five story building which gave her a decent vantage point to look over the city. She looked in the direction of her guild hall, where she knew Artaphernes to be, and scrolled through her friends list to confirm everyone in the guild was under the effect of silence.
She took a deep breath as she briefly glanced between Emerill, running in the opposite direction, then back to her guild hall which was clearly under attack.
“Damnit.” She grumbled to herself in frustration.
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Cheryl lunged forward towards Aegis, swinging her scepter at him from the left side. Aegis moved his shield up to block it, but suddenly felt a force of impact on his right shoulder. Something had hit him that he wasn’t able to see, but as he looked back to it he saw a trace outline of Cheryl’s arm pulling back away from the strike, passing through the trail of mist left behind by her scepter.
He jumped back and looked more carefully, it wasn’t just her arm - there was a hardly visible silhouette of Cheryl distorting the light of the lanterns on walls nearby. A second copy of her, hidden, while the visible copy feigned attacks. As she lunged forward again to pursue, Aegis was eager to understand how the skill worked, so attempted to bash his shield into Cheryl’s visible arm.
Sure enough, Aegis’ shield passed through it, confirming to him that what he saw of Cheryl was an illusion, and her real body was hiding within the illusion and using it as a decoy. He was able to process this and sidestep Cheryl’s real scepter strike as she swung it down on him from above.
Then, to retaliate, he quickly blessed himself and thrusted his shield forward at her. He felt the shield impacting something hard, and a loud metal clunking echoed off the walls. It was Aegis’ first time having an attack blocked by a shield, and he felt Cheryl’s invisible shield thrust into him as she utilized a brace to reduce the damage.
As a result, the damage Aegis dealt was a measly 903. Knowing that she was a cleric and likely had similar health to his, as well as self healing, he knew that trying to kill her by himself would be utterly hopeless. But she was relentlessly attacking, knowing that Aegis taking any damage would prevent him from navigating his interface.
With this in mind, Aegis suddenly dashed backwards towards the crafting chamber, and Cheryl pursued him wordlessly. Once he reached the door to the chamber, he unlocked it and swung the doors open.
“Snowflake, Attack!” Aegis shouted at his gryphon, who was in the midst of settling down for a nap. Immediately, though, Snowflake shot up and lunged forward towards Cheryl, rushing past Aegis with his talons and beak ready to strike. “Bless!” Aegis cast on his pet as it ran by, then hopped back from the doorway to allow Snowflake to block it for him, pouncing onto Cheryl’s illusion. Despite not seeing her real body, the sheer size of Snowflake had allowed him to accidentally hit her real form and knock her back.
Seeing this, Aegis quickly flipped open his interface and began navigating to his friends list. In this time, while recovering from Snowflake’s strike, Cheryl waved her scepter and shot out a ball of black mist at Aegis, overtop of Snowflake.
“I like animals too. I wasn’t lying when I said I was a veterinarian.” Cheryl shouted as the ball of mist expanded and formed into a Furry black Ferrawolf, with [Fuzzykins - Level 150] above his head. “Sick em, boy!” She cheered excitedly. Just as Aegis had opened up a menu to message Lina, the wolf bit into his ankle.
You take 2,403 piercing damage.
You take 530 shadow damage.
The menu closed out again, setting his progress back to zero. In frustration he quickly kicked the wolf off of his ankle and bashed it with his shield to daze it and push it away, while Aegis watched Cheryl slam her scepter into the side of Snowflake, dealing 36,301 Bludgeoning damage and causing Snowflake to cry out in pain.
“Hey!” Aegis shouted at her angrily, quickly casting a heal spell on Snowflake. “If you’re a vet, why are you hitting animals?” Aegis yelled.
“Oh, come on. This isn’t a real animal.” Cheryl sighed, her illusionary form rolling her eyes at him. Her real body’s silhouette could be seen striking down at Snowflake from the side and dodging a lunging attack from the gryphon, but Aegis quickly cast guard to project his shield over Snowflake and block it. He took the hit, but thanks to his new armor it did much less damage to him than it would’ve to Snowflake.
During this time, he was forced to jump back and avoid another strike from the wolf. They continued to exchange a few blows like this with each others pets, with Cheryl casting heals on the wolf to undo any damage Aegis did to it just as he was doing to himself and Snowflake. As it was, the battle was going nowhere, fast.
“So you were pretending this whole time? Just to destroy this island?” Aegis asked her in between the exchanging blows. She didn’t reply, though. “I don’t get it, why? Why are you guys sinking these islands? You must know how much they mean to everyone playing on them, right?”
“If they’re really so important, you should protect them better.” Cheryl replied nonchalantly.
“You did this on Arallia too, right? That’s why Joltblade is in that bandit guild. I get it now.” Aegis thought out loud as they continued. “You enjoy tearing up guilds and friends from the inside, just because it’s part of the game?”
“No, you idiot. It’s about the money.” Cheryl snapped back at him.
“There’s plenty of other ways to make money in this game that don’t involve screwing over thousands of players.” Aegis retorted.
“Not in the amounts that sinking an island makes. I thought that you, Eli Winters of all people, would understand. You wanted to be a doctor, didn’t you?” Cheryl replied.
“What does that have to do with anything? How do you even know that?” Aegis replied, somewhat thrown off by her words. Luckily, the wolf was not elite and Aegis was quickly grasping its attack pattern, making it very easy to dodge.
“We’re thorough with our research. And it has everything to do with this.” She replied quickly, frustratedly trying to strike at Snowflake but having it blocked again by Aegis’ guard. “4 years of studying, all down the drain thanks to Nanotech. No need for veterinarians anymore, just put any sick pet in a Vet-box. Nanobots enter the animal and explore it to find any problems. Then, they’re programmed to solve the problem. I thought, sure, but that would scare the animals, wouldn’t it? They’d still need the human touch. Nope. Wrong.” Cheryl shouted back angrily as she dodged a snapping beak attack from Snowflake.
“After 1 trillion simulations, they determined the right combinations of visuals and sounds to keep every type of animal calm during the procedure. Better than any human ever could. Within a year, I became completely obsolete. Just like your dream job will become. The same technology is being tested on humans as we speak. Isn’t that part of why you turned to streaming?” Cheryl asked.
“That’s not the reason. I still plan to become a doctor.” Aegis replied.
“Don’t. You’re wasting your time. This is where the real money is.” Cheryl replied.
“That doesn’t mean you have to earn it by destroying islands and stealing it from others.” Aegis replied.
“Easy for you to say, pretty boy. But not all of us get lucky with a rich and famous dad helping us into the spotlight.” Cheryl replied.
“He’s got nothing to do with what I achieved so far.” Aegis replied, losing his cool now.
“Oho, hit a soft spot, did I?” Cheryl chuckled. “Little boy so desperate to step out of big papas shadow, went and rebelled by changing his name and hiding his identity. So cute.” She continued, riling Aegis up and making him momentarily lose focus, causing him to take a hit from the wolf.
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“For a second there, I almost felt bad for you. Thanks for pissing me off.” Aegis gritted his teeth as he used the pain from the wolf bite to recollect himself. With the attack pattern of the wolf now ingrained into Aegis’ mind, he began opening up his interface to message Lina while simultaneously dodging the wolf's strikes. He got far, nearly completely uninterrupted in the process, but just as he was about to send -
“Too late.” Cheryl cheered as a flash of white zoomed through the room. Aegis recognized it, and pre-emptively ducked and shifted his head to left just in time as a pair of mithral daggers were thrust forward at the back of his head from behind. The blades just narrowly missed him and passed over top of his shoulder. Aegis then jumped to the side pre-emptively, But Emerill who had just appeared quickly maneuvered from behind Aegis to infront of him where he was jumping.
Aegis threw up his shield and braced Emerill’s mithral daggers, then retaliated by reaching out with his free hand in an attempt to grapple Emerill and stop his movement as Lina had taught him. Emerill saw the grab in time, though, and jumped away to avoid it. Unfortunately, the attack that Emerill had landed was able to knock Aegis out of his interface menu again.
“Whoa, you're a lot better than last time.” Emerill said in an impressed tone as he eyed Aegis up and down.
“Kill him quickly before anyone else shows up.” Cheryl ordered Emerill, her voice competing with an angry squawk from Snowflake.
“Yep, I’m on it. Bad news Aegis.” Emerill smirked at him while Aegis easily avoided another strike from the wolf. “I was just playing around last time, but this time, I’m gonna have to get serious. No hard feelings, I’m still a big fan.” Emerill winked as he bent his knees and prepared to dash at Aegis, but was stopped by a sudden set of leather high boots drop kicking into the side of his face.
“Oh hey, long time no see.” Anazia said as she landed on her feet where Emerill had been standing, and he went flying across the crafting hall, smashing into the tailoring station and taking a decent amount of damage.
Aegis didn’t recognize her, but he recognized the tabard she was wearing and quickly threw her a party invite
“Why’s your gryphon fighting that Night Hunter?” Anazia asked Aegis as she motioned to the doorway into the chamber.
“She’s one of them. Did you tell Artaphernes to come as well?” Aegis asked her while Emerill slowly stood back up with an annoyed expression on his face.
“Can’t, they’re silenced. I think these guys are making their play.” Anazia replied, causing both Cheryl and Emerill to smirk. “Can’t you message your party?”
“Everytime I try to open my interface, they attack me.” Aegis replied.
“Ok. I’ll keep ‘em busy.”
“Oi oi, little girly bounty hunter…” Emerill rubbed his jaw where he'd been kicked. “You’re getting a bit too full of yourself there. Cheryl?” Emerill turned to her.
“Aura of Haste.” Cheryl replied, and from her real silhouette, a large dark green aura erupted from her body that took over the entire chamber.
“Aura of beauty. Bless.” Aegis quickly cast in response, landing the bless on Anazia. “You’re a bounty hunter? Your skills are more effective against targets with bounties, right?” Aegis confirmed.
“Yup, Emerill has no bounties, but Cheryl has a few newly created ones. Looks like she’s been busy.” Anazia replied.
“She killed Tullan, and probably the other crafters from the Night Hunters.” Aegis replied.
“Message your party.” Anazia ordered him, as she dashed to the Ferrawolf and drew out two shortswords, slashing repeatedly at it.
“Hey now, don’t be mean to my cute little Fuzzykins.” Cheryl said in a baby voice as she healed the wolf back up from the damage, while Emerill dashed across the room. Much faster than before, he arrived behind Anazia and attempted to stab her in the back of the head with his daggers.
She hadn’t realized it, nor was she going to be able to dodge it in time.
“Guard!” Aegis shouted, projecting his shield to take the hit.
You take 9,530 Piercing damage.
You take 9,369 Piercing damage.
The strikes together hurt, but a lot less than before. Aegis was thankful for his new armor set made by himself, Yuki and Tullan. Anazia picked up on the Emerill’s position and swung a sword out at him from underneath Aegis’ projected shield, slashing into his legs and dealing 8,302 slashing damage, partially thanks to Aegis’ bless enchant. When she went for a second strike with her other sword, though, he jumped back to avoid it while Simultaneously Cheryl began healing up the damage.
“Even if we’re the same healing strength, they’ve got mithral. They’re gonna out damage us.” Aegis called out.
“That’s why you gotta message your friends.” Anazia shouted in frustration as she was pursued by Emerill, and the wolf went back to striking at Aegis.
“If I stop healing and blocking, they’ll kill you or Snowflake!” Aegis shouted back.
“Hmm, quite the dilemma you have there.” Cheryl replied mockingly. As pissed off as he was at her, Aegis couldn’t see the way out of the situation. Being his first time in a serious PvP encounter, he was finding himself flustered, and struggling to just keep his companions alive.
He did his best to focus and think, trying to recall everything that he’d researched in the previous weeks about PvP encounters. As Aegis recalled one Cleric PvP tutorial video in particular, an idea came into focus for him. After dodging a strike from the wolf, he ran towards the refined mithral ore and added it to his inventory, then rushed past the wolf, Emerill, and Anazia.
“Snowflake, Anazia, follow.” Aegis instructed them.
“Oi, he’s running away?” Emerill replied, dumbfounded as Aegis charged shield first into Cheryl. Snowflake moved to the side to allow Aegis to pass, and he vaguely watched as Cheryl did the same with her invisible silhouette, allowing Aegis to charge past her and pass through her illusionary form to avoid his strike. Without hesitation, Anazia and Snowflake took advantage of the opening and chased after him. “What’d he just grab?” Emerill asked curiously
“Mithral, you idiot. He’s got mithral. That’s why we gotta kill him.” Cheryl shouted at Emerill in annoyance.
“Oh shit, really? Nice. Well then.” Emerill and the wolf charged after Aegis and the others.
Aegis made it around a corner in the Night Hunter’s guild hall, breaking line of sight from Cheryl as they came out into the main foyer. There, Aegis spotted the corpses of several Night Hunter NPCs, including the Satyr that had met him the first time he’d arrived.
With line of sight broken, he opened up his interface and tried once more to try messaging Lina, but was frustratedly interrupted as two black balls were shot down the hallway and transformed into more Ferrawolves. One was named Snugglez, the other named Sir Barksalot. They both growled loudly and lunged at Aegis to interrupt him before Anazia and Snowflake could react to intercept them.
“How many pets do you have?” Aegis shouted angrily.
“Plenty!” Cheryl cheered as Emerill’s incredible fast movement brought him around the corner a second later.
“That was your plan? It’s worse now!” Anazia shouted in annoyance at Aegis as she was forced to dodge strikes from Emerill.
“Not exactly.” Aegis replied as he continued running to the front doors of the guild hall, and threw them open just as Cheryl and Fuzzykins came around the corner. Snowflake began exchanging blows with the three pets, and thanks to his elite status he was able to avoid their strikes and retaliate with relative ease.
The moment Aegis found himself on the front garden of the Night Hunter’s guild hall, he took a deep breath then opened his mouth wide.
“Guards! Help! There’s a wanted criminal here!” Aegis shouted as loud as he could.
“Hah!” Cheryl laughed mockingly as she heard this.
“The guards aren’t gonna help, they’re only level 50!” Anazia groaned at him as she continued to play defensively.
“I’m just going to kill them all in one hit.” Emerill rolled his eyes at Aegis.
“Are you?” Aegis replied as several Kordas city guards came running from the streets into the garden, spears at their side. They were level 50, just like Anazia said. Emerill wasted no time accepting Aegis challenge and dashed towards the first two guards, but as he arrived, so did Aegis with his shield ready to block his attacks.
Once blocked, one of the non-elite guards thrust his spear at Emerill dealing minor damage, but several more guards came and began to surround him, forcing him to dash away and try to land a strike on Anazia unsuspectingly from behind. It was abundantly clear to Aegis that Emerill was much faster than Anazia, especially with Cheryl’s aura. But, he wasn’t faster than a teleporting Lina.
“Guard.” Aegis blocked the strike from hitting Anazia while healing himself. “Snowflake, pull back. Line formation!” Aegis shouted at the guards, utilizing his leadership skill. It was enough to get the NPCs to all listen to him, and they quickly went shoulder to shoulder.
“You gotta be kidding me.” Cheryl rolled her eyes as Snowflake avoided strikes from the wolves and ran out of the guild hall, shortly after Anazia did the same.
“What’s the matter? I thought you were going to kill them in one hit.” Aegis smirked at Emerill.
“This fucking guy…” Emerill grinned demonically at Aegis.
“Focus the wolves down.” Aegis instructed the NPCs as Cheryl's three pets came out of the guild hall into the garden after him, Cheryl moving to stand in the doorway.
Maintaining their shoulder to shoulder formation, they charged forward and engaged the abyss beasts with their spears. Exchanging minor blows with the beasts, Aegis utilized his holy mastery to spread heals and healing winds to them and himself, while Emerill attempted to slay them from behind, but Aegis continuously intercepted his strikes using his shield, and guard.
“Don’t break away from the formation. Focus them down.” Aegis instructed Anazia and Snowflake. Snowflake quickly complied while Aegis began casting bless on the NPCs at every opportunity.
“She’s just healing through it.” Anazia replied after landing multiple strikes on a wolf with her swords, and watching Cheryl undo the damage she'd dealt.
“Yeah. But I learned that in PvP combat with healers, there's three ways to win. We either burst them down, isolate them, or have a battle of attrition." Aegis paused to keep up with Emerill and block another of his strikes from hitting Anazia. "We don’t have the burst to take them out, and they’re too fast to isolate them. So the only option left is to drain her mana.” Aegis replied.
“Oho, you really think you can out-heal me?” Cheryl growled angrily at Aegis, but as she did she looked and saw the repeated damage numbers hitting her pets from the guards, and Snowflake. Shortly after, Anazia joined in, all the while Aegis kept pursuing Emerill and preventing him from hitting and killing any of them.
Level Up! Leadership has reached Level 102!
“Hurry up and start killing some of them, more are coming!” Cheryl shouted at Emerill.
“What do you think I’m trying to do?” Emerill snapped back at her as he moved across the line of guards to strike one far from Aegis, but was stopped by Aegis’ guard. Aegis tuned in completely to Emerill’s movements. Spotting openings in his companions and following Emerill’s eyes was enough to predict where he was going to go before he went there, and he was quickly becoming sloppier with his movements the more frustrated he got.
“Maaaan.” Cheryl replied in annoyance as she suddenly pulled out a blue vial containing a mana elixir from her inventory, preparing to drink it.
“Don’t think so, lady.” Anazia reacted by dashing forward and stealing the bottle out of her hand. “Bounty hunters are an intermediate thief class too, did you forget?” Anazia smirked as she maneuvered around the battlefield around the abyss creatures to where Aegis was standing, and tossed him the vial.
Aegis caught it and was about to drink it himself, but Emerill moved forward to steal it back, using his skill to pull it through Aegis’ fingers. Once he’d retrieved it, he kicked Anazia away and moved towards Cheryl to hand it back to her.
“Nice try.” Emerill smirked as he handed the bottle to Cheryl, but as she popped it open and drank it, Emerill turned to see Aegis moving around in his interface. “Fuck!” He quickly reacted by throwing his dagger at Aegis to interrupt him and close out of his interface. Before the blade could hit Aegis, though, a transparent shell appeared around him.
“What the hell is going on?” Yorgi shouted out in confusion as he arrived hovering a few meters above the ground using his fly spell. The time Yorgi bought Aegis with his shell allowed him to continue into his interface, but Emerill charged forward and slammed his other mithral dagger into the shell, shattering it instantly. There wasn’t enough time to whisper a message, only enough time to press a single button button.
Aegis turned on his livestream, and the red camera icon appeared above his head with a number 0, representing 0 viewers. It quickly grew up to 100, then 1000.
“Tch.” Emerill groaned as he landed his strike on Aegis finally, while simultaneously picking up his thrown dagger.
“It’s fine. He didn’t send a message, just turned on the stream. We still have time to kill him before his pa-” Cheryl’s words were interrupted by a shadow dancer teleporting towards them through the shadows of the nearby buildings.
“Out heal her, bitch.” Anazia grinned as Lina appeared in the garden with fury in her eyes.