Chapter 208: Initiative
Darkshot found himself on top of a roof of one of the many residential structures within the city of Kordas. Darkwing had put him down in his frog form, hopped a few centimeters away, then turned and stared at his frog body curiously, tilting his head to the side and cooing at him.
Darkshot looked back at his pigeon expressionlessly with his large bulging eyes, doing his best to not make any odd croaking noises, though he felt an urge to do so building up inside of him. Luckily, the duration of the transformation spell on him wasn’t incredibly long, and he watched with anticipation as it counted down its 1 minute duration and wore off. Just as it had, he jumped to his feet and glanced around to get his bearings, spotting the smoke puffing out of the upper towers of the Kordas palace in the distance.
Just as he went to his party interface to talk with his members, he saw Lina’s health drop to 0, alongside Rakkan who was already at zero health. He looked on with fear as he saw Aegis and Pyri still alive in the party interface, but he couldn’t think of what to say to them, or what to do. Then, moments later, he watched as Simon climbed out of one of the windows of the upper palace towers, cast the fly spell on himself, and flew off away from the city in the direction Darkshot knew the Airship to be.
After watching it, Darkshot sprang into action with Darkwing quickly fluttering back onto his shoulder.
“Yorgi!? Yorgi!” Darkshot shouted as loud as he could as he hopped across several rooftops until arriving at the street in front of the Palace walls, where he’d last seen Yorgi. “Don’t tell me he killed you, Yorgi!” Darkshot shouted in frustration, and got a ribbit in response. He looked in the direction of the sound and watched as a frog eagerly hopped out from behind a few discarded barrels in an alleyway.
“Good, you hid. We still have a chance.” Darkshot let out a sigh of relief as Yorgi’s frog form exploded into green mist and he transformed into his normal body again. He quickly felt himself up and down to confirm he no longer had frog legs. “Simon knows where the Airship is, he’s flying there. Is there anyway you can get us there before him?” Darkshot asked Yorgi.
“Get…? For what? There’s no point.” Yorgi complained while shaking his head.
“What do you mean ‘for what’? We’ve gotta stop Simon from getting to the King!” Darkshot shouted back at him.
“How’re we gonna stop that guy? Did you not see his spell control? He just took all of us on, and there were four of us. Now there’s only two!” Yorgi yelled back anxiously.
“So what are you going to do, just give up?!” Darkshot yelled. “If he gets the King, and finds the 5th island stone, then all of this was for nothing. This whole island goes down!” Darkshot replied.
“News flash, it’s already going down! Yorgi shouted back at him hysterically. “We tried everything we could, we followed Aegis’ plan, and it failed! We can’t stop that guy! And even if we could, everyone else is dead! How is Aegis going to defeat a level 200 Raid Boss?! There’s no one left on this island to fight it!”
“There’s us.” Darkshot roared angrily at Yorgi, stomping forward and grabbing his shoulders. “This time, Aegis needs my help. Our help. You really want to give up just because some guy shows off a little bit of high APM?” Darkshot said to him, staring Yorgi in the eyes. He watched as Yorgi’s look of fear slowly turned into a glazed over stare, as if something came back into his mind.
“High APM…” Yorgi mumbled to himself as he looked down at the pouch on his belt containing portal dust. “We can’t beat him, but maybe…” He mumbled to himself as he broke free from Darkshot’s grip and grabbed the pouch of portal dust, opening it to inspect the contents. “I’ve got enough for two more portals…”
“You’ve got a plan? You know how we can get to the Airship before Simon?” Darkshot asked.
“Maybe not before, but there's a town with a portal altar not far from where the Airship is hiding. She won’t be able to portal there, but if we can get to the airship before Simon, we can portal them to Rene. Come on!” Yorgi shouted with sudden enthusiasm as he began opening up a blue portal for Darkshot in the middle of the street.
“You want to portal the King and the others to Rene? Why? Simon can portal too, you know?” Darkshot asked with a raised eyebrow as the portal began to form.
“Yeah, but that’s where Pyri is.”
“She’s busy fighting off a bunch of Juggernauts, if we bring Simon there, it’ll just get Rene destroyed.” Darkshot shook his head at him.
“No, it won’t. Trust me.” Yorgi replied with a nervous nod towards Darkshot. Darkshot responded by opening up his friends list to contact Sherry.
> “Sherry, Simon knows where you guys are, he’s on his way. We’ll be coming as well to portal you guys out of there, but we might not make it in time. Be careful, he’s really dangerous.” Darkshot messaged her as quickly as he could.
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“We’ve got incoming.” Sherry told the others atop the deck of the Sky Darling the moment she got the message. “It’s Simon.” She turned to Leonard as he stood at the stern, holding the wheel. Leonard looked down at her and grew a devilish grin.
“So the coward finally wants to show his face, huh?” Leonard replied smugly.
“Everyone, get below deck!” Sherry ordered the NPCs. “Royal Knights, prepare for a fight.” She then turned to the several level 100 elite Royal Guards standing about.
“Come with me, son.” The King hurriedly ushered the Prince below deck, with the Queen of Kordas following after, then Princess Savika last. Once they were all below, Gregory moved to seal the door shut behind them while the Royal Guards took up positions at the railings all around the edges of the deck of the ship, while Sherry pulled out a coin pouch from her inventory and held it as if it was a weapon.
After a few more moments of the sounds of shuffling feet aboard the airship, it went still and quiet. The sounds of the winds blowing through the sails of the ship could be heard, but nothing else. Looking down over the lands below, Sherry could see in the distance the black mist slowly overtaking the island, but it was still thousands of meters away from reaching their position.
“There, I see something approaching.” Gregory pointed off into the distant skies at a little spec soaring quickly towards them. It took a few moments for it to get closer and allow them to confirm that it indeed was Simon.
He flew towards them at incredible speed through the sky, his long blonde hair and elongated sleeves flapping in the winds behind him. Immediately upon confirmation of who it was, Leonard strutted to the side of the ship he was approaching from and began waving his hands around with yellow glows on his fingertips.
“I’ve been waiting for this, since he killed my darling.” Leonard spoke between his teeth, as suddenly multiple magical runes activated all over the ship, appearing seemingly out of nowhere and giving off various colored glows. “I spent a lot of money just to guarantee that if you ever showed yourself near me, you’d be getting a one way ticket to Kordas Prison!” Leonard shouted once he was sure Simon was close enough to hear him, while Sherry anxiously glanced between Leonard and the approaching Simon.
Then, from the many magical runes on the side of the ship, dozens of magical beams shot out from them towards Simon. A mixture of Fire, Ice, Lightning and Shadow enchantments, all homing in on him with perfect accuracy. With ease, though, Simon began releasing bursts of water all around his body to deflect and negate the enchanted airship’s magical defenses. It wasn’t long before Simon completely bypassed them, soaring above the Airship and landing loudly on the center of the deck at the base of the mast behind Sherry and Gregory.
Leonard ran over to see him up close from the upper deck, beside the stern, while all of the Royal Knights of Kordas turned their spears in his direction, pointing them out at him with their shields up.
“Do I know you from somewhere?” Simon raised his eyebrow playfully up at Leonard.
“You killed my wife.” Leonard growled at him.
“Oh. Well, I’m about to kill a lot more than that.” Simon chuckled, as he waved his arms and prepared to cast multiple spells at the surrounding knights.
“Don’t think so.” Leonard replied with a grin, as suddenly Simon’s body froze in place, completely paralyzed. Simon barely managed to look down and see that he was standing atop a large spell rune that had been hidden, etched into the deck of the ship. The rune was now visible due to it glowing dark purple, sending bolts of purple electricity up over Simon’s body to prevent him from moving.
“Nobody harms my loved ones and gets away with it. Sherry?” Leonard turned to her, and she nodded back at Leonard before looking towards Simon once more.
“This is for attacking our island, and killing my guild leader.” Sherry pulled her coin pouch arm back, and prepared to swing it. “I may be a merchant class player, but we’ve got a pretty deadly cooldown skill that scales based on how much gold we’re holding. And I just borrowed the entire treasury of Kordas.” Sherry declared as she swung the coin pouch forward towards him.
“WEIGHT OF GOLD!” She cast her skill, causing the coin pouch to suddenly grow in size ten-fold and emit a bright golden glow before slamming into Simon’s paralyzed body and dealing 353,632 damage. Upon impact, the pouch exploded causing several transparent coins to fly off and scatter around Simon before disappearing.
Simon’s body didn’t disintegrate, though. Instead, a white rune appeared on his forehead that shot glowing white lines out across his body, and a few moments later, his body began to rewind back into the sky from before he’d landed, sending him back a meter away, flying in the air above the ship.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“Hah! Lucky!” Simon shouted as Leonard and Sherry looked up at him in confused horror. “Chronoguard! Upon taking fatal damage, rewind your character back to a state you were in 30 seconds ago. 24 hour cooldown. If you had let me stay paralyzed a few seconds longer, I would’ve just rewinded to still being paralyzed. Thanks for killing me so quickly!” Simon cheered at them. Following these words, though, he turned to glare at Leonard and his smile disappeared completely. “You’re going to pay for that.” He growled, releasing a barrage of spells at the airship.
His fury was focused on Leonard, who was killed by the first barrage of spells, followed by Gregory, while Sherry dashed below deck and several Royal guards jumped in and took hits for her, dying in the process. Within a few seconds, no one was left alive atop the deck of the Sky Darling.
“Now, safety first…” Simon mumbled to himself as he began repeatedly casting dispel magic, shooting gray bolts out at random locations all over the deck. Once he was sure it was safe to land, he did exactly that. “Come out now, or I will blow the ship up. I don’t want to, it's a nice ship, but I will.” Simon shouted down into the door leading below deck. He got no response and began impatiently tapping his foot.
“Five…. Four… three…”
“I’m coming, I’m coming.” Sherry announced, slowly stepping up the stairs. Once she arrived at the top, she kept her head down and avoided looking directly at him. “You’re a mercenary player, right? You work for money?” Sherry asked.
“Mhm.” Simon nodded.
“I could pay you a lot of gold. Just to leave us alone. I have access to Kordas’ treasury, and the Night Hunter’s gold supply.” Sherry offered.
“Mmmm… I’m going to get all of that stuff anyway when Vagosh sinks the island.” Simon shrugged. "Now, bring out the King already.”
“The King is not here, we sent them off the ship in a portal before you arrived.” Sherry replied timidly, causing Simon to eye her up and down while she remained keeping her head down, looking at her feet.
“I don’t like liars.” Simon replied as he suddenly released a blast of flame magic that flew beyond Sherry, exploding into the upper portion of the deck where the stern was located. In an instant, it was all gone, along with the entire back wall of the lower deck of the airship.
With it removed, Simon was able to look behind Sherry and see into the captain’s quarters from above, it’s back wall and roof removed now. Cowering there in a corner was the King, Queen, Prince, and off to the opposite side of the room was huddling Savika. All looked up at Simon in terror as he stepped towards the edge of the hole in the deck he’d just created.
“Lookie, I found them!” Simon said to himself proudly. “Excuse me, Mr. King, would you mind telling me the location of the 5th island stone?” Simon asked as politely as he could.
“I’ll never tell you its location, you vile fiend.” The King shouted out defiantly at him.
“Wrong answer!” Simon replied, snapping his fingers and sending out several spells at the Queen, killing her instantly and causing Sherry, Savika, the Prince, and the King to all scream in horror as her body was blasted backwards off of the ship, disintegrating mid air.
“You bastard!” The King shouted out at him angrily.
“You’re a monster!” Sherry yelled at him, taking a swing with her coin pouch at Simon’s head. Her attack was easily deflected by a burst of water magic, followed by Simon quickly kicking her away and knocking her to the ground.
“I’m just doing my job, don’t hate the player, hate the game.” Simon chuckled while Savika began whimpering, tears in her eyes. “Now, let’s try that again.” Simon raised his hand and aimed it down at the Prince, while staring at the King of Kordas. “Where’s the 5th island stone? Tell, or your lineage goes bye bye.” Simon threatened, as a cinderbolt formed in front of his hand and began swirling around the Prince, causing the Prince to repeatedly wince and cower away from it any time it got close.
“I can’t tell you. If I tell you, all of Kalmoore is doomed.” The King roared back, but he spoke in a way more that seemed like he was trying to convince himself, rather than Simon.
“Five… four… three… two… one…” Simon counted down, and once he was about to hit zero, he pulled his arm back as if preparing to send another barrage of spells out at the prince.
“Wait! Okay! Stop!” The King shouted desperately, waving his hands up at Simon. Sherry looked on at the scene before her, and knew by the look in the King’s desperate eyes, it was over. She hadn’t the heart to try and convince him not to save his son.
“I’m listening…” Simon looked at the King expectantly.
“It’s hidden in a grove of yellow leaf trees created by the druids of the Neumar Forest, near the center of the island.” The King replied with desperation in his voice.
“Really?” Simon asked him to confirm, pressing the cinderbolt even closer to the Prince than before.
“Yes! Yes! I swear!” The King shouted back frantically.
“Okay.” Simon smiled, followed by a wave of his hands in their direction. In an instant, several dozen spells were fired at both the prince and the king, killing them almost instantaneously.
Savika let out a scream of terror as she watched their bodies disintegrate in front of her, which Simon seemed to enjoy as he smiled in her direction. This was just barely enough of a distraction for Sherry, who frantically opened up her friend's interface and was sending a message to Aegis.
> "Aegis, they know where the 5th stone is! It’s locat-”
Her message was cut off by the casting of a silence spell from Simon, followed by a barrage of other spells that killed Sherry, taking her out of the gameworld. This left only Simon and Savika alive aboard the ship. Simon waved away the silence spell and smiled down at the terrified little girl. He paused for a moment himself to open up his interface and send a message to Finley, informing him of the 5th island stone's location. Once he was done, he closed out of the message and turned his attention back on Savika.
“You know, in the real world, it’s illegal for me to kill people. In this world, I get paid to do it.” Simon shrugged. “Killing other players, it’s a bit boring. Because they know they’ll revive, they usually don’t show any real fear or emotions towards death.” Simon pranced forward down the stairs to get closer to Savika, as she desperately edged herself as far away from him as possible until reaching the back of the ship where no wall remained, and there was nothing but a several dozen meter drop down into the forest below the airship.
“Killing elite NPCS on the other hand, they show such a beautiful range of emotions. What an immersive experience. I truly love this game. The look of fear on your face, I bet it’s exactly what it would look like on someone's face if I were about to kill them in the real world.” Simon grinned devilishly as he closed in on Savika, watching her horrified expression intently. Once a meter away, though, he pulled his arm back and released a blast of flames in her direction, expecting her to die as he turned from the exploding flames.
Instead, once the explosion had faded, he heard an odd cooing sound. Simon turned back to see Savika still alive, with a pigeon on her shoulder.
“SAVIKA! JUMP!” Darkshot shouted as loud as he could from below the ship, amongst the trees on the ground. Savika didn’t need to be told twice. She launched herself off of the back of the airship and began falling through the sky. Simon ran over to the edge of the ship where she’d jumped to look down after her, and saw Savika falling into a sea of mithral tipped arrows that were flying up at him from below.
“I shoot from the darkness, mother fucker!” Darkshot shouted as the barrage of multiple multishot arrows soared around Savika’s falling body up at Simon.
“Ooh, the froggy!” Simon cheered back at him. Yorgi used a fly spell to soar into the air and catch Savika, preventing her from hitting the ground, then landing amongst the trees out of Simon’s immediate line of sight. Simon activated the purple dome around himself and leapt into the arrows, causing every arrow that passed by near him to go to an almost complete stand still.
Despite their numbers, their slowed movement in the purple dome made it easy for Simon to to avoid and deflect any in his path as he fell down out of the sky after Savika, eying where Yorgi took her and attempting to land beside her.
Before he could, though. Darkshot revealed his location amidst the nearby trees by jumping off of a nearby tree branch up at Simon and taking a swing at him with his right fist. Simon cast fly on himself to swerve out of the path of Darkshot’s punch, but with Darkshot’s other hand he threw an arrow at point blank range.
“Pinning shot!” Darkshot shouted, plunging the arrow into Simon’s heel unsuspectingly, causing vines to shoot out towards the ground.
“Really?” Simon rolled his eyes at Darkshot, waving his hand at the arrow to dispel the pinning shot before the vines even connected with anything. As Darkshot fell back down out of the air following these two strikes, Simon remained hovering in place and turned to follow Darkshot with his eyes. “That was your big rescue plan?”
“Not all of it. I’ve still got my secret attack.” Darkshot grinned as he spun and glared back up at Simon, still falling backwards towards the canopy of a nearby tree. “ULTIMATE THRUST ATTACK!” Darkshot yelled, dropping his longbow and unequipping his pants, revealing his nude lower half.
“Hah!?! Are you some sort of pervert?!” Simon cackled at him as he watched the half-naked Darkshot land in the canopy of the tree, the branches and leaves at the top were unfortunately strong enough to hold Darkshot’s weight, preventing him from falling out of Simon’s view.
“No, I’m not a pervert, this is the ultimate attack. The perfect distraction.” Darkshot declared as he struggled to stand upright on the branches. Simon heard this, glanced towards Yorgi and Savika under the treeline, and saw them disappearing through a portal.
“Tch.” Simon sucked his teeth before waving his arms in Darkshot’s direction, creating a series of spells that shot at him from all directions, killing him instantly. Following this, Simon quickly shot a water spear out at the portal that Yorgi had created, then warped to the location of the spear so that he could briefly look through the portal before it closed. “Rene, huh?” Simon said to himself as he recognized the portal altar on the other side of the portal. He then waved his hands and created his own portal to Rene a second later, stepping through it to see Yorgi and Savika running away from him down the street.
“All such a waste. You’re not going to get away from me!” Simon shouted out after Yorgi as he gave chase, quickly gaining on them.
“I wasn’t trying to get away! I was preparing for a spell that could destroy you!” Yorgi yelled back at him confidently as he arrived at the townsquare of Rene, stopping in front of the fountain while motioning to Savika to keep running away. She hadn’t the strength, though, and her legs gave out from fear a few meters behind Yorgi.
Seeing that he stopped running away, Simon stopped running as well and switched to walking, entering the townsquare from the north side of Rene.
“Is it like the other frogs' spell? Are you going to take your pants off?” Simon asked curiously.
“No, something way better than that.” Yorgi’s fingers began to glow gray and he tapped his own neck with them. “Voice amplification.” Yorgi cast on himself.
“You’re going to sing me a song?” Simon asked him with intrigue.
“PYRIIIIIIIIIIIII!” Yorgi shouted at the top of his lungs, his voice suddenly much louder and carrying itself over all of Rene and its surrounding lands. “HEEEELP!”
“Boring.” Simon waved his hands at Yorgi, using his standard barrage of spells to kill him instantly. He then turned to the cowering Savika on the paved townsquare of Rene that encircled Aegis’ fountain of Eirene.
“All that running, and for what? Once you’re on my kill list, you won’t escape. I will keep hunting you to the ends of this virtual world.” Simon sighed, followed by a wave of his hands in her direction. He created another barrage of spells and sent them towards Savika, but this time, not a single spell connected. Slowly, out of the sky, Pyri lowered herself down to land on the town square beside the fountain, between Simon and Savika. Savika looked up at her with joyous tears in her eyes, while Pyri stared at Simon.
“Hm?” Simon tilted his head to the side curiously, confused by what had just happened while eying Pyri up and down. “You’re also on my kill list. One of Aegis’ buddies. Thanks for making it easy to find you!” Simon cheered, waving his hands to send another barrage of spells, this time aimed at Pyri. Every single spell that he fired was intercepted and blocked by her cinderbolts, now rotating rapidly around her.
“You’ve been picking on my son’s friends, huh? That stops now.” Pyri replied with a look of anger.