Spiteful Healer

Chapter 120: The Ancient Text

“RUN, NOW!” Aegis shouted as he clutched the book tightly to his chest, wrapping his arms around it. He was more concerned with protecting it than himself. No one needed to be told twice, the five of them took off running towards the gate of the courtyard as large and small droplets of ooze began to land all around them. The party was sprinkled with tiny bits of acid damage, each not causing much on its own, but the amount of droplets was dangerous.

You take 95 Acid damage.

You take 132 Acid damage.

You take 116 Acid damage.

The numbers scrolled across their peripheral vision as Aegis felt the burning sensation on all parts of his body. Worse yet was that when the acid plopped down onto the ground around them, it started moving. Some droplets formed together quickly, and were large enough to start launching acid fists of their own at the party, forcing them to dodge and roll away from them as they ran through the acid rain.

The largest formation of ooze, the King, hadn’t completely exploded itself into nothingness. It was still dangling out of the window of the highest tower, but just as the party had reached the gate out of the courtyard, it launched itself with great elasticity off of the tower through the sky, casting a dark shadow over the party as it splashed down violently near the entrance of the courtyard.

The party just barely passed the threshold of the gate and got onto the bridge as it landed, its body flowing out of the gate after them, portions seeping out and off the sides of the bridge, but it didn’t completely stream off down into the abyss, it began pulling the drooping streams of ooze back up off the edges of the bridge to form up the main body into a large towering blob of ooze.

Aegis and the others were not interested in stopping to try and challenge it, they continued running across the bridge, jumping over and dodging smaller ooze formations that had rained down on the bridge itself, but on the opposite end of the bridge they saw that a large ooze had already formed there and was blocking their path.

“I’ll freeze it out of the way!” Rakkan shouted as he charged in front, preparing to swing his swords at it, but just as he got close enough and tried casting Frostbrand with a finger snap, the spell failed. Turning back, He saw two gargoyles on the walls of the castle courtyard glaring at him with glowing red eyes. “Fuck! This dungeon sucks!” Rakkan shouted angrily.

“How do we get through that thing without magic?” Darkshot asked as they had to stop running, now caught between the King Ooze behind them and the large ooze in front of them. Just as Aegis started to scan his surroundings to try and think, the bridge shook violently and several of the light blue blocks broke off, falling down into the abyss below.

Looking around, Aegis saw it wasn’t just the bridge that shook, the entire chunk of land the ruined castle was sitting on had tilted, as well as the ruined land they were running towards. He couldn’t figure out why for a moment, until he spotted it - the acid rain hadn’t just poured on the ruins, it had landed all over the exposed branches and was burning through them.

“I think the ruins are going down!” Aegis declared as he pointed out the large branch that he’d used to travel to the castle was beginning to bend downwards, spots of acid melting through the bark and damaging its structural integrity.

“I really, really hate this dungeon.” Darkshot sighed as he saw it. Lina turned and saw Aegis looking around for a solution, but they were running out of time fast as both of the oozes closed in and the land began to tilt more and more, shaking and quaking.

“I might have an idea.” Lina said, and suddenly dashed forward at the Ooze in front of them. Without stopping, she ran full speed into its body just as it tried to punch her. The punch would’ve hurt, but as Aegis had learned, standing in the acid only did damage every few seconds. Lina swimmed through the ooze’s body and came out the other side. By the time she had, her leather armor and most of her clothing had burned off save for her undergarments, but she didn’t seem to care. Her health was only half full, but it was enough.

“Come on!” She urged the others through. Pyri shrugged and jumped through, then Rakkan.

“Aw man.” Darkshot groaned as he psyched himself up, and they all took a lot of damage but managed to swim through the ooze, losing nearly all durability on their armor and clothing in the process.

“Aegis, throw the book over, then run through. We'll catch it!" Lina urged him.

“Right.” Aegis replied hesitantly as he prepared to throw it overtop of the bubbling ooze in front of him, whilst the King Ooze closed in behind him fast.

“C'mon!” Rakkan shouted as all four of them watched Aegis anxiously. Aegis wasn’t sure about this, but didn’t have much choice. He took a deep breath, held the text back above his shoulder, then with all his strength prepared to throw it. Just as he launched his arm forward with the book, the bridge shook violently, throwing him off his balance mid toss, and the book flew through the air wide at an angle, going towards the abyss. Aegis just barely managed to catch himself from falling off the bridge as it began to tilt sideways, both chunks of land tilting along with it as the branch that was holding up the land his party stood on began to bend downward towards the abyss.

“No!” Aegis shouted out with a gasp of air. There was no one near the book, no possible way they could retrieve it. He watched in slow motion as it spun through the air. Rakkan, Lina, and Darkshot all reached out towards it, desperately running to where the book was flung with determination in their eyes, but it was hopeless. They couldn't get it, not without jumping into the abyss themselves.

Pyri, on the other hand, froze in place as she saw the book flying off. The gargoyles on the courtyard walls were still staring at them, blocking Darkshot from using grappling shot to retrieve the book, and blocking her from using fly to catch it. But, Pyri knew she could still get it, if she used cinderbolt. She planned it all out in her head, she could duck behind a wall to cast her bolts, move one bolt under the bridge, using the bridge to hide it from the gargoyles view, and ultimately hit them with it from behind as a distraction. She could then use her second cinderbolt in that time to catch the book and propel it back towards the land without burning it. The amount of micromovements she’d need to make with her fingers to manipulate the cinderbolts in that way, that fast, without being able to clearly see what she was doing was immense. But she was sure she could do it.

She thought this as she watched the book spin one more time, then another, and fear crept up in her heart.

“We don’t understand each other anymore.” David’s voice rang through her ears.

As she heard this echo in her mind, she turned and looked to see the despair on Aegis’ face as he watched the book plummeting towards the abyss. So many emotions and thoughts rushed through her head in those few seconds before the book fell below the chunk of land, out of their line of sight.

I’m going to let my son and his friends fail this quest, because even though I was able to save it, I didn’t. If I save that book, they’ll know, won’t they? They won’t want to play with me anymore. I won’t be able to play with my son anymore. The livestream, there’s 31 000 viewers, they’ll all see it won’t they? She thought to herself as she tried to organize her thoughts. Then, a second voice rang through her mind.

“Isn’t that a bit insulting to Aegis?” Trexon’s voice echoed in her head.

She looked more closely at him, at his companions staring at where the book had fallen, half naked due to the acid having burned away all of their durability. With tears swelling up in her eyes, she took a deep breath, and dashed behind the walls of a nearby ruined building.

“Multicast cinderbolt!” she whispered to herself, then shot one out like a bullet from the wall downward, using the ruins to block it from the gargoyles view she manipulated it along the bridge, underneath it, extremely fast, and once it was close to the opposite end she split the bolt up into two spheres around and behind the King Ooze, back through the gate of the courtyard and up the back of the wall to get behind the gargoryles. She pressed the cinderbolt spheres onto the backs of the gargoyles, causing them to burn and screech out, jerking their heads around to try and cancel the spell that was behind them.

While carefully maneuvering the two spheres to constantly stay out of the peripheral vision of the gargoyles, she moved her second cinderbolt off the side of the chunk of land like a bullet, down after the text, and caught it just before it fell into the black mist of the abyss below. She bounced it up carefully by splitting her cinderbolt into multiple small flat spheres, making sure it didn’t sit on any sphere for too long so as to not accidentally burn the book.

As Rakkan, Darkshot and Lina looked off the side of the island nearest to where the book had fell, they looked on in disbelief as the book flew back up from the abyss towards them, Lina reaching out to grab it in utter surprise.

“What the hell, the book came back?!” Darkshot said in disbelief.

“What just happened?” Aegis shouted confused as he saw the book in Lina’s hand.

“I don’t know, but we got it! Come on Aegis, we gotta get outta here!” Rakkan shouted at him urgently. Aegis didn’t need to be told twice, he climbed onto the side of the now heavily tilted bridge, unequipped his shield, then charged at the ooze, swimming through its viscous body and taking massive acid damage before making it out the other side.

“Get to the rope!” Aegis shouted, spotting that Pyri was split from the group, standing with her back up against a ruined wall. When Aegis turned to look at her, he saw the look of fear on her face, and didn’t understand it. “Come on, we gotta go!” Aegis urged her, and she nodded, following behind the others as they all darted through the streets of the tilting ruins.

The canopy of the tree and its branches made an ominous deathly creaking sound as the wood began to crack and break, and the ground made several downward jerking motions.

“Grab it, grab it, grab it!” Aegis shouted urgently as they got to the rope that was suspended above the abyss between Kalmoore and the ruins. Lina didn’t hesitate to jump on top of the rope with the book in hand and sprinted across it well ahead of the others.

“We’re out of range of the gargoyles now!” Rakkan declared to Pyri and she nodded.

“Fly!” She cast on herself and began levitating up away from the ruins. As she did, the land made a heavy jutting motion downward, knocking Rakkan, Aegis and Darkshot off of their feet.

Aegis grabbed the rope, then Darkshot, and lastly Rakkan, but as they had, the branch that held up the chunk of land they stood on gave way, snapping completely off of the main section of the tree and freefalling into the abyss, pulling the rope down with it.

“Cut it!” Aegis shouted at Rakkan who quickly freed a hand from the rope to use his longsword to slash at the rope, disconnecting it from the pillar.

As the land and the canopy it sat on plummeted down into the the dark mist below, Darkshot, Rakkan and Aegis swung on the rope through the air towards the Island of Kalmoore.

“Oooooh shiiiiiiiiiiiiit!” Darkshot shouted as he saw the bottom jagged chunks of earth sticking out of the island of Kalmoore getting closer and closer. The three held on as tightly as they could and prepared for impact, and a few moments later they all slammed violently into the side of the island of Kalmoore, but well below the black mist, submerged in the abyss several dozen meters.

“Aegis!” Lina shouted worriedly at them as she put the book down and desperately began pulling the rope up from the ledge. Not long after, Pyri landed beside her and joined in. Melon and Snowflake were idly watching, confused about what was going on, but it wasn’t long before Snowflake clued in and rushed over to Lina, grabbing the rope in his beak and yanking it up alongside them.

“Can we breathe this stuff in?” Darkshot asked as he dangled from the rope alongside the other two boys. The mist was so thick they couldn’t even see their hands in front of their faces, let alone each other.

“I think so.” Aegis replied. “Let’s climb back up before some reapers sniff us out though.” he said urgently. Between them climbing, and Pyri, Lina and Snowflake pulling, they managed to get the rope all the way back up onto the land a few minutes later. Aegis, Darkshot and Rakkan relieved to be back on the land beside the others. Everyone rolled around and grabbed their knees to catch their breath as their stamina recovered.

“Good thing we have all that leather, because our direwolf armor is toast.” Aegis said as he looked at everyone standing about, still partially nude.

“We really should’ve unequipped the armor first, huh.” Rakkan sighed.

“No, I don’t think we could’ve survived the damage without armor on.” Aegis replied as he stood up and looked at the book. Checking the item card, he saw that it had lost 10 durability, but he wasn’t aware of why it happened. With the book in hand he turned to look back at the tree and the ruins.

The castle, and chunk of land it was on was still standing up on the main portion of the canopy, but the bridge had snapped and the treetop that was closest to Kalmoore was now gone. They could see in the distance the King Ooze still angrily slinking around the castle, but after a bit it began splitting itself off into smaller oozes and disappearing back inside the structure.

“Someone else can kill that thing. I’m done with that dungeon.” Aegis waved at it dismissively.

“I agree, let’s never go back there again.” Darkshot nodded.

“Still…” Rakkan paused and looked at Aegis and the book in his hand. “How the hell did that book not fall down into the abyss? Did you do something Lina?” Rakkan turned to her, and Lina herself turned to look at Pyri. She thought about the situation, played it out in her head entirely, and recalled that she felt a small window of time before the book returned that the gaze of the gargoyles had disappeared from them. The only possible explanation was that Pyri did something to make them look away, then used the time window to pull the book up. Lina knew this, but as she came to these conclusions she saw on Pyri's face a look of utter terror - Pyri's skin was going pale. It wasn't too unlike the expression that Pyri had on the bridge when the party was being attacked by the stick bugs. Lina held off answering Rakkan's question, waiting for Pyri to answer herself, and tell them all what an awesome thing it was that she had just done. But she didn't. She remained staring back at Lina, terrified.

"Was it you, Lina?" Aegis asked, curious as well as he waited alongside Darkshot and Rakkan for her response, all eager to understand what had happened.

"Yeah..." Lina said weakly, causing Pyri's expression of fear to turn to shock, tears swelling up in her eyes. Lina knew just from that reaction, she was on the right track, though she didn't fully understand what was behind Pyri's expressions. "Yeah, uhm..." Lina turned her attention back on the boys, trying to make sure they looked at her rather than Pyri. "When the ground shook, the gargoyles looked away for a second, so I shadowstepped down, grabbed it, threw it back up, then shadow stepped back up to to catch it." Lina fumbled the words out quickly.

"Really? Damn." Rakkan looked at her with an impressed nod.

"That's fricken awesome. Nice thinking." Darkshot smiled as he patted her on the shoulder.

"You saved our asses. If you hadn't done that, this whole quest woulda been over." Aegis said with a huge sigh of relief. "Thank you, Lina." Aegis smiled at her.

"Mhm." Lina nodded back, forcing a smile towards them. Once they stopped staring at her, she turned to look back at Pyri, seeing Pyri smile back at her before she sighed with relief as well. Lina couldn't say she fully understood why, but, she was happy with the outcome.

“You wanna see what it says? Maybe there’s another rune in it.” Aegis suggested as he held the book out to Rakkan who excitedly took it and began carefully reading through the pages. Once he had, Aegis looked to Snowflake while Darkshot moved to check on Darkwing, and Pyri went to stand by herself away from the group.

“Good job buddy, you helped me out there.” He ruffled the feathers on Snowflakes head, while Lina moved to stand beside Aegis, watching him interact with his gryphon. She felt the urge to say something to Aegis about Pyri, but she decided against it, and remained silent. Aegis gave everyone a bit of time to relax as he went and dug up their hidden chest, then called everyone over and handed out the leather until all of their inventories were full.

“Okay guys, the quest is complete, and our bags are full. It’s time to return to Kordas.” Aegis declared as the party gathered together and began their journey back north. It was rather uneventful, following the river until they reached their old camp, but there they spotted a new camp that had been set up, filled with members of the Blades of Kalmoore in the lower level 30’s and 40’s, and Aegis saw Miranda among them.

“What are they doing here?” Darkshot asked as they spotted them, steering clear of the camp of roughly 15 players. A few of them spotted Aegis and his party, but didn’t pay much attention to them as they passed by.

“Most likely, they’re copying us.” Lina said.

“Copying us?” Aegis asked her.

“Yeah… they probably saw the lynx den and how we were using it for experience through your stream. They probably waited until we left, and now they’re using it.” Lina explained.

“What? But that was our spot, and our strategy.” Darkshot complained.

“That’s the downside with streaming.” Rakkan shrugged.

“But isn’t that boring?” Aegis asked as he looked between Rakkan and Lina. “I mean, instead of playing the game for themselves and discovering and exploring, they’re just copying us?” Aegis explained his question, but this made both Lina, Rakkan, Pyri and Darkshot all smile at him.

“That’s why you’re the one with 31,000 viewers.” Darkshot patted him on the shoulder.

“Shinji’s investments are starting to make a lot more sense.” Pyri put her finger on her chin as she went into thought.

“Huh? I don’t get it.” Aegis looked at the two of them confused.

“As someone who barely plays games or watches other livestreamers, I doubt you ever will.” Darkshot shook his head in Aegis’ direction before walking forward past him.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Aegis replied, frustrated now.