Spiteful Healer

Chapter 136: Reltrak Forest

The Mosstrapper scurried up towards Rakkan on the ramp but Aegis moved to stand in front of it. While bashing his shield into its head to get its attention, he released a burst of white light to activate his aura of beauty.

“Avatar of Eirene.” Aegis shouted, erupting into an explosion of white light. With his recent favor boosts from the wall's construction, this granted him a lot of armor. But he was still nervous when he watched the Mosstrapper pull back from his shield bash and prepare to attack him.

He was good at math, but not that quick with it. He knew he’d take less damage than Rakkan’s echo, but by how much was the unknown factor. As it slammed the front of its mossy head into Aegis’ shield, gnashing its mouth open and shut, he had that question answered.

You take 9321 Slashing damage.

Aegis was relieved it was significantly less. With his current health, he’d be able to take 3 hits before he died from this creature.

“Healing wind, heal!” Aegis quickly cast on himself. “Won’t need to roar on this guy, it’s going to be rough to heal through. Kill it!” Aegis shouted to his party, and they all sprang into action. Darkshot began shooting bless-enchanted arrows. Pyri sent two cinderbolts onto the creatures back. Rakkan moved to stand on Aegis’s left and right sides with his real body and his echo respectively, and activated frostbrand on his longsword. Lina Shadowstepped behind the creature to stand near the bottom of the ramp and stab it’s backside.

Snowflake, to Aegis’ surprise, flapped his wings to angle himself in the air off the side of the ramp, then settled his back legs into the stony side of the ramp and began thrashing his talons out at the beast as well.

“Heal.” Aegis cast a second time, before the Mosstrapper was able to lunge out at him again.

You take 9225 Slashing damage.

“Healing wind, Bless.” Aegis cast healing wind this time on Rakkan, then made sure to bless Snowflake and watched as his talons began to glow with holy light. “I’m not going to be able to keep up with this damage. What happens if you pinning shot it and I back away?” Aegis asked as he started casting another heal on himself.

“Enemies who can’t attack their primary target will resort to attacking whatever they can. If it has a ranged attack, though, it’ll use that.” Lina explained.

“Ok, when I call for it, use pinning shot and everyone back off until I’m back to full health.” Aegis replied, and the others nodded. He got another heal off before he got struck by the monster again, bringing him dangerously low on health. “Now!” Aegis shouted.

“Pinning shot!” Darkshot cast, and his arrow began to glow green before piercing into the top of the creature. It then burst out several vines that dug themselves into the surrounding stone, locking the monster in place. The moment he had, Aegis, Rakkan, Lina and Snowflake all backed away from the creature - Snowflake flapping his wings in the air beside the ramp.

“Heal. Heal.” Aegis began the repeated casts to get his health back up as the others all waited from a distance, save for Pyri and Darkshot who kept attacking it.

The Mosstrapper, however, wasn’t one to stay idly bound in the pinning shot effect. Rather than struggle against it, it began to vibrate the moss on its head in an odd manner, causing it to release a big puff of green mist.

“That’s probably poison, don’t breathe it in.” Pyri warned as she spotted the cloud of mist begin to quickly grow outward from the creature's head.

“Buffet it away.” Aegis said to Snowflake, and Snowflake screeched in acknowledgement. He landed on the ramp behind Aegis and Rakkan and pulled his wings back, then violently flapped them forward repeatedly, forcing the air downward off the ramp, past Lina, who held her breath as it happened.

“Snowflake is awesome.” Rakkan commented with a big grin.

“Eh, Darkwing coulda done that too.” Darkshot replied.

“Ok, I’m back to full health. I’m going back in.” Aegis said after he’d finished casting a 5th heal on himself in a row. He lunged forward and bashed the Trapper in the head again just as the pinning shot wore off, and once he had, the others moved in to join in attacking again.

From there, they repeated the same strategy over the next 5 minutes. Aegis mana was getting dangerously low and so Darkshot had to fire some extra pinning shots to buy him more time for healing and mana recovery, but eventually the creature went down.

Reltrak Mosstrapper Defeated!

You gain 14 330 Experience!

“That wasn’t so bad. Not nearly as annoying as those things in Kolz.” Aegis said as he grabbed his knees, gasping his air to recover stamina alongside the others.

“Our damage is really high. Especially with Snowflake helping out.” Lina smiled.

“Still…” Pyri began fidgeting with her interface. “We’d need to kill about 450 of those just to reach level 57.”

“Yeah… leveling slows down a lot.” Rakkan sighed.

“I don’t think we’re going to find many enemies as easy as those though, based on how Tullan was talking. We just need to come up with a plan to grind them efficiently.” Aegis replied while he took out his creature harvesting tools from his inventory and walked over to the creature's body.

“The first problem is going to be finding them.” Darkshot said as he moved to the ledge of the ramp and looked out over the sea of moss in front of them.

“Yeah. Then I’ll need a safe route to kite them where the poison attack isn’t an issue.” Aegis nodded as he started harvesting it. A few moments later, a small item came out - a crafting material for alchemy titled [Mosstrapper Poison Gland]. “No leather.” Aegis pouted.

“What’d you expect? It’s a bug.” Pyri shook her head at him.

“We also don’t know if there are other enemies spread around the forest. They could be camouflaged anywhere, like the snails on the roof and the trappers on the ground.” Lina said as she joined Darkshot in looking over the forest.

“Uhm… I think I know why the snails don’t like climbing up the mushrooms from the stalks.” Darkshot said anxiously as he motioned to the now visible undersides of several nearby mushrooms.

Hiding within the frills of the mushroom top’s undersides were long, coiled up worm-like white creatures. The only reason they were noticeable was because of the three visible, one had moved slightly and revealed the red name above its head, [Reltrak Fisher - Level 103].

“Figures. So, snails up top. Trappers down low. And Fishers in the middle. Lovely forest.” Aegis shook his head as he looked on at the Fishers. “That means running around the cavern would be suicide. What would happen if we just lure the trappers back to the room where we fought the raid boss?” Aegis suggested.

“They would likely leash. If you run non-elite enemies too far from their normal location, the game will eventually instruct them back and reset their health. It’s to prevent players from exploiting the simple AI of non-elites.” Lina explained.

“Hrm.” Aegis sighed as he scratched the back of his head, trying to come up with a decent plan. “Unlike Kolz forest, there’s just no good space to kite them around safely.” He concluded.

“Yep. It’s like Tullan said, leveling down here is a pain in the ass.” Darkshot replied. Aegis wasn’t ready to give up yet though, he looked between his party members, including Snowflake, and carefully considered all of the variables at his disposal.

“Maybe…” Aegis thought as he moved to the hole that the Mosstrapper had jumped out of, then knelt down beside it and felt the ground. It was soft - undoubtedly more of the Underrealm Soilstone. He then moved to the wall next to the bottom of the ramp and felt around it as well, only to find that it too was soft.

“All of this cavern is made up of Underrealm Soilstone. It’s hard, but not that hard…” Aegis said to himself as he pulled out his pickaxe and swung it down at the wall of the cave. It easily pierced through the rock and took a large chunk off of it. Seeing how easy it was to dig into, a big grin grew across Aegis’ face.

“Oh no.” Pyri groaned as she pieced together what Aegis was thinking.

“What? I’m not a cleric, I’m a shattered healer. What’s the point of having all these crafting skills if I’m not going to use them?” Aegis smirked as he pulled the pickaxe back and started swinging at the wall relentlessly, digging out a tunnel.

“Don’t tell me you’re planning on doing what I think you’re planning on doing…” Darkshot, too, figured out Aegis’ plan and was not excited about it to say the least.

“If there’s no good place to kite the trappers, then I’ll just make a good place to do it.” Aegis shrugged, as if this was a perfectly reasonable solution. “It’ll go faster if you help.” He stopped to take a pair of extra pickaxes out of his inventory. Lina and Rakkan both stepped forward and took one each without any complaints.

“I’ll level up my tracking so I can spot them easier.” Darkshot sighed.

“I’ll pet Snowflake.” Pyri replied as she moved beside Snowflake and started scratching the feathers around his neck, causing him to screech softly and close his eyes to enjoy it.

Aegis, Rakkan and Lina spent the next two hours digging out a tunnel that ran through the cavern wall to the left of the bottom of the ramp, and curved back around to the base of the ledge on the opposite, high side of the ramp where they’d entered the cavern from.

Using the pickaxes they were able to dig it decently wide with a high ceiling, curving it with zigzags to not give the pursuing enemies a chance to lunge straight at Aegis while he was kiting them, similar to how the trees had allowed him to stay ahead of the lynx beasts back in Kolz forest.

In the time that they worked on this, Darkshot had leveled up his tracking skill simply by working with Darkwing to single out the blue orbs that had pupils in them - it was the only way to distinguish the heads of the Mosstrappers from the actual moss, but he was getting better at spotting them as the skill leveled up.

Pyri took this time to continue to practice her unarmed combat training by punching and kicking at the air as a curious Snowflake watched her.

“There, that wasn’t so bad.” Aegis said as he came out of the tunnel on the opposite side they’d started digging it from. He, Lina and Rakkan dusted themselves off, happy with a +1 strength attribute gain from their hard work. “Can’t really dig it bigger, the Soilrock doesn’t go that far, and the stone beyond it is a pain to dig.” Aegis explained to Darkshot and Pyri as they moved to the edge of the ledge above and looked down at them.

“We’re going on an adventure, and the first thing you do is dig out an obstacle course.” Darkshot shook his head at him, then did a waving hand motion to the mushroom forest in the cavern ahead of them. “There’s about 40 Mosstrappers in range of my arrows. It’s hard to see further, due to the mushrooms and the green mist. The one we killed initially -” Darkshot explained, taking time to point back down to the base of the ramp. “After 30 minutes, it didn’t respawn in the same spot. Also, the tiny burrow it created disappeared. So we have to assume they respawn in random locations after 30 minutes, and their burrows disappear with them.” Darkshot continued.

“Ok, good. I think I can make a lure using the poison gland.” Aegis said as he made his way to the base of the ramp and the entrance of the tunnel. “The problem is that if the stragglers come at me from the other end of the tunnel, they’ll cut me off. We need to make sure they all group up outside so they chase me in the same direction as each other.” Aegis explained. “Use smoke bombs, vinerope shots and pinning shots to hold them at the entrance until they’ve gathered together. Once they have, I’ll start running the circuit with challenging roars and the lure.” Aegis said, getting nods from both Darkshot and Lina. “Pyri and Rakkan focus on damage. Snowflake-” He turned to the gryphon who excitedly squawked upon hearing his name. “I need a poison free area to catch my breath. It’s likely that this whole area will get covered in the poison mist from those Mosstrappers, so keep the bottom of the ramp clear with your wings so I can breathe on each pass. Everyone else, stay up on the ramp to avoid the mist.” Aegis added, getting a few more nods and a squawk.

“Good. That’s the plan. Any questions?” he asked them as he watched them biting into steaks for food buffs and drawing out their weapons.

“How long are we going to be doing this for?” Darkshot asked.

“Let’s see… if we average 40 at a time, and they respawn every 30 minutes… it’ll be about 5 hours until we reach level 57.” Aegis said as he opened up his interface and started checking information on experience requirements for subsequent levels. “Based on how the experience fell off with the lynx beasts, and how the requirements go up, it should remain efficient to grind these things until level 85. If we only rest while they are respawning, and take into account the time it takes to kill them, let's see…” He fidgeted around a bit more. “Three to four weeks. About one week in the real world.”

“Wow, nice.” Rakkan replied excitedly.

“Nice?!” Darkshot groaned.

“It’s really fast… all things considered.” Rakkan replied to Darkshot, with much less enthusiasm though.

“Insanely fast.” Lina said excitedly.

“We’ll probably be strong enough for the snails after that.” Pyri shrugged as she looked up to see them slinking around on the roof of the cavern.

“At the very least we’ll be strong enough to explore deeper into the underrealm and check out our options. As we are now, we’ll likely die if we try to walk 30 meters into this forest.” Aegis replied, and Rakkan and Lina nodded in agreement.

“Alright. Alright.” Darkshot relented. “I’m all about getting stronger. Let’s do this.” He creaked his neck and started psyching himself up.

“That’s the spirit.” Aegis grinned as he pulled out the poison gland from his inventory and began mixing it into the lure bottle. Everyone watched with excited anticipation as he finished it and jiggled the liquid in the bottle. He then made the rounds and blessed everyone, activated his aura, then moved to stand at the entrance of the tunnel.

“Remember, don’t let them in until they’ve grouped up properly. Let me know when I’m clear to go.” Aegis said before taking a few steps into the zigzagging tunnel they’d dug out.

“Got it.” Darkshot nocked an arrow while Lina prepared to shoot smoke bombs, Pyri created her cinderbolts and Rakkan formed his echo.

“Hope this isn’t suicide... Initiate the Gray Hair strategy.” Aegis declared as he poured the lure over himself. Not more than a second after the liquid drenched his leather armor, he heard the hissing sounds of dozens of Mosstrappers as they launched out of their burrows.

In a way, it looked like odd mossy fireworks. Aegis watched as all across the mossy cavern floor the insectoid creatures flew up out of the ground and landed on their legs, scattered randomly around between the large mushroom stalks. They varied in size, and the shapes of their mossy heads and positions of their blue eyes were different. The only thing they all had in common is that they’d all landed facing in Aegis’ direction, and immediately began skittering across the cavern floor towards him.

“I don’t think I’m ever going to get used to this.” He mumbled to himself as he took a nervous deep breath as the sounds of their hundreds of feet echoed off the cavern walls nearby. He held his shield up in front of himself, waiting patiently at the entrance.

“Vineropeshot!”

“Smokebomb!” They both cast the moment the first wave had arrived at the entrance, tangling them up and blinding them. There was less than two meters between Aegis and the front row of 5 Mosstrappers, but the other Mosstrappers were still too far back and scattered throughout the cavern - he had to wait, lest they run to cut him off from the other entrance.

Immediately upon the vinerope shot entangling them in place, they all began wiggling their mossy heads and releasing clouds of poison mist.

“I’ll hold my breath, don’t bother buffetting yet. Tell me when I can go.” Aegis shouted before sucking in as much fresh air and sealing his mouth shut, just as the green mist from the Mosstrappers overtook him.

“Vineropeshot!” Darkshot shouted again.

“Still a few more.” Rakkan called out.

“Smokebomb!” Lina cast, mixing in her black smoke with the poison to blind the creatures and slow them down. Thanks to the smoke, Aegis could no longer see his enemies, only green and black mist. He held his ground and his breath, trusting in his companions to not let them through.

“Multishot, pinning shot! Vinerope shot!” Darkshot cast, his mana dipping to half.

“Three… two…” Rakkan counted down. “One, they’re all there, go, go!” Rakkan shouted. Without hesitation, Aegis turned and sprinted down the tunnel, and 2 seconds later, the vineropes and pinning shot effects ended.

The sound of the Mosstrappers scurrying down the tunnel behind him echoed off of the narrow, winding walls. Aegis was sure to memorize the turns so that he didn’t need to slow down. A sidestep left, then right, then left. The turns were abrupt enough that he wouldn’t need to slow down, but still cause trouble for the cluster of enemies as they chased after him, bumping into each other.

He managed to keep a decent lead on them once he made it out of the tunnel on the other side, and glanced up to see Pyri, Rakkan, Lina and Darkshot all looking down over the ledge at him, weapons ready. As he curved around the base of the ledge and ran along the bottom of the ramp, the enemies came rushing out of the cavern behind him.

“Go nuts!” Aegis called out to his party members, and they did exactly that. Pyri shot down both of her cinderbolts and flattened them so that they applied burning damage to all of the Mosstrappers at once. Darkshot began casting multishots with piercing shots and Redirecting them to repeatedly pass through as many as possible. Lina shadowstepped down to the cavern floor and began using her Shadow Dance skill to repeatedly teleport around and slash at them, while Rakkan jumped off the side of the lower part of the ramp with his echo and began swinging at them.

Lina and Rakkan made sure not to stand in their path and accidentally take damage, and Snowflake positioned himself on the edge of the ramp to buffet the poison mist away from them and Aegis as he ran by, allowing Aegis to catch his breath so that it didn’t affect his stamina.

“Good, it’s working. Keep it up!” Aegis said before disappearing back into the tunnel entrance at the bottom of the ramp. A second later, the swarm of Mosstrappers scurried into the tunnel behind him, but once he came back out the other side, he was a good few meters ahead of them again.

The damage his party was dealing was quite high, and Aegis knew the lure had limits on the attention it would hold, so he made sure to use his mana to repeatedly cast challenging roar as he ran his loops.

On each loop, the Mosstrappers would gain on Aegis as he ran along the ramp outside of the tunnel, but he’d get further ahead while in the tunnel thanks to the zigzagging nature of it that prevented them from running straight at him.

Attribute Up!: You've gained +1 Agility.

It took longer than it had to kill a single Mosstrapper, but after 15 minutes of running his circuit, they were all defeated. Aegis ran up the ramp to wait for the poison to dissipate, as the others joined him to catch their breath.

“Nice, this’ll actually work.” Aegis grinned as he looked over his party to see everyone was unharmed.

“You’re more of a marathon runner than a tank.” Pyri smirked.

“That’s why I took leather armor.” Aegis shrugged back.

“This is awesome.” Rakkan smiled. “I didn’t think we’d reach level 100 by the end of the summer, but if this really works out, we might be 100 with a real world month to spare.”

“Good.” Aegis stretched his arms out, then retrieved his creature harvesting tools from his inventory, spotting the poison mist dissipating. “I’m tired of seeing question marks.” Aegis said as he walked down the ramp to the nearest Mosstrapper.

“Yeah but… three weeks straight?” Darkshot raised his eyebrows. Immediately all of them, including Snowflake, turned to look at him with ‘of course’ stares. “Ok, fine. I’m the weird one.” Darkshot raised his hands as if surrendering.

“Coo!” Darkwing cheered, drawing Darkshots attention to him to see he was now level 9.

“Oi, don’t be leeching experience. Lazy pigeon.” Darkshot grumbled at him when he spotted it, and this caused Aegis to look at Snowflake and see he’d reached level 51.

“Feeling stronger, lil guy?” Aegis asked him, and Snowflake nodded excitedly with a soft screech. “Good.” Aegis smiled before going back to harvesting the rest of the Mosstrappers. He was only getting poison glands from them - no edible meat or usable leathers, much to his disappointment.

“I guess that’s the trade off.” Aegis said once he’d finished harvesting the last one. “They’re pretty high level, but relatively easy to kill. The downside is that they don’t drop anything good.” Aegis said as he joined the others back on the ramp, waiting for the Mosstrappers to respawn.

“You still want to grind them?” Lina asked him curiously, noticing the disappointment on his face.

“Of course.” Aegis replied with a smile.

“Look, the holes in the moss that they left behind are starting to disappear.” Rakkan pointed out across the cavern floor, and the party all spotted the holes from the dead Mosstrappers being magically filled up and covered over by moss. Once all of them had disappeared, there was a weird shimmering, shifting motion to the moss all along the visible cavern floor.

“Ah, there, I see some. They just respawned amidst the moss. That’s really trippy how they respawn.” Darkshot commented as he pointed a few of them out.

“Ready for round two?” Aegis asked, tightening the straps of his shield on his arm.