Spiteful Healer

Chapter 141: The Hive

“So, guys…” Aegis walked over towards Snowflake’s resting spot in the middle of the streets of Pakro’Vielle. Standing around him, waiting patiently stood Pyri, Lina, Rakkan, and Darkshot with Darkwing on his shoulder.

“How are you the last one back? They literally read a book in the time it took you to peruse.” Darkshot interrupted Aegis before he could finish his sentence.

“They all had quests! So many!” Aegis replied excitedly.

“Lina got a quest too. Three, actually. And she completed them all. Still got back before you.” Darkshot put his hands on his waist.

“Yeah, but, there was really a lot. Look, the mining guy? He says he’ll teach me how to mine the stuff for enchanting orbs. But only if I bring him some pieces from the Mosmir hive. Creature harvesting? That guy wants to teach me how to harvest scales and bones. Mosmir quest. Stonecutter? Dude said he could teach me to cut obsidian. Another Mosmir quest.” Aegis said excitedly as he scrolled through his quest interface.

“Sounds like there’s a lot of crafting quests here.” Lina smiled at his overjoyed expression as he kept going.

“That’s not all. There’s an alchemy quest too. Oh, and the tailor? They’ve got caged Shadowspiders. She said she’ll teach me to weave nets to easily capture them. But first, guess where I gotta go?”

“Mosmir Hive?” Pyri smiled.

“Mosmir hive. These guys really don’t like those Mosmir things.” Aegis nodded. “What about you guys, did you get any quests?” Aegis looked between his friends. “How were the books?”

“I got a new rune.” Rakkan said excitedly as he drew out his longsword after quickly looking around to make sure no guards were nearby. “Rune:enlarge.” He whispered, as if he was saying something bad and didn’t want to get caught. Suddenly the length of his longsword nearly doubled. “It’s not much at level one, but I can choose how it grows during the cast. Big and fat, or long and thin. Works on any non-living object. Pretty cool, right?” Rakkan smiled as he waved it around.

“How long does it last?” Aegis asked curiously, but had this answered as roughly 10 seconds later, it returned to normal size.

“Not long, also goes up with skill level.” Rakkan shrugged.

“I learned an intermediate spell, called scrying. If I have a possession of an NPC or a player, I can channel it to view them and hear them from anywhere, as long as they aren’t protected by magic.” Pyri smiled. “I’m not exactly sure when or how we might want to use that, but…” She said with a proud smile.

“And I got a new Shadow Dancer skill, and a quest to find a group of Shadow Dancers in the Dark Elf city!” Lina said excitedly.

“Oh, really? What skill?” Aegis asked her excitedly. Lina grinned ear to ear as she drew out a dagger from its sheath on her belt, then mockingly threw it. Rather than the dagger flying out of her hand, a dagger made out of her own shadow shot out of her shadow upwards towards the ceiling of the cavern.

“It’s called shadow dagger. It doesn’t travel very far, or work in bright areas though.” She shrugged.

“That’s still going to be really useful. Especially down here.” Aegis replied as he motioned to the surrounding cavern. “Did you have that skill before?”

“Nope!” She cheered. “It’s brand new! I’m so excited to use it.” She said while wiggling her head with excitement.

“And you, Darkshot? Anything cool?” Aegis asked as all eyes turned to him.

“Uh…” He thought on it for a moment. “Learned that Darkwing is actually badass, possibly…” He pondered a bit longer. “Oh, I got obsidian arrows. They’re better than Iron, but only one use.” He added as he took one from his quiver to show it off. Aegis took it and looked carefully at the arrowhead, then at the shaft.

“Oh, yeah, did I mention?” He pointed enthusiastically to the white wooden shaft of the arrow. “The woodworkers and woodcutters gave me a quest, said they’d teach me techniques to chop the mushrooms and craft things out of them. But first, I’ve gotta-” Aegis was interrupted.

“Mosmir hive.” Rakkan, Darkshot and Pyri all said in unison.

“Exactly.” Aegis nodded.

“I saw Ulaipu over by the cavern entrance.” Lina said as she motioned down the street from whence they’d entered the village from.

“Okay. Everyone ready to head out of here?” Aegis asked, and the group nodded along with him. “Let’s do it.” He added with enthusiasm before turning and marching in the direction Lina had pointed. “Come on Snowflake!” Aegis beckoned him along, and he let out a playful screech.

Ulaipu watched the party approach him from a few meters away as he stood guard at the seemingly inconspicuous cavern wall alongside several other Pakro’Vielle guards.

“We’re ready to go to the Mosmir Hive. Could you show us the way?” Aegis asked him politely.

“Yes… but… before you go, I have a request.” Ulaipu said with a friendly nod. “Over the years, the countless raids of the Mosmir have left many dead, and they often take the bodies of our people with them, including the brave guards that defend us. Our guards each carry a unique crest, with our names written on them.” Ulaipu said as he pulled out a small necklace with a plain, flat iron pendant on it with a small symbol etched into it. “It would mean a great deal to me if you returned any that you find, so that I may put them to rest.” Ulaipu said, and a quest popped up for the group.

Quest[Repeatable]: Collect Pakro’Vielle guard crests from the Mosmir hive and return them to Ulaipu so that he may put the dead to rest.

Objective: 0/1 Crest Collected

Quest Giver: Ulaipu, Pakro’Vielle, Kalmoore

Reward:250,000 Experience, 100 Favor with Pakro’Vielle,

Difficulty: Hard

Restrictions: Pakro’Vielle must not be destroyed

Aegis accepted the quest, as did all of his companions, and he gave an excited thumbs up to everyone in his group.

“That’s like, the 10th quest.” Aegis whispered to them excitedly, and Lina and Pyri both smiled back. “We’ll do what we can.” Aegis turned back to Ulaipu and switched back to speaking respectfully.

“Thank you, I appreciate it.” Ulaipu bowed. “Finding the hive is not difficult. Once you exit Pakro’Vielle, follow the cavern walls on your left until you reach the dying moss. There, you should start seing their tunnels and burrows. Be warned. The hive is a labyrinth of tunnels and paths that are very difficult to navigate. Even in ancient times, locating a Queen was unimaginably difficult. In all the centuries we’ve been battling this hive, not once have any of our incursions into their territory resulted in us finding its location. The only clue I can give you, is that the Queen keeps the Royal Mosmir closest to her lair.” Ulaipu explained.

“Ok, got it. We’ll figure it out, don’t worry.” Aegis gave a thumbs up.

“Oh, and should you fall, do not worry. Despite our stance towards the gods, we do have a shrine of rebirth in Pakro’Vielle for other-worlders.” He added with a nod.

“Oh, that’s reassuring.” Aegis forced a smile.

“Good luck.” Ulaipu stepped aside and motioned towards the wall of the cavern behind him. Aegis was hesitant to walk into it - it really just looked like a solid wall. But eventually he shook off the hesitation and stepped forward, feeling the familiar sandy mud sensation all over his body as he stepped through it and came out the other side, back in the large cavern of Reltrak Forest. A few moments later, his party had come through with him, Snowflake shaking his feathers to try and get the dirt out, despite there being none.

“Let’s find the hive first and try to fight some Mosmir before we make any plans.” Aegis said to the others and got a few nods. From there, they made their way along the cavern wall through the giant mushroom forest.

Aegis no longer had any sense for what direction they were walking. It could’ve been north, south, east or west - it didn’t matter. Instead he tried to memorize the details of the cavern wall and the nearby mushrooms around the entrance of Pakro’Vielle, so that he’d be able to recognize it for their return journey.

From there the party traveled along silently and cautiously through the mushroom forest for several hours. It was, for the most part, quite uneventful. They’d spotted and walked around several Mosstrappers lurking on the ground within the moss that crept up to the walls of the cavern, and spotted a few snails sleeping in their shells, as well as a couple of empty, discarded and broken snail shells scattered about.

“There, up ahead. Dying moss.” Darkshot said as he motioned along the cavern wall a good 100 meters ahead of them. He was pointing at nothing but pure black darkness. The cavern kept going, but there were no mossy blue bulbs on the floor, or mushroom stalks to light it up.

“Lumina.” Pyri cast as they approached. On the ground, they saw as the moss slowly transitioned from a lively, spongey green color to a dry, cracked and crunchy brown, until eventually it became just soilrock. They’d reached the edge of the Reltrak Forest, but the cavern continued on.

The first things of interest that Pyri’s Lumina lit up were several withered, knocked over giant mushroom stalks. Following that, they spotted several statues of strange insect-like creatures. It was obvious what they were looking at - they were Mosmir creatures that had been petrified by the Fishers.

The statues resembled ants. The closest petrified Mosmir was broken up, missing parts, but it was enough to make out the general shape and appearance of the enemies they’d be facing. It had pincers on the front of its head, but unlike a typical ant, it had 3 pairs. One pair on the center of their head, then one at the top and the bottom. It had two short antennae sticking out of the head behind the pincers and wide round eyes, with a large maw covered in stony feelers, where some could be seen on the ground of the cavern below the statue, broken apart.

It had two strips of spikes going down the sides of its thorax, but when the strips got to its abdomen it split into 6 spike strips. The abdomen looked as though it was covered in thick plates, or scales of some kind. The legs were large, covered in petrified barbs with large claws on the ends of them.

“Ants?” Rakkan commented as it came into view and Aegis moved forward to inspect it more closely.

“Not just ants. Spooky, void, fantasy ants.” Pyri replied.

“At least we know we’re in the right place.” Aegis shrugged as he turned to the others, seeing Lina and Snowflake cautiously watching their surroundings.

“Don’t forget giant.” Darkshot added as he looked between Snowflake and the statue. “Almost the size of a gryphon.” He shook his head in disbelief.

“No wonder the Plashrim hate these things.” Lina commented as she moved forward and gently touched one of the petrified pincers while Aegis closely inspected the eyes and antennae.

“It’s going to be sensitive to vibrations, and see in the dark. But at least, at this size, their tunnels will be big enough for us to walk through.” Aegis shrugged. Suddenly, though, they heard the sound of shifting stones nearby, and they all fell silent and looked in the direction of the sound. Sure enough, within a few seconds, an unpetrified Mosmir came walking into the light radius of Pyri’s Lumina spell. [Mosmir Done - Level 80] stood above its head. It was identical to the statue, safe for that it had color. It's body was a mix of primarily dark purple, with black accents on the sharp parts such as the pincers, barbs, claws, and spikes down its back.

The moment it stepped into the light, it perked its head up and stared at the 6 of them, wiggling its antenna around in the air curiously while Aegis and his party froze. There was an odd few seconds of silence as both parties stared each other down, until Aegis saw the drone begin to take slow steps backwards.

“Ants typically use scouts to find food, then swarm them.” Aegis whispered, and the moment he had, the drone turned around and started scurrying away. “Don’t let it escape!” Aegis shouted frantically as he fastened his shield to his arm and charged after it.

“Multishot!” Darkshot shouted as he quickly drew out his bow and nocked an arrow, firing it after the drone as it disappeared into the darkness of the cavern ahead of them.

“Cinderbolt!” Pyri shouted, creating four of them and launching them forward, while simultaneously Rakkan had created two echoes and Lina had drawn out her daggers from her belt. Both of them sprinted after the drone behind Aegis, with Snowflake launching himself into the air and flying after it.

All of this was quickly turned on its head, however, as Pyri’s cinderbolts flew forward after it, illuminating the darkened cavern ahead of them a great distance.

They saw, roughly 50 meters ahead, a group of 17 Mosmir drones, and one Mosmir Soldier which was much larger than the drones, all standing around the corpse of a Fisher. The drones were in the process of carrying the Reltrak Fisher's body through the cavern. The drone that had scouted them reached them just as Darkshot’s multishot fanned out over the area. Despite his attempts to redirect the arrows away upon seeing the number of enemies, he was caught by surprise and unable.

The end result was that Darkshot accidentally pelted the 17 Mosmir drones with his arrows. They all let out horrendous chittering cries as Aegis, Lina, Rakkan and Snowflake all stopped their forward charge and Pyri flattened out her cinderbolts, spreading them around to get a better few of their surroundings.

“Get behind me. Bless, Aura of Beauty.” Aegis quickly cast, erupting in white light and spreading his buffs to everyone in the group as quickly as he could. Much to their surprise, the drones did not charge at them, instead they hurried in their step in carrying the fisher away, to where Pyri had now illuminated the back wall of the cavern behind them. It was covered in dozens of large tunnels - the wall, the floor, and the roof of the cavern.

All of the tunnels were large enough for the Mosmir creatures to fit in and out of easily, and they were all over the place. As the Mosmir drones retreated, the soldier stomped forward and slashed its six pincers together in their direction threateningly. [Mosmir Soldier - Level 85] stood above its head.

“You know…” Aegis mumbled nervously as he began to hear the sound of rumbling feet coming from the various tunnels all around the far wall of the cavern. “I’ve actually got quests to kill both the drones and the soldiers. I hope the drones come back after…” Aegis said with an awkward chuckle, as suddenly dozens of Mosmir soldiers began swarming out of the tunnels, responding to the chittering cry of the drones. “If it gets bad, fly away, okay?” Aegis said to Snowflake and he squawked back anxiously, lowering his head as he prepared for the battle to begin.

“Smoke and vinerope my flanks, narrow their approach.” Aegis ordered Lina and Darkshot. “Spread your damage to all of them.” He looked to Pyri and she nodded. “Single them out and focus them down.” He said to the others. “Stay close, in my aura so I can heal as needed. Challenging Roar!” Aegis shouted, his voice releasing its booming shockwave in the cavern around them. Following it, all of the Mosmir Soldiers began rushing towards him.

A front row of 5 of them led the charge. Lina shot a smoke bomb at two on the right, while Darkshot fired his vinerope shot to the left, entangling them, leaving one to charge forward into Aegis’ shield.

Aegis, knowing he was in for a long battle, didn’t feel like taking the hit needlessly, so sidestepped the lunging pincer attack of the center soldier as it made it through the smoke and vineropes. The six pincers clashed together loudly beside Aegis as it had missed, and Aegis followed up with a slam of his shield into the side of its head, while Pyri’s four cinderbolts flew overtop of it and spread themselves thin, enveloping as many of the charging soldier ants as possible while simultaneously illuminating them all.

Thanks to the red glow of the cinderbolts, they could see just how ridiculous the number of solider ants were becoming, they continuously poured out of the ant holes like an endlessly flowing river of armored insects. The roof, floor, and walls of the large alcove in the cavern ahead of them was covered in them, no longer possible to see the holes of the hive.

“Aegis, this is looking sketchy.” Darkshot said as he saw their sheer numbers in the red glow of the cinderbolts.

“We’re fighting. We didn’t grind to 85 for nothing. We got this.” Aegis shouted with determination as he dug his feet into the ground. Darkshot gave a hesitant shrug as he nocked back another arrow.

“Multishot, piercing shot!” He shouted, and all 15 of his multishot arrows enlarged and began piercing through the swarm of soldiers charging at them.

“Smokebomb isn’t doing anything, they’re ignoring it.” Lina announced, but as she did, Aegis thought that fact should’ve been obvious to him. He watched as the two in her smoke charged past it to his side, but immediately Rakkan and Snowflake rushed in to cut them off, swinging and scratching out at them as they attempted to maneuver around them to get to Aegis.

“Challenging Roar!” Aegis shouted again, trying to keep them on him. “As long as they can’t kill me, you guys will be safe. There’s a lot of them, like the Odin arena. But they’re just goblins.” Aegis shouted as he took a few steps back to dodge another lunge attack from the Mosmir ahead of him. “So, who’s it going to be? Who ever kills the most, wins.” Aegis grinned.

These words were enough to remove all doubt in his party members eyes, and fill them with determination.

“Shadow Dance!” Lina shouted, and in an instant, she disappeared and began re-appearing rapidly around the battlefield underneath the ants and slashing at them from all directions for a few seconds, before re-appearing next to the party. “Every hit on the underside of their abdomen is a critical hit. It’s their weak point!” Lina declared.

“Roger that.” Darkshot said as he drew out an obsidian tipped arrow. “Multishot!” He fired it, splitting it into fifteen. This time he curved it downward underneath the body of one of the Mosmir that were trying to get past Rakkan and Snowflake, and redirected all 15 arrows up into the Mosmir’s abdomen from below. Every shot was a critical hit, dealing massive damage thanks to the obsidian tips, the bless enchant, and the high quality ironwood bow, killing the Mosmir Soldier instantly. It collapsed with a final screech, but it had no effect on the behaviour of the other soldiers.

“One point for me!” Darkshot cheered excitedly.

“That’s not fair, we weakened it.” Rakkan complained as he motioned between himself and Snowflake, and Snowflake screeched in agreement. Pyri lowered the flames of her cinderbolts to burn the underside of the Mosmir Soldiers, and she too saw an increase in the damage numbers she was creating. Each cinderbolt was burning for 630 critical damage every 3 seconds, on nearly all of the swarming Soldiers.

“Can we do the contest for most damage dealt instead?” Pyri smirked.

“Just kill them before they kill me, we’ll vote for an MVP after.” Aegis sighed as he saw the soldiers closing in on his position, forcing him to continuously give up ground and back away.

Their lunging attacks were extremely telegraphed, they were using their entire body as a weapon so Aegis had an easy time seeing it coming. The problem was their sheer numbers, and swarming tactics. Not only were they moving extremely fast, they were cleverly trying to surround Aegis constantly. If not for Snowflake and Rakkan blocking them, he would’ve run out of places to back up to extremely fast. But thanks to them, he was able to continuously retreat towards them.

Darkshot assisted by shooting Vinerope shots intermittently between his multishots, but he was wisely using the majority of his mana for multishot redirect combos which was proving to be able to consistently kill any of the Mosmir Soldiers that got in a bad position for Aegis, which was better than simply crowd controlling them.

Lina had taken to attacking the ones on the ceiling above them, preventing them from using the cieling to get behind Aegis before jumping down to the cavern floor and attacking him from the back. With no light from the cinderbolts on the ceiling, she had an easy time using Shadow Dance to rapidly teleport around, dealing massive damage with her rapid, bless enchanted daggers, all aimed at the underside of the Mosmir’s abdomens.

“Keep backing up! Slow and steady! Don’t let them surround me!” Aegis ordered after casting a few more challenging shouts. It was going well, but it wouldn’t stay that easy for long - their numbers were ridiculously high. Eventually, after dodging a strike from one, he had no choice but to start using his shield to block strikes from another that attacked him from the side.

You take 5933 Slashing damage.

“Manageable.” Aegis said to himself with a nod, after managing to brace the hit to minimize its damage. “Heal, Healing wind.” He quickly cast the spells on himself right before jumping out of the way of another strike. The situation began to worsen as he saw the Mosmir Soldiers begin clamoring over one another for opportunities to strike out at him, some resorting to using their front claws to slash out at him rather than their pincers.

“Vinerope shot!” Darkshot shouted at a pile of 7 Mosmir soldiers that began towering over Aegis, tangling them together and causing their legs to collapse on one another, but only a few seconds later, more soldiers climbed over the pile of tangled 7. “Shit they’re persistent.” Darkshot shook his head in disbelief. A second after he had, though, he spotted one dropping down from the ceiling from above onto Aegis. “Above!” Darkshot shouted.

As Aegis looked up to see the pair of 6 pincers slashing down towards him, Snowflake leapt into the air and intercepted it with his talons and beak, then slammed it into the ground of the cavern, protecting Aegis from the attack.

“Nice one, Snowflake.” Aegis shouted as he saw it happening, taking a second to make sure his party was still all uninjured. “Challenging Roar!” Aegis cast.

“My cinderbolts damage is slow, but based on Darkshot’s kill, all of them will start burning to death in about 2 minutes.” Pyri announced. “That’s not including the damage from you guys.” She added as she kept far back away from the battle with her staff held out in front of her, alongside Darkshot.

“Easy.” Rakkan said with a strained voice. “Rune:enlarge!” He shouted as he grew the size of his battle axe and did a wide swing with it. The blades of the axe grew large and allowed him to cleave it into the heads of all the surrounding Mosmir. He then repeated the same motion with his two echoes, creating a small area clear of the for Aegis to move. Once he had, he and his two echoes dashed under the legs of three separate Mosmir, and began striking at their abdomens from underneath repeatedly, until all three were slain.

Due to the damage from Pyri and Darkshot’s area of effect attacks, the health of the remaining Mosmir Soldiers were already getting low, making it much easier for Rakkan, Lina and Snowflake to land finishing blows on them all. Aegis began taking a lot more attacks, but he was easily able to heal through it thanks to his impressively high mana regeneration and strong healing spells.

It was all going well, a stream of experience gain notifications began to scroll across Aegis’ interface, but that was interrupted by the sound of a loud, deep, menacing roar.

From the far side of the cavern, where the various tunnels into the hive were located, Aegis spotted a separate source of light. This was a dark purplish, blue glow, shimmering in a wave-like motion. The light came from a glowing pair of gigantic pincers, on an oversized, muscular Mosmir that stomped out of a nearby tunnel with the red name [Mosmir Voidreaver(Elite) - Level 90] standing above its head.

“Oh hey, I have a quest for those too.” Aegis said sarcastically before taking a deep, nervous breath.