Spiteful Healer

Chapter 146: Royalty

Thunderous stomping echoed off of the walls of the narrow tunnels around them. Aegis and his party moved forward as quietly as possible, as to not attract the attention of the stomping creatures. They could hear them nearby, but not see them.

The network of tunnels nearest to what Aegis perceived to be the center of the hive became a tangled mess of ups, downs, lefts and rights. Multiple intersections had multiple exits. Aegis relied heavily on his memory of the map he’d made outside to pick the right paths. Luckily, it was all as he remembered it.

The party remained moving in formation with Aegis in front, and only Pyri’s Lumina spell on her staff as a source of light. The air, which had been getting warmer previously, had suddenly turned freezing cold. Aside from the stomping sounds of the final remaining Mosmir in the hive, they began to hear a loud howling wind, and felt its cold chill as it blew through the tunnels towards them.

As they traveled, they felt a constant sense of descension - they were getting lower and lower, to the very depths of the island of Kalmoore. But how low they’d gotten didn’t fully register with them until they reached the final intersection before the last tunnel to the Royal Mosmir.

The path they needed to take to reach where the Royal Mosmir were went one way in the intersection, but a neighboring tunnel sloped downward a few meters until it met a sea of black mist that occasionally wriggled its way up the tunnel with smoky tentacles, before retracting.

“Is that…?” Lina asked as she pointed at it curiously.

“The abyss? Yeah. we’re at the very bottom of Kalmoore. If we make a wrong turn, we’re falling straight down.” Aegis nodded back in a whisper.

“Jeez.” Darkshot looked on at it with wide eyes.

“The stomping sounds are coming from the Royal Mosmir, they’re patrolling around these last few tunnels. That means the Queen and her Lair have to be near here somewhere.” Aegis said as he stopped the group from moving forward, turning to look at his party members. “The Royal Mosmir are an unknown to us, and based on how the NPCs in Pakro’Vielle spoke of them, they’re no joke. We’ll try fighting them one at a time to see what they do. Call out any observations you make. Be ready to retreat with Snowflake and Darkwing if things go badly.” Aegis explained as he made the rounds buffing his party with bless. He then handed out a kebab to everyone to grant them the powerful stamina regeneration from eating it.

“Everyone ready?” He asked, and they nodded back at him with their weapons drawn. “Good, let's go. Aura of Beauty.” He erupted in an aura of light, allowing Pyri to replace her Lumina spell with multiple cinderbolts.

With that, Aegis took the lead down the final tunnel, leaving the intersection as his party followed closely behind him. It wasn’t long before the tunnel suddenly widened and became extremely open and easy to navigate. It grew to roughly 6 meters in diameter, up from the typical 3 meters of the rest of the hive. It was uniform and circular, the walls were smooth and cleanly carved, clearly not natural. The stone was that of a very dark grey, and occasionally as they began traversing the large tunnel they spotted small cracks in the floor where streams of black mist wriggled up through it.

The stomping was louder in this tunnel, indicating that the Royal Mosmir were in the same tunnel as them, patrolling around. Their footsteps were heard in short intervals given their six legs, but they were moving slowly about, so it was easy to anticipate which direction the closest one was, and whether it was walking towards or away from them.

Aegis picked a spot that seemed best for a fight and fastened his shield to his left arm as he felt the vibrations on the floor from one approaching, and he heard the sounds of his party behind him drawing out their weapons.

The tunnel was curved, not linear, so they couldn’t see too far ahead or behind them, but around the bend they listened to the loud stomps of the Royal Mosmir as it took the final steps before coming around the corner in front of them.

The first thing they saw were its pincers. It had two pairs, rather than three pairs like the drones and soldiers. The pincers resembled scythes; the outside of them were covered in thick black muscle tissue, the inside thin shiny metal-like-bone blades that came to a very sharp tip.

The front of the creature’s head had no mouth or eyes, just a smooth black rounded surface with two pointy antennas on top of it. Both of the antennas had a rippling, dark purple glow that moved across the surface of them repeatedly in wave-like motions. The thorax and the abdomen of the creature were thick and bulky, covered in layers of overlapping black plates moving back across its body, with small shoulder-like plates overtop of the thick legs that protruded out of its sides. The legs too, were covered in the plates, and each leg ended with a large claw that rippled with the same dark purple energy. Sitting on its head, to Aegis’ surprise, sat [Royal Mosmir - Level 95]. The surprising part being that it was not elite.

The moment it saw them, it charged forward with a deep, angry screech. Due to its heavy plating, it made loud stomps that shook the tunnel around them as it did.

“Challenging roar!” Aegis shouted to get its attention. The creature aimed its charge towards Aegis’s shield as his party fanned out around the tunnel behind him. As it got close, it lowered its head and stopped a meter away, and suddenly its antenna began to glow bright purple and release a burst of energy. A second later, a small orb of black and purple void magic shot out from it at Aegis.

Aegis was able to quickly move to the side to avoid it, only to see that the orb attack was moving rather slow through the air - slower than an underhanded throw from a child. Aegis moved much more quickly then he had needed to in order to dodge it, and his party members behind him were easy able to maneuver away to avoid it too as it floated past them towards the wall of the tunnel behind them. Once it hit the wall it disappeared, not causing any damage.

“Let’s not find out what that attack does.” Aegis instructed his party as they turned their attention away from the orb and back to the Mosmir. It continued its charge at Aegis moments after it had fired the orb. It closed its pincers together and tried to ram them against his shield first.

You take 3320 Bludeoning damage.

It hurt, but not much. Aegis was able to brace it, and was surprised by how less damage it had dealt. It followed up this attack by quickly opening up its pincers and immediately trying to collapse them around Aegis, catching him off guard. He quickly jumped back and avoid being embraced by the pincters. Once the Royal Mosmir had opened them, the blades of the pincers magically grew outwards and extended, making them large enough to easily pull Aegis into the center of them from behind.

He just barely managed to get back out from the center of the four blades and avoid being ‘pinced’ by them. Once the attack missed and all the tips of the pincers closed back in together, they returned to their normal, smaller size.

“Ok, don’t want to get caught in that attack either.” Aegis said with wide eyes as he’d just narrowly avoided it. “Start damaging him, I’ll figure out his attack pattern as we go.” Aegis declared and his group nodded back.

Lina and Rakkan maneuvered under the thorax of the large creature to get to the underside of its abdomen while Snowflake took advantage of the large tunnel to fly over top of it and get behind it. Darkshot unleashed a barrage of arrows while Pyri sent in her cinderbolts and began burning it.

“Challening roar!” Aegis shouted again. “Healing wind.” He cast on himself. From there, the fight truly began. The Royal Mosmir’s rotation was simple. It would try to head butt him, then follow it up with an attempt to pincer him. When the pincer attack failed, it reared its head and thorax up and struck out at him with its four front legs, swiping with its glowing claws. Aegis did his best to outright avoid the deadliest looking attacks, particularly the talons and the orb. The antenna orb attack happened every 30 seconds or so, but it was very telegraphed and easy to avoid.

The Royal Mosmir’s attacks were disappointingly easy to avoid, Aegis thought, as he got a handle on its rotation. The creature was talked up by Ulaipu, and its name gave the impression it would be the strongest creature in the hive. But it wasn’t even Elite. The strength of the creature entirely revolved around its defensive capabilities.

The weak point of the previous Mosmir’s was not working with the Royal Mosmir. It was not being critically hit by anyone in the party, period - and everyone's damage on his hardened chitinous plating was massively reduced. On top of that, the creature had an absurd amount of health and took forever to take down.

It was a solid 10 minutes of nonstop blasting the Royal Mosmir with everything they had before it finally let out its final screeching cry of pain and collapsed.

“That was…” Rakkan began speaking as he watched it die.

“Easy?” Lina asked as she looked to Aegis for confirmation.

“Yeah. Weirdly easy.” Aegis said as he walked over to it with his creature harvesting tools and got to work on it. Once he’d finished, he got another set of pincers to add to his collection of crafting materials.

Name:Royal Mosmir Pincer

Type: Crafting Material

Option: Increases defensive power when crafted with items.

Quality: 24%

“That’s a good thing though right? Since we need to look for the Queen’s Lair around here.” Pyri shrugged as he finished up harvesting.

“Yup, I guess.” Aegis replied as he looked around the tunnel. He didn’t get to look very long before they heard the stomping of another patrolling Royal Mosmir approaching, and they all prepared for the next fight.

Over the next hour, Aegis and his party made the rounds in the wide tunnel and cleared out a grand total of four Royal Mosmir before there were none remaining. Not only was the strength of them disappointing, but the amount was as well. The group quickly did a loop around the nearly circular tunnel to confirm it was clear of enemies, then stopped to take a break from where they’d entered the tunnel.

“That’s it then? The hive is completely empty? Even if we don’t find the Queen, the Plashrim should be safe, right?” Darkshot asked.

“Yeah… but,” Aegis said as he looked around the tunnel, “the quest was to kill the Queen. Usually, as long as the Queen is still alive, the colony can rebuild.” He said as he pondered the layout of the tunnel. “If this tunnel just goes in a circle, and this is the perceived center of the hive where all the drones were bringing food, then logic dictates that the Queen’s lair is here somewhere. In the center.” Aegis said as he pointed in the direction of the cavern walls on the inside of the circular tunnel.

“There’s no tunnels going in that direction though.” Rakkan replied.

“None that we saw.” Aegis said as he gave a nod to Pyri and she complacently activated her Lumina spell. “Maybe it’s like Pakro’Vielle, a hidden entrance.” He suggested as he put his hands on the inside wall and began feeling around. With this theory, he and the party made an entire loop, Lina and Rakkan helping him out to try and feel out for loose parts of the tunnel wall, but there were none by the time they’d arrived back at where they started.

“Nope, wasn’t that.” Aegis sighed as he put his hand on his chin.

“The void things teleport, right? Maybe they don’t need a tunnel to get in and out of the lair.” Darkshot suggested.

“Oh, good point.” Aegis nodded as he took out his pickaxe and unceremoniously began picking at the stone wall. The stone was surprisingly thick and hard to dig through. It took many hits to just make a little bit of progress, but Aegis didn’t let up. The first few pieces of stone he’d chipped off, he added to his inventory to see what it was and why it was so hardened. It showed up as [Craterstone] - a fantasy stone he’d never heard of. It was 0% quality, but based on its properties, it appeared to be a tier 3 quality stone. Unfortunately, gathering it was just such a pain in the ass.

It took Aegis an entire hour to make the slightest bit of progress, and as he had, he heard the sounds of stomping coming from the surrounding tunnels.

“Two hours since we killed the first Royal Mosmir. It sounds like it respawned.” Aegis commented as the others’ ears perked up. They all had sat back and were trying to find ways to occupy the time by reading books or sharpening their weapons, but stopped when they heard the stomping.

“That’s strange. The other Mosmir didn’t respawn, right?” Lina asked, and Aegis nodded back to confirm.

“It’s going in the opposite direction. I’ve got a bit more time to dig.” Aegis said after listening for a few more seconds. He hit his pickaxe on the wall a bit more, only to finally break through and find empty space on the other side of the wall. “I think I got something. Bring your Lumina.” Aegis motioned Pyri over and she did exactly that.

The party crowded around Aegis to look at the tiny hole he’d dug into the wall curiously. When Pyri moved her staff up to it, they saw the light being blocked by a thick black mist.

“It’s the mist of the abyss…” Lina commented.

“That doesn’t make any sense.” Darkshot looked at it confused. “Shouldn’t the Queen’s Lair be there? If it's abyss, that means it's outside of Kalmoore right? It’s just open space in the middle of this circular tunnel?” He concluded.

“Yeah, that’s what that implies.” Aegis said curiously as he pondered a bit more. “Let’s clear out the Royal Mosmir again, and then I’ll open this hole a bit larger.” Aegis suggested. The group did exactly that. After buffing up, they made the rounds in the tunnel and killed all four respawning Royal Mosmir. This time, they’d gained enough experience to reach level 87, then Aegis went right back to digging.

Rakkan and Lina joined in, helping him get through the final layers of stone and widening the hole. The wider it got, the more black mist they saw, and it began to lightly seep into the tunnel and settle on the floor before dissipating.

Eventually, after another hour of hard work, they’d made a hole large enough for all of them to fit through, but still saw nothing.

“Let’s first see if there's really nothing out there…” Aegis said as he tried throwing a loose stone out of the tunnel into the abyss. He was hoping it might land on some obscured platform hidden outside, but it didn’t - it just fell to nothingness. He tried it a few more times with handfuls of small rocks and pebbles, but each time, they hit nothing.

“It’s impossible to really see if anything is out there, light doesn’t penetrate that mist.” Pyri sighed as she held her Lumina right up to it to show that it didn’t help at all, but that reminded Aegis of something.

“Aura of light.” Aegis shouted excitedly, casting the skill for the first time. He erupted in a circular sphere of transparent, barely visible light that swirled around him. As he stepped near the black mist, it dissipated, allowing them to see outside the hole and into the abyss for the first time.

“Whoa, that’s amazing! That really works?” Darkshot said in disbelief.

“Something only a Shattered Healer can do.” Lina smiled excitedly as she watched Aegis lean up to the hole in the tunnel, trying to clear as much of the mist as possible.

“Unfortunately it’s only level 1.” Aegis sighed - he couldn’t see anything. The aura of light wasn’t very big and therefore couldn’t clear that far into the abyss away from the hole in the tunnel they’d dug.

Level Up!: Aura of Light has reached Level 2!

“At least its gaining experience.” Aegis shrugged as he watched the radius of the aura grow ever so slightly. “We can wait here for me to level it up, or I can try flying out there on Snowflake’s back…” Aegis said as he turned to the group.

“Up to you.” Rakkan shrugged.

“It might be good to have the Aura of Light at a high level in the future.” Lina replied.

“I’m fine with waiting around.” Darkshot replied without much conviction. “More of those Royal Pincers means we’ll all get better armor, right?” he confirmed.

“Right.” Aegis nodded back. “I’m curious about one thing, though…” Aegis said as he eyed his viewership numbers still holding steady around 400,000. “Why are so many people watching us in this hive?”

“I was curious as well, so I checked it out.” Rakkan answered as he stepped forward. “It’s because of Feng.”

“Oh. Right… and Feng was…” Aegis replied with a confused expression.

“The second highest streamer in the world. Sometimes first.” Darkshot shook his head back at Aegis disapprovingly.

“He’s the leader of the Vindicators, the top guild from Lanusk.” Lina continued.

“Right. Right…” Aegis feigned understanding. “What’s that got to do with us, though?” Aegis asked.

“Feng’s guild cleared a Mosmir Hive on Lanusk, they spent two weeks looking for the Queen's Lair and never found it. I think a lot of his viewers, and some broadcasters, are all tuning in to see if we’re able to find out how to get to the Queen. They’ll probably then report it back to Feng, so they can copy us.” Rakkan explained.

“So he sent his viewers here just to copy us?” Aegis replied with a disapproving look to Rakkan.

“Nah, I doubt he told them to do it. They’re just doing it so he’ll notice them. Fans trying to support their favorite streamer and get his attention.” Darkshot shrugged.

“Oh.” Aegis replied, still looking confused.

Level Up!: Aura of Light has reached Level 3!

“But if he tried to find it and couldn’t, for two weeks, that means it's really hard to find, right?” Aegis replied as he scratched his chin, pondering.

"Well, they kinda brute forced the exploration and got lost in the tunnels a bunch, from what I read on it. They're a bit of a zerg guild." Rakkan replied, but this confused Aegis further and he raised his eyebrows at him.

"A what?" Aegis replied.

"Zerg guild, you know?" Darkshot answered, but Aegis continued to stare back blankly at him. "Zerging is a term used to describe a strategy that relies on numbers - overrunning your opponents. Kind of like what the Mosmir tried to do to us at the entrance." Darkshot explained. "You really gotta learn some gaming lingo." He added an eyeroll.

"Oh. That's discouraging, if a huge guild of players couldn't find it." Aegis pulled his lips to one side as he thought on this.

“But they didn’t have an Aura of Light.” Lina replied enthusiastically.

“Right.” Aegis nodded back. He paused for a moment and continued to ponder, until a realization hit him. “That means that if we find it, we’ll be doing something that the 2nd best streamer couldn’t do.” A smirk grew on his face, while a look of terror appeared on Darkshots.

“We’re going to be stuck here for a long time, aren’t we?” He turned to Pyri worriedly.

“Mhm.” Pyri pulled her lips into her mouth as she nodded back at Darkshot.

“Don't worry, viewers of Feng.” Aegis spoke weirdly to his audience. “I’ll find that Queen, so we can rid Kalmoore of the Mosmir, and you may rid Lanusk of them.” He said with a weird, proper accent to his voice.

“Yeah, that doesn’t really suit you.” Darkshot shook his head disapprovingly at Aegis.

“What? I was trying to give a speech, you know? Don’t most streamers do stuff like that?”

“I’m with Darkshot on this one. That was weird.” Pyri joined in with Darkshot. Aegis turned to Lina for backup, but she hesitantly shook her head as well.

“Ok, fine.” Aegis threw his hands up in surrender.

Level Up!: Aura of Light has reached Level 4!

An entire day went by with Aegis and his party doing nothing but leveling Aura of Light and killing the Royal Mosmir. Fortunately, they gave a lot of experience and very good crafting materials. In addition, they had a very high drop rate on the Pakro’Vielle guard emblems for the repeatable quest Ulaipu had given them.

It wasn’t until Aura of Light had reached level 45 that Aegis and the others could finally see far enough into the abyss to reveal the walls on the opposite side of the open space that sat in the center of the circular tunnel.

It was the worst possible outcome - there was nothingwhatsoever at the center of the hive. It really was just nothing but a big open empty space that dropped down into more nothingness. There were no signs of the Mosmir having done any hive-building around the outside of the stone tunnels, it was all rough jagged rocks. While it was interesting to see what the absolute bottom of the island of Kalmoore looked like, they were no closer to finding the Queen.

“What a long, disappointing dead end that was.” Darkshot said as he peered out into the open space alongside Aegis. The aura of light didn’t just clear away the black mist, it illuminated the surrounding area much more effectively than Pyri’s Lumina spell. This allowed Darkshot to utilize his tracking to try and find any signs of Mosmir activity outside of the tunnel, but he saw none.

“Man, I really thought it’d be here.” Aegis sighed as he dropped down onto his bottom, sitting in the middle of the tunnel in front of the hole they’d dug.

“Whelp. We tried our best. Time to head back to Pakro’Vielle?” Darkshot asked with a hopeful grin.

“Nope.” Aegis replied without hesitation. He muddled into his inventory to pull out a piece of Fisher meat and tossed it to Snowflake who gulped it down happily before leaning hs head down towards his lap and putting his hands on his head, scratching through his hair.

“Video games are like exams. The designers WANT you to answer their questions. They always give you what you need to find the solutions. You just have to be creative and find them.” Aegis said to himself as he thought out loud. “What am I missing?” He sighed in frustration.

“How about you keep thinking out loud, and maybe we can contribute a bit?” Pyri suggested. Aegis turned to look at her, then looked around to see his party members all staring at him expectantly.

“Okay.” Aegis replied hesitantly. “The two major clues we were given were that the Royal Mosmir means the Queen is close, and the drones brought the food to the Royal Mosmir. The Royal Mosmir respawn around here, and patrol this tunnel. That would mean that the Queen’s lair should be here.” Aegis said, pausing as he got a few nods from the others.

“In addition, the layout of the hive's stockpile chambers and soldier chambers suggest that this is the center of the hive. All signs point to the Queen’s Lair being here, in this location. But all we’ve got is a circular tunnel and an empty space.” Aegis continued.

“So, does that mean the Queen’s Lair isn’t here? Is the theory wrong?” Darkshot suggested.

“No, it means I’m missing something. WAIT!” Aegis suddenly shouted excitedly as she shot up to his feet. “Everything isn’t pointing to the Queen… They point to the Royal Mosmir. The drones don’t deliver the food to the Queen themselves, they deliver it to the Royal ones. Why? Why do the Royal Mosmir respawn when nothing else in this dungeon does?” Aegis said as he excitedly began pacing around. “When will the next set of Royal Mosmir respawn?” Aegis turned to Rakkan.

“About 20 minutes.” Rakkan replied after fidgeting with his interface.

“Good.” Aegis replied with a grin. “I’ve got a theory.”