Spiteful Healer

Chapter 153: Out of the Fire...

“What happened?” Eli asked as he watched Jillian’s Simbox open up.

“One of the elementals shot at Derrick and Snowflake. I couldn’t stop it with cinderbolts, so…” She shrugged.

“Damn.” Eli leaned his head back, frustrated. He hit his wrist implant to bring up his contacts list on his phone where it showed Derrick was still within a Simbox simulation. “Should be okay, though. I hope.” Eli said after closing the interface and pacing and the room.

“Are you okay?” Jillian asked him, seeing him all worked up.

“Huh? Me? Yeah…” Eli replied as he stopped pacing and took a deep breath. His adrenaline was slowly settling down from the fight. “Guess we’ll just have to wait 6 hours to see if he made it out with our birds.” Aegis relented, calming down a bit.

“Was that your first time in a player versus player fight?” Jillian asked as she moved to the kitchen and started rattling dishes around.

“No… well, I guess. I got into a fight with some of the guys from school. Then, with Rakkan… but none of it felt serious like that. He was just toying with us, wasn’t he?” Eli asked as he followed her, standing in the doorway of the kitchen and watching as she began preparing food.

“Yeah, a bit. High level players picking on low levels are always like that, big headed. I could’ve taken him, though. Wasn’t expecting the lure baiting attack.” She paused as she put her hand on her chin for a moment. “Suppose I need to learn a bit about PvP in this game.”

“You PvPed in other games before though, right?” Eli asked her.

“Yup.” She smiled back before pulling some vegetables out of the fridge and beginning to cut them on a cutting board. “Every game is different though. Different skills, effects, abilities, items, classes, tactics… this game is a lot more involved and in depth than others.” Jillian explained.

“Right. I guess I’ve been so focused on discovering materials and catching up in level, I haven’t taken the time to figure out anything about the PvP side. The only thing I know is that battlemasters are popular.” Eli shrugged.

“We did just discover the best cloth crafting material in the game... So I imagine, even in Kalmoore, that guy won’t be the last that comes after us.” Jillian replied as she filled water into a pot from the kitchen tap.

“What can we do about it, though?” Eli asked her as he moved into the kitchen to help her prepare the meal.

“Well… There’s only one thing to do when you need to learn more about something. The thing you’re best at.” Jillian winked at him.

“Study?”

“Study.” She nodded. “Go shower, I’ll cook, we’ll eat, then we hop in an office simulation. We’ve got 6 hours, or 24-hours in simulation time to learn all the things we can about PvP tactics and other class skills.” Jillian said.

“Ok.” Eli nodded back as he turned to head for the bathroom. “Just gotta hope Darkshot can last that long.” He mumbled to himself worriedly.

The magma elemental was gaining on Darkshot and Snowflake at an incredible rate. Darkshot was only grateful that the rolling ripples of magma coming out from it as it surfed against the current was not attracting the attention of any other enemies.

He left the flying and steering to Snowflake, jerking his head back to keep an eye on the creatures movement - Darkwing was facing backwards as well and repeatedly cooing from his shoulder in panic.

“Pinning shot!” He tried, firing an obsidian arrow from his bow backwards at the pursuing elemental. It hit, the vines attempted to shoot outwards, but burned away before doing anything at all. “Was worth a shot.” Darkshot shook his head to himself. A moment later, he witnessed the creature's mouth begin to glow as it prepared to fire another magma bolt at them while moving.

“Uh, Snowflake. You can understand me, right? Dodge when I say, he’s about to shoot us.” Darkshot tried talking to the beast, and got no response. A second later, the bolt of magma shot out at them. “NOW!” He shouted.

Very quickly, with a bend of the wings, Snowflake curved to the left, just barely avoiding the bolt of magma as it soared past them on the right. The heat from the bolt, just from being near them, was painful - worse than when they had to touch the obsidian bridge.

Having missed, the magma elemental let out a ferocious roar and sped up. Darkshot knew they were making good time, the tunnel leading back to Reltrak Forest had to be just around another bend, but in that time, the magma elemental caught up, surfing beside them in the river.

Snowflake was quick to veer right, as far from the elemental as he could get without clipping his wings into the obsidian cavern walls. A second later, the elemental reached out his arm and swung it out at Snowflake. The size of its molten fingers were huge.

“WATCH IT!” Darkshot shouted, yanking Snowflake’s reins. Snowflake threw up his wings like breaks, pulling himself to a screeching halt at the last second, causing the magma elemental’s hand to swing wide in front of them, just barely missing. Tiny droplets of magma splattered off of the fist as it crashed into the obsidian cavern floor next to the river, below Darkshot and Snowflake.

The stopping action killed all of their momentum and they briefly dropped out of the air before Snowflake was able to flap his wings and get them in motion again. In that time, the magma elemental’s surfing movement forced it forward, causing it to get ahead of them.

“Shit. Think.” Darkshot panicked as he watched the Magma elemental come to a halt. As it did, it stopped surfing atop the river and sludged the lower half of its molten body onto the obsidian shore in front of them, blocking the way to where Darkshot could now see the tunnel leading to Reltrak Forest was.

“Fly around it and keep going, the thing has got to leash soon, it won’t chase us forever!” Darkshot shouted, and Snowflake squawked in acknowledgement. Snowflake swerved wide to the left, over the top of the molten river. The heat wafting up from it, despite them being a good 12 meters above the magma, was intense. The air was barely breathable, and Darkshot found himself coughing as he inhaled it while Snowflake held his breath and swerved around the elemental.

The elemental wasn’t going to take this sitting down and followed them with his eyes as they maneuvered around him. He lifted up his left hand and swatted it out at them. Snowflake made sure to fly wider than he needed to, out of the reach of the elemental’s fingers as they swung through the air at them. It was close, but they managed to avoid it, then continued above the river a few meters to the unexplored southern side of the tunnel.

On land, the elemental was slow, and its first course of action was to sludge itself back into the river to give chase, which gave Snowflake and Darkshot plenty of time to fly forward ahead of it, further into the southern tunnel and get back over the obsidian shore, rather than flying above the magma river.

The moment they had returned to soaring above the obsidian, Snowflake gasped for air and Darkshot was able to breath much easier. As they flew around a bend in the cavern, they lost sight of the magma elemental behind them momentarily.

“Good, we should be okay now, I doubt he’ll catch back up to us.” Darkshot said with his head turned backwards, watching the magma elemental disappear from his view around the corner of the cavern. The last glimpse he saw of it, it still hadn’t gotten back into the river yet.

But as he did this, suddenly and abruptly, Snowflake did his breaking maneuver again, nearly sending Darkshot flying off of the front - luckily he was fastened in with his feet in the stirrups. He faced forward and adjusted himself to see why Snowflake had stopped as quickly as he did while he heard an anxious coo from Darkwing on his shoulder.

Looking forward, standing in the middle of the River while towering up to the ceiling of the huge cavern was a gigantic molten rocky humanoid creature. His body was covered in plates of alternating red stone and blackstone, with the cracks between them filled with white hot flowing magna. His waist and fists were below the magma, as if he was bathing in it, and his eyes locked onto them immediately. Above his head stood [Fire Giant(Elite) - ??].

“Uh… shit.” Darkshot’s eyes went wide. The creature let out a horrendous, deafening roar of fury that shook the very cavern around them, and as it did, Darkshot pulled the reins to steer Snowflake away.

“Back, to the tunnel. We’ve got to get the fuck out of there!” Darkshot shouted. Snowflake veered to the left and quickly began turning, and in that time, the Giant scooped up a handful of the magma river and flung it at them. “DODGE!” Darkshot yanked the reins to the left to help Snowflake know where to fly - he was already facing away from the flung magma by the time it was in the air.

Snowflake obediently maneuvered in the direction Darkshot instructed him, just barely avoiding the droplets, but simultaneously the giant began stomping forward towards them, causing the cavern to shake with each thunderous booming stomp - the river filled with massive ripples and waves due to his leg movements.

Once turned around, Snowflake flew ferociously back towards where the elemental was, and sure enough, it hadn’t leashed yet. Rather, it just got back into the magma and was preparing to pursue them. Instead, though, upon seeing them, its mouth began glowing red and it prepared to shoot another magma bolt.

“Multishot!” Darkshot fired an arrow out at the elemental. The arrow split into 15 and he redirected them all at the elemental. He hoped to help by somehow obscuring the elementals vision or interrupting the shot as all 15 obsidian tipped arrows pierced into its magma body.

Nothing of the sort happened - the magma bolt fired as normal. Snowflake dove downwards underneath it as it just skipped over top of them. Darkshot could’ve sworn it melted his hair away as it did. The giant was incredibly fast, the steps it was taking to pursue them were huge, and it was gaining on them.

“The tunnel is there, to the left of the elemental!” Darkshot pointed it out, the tunnel of safety leading them back into the Reltrak Forest. Snowflake continued with his downward momentum and landed on the obsidian floor of the cavern, running as fast as he could towards the tunnel entrance as Darkshot turned backwards and saw the giant reach the magma elemental and kick into his body as if he was just another part of the river. The ripples from the giant’s movement in the river caused the torso of the magma elemental to shift and flow backwards with the current, and Darkshot saw that the giant was eying the tunnel.

Due to being Elite, the Giant could tell where they were trying to go to escape him. It was predicting their movement, and its reach was great enough that it would be able to hit it before Snowflake could reach it.

Darkshot saw it and had to make a choice - chance running through and beating out the speed of the giants swinging fist? The giant lifted its hand back and was swinging it down at the cavern exit, the size of its arm and the force of the attack was so large and powerful that it was changing the air pressure around them.

“No, we won’t make it. STOP!” Darkshot yanked Snowflake’s reins and got him to grind to a halt at the very last second as the giant’s fist crashed down on the tunnel entrance, breaking the obsidian around it and causing it to cave in while magma spewed out from the plates on the creature's skin.

Darkshot looked on in horror as he saw the only safe exit of the tunnel get destroyed right in front of him, but he didn’t have time to stare idly - to his right, in the river, stood two ?? level enemies that were staring intensely at him, preparing to strike again.

“Another tunnel, over there!” Darkshot pointed behind them and veered Snowflake away from the giant’s fists, back down the southern tunnel from where they’d just flown. Up off the cavern floor, a few meters from the ground level and carved out into the wall was another dark narrow tunnel leading out of the main cavern.

Darkshot didn’t know what was in that tunnel, but he had to take a chance, as he could tell Snowflake was nearing his limit on stamina and was panting heavily - they weren’t going to be able to keep outrunning these two enemies in this heat much longer.

Snowflake mustered the last of his strength and flapped his wings furiously, ascending up into the air to the height needed to reach the tunnel. When he got to it, he clamored at the entrance with his talons and pulled himself inside just in time to avoid another magma flinging attack from the giant, a blob of the molten hot liquid splashed over the entrance of the cavern as Snowflake crawled inside.

It was dark inside, but the light from the river illuminated the interior enough that Darkshot could make out the shape. It was a small dome-shaped obsidian cavern, and on the far side of it slept a small red lizard-like beast, curled up in its own long tail that had a faint red glow on it.

The moment they saw it, Snowflake stopped moving forward, gasping for air as he lowered his head into a prowl. Simultaneously, their presence awoke the beast from its slumber. It rose its head up as its glowing tail suddenly ignited into a small flame. Its large reptilian eyes blinked sideways at them as its forked tongue wiggled out of its mouth. [Flame Salamander - Level 133] stood above its head.

There was no other way out of the tunnel, and as Darkshot turned around he saw the Fire giant staring into the cave. The giant let out a ferocious roar into the cavern at them, shaking it violently and forcing Darkshot to throw his hands over his ears to try to block the sound.

“Fuck.” Darkshot shouted angrily as he hopped off of Snowflake’s back, watching as the Salamander on the other side of the cavern began to prowl along the wall opposite them, eyes locked on. “We’re not getting back outside as long as that giant is out there.” Darkshot said as he took a deep breath and nocked an arrow in his bow, double checking to see that Snowflake still looked terribly exhausted. “It’s him or us.” Darkshot said to himself anxiously.

The creature suddenly darted forward across the dark obsidian cavern floor towards them - it was aiming at Snowflake until Darkshot released his first arrow at it.

“Pinning shot!” Darkshot cast. The moment it hit, vines shot out into the ground and bound it in place. He was relieved to see that it wasn’t immune to the effect, but unlike previous non-elite mobs that they’d encountered that just accepted being pinned, the Salamander immediately looked down at the vines and started ripping and cutting at them. The debuff would’ve lasted 8 seconds, but the Salamander broke itself free within 2 and went back into its forward charge right away, swaying its body and tail back and forth as it scurried forward, low to the ground and hissing.

“Pinning shot!” Darkshot quickly shot again while Snowflake took a few steps back, lowering his head as if preparing to lunge forward. “One hit from that thing will definitely kill us.” Darkshot said as he held a hand out in front of Snowflake to gesture him to stop. Snowflake looked at Darkshot’s hand hesitantly before turning and growling at the Salamander.

This time, as the Salamander tried ripping through the vines, Darkshot used the time to pelt it with arrows. He was dealing high amounts of damage thanks to his bow and arrows - each hit dealing roughly 6,000 piercing damage, but he knew the enemy likely had several hundred thousand health, minimum.

He wove in pinning shots with his normal attacks every three seconds to keep it bound in place, but he saw the Salamandar losing its patience. After the fifth pinning shot it growled at him and reared its head up, puffing flames out of its mouth.

“Fireball? Shit.” Darkshot said out loud as he saw it. “Go sit on Snowflake.” Darkshot ordered Darkwing, and he cooed fearfully while complying, fluttering from his shoulders onto Snowflake’s saddle.

The Salamander opened its mouth while the flame on its tail suddenly exploded upwards. A moment later, a stream of flames shot out of its mouth at Darkshot like a flamethrower. Initially, Darkshot was expecting to just have to jump to the side to avoid it, and did exactly that. But, the flames kept spewing out, and the Salamander quickly turned its head to follow him.

“Fuck me!” Darkshot shouted as he stumbled out of his dash, struggling to carry his momentum and keeping moving forward. The blazing hot flames trailed behind him, singing the back of his armor and crashing into the wall of the cavern near him as he sprinted with everything he had to stay ahead of it.

After 5 long seconds, the Flamethrower ended, and the flames on it’s tail went small again. In turn, however, the pinning shot had worn off and it broke into a forward sprint towards Darkshot with its tongue wriggling excitedly out of its mouth.

“Ah, shit, Pinning Shot!” Darkshot shot an arrow at the last moment, releasing it to stop the charge as the Salamander was just a mere meter away.

This was close enough for it to lash out with its tail despite it being bound, and it did exactly that. It spun so that its hindlegs were closest to Darkshot, then whipped its tail forward at him as the flame exploded in his face.

You take 9,230 Fire damage.

It didn’t hit him directly, only grazed him, and his health dropped below half. Another hit, and he was gone - he didn’t have the same health or defense or resistances as Aegis. But he did have the pain threshold on. It hurt, a lot - he felt as if his entire body was on fire for the following two seconds and shouted out angrily in pain as he rolled backwards away from the Salamander.

In the time it took him to recover from the pain, the Salamander got to work on the bindings, ripping at them and breaking free.

Barely in time, Darkshot stood upright again and fired another arrow at it before it lunged forward and bit him.

“Pinning shot!” Darkshot shouted desperately, hitting it a meter away again, but this time knew what to expect and quickly jumped backwards.

With distance between them now, he took stock of his resources. His stamina was getting low - he still had the kebab buff, but also the heat exhaustion debuff. His health was low and he had very little regeneration. His mana was getting close to half from the repeated pinning shots. He looked to see Darkwing and Snowflake, both huddled on the far side of the cavern, looking worn out and terrified. He looked to the cavern entrance to see the Fire Giant still there, staring patiently at them from outside.

“I can’t do this.” Darkshot sighed as his legs and arms began to shake from the adrenaline. “Pinning shot.” He fired again half heartedly at the Salamander, keeping it held back. “I’m…” He looked at the two winged animals. “I’m sorry…” Darkshot scrunched his eyebrows in frustration. “I’m not Aegis.” He added reluctantly as he watched the Salamander break free of the ropes again. “Pinning shot.” He cast.

Snowflake squawked at him, while Darkwing cooed obliviously. The squawk wasn’t angry, it sounded closer to acknowledgement. After just having his gryphon turn elite, Darkshot was going to let it die. He couldn’t think of a way out of this situation. He knew if he’d left Darkwing like this with Aegis, he would save him somehow. The more he thought on it, the more frustrated he got. What would Aegis do here? Why couldn’t he be here to tell him how to solve this? Anyone? Was it even possible?

If there was a way, he’d do it, he just needed someone to tell him. He was good with his class, he knew martial arts - just tell me what to do and I’ll do it. But there was no one.

“Pinning shot.” He fired again, the Salamander struggling to get free once more right away. He turned and looked at the winged creatures once more, and saw the deep blue eyes of Snowflake staring back at him, some of his white feathers singed. His head was down, he was breathing heavily, but he didn’t look like he was ready to give up.

“Don’t let my gryphon die.” Aegis’ words echoed in his head.

As he did, though, he watched the Salamander rear its head up and prepare to shoot another flamethrower attack. He’d been so distracted inside his own head that he forgot to anticipate it and he was much closer to the beast than he had been this time.

The moment the flames burst out of the Salamander’s mouth, he started running a half circle around the room to avoid it, but due to his closer proximity to the Salamander it covered a much wider radius of the room.

After two seconds of running forward to stay ahead of it, he saw that if he kept running, the flame thrower would shoot past him and burn Darkwing and Snowflake.

“Run, just make a run for it! Hide somewhere in the cavern until we respawn.” Darkshot shouted at them desperately. Snowflake listened and began running, but it wasn’t fast enough due to the angle that Darkshot was running at. Darkwing flapped his wings and flew off of Snowflake's saddle as Darkshot turned to face the Salamander. He had to make a choice - take the hit and block the flame thrower, die and hope that they escaped somehow on their own - or guarantee their deaths by continuing to dodge it.

The choice, in his mind, was obvious. He had to at least give them a fighting chance. They both had wings. Maybe they’d somehow both escape.

Darkshot stopped running. The flames caught up with him, but at the same time, Darkwing suddenly landed on his shoulders from behind.

“NO!” Darkshot shouted as the fire engulfed both of them. “You stupid pigeon! Now you’re dead too!” He yelled at it, only realizing a second later the damage message he’d received, followed by several other notifications.

Your companion [Darkwing(Elite) - 71] has adapted the skill of a [Faerie Songbird]: [Fae Veil] through the skill: [Kalmoorian Pigeon Adaptation]

You take 0 Fire damage (Immune).

You recover 50mp.

Level Up!: Fae Veil has reached Level 2!

[Fae Veil] - Level 2

Source: [Kalmoorian Pigeon Adaptation]:[Faerie Songbird]

The Faerie songbird shrouds the target in a Fae Veil, blocking the damage from the next magical attack, so long as the damage dealt from the attack does not exceed 3x the protected target's maximum health. This effect lasts 2 seconds. If an attack is succesfully blocked, the target recovers mp. Mana recovered increases with skill rank.

Restriction: Does not block magical status effects

Range: Touch

Duration: 2s

Cooldown: 30s

Mana Recovered: 55 [+5 per Level]

“P… Pinning shot!” He stumbled backward away from the charging Salamander once he’d waved off the messages, hitting it just in time to prevent it from reacing him. He looked at Darkwing once more on his shoulder to confirm, indeed, his pigeon had become elite - it adapted a skill to save him.

He turned to see that Snowflake was still unharmed, and hadn’t completely run out of the cavern. Instead, Snowflake was looking anxiously between Darkshot and the Salamander, as if confused what to do next.

“Stay in here, Snowflake. You,” He motioned to Darkwing. “Stay on my shoulder.” He took a few steps back and aimed his bow at the Salamander. “I’m not giving up. We can do this.” He nocked another arrow.