Spiteful Healer

Chapter 164: Wasteland

Before them, over the cliff below and beyond a great stretch of flat pale land stood the City of the White Tree. It was aptly named for the gigantic, glowing white tree that was visible to Aegis and his companions despite its great distance from them, at least two kilometers out from where they stood.

The tree, however, did not grow up from the ground of the cavern, but rather it was hanging off of the cavern’s ceiling, upside down, and its leaves and branches reached out in all directions where the City had been built around its glow, illuminating itself despite the otherwise dark tunnel.

Thanks to that same tree, its roots expanded outward along the roof of the cavern a great distance, occasionally arching downward and hanging low before curving back up into the rock, and its roots were giving off a pure bright white glow as well. This allowed Aegis and the others to not only see the city, but get a sense of size for the cavern and spot other illuminated sections of the huge, open space.

The wasteland was a fitting name, as well. The bottom of the cavern was simple, flat gray stone. Unlike other caverns they’d encountered, it lacked soilrock, thus little to no vegetation could be seen growing anywhere. Instead, there were occasional pools of a black bubbling liquid mixed in with small pools of water and pits. There were also the standard occasional large rocks jutting out of the ground here and there, but for the most part, it looked completely flat.

“There it is.” Aegis said as he looked upon it. “It’s finally in view. After months of grinding and exploring down here, the end is in sight.” Aegis said with a big grin.

“Once we finish with that city, we’ll be able to bask in the sun again.” Pyri said with a dreamy voice.

“I’ve got so much stuff to tell Sherry.” Darkshot grinned ear to ear.

“Amlie, too.” Rakkan joined in.

“They’re probably watching us, though.” Lina motioned to Aegis livestream icon sitting at 75,000 viewers.

“Eh, that’s just Aegis’ perspective. Mine is way more interesting.” Darkshot waved this off.

“Alright. So,” Aegis abruptly clapped his hands together, “We get down from here, sneak across the wasteland, and get into the city through the secret entrance. We find the tavern, talk to the brother, help him overthrow the warlord without killing him, interrogate the warlord, and then, victory.” Aegis declared.

“That’s a lot of steps. How about you do all of that, and we just follow along and kill everything you tell us to?” Pyri suggested.

“That’s okay too.” Aegis nodded back at her. “Snowflake, if you would do the honors.” Aegis felt around to find his invisible gryphon and hopped on his back as he squawked excitedly. One by one they were ferried down to the bottom of the cavern until they’d all landed safely on the wasteland floor.

Having landed first, Aegis had time to look around at his surroundings and spotted to the right a marked trail of dimly lit lanterns extending out of the same cavern wall that they’d come from. Standing about the lanterns nearest the wall stood the silhouettes of more Dark Elves.

“Looks like thats where the unbroken bridge enters this cavern. It’s much lower to the ground, and they seem to have a marked trail to navigate through the wasteland from the bridge towards the city.” Aegis pointed it out as the last person, Rakkan, landed with Snowflake. The others looked over and spotted the Dark Elves as well, and Darkshot squinted his eyes.

“Yep, that trail goes on far into the wasteland. It’s probably the safest route through it, if the Dark Elves are using it.” Darkshot nodded.

“We won’t be able to use it though, if we want to avoid being seen by them.” Lina commented.

“Yeah.” Aegis turned to look forward into the dark wasteland infront of them, unmarked and dotted with pools, pits and rocks. “We’ll be taking the dangerous route.”

“Can’t be that bad, right?” Pyri shrugged, but a moment after she had, there was a loud, deep and ominous gurgling growl that echoed throughout the cavern, coming from somewhere within the darkness of the wasteland.

“Yeah, sure. Walk in the park.” Darkshot sighed.

“I’ll keep bless up at all times, just to be safe.” Aegis said apprehensively as he began tapping everyone’s shoulders, including a tap on the invisible Snowflake - though he wasn’t sure which part of Snowflake’s body he’d tapped.

“Good idea.” Rakkan nodded as he drew out his weapons.

“Slow, steady, silent.” Aegis said to the others once he’d finished, and with that, the party began walking forward away from the cavern walls and into the wasteland.

Pyri created a single cinderbolt to minimize the light they let off, in order to remain as stealthy as possible. She widened it out into the shape of a ring that formed a perimeter around the group and kept it low to the ground.

Aegis and Darkshot took point, walking in front and taking note of any odd movements and strange sounds. As they approached the first pool of black viscous liquid, the only sound they heard was a loud bubbling from the center, as air was being released from something underneath the surface. Each bubble pop sent slow ripples outward to the edges of the pool and gave off a nasty sulfuric smell.

“I wonder what that stuff is. Looks a bit like tar, but it’s not giving off any heat…” Aegis eyed it curiously. Without thinking he began stepping toward it, extending his hand out and preparing to touch it, but Darkshot quickly slapped his hand on his shoulder and stopped him.

“Chances are, whatever it is, it wants to kill you.” Darkshot warned him. Aegis turned to the others and saw they were all nodding in agreement with Darkshot.

“Fine.” Aegis sighed regretfully. “I won’t touch the strange bubbling black goo.”

“Thank you.” Darkshot bowed cordially before forcefully steering Aegis’ shoulder back on track towards the city they could see off in the distance. They continued on from here a good while undisturbed. They could hear the sound of creatures nearby in the darkness, but were able to avoid any direct confrontations. That was, until suddenly they began hearing a loud stomping off in the distance that was slowly getting closer to them.

“It’s coming towards us.” Darkshot whispered nervously as the stomping got louder.

“No shit.” Rakkan shook his head.

“Everyone quiet, stay still, we don’t know what it is yet.” Aegis motioned behind him to the others, seeing them all glancing around frantically. “Pyri, spread out the cinderbolt away from us to give us a wider viewing perimeter, and make it our location less obvious.”

“Got it.” Pyri whispered back as she broke apart her ring into several smaller spheres and sent them out away from the group. The stomping got louder, and the stomping intervals gave a sense that it was a bipedal creature, but there was a strange dragging sound that followed along with the stomps that got louder as it closed in.

Aegis was partially excited to see what ‘great horror’ that the wasteland had in store for them, but at the same time was a bit scared about what it could possibly be. Part of him hoped it would just pass them by, but the stomping continued to get louder as the creature was clearly heading in their direction.

As it got closer, they began to hear a low growl mixed in with the stomps and dragging. Not a single growl, either, but multiple mixing in with each other. Then, finally, the creature became visible. Partly thanks to Pyri locating it with her cinderbolts, partly because of several dark purple glows that came off of its hundreds of eyes.

[Void Hydra(ELITE) - ??] stood above its head. Aegis immediately wanted to ask what capitalized elite meant, but he became too afraid to make any sound when he saw the beast. It wasn’t just that it was the size of a large two story building, or the fact that it had three long necks with huge snouts, filled with razorsharp teeth that were dripping with saliva. It also wasn’t the two gigantic talon covered feet that were stomping it forward, or the huge spiked tail that it was dragging behind its large bulky body.

The terrifying visage of the creature instead came from the fact that its three necks were covered in the bodies of dead Dark Elves, as if glued overtop of one another onto the creatures necks. Their bodies were primarily skeletal, but their eyes were still glowing dark purple with void energy and moving around, as if the hydra was seeing through them rather than using its own eyes atop its heads.

It was due to that, that Aegis inadvertently looked up at the heads to try and see if the hydra had its own sets of eyes to see through. And it did, only, the eyes on the heads did not have pupils, but instead rippling waves of black and purple energy that sent chills down his spine to look directly at them. In fact, the moment he had, he saw a debuff appear on his interface.

[Terror]

Source: Void Hydra

Effect: While looking directly at the Void Hydra, your movement speed and physical attack power are reduced by 15%.

It wasn’t just Aegis - he saw the same debuff appear on all of his companions and noticed they, too had all frozen stiff with fear. No one said a word as they all watched the creature stomp forward, across the wasteland in front of them. Luckily, it wasn’t travelling directly at them, but rather passing by a couple dozen meters away. It took while, but eventually, the sounds of the creature began to fade off into the distance as it left the light of Pyri’s cinderbolts.

“What the hell was that?” Darkshot whispered.

“It was still a question mark level, even though we’re level 130?”

“Capitalized elite means that the enemy is designed for raid groups, not small parties of five.” Lina explained to Aegis before he even had to ask.

“I guess that explains why the Dark Elves put up with a Tyrant Warlord, if they’ve got things like that wandering around their doorstep.” Rakkan said.

“Yeah, no kidding. I was only half worried about encountering enemies here before, but now that I’ve seen what’s in this wasteland, I’m extremely worried.” Aegis looked at his party. “If we get engaged by anything here, we make a run for it. Pyri, have your portal skill ready at all times.”

“Way ahead of you.” Pyri commented as he watched her equip her pouch of portal dust to the belt on her waist, somewhat visible under her tattered seeker cloak.

“That thing is walking in the direction of the marked trail that the Dark Elves use.” Darkshot pointed out.

“It’s not like we can do anything about it.” Aegis shook his head. “Come on, let’s keep moving.” He motioned them forward. The others were hesitant to keep moving, staring in the direction that they’d last seen the Void Hydra, but eventually, one by one, they continued forward after a few nervous coos from Darkwing.

All desire to touch the gooey black pools had left Aegis now, and from henceforth the group utilized Darkshot’s tracking skill to steer well clear of any of the goo pools, water pools, pits, and even the jagged rocks jutting out of the ground that were possibly threats.

The next potential danger they encountered came in the form of light, however. As they traveled, ahead of them came into view a large section of the wasteland floor that sat in the light of a low hanging root from the white tree.

The light from the root acted like a spotlight, shining down on the section of the wasteland in front of the party, and due to that it seemed that some forms of vegetation had managed to grow despite the hard rocky floor of the cavern. Most of the plants were simply small strands of grey and brown grass, but at the very center of the illuminated section stood a large white fern-like plant with layers upon layers of white leaves growing out from its center in all directions, and at the very top, in the center stood a big blue flower with multiple layers of petals spread open towards the white root above it.

Aegis held his hand out as the group got a few meters away from stepping into the light of the root, staring at the suspiciously large, bright plant. It’s size was that of a small autopod.

“What, you think it’s something bad?” Darkshot whispered as the others stopped to look as well.

“Yeah.” Aegis nodded. “Look, there’s plenty of room in that light for more of those things to grow.” Aegis motioned around the large area that was illuminated. “But unlike the other strands of grass and weeds, theres only one of those growing.” Aegis explained as the others took in the information and glanced around. “That means one of two things, either that thing’s root system is so demanding that it doesn’t allow for neighbors, or it's predatory and killed all of its competition.”

“Are plants predatory?” Pyri whispered curiously.

“It’s like Lina said. Everything down here tries to kill you, right?” Aegis turned to Lina and she nodded for confirmation. “Let’s just steer clear of the light pockets and avoid that plant for now.” Aegis instructed them, and from that, he and Darkshot began leading the group carefully around the pocket of light on the wasteland floor. As they made their wide circle around it, they all kept their eyes on the plant.

Sure enough, as they were coming around to the opposite side of the lit up section, they watched as the fern did a strange, shivering motion, as if it was shaking dust off itself and trying to pretty itself up.

“Yep, good call. That thing’s definitely alive.” Rakkan commented as the others saw it.

“Let’s keep moving, we’re almost there.” Aegis whispered, motioning them forward once more.

As they continued on, slowly but surely the City of the White Tree became more and more visible. They could see that at the base of the tree's vast, tangling branches, stood a tall man-made wall that wrapped around the base of it. The wall was at minimum 25 meters up from the ground, much higher than any of the walls Aegis had seen in Arallia or Kalmoore, but the cavern itself was also impressively huge, with the tree being at least 50 meters tall itself and its trunk wide and thick, much bigger than it had appeared when they saw it at the entrance of the cavern. It hung down from the highest point of the cavern, and Aegis imagined that it had to be relatively close to the surface of Kalmoore. He found himself wondering if it'd be possible to see the roots of that tree on the surface, somewhere above.

The closer they got to the city, the more impressive its size became, and Aegis could spot structures that the Dark Elves had built not only around the branches of the tree, but on and inside them, incorporating it fully into their lifestyle with walkways and bridges spanning between the various branches - wooden bridges that were made out of the very same white glowing wood, and the planks gave off their own feint, duller glow of light despite having been processed from their natural form.

“That’s got to be the prettiest city we’ve seen so far.” Pyri whispered as she looked upon it in all its glory.

“Too bad it's run by a tyrant and filled with a bunch of Dark Elves that’ll want to kill us.” Darkshot added.

“Yeah…” Pyri sighed.

“Look.” Aegis pointed out a dark, dim red glow coming from the base of the wall around the city. “Looks like they have a moat of magma going around the outside, to keep the bad creatures out.”

“Can’t blame them.” Rakkan replied.

“We might be the first players to ever enter this city.” Lina smiled excitedly. “Most Dark Elves cities are notorious for only letting in players that pick the Dark Elf race. And this one is run by a tyrant Warlord.” She added.

“Good thing we’re all Dark Elves, then.” Aegis smirked back at her as he motioned to their modified appearances. “Iuonok said there’s a jagged rock on the western side of the city. Any idea which way is west down here?” Aegis turned to Darkshot.

“I got you covered. It’s this way.” He motioned in the direction they needed to go. From there, the party continued forward, getting closer and closer to the city, but still a good distance away from the moat and the base of the walls. They had gotten close enough however to see the silhouettes of the many Dark Elf guards patrolling the tops of the walls and looking out at the surrounding wasteland.

Aegis couldn’t imagine what life would be like being forced to live in a place surrounded by such deadly creatures, under the rule of an oppressive tyrant. With those thoughts in mind he was grateful that it was only a game.

It took a bit of careful, slow and cautious exploration before the party was able to locate the landmark that Iuonok had mentioned. It was a small jagged stone jutting out from the wasteland floor. It was only noticeable because the rest of the surrounding land was completely flat and devoid of anything interesting to look at. When Aegis and the others approached it, they couldn’t spot anything that resembled an entrance.

“That’s gotta be it, this is the western outskirts and there’s nothing else around here.” Darkshot pointed at it.

“There’s no entrance, though.” Pyri crossed her arms and looked at it carefully.

“Hm.” Aegis pondered while Lina stepped forward and began inspecting it more closely.

“It’s probably like the illusion in the tower.” Lina explained as she started feeling around the stone with her hands, and it wasn’t long before they all watched her hands suddenly pass through the ground. “Yup, here, I feel stairs under this part.” She commented. To the others, it looked as though suddenly her arms had been sliced off at the forearms and she was pressing the bottom against the solid wasteland floor.

“Good, let’s get out of this wasteland.” Aegis eagerly walked towards her as the others followed, including a curiously squawking yet invisible Snowflake. Aegis felt around through the illusion with his feet to get a footing on the stairs and slowly descended down them.

Eventually he got low enough on the staircase that his head passed through the illusion and he could see the narrow stone stairs continuing down below the surface of the wasteland.

One by one the others followed behind him, and eventually the stairs transitioned into a widened, crudely carved tunnel that went directly forward in the direction of the City of the White Tree.

“Glad to be out of that wasteland, it felt like a death trap.” Darkshot commented as they traveled forward through the tunnel, using Pyri’s cinderbolts as light.

“We’re about to enter a city filled with Dark Elves. I’m not sure if it’s going to be safer, or even more deadly.” Rakkan replied.

“We’ve got these cloaks, we should blend right in. All we have to do is act natural.” Aegis shrugged. “What could possibly go wrong?”