Spiteful Healer

Chapter 174: Stabilize

“Shit!” Aegis shouted as he shot up from his chair, realizing what had just happened just as Kur’aktos suddenly let out a violent cough and stumbled up onto his feet. Almost immediately, Aegis saw red damage numbers popping up above his head. The moment they’d appeared, everyone else in the room reacted as well by standing up from their chairs.

“My lord?” Krael asked with concern.

“The poison. The seeker poison. No matter, I was anticipating something like this, due to recent events.” Kur’aktos coughed as he fumbled into his inventory, pulling out an antidote vial and quickly drinking it. Just as Kagil’aktos had predicted, Kur’aktos prepared for the poison. But Aegis already knew that the antidote wasn’t going to work, and the damage numbers kept appearing. During this commotion, Mayiera suddenly dashed across the room towards him, her right hand glowing dark purple.

Mayiera managed to get to Kur’aktos with incredible speed, reaching out around Krael to rip something off of his neck just as Lina managed to shadowstep across the room and push Mayiera back away from doing any additional damage to Kur’aktos.

“What’re we doing Aegis?” Darkshot shouted in confusion.

“Don’t let Kur’aktos die!” Aegis declared as he jumped up onto the table and ran across it to reach him, while Viella looked at Mayiera and Lina with a look of wide eyed shock.

“You…” Viella mumbled in disbelief as Lina nervously looked back and met her eyes, seeing the recognition in them. “This is the one who infiltrated the prison, and Mayiera. They are with the seekers!” Viella shouted to Krael, who quickly gritted his teeth and drew out his blades.

“Hoo boy.” Pyri sighed as she pulled out her staff. Just as Aegis was about to get close enough to Kur’aktos to heal him, Krael charged at Aegis with his greatsword.

“You will not harm our lord.” Krael declared to Aegis. He was forced to, extremely quickly, equip his shield of Eirene and throw it up to brace a swing from Krael’s sword that impacted his shield with a violently loud metallic ringing sound.

You take 26,230 slashing damage.

“Damnit!” Aegis jumped backwards to avoid a second swing. “Mithral swords are no joke.” He said to himself as he stumbled a few steps over the dishes on the table. “I’m not trying to hurt him, I’m trying to heal him. I’m a priest of Eirene.” Aegis declared.

“A follower of one of the gods that bring nothing but destruction. I will not be fooled.” Krael replied as he jumped up onto the table and prepared to swing at Aegis again.

“I don’t have time for this, that poison does too much damage.” Aegis shouted to his companions.

“I got it.” Pyri declared, waving her staff and creating multiple cinderbolts and sending them out at Krael. From there, Aegis was able to quickly run beyond Krael by hopping off the table and running around him. He ignored Krael’s swings that came at him from above, and wasn’t punished for doing so thanks to Pyri catching the sword swings with small bursts of cinders redirecting Krael’s swing away from Aegis and forcing him to miss.

“Don’t think so, wizard.” Viella turned and glared at Pyri, then shadowstepped across the room behind Pyri and prepared to slash at her from behind. Lina matched the teleport, though, and parried Viella’s daggers and knocked her away. Once she had, Mayiera took advantage of Lina being gone to run for the door and leave the dining room.

“She took the inner chamber key!” Kur’aktos called out, struggling to reach out after her as his health began to dip dangerously low from the poison.

“Heal!” Aegis slid the final meter to get in range of Kur’aktos and touch him, channeling holy energy into his body to mend the damage. “Fucking hell. Healing Wind! HEAL!” Aegis shouted after he saw that the damage he’d healed was being overtaken by the damage numbers ticking down. “What’s the key for? Why’d she steal it?!” Aegis quickly asked Kur’aktos as he healed him some more, all the while Krael ran at Aegis and attempted to slash his sword down on him again. Pyri protected Aegis, while Lina protected Pyri.

“That key opens the inner chamber of the White Tree, where the source of its light is kept safe. If the seekers get inside there, they can easily destroy it and kill the tree. The Master of the Tree stands in its defense, but she may not be able to…” Kur’aktos interrupted himself with a cough. “If you are not with the seekers, then you mustn’t let them reach that chamber, or the tree that protects this city will fall and my people will die.” Kur’aktos forced the words out between Aegis’ heals. Hearing this, Krael finally stopped striking out at Aegis, and Aegis and his party were all hit with quest prompts that appeared in their peripheral vision.

Quest[5/5]: Protect the City of the White Tree from the Void Harbinger that has been attempting to bring about its destruction for the past century.

Objective: 0/1 Void Harbinger Slain

Quest Giver: Warlord Kur’aktos, The City of the White Tree

Reward: Refining Proficiency: [Mithral], Mining Proficiency: [Mithral], Amulet of Pure Light

Difficulty:Extreme(III)

Restrictions: The City of the White Tree must not be destroyed. Kur’aktos must not die.

“Holy shit, a mastercraft item reward? And those proficiencies!" Darkshot’s eyes went wide as he saw the notification.

“It’s extreme three, this won’t be easy.” Pyri tried to bring him back down to reality.

“Aegis?” Lina asked him for directions after accepting the quest, seeing that Viella had stopped trying to kill Pyri.

“My lord, you are trusting these foreigners, even knowing they worked with the seekers?” Viella asked him.

“They were most likely tricked by the void harbinger’s manipulative words, as so many have been before them. Either way, this one is healing me and the only reason I am still alive. I don’t believe he would do that if he wanted to destroy us.” Kur’aktos explained as he watched Aegis cast heal on him a few more times, barely being able to offset the damage from the poison. “I cannot fight like this. You are healer from the surface, can you remove this poison from my body?” Kur’aktos turned to Aegis.

“Cleanse,” Aegis tried, but as he’d expected it had no effect despite gaining experience and reaching level 3. “Not with magic, it’s resistant to magic removal. But maybe with an antidote…” Aegis’ mind began to race. “Go stop Mayiera, cut her off by any means necessary. I’ll make sure Kur’aktos is healed. Once I’ve got an antidote made, we’ll join you.” Aegis commanded his party, and without any hesitation, all three of them ran out of the dining room after Mayiera.

“Help them, I will be fine here.” Kur’aktos commanded Krael and Viella. Viella nodded in response, and Viella motioned the two royal guards to follow her out of the room before leaving herself. The guards, however, moved slowly and were still in the room by the time she’d left.

“I will not leave you here alone unprotected in such a state, especially not with this foreigner.” Krael refused, to which Kur’aktos sighed.

“I’m fine, I assure you, it’s-”

“Look out!” Krael interrupted Kur’aktos, motioning to the two Royal Guards who suddenly turned in the doorway with spears drawn and thrust them forward towards Kur’aktos. Aegis lifted his shield at the last moment to brace one strike while Krael parried the other.

“You die here today, tyrant!” The guards shouted with a dark glow in their eyes.

“More seekers, hidden in our ranks.” Krael growled at them as he engaged them with his mithral greatsword. Aegis wanted to help, but it was taking all of his focus to continuously cast heal on Kur’aktos and keep him alive.

“Damnit…” Aegis frustratedly turned from the fight as Krael stood between him and the royal guards and began clashing his sword against the tips of their spears. Aegis quickly did a wide sweeping arm motion over the top of the dining room table to clear a section of it off, then went into his inventory and pulled out his alchemist tools, dropping them down around the table while intermittently casting a heal on Kur’aktos.

“That healing magic is powerful. How long can you keep it up for?” Kur’aktos asked him worriedly.

“Not forever. You any good at alchemy?” Aegis replied as he began laying out his ingredients on the table in front of him, then sliding the glass of wine closer to himself that he knew had been poisoned.

“No, unfortunately I am not skilled in alchemy.” Kur’aktos replied regretfully. “I feel too weak to stand. I despise such dishonorable tactics.” Kur’aktos said as his knees wobbled and he placed his hands on the table, struggling to hold himself up.

“Hang in there, I’ll figure this out.” Aegis said as he took a deep breath. He looked at Krael fighting off the corrupt Royal Guards, then looked at the pale, sweating and low health Kur’aktos, then looked at his alchemist tools he’d set out on the table. “C’mon Aegis.” He whispered to himself with determination.

"Which way did she go, can you track her?” Pyri asked Darkshot as she, Lina and Darkshot ran back out of the front doors of the palace, where outside they began hearing a loud ringing alarm bell coming from the lower branches. Around them and below them on the Royal Ring they saw that Royal guards were engaged in fights with cloaked seekers in every direction they looked.

“I don’t know, there’s no tracks that my skill is picking up.” Darkshot replied flustered.

“It’s because she hovers. She probably isn’t walking anywhere.” Lina replied. “It's so chaotic out here..." Lina panned her eyes over the fighting in all directions. "Do you guys know what that bell means?”

“It means a creature from the wasteland has breached the lower gates.” Viella answered her as she appeared behind the three in the doorway of the palace. Viella then glanced to the right and left and saw that the guards that should’ve been standing watch on the Palace Gate had been killed and were laying lifelessly on the ground nearby. “Most likely a distraction to create chaos, by the seekers. They’ve also breached the Royal Ring. Follow me, the way up to the inner sanctum is over here.” Viella motioned them to follow, then sprinted off away from the gate towards a ramp up off to the side of the palace, leading further up the tree.

She didn’t just sprint, but shadowstepped intermittently in between, but not so much that the others were not able to keep up with her, until finally they reached the base of a long, steep and thin ramp that wound up the trunk, way up to nearly the very roots of the tree on the roof of the cavern where it met a small landing.

However waiting at the base of the ramp stood Mayiera, Kagil’aktos, and several cloaked seekers armed with various weapons. They’d reached them just in time to see Mayiera handing over the necklace to Kagil’aktos that she had stolen from Kur’aktos.

“I really should have just killed the warden.” Mayiera sighed in frustration upon seeing them.

“So this was your big evil plan? Kill Kur’aktos, steal his inner sanctum key, then bring down the tree?” Darkshot shouted at the collection of Elite NPCs standing before them.

“Precisely. Our lord revels in destruction. We will put on a most spectacular show for him here today, and it will be all thanks to your help.”

“Nah, don’t get it twisted. It’s gonna be thanks to us that you won’t do shit.” Darkshot clenched his fist around his ironwood longbow and fired several shots out at them, piercing into both Mayiera, the seekers, and Kagil’aktos. None of them took any damage, despite the arrowheads clearly piercing their skin. Only red 0’s popped up before the obsidian-headed arrows dissipated into thin air.

“I don’t think so. We are protected by our lord. You cannot harm us.” Kagil’aktos smirked as he turned and began heading up the ramp. “Don’t let them disturb me, I will be done with the tree shortly."

“Uh… Aegis, we’ve got a problem. They’re immune to damage.” Darkshot said through the party communications.

Hearing this, Aegis looked up in the dining room and saw that Krael, too, was unable to kill the two royal guards that were fighting him - despite his mithral swords he was also dealing no damage to them.

“It’s the protection runes.” Rakkan chimed in. “They work in sets of four, this is what they must do.”

“How do we disable them, then?” Pyri replied as she, Darkshot, Viella and Lina could do nothing but stare down Mayiera and the seekers as they stood guard at the base of the ramp while Kagil’aktos ascended up it.

“As long as you destroy one of the four runes, the protection should stop working. We know where one of them is, at least. Should I go there?” Rakkan asked.

“No, Lina will be faster. Take Viella with you, destroy that rune in the Pale Watch tavern.” Aegis replied. “The rest of you, use everything you’ve got to delay Kagil’aktos and Mayiera for as long as possible.” Aegis instructed them.

“Okay.” Lina replied into the party communications before closing it out.

“Viella, they’re being protected by ancient magic. We can only stop it if we destroy one of their hidden runes. We know where a rune is hidden, but it’s probably protected.” Lina explained, and Viella simply nodded back respectfully.

“Lead the way.” Viella replied.

“Good luck.” Pyri smiled at Lina and Lina smiled back, before both Lina and Viella began shadowstepping away, down the tree utilizing any shadows they could find. Once she was gone, Pyri turned to Darkshot.

“I’ll handle this warlock and her goons, you go pinning shot the hell out of that Kagil’aktos guy.” Pyri instructed Darkshot, and he nodded back.

“You will ‘handle’ me?” Mayiera glared at Pyri as she pulled back her white hood to cancel her human disguise and return to her creepy, floating hair and rune covered Dark Elf appearance. “Your magic is no match for the magic of my lord.” Mayiera said as her hands began to glow dark purple.

“Oh yeah?” Pyri smirked as she cast 4 cinderbolts and sent the bolts at Mayiera from all directions. However, Mayiera finished her own spell and created a black orb that began floating above her head, and once the cinderbolts got close to Mayiera, the black orb sucked in all of Pyri’s cinderbolts like a blackhole, preventing Pyri from manipulating them at all. “Oh, yeah. That’s gonna be a problem.” Pyri took a deep nervous breath.

“No worries, I got it.” Darkshot said as he shot out several arrows as well, but they too were all sucked into the black hole spell.

“Kill them.” Mayiera grinned, motioning the four nearby seekers forward. They complied, rushing towards Darkshot and Pyri with weapons drawn.

“Ok, slight complication, we can’t stop Kagil’aktos.” Pyri quickly explained to the others in the party interface before she was forced to begin manually dodging the spear strikes of the seekers in front of her.

Kagil’aktos, on the other hand, had reached the top of the ramp and arrived at the landing in front of the large door at the very top of the white tree. Standing guard in front of it was a tall female dark elf with long wavy black hair and a crown of dimly growing brambles around her head. She wore no armor, though, but a simple cloth outfit, and was clearly not prepared for combat. Despite this, she took her staff out from off her back and held it out in front of herself as she stood between Kagil’aktos and the door leading into the tree’s inner sanctum. [Master of the Tree, Seliolara(Elite) - Level 140] stood floating above her head.

“You do not belong up here. Return at once.” Seliolara commanded Kagil’aktos, but he simply laughed back at her.

“I go where my lord wills me to go.” Kagil’aktos replied as his entire body began to emit off a deep black aura that seemed to absorb the light around him, blacking out his surroundings despite the bright white glow of the white tree's roots a few meters above.

“Thelya’hak!” Seliolara shouted as she waved her staff forward at Kagil’aktos, causing white roots to suddenly shoot out of the dim gray planks of wood on the floor of the landing they stood on. The roots formed into sharp spears and pierced into Kagil’aktos, but none of it dealt any damage, and he quickly drew out a longsword and slashed away at the roots to break himself free.

Then, with a sudden burst of incredible speed, he dashed forward and wrapped the fingers of his left hand around Seliolara’s neck and lifted her up off her feet, preparing to begin slashing at her with the longsword in his right hand.

“You cannot stop me, Master of the Tree.” Kagil’aktos cackled as he pulled his sword arm back, but as he thrust it forward, it was slashed away by Rakkan’s sword, while simultaneously Snowflake dug his talons into Kagil’aktos’ shoulders and flung him back away from Seliolara.

“Yeah, but I can.” Rakkan declared as he, having jumped off of Snowflake’s back to land beside Seliolara and protect her, moved to stand in front of her. Simultaneously, Snowflake recomposed himself after the flinging strike and landed beside Rakkan, lowering his head and glaring at Kagil’aktos. “Rune:Echo.” Rakkan shouted, creating three more copies of himself wielding all of his weapons - the echo wielding the crossbow jumped onto Snowflake’s back.

“Who the hell are you?” Kagil’aktos glared at him with a hint of surprise and confusion.

“I…” Rakkan pondered for a moment, but nothing flashy came to mind. “Am the encyclopedia.”