Spiteful Healer

“Welcome back to VGN Daily,” The VGN Broadcaster spoke with enthusiasm, leaning forward in his plushy red chair within the VGN broadcasting studio. He wore a black suit and tie and was sporting a thick brown goatee with a shaved head of short brown hair. Beside him sat a long wooden stand with a floating screen above it, on display for the viewers as it hovered side by side with the broadcaster.

On the screen, a view of Feng and his guild of the Vindicators wearing matching red outfits and tabards was on display. Feng and his guild were in the midst of a great battle with a hydra, somewhere within the Underrealms of Lanusk.

“It’s been two weeks since the abyssal invasion of Kalmoore, and still no sightings of Aegis since his party split up atop the Skyport tower of Kordas, setting out to acquire their advanced class quests. Despite our desperate attempts to track Aegis and his movements, we’ve been unsuccessful. It is believed that he has taken a small group and has been gathering loads of mithral to fulfill his promise to his fellow Kalmoorians.

Feng and Makaroth, our two top streamers here at VGN have followed in his footsteps on their respective islands and sought out alliances with the Dark Elves of their underrealms.” The broadcaster took a break to motion towards the screen beside him, focusing on Feng’s raid.

“While they both managed to acquire the proficiencies to mine, refine, and forge the Mithral, as well as craft their very own eternal flames, neither has been able to locate any mithral themselves. They’re currently scouring the underrealms of their respective islands in search of it, and we’ll keep you updated the moment we have anything to share on that front.” He leaned back and waved his hand at the screen, switching the view over to Puagas, where the player Seraxus was visible in his own livestream.

“In other news, the feud between Seraxus and the guild Schadenfreude continues. The german guild has been determined since very early on in the games life to stop the evil antics of our infamous PvP player Seraxus, but were largely unsuccessful. That is, until Seraxus attempted to manually set out from Puagas to challenge the Kalmoorians in their PvP abilities. Some say he feels the need to avenge his fellow Dark players, given that he himself is acting as the Avatar of Hatred due to the artifact sword he wields. Others claim that Seraxus holds a grudge against one of the players on Kalmoore and wishes to enact revenge, but these are just rumors at this time.

Schadenfreude’s airship blockade around the island of Puagas has held up so far, but Seraxus’ incredible skill in PvP combat will undoubtedly result in a victory for him and his companions. It’s only a matter of time before he breaks through their blockade - and once he does, we’ll be there to report on it.” The broadcaster winked at the camera while the footage of Seraxus deep in a conversation with his party members continued to play out beside him. A moment later, though, he once again waved his hands at the display and the screen switched over to Yumily’s livestream.

Yumily was dressed up in a flowery white sundress, her black hair tied back into a ponytail. She was walking around on the deck of her ship, giving out instructions to Kenji as he tried out various colorful illusions and Yumily commented on them, as if they were preparing the lights for her next concert.

“Yumily fans can finally rejoice, as the complications due to her recent contract obligations being broken have since been resolved. After a meeting with the higher ups at VGN, the network decided to forgive her and have since apologized for not being understanding of her requests to aid her island in it’s time of need. No doubt thanks to the support of her fans who protested loudly on her behalf. Yumily will be scheduling a new tour to make up for the missed concerts in the coming weeks, and has already begun preparing. She is promising several new tracks to be heard for the first time ever, including a completed and remixed version of the song she freestyle sang during the battle with the Avatar of Jealousy. While some fans were shocked to hear Yumily, the soft spoken bard, suddenly rap aggressively, the vast majority of people absolutely loved her performance and have been eagerly awaiting the full version…” His voice trailed off as suddenly Yumily and Kenji stopped what they were doing, and Kaito appeared on the deck of her ship.

“Hold on, it seems like something is happening…” The broadcaster said as he leaned in closer to stare at her broadcast on display. “Let’s take a closer look…” He added, before the camera on his broadcast zoomed into the studio until it was focusing solely on Yumily’s livestream. A moment later, the audio switched over from the broadcasting studio, to Yumily’s.

“Right now?” The pilot could be heard shouting down to Yumily from the stern of her large airship.

“Yup.” Yumily smiled up at him, giving a nod.

“Alrighty then, I’ll get us right over there.” The Airship pilot replied. Yumily then turned to look at Kenji and Kaito who both had sudden expressions of childlike excitement, and the three walked towards the side of the Airship to look over the lands of Kalmoore. They were hovering above the farmlands on the outskirts of Kordas, the city visible in the distance.

The wing sails on the side of the Airship opened up to catch wind, and slowly the vehicle turned to face towards the Northwest. Once it was angled correctly, the main sail was lowered and began to catch wind.

“Everyone hang on!” The pilot called out, to which Yumily grabbed onto the main mast, and Kenji and Kaito both bent their knees. “Airburst!” The pilot shouted, and a sudden blast of wind shot the airship forward, soaring incredibly fast through the air for a long while. Eventually, the ship slowed down as another settlement came into view.

The town of Rene, with its walls surrounding it, was now visible. A river ran along the southern walls of the town, with a watermill catching the force of the stream and carrying it through the walls into the Sawmill within.

The paved roads of the city were alive and bustling with various players and NPCs, some leading along carts that were pulled by various beasts of burden. It was primarily horses, but there were also plenty of Lagnuk’s moving about as well - large goat-like creatures.

Towards the north, a large mountain towered over the town with a beautiful monastery built near the top. The monastery drew Yumily’s eyes due to the large star-viewing tower that had been erected within it, which towered over the peak of the mountain despite the monastery not having been built near the top.

“Here is good, thank you!” Yumily called up to the pilot as the ship came close to hovering above the eastern walls of Rene.

“Alright.” The captain shouted back, and within a few seconds the wingsails had retracted and the airship came to a complete stop.

“Yuki said to meet them at the forge.” Yumily explained to Kenji and Kaito, and they both nodded back. Following this, Yumily hopped off of her airship alongside them, and Kenji cast a spell with a wave of his hand on the trio, slowing their falling so that they could softly land on the grassy fields outside of Rene’s eastern gate.

Her live streaming camera continued to follow her as the three excitedly walked with haste towards the gate and stepped through, passing by the high level 100 Rene guards that flanked either side of the entry into the city.

Through the east, they found themselves walking through the residential side of Rene that was predominantly filled with NPCs, distinguishable from players due to their names above their heads being white. There were a few low level players present, doing quests for the various NPCs, but not many.

After walking for a short while, the trio arrived at the town square of Rene. A large fountain in the center with a statue of the beautiful, long haired goddess Eirene standing atop it, depicted wearing a simple sleeveless white dress. The townsquare was backed to the brim with market stalls, players, and NPCs all shouting out at each other. Some were recruiting party members to explore nearby dungeons, or complete difficult quests in a group. Others were attempting to sell items that they had crafted or collected on their adventures. All manner of leveled players, races, and classes were present, including quite a few rarely seen Dark Elf NPCs, selling exotic goods brought from their city in the Underrealm.

Many of the players took notice of Yumily’s arrival, some screaming excitedly and waving in her direction. Yumily was sure to bow and politely thank anyone who approached her for their support, while Kaito cautiously kept watch of the players activities and movements, making sure to carry out his duties as Yumily’s bodyguard properly. Despite looking to be in a hurry, Yumily made sure to be respectful to all of the fans that flagged her down, making sure that none of them felt left out. As a result, it took a good long while for the trio to reach their destination on the other end of the townsquare - Rene’s crafting district.

They spotted Yuki's tailoring shop built off to the side of the square, but it was currently closed due to Yuki not being there at the moment. Yumily instead was heading towards the Forge of Rene, where another large crowd could be seen gathered in front of it. It was so crowded, in fact, that Yumily and her companions saw no possible way to get any closer, and she began standing up on her tippy toes to try and see over the crowd, unsuccessfully.

“Ah, Yumily, you’re one of the first completed orders.” Chax suddenly called out to Yumily, having spotted her. Chax was a merchant player, sitting at level 150 with bright red spiky hair atop his head and simple leather equipment otherwise. He was a familiar face to Yumily, though the two weren’t well acquainted - she knew him to be a companion of Aegis’ and was relieved to see him standing to the side of the crowd. “Come, follow me, I’ll get you through this mess.” Chax motioned her, Kenji and Kaito over.

“Okay.” Yumily smiled excitedly, before turning her attention to her livestream. Unlike Aegis, who had a tendency to never talk to his viewers, most streamers such as Yumily frequently read and interacted with their livestream chat. “Guys, I just got a message from Yuki that she and Aegis have finished crafting a lot of the orders, including my new instruments!” Yumily squealed with excitement, then saw tons of messages scrolling by that she quickly tried to read.

“Congrats!”

“AWESOME!”

“YEAAAAH!”

“GRATS!”

“Wow, if Yuki helped him make it, that means they’re probably gonna look fire!!!’

“WOO”

“Grats Yumily!”

“Can’t wait to see them!”

“Will you play us a new song when you get them!?”

“Wait, Aegis is back? He’s still not streaming though”

“What about Kaito’s sword!?”

“I’ll play them right away!” Yumily replied to one of the messages. “And, I think Kaito’s sword is ready as well.” She added with a nod as she was led by Chax through the crowds. Excitement got the best of her though, and she could no longer focus on her chat - she closed out of her interface as the forge crafting stations came properly into view. A line had formed of players in front of one crafting station in particular, where several Rene Guards were making an effort to hold back a crowd of onlookers from entering the crafting station.

Covered in sweat, hammering away at a glowing red blade, was Aegis. He was wearing crafting gear, rather than his usual leather armor, which included a black apron made by Yuki to increase his crafting capabilities. His mithral smithing hammer, which he swung repeatedly down at the blade on the anvil, was giving off a light blue glow due to Aegis having used his ‘enchant object’ skill on the hammer to enhance his craftsmanship further.

Aegis wasn’t currently streaming, and was completely focused on the task at hand, ignoring the murmurs from the crowd of onlookers. At the front of the line off to the side of the crafting station, Yumily could see 10 players of various levels, races, and classes, all eagerly waiting to receive their promised mithral weapons - Aegis had promised to craft mithral weapons to the 10 players who had the most abyssling kills during the recent abyssal invasion of Kalmoore.

Across from Aegis, working on threading voidsilk into several crafts, stood Yuki. She too looked worn down, sweating from either the exhausting work, or the intense heat that was blazing outwards from the eternal flame that had been recently installed inside the Forge of Rene. When Yumily arrived, Yuki briefly looked up and caught her eyes, and the two smiled excitedly at each other.

“Please line up there, he’s finishing up the last few items and then he will be presenting everyone with the crafts they requested.” Chax explained to her, motioning Yumily to move to the back of the line.

“Okay, thank you.” Yumily said with a polite bow before doing as instructed. After getting in line, she saw a large, towering human player named Herilon join the line behind her, Kaito and Kenji. From the back of the line, her view of Aegis’ hammerwork was somewhat obscured, so she leaned her head out to watch him briefly, before going back to interacting with her chat for a bit.

Eventually, the hammering stopped, and the red glowing metal blade cooled off into a light pink metal. Aegis then pulled out a hilt that had already been crafted using other high level materials, including salamander leather, voidsilk, and ironwood, and fastened it to the blade properly. Once done, he pulled out his newly made mithral jewelcrafting tool kit and began engraving fine details and etchings into the long blade, and hilt. The crowd went completely silent as he did this, with many players trying their best to poke their heads up over the Rene guards to get a better view on what exactly Aegis was doing.

It wasn’t long before he’d finished, though, and lifted up the final product into the air to inspect it carefully. Once lifted it became much more apparent what it was he’d been working on - a katana, which lit up Kaito’s face as he saw it.

“It’s exactly as I requested it! Wow!” Kaito squealed with excitement, in a voice completely out of character for him which caused Yumily and her viewers to laugh.

“Alright.” Aegis spoke up, causing any murmurs from the surrounding crowd to immediately die down. “Sorry to keep you all waiting, but I wanted to make sure I leveled up my skills all the way before crafting your equipment, to ensure everyone got the best quality items.” Aegis faced towards the lineup of players, including Yumily. As he spoke, she briefly made eye contact with him and blushed, looking away as fast as she could - this didn’t go unnoticed by her audience and they quickly began to tease her about it.

“Shh, I’m just a big fan.” She whispered to her viewers with a sarcastic glare.

“I really appreciate everyone who stepped up to help defend Kordas. I also recognize that though they are the top 10, they were not the only ones who helped out, so once this is finished, Chax will be selling the lower quality mithral equipment that I have crafted while leveling my blacksmithing, at discounted prices for Kalmoore players.” Aegis motioned to Chax, and this got the crowd of onlookers murmuring excitedly.

“So, the first one…” Aegis eyed the first player in line, a lizardfolk wearing leather. Aegis recognized the name and was able to pull out the gear the player had requested immediately, holding out a beautifully forged mithral longsword for them.

“Wow… thank you so much!” The lizardfolk said excitedly, taking the longsword from Aegis’ hands.

“Thank you.” Aegis smiled and bowed. The lizardfolk added the sword to his inventory and disappeared into the crowd, and the next player stepped forward. One by one, Aegis handed out to each of the players in the line their mithral equipment that they had requested of him. And one by one, they left the line with big glowing smiles on their faces. That is, until the last person in the line in front of Yumily stepped up.

A tall old human male with no hair on his head to speak of, save for a small white goatee. Despite his wrinkly skin, the player’s avatar was very muscular, with broad shoulders and a white sleeveless shirt, [Jorik - Level 150] hovering above his head.

“And lastly, the number one abyssling and reaper killer in the defense of Kordas, Jorik.” Aegis smiled at him and pulled out a mithral hacksaw. Jorik stepped forward with a big smile on his face, eying the saw, but Aegis pulled it back.

“You requested a mithral tool, rather than a weapon. Am I right in assuming you are an architect class player?” Aegis asked him.

“Yes, that’s correct. I’m currently working on my advanced class quest, like yourself.”

“How did you end up defeating so many abysslings?” Aegis asked him curiously.

“Trebuchets. I used my class skills to craft multiple before the battle, and continued to craft more as the battle went on. Several of my employed NPCs were skilled at operating them, allowing me to focus on building as many as possible.” Jorik explained.

“I see… no doubt you use more than just a hacksaw, right? I took the liberty of crafting other tools used by architects for you, in mithral.” Aegis explained as he pulled out a hammer, axe, and several other tools. Upon seeing them Jorik’s face exploded with excitement. “But, I was hoping you’d be willing to help me out with an upcoming construction project in return.” Aegis explained.

“Oh? What project?” Jorik asked.

“I’m going to be building a castle here in Rene, to max out the rest of my required crafting professions. I’ll be building it with my lead architect Ruffily, but having another high level, skilled architect on board for the project would be a great help.”

“Will you be supplying all of the materials? I've been a bit low since the battle.” Jorik asked him, his excitement quickly transitioning into intrigue. The maturity of the player behind the Jorik avatar shined through and displayed a great deal of professionalism, despite the player clearly ogling the mithral tools that Aegis was presenting to him.

“Yup, we’ll handle that. I’d just like your help in layout, structural integrity, practicality and design.” Aegis replied.

“Then, I’d be honored to join your project.” He smiled back.

“Great!” Aegis shouted with excitement, handing over the mithral architecture tools to him. “We’ll be starting in a bit, Chax can you introduce him to Ruffily?” Aegis turned to Chax, and Chax nodded back. Within a few moments, Chax had led Jorik away from the crowds, leaving no one to stand between him and Yumily.

Aegis finished following Yorik out of the area with his eyes first before turning his gaze onto Yumily, and she looked back at him courageously with a smile. Seeing her, Aegis smiled back and began ruffling through his inventory, preparing to pull out the instruments he had crafted for her, but was stopped by a violent nudge in his back.

“Oh, hey, there you are Aegis.” Hae-won awkwardly spoke between her teeth, seething with anger.

“Hae-won? What’re you doing here?” Aegis turned to look at her curiously - she was still wearing her standard red V-neck dress with her long black beautiful hair swaying down below her shoulders. Despite her beautiful appearance that stood out like a sore thumb in the fantasy environment, the expression on her face hid her beauty behind its vaguely concealed anger.

“So funny, I was just wondering what’re you doing here, logged in, not streaming?” Hae-won grumbled in a whisper so that no one else but Aegis could hear her.

“I was gonna turn the stream back on once this was over with…” Aegis shrugged. She then leaned into his ear with a hissing tone.

“Did you forget what you promised me?”

“Forget what?” Aegis turned to look at her, confused.

“Oh come on, she’s right there!” Hae-won whimpered back, desperation mixing in with her anger as she motioned her eyes in Yumily’s direction without directly turning her head to face Yumily, while Yumily awkwardly watched the pair’s interaction.

“Oh, right.” Aegis nodded as he recalled his promise. Hae-won had made Aegis promise that he would introduce her to Yumily in return for her helping him with his island defense plan.

“Yumily, here’s your instruments.” Aegis bowed politely to her as he pulled the first one out of his inventory and held it out towards her. Seeing it, all forms of shyness in her disappeared immediately and she quickly rushed forward to grab the beautifully crafted ironwood, mithral, and voidsilk violin that he’d made for her.

“Oh my gosh, it’s perfect!” Yumily squealed with excitement as Kaito and Kenji both watched her and smiled. “You must’ve helped, right?” She turned to Yuki, and Yuki nodded.

“Yes, I made sure everything on all of the instruments fit your style, and are similar in size and shape to your current instruments.” Yuki replied.

“Thank you so much!” Yumily rushed forward and gave Yuki a big hug, then turned to Aegis and rushed over to hug him as well - the excitement from the new item completely washing away all of her shy emotions. Once she released Aegis, she took the violin in her hands and carefully eyed it up and down with big glowing eyes.

“I’ve got the rest made as well, but, well, I wanted to introduce you to my friend here, Hae-won. She’s a big fan…” Aegis awkwardly motioned towards Hae-won standing behind him, causing Yumily to look up from the violin.

“Oh, yes! I am a big fan of you as well!” Yumily cheered at her excitedly. “I sometimes watch Aegis’ stream, and you always make it really funny and entertaining! I’m happy to meet you Hae-won!” Yumily said with a smile. Hae-won, however, just stared back at her with wide eyes, and her jaw dropped.

“You know my name?” Hae-won muttered weakly.

“Mhm.” Yumily nodded with enthusiasm before turning her eyes back onto her new instrument. Aegis awkwardly glanced between the two, seeing for the first time that Hae-won was broken, at a complete loss for words and frozen in place like a petrified statue.

“Right.” Aegis shook his head to himself and rolled his eyes, pulling out the remaining instruments from his inventory. One by one, he handed them over to Yumily, and she took them and complemented Aegis and Yuki on their work.

“It was a pain to tame the Mosmir hatchers into weaving more voidsilk for us, but Yuki, Ruffily, Amlie and I all worked together and got it done.” Aegis explained as she took the final instrument from his hands.

“Yes. Now I should be able to regularly craft new outfits for you using voidsilk!” Yuki cheered excitedly.

“That’s so great!” Yumily squealed, giving Yuki another big hug. As this happened, Aegis once again turned to Hae-won to check in on her, seeing that she was still frozen with wide eyes and an open mouth.

“Right. And, here, Kaito. Thanks for sacrificing your old katana to save our island.” Aegis pulled out the recently finished mithral katana from his inventory and held it out for Kaito. Kaito eagerly stepped past Yuki and Yumily to take it from his hands and began carefully waving it around to get a feel for it.

“It is perfect. The balance and feel of it is wonderful. I can tell you are passionate about your craft.” Kaito said to Aegis, while both kept their eyes on the blade and watched it cut through the air.

“I looked up your blade of destruction skill - it does quite a hit to durability so I reinforced the blade to be able to withstand it. You won’t be able to use the skill twice in a row, but if you repair after each skill use, the sword shouldn’t let you down.” Aegis explained.

“That is perfect. I will put this blade to good use.” Kaito bowed to Aegis respectfully, followed by Kenji stepping forward holding a large pouch of gold.

“Here is the payment, on behalf of your merchant lead. We appreciate your hard work.” Kenji bowed as well, and Aegis took the gold from his hands and added it to his inventory without checking the amount.

“No problem.” Aegis smiled. Once the two polite men stepped to the side with Yumily and Yuki, all that was left was Herilon.

Aegis looked up at him, and Herilon looked down at Aegis, and the two had big dumb grins on their faces.

“Not gonna lie. This was my favorite thing to craft.” Aegis explained as he opened up his inventory and pulled out a giant mithral greatsword, covered in runes, and a beautifully engraved ironwood hilt at its base. “Nothing like just slamming down some mithral and crafting a big ass sword.”

“You should try swinging one around.” Herilon smirked as he eyed the greatsword, then took it from Aegis’ hands.

“Tullan’s got the rest of your guilds gear handled, right?”

“Yep. He’s armorsmithing all of our armor, and some of the weapons.” Herilon replied as he took out a pouch of coins as well and handed it to Aegis.

“Good.” Aegis took it. He watched Herilon ogle the sword in his hands for a moment, then turned to see Hae-won still frozen, and finally turned to the crowd of onlookers. “Alright guys, all done here. If you are interested in picking up some mithral stuff, Chax will be opening up a market stand in the townsquare shortly. It’s discounted, but mithral is still quite expensive due to how hard it is to gather.” Aegis declared, and following his words he witnessed the crowd begin to quickly rush eastward along the paved streets of Rene, towards the town square. Most didn’t even wait for Aegis to finish speaking.

“Okay, I’m going to start streaming again now, Hae-won.” Aegis turned to her, and she eventually nodded back.

“Mhm. Guess I should go then. Back to the studio… Aegis…” She whispered to him, leaning into his ear again. “She knew who I was!” Hae-won squealed into his ear breathlessly. Aegis just rolled his eyes at her.

“Yeah yeah.” He turned and started walking away from the forge. “If you can manage to talk to her, do it, she’s still there.” He motioned towards Yumily as she stood off to the side of the forge with Yuki, Kaito, and Kenji, deep in conversation about the instruments. “If not, hop on the broadcast - it’s time to build a castle.” Aegis cracked his knuckles.

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