Spiteful Healer

Aegis entered into the Shattered World simulation within the meeting room of the Rene town hall. Nearby, focusing on several parchments set out before them on the table was Chax and Ruffily, deep in a discussion. The sound of Aegis logging in stirred them, though. They both quickly looked up to see him standing there, with expressions of surprise.

“You’re back?” Chax spoke first.

“Yeah. I’m back…” Aegis shrugged awkwardly at the pair, while Ruffily avoided eye contact with him. A long silence followed his words as Chax began to look around the room uncomfortably.

“I’m sorry. For getting angry. I’ve been in denial about loving this game, because doing so means I acknowledge Makaroth, who I hate. But, some friends helped me realize that, I just enjoy it, and it’s okay - it has nothing to do with him. I love working together with you to make Rene prosperous,” He motioned to Chax, “and I’ve loved working with you to build up this from nothing. I especially like your woofs, and that your tail wags whenever you are happy.” Aegis motioned to Ruffily.

“Really?” She looked up at him with watery eyes, and he heard the sound of her tail beginning to whack the back of her chair despite him not being able to clearly see it.

“Yeah.” Aegis nodded and smiled. “I haven’t forgotten that you were the very first player that ever helped me in this game.” He added. “I’m also sorry for dumping Rene on you… I hope you guys can forgive me, because I’d really like to keep playing with you both.”

“I forgive you, woof!” Ruffily cheered.

“Yeah, it’s fine. I’d be a bit mad if my old man did stuff like that to me too, so I can understand. But, you’re mistaken, you didn’t dump Rene on us.” Chax shrugged.

“I didn’t?” Aegis raised an eyebrow.

“You confirmed that you wanted to give me leadership of Rene, but logged off before I could decline the offer. Both people have to accept, so, you’re still the Lord of Rene.” Chax smirked.

“Oh. Really?” Aegis replied awkwardly as he went into his interface to confirm it. Sure enough, he remained the Lord and Ruler of the Lord of Rene.

“Yep.” Chax nodded.

“Okay. Well.” Aegis pondered for a moment. “Good thing I came back, I guess.”

“Mhm.” Ruffily nodded with enthusiasm, while Chax chuckled.

“Do you think you could gather everyone back here? I’d like to apologize to everyone properly.” Aegis asked.

“Yeah. Well, most of them. I don’t think Rakkan will listen, though. He’s pretty set on leaving. Amlie convinced him to stay a bit longer to train some new guards first, at least.” Chax shrugged.

“So he’s at the training hall?” Aegis confirmed.

“Yep. Woof!” Ruffily replied.

“Alright, I’ll go talk to him then.” Aegis replied.

“I’ll let everyone know you’re looking to chat, including Quinn and the other guilds.” Chax replied. Without another word, Aegis left the town hall building and made his way out onto the streets of Rene where he saw Pyri waiting for him expectantly. She looked at him, he smiled, then continued walking down the paved roads of Rene in the direction of the training grounds, Pyri following behind him wordlessly.

When he arrived at the training grounds he spotted Amlie sitting on a bench off to the side, with her head down. Rakkan was across the grounds with several rows of NPCs, some named and some not, all copying his movements and training basic combat stances while wielding wooden sticks. Aegis didn’t recognize most of the NPCs, but one of the youngest stood out to him - Farlion’s son.

As Aegis began crossing the grounds to approach Rakkan, Pyri headed towards the bench that Amlie sat on, and took a seat beside her whilst causing her to look up at her, then worriedly towards Aegis as he approached Rakkan.

“Take a break, guys. I’d like to have a word with Rakkan.” Aegis spoke loudly, interrupting the NPCs current movements. They all quickly complied and bowed respectfully in Aegis’ direction, covered in sweat and breathing heavily. As they began walking away, Rakkan locked eyes on Aegis and the two stared intently at each other until Aegis finally continued his approach and walked closer to him. Eventually, the pair broke eye contact and both looked down at the ground.

“Chax told me you were here training new guards to Protect Rene. Thanks for that.”

“Wasn’t about to leave everyone here unprotected like you did.” Rakkan replied, a hint of annoyance in his voice.

“Well, I’m back. Turns out Chax didn’t even take the lordship from me.”

“I know.”

“Look. I’m sorry for what I said.” Aegis replied as the two looked up at each other.

“Are you?” Rakkan asked with his eyes squinting. Aegis hesitated in replying for a moment, staring back and seeing the anger in his eyes - and it somewhat annoyed him.

“Partially. Why didn’t you listen to me?”

“Why’d you send Lina away?”

“Because I was trying to look at the bigger picture.” Aegis sighed. “Look, I know what that guy did to you. I get you are pissed off at him, hell, I’m pissed off at him too. He stole Snowflake’s soul after I just by some miracle managed to bring him back as a golem. He burned our village, killed all our guards and killed Farlion. Do you not think I’m pissed off at him?” Aegis shouted, causing Pyri and Amlie to both stand up and worriedly take a few steps in their direction.

“Then WHY WOULDN’T YOU HELP ME KILL HIM?!” Rakkan shouted back angrily.

“BECAUSE WE COULDN’T!” Aegis shouted back. “Not like that. Not by rushing in mindlessly, consumed by anger.”

“Why not?! We beat an abyssal invasion, we killed the Avatar of Jealousy. He’s the acting avatar of Hatred - he’s just a player, not a raid boss!” Rakkan shouted back.

“Did we stop the invasion by just running at them angrily?” Aegis retorted. “Or did we plan it out, methodically, and strategically place our assets in our favor in order to pull out a victory. And even then, still BARELY won!?” Aegis snapped at him, and following this the two glared at each other for a moment as Pyri and Amlie began rushing over. Aegis held his hand out to signal them to stand back, though, which they both hesitantly complied to.

“I’m going to go after Seraxus. I’m going to take out that sword. I’ll keep my promise. But the only way we’re going to beat someone like that is if we plan, methodically, and prepare properly. Not by running at him, swinging our weapons like a wild mindless barbarian. Do you want to help me, or not?”

“You know damn well that I do. I want nothing more than to break that sword and tear him down for what he did to me, my grandpa, and all of Puagas! He’s my enemy, not yours!” Rakkan shouted back.

“Then I need to know that I can trust you! That I can rely on you to keep a cool head, and follow a plan. Because if you can’t, we’ll never succeed. You’re not the only one who has someone in this game world that pisses them off, but if we both keep losing it every time they’re around, we’ll never win.” Aegis declared, followed by another long silence between the pair. This time, the NPCs were now listening intently as they stood off to the side of the training grounds.

“The next time we fight him, can I trust you to work with us calmly, as a team?” Aegis asked, and with these words, Rakkan looked briefly at Amlie before staring back down at his feet. He went silent, pondering Aegis’ words for a long few moments as Aegis waited for a response.

Eventually, though, Rakkan mumbled a few inaudible words with his head down, which Aegis couldn’t fully understand.

“Huh?” Aegis asked.

“I said I’m sorry. Sorry for losing my cool like that. You’re right. I should’ve listened. I just… after seeing him again after so long, then watching him kill everyone around me again… I lost it.”

“I’m sorry too. I said a lot of stuff out of anger as well. I was in denial about how I feel about the game, and, well, I lashed out.” Aegis replied while extending his hand out towards Rakkan. “We’re both just a couple of angry nerds, but we’re still friends. Let’s take Seraxus down, together.” Aegis said as Rakkan looked up to meet his eyes. A slight smile crept onto his face as he reached out and grabbed Aegis’ hand, and the two shook. As they did, Amlie let out a loud audible sigh of relief.

“I got Zuon in trouble and mom said if he comes to my island again to attack me and my friends, she’ll forbid him from playing the game anymore.” Amlie quickly joined into the conversation, approaching the two with Pyri beside her.

“That means if we want to take him out, we’ll need to go on the offensive, huh?” Pyri shrugged.

“I know the perfect place. Somewhere where you are forced to fight to the death, and there’s no escape.” Aegis smirked, and Rakkan nodded.

“You guys are going to join the gladiator tournaments?” Amlie asked with wide eyes. None of them replied - instead, Aegis turned from the training grounds and started walking back in the direction of the streets of Rene once more.

“Come, we’re gonna have another meeting with everyone in the town hall.” Aegis motioned them to follow.

“I’m sorry for lying to everyone. I’ve been hiding who I was partially because of the actions Makaroth took with lawyers to silence me as Winter, but primarily because I wanted to raise up my reputation from outside his shadow.” Aegis spoke now to a full town hall of players. Included within were all of the same individuals that had been there the days prior, though they all looked much more complacent and willing to listen to him.

“Is what he’s saying true? That you had a deal with him to make him delete his character if you surpassed him?” Christoph asked curiously.

“Yeah. That’s true. Originally, that’s why I started taking the game seriously.”

“Heh.” Artaphernes shook his head and chuckled.

“I didn’t know anything about the game back then, just that it was his domain, and everyone here worshiped him. So I hated everything about it… but… As I came to play more with my friends and got to know the world, I slowly changed my mind. I met all of you, and had so much fun playing together with everyone. I didn’t want to admit it but, I have come to love this game world just as much as you guys do. I didn’t save Arallia, or Kalmoore, out of spite. I did it to protect the things I care about in this game world.”

“I didn’t know about any of this, by the way. I’ve just been playing for fun the whole time.” Pyri added as a few eyes turned to her.

“So you’re not mad at Makaroth? He’s also saying not so flattering things about you in his interviews…” Quinn raised an eyebrow at her.

“Oh no. I’m pissed. I’m going to destroy him and his entire little guild of puppets.” Pyri replied with a terrifying look of determination appearing on her face.

“But first…” Aegis cleared his throat, giving Pyri a look. “We’re going after Seraxus. If someone doesn’t stop that sword, he’s going to just keep terrorizing other players like he tried to do here.”

“Sounds like Makaroth is going to stop him in the tournament though, right?” Christoph replied with a raised eyebrow, but got several chuckles and sighs of disbelief from half the room.

“You really think that Makaroth is going to seriously try to break that sword?” Sapphire bit into a carrot.

“That was obviously just a publicity stunt.” Herilon joined in.

“I doubt Makaroth will even enter the tournament himself. He carefully chose his words to imply he’d be putting a team of his guilds PvPers in the tournament. Facing Seraxus directly would be too big a risk to his image. That’s all he cares about.” Pyri replied coldly.

“Alright, but then…” Artaphernes leaned forward over the table. “That means you plan on picking a fight with not only the Top PvPer in this game world, but the top streamer, and potentially the entire network that backs both of them. Is that what you’re saying?” Artaphernes clarified.

“Yeah.” Aegis nodded back, panning his eyes around the room and pausing on Yuki to gauge her reaction, but saw only curiosity in her eyes. “That’s why I’m mentioning it first, to all of you. I understand that Kalmoore is a peaceful island, and you’ve all worked hard to keep out bad actors, allowing players who love the lore and immersion of the world to live out peaceful lives here. So, I’d understand if you want us to leave and not draw any more anger towards this place.” Aegis explained, and following his words, there were murmurs of silence and several members turned to chat with one another.

“That’s fair.” Quinn stood up from her chair and looked over the room. “In this room are the major pillars of this community. If we continue forward in supporting Aegis, we will likely be dragged into a violent conflict with many bad actors that could threaten to destabilize our peace, so let’s put it to a vote. If anyone objects to participating in this, now’s your chance to speak up.” Quinn explained as all eyes turned to her.

“Raise your hand if you are willing to sacrifice everything we’ve built in order to help Aegis and his party take down Seraxus.” Quinn said, and following this, raised her hand. Aegis and his party kept their hands down, but saw Herilon quickly join Quinn, followed by Tullan, Sapphire, Josephine, Erikson, Amlie, Chax, Ruffily, Yuki, and Trexon.

Christoph, Anazia, and Artaphernes kept their hands down as they looked around the room, but Miranda quickly raised her hand up as well, nudging at Christoph.

“C’mon. He’s my class-mate. Also, his dad really is a big fake. I know you hate guys like that too.” Miranda rolled her eyes at Christoph. Christoph let out a reluctant sigh before raising his hand.

“I hope we don’t regret this.” Christoph replied. All eyes now turned to Anazia and Artaphernes.

“Art?” Quinn prompted him. “If anyone says no, we won’t do it. This needs to be unanimous.” Quinn explained, to which Aegis gave a nod of understanding.

“Aw hell…” Artaphernes sighed, leaning back in his chair. “So many whales come to play here because of how low risk their investment into the game world is on this island. Since Aegis saved the island, they’ve never felt safer. Profits in my Kordas casinos are way up.” Artaphernes explained as he exchanged looks with Anazia, and Anazia smiled as she knew what was coming next.

“I’d like to keep my profits safe and secure, but when the guy who made it all possible comes along, needing my help… I can’t say no. Honestly, I like you more now that I know you’re not actually a goody two-shoes Eirene follower, but actually just a spiteful healer.” Artaphernes shrugged, reluctantly raising his hand up, which was followed by Anazia joining in. With that, all hands were raised within the meeting room, and the group let out several cheers of excitement.

“Guess that’s that. Kalmoore is declaring war on Seraxus.” Quinn smiled at the group. “I assume you’ve got a plan?”

“Not yet. That sword is insanely strong - it’ll kill anything it touches. Not only that, Seraxus is extremely good at the game.”

“Best battlemaster there is.” Herilon nodded in agreement.

“You played with him for a long time, is there anything you can tell us about him that might help us out?” Aegis turned to Rakkan, and all eyes fell on him.

“Uh. well…” Rakkan awkwardly rubbed his hand through his orcish hair. “He’s a kid, like me. He’s easy to provoke, I guess…”

“Yeah, I saw that when Aegis fought him. You managed to set him off without even really trying, just by hinting at him teaming up with Makaroth.” Artaphernes nodded.

“I’m not gonna feel too good about emotionally provoking a 15 year old to win, though.” Aegis sighed, and got a few nods of agreement. “Anything else?”

“Let’s see…” Rakkan rubbed his chin for a moment. “They relied on me for the lore. They’re not the type to do research or look up and try to find hidden things in the game world. They get most of their discoveries from his chat, not themselves. They’ve always been like that in all the games we play together. Extremely skilled mechanically, but…”

“Got it.” Herilon nodded. “You’re saying they rely heavily on their mechanical skill rather than game knowledge.”

“So that means it should be fairly easy to blindside them with attacks and spells they’re unfamiliar with.” Aegis replied.

“Or items.” Tullan nodded.

“Ok. Good. We can work with that.”

“How are you planning to fight him, exactly?” Christoph asked.

“In the gladiator tournament, 5 weeks from now.” Aegis explained.

“5 weeks isn’t a long time. You don’t even have your advanced classes yet…” Christoph replied.

“Not to mention, you’ll need to qualify for the tournament by earning gladiator marks. I don’t think any of you have stepped foot into an arena yet to earn some, right?” Quinn asked as she motioned to Aegis and his party.

“And on top of that, you’ll need to find an answer for that sword.” Artaphernes joined in.

“Yeah.” Aegis nodded as he looked around at everyone staring up at him. “That’s why I’m going to need everyone’s help.” He took a deep breath. “Tullan, Yuki, I need you two to power level your crafting professions. The most likely answer to that sword will be within your advanced crafting classes - so get your skills as high as you can within the next 5 weeks and look into any and all leads on rare, powerful crafting materials. Use any resources you need from Rene to do this.” Aegis said.

“Got it.” Yuki gave an enthusiastic thumbs up.

“Aye, suppose I can dip into Kordas’ funds to power level meself a wee bit.” Tullan grinned as he eyed Quinn and she nodded approvingly at him.

“Trexon, please use your knowledge of ancient runes to research any and all possible leads on a way to stop that sword. From what I understand, the original avatar of hatred was defeated and sealed within the sword inside Puagas. That means, someone or something was able to stop Hatred from between Hrath’mir, and a year ago. There’s gotta be some record of that, somewhere. If you come across any unique runes that a Rune Knight might be able to use, please save those as well.

“Got it.” Trexon nodded.

“Everyone else, please prepare yourselves with as much PvP knowledge as you can acquire. If you can help out with our advanced quests to speed them along, that would be great too.” Aegis finished, and got several nods.

“I’ll help out your ranger. I recently completed my advanced quest, so it’s still fresh in memory.” Quinn smiled at Darkshot, and he nodded back at her excitedly.

“Alright. We’ve got a lot of work to do then. Our guild sucks at PvP.” Christoph admitted as he and Miranda stood up.

“Anything else?” Artaphernes asked as he stood up as well.

“No… that’s all for now but…” Aegis paused to pan his eyes over the group once more. “Thanks, you guys. For forgiving me, and making this game so much fun to play.”

“D’aw, he’s gonna make me blush.” Sapphire replied sarcastically as she stood up as well, causing a few people to chuckle.

From there, one by one the players began funneling out of the meeting room, passing by Aegis and his party near the doors leading outside.

“Glad you’re back.” Erikson patted him on the shoulder as he left.

“Me too.” Josephine smiled.

“Thanks.” Aegis bowed to them. Eventually, Yuki approached and smiled at Aegis, but he held his hand out to stop her from leaving.

“Yuki… sorry about all of this…” Aegis spoke to her.

“Hm? I don’t mind. Power leveling is great, lots of fun - I can try out many design ideas all at once.” Yuki smiled enthusiastically.

“No, not that… I mean, with Yumily being with VGN and all…”

“Oh, don’t worry about that. I’m working independently.”

“Will Yumily get mad at you?”

“I doubt it. She doesn’t really like them much anyway.” Yuki grinned.

“Okay. good. Glad to hear.” Aegis replied before Yuki bowed once more and continued out of the room with Ruffily and the others.

“So…” Quinn was the last to be leaving the room, and stopped beside Aegis in the doorway. “When I first learned that you, Winter, were still playing on our island… you know what I said to Herilon?” Quinn asked, and Aegis shook his head.

“No, what’d you say?”

“I told him that things in Kalmoore were about to get interesting.” Quinn smirked. “Understatement of the century.” She added, causing Lina, Darkshot, Rakkan and Pyri to chuckle. “What are you going to be starting with? You’ve got a lot of ground to cover in 5 weeks.”

“Well…” Aegis looked down at his shield. “Before I finish my advanced class quest, I oughta make it so I can start gaining shield mastery experience again.” Aegis shrugged.

“You’re going to go for Advanced Shield Mastery? Baffo’s been working on that nonstop since he hit advanced Guardian. You realize no one in the game has passed that quest yet, right? It’s supposedly insanely hard compared to the other advanced mastery quests.” Quinn explained, raising her eyebrows at Aegis curiously.

“Oooh boy.” Darkshot sighed.

“You shouldn’t have told him that.” Pyri shook her head as a big grin grew over Aegis’ face.

“Mom, I need a portal to Kordas, right now.” Aegis said with excitement.

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