Spiteful Healer

Ren maneuvered his way back onto the deck of the Sky Darling with Aegis on his back, as Aegis eyed the approaching mounted players and their winged beasts, counting exactly 12 approaching before losing sight of them due to landing on their airship. The moment he could, he safely hopped off the back of Ren and walked to the railings, his mind working overtime on a plan to deal with these opponents.

Before a plan came to him, four riders soared up past the Sky Darling and into the air above, a good distance away from the ship itself so as to not be attackable by Aegis and the rest of the crew. Then, a fifth who flew atop a large scaly beast broke above the threshold of the upper deck and began flying at eye level with them.

The creature on which he was mounted, named [Wyvie(Elite) - Level 162] had dark brown scales over most of its body, a long pointed lizard-like tail and neck, with an extremely exaggerated snout covered in oversized fangs that protruded out of its mouth despite it being closed. It had long thin leathery wings that flapped cooly in the wind as it held pace with the ship.

The rider, a large muscular orc wearing stylized padded leather armor, had no visible weapons equipped and no helmet on making it easy to see his face. He had short spiky red hair and multiple scars across his face that Aegis knew from Darkshot had to be placed during character creation and not actually earned. [Trellin - Level 150] sat comfortably above his head, and he had a big dumb grin on his face as he turned his head to look over Aegis and the others. His eyes eventually landed on Herilon, and he gave a knowing nod to

Him.

“There you are, Herilon! I was worried you weren’t going to play this MMORPG!” Trellin shouted to him in a familiar tone.

“Are you kidding? This one’s way better than the rest. Why would I skip it?” Herilon replied in an equally friendly tone, surprising the others.

“What’re you doing all the way out in Kalmoore?”

“Decided to take it easy this time around. Enjoy the quieter side of gaming.” Herilon shrugged.

“You and I both know that doesn’t suit you. You’re out here on this ship for the PvP, aren’t ya?” Trellin smirked.

“Eh, I guess.”

“You should join my crew. It’d be like the old days. The amount of booty we’re plunderin’ ain't nothin to shake your nose at, lemme tell you.” Trellin chuckled.

“I believe it. But nah, no thanks. I’m doing fine with my new guild. I like them.” Herilon answered.

“And the spiteful healer?” Trellin motioned to Aegis as if he wasn’t there.

“Him too. He’s a fun kid to be around.”

“Ah. Pity. You know we’ve gotta take that essence from him, right?” Trellin’s voice went heavy as he began to aggressively glare at Herilon.

“You can try.” Herilon replied in kind.

“No hard feelings if I sink your ship, right?”

“No hard feelings if I kill all you and your friends, and their sky chickens?”

“Good ol’ Herilon.” Trellin shook his head before pulling the reins of his wyvern back to break off from the Sky Darling, giving them a brief moment with no enemies nearby.

“You know these guys?” Trexon asked Herilon.

“Yeah, I used to play with them.” Herilon answered.

“How good are they at playing games?” Aegis asked.

“They’re no pushovers when it comes to PvP. They make a living from it.” Herilon answered, and got a nod back from Aegis.

“Any useful insight you can provide us?” Leonard asked in an annoyed tone.

“Well, like I said… If they’re here on their own accord, they’ll backoff once its no longer financially viable to keep attacking us. Do a bit of damage, and they’ll give up. But…” Herilon paused as he watched the rest of the 12 riders soaring up at them now from below the ship, the other four ships still soaring along above the black mist far below them. “If they were hired to attack us, they’ll be relentless. They’ve got a reputation to keep.”

“Great.” Leonard rolled his eyes.

“Airburst us out of here, let’s get back to Kalmoore as fast as possible.” Aegis instructed Leonard, and he nodded back without hesitation. With a few quick flicks of his fingers, he prepared to cast the spell, but the moment he did Aegis saw multiple grappling shots being fired by the riders, aimed at the hull of the ship. 11 of the shots connected, binding the riders and their mounts to the Sky darling, but Aegis reacted quick enough to project his shield in front of one of the grappling shots, blocking it with the projection as the Sky Darling bursted away at incredible speed, leaving one rider far behind them with no possible means to catch up.

The other 11, however, tightly gripped their grappling shots and were pulled along with the ship due to them fastening the shots to their mount's saddles. None of the beasts they rode on looked particularly pleased with this, though. And sure enough, a few seconds later, the four airships below them showed up once more, having used airbursts themselves.

“Not gonna be that easy to shake us, I’m afraid. This ain't our first rodeo!” Trellin shouted joyfully, followed by a barrage of arrows being fired by multiple ranger class players riding on the mounts nearby.

Herilon, Trexon, Gregory and Ren began dodging, but Aegis looked up to see Leonard focused on controlling the ship and wasn’t able to dodge, so quickly dashed to the upper half of the deck by the stern with his shield out, blocking a few arrows going his way and protecting him from being hit.

Thanks to the lower level of the attackers and Aegis’ mithral shield and high level armor, the damage he took from the shots wasn’t that high. Still, though, it wasn’t something he’d be able to sustain forever in high amounts, and quickly cast healing wind on himself. Following this, four of the mounted riders released their grapples and pulled back up into the air, higher above the rear of the ship. They then nocked arrows in their bows and aimed them down at Leonard and Aegis, while the remaining 7 riders drew out staves, shields, scepters, and Trellin himself revealed his 7 battlemaster weapons as he maneuvered his wyvern closer to the ship.

The wyvern dug its claws into the side of the sky darling, and a second later Trellin hopped off onto the deck where Herilon met him with a glowing blue greatsword swing, pushing him back. The swing was parried, and from there the two engaged one another in earnest, the sounds of their blades clashing echoing loudly across the deck of the ship. Meanwhile, another berserker player riding a gryphon had jumped off the gryphon to land on the deck on the other side, aiming for Trexon.

Instead, though, Ren charged the berserker and head butted him full force to attempt to push him back off the ship. The berserker held up a greatsword in front of his body to block the headbutt from Ren’s gryphon form, preventing it from pushing him back at all and grinning at the beast shifted druid in front of him.

Ren wasn’t going to take this sitting down though, and quickly lunged at the berserker, this time grabbing into his shoulders and lifting him up off the deck by flapping his wings violently. The berserker retaliated by swinging his sword up at the underside of Ren’s belly, dealing massive damage, but Ren ignored the hits in favor of flinging the berserker off the side of the ship, which he did so successfully.

Aegis, Gregory and Trexon watched the berserker as he free fell a few dozen meters off the side of the ship, until suddenly stopping mid-air. Another mounted player with a staff had soared in and cast fly on him, preventing him from falling to his death, and a few seconds later the berserker's gryphon caught back up to him and picked him up using the saddle on its back.

“Knocking them off doesn’t look like it's going to work.” Gregory said matter-of-factly as he drew out a tiny, unimposing rapier. Aegis used this time to heal back up Ren’s gryphon form from the berserker attacks, then threw out a healing wind onto Herilon as he continued to do battle with Trellin. As he did this, though, he spotted a cleric rider that was keeping her distance on her own hippogryph mount, throwing out healing spells to Trellin to keep him at full health.

“They’ve also got healers. And a lot of rangers.” Aegis eyed the other players still circling the ship, noting they all had crossbows and bows equipped and began firing at the others. As he did, though, he watched five of them take up an odd formation on their mounts, surrounding the air above the backend of the Sky Darling and aiming at him and Leonard.

Just as they fired their arrows, Aegis prepared his shield and two projections to protect himself and Leonard from the shots, but all of the shots instead suddenly redirected away from his projections to instead hit his shield directly.

“AEGIS!” Trexon shouted out worriedly as he noticed it before Aegis had - a red ranger mark from all 5 rangers appeared on his shield, making him the homing target for their following attacks.

Just as Aegis tilted his mithral shield towards his face to see the five marks, all five rangers cast their rain of arrows skills, dumping their mana to have thousands of arrows appear out of their bows and home in on him.

“There’s no blocking that many arrows, kid.” One of the rangers cheered as the sky around the ship was darkened by the insane amount of projectiles flying towards them. Aegis instinctively wanted to run or dodge, but a single step forward had all of the arrows immediately adjust their paths to keep following him.

“Mass dispel!” Trexon cast quickly, shooting a bolt out at him and removing the marks from Aegis shield, buying him a single second of time to get out of the path of the arrows as they were no longer homing in on him. Aegis then dashed out of the way, grabbing Leonard and pulling him along with him off of the upper deck to the lower, milliseconds before the thousands of arrows plunked into the upper deck, turning it into something that looked akin to a porcupine's back as the sound of the arrow heads plunking into the wooden planks of the ship was all that could be heard.

“Blocking arrows is not the safest idea.” Trexon said calmly as he watched Aegis and Leonard get back up to their feet. Aegis looked to see the five ranger players, still flying back, start pulling out elixirs of mana from their inventory and drinking them, but he lost sight of them quickly as suddenly the Airship jerked forward into a downward dive.

“Shit, I gotta get back to the helm! I’m still not good at flying this!” Leonard yelled as everyone aboard the ship started losing their footing, including Herilon and Trellin. “Ah, no worries, I got it!” Leonard tried to comfort everyone, waved his hands, and suddenly flung the ship into a slow-moving barrel roll.

“You lot are crazy.” Trellin shouted while stumbling, jumping back from Herilon to his wyvern that remained clinging onto the side of the ship. Once he got to the saddle, the wyvern released its claws from the wood and launched itself away, while everyone else grabbed hold of what they could and the other riders flew back to steer clear of the spinning airship.

After a single roll, Leonard was able to stabilize it and get back to the stern by kicking and crunching his way through the arrow shafts sticking out of the upper deck.

“Alright.” Aegis cleared his throat as the ship leveled out, looking around at his party. Due to the riders having backed off from the spin, they had a brief moment of peace. “We can’t knock them off, they’ve got wizards casting fly. We can’t kill the wizards, they’ve got clerics. And we can’t do much offensively given their ranged combat capabilities.” Aegis articulated his thoughts to the others quickly.

“Herilon, mount Ren and go after that cleric first. If you have to dismount her, do it. Trexon, use your dispels and shells to prevent the wizards from casting fly on anyone we manage to dismount, so they fall and are taken out of the fight. Once the cleric and wizards are gone, just go about knocking everyone off as fast as you can.” Aegis ordered them.

“And what about the boarding party?” Herilon motioned to the berserker and Trellin who were closing in on the ship once more, weapons ready.

“Me and Gregory will keep Leonard safe. Leonard, use evasive maneuvers to make us hard targets to hit, don’t let them get too comfortable on the deck of your ship.” Aegis said, and Gregory gave a nod.

“Alright then.” Leonard rubbed his hands together nervously while Gregory moved up to stand beside Leonard with his rapier out. Herilon then jumped onto the back of Ren, and Ren launched his gryphon form off the ship, soaring directly towards the cleric, who saw them coming and began soaring away with two wizards and a ranger flying in to protect her from Ren and Herilon.

As this happened, both Trellin and the berserker's winged beasts clawed onto the sides of the lower deck, and both jumped off to touch their feet down on the wood in front of Aegis and Trexon. Trexon gave Aegis a nervous look, and Aegis nodded back at him confidently.

“Go, I got this. If I can’t handle him, I won’t stand a chance against Seraxus.” Aegis said to Trexon, prompting him to nod back and run to the side of the ship to the side where Ren was flying.

“You sure you’ve got time to play with us? You might want to be protecting your captain!” Trellin smirked as two rangers at the back of the ship fired several piercing arrows down at Leonard from behind. Instantly though, Aegis projected two shields to block the shots, then cast healing wind and heal on himself to recover the damage.

“No worries. I can do both. Avatar of Eirene.” Aegis grinned at Trellin as he erupted in a bright glowing light.

“I like this kid.” The berserker commented as he too began to grin, brandishing his large iron greatsword as it became engulfed in a blue glowing light. The berserker charged first, just as Aegis drew out his claws from his right hand. Aegis deflected the sword of the berserker, but Trellin followed up with a floating crossbow shot, then sent his other floating weapons - primarily swords, at Aegis from all sides. Aegis deflected some with his claws, others his shields and projections, but there were too many attacks coming at him from random directions to block them all.

His armor bonus from the avatar spell allowed him to take the hits, and he quickly healed up from the damage, but the attacks kept coming. Once fully engaged by Trellin and the berserker, the rangers at the back of the ship fired another barrage at Leonard, but true to his word, Aegis projected his shields to block most shots while Gregory deflected some with his rapier.

“This damage is a bit too high!” Aegis shouted at Leonard.

“No problem. I’ll make it harder for them to hit you!” Leonard shouted, waving his hands wildly and causing the ship to suddenly fly upward at 75 degrees. As Leonard had hoped, everyone aboard the ship immediately lost their footing and began sliding along the deck, being forced to either grab on, or dig their bladed weapons in to have some sort of holding.

The rangers on their mounts had to work hard to redirect their beasts and keep up with the ships movements, but Trellin was good enough to keep attacking Aegis with his floating weapons during this. Aegis, however, was also keen enough to keep up with the weapons movements and kept blocking most of the strikes.

Eventually they ended up standing on the wall between the lower deck and upper deck, with the doorway leading below deck under their feet. Aegis danced around it whilst blocking strikes from both Trellin and the Berserker who’d landed on the wall behind him, while Trexon landed in front of him and was aiming several long range spells out at the mounted wizards as they flew around Ren and Herilon, who’d managed to catch up to and engage the cleric off in the distance.

Another barrage of arrows was shot at Leonard and the vertical Sky Darling, but Leonard reacted by swirling one hand around in a circle, the other tightly gripping the stern.

“Still able to hit us, are you? Well,” Leonard gasped as the Airship began quickly rotating in a spiral drill-like motion upwards. “Let me know the power of a world first Sky Captain!” Leonard shouted triumphantly. As a result of his rotation, the next barrage of arrows missed him and plunked into the side of the ship instead. He then canceled the rotation with another movement, altering the ship’s trajectory from flying upwards to instead curving down into a dive.

“Don’t pretend like you’re doing any of this on purpose, sir.” Gregory groaned, looking as though about to vomit as he grabbed the railing nearby.

“It’s harder to predict the ships movements when even I don’t know what it's going to do next.” Leonard cackled. Due to the movements, both the berserker and Trellin were forced to abandon attacking Aegis in favor of trying not to fall off the ship. Their mounts, on the other hand, used their claws in the wood to cling to it and maneuver towards Aegis. The wyvern was the first to strike, lashing its fangs out at Aegis with a loud chomping strike which Aegis managed to knock away with his shield, then retaliate with a slash of his claws.

“Oi, don’t hurt my baby.” Trellin shouted angrily, seeing his strike. Trellin then sent all of his floating swords at Aegis despite Trellin himself falling to the front railing of the ship as it moved into a downward dive. The berserker lost his footing to the point where he was forced to launch himself off the deck, and his mount released the ship to soar after him, catching him in its saddle a few meters beside the diving Sky Darling as it soared downward past them.

The rangers near the back of the ship on their mounts, like the berskerer, attempted to fly after the Sky Darling in its downward motion, but they were unable to keep up. They released another barrage of arrows, but Leonard did another barrel roll to force the arrows into the hull of the ship and protect himself.

“I’m starting to get the hang of this.” Leonard spoke proudly.

“Aegis, We got the cleric!” Trexon announced as he clung to the mast, motioning to the battle between Ren, Herilon, and the other mounted players. This prompted Aegis and Trellin to stop their fight and look off the side of the ship and see the cleric free falling into the black mist below, with her mount and the two wizard players trapped inside a grand shell made by Trexon, unable to pursue. One of the wizards quickly dispelled Trexon’s shell so that they could try to save the cleric as she fell, but Trexon quickly and repeatedly recast smaller shells, blocking them long enough for the cleric to fall out of view.

“Tch.” Trellin groaned in annoyance.

“Get back to the ship!” Aegis yelled so that Ren and Herilon could hear him.

“The hell are you idiots doing? There’s only four combatants!” Trellin yelled at the other players as Ren pulled away from the battle on the port side of the ship and just barely managed to claw into the Sky Darling - it continued to plummet at an incredible speed. Slightly faster than the flying beasts, it began to make distance between them, but was getting closer and closer to the four airships sailing along below them.

“Four? I think I more than qualify as a fifth!” Leonard roared back at him, followed by another jerking motion of the ship that leveled it out.

“They’re too far away to grapple shots. Airburst is up now, right?” Aegis said to Leonard, and he nodded back with a few quick waves of his hands.

“AIR BURST!” Leonard yelled, rocketing the Sky Darling through the skies at an incredible speed, leaving the other mounted players in the dust. Herilon then hopped off of Ren’s back, and Trellin found himself alone on the deck of the ship with his wyvern, with Aegis and his party all staring him down.

“Bit off more than you could chew this time, eh?” Herilon smirked at his old friend. Trellin didn’t reply, but glanced between Aegis, Ren, Herilon and Trexon before quickly running to the saddle of his wyvern. The wyvern then launched itself off the ship and soared downward below their line of sight. Aegis ran to the side of the ship to catch a glimpse of him as he continued to fly down towards the black mist, but continued to keep pace with them.

“You said they’d give up if it was just a personal attack, right? They just lost a cleric and all their gear. Would that make ‘em give up?” Trexon asked Herilon as all eyes turned to him.

“Yeah… normally…” Herilon shrugged as he moved to look over the side of the ship alongside Aegis. But what they saw was anything but giving up - within a few moments, the four pursuing ships appeared below them after having used their own airburst skills. And following this, the sounds of loud cannons being fired from below could be heard - projectiles of ice and fire flying up through the sky around Trellin and his wyvern as they aimed at the Sky Darling from below.

“Doesn’t look like they’re giving up, though - and we’ve pissed them off. They’re going to go all out now.” Herilon sighed.

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