Spiteful Healer

The shield had a dull, purplish iron tint to its base. It was circular, but jutted out slightly with sharp points at the top, bottom, middle left and middle right sides of the circle. The base had an inner circle indentation inscribed with runes and texts that looked familiar to Aegis, but he couldn’t read them exactly. Each of the runes were glowing with a bright white light, but they were hard to see clearly due to the second layer of mithril forged onto the base.

The second layer was formed into the shape of a 10 pointed star, each point of the star was connected to the base at the center where it was fused between the base and the third layer, but the spikes themselves were curved outward and protruded slightly beyond the circular base, so as to allow attacks to slide off the shield, or catch weapons under the points if used to defend in certain ways.

Finally, the third layer, a star of Eirene, was forged atop the second layer at the very center point of the shield. The star had fewer points than 10, but it lined every other point up with the 10 of the second layer below it. The star was not flat, but bulged out at its center where all points converged, and from the center came a blinding white light that gently sprayed out strands of light over the rest of the shield, like a barrier of holy magic that washed over the mithral from the center.

All eyes fell upon the shield with wonder and amazement as Yuki held it forward towards Aegis. He carefully retrieved it from her hands, and the first thing he did was spun it around to view the back of it. It had a reinforced dragon scale backing, with hydra-leather straps sewn in with void silk thread. There were two standard straps for holding the shield with his wrist, but Aegis had made special requests to add more loose, outer straps. Their purpose, Yuki and Tullan did not know, but they included them nonetheless.

“It looks absolutely incredible…” Aegis said with his eyes wide open. This put a big proud smile on both Yuki and Tullan’s faces as they exchanged looks of relief with one another. Aegis then slid his left arm into the central straps and fastened the shield on, equipping it. It fit perfectly, and covered half of his body due to its large size. “It’s also pretty light, considering.”

“Aye, took me a lot of leveling with refinement and blacksmithin’, but I got some high quality mithral in that baby. No wasted metal, as thin as it can be without compromising its effectiveness. The aesthetic, and the backing, was all the work o’ this young lady, though. When people say she’s the best tailor in the game, I believe ‘em.” Tullan motioned to Yuki beside him.

“I couldn’t have done much without you, your metalworking was incredible. I hope I can use it to incorporate some of my usual outfit designs.” Yuki smiled back.

“O’ course!” Tullan cheered as Aegis took this time to wave it around a bit and get a feel for it.

“And, the stats?” Darkshot asked eagerly from behind Aegis. He turned to see not only Darkshot, but Rakkan, Lina, and Pyri all excitedly waiting to hear the stats on the new, artifact-level shield.

“Right. I guess that’s the most important thing here, isn’t it?” Aegis said as he tapped on his interface to open up the shield’s item card.

Name:Star of Light

Slot: Off-hand

Type: Shield

Armor:12,305

Quality:95%

Durability:Indestructible

Requirements: Level 150, 150+ Strength

Option 1: Increases Favor with Eirene while equipped by 1000

Option 2: Increases casting speed by 3% [Source: Voidsilk]

Option 3: Increases Damage and Healing from Spells by 290[Source: Mosmir Voidreaver Pincer]

Option 4: Negates damage from soul-infused weapons [Source: Indestructible Light]

Enchant 1: Reduces all spell damage taken from all types of magic by 4.3%[Source: Spellward(Trexon)]

Enchant 2: Restores 950 Health every 3 seconds. [Source: Healing Wind(Aegis)]

Description: A Shield made of Mithral, Voidsilk, Hydraleather, Royal Mosmir Pincers, Silver Dragon Scales, and Indestructible Light. Carved with runes and a star depicting the Goddess Eirene and her teachings. Crafted by Tullan, Yuki.

Aegis made sure to share the item card with his party, who looked upon it in amazement.

“I’ve never seen so many options on a single item before…” Lina commented.

“Two enchants… dang. Trexon must’ve leveled his enchanting to pull that off.” Rakkan said.

“It looks freakin’ sick, too.” Darkshot cheered.

“Pretty cool.” Pyri smiled at the card as she finished reading it.

“So, you think it’s gonna be enough to get you through the preliminaries?” Quinn asked jokingly, drawing attention back onto the task at hand. Aegis spun around to face her and saw she still had her hands on her waist, and behind her stood the imposing stadium awaiting their arrival.

“Right.” Aegis took a deep breath, shuffling his shield one more time before relaxing his shoulders and looking Quinn in the eyes. “We’re definitely ready.”

“Good. Now c’mon, let’s get you checked in.” She stepped aside and motioned him and the others to continue walking forward towards the stadium.

Aegis once again took the lead, with his party and then Quinn, Yuki and Tullan following closely behind him as they walked between the large statues of great champions that stood flanking the path that led into the arena’s main entrance.

Once under the roof and in the front hall of the stadium, they were able to easily approach the registration counter. There wasn’t a line of players waiting to check in like there was on the bigger islands; the other teams had already checked in and were standing off to the side, staring at Aegis and his team as they approached the desk.

“We’re here to check-in for the gladiator tournament preliminary round.” Aegis said to the lizardfolk NPC behind the counter wearing leather armor, a necklace dangling a pendant with the mark of Odin around his neck.

“Check in for Aegis, Lina, Pyri, Darkshot and Rakkan confirmed. Your first preliminary match will begin in 11 minutes. You must remain inside this Gladiator Arena for the remainder of your preliminary matches in order to be eligible to be transported into your match once it begins. Leaving the arena will count as forfeiture of the preliminary matches and disqualify you from the tournament. Do you understand these conditions?”

“I understand.” Aegis replied on behalf of his party members who were all listening intently.

“Good. You will receive a notification in your interface when your next match is ready. Speak to me after you’ve received the notification and I will transport you to your arena room with your randomly selected opponents. Given the number of participants, you must win 5 out of 5 of your preliminary matches to move on to the next stage of the tournament. A single loss will lead to disqualification. Good luck.” The NPC explained robotically.

“No pressure, huh?” Quinn joked as she saw the nervous look on all of their faces.

“Yeah. Hehe…” Aegis forced an awkward laugh.

“Relax…” Quinn placed her hand on his shoulder. “Herilon said he trained you guys up, that you’ve become top grade combatants. And he doesn’t give out that kind of praise easily.”

“Right.” Aegis nodded.

“Oooh man…” Darkshot sighed to himself and began nervously hop in place.

“It’s been awhile since I’ve done some real, structured and competitive PvP. It’s always nerve-racking for the first match, but it wears off quickly, don’t worry.” Pyri said as a smile grew across her face. Lina looked to her with hopeful eyes, happy to hear this reassurance. Rakkan on the other hand continued to look anxious, staring down at his feet and taking deep breaths.

“Worst case, they’ll take over and kill Seraxus for you. Maybe.” Quinn motioned across the stadium hall towards another group of players, some of which Aegis recognized. Artaphernes, Anazia, and 3 other members of their guild were huddled in a circle together, discussing strategies for potential class matchups.

“They’re competing too?” Aegis asked Quinn surprised.

“Yeah.” Quinn shrugged back. “They always compete through. They’ve made it through preliminaries a couple times, even.”

“Oh. Okay.” Aegis nodded back before taking a deep breath himself. He looked to his companions and ran his mind over all manner of last minute details, playing out several combat scenarios in his head very quickly. The seconds zoomed by unrealistically fast, and the 11 minutes seemed like nothing at all.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

By the time the popup arrived, it took Aegis by surprise and startled him.

[Your First Preliminary match is ready. You have 5 minutes to report to a Gladiator Tournament Registration NPC to be transported to your match.]

He waved the alert away and saw all of his party members do the same, exchanging looks of nervousness amongst each other once more.

“Guess it’s time, huh?” Quinn smiled as she saw their hand movements.

“Let's do this!” Artaphernes shouted enthusiastically, startling them out of their stares briefly. Artaphernes’ group then quickly rushed across the hall to the NPC near Aegis. “Please send us to our first match.” Artaphernes spoke to the NPC quickly. He got no response, but instead Aegis and the others watched as Artaphernes’ party dissipated into bright light specs of dust that slowly vanished in thin air.

Seeing this, Aegis turned to his companions once more and took a deep breath.

“Alright guys. We trained our levels, our teamwork, and our individual skills in player versus player combat. All just for this - to make it through these matches, then enter the stadium at the finals where Seraxus will undoubtedly be waiting for us. According to Rakkan,” Aegis motioned to him, “One defeat is all it will take for the souls trapped within the Sword of Hatred to be released. He’ll lose all of his accumulated power, and he’ll be brought back to being a normal, annoying battlemaster, unlike what he is now. His reign of terror will end, and this shield can help give him that defeat, but, we’ve got to get there first. It’s not going to be easy, though - a lot of people will be standing in our way, for one reason or another. But I doubt anyone but us is going to seriously try and destroy that sword. So it’s up to us.” Aegis said as firmly as he could, and he got knowing nods from his companions, as well as Yuki, Quinn, and Tullan.

“No matter what opponents we face, we won’t hold back. As of right now, everyone else that has entered the preliminaries is our enemy. Including Artaphernes, if we get against him. Ready?” Aegis asked.

“Ready.” Darkshot put his hand in the center, getting a few odd looks from the others. “What? We gotta do the hand cheer thing. It feels right.” Darkshot shrugged. Aegis rolled his eyes at him before placing his hand atop Darkshots. This was followed by Lina, then Pyri, and finally Rakkan.

“What do we chant, then?” Aegis asked him.

“Uh…” Darkshot pondered for a moment, briefly rubbing his chin with his free hand while Darkwing cooed from his shoulder as if pondering as well.

“How about Kalmoore?” Quinn suggested from outside the circle. The others looked at each other as they considered it, and eventually agreed with their eyes and facial gestures with one another.

“Kalmoore on three. One. Two. Three, Kalmoore!” Aegis cheered, and the others shouted it too. Not just Aegis’ group either, but Quinn, Trexon, Yuki, and a handful of other fans that were huddled around the outside of the stadium watching them all intently. “Alright. Let’s do this.” He turned towards the registration NPC eagerly. “Please send us to our first match.” Aegis asked the NPC, and he nodded in response.

Within seconds, Aegis’ vision darkened and he felt light. His body dissipated into nothingness for a brief few moments before he felt weight returning to his body. It reformed alongside his companions in a familiar looking combat arena.

It was circular in form, the ground made up of sand-covered tiles. A tall, 5 meter wall stood around the outside with rows of stands above them, all vacant. Four 5 meter high pillars stood in a square formation around the arena, with the two closest flanking Aegis and his party on the left and right from where they had appeared in the arena.

On the other side, their opponents had yet to appear. This gave Aegis and the others time to spread out into a proper formation, but they quickly found their movement limited due to a blue transparent box of energy surrounding them.

Please wait for the match to begin.

Match begins in: 1:31

The message popped up in front of Aegis’ face as he accidentally bumped into the box. With this in mind, he motioned Rakkan to stand on his left, Lina on his right. Darkshot and Pyri both stood side by side behind him, then they all drew out their weapons and prepared themselves for a fight.

“Whatever we get up against, be ready. It could be anyone.” Aegis said with an intensity to his voice. He slightly bent his knees and lifted his shield as after a few more seconds, light specs of dust began to form in the area directly opposite them in the arena.

A moment after the specs had appeared, they increased rapidly and formed into 5 players. Aegis looked at their equipment first to quickly read what they were up against. He identified a berserker, monk, cleric, wizard and druid. His mind began working out how they might fight them, but as his eyes moved up to their names, he stopped immediately.

The names, he didn’t recognize. The levels beside the names, however, were all between 60-80. f𝐫𝗲eweb𝗻o𝐯el.𝚌o𝗺

“Whoa!” The cleric player cheered, running up to the front of their blue box and bumping into it. Aegis spotted his vestments of Eirene over his basic iron armor that he was wearing. “GUYS! We got Aegis!!!” He shouted out with excitement.

“Whoa, seriously? THE Aegis? Holy shit, it’s him!” The druid player chimed in, also leaning forward as the others rushed to the front of their box to ogle him.

“Seriously?” Darkshot sighed in disbelief, lowering his bow. Pyri held back a chuckle while Rakkan groaned and Lina smiled.

“No way. Yo. Aegis. We’re huge fans man!!”

“Yeah, can we get your autograph?”

“Yeah, c’mon, please?!” Aegis was visibly taken aback. For all the things he was preparing himself to face, this was not one of them. He turned his head to Lina and she smiled and shrugged at him.

“Uh… I guess…” Aegis replied weakly.

“Don’t you guys want to fight?” Darkshot asked them curiously.

“No way, we suck at player versus player. We just signed up for a chance to meet one of you guys.” The druid replied quickly.

“Yo you just talked to Darkshot…” the Berserker player whispered to the druid excitedly, which Darkshot clearly overheard.

“Ah, I suppose it’s only natural. I bet you want my autograph too?”

“Hell yeah!” The berserker cheered before attempting to run forward - he’d momentarily forgot the blue box was still there and prevented them from approaching.

“Oh god.” Pyri rolled her eyes as she watched in real-time as Darkshot’s ego grew.

“How can we give them autographs, though? I thought we’re not allowed to use items here outside of what we have equipped?” Aegis asked as he turned to Rakkan.

“Uh…” Rakkan wasn’t trying to hide how reluctant he was to answer as he eyed the players across from them in annoyance. “They can unequip their items after the match starts and drop them on the ground. You can then mark them with your weapons or tools. Most likely, they’re going to start the match with a… yep.” Rakkan motioned to the berserker as he equipped in one of his hands an inscribing kit equipped as his main-hand weapon. This was Pyri’s limit and she bursted out laughing.

Match begins in 5… 4… 3… 2… 1…

The moment the timer counted down to 0, the blue walls vanished and the others eagerly jogged forward across the arena to Aegis’ group.

“Sorry about this, but we started out on the mountain island. There’s not a lot of streamers there, and it's expensive to travel so, this is the only way we could have a chance to meet our favorite streamers.” The wizard apologized, while simultaneously he unequipped his staff and presented it to Aegis.

“It’s no problem, I guess…” Aegis shrugged awkwardly.

“Here!” The berserker enthusiastically unequipped his inscribing kit so that it dropped to the ground, then did the same with his axe. One by one, the others unequipped their weapons and dropped them for Aegis.

Rakkan remained on edge, his weapons ready as Aegis picked up the kit and got to work.

“You guys want something special written? I don’t really normally do this sort of stuff…” Aegis replied awkwardly.

“Just your names, that’d be great!” The berserker exclaimed while motioning to Darkshot as well as Aegis.

“Do you even know how to use this toolkit?” Aegis turned to Darkshot as he stepped forward beside him.

“Huh? Of course I do. I’m Darkshot.” He replied in his dramatic tone.

“So cool…” The berserker squealed with excitement.

“How old are you kids?” Pyri asked curiously.

“Oh me? I’m 9.” The berserker replied.

“I’m 12, though.” The wizard said proudly.

“I’m 17!” The cleric joined in. “Oh, when you sign my shield, can you put your catch phrase on it?” Hearing this, Aegis turned to Lina who held back a chuckle.

“Sure…” Aegis replied. He quickly went through and etched their requests onto their weapons, leaving just Darkshot left with the axe. Darkshot struggled to use the tool, making it very apparent he had not taken up the scribing skill, but eventually managed to etch in a little scribble that somewhat resembled a D and an S.

“Great. Thanks a lot guys!” The berserker shouted as he eyed his axe with glowing eyes.

“What would you do if you got someone else as your opponent?” Aegis asked curiously.

“Oh, just surrender, I guess. Try again next month. We’re lucky we got one of our favorites though. You, or Feng, or even Makaroth would’ve been awesome.” The wizard replied.

“Hey it’s true you’re really out to get Makaroth, right? He’s your dad?” The monk asked.

Aegis looked awkwardly at him, trying to hold himself back from answering this question inappropriately.

“Alright guys, that’s enough, no questions. We’re here for the tournament. You guys gonna surrender now? Or want us to kill you?” Pyri asked them nonchalantly.

“Oh, right. Yeah, we’ll surrender. Thanks again. Good luck in the tournament! We’ll be cheering you on!” The wizard answered, then promptly hit a button in his interface which removed him from the match.

Combatant Jerin has retired.

Combatant Telly has retired.

Combatant Pippymonk has retired.

Left behind was the cleric and the berserker, as they eagerly continued to stare at Aegis’ group with bubbly eyes.

“Hey, is it true you guys had sex last night? I couldn’t watch because of the age restriction.” The berserker asked with an inappropriate level of enthusiasm. Lina’s face immediately went bright red as he motioned to her. Aegis avoided looking at the kid as well and couldn’t immediately think of how to reply. “No way! You totally did. That's an awesome man. Hell yeah!” The berserker extended his hand as if to get a high-five from Aegis.

Combatant Smasherman has been defeated.

Combatant Starhealer has been defeated.

Rakkan had very swiftly cut them both down with a single swing of his mithral longsword.

“Thanks.” Aegis said.

“Don’t mention it.” Rakkan replied coolly.

Aegis’ team has won the match. Now exiting the arena…