Spiteful Healer

Chapter 29: First to Fall

“Should I do something about this?” Herilon asked, speaking through his friends list to his guildmaster Quinn.

“Nah, I want to see what happens. If you help him, that guy will just keep coming back anyway. Winter’s gotta deal with it himself.” Quinn replied. Herilon was standing a good distance away, watching the scene unfold from the shadows of the forest.

“Icelance!” Keldan flung an icicle at Winter. Winter ran right, Silentwire ran left, the Icelance flew past him and crashed into a tree behind them, encasing it in ice.

“Eye of Divinity, Form of Intention! Look at her target of aggression.” Vriflow shouted, a giant spectral eye formed above her. It looked at Silentwire, then turned to Vriflow and began glowing red.

“Of course they’re going for the healer, cover her.” Keldan ordered Rocknight, who dashed to stand between Silentwire and Vriflow. “We’ll do the same!” Keldan motioned to Swiftstar who pulled an arrow back in his bow and it slowly began to glow green and get larger.

“Piercing Shot! Multishot!” Swiftstar shouted. Winter could tell Swiftstar was not underestimating him. He watched as three gigantic arrows, each the size of his shield, were fired into the air, the release of the bowstring was powerful enough to release a gust of air around him.

Winter looked up to watch the three arrows flying above him, waiting for the redirect, but that was what Swiftstar was hoping for.

“Multishot, Pinning Shot!” Swiftstar shouted, he abandoned the three piercing shots and aimed the 3 pinning shots with precision. The distraction almost worked on Winter, he turned back to block the first pinning shot with his shield while the other two flew around him.

“Redirect, Redirect!” Swiftstar shouted twice. Winter turned to watch if the two pinning strikes had turned to come at him, and saw one merely millimeters from his face. He lifted his shield up quickly to block it, and in that second of turning around he noticed that the third pinning shot hadn’t been redirected at all. Winter looked up to see instead a piercing shot had been redirected and was soaring down from the sky right at his head.

“Shit!” Winter leapt backwards - he had a feeling that unlike Keldan’s attacks, he wouldn’t survive Swiftstar’s if he tried to block it. Just as Winter leapt backwards, he heard Swiftstar shout redirect again. As the piercing shot crashed into the earth it released a huge cloud of dust and smoke, the force of the impact pushing Winter back a bit. He knew Swiftstar had just redirected the final pinning shot, but he couldn’t see. His only chance was that Swiftstar also couldn’t see in the cloud of dust, and he dropped to the ground on his stomach, catching a glimpse of the green glowing pinning shot fly through the dust overhead, just narrowly missing him.

“His leather armor proficiency has to be decently high, he’s moving really fast.” Swiftstar commented to Keldan.

“Static field!” Keldan slammed his staff on the ground, releasing the wave of electrical energy once more.

“How do I dodge that?” Winter panicked as he jumped to his feet, speaking into party communications.

“It has a short range! Move away!” Silentwire shouted back, her voice strained. Winter dashed away from Keldan as the electrical wave extended outward from him. He kept running until he saw the spell stop, and took the time to look over at Silentwire. She was dashing around Vriflow’s shield, landing attacks on her and deflecting the clearly telegraphed big axe swings of Rocknight, but her deflections were not blocking the damage completely - her health was getting low.

“Minor Heal, Minor Heal!” Winter shouted, casting it on her twice to get her back to full.

“If single target attacks won’t land…” Swiftstar mumbled as he pulled another arrow back. “Rain of arrows!” he shouted, and as he fired it upwards into the sky it split into 30 smaller arrows that arched downward towards Winter. The area of their spread was too large to try and run out of it, he knelt down and held his shield above his head instead at the last second, able to position himself so that only one arrow hit him, and he was able to Brace it.

You take 78 Piercing Damage.

“He has to block, hit him while he’s blocking.” Swiftstar shouted at Keldan. “Rain of Arrows, Rain of Arrows! Rain of- shit mana.” Swiftstar was able to fire off two more, then paused to pull out a mana potion and start drinking it.

“Minor Heal.” Winter cast it on himself.

“Icelance!” Keldan shouted. As the first rain of arrows pelted down on Winter, he Braced one arrow for 78 damage. Just as the second rain was coming down on him, so was the Icelance fired by Keldan. He dashed to the side out of the way of the Icelance as carefully as possible so that only a single arrow would hit him through his block as the Icelance flew past him.

You take 153 Piercing Damage.

The arrow stuck itself into Winter’s right shoulder, it was extremely painful and he reactively tried to reach and yank it out, but it disappeared after 2 seconds along with the pain. He had to shake his right arm to get the feeling of it back to normal. Their area attacks were hard to dodge, but at least they didn’t hurt that bad, Winter thought.

“Minor Heal, Minor Heal, Minor Heal.” Winter cast it three times, twice for himself and once for Silentwire, but he looked and saw he had only enough mana for one more cast. In those few seconds he felt a sudden burst of wind, looking to see that Rocknight had cast Shockwave on Silentwire, forcing her to retreat into the shadow of the forest.

“She hits damn hard for a level 11. Stop letting her get back attacks on me. Healing Wind!” Vriflow shouted at Rocknight as a white glowing light began to swirl around her.

“She’s fast as hell!” Rocknight complained. Seeing Vriflow and Rocknight having trouble with Silentwire, and watching Swiftstar fail to kill Winter, Keldan began to look anxious. Winter’s words reverberated in his ears ‘Isn’t it just that you’re weak?’.

“Errah! Enough of this!” Keldan shouted out angrily as his left hand began to glow red, his right hand glowing blue. “They’re just some low level noobs, he can’t even kill a boar. Die, die, just die! Icelance, Fireball! Icelance, Fireball!”

“Winter, ready!” Davoth shouted into the party communications.

“Keldan!” Winter back shouted as loud as he could.

“Got it!” Silentwire replied.

“Redirect redirect redirect redirect redirect redirect….” Davoth began mumbling like a crazy person, trying to cast it as fast as he could on his 71 arrows soaring through the sky - some had already fallen to the ground in the time it took them to shoot them all up.

“Shadowstep.” Silentwire called out, suddenly vanishing in the darkness of the trees in front of Rocknight and Vriflow.

“Where’d she go? How does she have the Shadowstep skill already?!” Rocknight shouted angrily. “LANDSCAPE SLASH!” Rocknight swung his axe at the forest, a giant wave released from it and sliced through the first few trees it hit, knocking them over, but Silentwire was gone. She had appeared in the treeline a few meters behind Keldan and dashed forward with her daggers out.

Keldan was so focused on killing Winter, he didn’t notice. Winter was able to Sidestep the first Icelance, then blocked the first Fireball with his shield.

You take 251 Fire Damage.

It created a familiar explosive flash of red light and smoke. The second Icelance flew by Winter as he began casting Minor Heal, restoring as much health as he could to himself. His Minor Heal put him at 255 health, just barely enough to survive one more Fireball, and no mana left to heal anymore. He was blinded by the smoke and debris surrounding him, unable to see the second Fireball exactly, but as it soared through the air into the smoke, its pressure and heat cleared the air. Relying on his senses of hearing, depth perception, and timing, he rushed into the Fireball, hoping to Brace it.

“Behind you!” Swiftstar shouted to Keldan, but it was too late. Silentwire drove both of her daggers into the back of his head, each strike dealing critical damage to the tune of 98 each. As Keldan turned she got several more strikes in, dealing between 30 and 50 damage each, before Swiftstar shot arrows at her, forcing her to retreat.

“Hah, that’s it? I’ll admit, you hit hard, but that’s not going to be enough to kill us.” Keldan replied confidently. “Vriflow, heal m-” He held out his hand towards Vriflow, but before he could finish his sentence, 71 arrows crashed down on him from the sky, killing him instantly, and ending the livestream. The battlefield went silent from both sides.

“W-wait, it doesn’t matter, we killed Winter first.” Swiftstar shouted in frustration, looking to the center of the clearing where the cloud of smoke from the Fireballs had yet to settle. Silentwire smirked as Davoth ran out from the treeline to see what had happened. As the smoke settled down, Winter’s silhouette became visible.

“No way…” Swiftstar said in disbelief, a look of complete defeat on his face.

“You frickin cheater! I know you’ve got some cheap item or skill from your father, using it to make a fool out of us!” Rocknight shouted angrily as he stomped towards the center of the clearing with his axe out. Winter was out of mana, and saw in his interface that both Davoth and Silentwire were empty on mana and stamina as well, he could only tumble back a few steps anxiously as Rocknight pulled back his axe, preparing to swing it down on Winter.

“I don’t accept it!” Rocknight shouted angrily as he took his swing, but before the axe could hit Winter’s shield, a DEAD message appeared above Rocknight along with a flash of yellow light. Standing behind his body as it disintegrated, due to forced log out, stood Herilon with his greatsword drawn.

“The duel's over, fighting more is just shameful.” Herilon shouted to Swiftstar and Vriflow, both startled by his appearance. “You made a deal with him, he won. As a member of the Night Hunters, the ruling guild over the Kalmoore Island, if I find out you’ve gone against your word and continue to harass Winter, the Night Hunters will make your lives a living hell on this island.” Herilon replied while sheathing his sword.

“Come on, Vriflow. Let’s go... We’ve got to study for exams anyway.” Swiftstar called to her. She nodded and ran to his side while Silentwire and Davoth rushed to rejoin Winter’s side.

“Thanks.” Winter smiled with relief to Herilon.

“No problem. I kept the promise, by the way. My guild leader wants me to recruit you to our guild. She thinks you’re an interesting guy. And, it’s got nothing to do with who your dad is.” Herilon replied.

“No thanks.” Winter replied without hesitation, causing Herilon to laugh.

“I told her you’d say that. Well, my watch over Orm is ending, another member will be showing up soon. I get the feeling we’ll be seeing each other again though. You cheeky bastards have fun.” Herilon smiled as he turned and walked off into the surrounding forest.

"Hey Winter!" Swiftstar shouted, getting the attention of Winter and his party. "Sorry about all this." He said in ernest before turning to leave. Once the three of them were alone, a giant grin grew over Davoth's face.

"That was badass." He stretched out his arms. "Seriously though, I should go study for exams. You better be around to play tomorrow."

"What are you going to do, Winter?" Silentwire asked curiously. Winter looked around, feeling satisfied with the outcome and letting out an exacerbated sigh of relief. His first thought was the quest, to help save Orm - but he remembered the large raiding party that had gone ahead, and figured he'd have nothing to worry about, as they'd be able to handle it.

"I guess it's good to take a break here so we can play together tomorrow. It's so much better to have people around that'll kill things for me." Winter smiled at them. "See you guys tomorrow, good luck on your exams."

"Later." Davoth waved.

"You too, bye!" Silentwire said cheerfully, to which they gave her one last nod before logging out. Silentwire did a little twirl of excitement, overly proud of herself that she was able to say goodbye properly, then logged out.