Spiteful Healer

The silhouettes of the mounted players on the backs of the winged beasts became more pronounced as they nocked arrows whose tips burst into flames. Staves and wands, black runes on their skin glowing - the Warlock and Wizard players too prepared their attacks on the lone airship docked at the Kordas Skyport. Many eyes that were drawn towards the blazing flames growing in the distant shipyard were drawn towards the lights that were created as the Shattered Pirates prepared their barrage of attacks for the Sky Darling.

“Fire!” A voice shouted, audible to both Yuki and Quinn as they rushed to the scene. They stood no chance of making it in time, but despite this they both readied their own weapons.

“Multishot!” Quinn shouted as she loosed an arrow into the sky, aiming upwards above the other players and NPCs that were standing in the street around her, dumbfounded. They were accustomed to casting such violent spells within the city limits to result in an arrest, but as the arrows split into more due to her multishot spell, the guards reacted in alarm towards what she was aiming at, and not her. It only took a moment for the players to see the tabard of the Night Hunters proudly worn on Quinn’s chest for them to understand why.

“All Kordas guards are to defend the Skyport, we’re under attack by pirates!” Quinn shouted to the nearest guards, who quickly nodded and drew their own crossbows, joining her and Yuki in their sprint towards the tower. Despite all this, the barrage of attacks from the Shattered Pirates were fired down on the Sky Darling.

Before the first flaming arrow could penetrate into the wooden planks of the ships deck, however, a blue magical shell appeared around the ship. The arrows crashed against it, causing it to send out ripples and waves of light within itself to illuminate its spherical shape around the entirety of the Sky Darling, not unlike a sage’s Shell spell, but not exactly identical to it.

All of the arrows, then all of the spells crashed into the protective spell, preventing any harm from befalling the Sky Darling.

“We’ve seen this protective magic on other airships before. It’s limited in how much damage it can absorb. Keep firing!” The leader of the attacking pirates shouted to his comrades. They did exactly that, but after a few more hits landed, an angry Leonard and Gregory stomped out onto the deck of the ship. Gregory was wearing his standard black and white suit and tie, while Leonard was wearing his somewhat standard open bathrobe with shiny pink drawers underneath.

“It’s the pirates that attacked us before.” Gregory declared to Leonard immediately. Both of their faces were repeatedly lit up by a mixture of red flames from the pirate’s attacks, and the flashing blue energy from the shield protecting them.

“I know, I recognize them. The darlings came back for more. First time wasn’t enough?” Leonard replied mockingly.

“We don’t like losing.” The leading pirate, an orc with an eyepatch replied. He was the only one of the bunch not engaged with the blue barrier, but his battlemaster weapons were visibly floating around him at the ready as he hovered above the others atop his dark brown gryphon.

“We don’t like being attacked!” Quinn shouted angrily as her multishot arrived, soaring around the Sky Darling and piercing into the winged creatures and players.

“Tch. Locals are here. Parties one and two, continue your assault on the ship. Three and four, take care of them.” The orc, [Hammond - Level 158] ordered.

“Man hari!” Yuki shouted, firing off hundreds of tiny needles into the sky alongside Quinn’s arrows. The attacks from the two both hit, but unfortunately the wounds inflicted by Quinn and Yuki were quickly mended up by clerics that flew amongst the Shattered Pirates.

This didn’t stop Quinn from firing more shots, though. Alongside her, a group of Kordas Guards had arrived at the base of the tower. They began bombarding the flying pirates with crossbow bolts as well, which unfortunately did much less damage than Quinn did.

“Quinn, you will protect my Sky Darling, won’t you? This shield was expensive but won’t hold forever.” Leonard called down to her.

“Workin’ on it!” Quinn sighed back at him. She followed this up by beginning to ascend upwards towards the rooftops, to get closer to the mounted pirates. She did this by firing several grappling shots into the stonework of the tall neighboring structures and yanking herself up on the rope that grew out of the tailend of her shots, until arriving on the blue tiled roof of a building that nearly matched the height of the Sky Port tower, enough that she could use her character stats to make a giant leap up onto the top of the tower. As she landed, she saw the Kordas guards up here were already firing their crossbows at the winged creatures who soared quickly all around them, flapping their wings furiously and screeching out at each bolt and arrow that hit them.

Glowing divine magic followed each impact, and Quinn quickly took stock of how many healing players she was dealing with. It only took a moment for him to spot out all four of them, and she then took aim at the closest one as it began soaring near to the top of the Skyport.

Once the cleric got in range, she jumped up into the path off the player's wyvern, off the side of the tower while flipping in the air to increase her momentum. She then fired a close-range shot at the player and landed a ranger mark onto their chest.

“Rain of arrows!” Quinn shouted while falling through the air straight down back to the streets of Kordas below.

“Shit!” The cleric player had no time to react as Quinn unloaded the remainder of her mana to barrage the cleric with an unreasonable amount of arrows, turning them into a porcupine and eliminating them from the game world. Quinn was then in a freefall towards the ground with a potentially deadly amount of falling damage waiting for her, but Yuki quickly shot out her giant mithral needle from her hands and caused multiple glowing green needles to sprout out of it beneath Quinn, quickly spurning out threads and creating a net to catch Quinn a few meters below the top of the Kordas Skyport.

“Thanks.” Quinn looked down at her through the net and smiled.

“No problem.” Yuki replied.

“One healer down, three to g-” Quinn cut herself off as she saw a glowing orange spear flying towards her from the streets below. She quickly rolled out of the way on the net as it was pierced through, sliced to shreds as the spear flew beyond her and into the side of the Skyport tower. The glowing bright orange flash from the spear quickly subsided, revealing Trellin to be holding the other end of it. He then used it as a handle and a foothold to leap up onto the top of the tower while Quinn grabbed onto Yuki’s ripped net as it swung down into the shorter building across the way from the tower - the gravity of the swing caused Quinn’s body to slam into the side of the building.

“Don’t make this harder than it has to be. We’re just here for the airship.” Trellin scowled down at Quinn from atop the tower as he looked down at her struggling to hold onto the net.

“That’s our airship.” Quinn growled back at him. She pulled out a mana elixir and prepared to drink it, but Trellin reacted to this by yanking his spear out of the stone bricks of the tower and preparing to throw it down at her before she could drink.

“Should protect it better, then.” He said before flinging the spear. The spear barely left his hand, though, before crashing into a projected mithral shield with the emblem of the Night Hunter’s on the front of it.

Baffo, arriving on the streets below, was looking up at Trellin. Alongside him stood Sapphire, Ren and Herilon.

“I’m gettin’ real tired of people underestimating Kalmoore.” Sapphire shouted before angrily chomping into a carrot, then tossing it to the ground. Around them, several more Night Hunter players were arriving to their aid and began firing arrows and spells up at the mounted pirates, including Yorgi.

“You didn’t really think that some pirates could take on an entire Kingdom, did you? That’s a bit much, even for you.” Herilon called up to Trellin.

“How much did they offer you?” Quinn asked as she drank the mana potion uninterrupted and was able to quickly swing from Yuki’s nets back onto the neighboring building's tiled roof.

Trellin didn’t immediately reply, but instead looked to his companions as they continued their assault on the blue shield surrounding the Sky Darling. He saw the clerics struggling to keep up with healing the damage being dealt by the Night Hunters, the guards, and now the Blades of Kalmoore members that were arriving and joining in the fight.

“Enough to do this.” Trellin turned to face Hammond. “Plan B!”

“Roger that, you heard the Captain. Switch Formations!” Hammond ordered, and following this command, all mounted players began pulling back and retreating, including Hammond after he swooped down to pick up Trellin.

“They’re retreating?” Ren asked curiously.

“No chance. He’s going all in this time.” Herilon said, directing his words to Quinn.

“Alright.” Quinn took a deep breath and fired several more arrows after the retreating players, then jumped back to get on top of the Sky Port. “Everyone, take up defensive positions along the Skyport, the Sky Darling, and the nearby buildings rooftops. Stay as spread as possible in case they’re planning bombardment. Get defensive magic ready, Yorgi.”

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“Okay.” Yorgi nodded.

“We gonna be alright here?” Leonard asked Quinn worriedly as he caught her eye. He had at this point taken the time to tie his bathrobe shut, at the very least.”

“I can’t imagine how they’ll get through this…” Quinn said as she eyed the large number of players and guards gathering to defend the port. Most of which were well equipped and above level 150. “Just to be safe, though, you oughta get off the ship along with any NPC passengers you have.”

“Okie dokie.” Leonard shrugged. He retreated below deck for a moment, then re-emerged with several female and male NPCs in their underwear. “Just a short interruption, we’ll continue once this is all over.” He assured the NPCs as he ushered them off the ship, he and Gregory followed behind them. Quinn watched this unfold while making several whistling sounds to instruct her familiar to fly out into the skies nearby, trying to get eyes on what Trellin and his pirates were up to.

“Quinn.” Leonard stopped to look her in the eyes. “I’m not too invested in this ship, given that we can make new ones now. But, the boy…”

“I know.” Quinn replied, looking back at him for a brief moment.

“Alright.” Leonard shrugged, then continued past her to catch up with Gregory and the NPCs. Quinn made sure he was gone, then eyed her guildmates and companions who had taken up formidable positions around the tower.

“Eyes.” She cast, taking on the vision of her familiar as it soared high in the night sky above the city. The moment she did, she spotted it - one of Trellin’s airships was barreling towards Kordas with all of the mounted players flying around it defensively.

“Heh?” Quinn said in disbelief, but as the ship neared her bird, the spell that was allowing her to see through her familiar was canceled. “You gotta be shitting me.” Quinn gasped in disbelief.

“What, what is it? What’re they doing?” Herilon asked as he moved to stand beside her, seeing the look of bewilderment on her face.

“They’ve got an anti-magic zone on their ship - it can no longer be piloted. It's gliding through the air towards the Sky Darling.”

“They’re going to crash their airship into ours?” Herilon tried to confirm.

“Looks like it.” Quinn took a deep breath. “Non-magical attacks, do as much damage to the ship as possible. It can’t be steered. Redirect it away from the Sky Darling!” Quinn shouted desperately. Following her command, arrows were fired and melee class players began springing into action, jumping over the rooftops to get closer to the gliding pirate ship as it soared downward out of the sky towards them.

“Fuck.” Sapphire groaned.

“I will try to stop it!” Yuki shouted before rapidly casting varios high level tailoring spells. The result of her spells were gigantic threads being stitched between the buildings that stood between the descending ship and the Sky Darling.

Herilon took several giant leaps from the nearby rooftops to be the first one to land aboard the ship - it was completely empty. No cannons, cargo, or players. The ship had completely been abandoned and was being used purely as a battering ram against the Sky Darling. It was moving incredibly fast, though, and increasing in speed. Arrows and heavy objects were being flung at the ship, but nothing was doing enough damage to possibly deconstruct or halt the ship.

“Urrrrrraaah!” Herilon shouted, relying purely on his characters’ physical stats due to him being in the ship’s anti-magic zone. He pulled out his mithral greatsword and did a wide cleaving swing at the main mast of the ship, slicing cleanly threw it and causing it to keel over backwards, crashing into the stern behind it on the upper deck and destroying it. The sails ripped apart from the impact, but the ship continued its trajectory.

Herilon then quickly rushed to the side of the ship where he knew the wing sails to be and sliced them off the left side. This caused the ship to begin to swerve at an angle slightly before it crashed into the first set of threads that had been woven by Yuki. The ship ripped the threads out of the nearby buildings, pulling chunks of brick along with them.

“Come on!” Yuki shouted out in frustration as she watched the ship continue to barrel through the air towards the, curving to the side at an angle but holding strong in its trajectory.

“It’s not going to be enough to stop it.” Quinn called out worriedly.

“I gotcha.” Baffo shouted as he rushed onto the Sky Darling. Seeing this, Sapphire and several other shield-wielding players moved to his side, holding their shields out in front of their bodies off the side of the Sky Darling’s deck, in the direction that the abandoned pirate ship was coming at it from.

Multiple volleys of arrows were fired down at their shields by the pirates on their mounted beasts in an attempt to dissuade their defensive formation, but they didn’t budge.

“Dig your feet in and brace for impact.” Baffo ordered the players who stood alongside him. They watched as the last defensive threads of Yuki were torn through by the ship, and Quinn, Ren, Yuki and Yorgi could do nothing but watch anxiously.

A moment later, the side of the sinking ship crashed into Baffo and the others’ shields with a loud booming roar. As much as they dug their feet into the deck of the Sky Darling, the force of an entire ship proved to be too much. They were pushed back after large red damage numbers appeared above their heads in the form of bludgeoning damage.

Following this, the side of the Pirate ship broke through the side railings and entire half of the Sky Darling, sending broken planks of wood from both ships flying out in all directions as tiny splinters and shards. The wingsail of the Sky darling nearest the pirate ship was crushed under its weight as the blue protective magic was dispelled by the anti-magic aura being emitted by the Shattered Pirate’s abandoned airship. Half of the upper deck, the stern, and all of the windows shattered.

Still, Baffo and the others did their best to push back against the impact. Baffo managed to get a footing through pressing his back leg against the base of the Sky Darling’s mast, then used his strength alongside the others to finally stop the momentum of the airship.

Quinn looked on in momentary shock as she saw the massive amount of damage that’d been dealt to the Sky Darling, but she quickly snapped herself out of it as several arrows were fired down at her from the mounted pirates nearby.

“It’s fine. We can repair it, their attack failed. Good work, Baffo!” Quinn said as she saw the strained look on his and Sapphire’s faces. “Take out these buzzing flies!” She ordered the other nearby players, as well as the guards.

“Quinn, something’s off!” Herilon shouted from atop the empty pirate ship. He was glancing around at the mounted pirates, eying their expressions including Hammonds. Despite them having failed to the destroy the Sky Darling after sacrificing one of their own airships, none of them seemed in poor spirits. In fact, he spotted a smirk growing on Hammond’s face.

Herilon’s words were enough to draw Quinn’s attention to the same thing, and she quickly processed what was going on and realized Trellin wasn’t with them.

“Can they destroy the ship from this state without magic?” Quinn asked out loud. “They’re doing this as revenge, aren’t they? What exactly did you guys do to them?”

“Aegis threatened them with blast petals.” Renn replied nonchalantly. Hearing his words, all players present paused and exchanged nervous looks with one another. Herilon, Sapphire, Baffo, Yorgi, Ren, Yuki, and several others.

“RU-” Baffo couldn’t get the words out, as a huge explosion erupted from the lower deck of the abandoned pirate ship. Red scorching hot flames lit up the top of the Skyport tower, sending a violent shockwave of force outwards from the explosion point. Mixed in with the flames were thousands of broken wooden fragments that began raining down on the city below as glowing red blazing embers.

The bright red flash from the explosion was blindingly bright, and the force was enough to knock Quinn completely off the tower, crashing her back into the walls of the nearest Kordas structure to the Skyport tower. She attempted to open her eyes and look at the results of the destructive explosion, but she saw nothing but red. She had a more pressing matter to deal with though as she went into a freefall to the ground, alongside Yuki.

Yuki, not as accustomed to combat, looked flustered and unable to react, so Quinn quickly shot out a grappling arrow towards the top of the burning tower. She then threw her bow over her shoulder, grabbed the grappling shot with one hand, and Yuki’s arm with the other, to stop them both from continuing their fall towards the streets below.

From there, it took a few moments for them to climb back up to the top of the tower. By the time they arrived, Yorgi had flown back up and began bombarding the tower with ice and water magic alongside several other spellcasters that survived the explosion. Quinn quickly took stock of the situation, spotting Sapphire, Baffo, Ren and Herilon who all survived the damage from the explosion. She also noted that the anti-magic effect from the pirate ship was gone, due to the ship itself being completely gone. It, along with the Sky Darling had been completely blown to smithereens. There was barely anything left, scattered about the destroyed top of the Skyport tower of Kordas.

There was nothing but defeated silence to be heard as they exchanged looks once more, then watched as Hammond and the other Sky Pirates began soaring off into the night sky.

“Even if Aegis wins his last match, he won’t have any way to getting to the finals unless they host them on Kalmoore.” Ren said in a worried tone.

“You gotta be shitting me…” Artaphernes shouted as he arrived atop the tower, Anazia and several other of his guild members appearing shortly after as they looked on in shock at the scorched wood all around them.

“What the hell happened?” Christoph asked as he too arrived, alongside Miranda and several other members of the Blades of Kalmoore.

“We got attacked by Shattered Pirates. Hired by someone to make sure Aegis and his party can’t attend the tournament finals.” Baffo explained in a defeated tone.

“Damnit, seriously?” Christoph replied in disbelief. “That’s the Sky Darling?” He motioned to what was left of it.

“Yeah.” Herilon sighed. “Fuck!” He shouted, angrily punching his fist into the floor of the tower.

“Maybe we really do suck.” Sapphire sighed, wiping scorch marks off of her cheeks and ears. “He’s gone through all this trouble to fight these bad guys. We said we’d help him out…”

“They timed the attack so that he’d be in his final preliminary match when it happened, so that he couldn’t defend the ship himself.” Yorgi pointed out.

“And we failed to step up on his behalf.” Artaphernes sighed. “I was too busy drinking over our loss, I forgot about our promise, that we’d all fight these guys together.” Artaphernes looked down at his own feet dejectedly.

“I didn’t imagine they’d do something this bold.” Christoph shook his head in disbelief.

“There’s a lot of money on the line. It’s not that unbelievable.” Anazia shrugged at him. “What about the other ships, you were working on building some that didn’t use island stones, right?”

“Tullan and Trexon are trying to put out the fires, but they’ve already said in guild chat that there’s barely anything salvageable.” Baffo answered her as he fidgeted around with his inventory momentarily. Quinn remained silent, deep in thought as she stared off blankly into the night sky. The others fell silent as well as the last of the flames were extinguished. Nearby cleric players were tending to the wounds of the Kordas guards and other players that’d suffered damage from the explosion.

“Ren. Turn into the biggest flying creature you can. Anyone who can’t fly yourself, hop on his back. Highest levels get priority.” Quinn quickly ordered them.

“Huh? Where’re we going?” Ren asked her curiously.

“There’s still two Airships in Kalmoore. The Pirates had three, didn’t they?” Quinn asked Herilon and he nodded back as a slight grin began to creep over his face. “Kalmoore may not be the strongest island, but we’re persistent. Let’s go get Aegis an Airship.” Quinn shouted with determination.

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