“I’m going to get a team together,” Guy said. “And then, rout them out.”
Tempeste crossed her arms and laughed. “You have no subclass.” She uncrossed her arms to point at him. “Do not be a stupid hero, star-human. Acquire higher levels, and a subclass, then try to be that.”
Guy sighed. Tempeste was right, and he knew it. The Berserker alone removed almost 10 percent of Guy’s HP with one slash.
“Now what?” he asked.
“We should find Averyl,” Tempeste said. “I, too, am curious why there are two fae princesses on our world who look the same.”
Additional guards patrolled René’s Cove’s two gates with several Clerics and Medics behind. Periodically, you could hear the PKers out in the Verte Woods taunting the guards to leave their posts and fight. None answered their call. They idled and kept the violence from spilling into the dwelling.
Guy wondered how people could live like that, just accept that their own kind would walk into their city and kill anyone for entertainment. And while they did that, they accepted their murderers’ terms, don’t kill them back, at least not permanently, or they’d do the same. Oh, and it’s your responsibility to heal and resurrect the dead. The PKers couldn’t be held responsible if a body bled their LP out.
Fucking bullshit.
What the guards were doing at the two gates wasn’t bullshit. They kept the chaos out of René’s Cove, containing it within the Verte Woods outside. It provided enough calm for Guy, Tempeste, and Rachael to search for Averyl, calling her name out, hoping she was still alive. The trio walked past the clinic once more and called for Averyl. A doctor left the clinic’s front door.
“Averyl, you say?” The doctor said to the three.
They shifted their attention to him. “You know her?” Guy asked.
“We admitted a fairy recently,” said the doctor. “She heard someone call that name, then peeked out the window. It was almost as if she knew the name.”
“A fairy . . .” Tempeste said slowly.
“It must be her,” Guy said. “Where did she go?”
The doctor thumbed backward at the clinic. “Slipped out when we gave her privacy to put on Bard equipment.”
Guy looked surprised. “Come again?”
“It is the law here to assist newly afflicted people,” Tempeste said. “It sounds like this fairy got a class for the first time.”
“Indeed,” said the doctor. “The fairy we found is a Bard now. I hope the people killers—”
“Player killers!” Guy cut in.
“. . . did not get to her . . .” finished the doctor. He looked at Guy with a raised eyebrow. “Player killers, you call them? Well, that is just an odd name.”
“Oh, boy.” Guy brought his left hand up and smothered his face with the palm. “This planet’s gonna be fun . . .”
Guy and Rachael walked back to the Seraphim at the docks, slipped aboard for several minutes, searching its decks for Averyl. They found nothing. Then again, it was hard to see their hands in front of their faces with the lights out. Ulysses and Arn claimed she hadn’t returned too, and Arn had stayed aboard since their arrival, making repairs and system checks to jump-start the reactor again.
Rachael looked at Guy, her blue eyes giving him that stare he knew too well. It was the stare of what-the-fuck-did-we-get-ourselves-into. He didn’t have an answer. The two left the Seraphim to deliver the bad news to Tempeste, who remained standing on the docks, the sunlight shining on her long, golden blonde hair and the earrings on the tips of her pointed elven ears. Damn, she was something to look at.
“She’s not aboard,” Guy revealed.
“She must have left the city,” Tempeste said, and turned toward the village’s front. “There are two ways out of here, other than a ship at sea.”
“She was definitely not at the gate we were at,” Rachael said. “We would have seen her.”
“Agreed, I saw no fairy leave,” Tempeste said.
Guy looked at the second gate. “Then let’s check this one.”
He led them to the second gate. The elven guards expressed their disapproval of the trio leaving René’s Cove, paused and gasped when they saw Tempeste was with them. They took back their objections, stepped aside, giving the three access to the Verte Woods, bowing. Tempeste was more than a powerful Berserker Spellsword, and more than a high-ranking woman in the Lumière Kingdom’s military.
“Let me take the lead.” Tempeste stepped ahead of Guy and Rachael. “As the highest level in this party, I should be the one in the front row.”
“I’m pretty sure that should be my job,” Guy said. “I’m the Paladin.”
“And if you were my level and possessed a subclass, then yes, it would be,” Tempeste said, while striding ahead and withdrawing her Spellsword Saber. She led the way into the densely packed Verte Woods, a forest filled with lurking PKers still at large.
Tempeste stopped to cast a spell called Elemental Weapon: Lightning which enchanted her sword with lightning magic. It made Guy wonder what abilities he and Rachael could use once they unlocked their subclasses.
The trio traversed the woods, keeping their eyes sharp for ambushes, ears listening for footsteps that weren’t there’s, and weapons firmly in their grips and ready to teach the player killers a lesson. They found nothing but the calming winds brushing the tree leaves above. If it wasn’t for the violence, the Verte Woods would have been a nice place to take a girl out on a date. It almost looked like Guy was on a date with two women, an elven swordswoman, and a fae from space.
“Ah, came to play with me again?!” the voice of a woman called to them.
The three stopped and searched left to right, backward and forward. Guy couldn’t find the woman’s voice, and it seemed like Rachael and Tempeste weren’t able to either.
“Up here.”
Guy glanced at a nearby tree. Up in its top branches sat the druid Mage dangling her legs about, not caring that her white satin panties were visible to those below. Or she just didn’t realize how short her purple spell casting dress was.
“Why you little . . .” Rachael snarled and marched to the tree the druid had climbed up in, her fae wings spread and ready for flight.
Rachael buzzed her wings, but Tempeste held her back before she went airborne.
“Let me handle her,” Tempeste said.
“Ah, what is wrong, star-dwellers?” The druid Mage taunted. “Upset that your machina cannot harm us?”
“Odd that a druid is among the elves,” Guy mumbled to himself.
“She speaks of your machina,” Tempeste said to Guy and Rachael. “A star-dweller must have brought this druid to our world in the past.”
“I don’t see a body,” Rachael said as she looked away from the druid in the tree. “Maybe Averyl escaped? She wasn’t afflicted last time we checked. Would the PKers attack her?”
“No, they gain nothing from killing those untouched by the reality corruption,” Tempeste said. “But the doctor did state that she was a level 1 Bard.”
“Eh, that’s right . . .” Guy said. “And that doesn’t sound like the Averyl we brought here. She was a normal fae and didn’t have a class.”
“We’re chasing the wrong person, then?” Rachael said, facing Guy.
He winced. “Yeah, maybe.”
The Mage stepped toward the edge of the tree branch and pulled out her tome with an evil grin.
Guy didn’t want any part of the Mage. He and Rachael swung at the Mage for a good while and didn’t kill her. Being at a higher level and rank made more of a difference than he thought.
“Let’s get out of here before we die again,” Guy said, backing away.
Rachael and Tempeste agreed, and walked away from the druid’s tree. Up above, the druid snorted, slammed her tome shut as her bunny ears sagged in disappointment. He wondered how the ears drooped since they were just a hair accessory.
“Hey, come back here!” The druid Mage demanded, but Guy and his party kept walking awa
y. “Cowards! This is a perfect opportunity for you to throw your life away!”
The three returned to René’s Cove after searching the Verte Woods for another hour. They found no sign of Averyl if that was even the right name for her. More and more, Guy was believing they had a fake and that the real Averyl was living in the Lumière Kingdom, as Tempeste had explained. And it would make perfect sense when factoring in Xanthe’s story. She had sent Averyl on the Gabriel to leave Faeheim a month ago.
Kam spotted Guy, Rachael, and Tempeste as they walked into the village’s central square. The hooved-foot faun trotted toward them, making the chains in his Iron Hauberk jingle.
“Oi, been lookin’ for you two,” Kam said.
“What’s up, Kam?” Guy asked.
“Me loot is missing, lad.”
He gave the faun a confused stare. “Bruh, what loot?”
“An ocarina I discovered on Mennaze,” Kam said.
“I didn’t know about that.”
“Found it in the keep the empire had us imprisoned in,” Kam explained. “Was tryin’ to figure out why it was with our stuff.”
Slowly, Guy folded his arms over his chest while holding back a frown. The empire had captured Guy, Kam, and Zuran during their visit to Mennaze almost a month ago. Why was Kam revealing that now? And why was it suddenly missing after they landed?
Guy wanted answers. “What can you tell me about it?”
“Someone named Dianna used to own it,” Kam said.
Dianna. Guy had never forgotten Dianna, her cheery smile, the kiss they shared, how he nearly lost his virginity to her . . . until Wylume showed up and ruined it by killing her, killing Dianna’s brother. Hell, everyone in the city of Coldhorn. Dianna’s Ocarina gave her the power to summon the White Dragon too. It was a mystery they’d never be able to solve now that she was dead.
“Dianna . . .” That was all Guy could say.
“Guy . . .” Rachael said, her voice full of angst. “Who’s Dianna?”
“Eh.” Kam scratched the side of his face, just below his left goat horn. “You knew her?”
“Yes . . .” Guy said. “Kam, you had her ocarina this whole time and you didn’t tell me?!—”
“Hold on,” Tempeste cut in, drawing everyone’s glare at the blonde magic knight. “Did the doctor from the clinic not say that he had a fae there who was a level 1 Bard?”
“Yes, yes he did.” Guy put it together. “The fae in the clinic . . . she was admitted to it recently because she passed out after becoming afflicted. She must have touched Dianna’s Ocarina. Our missing Averyl lookalike stole your loot, Kam.”
“Why would she take it?” Rachael asked.
“Why ask why, lass?” Kam said to Rachael. “She’s a thief, that’s why.”
“A thief . . .” Guy winced and checked his trench coat pockets.
He had sat with the fake Averyl during the Seraphim’s sea voyage to René’s Cove. He found his stash of hyposprays, so those were safe. Then again, they were only useable by star-dwellers and probably deemed worthless to her. He finished his search by checking the pocket he left Wylume’s soul crystal in. Of course, the soul crystal wasn’t in there when he checked.
Guy looked up at the group, his eyes open wide with terror. “Fuck . . .”
“She pickpocketed you, didn’t she, lad?” Kam laughed.
“She fucking took Wylume’s soul crystal when we sat close!”
Rachael groaned. “Why were you sitting so close to her to start with?!” And jammed her index finger to Guy’s face.
He put his hands up in defense. “Hey, she sat with me!”
“Well, that more or less proves it,” Rachael said.
“Guy’s building a harem?” Kam snorted.
Rachael snapped at Guy with anger on her face. “What?!”
He kept his hands out in defense. “It’s not a harem!”
“What I was going to say,” Rachael said, shutting her eyes. She kept her finger pointed at Guy, though. “This proves that we picked up the wrong Averyl.”
“We did,” Kam said. “tis my fault for not bringing it to your attention sooner . . .”
The three gawked at Kam’s sorrowful expression. “Kam, what did you do?”
“That was no fae imperial princess we brought aboard,” Kam revealed. “She told me who she really was in private. Her name is Nijana Celestina, princess of thieves.”
Chapter Ten
The chaos that sent the people of Lumière City into a panic had not ceased. Its elven population scrambled to their homes while dropping their belongings. Women held their children, and Lumière’s royal army members asked those with combat classes, regardless of their levels, to take up arms and fight.
Averyl kept her view to the sky, looking for the sight of New Svartálfar airships. Other than the odd white cloud, the skies were clear. The threat that instilled everyone with fear had not come from above.
She strode behind the aeronauts, Remy and Pierre, having joined their party. They pushed past elves scrambling for safety while making their way to Lumière City’s main gate and peered at the Guillaume Meadows outside. A group of outlaw elven men stood, laughing and goading Lumière’s armored guards to fight.
Remy spun to their party. “It is the people killers.”
A Lumière guardsman limped to Averyl’s group, fell to his knees, and reached for Averyl. His bloodstained armor caused a wince to grow on Pierre’s face.
“Heal me, please!” pleaded the guardsman.
Averyl nodded, clasped her Silver Wand with her eyes shut as she cast Starlight Recovery. A flash of green and blue light mended the guard’s injuries, and he gradually returned to his feet.
“Thank you, pixie,” the guardsman said. “They are everywhere today. May Asteria help us all.”
“How many?” Remy asked as he approached the guardsman.
“Ugh, enough to raid the Guillaume Meadows and the Verte Woods!”
“We need to thin the people killers out,” Remy said.
Averyl chuckled. “You need to come up with a better name other than people killers . . .”
“There!” Remy shouted at the green pastures beyond the city gate. “I see an entire flock of them.”
“Well then, let us do our part,” Pierre said, then faced Averyl. “Are you ready, fairy?”
Averyl examined her status.
Averyl | HP: 414/414 | MP: 763/800 | AP: 0/100
And she had two Greater MP Potions left.
Averyl acknowledged the men waiting for her response. “Yes.”
Then switched her Life sigil out for her Wrath one, tossing the unused sigil into her floating Inventory screen. Averyl lost the power to cast Resurrection but regained the use of another powerful spell.
Chastisement
Deals light elemental damage over a period of 30 seconds.
Casting Time: 2 Seconds
Potency: 150
Cost: 80 MP
It was a risky move, and if she had enough exposed skin to keep both the Wrath and Life sigils, she would. But sometimes, the best defense was a good offense and sacrificing the ability to cast Resurrection in place of Chastisement provided that. She could always switch sigils again anyway if someone died.
Remy led the charge, holding a sword each in his dual-wielding hands. Pierre ambled at his side, wielding his firearms. Averyl kept behind both men and her eyes focused on their HP. To their left and right marched members of Lumière’s army, primarily Gunners, Berserkers, and Medics. Every party that left the stone walls of Lumière City clashed with various people killer parties. Flintlocks and muskets thundered bullets through the air. Swords clanged and pierced flesh and healing spells sparkled and sealed up injuries as men shouted their battle cry.
It was complete madness, light elves fighting their own kind for sport despite the dark elf threat from the frozen north.
When Averyl first heard about the people killers, she could not understand why the light elves of Lumière feared them. Than
ks to the reality corruption, nobody died so long as a Cleric such as herself or a Medic resurrected them. The people killers code was never to permanently kill anyone. Why fear something that had no intention of making you meet Asteria herself?
One day Averyl was out harvesting cotton to level her weaving skill, a group of men and women ambushed her. They had maimed Averyl’s wings to prevent her from flying away, and then took turns stabbing her. She could still remember the pain from that day and the tears streaming off her face as they fell to her shredded and blood-soaked dress. She had tried to heal herself six times, but their stabs interrupted each spell cast. Averyl had cried for help when she was down on the grass and unable to walk because of the pain. But none came, Averyl was alone in the woods. She remembered where each of their boots had hit, as the gang laughed, and they kicked out the last of Averyl’s HP from her body.
Before she had died for the first time, Averyl’s last thoughts were that of her beloved, Rain. Then later, Xanthe, the shadow angel who protected Averyl from her father’s men back on Faeheim.
Averyl had awoken to the smiling face of a wandering Medic from Lumière, a young teenaged elven girl. She had found Averyl’s corpse after bathing in the nearby lake. Averyl had lost 2 points of LP. If the girl had not found Averyl, she would have bled away what remained of her LP and turned to a crystal. Permanent death was still a reality for those killed by the people killers (and she really hated that name) should healers find themselves unable to locate one’s body in time. There was no known way to recover lost LP either. Averyl was closer to a permanent death compared to most. One day, dying too much would catch up with her.
That was why the light elves of Lumière ran and screamed when the people killers arrived to go on their blood-lusting rampage. Real death could strike unexpectedly, and if it did not, then waking up from a reoccurring nightmare of dying would.
Averyl hoped she would not be dying a second time.
While guards of the city made their attack, Remy, and Pierre singled out a small group of people killers making their way to aid their comrades. Remy leaped into the battle first, swinging his double sabers fast. The dual wield trait allowed him to build AP quick when he was on the offense and aided in Remy’s ability to parry and deflect attacks aimed at him. Combined with his plate armor, HP, and vitality, Remy kept their hostile targets occupied and focused on him as Pierre unloaded his flintlocks from afar.
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