Spiteful Healer

Chapter 238: Unwelcome Guest

Aegis and Ren turned to face back towards the direction they’d come from, but had difficulty orienting themselves due to the darkness. Thankfully, because they were in a party with Herilon and Trexon who were standing in the doorway of the chamber, they could utilize their party interface to see where they needed to go.

Aegis looked up to see the indicators above Trexon and Herilon’s heads and saw them shifting and moving about, however.

“The dark walkway we’re standing on, it’s rearranging itself. Stick with me and walk steady and slow, so we don’t get confused. I think the room is trying to tempt us to use light magic.” Aegis said calmly to Ren.

“Ok, got it.” Ren replied obediently. Without his vision to rely on, Aegis couldn’t confirm his theory. He was beginning to get disoriented despite the aid of the party indicators, due to them swirling around in his peripheral vision as Aegis did nothing but simply walk forward. He was forced to constantly turn and change the forward direction that he was walking in as the pitch dark ground he was walking on continued to shift and rotate without any sense of motion reaching his eardrums.

Eventually, he managed to arrive at the doorway and saw Herilon eagerly holding his hands out to grab them and pull them out of the darkness.

“You got it?” Trexon asked as both Aegis and Ren stepped out through the doorway and back into the round chamber.

“Yeah.” Aegis nodded.

“Easy peasy!” Ren cheered.

“Kinda feels like we cheated, though…” Aegis added hesitantly.

“Whatever, as long as it’s done.” Herilon shrugged. “It’s gonna be the same thing for the other side, right?”

“Yeah…” Aegis looked at the door across the way, still holding the orb in his hands. “I think so.” He shrugged as he handed the orb over to Trexon. He then walked across the room and opened the door, and sure enough saw a room illuminated by extremely blinding white light. “Just stand in the doorway for me this time, I’ll do the same thing and hope it works out.” Aegis shrugged back at the others, and got nods in return.

Sure enough, upon entering the room of pure light and walking blindly forward, he managed to reach the second orb and retrieve it. A clinking mechanism activated upon him lifting the orb off of its resting place which began to disorient him, but he was able to use the same method to navigate the blinding light chamber with his eyes held securely shut. After a short few moments, he emerged with the second orb.

“Nice.” Herilon smiled as he watched Aegis emerge.

“That was easy. You think that the essence will be behind this first door?” Ren asked excitedly as Aegis and Trexon made their way towards the hand-shaped pedestals flanking the door.

“I doubt it.” Trexon replied. “Let's put the orbs into the stone hands at the same time.”

“Right.” Aegis nodded. “On 3.” He held the orb directly above the palm of the pedestal’s hand grip, locking eyes with Trexon who did the same. “1. 2. 3.” Aegis called out, and on three they both dropped their respective orbs into the stone hands. The moment the orbs fell, the stone hands came to life and tightly gripped the orbs, crushing them with a loud crunching, grinding sound.

A second later, new ancient runes began to glow atop the door between the pedestals that Trexon read out.

“There is no light and dark. Only life.” He read ominously. Before any others could react, the doors began to grind open, the stone scratching along the floor as it moved by itself, revealing a hallway forward lit by old, rusting torches that were bolted to the walls and enchanted with magic.

“What do you suppose that means?” Herilon asked.

“We’ll find out.” Aegis shrugged, taking the lead as the first to walk forward into the hallway. The other three followed behind him, the sound of their boots tapping on the cracked stone floors echoing off of the narrow hallway ahead of them.

“Remember… eyes open for traps.” Herilon whispered anxiously from behind Aegis, who kept his eyes peeled on the walls and floors for any abnormal creases or markings that would indicate a trap. There were none, and eventually the hall opened up into a large circular chamber.

A small staircase led from the entrance they stood at down to a lower floor below them. The floor below was covered in tangling, gnarled roots that grew into and out of the dirt floor of the chamber. The roots belonged to a large tree in the center of the chamber that grew up to the dome-shaped roof and had its canopy spread above them, with a small stream of water traveling from the left side of the chamber to the right.

The leaves of the tree were gray, and many had fallen and littered the floor of the chamber, sitting in piles amongst the dirt and roots. Despite the tree’s smaller size, the worn dark brown bark made it seem as if it was older than the Great Old One, and it was simply cramped and squished inside this tiny chamber despite the chamber being extremely large in and of itself.

All of this was visible to them not due to torches lighting the chamber, but ancient glowing gray runes that were carved into the walls of the chamber on all sides intermittently.

Aegis stopped at the top of the stairs and held his arm back to the others, turning to look at Ren.

“Can you try talking to it?”

“Sure…” Ren nodded, stepping forward to stand beside Aegis. Following this, he made a few strange wooden creaking noises with his mouth, and the others eagerly looked to the tree and waited for a response. They heard nothing, but expected as much.

“What’d he say?” Aegis asked Ren after a few seconds of silence.

“Nothing…” Ren replied hesitantly.

“Well, what’d you say?” Herilon asked.

“I said hello, we mean you no harm.” Ren said.

“Ask if it’s awake, or if it can hear you?” Trexon suggested. Ren nodded, then again spoke in his druidic language. Again, after a long few moments, there was no response.

“It might not be a wildling at all.” Aegis concluded, and the others shrugged. “Still, let’s be careful not to hurt it. Cross the room without stepping on the tree's roots in any way.” Aegis said, then took a deep breath and looked carefully at the ground in front of him covered in the gnarled roots.

“Easier said than done…” Herilon sighed.

“The runes on the walls are once again blocking all magic, save for divine.” Trexon motioned to them. “No flying or beast shifting.” He added with a disappointed shrug.

“Just nimble footwork! No problem!” Ren replied excitedly, leaping ahead of Aegis into an open spot on the ground.

“Be careful.” Trexon groaned at him, but Ren ignored him and made a few more hops over the roots, finding small spots of dirt free to stand on amongst the tangling roots. Aegis had been looking for his own path through the roots, but saw how quickly Ren was navigating the room and decided to follow behind him. Herilon and Trexon did the same shortly after, and it wasn’t long before the group had made it beyond the tree in the center and to the staircase on the opposite side, leading to the hallway further beyond. First Ren, then Aegis, then Trexon, and finally Herilon touched down on the stairs and ascended them, heading out of the chamber.

Just as they were about to leave, though, there was a loud creaking sound that echoed from the branches of the tree now at their backs that gave Ren pause. He quickly turned back to the tree and began making his own sounds in response. From there, the tree and Ren exchanged words while the others watched in confusion.

“He says he’s surprised to see living creatures with such care for life, stepping on his roots would’ve caused immense pain for him. He warns us that the final chamber’s defense has already been disabled, and the essence claimed.”

“What? What does he mean the essence is claimed?”

“That’s what I asked.” Ren nodded back. “He said a creature was attracted to the essences power and burrowed into this place, destroying the guardian of the final chamber and eating the essence. It has since made the chamber its home.” Ren explained.

“Did he say what sort of creature it was?” Trexon asked.

“He doesn’t know.” Ren shrugged.

“Great.” Aegis sighed, looking at the others. “Aura of beauty. Bless.” Aegis quickly cast, spreading buffs out to the others. “If it’s strong enough to destroy a wildling guardian, it’s probably going to be tough.”

His words caused a big smile to grow on Herilon and Ren’s faces. Aegis took the lead once more, fastening his mithral shield to his arm as Herilon readied his mithral greatsword, and the four marched down the final hallway of the shrine.

There was a tension in the air between the group much thicker than that of the previous hallway, all walking on with anticipation for the creature waiting for them in the final chamber.

Before it came into view, they heard it. A loud snorting sound that matched the rhythm of breathing was carried along to their ears, bouncing off the walls of the narrow stone hallway. Once they heard it, they slowed their step and walked as quietly as possible until reaching the end of the hallway and laying eyes on the final chamber.

Like the previous chambers, it was a large dome shape, but the entire left side had been destroyed and carved into via a crudely created tunnel. Just as the tree had described, something had burrowed from the earth into the shrine and created a great amount of destruction, with rocks and debris scattered about. Due to this, the left side of the chamber contrasted heavily with the rather pristine right side of the chamber which was still intact - save for the ancient runes on the walls that had large claw marks in them.

On the opposite side of the chamber from which Aegis and his party had entered sat an elevated platform with an altar on it, of which Aegis imagined the essence had once stood but was no longer present. In front of the platform, strewn about across the floor were fragments of a once humanoid-shaped statue. Its form was discernable due to a few pieces still intact, though just barely. Aegis could only conclude that this was the remains of the previous guardian of this chamber.

Then, finally, snuggled against the back wall as far from them as possible, behind the altar and the elevated platform, was the culprit responsible for all the chaos within this chamber. [Yallow Nux(Elite) - Level 163] Was visible floating above its head. Its chest was visibly contracting with each snoring breath, but its eyes remained closed and unaware of their presence.

Aegis was not familiar with a monster with this name, so his first act was to turn to Trexon for possible information. Unfortunately, the look of confusion on Trexon’s face and the shrug he gave back to him told Aegis that Trexon had never seen or heard of a Yallow Nux before either. Thus, Aegis turned to analyzing its physical appearance to get as much information as he possibly could before they engaged it.

The first, most glaringly obvious detail of the creature was that it was emanating a bright glowing white light from within its exo-skeletal body. The light was so bright it almost appeared to make the creature itself transparent, despite it otherwise being not see-through. The essence that it had eaten could be seen swirling around inside the creatures body as a blob of wavey liquid light, clearly the source of the creatures glowing.

Otherwise, it resembled an elongated crocodile, with a short flat snout rather than an elongated one, and 12 limbs rather than four. It had three pairs of legs on the underside of its stomach, but a matching three sets of short arms on its back. Additionally, its tail, which was curled up around its body in its sleeping position, was three pronged with sharp boney white spikes sticking out.

The skin around its face was rough and covered in strange spiky tendrils as well, making its mouth crease and eyelids barely visible. It’s skin was primarily brown with spots of black and dark orange, beyond the glowing white central part of its body due to the essence.

“It’s not a beast, I’m not gaining any new beast shifting forms from seeing it.” Ren messaged through the party interface in order to keep quiet.

“Well, let’s take advantage of it being asleep and sneak up on it.” Aegis messaged back, and the others nodded. From there, they all slowly approached the creature, carefully navigating through the room without disturbing any loose stones or making too much noise. The closer they got, the louder the snoring got, but they all managed to close in enough to ready strikes against the creature.

Ren shifted his left and right hands into gigantic beast claws, Herilon held his greatsword above it, Aegis took out his claws, and Trexon readied a fire spell in his palms. The group lined up atop the back of the raised platform, now standing behind the altar and had nothing but the creature and the back wall of the chamber in front of them.

Aegis looked to the others and saw them all ready to strike, and began counting down silently with his fingers from three. The others nodded, and he lowered one finger down to two. Then one. Then, none, and in unison all four players struck out at the sleeping beast with all of their might.

Except, in unison, all of their strikes through up the same message

You deal 0 damage. (Target is indestructible).

The sound of metal and magic clanking against the hardened scales of the creature rang out through the chamber, causing it to open its large, glowing white eyes. It began to stand up with a low growl as the group anxiously stumbled backwards away from the creature, now awake but unharmed.

“Uh… Aegis?” Herilon mumbled worriedly.

“It’s gotta be because of the essence it ate.” Aegis concluded, his voice sounding anxious as the creature extended its lower legs as a show of dominance, unwrapping its tail and standing tall to show off its large form in an attempt to intimidate the four.

“So how do we kill it?!” Ren asked, excited rather than afraid though.

“No idea.” Aegis replied back before the creature let out a loud, deafening roar that shook the chamber around them.