Spiteful Healer

Chapter 126: Battle of Rene

Chapter 126: Battle of Rene

The Beulgadine beast let out a strange cry that sounded like a mix between a dolphin and a howling wolf, baring its fangs towards the land of Rene. Once it had, the Gnolls behind it all let out their own battlecries, sounding eerily similar to the hyenas they resembled. Following that, with the mounted Beulgadine in front, they charged forward towards Aegis and the other defenders.

“Anything we should know about Beulgadines?” Aegis asked Finley anxiously as he stood on the front lines of the defending players, all falling silent and eagerly watching the charging army of gnolls approaching.

“Uhm. Yeah, Beulgadines are dragon eaters, and imitate some of their attacks. Particularly their breath attacks, I think green Beulgadines breathe acid.” Finley replied, though he sounded unsure of himself. Thankfully that fact was clarified as Aegis watched a thick, viscous bright green liquid begin to seep out of the sides of the mouth of the Beulgadine.

“Focus on the smaller enemies first.” Aegis commanded his raid party with a loud shout. “Aura of Beauty. Bless, Bless.” Aegis quickly blessed himself and Rakkan as the light from the aura exploded outwards from him. He could see that many of the nearby players began to benefit from its effects. “Let’s make sure the leader and his pet don’t wipe anyone out with big attacks.” Aegis said to Rakkan, and Rakkan nodded.

“Rune:Echo, Rune:Frostbrand.” Rakkan cast, creating a copy of himself, both versions wielding frostbrand longswords.

“Shit, I think it’s charging up its breath already.” Aegis said anxiously as he watched the torso of the Beulgadine begin to bloat upwards like a balloon. “OPEN FIRE!” Aegis shouted as he jumped over the trench. Rakkan jumped over after him as arrows and magic flew over their heads and crashed into the surrounding fields, most of the attacks missed but some made it far enough to hit the charging army of gnolls.

“This is going to be a really short fight if I let that thing breathe acid on all these players.” Aegis shouted as he ran forward as fast as he could to intercept the charging beast, and Rakkan followed after him. Just as it got close enough to breathe its acid breath on the players, Aegis got close enough to block the majority of its wide flat mouth with his shield as it burped up a huge stream of viscous green liquid that shot outwards in a cone.

“SHIELDWALL!” Aegis shouted as he held his shield in front of himself. Due to his proximity to the monsters mouth he was able to prevent the cone from passing him with the shieldwall ability of his Shield Mastery Skill, successfully protecting the players behind him from the attack - but he had another problem.

You take 5210 Acid damage.

Enchanted Iron Shield of Eirene’s durability has dropped by 100.

“Hyah hyah hyah!” The leader gnoll laughed from atop the Beulgadine as it watched the acid blast against Aegis’ shield with a great big smile. The other gnolls swarmed around them towards the players.

You take 5193 Acid damage.

Enchanted Iron Shield of Eirene’s durability has dropped by 100.

Three seconds later the breath dealt damage to him again, and the stream of green liquid didn’t stop coming out. In that time, Aegis looked up and saw that the gnoll on top of the Beulgadine looked different than the others. It had a distinct black bulge of skin on its neck that was pulsating. It resembled the ghouls of suffering and anger that he’d seen back in Hrath’mir - the same sort of corruption that turned the Hrath’mir defenders into minions of darkness.

“HYEEEAAAAHAHA!” The [Gnoll Warlord(Elite) - Level 60] continued to laugh mockingly down at Aegis.

You take 5116 Acid damage.

Enchanted Iron Shield of Eirene’s durability has dropped by 100.

Enchanted Iron Shield of Eirene has been destroyed.

“How long does this thing breathe for?!” Aegis shouted in disbelief as the acid continued to spew out of its mouth, and his shield vanished from his left arm.

“AEGIS!” Rakkan shouted out as the time between damage intervals counted down and Aegis’ health sat below 1000 remaining. At the last moment, before Aegis’ skin was burned through by the acid breath, Rakkan’s echo jumped into the breath in front of Aegis and pushed him out of its path. This destroyed Rakkan’s echo and redirected a portion of the damage back to him, bringing Rakkan to nearly half health, but the breath continued and spewed beyond them, over the trench, melting a large portion of the lower level players’ health bars away and cutting down the amount of players defending Rene drastically. Luckily, though, the breath ended a few seconds after that.

“15 seconds, I guess.” Aegis stood back up in disbelief at how fast the situation went horribly downhill.

“BURN IT TO THE GROUND!” The Warlord shouted in a high pitched laugh as he motioned over Aegis and Rakkan towards Rene, ignoring them. The [Beulgadine - Level 60] took two steps forward and prepared to charge past them as it let out another disgusting small burp of acid.

“Challenging Roar!” Aegis cast at the beast, drawing its attention onto himself. “You might be elite, but your little dog here isn’t.” Aegis shouted at the Warlord as the Beulgadine stopped stepping forward and turned to glare at Aegis with its large bulging black eyes.

“Hrmmm.” The Warlord grunted angrily as he watched his mount do this, yanking its reins to get it back on course, and it worked for a moment.

“Challenging roar!” Aegis cast again, getting the Beulgadine to disobey the Warlord a second time.

“Baldskin gets in my way, baldskin loses head.” The Warlord cackled angrily as he let go of the reins and hopped off the back of the Beulgadine as it stomped towards Aegis. Aegis was now becoming more accepting of the fact that he no longer had a shield and he took a few steps backwards as the Beulgadine gnashed its fangs together menacingly in his direction.

“Heal, Heal,” Aegis quickly began casting on himself. “Healing wind, Healing wind.” He cast the spells on himself and Rakkan, but he didn’t have time to get any more spells off. In the time he took to cast those, both he and Rakkan watched as the Warlord drew out two longswords in both of his hands, then, slowly, one by one, more longswords began to appear floating above the ground behind the Warlord until there were a total of five.

“NPCs can be battlemasters too?” Aegis asked Rakkan as they both saw it happen and watched a big grin grow over the Warlord’s face.

“Yep.” Rakkan took a deep breath. “Rune:Echo!” He copied himself again quickly just as the Beulgadine and the Warlord lunged forward at Aegis. Aegis rolled to the left to avoid a gnashing bite attack while Rakkan moved to intercept the Warlord with his echo, making sure to have a spear and longsword in the hands of both himself and his echo, and began attempting to strike out at the Warlord while avoiding his 7 swords.

Arrows and spells from the other players flew through the air all around them at the army of charging gnolls while this was happening. The other players that survived the acid breath attack were still fighting the gnoll army with determination, following Aegis' orders. But there were just so many gnolls that Aegis knew he and Rakkan weren't going to be getting any help with the Warlord and the Beulgadine anytime soon.

“Heal, Heal!” Aegis shouted, continuously casting it on himself as he tried to get back to full health while the Beulgadine continued to lunge out at him with his chomping fangs and gnarly front claws, stomping around the battlefield as it did so. He saw that Rakkan, too, was taking a lot of damage from the Warlord, even though he was able to parry most of the sword attacks. Aegis found a few time windows in between the strikes to get in close enough to cast heal spells on Rakkan as well, keeping them both alive despite the massive amounts of damage they were both taking from these two enemies.

“BREATHE!” The Warlord suddenly shouted at the Beulgadine, and after he had, Aegis watched as the Beulgadine’s body began to balloon up once more as it prepared to use another big acid breath attack. This time, Aegis didn’t have a shield to try and stop it, and the Beulgadine turned to face the remaining players that were fighting to defend Rene from behind the trenches.

“Oh no you don’t.” Aegis shouted anxiously as he dashed behind the Beulgadine to get on the side of it that was closer to the forest and the army of charging gnolls. “CHALLENGING ROAR!” Aegis cast at the last second, causing the Beulgadine to quickly jerk its head around right before it blasted out a stream of acid, in order to try and face Aegis. Due to this, the blast of acid spewed back behind the beast and towards the army of approaching gnolls.

Aegis ran to the side of the beast's mouth, grabbing onto its smaller front legs to steer clear of the front of the mouth as it continued to turn to the side in an attempt to breath on Aegis. The end result was that it hosed down the entire left side of the gnoll army, decimating their forces. Aegis was running out of room to turn though, and the stream of acid kept coming. It was only a few seconds of spewing before he’d inadvertently need to turn the beast towards the players, or else dive in front of the breath himself to stop the Beulgadine from rotating towards them.

Just as Aegis was trying to think of a solution to this situation though, an arrow whistled through the sky from the rooftops of Rene and plunged itself into the side of the Beulgadine. Seconds later, it shot out vines into the earth all around the beast, binding its legs and preventing it from turning anymore. Somehow, from somewhere within Rene, Darkshot had hit the beast with a pinning shot and saved Aegis.

“I’m so fucking cool.” Darkshot whispered to himself excitedly as he sat atop the Forge of Rene’s roof, using the darkness of the rooftop and the contrast of the bright red flames of the forge below him to make it hard for anyone to see him. He nocked another arrow as Darkwing cooed excitedly on his shoulder, as if cheering him on, and this time fired the shot at the Warlord. “Pinning shot.” Darkshot whispered, and the arrow flew true, hitting the Warlord and wrapping him in vines that bound him to the earth for a moment.

Darkshot watched as Aegis and Rakkan took advantage of these binding attacks to back up from the two enemies and heal up, eat steaks, and regroup.

“I shoot from the darkness.” Darkshot grinned proudly, but suddenly another player hopped up onto the roof of the forge beside him with a bird on his shoulder.

"Nice shots." Quiver said with his bow drawn, sporting the Blades of Kalmoore tabard. "Mind if I join you?" He added as he nocked an arrow and took aim at an approaching gnoll, shooting it as he crouched a few meters away from Darkshot on the rooftop.

"No... not at all." Darkshot watched him curiously, particularly eying the bird on his shoulder, a hawk named [Sharpclaw - Level 50]. As he stared at it, Quiver pulled another arrow out and turned back to glance at Darkshot, noticing him staring. He then turned to eye the bird on Darkshot's shoulder.

"Oh, a pigeon? You don't see those often." Quiver said with a look of surprise before turning to fire another arrow.

"Yeah, but he's not just a pigeon. He's a Kalmoorian pigeon." Darkshot replied in his deep theatrical voice as he nocked another arrow and shot it as well.

"Oh, neat. What's their special skill?" Quiver asked curiously as he also shot an arrow over the city towards the battlefield.

"Special Skill?" Darkshot asked curiously.

"Yeah, you know. Every bird type has a unique skill. Like Sharpclaw for example," Quiver whistled and Sharpclaw took off from Quiver's shoulder and suddenly began spinning like a drill rapidly as his body began to glow red. "Hawkshot!" Quiver shouted as he fired an arrow at Sharpclaw. Sharpclaw spun into the arrow and seemingly merged with it, then the two crashed into the field in the middle of 15 gnolls, exploding in a burst of red energy and releasing a huge shockwave, killing all 15 nearby gnolls. "Like that." Quiver grinned as he watched Sharpclaw emerge elegantly from the dust and debris of the explosion and begin soaring through the night sky back towards his shoulder.

"Oh... well... I'm not sure yet." Darkshot replied apprehensively as he turned to look at Darkwing.

"Hm. Well, I'm sure you'll figure it out. He's still only level 1, right? Maybe he hasn't unlocked it yet." Quiver replied with a look of pity as he shrugged, but this look annoyed Darkshot and he turned to Darkwing.

"Can you do something cool? Like, you know, Pigeonshot or something?" Darkshot whispered to his pigeon. It just cooed back at him and turned its head sideways curiously "Bah, whatever, we don't need something like that." He grumbled as he nocked another arrow, preparing to fire it over the battlefield.

Rakkan and Aegis continued to engage the Warlord and the Beulgedine as the battle raged on around them. Once the pinning shots had worn off they were forced to re-engage, but moments later they watched as the Warlord leaped back away from Rakkan to get some distance and grabbed a gnarled horn that hung from a chain around his neck to blow into it. The sound of the horn echoed loudly across the battlefield and the land of Rene.

“What’s he doing, sounding a retreat?” Aegis asked Rakkan as they both listened to the warhorn blow, looking at each other confused. But that was far from what happened next, as suddenly a line of completely black gnolls rushed out of the western treeline towards them. They were incredibly fast.

“Challenging Roar!” Aegis shouted as they got close, but they ignored him and Rakkan completely. Aegis could only briefly catch a glimpse of their nameplates as they ran by, [Gnoll Raider(Elite) - Level 55]. There were 10 in total and they were moving with purpose towards Rene.

“Shit, what are they after?” Rakkan asked as he watched them jump over the trench and quickly maneuvered around the distracted players that were engaged with the other gnolls.

“I don’t know, but we’ve gotta stop them.” Aegis shouted as he started running to pursue the dark gnolls, but suddenly 3 swords plunged into the ground in front of him, blocking his path.

“No. Hyah hah hyah.” The Warlord cackled as he charged at Aegis.

“Don’t think he’s gonna let us.” Rakkan shouted as he turned and moved to cut off the Warlord from charging at Aegis with his echo, the Beulgadine stomping towards them as well with a loud screeching dolphin howl.

“Then we gotta kill these two quickly. Can you handle the battlemaster gnoll?” Aegis asked Rakkan.

“Yeah… I’ll try.” Rakkan took a deep breath as he engaged with it.

"Darkshot, Lina, heads up, you guys got company." Aegis quickly messaged them through the friends list interface as he leapt backwards to dodge a claw strike from the Beulgadine.

Darkshot watched from the forge rooftop as the 10 raiders ran down the street towards the town square of Rene. He saw that Lina had gotten the message, too. She and Tullan positioned themselves in front of a line of Rene guards that included Farlion. They were lined up in front of the town square, preparing to protect it from the approaching raiders. As Darkshot followed them with his eyes, Quiver moved to stand beside him and did the same.

"We oughta help them out, huh?" Quiver whispered and Darkshot nodded, nocking an arrow and aiming carefuly at the charging raiders.

"Yeah." Darkshot replied. He wanted to wait until the raiders engaged with Lina and the guards, so he held his shot patiently. However, suddenly Quiver fired an arrow well before they engaged the guards, hitting one of the raiders and dealing massive damage. This revealed their location, causing 5 of the 10 raiders to stop charging and turn and glare up at them on the rooftop.

"Shit, they found us." Quiver replied anxiously.

"Yeah no shit, you shot too early!" Darkshot groaned at him.

"Oh, my bad, I was trying to get 'em before they got to the guards." Quiver said apologetically as they watched the 5 raiders use their hyena hind legs to jump with great height up towards them, the nearest one drawing out a halberd and striking it downward towards Darkshot. Darkshot leapt backwards and avoided the strike, causing the weapon to crash into the roof of the forge, then hopped back again and released an arrow at the gnoll.

"Pinning shot!" Darkshot shouted, hitting the gnoll at nearly point blank range and causing the shot to bind the gnoll to the roof using an explosion of thick vine-like ropes. With it stuck in place, Darkshot backed up and fired a multishot to hit it easily, while two other raiders jumped up at Quiver, forcing him back away on the opposite side of the curved forge roof and cutting him off from Darkshot's line of sight. He had to have faith that the high level guy would be fine taking on two of them, though, because the other three were engaging with him.

As Darkshot hit the pinned gnoll with six arrows, the other two raiders jumped up onto the roof beside, and behind him, surrounding him. Normally, a ranger caught in this situation would be in big trouble, a huge disadvantage. Having three higher level elite enemies surround him in melee range was tough, but Darkshot took a deep breath and did his best to remember his unarmed training. As one gnoll thrust a spear out at Darkshot, he deflected it with his bow, then sidestepped the other's sword strike and jumped off the roof to the ground to avoid further attacks while Darkwing cooed and took off into the air out of fear.

The moment Darkshot hit the ground, he spun his bow around and fired an arrow back up at the roof behind him. "Multishot, pinning shot!" He shouted, this time splitting his multshots so that two arrows hit each gnoll, pinning them to the roof above. It was a big drain on his mana, but all the shots landed, giving him a few seconds to fire arrows relentlessly at them as they were bound to the roof. Darkshot focused first on the initial raider, landing a good stream of arrow shots on him and killing him by the time the raiders wielding the sword and spear broke free and jumped down from the rooftop to reingage him.

This time, they were extremely aggressive. The one with the sword maneuvered behind Darkshot quickly as the one with the spear came at him from the front. He repeatedly thrust his spear forward at Darkshot from multiple angles, forcing Darkshot to dodge and deflect the strikes with his bow. Then, once flanking, the second raiding gnoll joined in attacking Darkshot with his sword. It took all of Darkshot's focus to dodge their strikes. He wanted to look for a chance to leap away and get distance so that he could fire his arrows at them, but they weren't giving him an opportunity to do it, they were relentless. Just from dodging repeatedly, he was running low on stamina, and this continued for a bit longer until Quiver reappeared atop the roof of the forge nearby, nocked an arrow, and shot it down at the two gnolls attacking Darkshot.

"Multishot!" Quiver shouted, splitting his arrow into 20 seperate arrows. Nine arrows hit one gnoll, and ten hit the other. One arrow, however, hit Darkshot, dealing 7210 damage and nearly killing him in one hit. "Oh, shit, sorry! I'm not so good at controlling so many arrows." Quiver replied flustered.

"Son of a bitch." Darkshot winced in pain as he looked at the arrow sticking out of his abdomen, yanking it out as the arrow disintigrated and the pain faded two seconds later.

"My bad." Quiver continued to apologize, bowing awkwardly.

"That hurts, man, I'm at pain threshold 10." Darkshot shouted frustratedly at him.

"You're still alive though, right? Phew." Quiver said with relief.

"Barely." Darkshot sighed. "You're lucky I didn't take any hits from those gnolls, or I'd be gone and you'd be a PKer." Darkshot shook his head in disbelief at this clumsy, high level Ranger staring down at him from above. But when Darkshot's eyes met his tabard again, he understood. It was a Blades of Kalmoore member, so Darkshot didn't expect much from him, and sighed.

"Really, that's impressive. They were elite, and higher level than you. Not even a single hit?" Quiver looked at Darkshot with a surprised expression that Darkshot ignored as he hopped back up onto the roof.

"Come on, let's focus and cover our allies." Darkshot said dismissively as he looked over the battlefield and saw that the battle had ended both in the town square and to the west of Rene.

"No need, I think we won." Quiver replied with a smile, and as he did, Darkwing fluttered down from the sky and landed back on Darkshot's shoulder, letting out a cheerful coo.

"Oh sure, now you come back." Darkshot grumbled at the pigeon.

A few moments earlier, on the western edge of Rene...

It was hard - Rakkan was decent at controlling his echo now, but it only gave him access to four weapons versus the seven that the Warlord had. Even though it was only an Elite NPC, it was utilizing its seven longswords to repeatedly flank Rakkan and his echo. He was able to parry most of the strikes as they were clearly telegraphed, but it kept him on the defensive and he could barely deal any damage himself.

This was just an NPC Battlemaster, and it was only using longswords. A real battlemaster would be way stronger, he thought to himself. As Rakkan failed to block several more strikes, Aegis was forced to stop what he was doing with the Beulgadine and heal Rakkan’s health back up.

“If only I had a damn shield!” Aegis shouted out angrily as he jumped backwards to dodge a claw strike from the Beulgedine. If it wasn’t for Aegis’ support, Rakkan would’ve lost to the Battlemaster Warlord Gnoll a long time ago. He wasn’t good enough, not by a longshot, and as this fact settled into Rakkan's head, he got progressively more frustrated with himself. The anger only made it harder for him to control the echo, though, and things just got worse from there and he started to take more damage.

“Come on Rakkan! I can’t heal that fast!” Aegis shouted anxiously as he watched Rakkan start to take sword strikes repeatedly, his health dipping dangerously low as Aegis skidded his leather shoes across the dirt to get close enough and cast another heal on him.

“Sorry, it’s just… he’s so damn fast!” Rakkan shouted in frustration.

“Here!” A familiar girl's voice called out from behind them, and Aegis and Rakkan turned to see Amlie running towards them. Once close enough, she flung a fist full of soil at the Warlord. The Warlord, Rakkan, and Aegis all stopped what they were doing to look at her confused. “Sprinkling Sprout!” She shouted as her fingers began to glow blue, and suddenly tiny trickling streams of water shot out of her fingertips towards the Warlord as she stood between Aegis and Rakkan a few meters away from him, and they all continued to look at her, dumbfounded.

“Amlie, what are you doing?” Rakkan asked her.

“He’s a Warlord, not a garden.” Aegis said.

“Are you sure about that?!” Amlie smiled as she waved her hands towards the Warlord. “Rapid growth, rapid growth, rapid growth.” She repeatedly cast a farmer skill, revealing that what she had thrown at the Warlord wasn’t just a handful of soil, it had seeds in it as well, and large thorny vines began to explode out of them, entangling the Warlord.

"I need to be able to beat this guy on my own." Rakkan protested her actions as they watched the Warlord begin slashing out at the thorny vines, taking minimal damage and easily cutting through them.

“Why? It’s my village too! We're all playing together, aren't we?!” Amlie hit Rakkan in the shoulder angrily. His initial reaction was annoyance, and he opened his mouth to shout back at her until he saw the determined, desperate expression on her face. He paused and took a deep breath to regained control of his emotions in that small reprieve that Amlie had granted him, and rather then let his frustration take over he forced himself to remain calm and think logically.

"Aegis, I can't take this guy by myself." Rakkan admitted reluctantly.

"Of course not, we're only level 50. You only have two runes." Aegis patted him on the shoulder. "But we'll get there." Aegis said reassuringly as the Beulgedine began to balloon its stomach upward again, preparing another breath attack. “I still need a goddamn shield!” Aegis shouted.

“I got some! Woof!” Ruffily shouted from behind them. Aegis turned to see Ruffily tossing four iron shields towards him like frisbees, and he jumped up and caught one in the air. Without looking at its stats, he threw it on his left arm to equip it.

“Let's try this!” Aegis lunged forward to stand between the bloating Beulgedine and the Warlord. “VARIBHADRA!” He shouted out, and a huge blast of white light erupted out from Aegis in a dome shape, engulfing the two creatures as four transparent red arms briefly appeared sticking out of Aegis’ shoulders, and two other red versions of Aegis’ face shimmered on his left and right side overtop of his ears momentarily.

You deal 2630 Holy damage

You deal 2630 Holy damage

Level Up!: Varibhadra has reached Level 2!

Level Up!: Varibhadra has reached Level 3!

Level Up!: Varibhadra has reached Level 4!

Level Up!: Varibhadra has reached Level 5!

It was a lot of damage, it meant that collectively in the past 5 minutes Aegis had taken and healed over 50 000 damage. But it wasn’t enough to kill either of them, and the Beulgadine continued to balloon its stomach upwards, preparing to bellow out another stream of acid.

“That’s enough of that!” Finley shouted as he appeared from the side of the Beulgedine, piercing his fancy enchanted longsword into the side of the beast and dealing 9340 damage in a single hit. He then pulled his blade back and struck it several more times, causing it to cry out in agony as the scaly green beast collapsed onto the ground, disintegrating due to hitting 0 health.

“Where the hell has that guy been this whole time?” Amlie watched with wide eyes.

“You told us to kill the smaller ones first, so…” Finley shrugged as he motioned around the battlefield and Aegis saw that nearly all of the other gnolls were now defeated. Behind them stood only high level players remaining, most of which Aegis recognized to be ex-White Flames members. All of the lower level players had been killed, but there were easily 20 to 30 defenders still standing. Aegis wasn’t the only one who saw this, though. The Warlord looked around nervously as he took in the fact that his army was now gone, and he was the last one standing.

“Want me to handle that one too?” Finley asked nonchalantly as he motioned to the Warlord.

“Yeah, if you don’t mind.” Aegis nodded with relief. Finley gave a shrug, and as he charged forward at the Warlord, the Warlord attempted to turn and run away, but wasn’t fast enough. After a few slashes from the Level ?? paladin, the Warlord went down.

"There's still the gnolls that ran into the city." Aegis said as he hastily opened his interface to check on Darkshot and Lina, seeing them both alive and well. "Are you guys okay?" Aegis messaged them.

"Yup, nothing Darkshot can't handle." Darkshot replied proudly.

"We're okay, the raiders are all dead." Lina replied. Hearing this, Aegis took one last look around the battlefield and confirmed that all the gnolls were dead - the raid was over and Rene was safe.

"I think we won." Aegis let out a sigh of relief, which was contagious. Ruffily, Rakkan and Amlie all smiled with relief as well. "That was close."

"Yeah, we're lucky all these high levels were around." Amlie said as she looked between Finley and the other high level players hanging around the trenches. Rakkan and Aegis heard her say this and looked at each other, both with an identical expression on their faces.

"We need to get way stronger." Aegis said, and Rakkan nodded back at him in agreement.

A few moments earlier, at the town square of Rene...

"I'm just going to hide over here." Chax said awkwardly as he quickly ran behind one of the market stalls lining the square, while Lina, Tullan and Farlion formed up the line of guards to block the western road into the square. They saw the group of 10 raiding gnolls charging towards them, then watched as an arrow was shot from the forge nearby, drawing five of them away.

"Well that's lucky." Tullan smirked as he watched them split up.

"Don't let the guards die, okay?" Lina said to Tullan.

"Aye, I got it, Aegis loves his NPCs." Tullan nodded as he pulled out a blacksmithing hammer and took a fighting stance.

"Ready your weapons!" Farlion said as the guards all drew out spears and held them forward. Lina looked around at the guards, then ahead at the level 55 elite gnolls charging forward, and got anxious. She knew from experience that even though they had the numbers advantage and were close in level, the difference between Elite NPCs and non-elite was too great. If she let them fight outright, the guards wouldn't all survive.

"Smokebomb!" Lina cast, throwing out a ball of smoke towards the five charging gnolls to blind their vision. Once she had she shadowstepped into the smoke and began slashing out at them rapidly, dealing as much damage as she could as fast as she could. "Flurry!" She said to increase her attack speed, but still, despite her efforts, it wasn't enough. Once the smoke faded, two of the raiders turned to focus on her, while the other three charged forward at Tullan and Farlion.

"I got 'em!" Tullan shouted as he charged forward. "Wall of Iron!" He said as his fingers began to glow silver, and he encased one gnoll in an Iron cage, preventing it from moving as it angrily slammed into the bars that had manifested around him. "That'll keep him trapped for a bit. And you!" Tullan turned to a second raider and bashed it in the head as hard as he could with his hammer, drawing its attention onto himself. The gnoll retaliated by thrusting its spear at Tullan, which he failed to dodge. Luckily, though, Tullan had plenty of health and armor and could take many hits from these enemies before he was in any real danger.

The fifth gnoll, however, made it past Lina and Tullan and charged into the line of guards. With a wide swing of its longsword that it wielded, it was able to break up their spear formation, then shoulder checked its way through the line, knocking over two guards and pushing Farlion to the side. It then quickly spun around and began thrusting its sword out rapidly at the back of the guards, who were slow to react and turn around. Lina wanted to do something to help, but the two gnolls attacking her didn't give her any room to breathe - she knew if she shadow stepped back to the town square near the guards, these two gnolls would follow her and only make the situation worse. She couldn't do anything but believe in Farlion and the guards to handle the one elite raider.

Farlion did his best and fought with everything he had. He had been trained rigorously by Rakkan, and practiced endlessly within the training grounds, as did all of the guards. But in the end, he was still a non-elite NPC, his abilities were limited to what skill assist could do. He wasn't able to think for himself and use creative maneuvers, he was locked into specific attack patterns, as per his programming, and the elite raiding gnoll was not. The raiding gnoll had no trouble identifying Farlion and the other guards attack patterns, and started dealing massive amounts of damage to them.

"Oi, pick on one of us yeh damn brute!" Tullan shouted at the gnoll, trying to taunt it away after he'd seen the Elite raiding gnoll knock Farlion to the ground, Farlion getting dangerously low on health.

"I feast on manflesh tonight!" The raider ignored Tullan as it cackled excitedly with a hyena-like laugh, bearing its fangs as it prepared to lunge down at Farlion and finish him off.

"Not if I can help it!" An unfamiliar female voice suddenly shouted, as a blast of green magic shot from across the town square, hitting the gnoll in the back before it could strike Farlion. They all turned to see a human female Cleric approaching from the southern side of Rene. She was wearing a full suit of armor with a shield and a scepter, the symbol of two snakes intertwined with one another in an S like shape etched into her armor and the front of her shield. She had short red hair with white streaks and bright pink eyes, looking incredibly beautiful as she held her scepter out in the direction of the gnoll. Lina didn't recognize the spell she was casting, but she casted it a few more times and managed to kill the gnoll, saving Farlion. She then quickly turned her attention to the other gnolls that were fighting Lina and Tullan and made quick work of them.

"Hey, sorry. I just got here from Kordas, they said this is the place to go for adventures and quests in Kalmoore. Boy, they weren't kidding." She smirked sarcastically as she held her hand out to greet Tullan and Lina as they approached, catching their breath.

"Thanks fer the save." Tullan smiled as he shook her hand.

"Thanks." Lina smiled at her and shook her hand as well while looking to confirm that none of the guards had died. Luckily, they were all okay, despite having taken a lot of damage. Once Lina was sure they were fine, she turned her attention back on this stranger, seeing the name above her head. [Cheryl - ??].