Spiteful Healer

Chapter 74: Shield Mastery Pt. 2

“Kitty, you gotta get down from there!” Aegis shouted up at the Snowgir as it glanced up at the whelp. The whelp pulled back its neck as flames built up around its nostrils, but the Snowgir didn’t react by doing anything but curling its tail up and hissing wildly at the whelp. There wasn’t time for Aegis to climb the pillar and block the whelp’s inevitable flame attack, at least not by normal means. “Shit!” Aegis desperately unbuckled his shield from his left arm as the whelp shot a small bolt of fire out of its mouth down at the Snowgir. Aegis chucked his shield upwards with all his might, aiming it at the Firebolt. The shield spun around and ended up getting hit on the leather backing, but it was enough to absorb the impact of the firebolt. Unfortunately this also sent Aegis’ shield flying away from him as the Dustcharger closed in on the pillar.

Aegis wasn’t the best at math, but he was pretty sure that he’d be dead in a single hit from that Dustcharger without a shield. He had to risk letting it hit the pillar. As the Dustcharger collided with the pillar, Aegis rolled across the sandy floor to where his shield was, sliding a meter to reach it as fast as possible. When he turned back around he saw first hand why the Dustcharger was called a Dustcharger. The red mist that burst out of the front of its skull on impact quickly disintegrated the stone of the pillar, causing it to break apart and crumble downward. At the last second before the Snowgir went into a freefall it lept off of the top of the pillar with all of its might, landing a few meters away from the Dustcharger. Aegis didn’t have time to just idly watch, as the Whelp in the sky was charging up another fire attack.

“Come here, you damn cat!” Aegis shouted angrily, but the Snowgir instead ran for another nearby pillar. Aegis dashed as fast as he could to get behind the Snowgir just in time to block a bolt of flames from the Whelp.

You take 0 Fire damage.

The flash of red flames on the front of his shield blocked his sight for a moment, and once it had cleared he saw the Dustcharger was already midcharge towards him. He braced at the last second to stop its charge from getting through him, digging his feet in and redirecting the Dustcharger away. Behind him the Snowgir was already clawing its way up the next pillar, and above the Whelp was maneuvering itself closer to get an easier shot on the white cat. But worse, Aegis heard a familiar scurrying sound and turned to the far side of the arena to see that the Crawler’s thrashing had finally been successful, it was now back to standing upright.

“Fuck me.” Aegis said as he took a deep breath, looking to see the timer was still at 4 minutes remaining. “I can’t protect you up there…” Aegis shouted, but his own words gave him an idea. He rushed forward towards the Crawler to cut off its charge while the Dustcharger recomposed itself and began to paw at the ground, facing the pillar the Snowgir was climbing. The Crawler wasn’t interested in doing it’s lunge attack on Aegis, rather it wanted to charge through him to get at the Snowgir like before, so Aegis tried blocking its path with his shield, using brace as he had done the first time, but as he managed to redirect the momentum of the Crawler’s pincers downward into the tile floor, he steered the angle of his shield to flip the long body of the Crawler upwards towards the whelp. It worked, somewhat. The whelp was smart enough to fly out of the way of the large flailing Crawler as it flipped through the air, but making the whelp move was enough to interrupt its firebolt, and in that time the Dustcharger’s next attack hit the pillar and vaporized it, forcing the Snowgir to jump down back to the ground.

It felt counterintuitive to let the pillars be destroyed, they seemed like safe spots for the Snowgir, but Aegis now understood why they’d all been destroyed for Yeras - the pillars existence was actually a disadvantage. Aegis knew he needed to get rid of them if he wanted a shot at protecting the Snowgir, regardless of how much more dangerous the ground would be. Out of the 8 pillars, 2 had been disintegrated and one was destroyed due to the crawlers thrashing, leaving 5 remaining, and the Snowgir wasted no time rushing towards the next closest pillar.

In addition, unlike last time, the crawler had flipped upside down near a pillar and was able to easily wiggle its legs on the side of it to flip itself upright immediately. All three wild creatures had no interest in each other, or Aegis, and they all locked in on the terrified Snowgir sprinting across the arena to the pillar furthest to them. Aegis and the Crawler both moved as fast as they could to be the first one to get to the Snowgir, but the Crawler was significantly faster than him.

Aegis couldn’t lose focus on the other two either. As he sprinted towards the Snowgir, he positioned himself to be in front of the whelpling flying above as it charged its fire breath. Just as the Snowgir reached a pillar’s base, the Whelp shot out a firebolt over Aegis’ head at it. Aegis jumped up with all the might in his legs to intercept the shot with his shield, blocking it with a brace, but the force of the blast pushed him back down to the ground and knocked him off balance, causing him to roll out of a tumble. In the time it took him to regain his balance, the Snowgir had reached the top of the pillar, but the crawler reached the base of it and began spiraling up the pillar with its sharp limbs. As it coiled upwards it overtook the Snowgir. Aegis rushed to the base of the pillar, but there was nothing he could do to get between the crawler and the Snowgir, it was caught in a spiral formed by the crawlers body as it’s upper body crested over the top of the pillar.

“You’ve gotta jump kitty!” Aegis shouted up at it. The Snowgir looked at the pincers of the Crawler as it pulled its head back, preparing to lunge forward. “”MEOW MEOW!” Aegis shouted in pure desperation, but it worked, the Snowgir glanced in his direction and saw him opening his arms as if he’d catch it. At the very last second, the Snowgir jumped down from the pillar towards Aegis. Rather than land in his arms, it pounced on his shield and bounced off to land on its feet nearby just as the pincers of the crawler crashed into the top of the pillar, the force causing the pillar to crack in half and collapse.

Aegis couldn’t take a break and watch though, he heard the familiar galloping of hooves approaching from behind him. He spun around just in time to brace the Dustcharger’s attack and redirect its momentum away.

“COME ON!” Aegis shouted at the three, his adrenaline pumping as the Snowgir positioned itself behind Aegis, cowering in fear with its hair on end. A bolt of flame from the Whelp shot towards Aegis over the Dustcharger as it began circling around to charge again and Aegis braced it easily. The Crawler uncoiling itself from the shattering pillar made a set of unnerviving chittering sounds that triggered the most primal of fears in the Snowgir, causing it to lung at Aegis’ back unexpectedly, wrapping its paws over his shoulders and digging its claws into his chest to hang on from behind as tightly as possible as a scared kitten would. It hurt, despite not dealing any damage Aegis could feel the claws digging deep into his skin through his leather armor. The weight on his back threw him off balance at first, but he saw it only as advantage. He dug his feet into a horse stance, preparing as the three creatures came at him all at once.

He didn’t need to run around anymore, the target he had to protect was with him on his back, he just has to hold is ground.

From the right, a lunging strike came from the Crawler. Aegis blocked it.

From above, a bolt of fire came from the whelp. Aegis blocked it.

From the left, the Dustcharger rammed into him, but Aegis blocked it.

“Almost there, come on!” Yeras shouted nervously, as Aegis watched the timer tick down to 2:30 and a sudden burst of cold air filled the arena. A wave of white mist rapidly seeped out of the dark hallway on the far side. Aegis couldn’t see what it was, but he had to prepare himself without losing focus on the three creatures beating on his shield in front of him.

Then, he spotted it, over the back of the lunging Crawler and under the wings of the flying Whelp, a spectral creature hovered into the arena. It took the form of a beautiful female human, her lower half transitioned from the waist down into mist that mixed in with the other mist that had filled the arena, and she wore a simple white dress over her pale light blue skin, long wavy white hair as she locked eyes with Aegis.

Aegis had no idea what to expect, reactively glancing at Yeras only to see him no longer watching cooly, but staring at this creature on the edge of his bench with eyes wide. Aegis turned back to the creature to see [Banshee - Level 30] sitting above its ahead. The only thing Aegis knew about banshee’s is that they-

“EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!” A deafening screech reverberated from the mouth of the spectral woman, cracking the tiles immediately below her as a shockwave of force spread from her mouth, visible through the mist as it travelled towards him extremely fast. It was if the air itself was rippling from the sound. It wasn’t something he could block with a shield, it was sound… Aegis jumped backwards with the Snowgir on his back and quickly pulled the beast around. The Snowgir was willing to move and adjust, but not fully let go as it clawed its way over Aegis’ shoulder just enough so that Aegis could squeeze his hands over the Snowgir’s ears as tightly as possible.

You take 2534 Psychic damage.

The sound was horrifying, Aegis felt it reverberate into his eardrums and inside his skull, like a life ending headache had just overcome him. It took everything he had to hold his hands over the Snowgir’s ears for those three seconds that the attack passed over them. Luckily for Aegis, the attack was indiscriminate and hit the other creatures as well, causing them to recoil in pain for a moment.

Once it ended it was clear the Snowgir still heard it and suffered from the sound, but was ultimately okay. Aegis released its ears to hold his shield out in front once more to block a bolt of flames from the whelp that flew at him from the distance. The flash of red light from the firebolt exploding on his shield blocked his vision for a second, and in that second, Aegis looked back to see that the Banshee was gone - but he felt a heavy gust of cold air from behind him. He’d seen this sort of movement enough thanks to Lina, he knew without turning around that the Banshee had teleported behind him somehow and dashed to the side just in time to put himself and the Snowgir out of reach of the banshee’s claw as her spectral hand swiped through the air at them.

Once he got a few dashes away he tried to analyze it. Shadowstep had rules, Lina can only jump in shadows, so what are this things rules? There’s sunlight so it’s not shadow, it’s- Aegis saw the mist emanating out of the lower half of the banshee. The mist, he concluded, and quickly did a wide sweeping swing of his shield to blow as much of it away from himself as possible. Just as he did, the banshee teleported behind him again, but no closer than the closest patch of mist that he’d fanned away.

Nonetheless, the spectral arm of the Banshee was an unknown. As she reached out to swipe at him, he’d no idea if it would be blocked by his shield or pass through it, and decided not to try his luck. Instead he dashed to the left to avoid it, taking stock of his stamina getting dangerously low now and not regenerating fast enough to keep up with how much he needed. He could hear but not see the scurrying sound of the crawler coming up from behind him and maneuvered around one of the remaining pillars the moment he saw it’s shadow grow up over his shoulder signalling it’s lunging attack was coming. At the last moment he sidestepped behind the pillar to cause the Crawler’s pincers to crash into it, crumbling chunks of rock down on him from above. The moment he cleared the debris a bolt of fire flew at him from above.

He raised his shield up to block it, then turned his shield to the right to stop an incoming Dustcharger attack, but as he redirected it he felt the cold chill close in behind him once more. He decided to lean his weight into the Dustcharger and use his brace momentum to move forward, tumbling into a forward sprint to dodge the imminent swiping claw of the Banshee behind him.

To his back left, the Crawler, Back right, the Banshee. Front left, the Dustcharger, Front right and above, the whelp. Quite possibly the worst position to be in, he was surrounded, and his first goal was to get the whelp at the same angle as the other three. The banshee was only teleporting to places he wasn’t looking, so as long as he ran forward he would be away from it, he thought as he sprinted towards the whelp.

The crawler scurried through the mist at incredible speeds and attempted to cut him off at the front, while the Whelp shot a firebolt straight down at him from above just as he got underneath it. Aegis raised his shield like an umbrella, but blinded by it he could not time his brace properly.

You take 1603 Fire damage.

One more hit and he was done, the flames were not felt through the shield though, so he was thankful for that. Once he’d gotten on the other side of the whelp he heard the galloping of the Dustcharger approaching him from the right side while seeing out of the corner of his eye the simultaneous arrival of the Crawler to his left.

Aegis did a wide sweeping forward swing of his shield to fan the mist as far from himself as he could, and in the same motion spun to face the other direction and dropped to a kneel with his right foot forward just in time to block the Dustcharger’s skull, followed by a second block to his other side for the lunging strike of the Crawler, then an immediate dash forward to avoid the swipe of the banshees claw as he felt its cold aura behind him, then an upwards flick of his shield to brace another bolt of fire from the whelp. As the creatures rebalanced themselves for their follow up strikes, Aegis ran. Offbalance and slower than usual due to the Snowgir hanging off of him, but he ran with every last bit of stamina he had left, to the far side of the arena. Turning around only when he heard the puff of flames from the whelp, being sure to block the strike with a 360 degree spin until he got to the wall on the far end where there was the least amount of mist. He did a sweeping swing of the shield once more to clear as much of it away as possible then pressed his and the Snowgir’s backs up as close to the wall as possible.

He was panting heavily, out of breath as a sign that he was nearly out of stamina. Aegis’ knew first hand what happened if he let his stamina hit 0. He had to conserve it, but he wasn’t sure which was using less stamina, bracing the attacks or trying to run away from them. He watched the Dustcharger do a wide loop around the arena to gather a large amount of momentum while the crawler curried along the wall on the left towards him. The whelp flew closer and positioned itself for another strike as the Banshee suddenly teleported in front of him, hovering slowly closer with an angry ghostly glare, bearing her jagged teeth as she prepared to swipe.

But suddenly, all of it vanished. The Banshee, the Underrealm Crawler, the Young Red Whelpling, and the Lanuskian Dustcharger. Even the Snowgir disappeared, and it was then Aegis saw that the timer on his interface had reached 0. The mist dissipated while the pillars began to reform themselves, and standing near the entrance staring at him was Marvin and Yeras. Yeras broke into an applause with a look of amazement on his face while Marvin finished waving his fingers around to repair his arena and simply crossed his arms.

Aegis was hoping to get a message that the quest had completed, but he got no such thing, and slowly walked towards Marvin and Yeras while catching his breath.

“You did well, you didn’t let any harm come to the Snowgir, and it only took you one try. It’s been a very, very long time since I’ve seen someone do that on their first attempt.” Marvin said as Yeras stopped clapping to listen. “Take a moment to breath.” He said as he watched Aegis’ heavy breathing. Aegis gave an appreciative nod and grabbed his knees. After a few moments his stamina climbed back above 100 and he felt calmer, standing up straight to look at Marvin.

“Now that your adrenaline has died down, I need to ask you. How did that feel?” Marvin asked, and Aegis knew from his love of taking test, that this one wasn’t over. He looked back at Marvin carefully, took a deep breath and answered honestly.

“Afraid.” Aegis said with a big release of air. “One wrong move, and I’d lose the thing I wanted to protect. It’s stressful, and scary, to watch something you care about face danger.” Aegis spoke while looking down at his shield arm.

“Yes, that is the path of a protector. That fear will drive you to improve, and will allow you to become a true master of the shield, so that the ones you care about will never suffer. That is your duty as a Shield Master.” Marvin said, and with that line, Aegis got the quest complete message.

“The biggest challenge for any protector, as you’ve no doubt experienced, is being where you need to be, when you need to be there. Interesting solution, throwing your shield to block a firebolt. Most who take this test fail the first time the whelp comes out, and come back with a strategy for it. You, on the other hand understand that it isn’t important to wield the shield, only that the shield is where it needs to be. You are ready to learn your intermediate Shield Mastery skill.” Marvin said this while drawing his shield off of his back and fastening it to his left arm. He hopped down into the arena and took a fighting stance.

“Allow me to demonstrate.” Marvin said as he drew out a dagger from his inventory, then suddenly flung it at Aegis’ head. It caught Aegis off guard but he had his shield up in time to block it - it never hit his shield however. “Guard!” Marvin shouted, and a projection of Marvin’s shield appeared in front of Aegis. It was transparent copy, floating in space, and was a single deep shade of yellow. Only the outline of the shield looked solid, the rest appeared as if it was foggy glass, but as the dagger hit the shield it bounced off of it.

“The damage is still taken by you and cannot be braced, but it allows you to protect those that are otherwise out of reach. No need to throw your shield around anymore.” Marvin smirked.

Quest Complete! 1/1 Marvin's Test Passed

Congratulations! You have advanced from Shield Mastery(Beginner): 30 to Shield Mastery(Intermediate): 30. You may now level this skill up to a maximum of 150.

Your use of the Shield Mastery skill has unlocked the Shield Mastery Ability: [Guard]

[Guard] - Shield Mastery(Intermediate)

Project your shield at a desired location that you can see within 15 meters. Any attacks that hit the front of the shield will be redirected to you as if you had blocked it with your shield. Attacks taken by the projection cannot be braced.

Cost: 20 Stamina

Duration: 2s

“I look forward to seeing your growth in the future.” Marvin said as he turned to climb the ladder out of the arena. Aegis followed after him and Yeras held his hand down to help pull Aegis up.

“That was incredible, mate. Thanks a lot for letting me observe, I think I’ve got how to do it now thanks to you. Been stuck on this one for a while.” Yeras praised him while patting him on the back.

“No problem. Are all the intermediate’s that rough?” Aegis asked as the two walked out of the room side by side.

“I can’t speak for all of them, I only did short swords, but it was nothing compared to this one. There’s a reason shields ain't that popular mate.” Yeras motioned to the long lines in front of the other arena doors.

“Well.” Aegis shrugged as Marvin watched the two talk. “Good luck.” Aegis smiled.

“Thanks mate.” Yeras patted Aegis on the shoulder again before turning to Marvin. “Let’s go again Marvin, I got it for sure this time.” Yeras said with determination.

Aegis made his way out of the building and across the training grounds towards the streets of Kordas once more, but all the while his mind was still racing over the encounter. His adrenaline took a long while to come back down and it wasn’t until he reached the streets that he opened up his interface. He scanned over his character sheet to see two of his skills now at intermediate, but there were still a lot left.

“Which one next?” He said to himself while pondering.