Chapter 202: Island Defense

Chapter 202: Island Defense





One hour earlier...



Sherry stood on the portal altar of Kordas, with a portal to Rene closing behind her. As she looked back through it, she caught one final glimpse of Yorgi waving her off. Once the portal had closed, she looked around at the quiet, peaceful city nearby for a moment before opening up her guild communications interface.

There, quite a few members were discussing a message Yorgi had sent.



[Yorgi]: Hae-won claims that Aegis has a plan, but he needs you to trust him exactly, Quinn

[Quinn]: What exactly does he want? I'm still a bit busy with this raid boss.

[Yorgi]: He wants you to hand over guild leadership to Sherry.Ñøv€l--ß1n hosted the premiere release of this chapter.

[Trexon]: What?

[Sapphire]: Is he an idiot? Why?

[Baffo]: After what just happened with Cheryl, I don’t know if it’s a good idea to start trusting someone else with leadership.

[Yorgi]: He didn’t explain why, but he says it’s the only way



Following this message, there was a long silence, until suddenly a guild wide announcement went out.

The Guild leader has transferred leadership to the player [Sherry]. This player will now be acting on behalf of the King of Kordas.



[Trexon]: Seriously?

[Quinn]: Good luck, Sherry.

[Sherry]: I will do my best.



After Sherry wrote the message, she closed out of the guild interface and took a deep breath. From there, she walked with determination in the direction of the Kordas Barracks.

She was surprised to see the guards immediately recognize her permission. She faced no resistance what so-ever while entering the barracks, then descending to the basement level into the heavily guarded Kordas Prison.

Once inside, she navigated beyond the cells that held NPCs, until arriving at the cells intended for players. A large number of the cells were marked as occupied, but most were empty due to the imprisoned player logging out while serving their sentence. Sherry continued to walk through the dark, torch lit stony hallways lined with iron-barred prison cells until she reached nearly the end and saw one player logged in.

Garrick was in the back of his cell, still sporting the Black Lion guild tabard and doing physical exercise to take advantage of the training experience bonuses he had while imprisoned. It was clear he was in the middle of watching a livestream viewer in his peripheral vision as Sherry approached, but once he heard her footsteps he got up from his exercise and fidgeted his fingers around in front of his face to close out of the livestream viewer.

“What’s a Night Hunter doing here?” Garrick asked Sherry curiously as he eyed her satyr horns and hooves curiously.

“I’m here to make a deal.” Sherry replied while crossing her arms.

“A deal? Not interested. If Quinn wants to make any sort of deal with me, she can come down here and talk to me herself.” Garrick crossed his arms defiantly.

“I’m acting as guild leader for the Night Hunters right now, and I speak on behalf of the King. Meaning, I have the power to pardon your prison sentences.” Sherry declared, piquing Garrick’s interest.

“Hm.” He began pacing in his cell. “What sort of deal?”

“I’ll pardon you and your guild members if you sign a contract stating you will not attack or rob any players or NPCs of this island. And, you will fight to defend the island against the abyssal invasion.” Sherry replied.

“Hah.” Garrick tilted his head back and grinned. “The invasion is coming, isn’t it?” He asked, and Sherry nodded. “You guys must be pretty desperate, coming to us after what we did. But, why would we help you under those conditions? Our sentence will be served in a few weeks, and we’ll be out without that contract.” Garrick replied.

“Because what happened to you, also happened to us.” Sherry answered, causing Garrick to look back down into her eyes with a serious expression. “You got infiltrated by one of their players, and they manipulated you from the inside, turned you against your allies and used you.”

“Nah, that’s not what happened.” Garrick waved this off.

“Oh really? Where’s the Crown of the Arallian king? Who coerced you to log back in once you had it secured? Where’s all your plunder and treasures from the fall of Arallia?” Sherry asked as she stepped forward, closer to the bars. “Joltblade was wearing the necklace he stole. They are probably loaded with gold from the island falling. How much of that did they share with your guild?” Sherry asked.

Following her words, there was a long silence as Garrick shamefully looked down at his feet.

“I’m not here to insult you. Cheryl did the same thing to us. They pretend to be your friend and act like a part of your guild, but in reality they’re just trying to divide your members and control you. It sucks. So what I’m offering you, with this contract...” Sherry pulled a contract out from her inventory, written using her merchant class skills. “Is a chance to get revenge, and a chance at redemption. You were manipulated, yeah - but that doesn’t mean you guys have to stay the bad guys forever.” Sherry finished her negotiations and took a deep, anxious breath of air as she waited for Garrick to respond.



Now...



“That guy, didn’t he just say he was prepared for everything you might do?” Herilon looked mockingly at the disintegrating body of Emerill, eying a pair of high level leather boots that had dropped.

“Guess he forgot to account for my tactical berserker airstrike strategy.” Aegis smirked back at Herilon, causing him to chuckle. Aegis walked over to pick up the boots and add them to his inventory while Snowflake landed on the ground nearby and excitedly rushed over.

“I heard a bit of your plan from Yorgi, but, how’d you know it’d play out like this?” Herilon asked him curiously.

“I didn’t, to be honest.” Aegis shrugged. “I only knew that your and the Blades guilds were both stuck in a trap, and it was most likely already too late to save you guys. So, I tried to think of a way to take advantage of how bad our situation was.” Aegis replied as he climbed onto Snowflake’s saddle, and Snowflake let out an excited squawk.

The very front of their marching order was led by a single, heavily armored female Dark Elf named Viella, wielding a pair of daggers. The dark elves marched into the city in rows of two, and their numbers seemed endless. They continued to march forward in unison out of the portal, filling the streets of Kordas as they made their way towards the city's walls.

“The Dark Elves from the City of the White Tree, that Aegis had saved just a few weeks earlier! They’re coming to help defend the city! This is incredible!” Samathara cheered excitedly.

“Ooooh. It’s helms deep! It’s helms deep! I knew it! Aegis is telling my story!” Shinji cheered like a giddy school girl.

“Wasn’t helms deep with high elves? Not Dark elves?” Tommy replied through his voice call with Shinji.

“Shut up, you won’t take this from me.” Shinji growled back at him.

“Sorry about that, ladies and gentlemen. I’m feeling much better now!” Hae-won cheered excitedly to Aegis’ audience as she re-appeared in front of his broadcast alongside Megan. “I hope you guys were all nice to my friend here.” Hae-won motioned to a relieved Megan. “I’ll take it from here.” Hae-won grinned.

“Okay.” Megan bowed timidly before logging out of the broadcast simulation.

“So, who’s ready to see Aegis kick an invasion's ass?” Hae-won shouted to his audience of 3 million views, watching the chat log zoom by with cheers of ‘hell yeah’ and ‘lets do this’.

A portal in Rene opened, with a backdrop of glowing blue mushrooms. Pyri stepped through, followed by Ulaipu, and a small battalion of heavily armored Plashrim.

“Here’s our reinforcements.” Pyri cheered as Yuki stood waiting for her at the portal altar. Erikson, Josephine and the others had already moved to man the walls.

“Tell us where you’d like us. We owe a great debt that we are eager to repay.” Ulaipu said to Pyri.

“Hm... you know your guards the best. Find any weaknesses in our walls' defenses and shore it up. Leave the big Juggernauts to us, focus on the abysslings and reapers when they show up, I guess.” Pyri shrugged.

“Yes, ma’am.” Ulaipu saluted her before he began giving instructions to his 50 or so Plashrim soldiers. After a few moments, they fanned out throughout the city towards the walls.

“And now, we wait.” Pyri said to Yuki, and she nodded back at her.

Finley stood in the courtyard of the ruined temple, glaring angrily at Aegis’ livestream, then Samathara’s in his livestream viewer, before frustratedly closing them out and turning towards the Avatar of Jealousy.

“The forces of light are mocking you. They think you will be easily defeated.” Finley said to her.

“Allow me to consume their flesh. Feed me their darkest desires. I will destroy them all, and devour the light of this land.” Jealousy hissed back at him.

“That’s the spirit. Come, the 4th island stone is this way.” Finley replied as he cast his wings of Darkness spell with a wag of his fingers, causing the black misty wings to form on his back. Once they’d appeared, he leapt into the air and began flapping them. Jealousy did the same with her wings, and together the two began soaring off away from the temple, towards the northern end of the island.

“It’s getting really noisy outside.” Cheryl commented as she remained standing off with Darkshot, Lina and Rakkan. Beside her stood Joltblade and Quiver, and behind her an eager Zekor, whispering commentary to his livestream broadcasting.

“Man, I really just want to log out and relax for a bit. Can you guys not make this so complicated?” Quiver groaned. “We just need to have a quick chat with the King.”

“I knew you shot me on purpose.” Darkshot answered him with a nasty look.

“Nah, I swear, total accident. I really am just a bit clumsy.” Quiver replied, followed by a yawn.

“You really want to do this dance again, Rune Knight? This time, I’m the one with the healer. You guys don’t stand a chance in a three vs three fight.” Joltblade said while eying Rakkan and his echoes.

“Yeah. True. As it is, we would lose a three on three.” Rakkan nodded back in agreement, before briefly glancing towards Lina, and she gave a knowing nod back at him.

“They’re planning something.” Quiver commented as he watched this exchange. Following his words, he pulled out his longbow while Joltblade pulled out his Mithral swords, and Cheryl pulled out her shield and scepter.

“Yorgi, now!” Lina shouted suddenly, followed by a fast forward dashing moment. Her words caught them off guard, as did the blue glowing light that appeared behind them. Cheryl, Joltblade and Quiver glanced backwards to see Yorgi, his invisibility spell fading. He was finishing the cast of a portal spell directly behind Cheryl.

The moment that Cheryl and the others saw it, Lina had already reached her and body checked Cheryl in an attempt to push her through the portal.

She was quick enough to turn around and brace the attack, preventing her from stumbling backwards, though.

“Oh, so now you can block hits without falling backwards?” Darkshot commented mockingly as she saw it.

“That’s your plan?” Joltblade asked mockingly as he drew out his lightning shurikens and sent them at Yorgi. Before any could connect, though, Rakkan sent his Rune knights forward to intercept the shurikens and knock them away from Yorgi using his new mithral weapons. Simultaneously, Quiver fired several arrows at Yorgi which were all carefully shot down by obsidian tipped arrows fired by Darkshot.

Rakkan and Darkshot succeeded in protecting Yorgi, so that he was able to maintain it. Meanwhile, Lina shadowstepped behind Cheryl, grabbed her by the collar of her armor, and angrily jerked her forward through the portal against her will, the two stumbling through the blue gateway together.

The moment they had, Yorgi closed the portal behind them.

“Good, go, get out of here.” Rakkan shouted to Yorgi who nodded back, fearfully eying a lightning shuriken soaring through the throne room towards him which was just barely intercepted by one of Rakkan’s echoes.

“Great.” Cheryl sighed as she and Lina rolled off the top of an unfamiliar portal altar, landing on a paved stone floor in a dimly lit chamber. The walls were high, with a few windows allowing sunlight in, but for the most part it was very dark. “Where the hell are we?” Cheryl groaned as she stood upright and dusted herself off, Lina doing the same a few meters away.

“In one of the Blades of Kalmoore fortresses, far away from Kordas. Here, you won’t be able to heal your companions.” Lina answered her.

“You sure you want to be the one to fight me one on one?” Cheryl raised her eyebrows at Lina. “I’m a cleric, you know.” A smile slowly began growing on her face.

“Oh I know.” Lina lowered her head and began glaring at Cheryl, her eyes filling with rage. “I want to be the one to kill you.”