At exactly 4:00pm EST when the sun finished its descent, a loud voice spoke up over all the chatter. [Galanis - Level 9] All eyes turned to see the same Zues Priest that had edited the parchment, he had one other player standing by his side.

“Great turnout, glad to see everyone is willing to work together on this. As you can all see, my name is Galanis. Darxon Cultists are dangerous enemies typically reserved for high level players, they’ve caused quite a few incidents in the Shattered World already. But we’re not going to let anything happen here in Orm.”

“They specialize in stealth and shadow magic, and they sometimes employ demons and other abyssal creatures, so expect to encounter something along those lines. From speaking with the various priests present here, I’ve learned that some of us have differing objectives. Some of you have a quest just to identify the creature whose blood was used in the poison. Others have the quest to take out the leader, and some have the quest to find and destroy the magical object used to collect suffering. And of course, some of you have no quest at all, you’re just along for the ride.” He spoke very clearly and confidently, Winter got the impression that his day job was probably related to giving speeches.

“Regardless, we intend to wipe out the Darxon hideout completely and clear all quests. We’ll be forming into several parties and assigning you jobs based on your class and level. The more organized we are, the easier this should be. Any questions so far?” Galanis asked, and it fell silent for a moment.

“Good, I had my friend here -” He motioned to the player beside him with a longbow on his back, [Eccen - Level 8] “Use his tracking skill to find the Darxon hideout. It’s a long trek north, an old abandoned keep at the base of that mountain.” He pointed to a lone tall mountain to the north, towering over the forest. “It’s built next to a network of caverns that delve deep into the mountain, and is fortified by a small river that runs along the outside of the keep. Make sure you prepare your skills based on that information.” He paced and looked around a bit, seeing all the faces staring at him blankly with still no questions.

“Good, then let’s start moving. It’s a long walk, we’ll organize parties along the way.” Galanis turned and began walking northward out of Orm. The other players started whispering to each other as they gathered their things and followed behind him.

“With a guy like that leading we should be fine, right?”

“Yeah he seems to know what he’s doing.”

“I’m so excited, this is my first raid party!”

“Just make sure you pull your weight.”

“We have so many priest players here, at least we don’t need to worry about dying.”

Winter listened in on the various conversations while hanging back. He thought about checking his messages to ask Davoth and Silentwire to join him, but decided against bothering them as the likelihood they’d make it back from Kordas anytime soon was low.

The group moved under the moonlight to the treeline and entered Orm forest, illuminated by various torches that the group carried with them to see in the dark. Winter followed near the back of the group and watched as Galanis moved around and talked to everyone one by one, giving them out assignments and asking them questions about their class. The more he talked, the more the chatter picked up in general as the players started to get more friendly and comfortable with one another.

It wasn’t long before Galanis made his way to the back and spotted Winter, moving to walk beside him.

“Hey, you are Winter, right? Aren’t you Makaroth’s son?” He asked curiously, Winter didn’t reply, just looked straight forward.

“If you’ve got a strategy already, you can use me as a tan-” Winter was interrupted.

“WINTER! COME OUT AND PLAY!” A loud obnoxious Keldan shouted from the front of the group. The players all stopped moving and started looking around confused at each other. Standing in front of the large group of low level players was a party of 4 players in the level 30’s. Galanis looked at Winter and saw his annoyed expression, gently patted him on the shoulder, and motioned him to hide behind a nearby tree.

“I’ll deal with this.” He said reassuringly. The raid party began to murmur amongst each other.

“Was Winter here?”

“I think I saw him, where is he now?”

“Who the heck are these guys?”

“They look kind of familiar…”

Winter could hear the chatter, deciding to trust Galanis he hid behind the shadow of a nearby large oak tree.

“What’s the hold up? We’re in the middle of a raiding party, on our way to a Darxon hideout. Are you here to help us?” Galanis shouted as the group cleared a path, allowing him to get to the front while illuminating him with torchlight.

“Nah, we’re looking for a friend of ours. He’s a priest, we saw him fighting a Shadow Assassin earlier, so we’re pretty sure he’s doing these Darxon quests with you guys.” Keldan spoke with his big live streaming icon above his head. Swiftstar, Rocknight and Vriflow standing behind him. When Keldan said this, there were a few whispers of realization amongst the priests that it was Winter who had found the poison source.

“I’ve organized this group and I can assure you, no one named Winter is here.” Galanis replied.

“Eh… I don’t believe him. Vriflow?” Keldan replied while motioning to her, and she nodded.

“Eye of Divinity, Form of Truth.” She shouted as her hands began to glow white and a large spectral eye of light appeared above her, staring at Galanis. “If you lie, the eye closes. Is Winter a part of this raiding party?” Vriflow asked him politely with a devious smile. Galanis glared at the spell.

“Just haaad to be a Priestess of Yamara.” Galanis sighed in frustration.

“He’s not here.” Eccen shouted while moving to stand in front of Galanis.

“Ah - I need to hear it from Galanis, not you.” Vriflow wagged her finger. Galanis stared back at her without speaking.

“I think that answers it.” Rocknight commented.

“Hey Winter!” Keldan shouted to the forest around them. "You’ve got 3 seconds to show yourself, or all these lowbies go boom.” Keldan raised his hand in the air as a gigantic ball of blazing red flame began to form above his palm. “3.” He shouted as the ball got larger, several of the players turned and began to flee into the surrounding forest. “2.” Galanis held his ground in the face of the fireball, now the size of a large wagon. Seeing this, many of the other players held their ground as well.

“There’s no way he’s going to PK this many lowbies, he’ll be hated by guards forever.” Some players commented, crossing their arms defiantly.

“1.” Keldan grinned. The defiant players saw in that moment, Keldan didn’t care about killing low levels. He pulled his hand back and thrust the fireball forward towards the center of the group.

Winter, who had already begun dashing to intercept it when Keldan said 2, arrived just in time to Brace the Fireball with his shield, stopping it from travelling into the group as he stood in front of Galanis and Eccen. The ball of flame parted around his shield and released a violent shockwave of wind to the surrounding forest, setting several trees ablaze.

You take 231 Fire Damage.

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

[Shieldwall] - Shield Mastery

Blocking Area of Effect attacks with your shield will provide protection to anyone or anything that stands behind you at the time of the block, depending on the angle of the area of effect attack relative to your shield's position. Note: Does not work on area of effect attacks that pass through objects.

Area of Effect Protection Range: 3.1 meter cone behind impact point. (Shield Mastery Level 21)

The explosion of the Fireball that Keldan released did not extend beyond a 3 meter radius, all of the players standing behind Winter remained completely unharmed. Winter himself however had taken significant damage and quickly threw a heal on himself as the dust settled. The members of the raid party who had begun fleeing stopped to see what had happened as the flash from the explosion dissipated and most of the embers fizzled out.

“Ah, see? There he is!” Keldan cheered and pointed at him excitedly as Winter glared up at them. While Keldan seemed happy, the other three of his friends did not look so confident.

“How’d he just survive that?” Vriflow whispered to Swiftstar, who shrugged back, also wondering the same thing.

“You’ll let these guys go and do their quests, right? They’ve got nothing to do with me.” Winter asked.

“Yeah, of course, we just want to hang out with you a bit.” Keldan shrugged.

“Alright,” Winter turned to face Galanis. “Thanks for trying. Just take everyone and go on ahead without me, sorry for the trouble.” Winter spoke politely.

“You sure? Those guys look like they’re planning to PK you...”

“I’ll handle it somehow.” Winter replied. Galanis hesitated for a moment, looking to Eccen and back to Winter and seeing his determination.

“Alright guys, this PvP has nothing to do with us. Let’s keep moving, we got a village to save.” Galanis shouted to the raid party. He walked forward past Keldan and his group, and seeing him do this the other players joined in. Winter watched them all as they walked away northward beyond Keldan and his friends, some glancing back at Winter with looks of sympathy and pity, others annoyance.

“We don’t have to do this the hard way, y’know, Winter.” Keldan began pacing around the recently formed clearing that had been created by the explosion of his fireball. He double checked to see his viewer count was moving up to 1000. “We could party up and help you with the quest, with us around it’d be pretty easy, right guys?”

“I mean, it’s a level 5 quest, right?” Rocknight nodded in agreement.

“Or, the other option is, we just keep PKing you until Makaroth shows up. You guys wanna see Makaroth?” He shouted excitedly to his audience more than to anyone present. Winter let out an elongated sigh.

“I’ve got two pieces of bad news for you Keldan. One, no matter how many times you kill me, Makaroth won’t show up. And two, I’m never going to group up with you to do anything, no matter how much you threaten me.”