Chapter 185: Instinct

Aegis and Chax made the rounds through the streets of Rene, with the goal of ensuring that every single NPC within the walls of the town were hit by his aura of light at least once. Thanks to him having trained the skill back in the Mosmir hive, the radius was quite large, resulting in Aegis finishing the task quickly.

“Notice anything that might’ve been causing it?” Aegis asked Chax as the two walked side by side back towards the townsquare.

“No, nothing…” Chax replied apologetically.

“Hm.” Aegis stopped walking forward a few meters out from the townsquare on the eastern residential paved road, looking over the jovial NPCs and players talking amongst each other loudly in front of him. Unlike before, though, he looked at them with suspicion. It wasn’t until a few familiar faces stepped out of the crowds to approach him that he snapped out of it.

Trexon, Quinn, and Sapphire walked forward with looks of concern.

“Wasn’t expecting to see you again so soon…” Aegis commented as they approached.

“When the NPCs stopped coming in to complain to Yuki and Savika, I turned on your stream and saw what happened, then let Quinn know right away.” Sapphire explained.

“What exactly does that Aura of Light spell of yours remove?” Quinn asked Aegis in a serious tone.

“A host of negative emotions… but the main thing it gets rid of is Darkness, that black stuff that the abyss is made out of.”

“If whatever is making the NPCs act the way they’ve been acting can be removed, it means it’s being caused unnaturally, by a spell of some sort.” Trexon said while rubbing his chin and going deep into thought. “That could be any number of things.” His eyes began to wander, but Quinn nudged him and motioned him to look forward at Aegis, who stared back confidently.

“You’ve already got an idea of what’s causing it, right?” Quinn asked.

“Yeah.” Aegis nodded back. “I think I’ve had an idea this whole time.”

“Why didn’t you say something earlier?” Trexon asked.

“Well, so many people were sure of so many things, I thought I was just being paranoid. But recently, I was told to trust my instincts… and…” Aegis motioned to his aura and the NPCs coming out of the nearby buildings lining the streets.

“Okay, so, what’s your instincts telling you about what's going on?” Quinn asked him, and as she spoke the group saw Lina suddenly appear in the shadows of a nearby building and quickly step out to stand beside Aegis, who gave her a knowing nod.

“Clara, the Prophet of Eirene, hinted that if things continue like this, they’ll allow darkness to spread throughout this land. I think that's exactly what someone has been trying to do, using the NPCs to do it… And It didn’t start after the Arallians got here, nor did it start after Yumily’s concert.” Aegis explained.

“When did it start?” Sapphire asked, too intrigued to bite into her carrot. Before Aegis could answer, he watched as Savika, Yuki, and Celestian all appeared from the crowds of the town square as well and joined the group. With the large number of them present, Aegis motioned everyone to shuffle off to the side of the street to allow others to pass by.

“It started after the day of that gnoll raid, when Rene got attacked, didn’t it?” Quinn asked Aegis before he could answer, and Aegis gave her a nod.

“Before the raid, Clara gave a vague warning that she sensed a great deal of darkness amongst the gnolls. I believed the timing of the raid was too coincidental to be just a random occurrence, and despite what everyone else tells me about monster raids, I think I was right.” Aegis explained.

“But how? Even if we know what is happening to the NPCs and when it started, we still don’t know exactly how they’re doing it…” Trexon replied curiously. It went quiet from there, save for the loud sounds from the players gathered in the town square. The group all seemed to be thinking on their own theories to answer the question, and during that time, Sherry and Darkshot arrived, along with Amlie and Rakkan, making a rather large gathering of players that closely huddled together.

“What’s going on?! Woof!” Ruffily arrived last, spotting everyone staring at each other seriously in the streets. However, Ruffily appearing caused Aegis to remember his earliest days in the game, and it reminded him of his first few quests.

“I know how they’re doing it.” Aegis announced, causing everyone to look at him excitedly with wide eyes. He fumbled around into his inventory to dig up a few items that he’d long since forgotten were in there, and pulled them out. Broken shards of what appeared to be black stone, reflecting the sunlight from the sky off of its sharp jagged edges.

“What are those?” Amlie asked curiously.

“Those are the shards from the orb of suffering we destroyed, right? When we saved Luryala?” Rakkan confirmed, and Aegis nodded back at him.

“The Darxon cultists had an orb of suffering that they were using to absorb suffering of all the NPCs nearby, with the intention of using the orb to empower some sort of Avatar. I didn’t think much of it at the time, because we thwarted their plan through the quests and destroyed the orb before they could finish what they were up to.” Aegis explained.

“But, if there’s an orb that’s causing this, why hasn’t there been any quests from the priests or clerics to stop it? That's what happened with the Darxon cult, right?” Sapphire asked.

“Because…” Quinn looked knowingly at Aegis, and he nodded back at her.

“The difference this time is that it’s not NPCs doing it, it’s players.”

“Players? That would mean…” Darkshot replied worriedly, but most of the people present already knew what he was going to say before he said it, and Aegis did the honors.

“Kalmoore is the next invasion target. They’re empowering these orbs using the NPCs in order to spread darkness, so they can gather enough of it to bring down the island.” Aegis explained.

“We need to find those orbs and destroy them.” Quinn replied and gave a nod to Trexon, who nodded back and quickly began fidgeting with his interface. Aegis did the same a moment later, sending a message to Pyri who quickly replied that she’d be on her way. “We’ll start with Rene, it’s smaller, so it’ll be easier to prove or disprove this theory. It’s still not 100% confirmed what’s going on, but it all makes sense.” Quinn nodded.

“Okay. Listen up.” Aegis turned to the group, making sure to land his eyes on everyone at least once to confirm they were all listening. “Somewhere in Rene, most likely in a central location, I’m guessing they’ve hidden one of these orbs. The ones who put it there are players, it could be anyone. Keep an eye out for Vagosh, or Simon, or any of the Black Lion guild members. We need to find that orb and destroy it, fast. Everyone spread out and get to work. Celestian, inform Farlion and the other guards to join in on the search. Yuki and Sapphire, please stick with Savika during the search.” Aegis ordered everyone.

“So this means, it wasn’t my fault? It wasn’t the Arallian’s fault?” Savika replied, looking hopeful at Aegis.

“You did everything perfectly. It was a malicious actor that was causing all the trouble.” Aegis assured her with a nod, after which Yuki playfully ruffled her hair and saw her let out a big sigh of relief.

“Let’s get to it. Portal anyone you can that is available to help with the search.” Quinn instructed Trexon who nodded back at her, continuing to fidget with his interface as he communicated with the rest of the Night Hunters using his guild interface, on her behalf.

Within seconds, everyone dispersed and headed out in different directions around the city. Aegis watched as they began inspecting the walls of the buildings around the downsquare, looking for any hidden compartments where the orb might be hidden.

Just as all of them had left, Pyri arrived from the skies, riding atop Snowflake who excitedly landed beside Aegis.

“What’s going on?” Pyri asked curiously.

“I’ve got a theory that someone planted an orb somewhere in Rene to absorb darkness, and have been using it to set off the NPCs.”

“Hm. Decent theory. A bit far-fetched though.” Pyri looked at him curiously. “Got any proof?”

“No, not yet, but if we can find an orb, or at least evidence of an orb, I’ll know I’m right.” Aegis explained.

“Okay. And what we’re looking for, it’s a big ol’ black shiny orb made out of that stuff?” Pyri confirmed while motioning to the shards of suffering in Aegis' palm, and Aegis nodded back at her before placing the shards back in his inventory. “I’ll search in the typical spots. If I were a player looking to hide an orb, where would I put it?” She mumbled to herself as she hopped off of Snowflake and turned from him, wandering into the town square.

“We’ll search from above.” Aegis said to Snowflake who squawked back at him excitedly. With that, Aegis hopped onto Snowflake's back, and Snowflake promptly leapt up off the ground and into the skies above Rene. He began soaring around above the rooftops initially, but Aegis pulled the reins to signal him to fly higher up so he could get a better view of it all.

The most central location was the town square, and the fountain, and Aegis watched as numerous Night Hunter members began to funnel out of a portal cast by Trexon, and began inspecting the fountain itself and the surrounding buildings.

He saw sages, clerics, wizards, druids, warlocks and paladins all activating various detection spells as they scoured every inch of Rene.

Lina shadow danced around the outer edges of the city, while Darkshot navigated the rooftops, and Amlie and Rakkan went through the pastures and farm fields to make sure it wasn’t buried anywhere in the soil.

The search went on like this for a long hour without anything being found at all, Aegis continuously flying in circles as he overlooked the search efforts, thinking deep on where it might be. Eventually, though, Pyri and Trexon both used fly spells to soar up into the air to where Snowflake and Aegis were hovering.

“We’ve used every type of magic, and searched every inch of Rene. Nothing.” Trexon explained.

“Looks like your theory might’ve been wrong. There’s still a lot of other possible answers to what’s going on… One’s that aren’t so scary like ‘Kalmoore’s about to be invaded’...” Pyri smirked.

“No, I’m trusting my instincts. I know I’m right.” Aegis dismissed her words as he panned around. “I’m just missing something…” He said to himself as his eyes wandered, and eventually landed on the monastery of the stars outside of the city. “The range on the orb of suffering was large, it was able to absorb Orm from here…” Aegis said as a light bulb flicked on in his head. “The gnoll raid occurred when I returned, because with me present it would guarantee I would draw all attention towards Rene and its obvious targets.” Aegis mumbled out loud as his eyes went wide.

“They knew I would be suspicious. They knew I would put a focus on protecting Savika, and the town square. I took all of the guards away from the monastery. No one was looking at the monastery at all during the gnoll raid. And despite it being such a vulnerable, easy target, the gnolls made no attempt to attack it.” Aegis said excitedly, and before Trexon or Pyri could reply, Aegis yanked on Snowflake’s reins and caused him to dart forward towards the monastery with Trexon and Pyri trailing behind him with their slower fly spells.

When Aegis arrived at the monastery, he landed atop the tall viewing tower that stretched up to towards the stars far above the monastery itself, and began searching around it. There was a singular statue of Eirene sitting atop the large platform in the center, with a hole in the floor leading into a winding staircase downward in the interior of the tower.

As Aegis began to frantically search over the top of the tower, Trexon and Pyri landed on the tower softly beside him.

“You really think they hid it here?” Pyri asked.

“Yeah. It’d be a great way to mock us. Players like to do that sort of thing, right?” Aegis replied as he began feeling around the blocks that made up the floor of the tower's top.

“He’s got a point…” Trexon nodded at Pyri.

“I built this tower myself, I know every block I placed. I should easily be able to tell if something has been moved or altared…” Aegis explained as he crawled around beside Snowflake, who began sniffing the ground alongside him curiously.

“Aegis… Stop.” Pyri instructed him with a calm voice as she watched him, putting her hands on her waist.

“No, I’m certain, it’s gotta be here.” Aegis replied without looking up at her.

“It was.” Pyri replied firmly, causing him to stop and look up at her. When he did, he saw that she was staring at the statue of Eirene in the center of the tower top, looking down at it from above. Her tall elven stature allowed her to easily see that a giant, spherical shaped hole had been carved into the top of the statue of Eirene’s head.

Aegis quickly got up and ran over, standing on his tippy toes to look down into the hole and inspect it. The stone around the edges of the hole had dark black purple stains.

“You were right. They must’ve done it during the gnoll raid. No one would’ve been paying attention, not even Clara and the Eirene priests.” Pyri said.

“To carve a hole into the top of her head, that’s sending a grim message.” Trexon added with a look of deep concern. “They’ve already retrieved it. Either because they saw on your stream that we were onto them, or, they retrieved it earlier because they’d already gotten what they needed.” Trexon sighed. “Without the orb present, there’s no telling what it was absorbing.” Trexon crossed his arms and eyed Aegis, seeing his viewership shoot up to 150,000. He wasn’t sure what Aegis’ reaction would be, but he certainly wasn’t expecting what he got.

Aegis looked away from the hole in the statue of Eirene’s head to glance at Pyri and Trexon with an expression of pure, unrefined rage.

“These assholes… Do they have any idea how long it took me to craft this high quality statue?” Aegis said between his clenched teeth. This caused Pyri to let out a loud chuckle.

“That’s what you’re mad about? I figured you’d be more mad about the other thing.” She shook her head in disbelief.

“What?” Aegis snapped back at her, not appreciating her laughter.

“She means…” Trexon stepped in awkwardly. “This proves that you are right. Kalmoore is the next target for an abyssal invasion.”

“Oh. Right. Yeah. That.” Aegis nodded hesitantly. “That pisses me off too.” He clenched his fists. “Get everyone to the town hall.” Aegis said to them before hopping on Snowflake and getting nods from both of them.

It was crowded. Every member of Aegis' council, and his party, were present. In addition, Christoph, Quinn, Trexon, and one person Aegis had never seen before named Artaphernes had shown up.

All of the chairs of the townsquare were taken, and some of the players and NPCs present were forced to stand. But all were quiet and attentive, as Aegis cleared his throat and began pacing around the far side of the room.

“Let’s make this quick, my guild is in the middle of a dungeon raid right now.” Christoph spoke, breaking the silence.

“Kalmoore is being targeted for the next abyssal invasion.” Aegis declared, his viewership now at 200,000. There were a few gasps, mainly from the NPCs, but it went silent again after that.

“How can you be sure?” Artaphernes asked.

“I can’t, but all signs are pointing to it.”

“You mean, you’re interpreting all the signs to point to it.” Artaphernes shook his head back at him.

“It’s within the realm of possibility. We’d be foolish not to take it seriously and prepare as though it’s the reality.” Trexon spoke on Aegis’ behalf.

“Well, what do you want us to do about it, then?” Christoph asked, and it went quiet again.

“Given the time between the first two invasions, it's presumed that there’s a cooldown in effect before the next invasion can start. There’s about four weeks left.” Quinn explained. “We need to get as powerful as we can in that time. Locate and lockdown as many of the Black Lion guild members as possible, and ideally take Simon out of the picture since he's most likely working with the Harbinger of Darkness player Vagosh.” Quinn explained.

“Good, so, you oughta let me get back to my dungeon raid with my guild. We’ve been getting a lot of good items and experience.” Christoph shrugged.

“We’ve scoured all the known spots in Kordas and the surrounding cities. There’s no sign of the Black Lions anywhere.” Artaphernes replied.

“These guys dug a hole in the head of my Eirene statue. They think they’re clever, and probably have a ‘hide in plain sight’ approach to things.” Aegis explained with a not-so-subtle hint of anger in his voice.

“Can’t believe you didn’t tell us those jackasses were running around on our island again.” Erikson grumbled angrily, causing Josephine to gently pat his shoulders in an effort to calm him down.

“I’ll double our efforts. We’ll do our best to find them and lock them up. But, they were not behind the invasion in Arallia, so it’s unlikely they’ll be behind this one either. And…” Artaphernes did a motioning gesture towards Aegis, “Is it really so smart, broadcasting all of this to the world? With that many viewers, you’re probably sitting in the top 25 of streamers, aren’t you?” Artaphernes raised an eyebrow at him.

“I doubt it’s going to matter, these guys are already several steps ahead of us. We’ve got catching up to do.” Quinn answered on Aegis’ behalf.

“And what will the Night Hunters be doing?” Christoph asked her.

“Well, Aegis, I’ll have to ask that you use your Aura of Light on Kordas. Then we’ll search the city and confirm there isn’t any orb still working its way through the Kalmoorian NPCs there. We’ve at least got some idea on where they like to hide the orbs now, so it shouldn’t be too hard to find.” Quinn explained. "After that, we'll be training and bolstering the defences around the island stones."

“And you?” Christoph turned to Aegis.

“We’ll…” Aegis looked over his party members who were sitting near him in the town hall chamber. “Finish grinding to 150 and get as strong as we can. More importantly though, this puts a time limit on me and Tullan.” Aegis explained.

“Time limit for what?” Artaphernes asked him.

“We’ve got four weeks to craft an eternal flame, find a silver dragon, and mine some mithral. And knowing the strength of mithral, Vagosh and whoever he’s working with are probably going to do everything in their power to stop us.” Aegis replied with a glint of determination in his eyes.

“I’ve got some leads on a silver dragon. I’ll follow up on them as quickly as possible.” Chax jumped into the conversation.

“You really think you’re going to do all that in four weeks?” Artaphernes replied skeptically.

“Don’t challenge the kid.” Quinn shook her head with a smirk, seeing a big grin grow across Aegis’ face which quickly spread to Lina, Rakkan, Pyri and Darkshot.