Chapter 256: Play

Aegis was led by Sapphire and Herilon into the Night Hunter’s guild hall, as per a suggestion by Herilon.

“We’ve got a decent grinding spot on Kalmoore still. I’m sure Quinn wont mind sharing it with you temporarily, given the circumstances.” Herilon gave an explanation. As a result, the group found themselves idling in the front foyer of the guild hall, staring at the marble tiled floors and the satyr NPC behind the counter. Herilon and Sapphire had disappeared further inside the building for a moment, leaving them to their own devices.

“You think we should make a guild?” Darkshot suggested suddenly, motioning to the walls around them. “Then we’d get lots of underlings. And a cool guild hall like this.” He added.

“We already have a castle.” Aegis shrugged in response. “Underlings seem like a lot of work, too.”

“No way, you get to boss them around, and they all look up to you. ‘Please sir Darkshot, teach me how to be as awesome as you are’.” he mimed a weak, squeaky high pitched voice, “‘I’m sorry, somethings cannot be taught. But if you follow in my footsteps, you may become stronger than you ever thought possible.’” He replied to himself in the deepest, manliest voice he could muster. Rakkan simply rolled his eyes at him while Aegis and Lina let out a light chuckle.

“Leading a guild takes a very special type of personality. Without proper leadership, a guild tends to fall apart or become a miserable experience for all people involved. It’s not something you should force.” Pyri explained.

“Do you think I might have that special type of personality?” Darkshot turned to Pyri with hopeful eyes. She returned an awkward smile to him which every single person could see right through.

“Maybe.” She answered politely. Before more could be said, the doors leading into the guild hall behind them swung open, and a surprised Sherry stepped into the foyer with a large backpack strapped over her shoulders. The pack was stuffed so full of goods and wares that they were towering up over the back of her head, visible behind her as the bag jingled and clanged its contents against each other.

With two quiet clops of her hooves on the tiled floor, she stopped in her tracks and panned her eyes over the group.

“Hi.” She smiled and waved awkwardly.

“Hello.” Pyri replied as she and Lina waved at her.

“Yo, Sherry. Perfect timing. What do you think…” Darkshot began with wild hand gestures. “Me, leading my own guild of dark rangers. The Dark Ranger guild.” He waved his hands dramatically through the air. Sherry was not as subtle in her response - her eyebrows crinkled immediately, with one rising up far above the other.

“Really? You’re gonna lead a guild?”

“Well, yeah. It’d be awesome, right? Aegis can build me my guild hall in Rene.” Darkshot nonchalantly motioned to Aegis.

“I can do what now?” Aegis replied, raising his brows similarly to how Sherry had, getting a light coo out of Darkwing as he nestled into Darkshot’s shoulder and closed his eyes as if losing interest in what was happening around him. Disappointment quickly flooded over Darkshot’s face as a result.

“How about…” Sherry stepped towards him with a smile. “You just stick to being that cool, dark ranger, who shoots from the shadows. I think the lone wolf style suits you better…” She added a seductive smile and wink at the end while gently putting one hand on his shoulder.

“You… you think so?” Darkshot’s face suddenly went red, barely able to look her in the eyes. He instead looked over her shoulder beyond her stuffed pack to see Rakkan shaking his head to himself in disbelief and looking away from the two.

“Yeah, definitely. I like the strong, independent type. Being a guild leader would just bog you down, ruin your style.” She added encouragingly.

“Yeah. Yeah I guess you’re right…

“Of course, because where do you shoot from?” Sherry leaned in closer, making it uncomfortable for even Aegis to watch.

“The darkness.” He mumbled boyishly back. Sherry then quickly pecked him on his rosy red cheeks.

“Damn right.” She smiled, released her hand from his shoulders, then began heading further into the guild hall. “Tullan’s requested more materials for your shield.” She glanced back at Aegis while walking away. “He wants me to tell you that they’ll be done in a day or two, before your preliminaries start.”

“Oh. Okay, got it. Thanks.” Aegis replied, and the last thing he saw of Sherry was a wave of her hand as she disappeared around a corridor leading further into the hall, the sound of her satyr hooves clopping on the floor slowly fading away. It went awkwardly silent for a few moments as Darkshot slowly tried to recompose himself.

“Where do you shoot from?” Aegis playfully asked Lina, breaking the silence.

“The darkness.” She whispered back in a faked, shy manner, mocking Darkshot.

“Oh shut up.” Darkshot grumbled back as the others laughed. The laughter died down quickly to the sound of several sets of footsteps approaching on the other side of one of the many doors leading into the front foyer. When the door swung open, it revealed Quinn, Sapphire, Trexon and Herilon.

“So. You need a spot to grind?” Quinn asked, not wasting any time with small talk.

“Yup.” Aegis nodded back as he and his party all turned to face her attentively.

“Alright. We’ve got a spot you can borrow. It’s exclusive, we had Trexon carve a teleport altar there due to its remote location. But there’s a few caveats.” Quinn crossed her arms and looked over the group.

“Monsters there are all elite, levels are in the 180 range. The mob density is low, making it pretty inefficient for experience in a big group, but there aren’t any other spots on our island with higher level enemies. As far as the general playerbase of the Shatter World online know, higher level enemies are not found on the main islands. Once you want to start leveling higher, you’ll need to find isolated small islands, or travel into the abyss.” Quinn explained

“Hm. How have the other guilds been leveling, then?” Pyri asked curiously. “I’ve noticed certain guilds were filled with players higher than level 180.” She added. It was obvious to everyone in the room who she was referring to, without her having to be specific.

“Don’t watch their streams, I take it?” Quinn smirked playfully at her. “They grind lower level enemies, en-masse. They use certain tactics where they use weaker, out of party guildmates to help them take down enemies so that they can gain all of the experience for themselves, independently.” Quinn replied.

“What do the out of party players get out of that arrangement?” Aegis asked curiously.

“The honor of getting to help out their guild master, and favorite streamers, usually.” Quinn rolled her eyes to the back of her head as she said this. “Though in some cases they’re paid in gold.”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“It’s a really efficient way to level, it's pretty hard to compete with them in experience without it.” Sapphire added with a carrot bite.

“So with that in mind, we’ve got plenty of guild members volunteering to help you guys o-” Quinn couldn’t finish her sentence.

“No.” Aegis shook his head. “We’re not playing like that.” Aegis looked towards his party members for a moment before turning back to Quinn.

“Are you sure? If we split you up and had a group of 10 of our guild mates help you take down elite level 180 mobs, allowing each of you to get experience from each mob by yourself, you’d level pretty fast.” Quinn looked at him skeptically, as if she thought he hadn’t fully understood her explanation the first time.

“Maybe… but, like that, are we even really playing the game properly? That doesn’t sound fun at all.” Aegis shrugged. After hearing this, Herilon and Quinn turned to look at each other with big smiles on their faces. “I mean, unless you guys disagree?” Aegis turned to his party members.

“Nope. That sounds boring as hell. I’d rather kill stuff myself.” Rakkan replied.

“Same.” Darkshot added.

“I don’t really think I’d need help to begin with.” Pyri replied nonchalantly.

“Mhm.” Lina nodded back at Aegis approvingly.

“Told you.” Herilon shrugged at her. “I’m gonna get a crush on you if you don’t quit being so cool.” Herilon then winked at Aegis.

“Alright. Go ahead and open a portal for them. Just make sure you don’t get lost or die, you haven’t much time left.” Quinn motioned to Trexon.

“Right away.” He nodded back as his hands and staff began to glow blue. The others took a step back and grouped up in front of him eagerly as he finished casting his portal spell. A few seconds later, a floating arcane doorway appeared in the middle of the guildhall foyer, a shimmering ring of blue magical energy wriggly around the rim of the portal.

Looking through it, Aegis saw what looked to be ancient ruins made up of tan and beige stone blocks, some stacked and others toppled, with tangled vines and roots gripping them and reclaiming them on behalf of nature.

“Good luck.” Trexon said encouragingly once the portal had finished forming. “You’ve enough dust to return? Don’t forget to attune to the altar.

“I’ve got some.” Pyri confidently patted a brown pouch strapped to her belt.

“Let’s head through. Thanks again for everything.” Aegis said as he waved to them and lead the group through first. Quinn gave him a knowing nod as he disappeared, followed by the others one by one.

Once all five had stepped through, the quiet ambience of the guild hall was immediately replaced by the sound of wild birds chirping in the surrounding trees, and wild unseen creatures calling out to one another in the wilds surrounding them.

They found themselves standing atop a clean cut portal altar made up of white stone blocks with runes carved into them. The altar was built atop a paved floor of tan bricks that were aged and significantly contrasted with the newer stones of the altar, making it clear that one was recently built, and the others were ancient and had been here for ages.

The paved stones faded into dirt, grass, vines and twigs to their left, but turning to their right they saw the path lead into an overgrown city. Some buildings were still standing, but just barely, and the canopy of the large trees growing around them in the surrounding forest towered over the ruined structures, not allowing much in the way of sunlight to reach the buildings that hid in their shade.

As the group of five all panned around to take in their surroundings, the portal that they’d stepped through disappeared behind them.

“It’s not a dungeon, we didn’t get an alert.” Darkshot pointed out.

“Those ruins look like they could hold a dungeon in them, somewhere, though.” Aegis motioned in the direction of where the old paved road led.

“Probably an ancient rune waiting to be discovered somewhere in there.” Rakkan said as a smile grew over his face.

“At least one.” Aegis nodded in agreement.

“Hm.” Pyri tapped her own shoulder to cast fly on herself, then began levitating up into the sky. The group was currently in a small clearing, allowing her to soar up without interference, but as she got higher to take in their surroundings, she could see very little of what was below the trees in front of them. There were a few tall ruined structures that stood up to the large overgrown forest, but most of it was hidden from her view. The best she could do was get a sense of how large these ruins were, and they seemed to extend far out through the forest in front of them as far as her eyes could see. Eventually, she hovered back down to the others.

“These ruins are massive. Quinn mentioned the enemies are of low density, which typically means they are few and far between. With only two days… we’ll need to think wisely about how we approach this.” Pyri explained as her feet lightly tapped down back onto the portal altar. As she spoke, though, Aegis was already fidgeting around in his interface.

“There’s only one way to be efficient under these circumstances, as far as I can see it.” Aegis pulled out a large gray sack from his inventory and handed it to Darkshot. Darkshot took the bag curiously and opened the top to peer inside, while Rakkan and Pyri leaned over to look inside as well.

“A bunch of cooked meat, and elixirs?” Darkshot raised his eyebrows at Aegis after seeing the contents.

“Care package, for solo grinding.” Aegis replied without meeting his eyes as he was busy loading up another pack, taking it out and handing it to Rakkan.

“Wait. You want us to kill level 180 elites on our own?” Darkshot asked in disbelief as Rakkan took his pack with a grin and quickly added it to his own inventory. “Is he serious?” Darkshot turned to Rakkan, hoping to get someone on his side, but Rakkan shrugged back.

“Here’s yours.” Aegis handed the next pack to Pyri who gladly took it.

“You know, that offer from Quinn didn’t sound so bad. If we’re going solo, why not have some helpers?” Darkshot continued, this time looking to Pyri, but she also just shrugged at him.

“And yours.” Aegis gave a final sack to Lina, and she took it hesitantly, looking down at it somewhat disappointed.

“C’mon.” Darkshot groaned.

“Darkshot.” Aegis locked eyes with him, then turned to the others one by one. “Pyri. Rakkan. Lina.” he took a deep breath. “We’ve been training nonstop recently. And before that, we’ve fought all manner of dangerous beasts spread out through this Shattered World Online. Do you really think there's going to be anything here that you, Darkshot, the one who shoots from the darkness, cannot handle?” Aegis ended his gaze on Darkshot with a grin. The hesitation on Darkshot’s face slowly faded away.

“Nah… I guess not. There’s nothing I can’t kite.” Darkshot finally came around and replied with confidence.

“Alright.” Aegis put his hand forward, palm facing down. The others finished adding their sacks to their inventory, and the first to lean in and put his hand atop Aegis’ was Darkshot. Next was Rakkan, then Pyri, and finally with some hesitation Lina. In a circle, with their hands stacked, they all exchanged brief looks of excitement.

“Let’s kick some ass.” Aegis cheered before throwing all of their hands up in the air.

“Alright. Imma be level 160 by the time of the preliminaries, easy.” Darkshot cheered before turning and walking along the paved path towards the ruins.

“I’m going to be 161.” Rakkan replied as he joined him.

“I’m probably going to hit 170.” Pyri added nonchalantly.

“Yeah right.” Darkshot replied with a puff of air. As they got further away, Aegis was preparing to follow after them, but was stopped as Lina grabbed the back of his cloak of Eirene, tugging on it lightly.

Aegis turned to look at her, staring at her feet, listening to the sound of the other three voices fading off as they walked further and further away into the ruins.

“Is everything okay?” Aegis asked her.

“Yeah… well, no…” Lina whispered shyly.

“What’s wrong?” Aegis turned to face her and took her hand from his cloak and into his own.

“It’s just, well… uhm…” She had trouble speaking clearly, and continued looking down at her feet to avoid Aegis’ gaze. “I want to stay with you.” She finally managed to get the words out.

“You’re worried about fighting the elites on your own? The elixirs in the bag are really powerful, so-”

“No, it’s not that.” She shook her head quickly, before he could finish. “I just want to stay with you. You were gone on your advanced quest, and then the training, and the brawl, so…” She mumbled. Aegis didn’t need a further explanation, as he began to understand how she was feeling.

“Right, we haven’t been able to spend much time together. I’ve been so focused on preparing for this tournament, not thinking about anything else…” Aegis turned his head down to his own feet as he pondered for a moment. Lina didn’t reply to this, but her silence was all he needed for him to understand he was on the right track. “Okay,” he tightly gripped her hand and began leading her towards the ruins. “Let’s play together. We’ll have to work extra hard to keep up with the others, though, okay?” Aegis smiled at her encouragingly as she finally looked up from her feet to meet his eyes.

“Mhm.” She nodded back excitedly, a giant smile growing over her face.