The item [Star of Light] is immune to the effects of [Master Transmute Element: Gold]. The skill has failed.
The flash of gold and white scattered over Aegis, and over his shield, he saw the scowl worn by the Avatar of Greed. Several more attacks came from Affliction, which drew his attention.
Greed stepped back from Aegis and drew out a hilt from beneath his cloak using pale, bony fingers. The hilt was nothing more than the pummel, brace, and some leather wrapping, but Greed flicked it around and activated one of his skills.
From the hilt grew a golden pole, unrealistically thick for the size of the hilt, and unreasonably long. A few seconds of Aegis being distracted by Affliction’s attacks and casting cleanse, and he looked back to see Greed now holding a gigantic golden maul, which he lifted into the air above his head with ease and slammed it down on Aegis from above as though he was playing a game of whack-a-mole.
Aegis jumped to the side to avoid it, while Affliction forced his thick cloud on him, encircling him so that he had no way out; two Avatars of Darkness on either side of him with horrific green smoke on his flanks.
It cut off his vision to the others, and he watched as debuffs rained over Joshaka’s three companions. Aegis blindly threw all but one of his last flasks beneath Affliction's legs, and managed to dispel all of them of paralysis, but lack of line of sight due to the smoke. He repeatedly cast cleanse on himself, but the curses stuck, and he could no longer protect the dark elves on the wall that were assisting.
“You will dodge to save yourself. But not your friends,” Greed screeched in a high-pitched voice. He turned his maul towards Amlie, Seliolara, and the other druids and swung it down towards them. Their focus was on Bihi; none reacted.
Aegis cast a guard in the path of the maul and took the full blunt force of the damage with his shield projection.
You take 24,940 crushing damage.
An attack from Affliction slashed at him from the side, which he braced.
You take 15,226 slashing damage.
He cleansed and healed, but several deadly curses remained on him as the pain settled on his body from the attacks, causing him to gasp and take in a mouthful of the green smoke.
Curse of Suffocation
You find yourself struggling to breathe.
Effect: Stamina Costs +10%
Source: Avatar of Affliction
Curse of Affliction
A child of the Avatar of Suffering curses those to feel intense pain from even the most mundane.
Effect 1: Increases damage taken by all sources by 20%
Effect 2: Increases the Pain Threshold of the player by 2 (Maximum 15)
Source: Avatar of Affliction
If it wasn’t so chaotic around Aegis, he’d love to ponder more on the implications of these Avatar skills. The existence of Master Transmutations, and the fact that Pain Threshold went beyond the default 10. Those thoughts briefly ran through his mind as he disengaged into the smoke to avoid the next few strikes from Affliction, while Greed wound up his maul to strike at Bihi and her watchers.
The debuffs were abhorrently distracting. Aegis had an overwhelming urge to turn on Avatar of Beauty to offset the increased stamina costs, but knew he had to keep Light and Healing active. The sensation of struggling to breathe, despite not actually being able to, was unnerving, amplified by the other curse. It felt as though he was constantly diving under water, holding his breath for as long as he could, and then resurfacing over and over again, something he’d done for fun as a kid, but it wasn’t a welcome sensation here.
Attacks being blocked by his shield from Affliction were now reverberating through to his hands and arms, when normally, slashing attacks were barely felt.
Both of these, of course, had an easy solution. Aegis flipped his interface open and went to his options menu between guarding another Greed attack and dodging a scythe arm from Affliction.
He grabbed the slider for his Pain Threshold, currently at 10, and pulled it down to 1, hitting accept afterwards.
[Error]
Pain Threshold change is currently unavailable for this account.
If gameplay has become too intense, consider logging out to take a break. You will be respawned at the nearest safe location upon re-entry.
[Force Logout] [Contact Support]
What?
He waved the error message away. He knew there was a cooldown to changing it, but it was his first time he’d entered this menu, so it shouldn’t have been active. He considered the Avatar causing the issue, but that seemed a stretch, even in this realistic VR simulation. That left only one other possibility.
***
A grin crept across Mike’s face as he sat in his office simulation, spotting the brief bewilderment on Aegis’ face through his livestream broadcast. A second after it occurred, a holographic blue silhouette of Samantha AI appeared beside him.
“Nicholas requested I alert him of any irregular game behaviour of the underlying game systems. I have currently detected a change for one individual from the Safety Guidelines system, over which I have no control. I have been unable to determine the source, as the change was made outside the game world. It originates from safety, regulation, and cybersecurity systems,” Samantha explained in monotone.
“Ignore it, just a small update for one particularly troublesome individual,” Mike replied, quickly waving away a holoscreen display separate from Aegis’s livestream, of which he’d been tampering with.
“The change appears to have disabled the player's ability to modify their pain threshold levels, locking it at 10. This goes against several regulations of which I am forced to f-”
“I said ignore it, I’ll handle it.” Mike snapped at the AI. She quietly vanished from his simulation. His grin grew after she’d left. “Let’s see how tough you really are, little shit,” he growled at Aegis’ broadcast.
***
The red damage numbers appearing above Affliction lessened drastically. Aegis tossed his final flask at his feet, the smoke exploding outward and competing with the green fog from Affliction. He flapped his wings of light furiously, trying to bat the bad mist away, constantly forced to back from from the stomping hooves of Affliction.
A loud thunderous boom shook the ground, and Aegis spotted that one of the gigantic Broodmothers had been killed by the focused damage of the Mosmir voidreaders. Its corpse crashed down over the western walls of Rene, killing a large number of defenders, and from its body emerged swarms of Reapers, a mix of low- and high-levels, who swarmed through the skies towards the voidreavers, overwhelming them.
Two Juggernauts walked over the western wall, stomping over the corpse of the Broodmother, and eying the shrinking defense formation around Krael and Kaef’aktos. Their large blade-arms were swung down on the two defending dark elves within seconds.
Greed continued to attack Bihi, Amlie, and the others. Aegis couldn’t let a single strike through. He jumped upward into the air, flapping his wings to get above the green smoke and spot Joshaka’s friends and the walls beyond. It was completely engulfed in a mix of green fog and swarming attackers. He hadn’t realized it, but Joshaka’s companions were fighting off abyssal fallen and abysslings while they were trying to damage Affliction, covered in curse debuffs and holding their breath.
They were tough as hell, but the aura of healing wasn’t doing much, and their potion chugging lost ground against their incoming damage. The dark elves who’d been raining arrows on Affliction were already all but overrun.
Only the eastern section of Rene still held, with north covered in gold, west covered in a Broodmother corpse, and south covered in Affliction's smoke. Attackers were swarming over the walls of Rene, and the defending mosmir and dark elves were dropping like flies.
A part of Aegis wished he’d never flown up into the air to see how bad it was. A part of him regretted even logging back in. As he attempted to heal Joshaka’s companions and failed due to them dying from incoming ranged spells and attacks, more regret rushed over him.
What was I thinking? Even with a well-thought-out strategy and weeks of preparation, this quest was a toss-up. I know it was the only chance to save Kalmoore, but I must’ve gotten too big an ego lately from all that attention. There was no way I was ever going to clear an Extreme V quest under these circumstances. Kalmoore was already doomed before I logged back in.
All I’ve done has made its end more dramatic. I couldn’t do anything to stop these guys. The abyss, or VGN.
“The hope and peace of this land have faded too drastically. I can no longer maintain my presence here. I am sorry, Harbinger of Light,” Eirene cried out.
Aegis glanced in her direction to see her glowing form fade, and the black beam of the god of Darkness overtook his statue, now level 1 again, and destroyed it.
“Good. The Light has no place in my darkness,” Nor taunted, but he too faded from the battlefield.
Eirene’s buffs dispersed, causing Aegis’ Avatar skill to gain a duration once more, but it didn’t disappear completely. His aura of light shrank, shrouding more of the outskirts in darkness. The skies swarmed with reapers who ripped apart the voidreavers, outdoing Aegis’ aura of healing.
The bodies of Joshaka’s friends disintegrated, and Krael and Kaef’aktos were overtaken. Before Aegis could even consider flying towards them and healing, they, too, had their health zeroed out.
Two more powerful allies, living NPCs, were wiped out, forever, Aegis thought as he stopped mid-air, his healing spell prepared on his fingertips but never cast.
Bihi, the size of a young apple tree and glowing bright white, was now vulnerable. The last of the defending Mosmir retreated to them, while Aegis blocked another strike from the Avatar of Greed.
Affliction fluttered his bug-wings to get up into the air where Aegis was, continuing to strike at him. Arrows and spells from fallen abyss soldiers came as well, and reapers swarmed.
Every attack he blocked or took surged pain through his body, and he was forced down out of the air to avoid taking so much damage, whipping his wings and shield out wildly in all directions, breathing painfully through the debuffs.
It was over. He was holding on, fighting through the increased pain for nothing.
For nothing.
It felt, for a moment, that time around Aegis slowed down. His feet touched the paved roads of Rene, and he recalled building it with Lina and Amlie.
He remembered the first days of this city, smiling and laughing with his friends as they built the place up from empty green fields, and invited Farlion to live here with his family. A flash of all the memories he had made with Darkshot, Lina, Rakkan, and Pyri flooded over him.
Building the forge with Ruffily, selling his crafts with Chax, crafting gear with Tullan, and designing equipment with Yuki.
How happy his mom had been, playing together. How happy he had been. All taken away. All gone, impossible to be revisited.
The fan video from the Night Hunters. Quinn. How hard had she worked to make a fun, safe place to play in this gameworld, in spite of all VGN’s antics? All gone. They’d all log back in and be in prison. No more shattered world for them. For anyone. All ruined by a greedy developer and his shitty streaming network.
Even Finley and Emerill and the shady dark network players, putting their faith in a guy like him despite all the conflicts they’d had. Even David, who put everything he had into this game world, ruined their family over it. All taken away, tossed aside, for nothing.
For nothing.
Aegis clenched his fists through the pain. He gritted his teeth, glared, and stomped backwards towards Seliolara and Amlie.
Attackers swarmed at them from all sides. The light of Bihi was faint, but enough to hold back some darkness on its own. In her presence, Aegis swapped out Aura of Light for Aura of Beauty.
“I can’t keep you all safe. Seliolara, Amlie, stay behind my wings, don’t let Bihi die.” Aegis roared, his voice barely audible over the stampeding screeches of thousands of enemies closing in all around them.
Greed wound up his hammer and slammed it down on them. Aegis braced it with his shield, and the crushing damage made him feel as though his body had been crushed into pudding. A mental stress warning flew across his screen.
He let out an aggravated roar of pain and waved the notification away in time to brace the scythes from affliction. Abysslings formed piles around them, biting at and killing the dark elf druids, closing the space around Bihi into a claustrophobic mass of swarming abyss, with her light and the light of his wings barely visible.
Still, Aegis held. Shield up, casting heals, cleansing Seliolara and Amlie, who crouched down into small balls, between Aegis’s back and the thin trunk of the young Bihi.
Several abysslings and fallen gnawed on the upper branches and leaves, breaking them, but Amlie and Seliolara worked tirelessly to mend and repair the young tree of light.
“Aegis!” Amlie let out a crying whimper, tears streaming down her face.
“KEEP IT ALIVE!” Aegis shouted through the overwhelming pain. Bites, arrows, slashes, hammers, all hitting his body from all sides. He consumed stamina food after stamina food to offset the suffocation debuff, barely feeling as though he was able to breathe.
He winced, groaned, and cried out in agony, unable to mask the pain from the attacks, healing himself repeatedly alongside the aura to offset the damage. Seliolara, too, switched from Bihi to Aegis, trying to help keep him alive while Amlie focused on the tree.
“It wasn’t all for nothing,” he focused his anger towards the livestream. He knew VGN was watching. Feng, Lilya, and all of them. And that guy Mike, who caused all of this. He knew they were excitedly, giddily, watching as everything crumbled down around him. “YOU’RE NOT GONNA DESTROY WHAT WE BUILT!”