Chapter 257: Almerak

Very few beams of sunlight were making their way through the thick canopy of the large trees around them, as Lina and Aegis stepped into the ruins. Darkshot, Pyri and Rakkan had all taken off at top speeds, disappearing far off into the forest - so far in fact that not a sound of their activities could be heard from the pair.

Aegis had let go of Lina’s hand and was walking ahead of her, peering around the thick brown, vine covered trunks of the forest. Most of the paved stone was overtaken by thick mounds of dirt and grass, and the ruined structures had very little structure left to them. There was a pillar or wall standing up here and there, but most of it was rubble. The natural smells of mushrooms and wild flowers filled his nose, alongside the sounds of the animals and the light winds blowing in the canopy above. He found himself once again marveling at how realistic it felt, as if he was actually wandering in a real set of ruins. That thought faded, though, as he heard Lina’s footsteps following closely behind him.

He felt a sudden urge to take the lead - to take charge of the situation and tell her what to do. But, as he thought on it, his mind drew a blank on what he should say. He himself wasn’t exactly sure why, as if some other words were bubbling up in the bottom of his throat. Words that he couldn’t quite piece together into a meaningful sentence, as he didn’t know what he wanted to say. It wasn’t something that sat on the forefront of his mind, but it was there, and it was preventing him from focusing on the task at hand.

When he finally opened his mouth to speak, he stopped himself from even forming a word and instead began scratching the back of his head. He suddenly felt as though he couldn’t even turn around to face her, and he’d no idea where the feeling was coming from.

“Uhm… I should scout around for the enemies, right? Since we don’t know what they are yet?” Lina suggested.

“Yeah. Good idea.” Aegis nodded without looking back at her.

“Okay. I’ll try to be quick.” She replied enthusiastically, before disappearing from his side. He caught a glimpse of her re-appearing in front of him as she shadowstepped several times from branch to branch in the treetops above. Her movement, like always, was impressively fast, and the environment they were in gave her more than enough shadows to play around with.

Once he was alone, though, he felt a sudden relief of pressure and let out an elongated, frustrated sigh at himself. As if he had an urge he couldn’t scratch, he aggressively kicked at a large rock and sent it rolling away across the ruins pointlessly. He wasn’t the one who usually struggled to talk, between himself and Lina. She was my girlfriend, why couldn’t I talk to her. The more he thought about it, the more he’d realized he hadn’t really talked to her at all, or spent time with her since the events of his birthday. When he’d pieced that together, he slowly started to realize what was wrong - what he wanted to say.

He wasn’t able to construct anything meaningful before Lina returned, however. She appeared in a puff of black smoke as she shadowstepped in front of him, using the shadows cast by the canopy. She had a strange expression on her face, a mix of fear and discomfort.

“I found some… Some of the monsters.” Lina said. Aegis was quick to jump at the opportunity to converse about it, despite her awkward expression.

“Really? What is it?”

“I saw a few of them. I think it’s the only type of monster in these ruins. They’re called Manticores. Do you know what those are?” Lina asked.

“Uh, not really. It's a mythical creature, right?”

“Right… Like a mixture of a bunch of animals?”

“Yeah…” She sighed, looking around awkwardly. “They appear in a lot of games, usually interpreted differently. Sometimes they’re really scary, and sometimes really creepy. These ones are the creepy kind.” Lina explained.

“How so?” Aegis asked.

“Probably better if you see one yourself… There was one that was asleep over here. Want to see?” She asked hesitantly.

“Yeah, of course. I mean, we’ve got to hunt them, right? They’ll give good experience?”

“Probably.” Lina shrugged. “Okay, this way.” She motioned him to follow her, then led deeper into the forest. The pair moved as quietly as they could, avoiding thick bushes and brambles that were growing all about. After nearly 5 minutes of walking quietly with Lina in the lead, there was a sudden shuffling sound that gave them pause. They both stopped moving and looked in the direction of the sound.

A large collection of bushes and vegetation sat between the trunks of two trees and shook for a brief moment before going still. Lina looked at Aegis nervously out of the corner of her eyes, and he saw her uncomfortable stare briefly before focusing on the bush and drawing out his shield from his back.

“Hello? Is someone there?” A young lady's voice asked, a soft welcoming tone reaching their ears. The moment it spoke, Aegis looked to Lina once more and she violently shook her head no and held her hand out in front of Aegis, to signal him to stop. “Please, I don’t have any money if you are bandits. I’ve gotten lost out here and just want to find my way home.” The voice continued. The look on Lina’s face, Aegis saw, was getting progressively more terrified.

“Please won’t you help me find my way home?” The voice spoke a third time, this time protruding its face out of the bush to reveal itself, but simultaneously get a view of Aegis and Lina. It had large, almost perfectly circular round eyes with pupils like that of a human. Long, stringy eyelashes and eyebrows, and an exaggerated human face covered in wrinkles. A hideous, malformed face with no ears, extending out of a mane of thick hair like that of a lion. Two bumpy black horns extended out of the forehead and curled upwards once before pointing their sharp tips forward towards Aegis and Lina.

The face looked masculine, but the voice was clearly that of a young girl, and upon seeing them it opened its mouth once more to speak. Its mouth and lips were large and oversized, with long stringy black hairs growing around the edges of it. Within were razor sharp teeth and a strangely shaped black tongue with grooves on the end of it.

Lina immediately shivered violently, and Aegis could immediately understand all of the facial expressions that she’d been showing him up until now. Its eyes began to shimmer with a red glow as it locked onto them, and [Almerak Manticore(Elite) - Level 187] became visible above its head in red font, signifying it was a hostile creature.

“It’s going to attack us, now?” Aegis asked Lina, but she didn’t reply. Instead, she looked somewhat frozen with wide eyes as she looked at it. “Lina?” he asked, but got no response much to his surprise. Simultaneously, he watched as something long and pointed began to rise up from behind the bush that the head was sticking out of, a tail resembling that of a scorpion’s.

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Then, without warning, the creature lunged forward towards Lina, and she remained frozen and unable to move.

“Lina!” Aegis shouted, but got no reaction. He quickly jumped in front of her and lifted his shield up just in time to brace the attack - the Manticore jabbed its tail forward over its body down at Aegis and the stinger slid off the side of his mithral shield.

You take 11,346 Piercing damage.

You take 6,205 Acid damage.

It was some of the highest damage number’s he’d seen since upgrading his gear, immediately putting him on edge. He was only grateful that his shield was resistant to acid and wouldn’t melt away like an Iron shield would. The beast followed up its tail attack with a charge attack using its horns, ramming into Aegis’ shield which he blocked.

You take 9,783 Piercing damage.

It then prepared to follow up by slashing out at him with a pair of claws that extended out of two massive lion paws that it had on its front legs, while at the same time Aegis watched two large, bat-like wings begin to expand from the back of the four legged creature.

“This thing hits hard, I shouldn’t block his attacks like this.” Aegis declared as he saw the claws rearing up, but the speed at which it was attacking was incredibly fast - he was sure that fighting players for so long would’ve given him a leg up but was quickly realizing the truth behind all the warnings he’d been given about high level monsters in this game.

Still, as he said this, a quick glance back at Lina told him she wasn’t going to react. So, instead, he quickly turned from the creature and scooped up Lina in his arms, sweeping behind her knees with one hand to cradle her while casting a guard at his back to block the two claw attacks.

You take 15,680 Slashing damage.

You take 14,924 Slashing damage.

Within a few seconds, he was near death due to the bombardment of attacks this creature was hitting him with, and it had no intention of letting up. It pulled its head back as if preparing to release a blast of magical energy, and a quick glance from Aegis allowed him to see a magical orb begin to form at the back of its throat.

“Aura of healing. Greater heal.” Aegis quickly cast, while at the same time jumping away as quickly as he could to create distance between himself and the Manticore. As he had, a beam of green acid fired out of its mouth in a straight line, cutting through trees and ruined stone walls like butter, leaving a green gooey stain around the impact points.

“Please, don’t run away!” The manticore called out after him in the young female voice as Aegis desperately dashed around several trees.

“Lina, did you get hit with some sort of crowd control ability?” Aegis asked her frantically as he started weighing his options. His Avatar of Eirene skill was still on cooldown for the day, due to the brawl. He looked to his party interface in the corner of his peripheral vision to see Lina’s status and saw she had no debuffs. “Maybe a connection problem with your Simbox?” He tried to reason, still seeing her just staring blankly at him. He wanted to try and figure it out, but the manticore was somehow keeping up with him despite him zig-zagging around the trees of the forest. He felt the wooshing air caused by the creatures wings as they flapped behind him, and in an instant the scorpion tail was jabbed out at his back once more. Luckily, he was able to sidestep it, then quickly cast a heal on himself and jump backwards to avoid a swipe of the Manticore’s claws.

“Let’s escape this forest together.” The manticore spoke, a deadpan stare from its circular eyes as it spoke. Aegis felt the creepiness of this creature in his bones, but he also felt he might be able to take it on - especially if he had Lina’s help.

“Lina, I need you,” Aegis mumbled while preparing himself to dodge the next set of attacks. He hadn’t realized it, but without saying anything else, this had snapped Lina out of her trance. She blinked, looking at Aegis’ chin from below as he held her and continued speaking. “To get out of this. These Manticore’s are no joke. If it’s a connection issue, please fix-”

“I’m sorry. I’m really scared of these things.” Lina took a deep anxious breath, her eyes still wide but finally blinking.

“Why didn’t you say so? We didn’t have to fight them. We could grind somewhere else.”

“But this is the best spot!” Lina replied as tears started to build up in her eyes. “I didn’t want to slow us down, and get in the way. I want to be by your side and help you! I wasn’t able to help you when Rene was burning, and… I…”

“You were worried about something like that?” Aegis asked as he jumped back and dodged another swipe from the creature's claws.

“You don’t need to fear me.” The Manticore joined into the conversation, and Aegis could feel Lina shivering in his arms from its voice.

“When we started, I knew so much more. I could always help. Now I feel like I can’t help anymore. Like you are so far away… the brawl, the pirates, I watched it all, it was so incredible, so…”

“Lina, I’m the one who should be worried.” Aegis finally found the words he was looking for earlier, boiling to the surface. “The way I acted after everything happened, it was embarrassing. I apologized, but I guess I’m still ashamed of it. A little bit of me was afraid of how you thought of me now, since I yelled at everyone.” Aegis explained while jumping away from the Manticore further into the forest. It continued its close pursuit and made several more strikes towards Aegis’ back and knocked over trees in the process.

“No, no of course not. I understand you were angry. It didn’t change how I felt. I just want to be with you.” She replied with her voice trailing off.

“I’m glad… because I feel the same way.” Aegis let out a sigh of relief.

“Let’s all become one, together.” The Manticore added, turning Aegis’ sigh of relief into that of an annoyed one. “Shut the hell up you stupid creepy cat thing.” Aegis grumbled back at it. For the first time, Lina felt herself holding back a slight chuckle rather than feeling afraid after the creature spoke. The laughter ended when Aegis abruptly had to switch the direction in which he was fleeing, due to him coming face to face with a second, distinctly different but equally hideous manticore face.

“Why hello there partner!? Fine weather we’re having today, ain’t it?” The second manticore spoke with an accent resembling that of a cowboy from the wild west.

“You gotta be kidding me.” Aegis shook his head in disbelief as the tail of the second Manticore reared up and prepared to strike. “Who the hell designed the voices for these things?” Aegis asked Lina in disbelief, causing her to smile anxiously. “Do you think you can help me kill these idiotic monsters? Or should we get out of here and look for somewhere else to grind?” Aegis asked her, looking down into her eyes for a brief moment. “Together, we should be able to take them out easily.”

“Okay.” Lina nodded back. “Let’s take them out together.” she added while wiggling herself out of his arms. Both Manticores charged at them from the front, and Lina and Aegis both drew out their weapons to stare back at them, watching as they knocked over the few trees that stood between them and the creatures.

“Giddyup, partners!” The second manticore cheered.

“Let’s escape this place together, as one!” The young female-speaking one called out.

“Let’s shut these idiots up.” Aegis drew out his claws of jealousy, dug his heels in and prepared himself for the counterattack, while a coat of black mist began to emanate from Lina’s body.