Spiteful Healer

Aegis quickly lost interest in what was transpiring in the arena as Feng’s quarterfinals match got underway. He turned from the three display screens in front of him just as the VGN fanfare began, instead opening up his own livestream viewer in his interface by pressing several buttons.

He then navigated back to the footage of Eerie’s match in the previous round, against their upcoming opponents. Skar, the leader of Aegis’ team’s opponents in the upcoming match, gave very little away about the strategy they had employed against Eerie. Aegis spent the entirety of Feng’s matches studying their movements and actions, but ultimately came up short. The black smoke within the grandshell was obfuscating everything they were doing, and nothing made sense about how Eerie was being killed nearly instantly from several sources of damage.

Eventually, Aegis gave up on studying Eerie’s gameplay footage of the battle and instead started prodding through the past broadcasts of Skar. He was a VGN streamer just like all the others, but he hadn’t been streaming anything since the gladiator tournament had begun - at least not the matches themselves. All of his content was between the matches, but not even the preliminary matches in which he qualified for the final tournament were streamed. This made Aegis further suspicious about what they were doing to win.

He’d only managed to conclude that their strategy had a weakness that needed to be kept hidden, but this would only be helpful information if Aegis could figure out this weakness in time. As he combed through more clips, he heard over his livestream viewer from Lina, who was watching the three arena feeds in front of them, that Feng had won his quarterfinals match in a 3-1 fashion and would be moving on to face Seraxus in the Semifinals.

The audience outside, as Aegis could hear the vibrations of their roars and cheers through the walls of their waiting area, loved this. The first major showdown between two top VGN streamers was officially coming up, with just Aegis and Synopse’s quarterfinal matches left.

Synopse and their opponents began entering the arena, introduced by the VGN broadcasters with great praise, which Aegis wanted to continue to ignore in order to gather more information on Skar. He was interrupted by another notification, however.

A player is requesting to enter your waiting area: [Serenity - Level 180]

Grant Permission? [Accept][Deny]

Following this notification, another appeared for Hae-won, Kenji, and all of Serenity’s NPCs. Aegis didn’t hesitate to hit accept to all of them, which caused a door to open in the waiting area - one they hadn’t used yet. The sealed set of wooden double doors swung open with a loud grinding squeaky noise on their own, with a small shimmering blue magical wall coating it to make it clear these doors were indestructible.

Once open, a hallway beyond was visible with Serenity and the others standing there, waiting excitedly. She and her dancers had since put their proper adventuring equipment back on and eagerly stepped inside. “Amazing performance out there!” Pyri said, being the first to greet them.

“Yeah, not bad for a bard.” Rakkan gave Serenity a nod of acknowledgement, to which she smiled back at him and bowed her head slightly to be polite. As she did this, it became clear to Aegis that this wasn’t a social visit. She walked hurriedly towards him and met his eyes through his livestream viewer.

“You liked that? Some of those dance moves I showed her myself.” Hae-won declared proudly.

“That explains a lot.” Aegis rolled his eyes at Hae-won as he closed out of his viewer and stood up from the bench. “Everything okay?”

“Yes, well, sort of.” Serenity nodded. “I was trying to think of a way to guarantee Seraxus keeps his wings removed. My music is working, and I am glad I can help, but I’m worried it won’t remain as reliable, particularly for longer matches. I have an idea that could help with that… I just need a bit of your help.”

“But, Aegis can’t leave the waiting area during the tournament. We’d be disqualified.” Lina explained on his behalf. ᴛʜɪs ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ɪs ᴜᴘᴅᴀᴛᴇ ʙʏ 𝗻𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹·𝑓𝑖𝑟𝑒·𝗇𝗲𝘁

“Oh, I know, but I thought it would be enough if I could borrow one of your skills…” Serenity smiled as she alternated looking at Lina and Aegis.

Darkshot raised his eyebrows. “Borrow one of his skills?”

“With Mimicry,” Serenity replied to Darkshot. “Aura of light, specifically.”

Aegis scratched his chin as he pondered for a moment. “That’s not a bad idea.”

“Wait, but what if we need to use an aura of light in one of our matches?” Darkshot asked.

“We’ll still be able to use it…” Rakkan replied. This didn’t seem to clear up Darkshot’s confusion, though. “You’re mixing up Mimicry with Shadow Steal.”

“How’re they different?” Darkshot replied.

“Shadow steal is a skill that requires me to pull the skill out of enemies using shadows, after which I can use the skill at the level that the skill owner had levelled the skill up to, and diminish its effectiveness for the skill owner for a duration that I have the skill stolen. That duration is based on my shadow steal’s skill level. In some cases, the owner can’t use the skill at all while I have it stolen, but there are limitations based on the difference in skill level between the skill I am stealing and the level of my Shadow steal skill.” Lina explained.

“Yes, Mimicry doesn’t steal the skill at all. It copies it. I have to have seen the skill be cast by the target first, then I can mimic the spell myself. In Mimicry’s case, the skill I decide to copy is then cast at the skill level of my Mimicry, not the skill level of the player's skill.” Serenity explained, but Aegis still saw the confusion on Darkshot’s face.

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“So if Pyri has a fireball skill at 150 and Serenity’s Mimicry level is 130, she can copy the fireball and cast it at level 130. But Lina’s Shadow Steal can work in the reverse - if Shadow Steal is level 130 and the fireball is 150, it will be stolen and cast at the level of 150,” Aegis clarified.

“Yeah, but Mimicry has to see Pyri cast the spell, where Lina just has to declare what skill she’s stealing as long as she knows the other player has it,” Rakkan added.

Darkshot shrugged. “So it sounds like Shadow Steal is just better in all ways.”

“Not exactly. Mimicry doesn’t have to declare what skill is being mimicked, and Mimicry can also copy other things like voices or sounds.” Aegis said.

“Ah. Okay. I think I get it.”

“We theorise that if we combine Serenity’s performances, my illusions, and your aura of light, then we should be able to suppress Seraxus’ sword fully.” Kenji jumped into the conversation.

“Pretty good plan for a broadcaster, eh?” Hae-won added proudly, stepping forward as though it was all her idea.

“Only if you don’t mind me borrowing the skill.” Serenity added timidly, looking to Aegis with pleading eyes which Aegis felt were entirely unnecessary.

“Of course you can mimic it, that’s an excellent idea,” Aegis said matter-of-factly. “But it might be a bit draining on your mana to keep it active, alongside your performance.”

“I should be okay. Most of my performance skills rely on stamina consumption, as I’m not actively creating a musical aura myself during my performances - it’s all just for show.”

Aegis stretched his arms out slightly, “Aura of Light.” The dome of light erupted from his body and encapsulated the room, but not for more than a second, as Aegis cancelled the aura immediately.

“Mimicry.” Serenity quickly cast, causing her eyes to flash pink as she stored the spell.

“How long can you keep it copied?” Pyri asked.

“It’s based on my rank… in my case, 2 hours,” Serenity answered Pyri with a polite smile.

Pyri pondered this information as if considering its uses herself. “Bard seems like it’s kind of a neat class to play, maybe I’ll reroll and try it at some point.”

“Reroll?” Aegis's eyes widened.

She added a shrug. “You know, just for fun.”

“Are you forgetting how long it took us to get to this level?”

“Eh, this grind’s not that bad, I’ve been through worse.” She said, causing Lina to hold back a giggle at her nonchalant response and Aegis’s look of disbelief at his mom.

“You wouldn’t mind if we practice for the next performance in here, right? It’s gettin’ a little dangerous out there. All the VGN goons are walking around looking to cause trouble.” Hae-won stepped into the conversation once more.

“Uh… I guess…” Aegis looked around the small waiting room. “There’s not a whole lot of room, though.

“It’s plenty!” Hae-won replied.

“Thank you very much!” Serenity bowed politely.

“You don’t need to thank me like that…” Aegis scratched his head awkwardly as he watched her. “We’re on the same team now, right? Of course we do everything to help each other out.”

“Right. Of course. Thank you,” She bowed again, causing Aegis to give up and roll his eyes as this time Kenji joined in and did the same gesture.

“So cute!” Hae-won squeaked out under her breath, trying to hold back her fan-girling but failing as she watched Serenity and Aegis interact.

“Ok,” Aegis ignored Hae-won’s outburst and turned back to Synopse’s match, seeing now that Synopse’s team was already up 1-0 against his opponents. He watched as the VGN broadcasters began announcing the start of the next match before he sat back down on the bench and went into his interface once more.

“Did you find anything yet on Skar?” Pyri asked.

“No. Nothing. I’m going to go back further into his broadcasting history to find clues on what they’re doing - he hasn’t been streaming any of his PvP matches. But there’s gonna be something… some clue as to what skill or item they are using.”

“Not if it was given to them in secret…” Serenity interjected, causing Aegis to stop what he was doing and look at her once more through his transparent livestream viewer, floating in his peripheral vision through his interface.

“What do you mean?”

“Well…” Serenity hesitated for a moment before waving her hands around and drawing out one of her floating instruments - a golden flute. It had a pink magical energy as Serenity manipulated it. “Early on, when I started streaming, VGN gave me this item as a gift for signing with them. It’s a very powerful magic item that can be attuned to my music beforehand, so that it plays along with whatever songs I play without me needing to control it manually. It really has alleviated a lot of work from me during live performances.”

As Serenity explained this, Aegis got off the bench once more and closed out of his viewer to inspect the item card of the flute, seeing that it was a potent item with incredible options named [Flute of Apollo].

“This thing is powerful…” Darkshot commented.

“Yes, something always bugged me about it, but I was too thankful towards VGN to bring it up,” Serenity replied hesitantly as she watched Aegis’ party scrutinize the item card. “There was a quest that involved retrieving the flute that was discovered by players of level 50 on Savringard, from a Siren creature that had stolen it from the temple of Apollo on that island.”

“Is that how they got it?” Lina asked curiously.

“No, that’s the weird part - when players on Savringard cleared that quest and killed the Siren boss, they never found the flute itself. So, when I had my first concert in Savringard, I visited the Apollo temple to see if the flute I had was the missing flute, and it was. The Great Prophet of Apollo thanked me for finding the lost flute and allowed me to continue to use it as a reward.” Serenity explained further.

“So VGN had somehow gotten the Apollo flute beforehand? Maybe they stole it from the temple themselves and blamed it on the Siren?” Rakkan suggested.

“Or stole it from the Siren?” Darkshot added.

“Maybe, but…” Serenity paused as if hesitating greatly before speaking her following words. “I started on Arallia, and they made me that offer only two weeks into the game's launch. The highest level players were only nearing level 30, and the distance between Arallia and Savringard… It just really seemed weird.”

“Hm,” Rakkan began pondering her words more deeply, scratching his head as he began pacing, which inadvertently drew eyes unto himself.

“What is it?” Aegis turned to him, as did the others.

“I left Seraxus for my intermediate quest just after he started streaming. When I came back, he seemed very insistent on exploring the rest of a snake temple we’d been grinding in, pushing me to uncover its secrets to keep going deeper inside. He’d just signed with VGN… I didn’t really think much of it at the time, though…”

“Did it seem like he knew there would be something at the bottom of that temple you were exploring?” Aegis asked Rakkan, and the two looked into each other's eyes for a moment as if reading each other's thoughts.

Rakkan eventually replied with a hesitant shrug. “I don’t know. Can’t say for sure.”

“What does all that mean? How’s that gonna help us against Skar?” Darkshot butted in.

“It isn’t, really.” Aegis sighed as he sat back down on the bench. “Just seems like VGN has a method of obtaining lore about powerful items in this gameworld.”

“It’s not really that surprising. They’ve got tons of people in their network working for them.” Pyri replied.

“It takes the fun out of playing the game yourself…” Lina replied.

“I don’t think VGN cares much about having fun,” Kenji said.

“Even if Skar’s obtained something using a method like that, there’s still a chance they slipped up. All we need is a little bit of information, and we could counteract his team’s tactics.” Aegis dove right back into viewing Skar’s past live streams through his own interface.

“And if you can’t find anything?” Darkshot asked Aegis with an ominous tone.

“Then we'd better be ready to fight a 3v5,” Aegis answered.