The plains surrounding Ambrosiana were full of players, just like it had been when they’d arrived at the city. The forest was also popular; especially for training, as quite a lot of it was in a safezone. However, the forest stretched on for quite a distance, much, much further out if you left the path – those parts were a little less popular. But that was where they needed to go for the raid. It was a day’s journey from Ambrosiana. They didn’t run into much trouble. They just ran into the occasional mob, which they took care of pretty easily.

  The sun was slowly beginning to set, and oak trees rose up all around them. The ground was covered in leaves, grass and branches. Life buzzed around them, from the butterflies, to the little birds, along with squirrels darting past them occasionally. They had left the path far behind, and ventured so deep into the forest that they had almost forgotten which direction Ambrosiana lay. Though, as per Bega’s advice, they had brought a map to guide them.

  Slie fell back against the trunk of one of the many oak trees that sprouted up around them.

  ‘The raid should be about an hour further north. I vote we make camp here for tonight, and tackle it in the morning.’

  ‘Agreed,’ Aquila said pulling some logs out from his inventory and getting started on a fire – which didn’t take long. Not long afterward, when the sun had set, and the moon shone pale rays of light through the gaps in the forest canopy, and they’d finished warding the area, the three of them sat around the warm fire with a bowl of rabbit stew in each of their hands. Tiny fireflies buzzed around them beautifully; and the three of them embellished in casual conversation about what kind of loot they’d get from the raid, or what they’d do with the money if that’s what the drop was.

  ‘I hope we get some kind of shadow cloak,’ Slie said.

  ‘What even is that?’ Aquila asked, ‘did you just make it up?’

  ‘No, it’s a real thing. Raises stealth by a lot.’

  ‘You don’t need any more stealth buffs! You’re stealthy enough as it is. I need a better weapon. I smithed this sword ages ago, and I’m starting to grow out of it. Plus this flimsy bow is what I started with.’

  ‘Yeah, I can’t argue with that. It’s probably something we should have sorted out before we left.’

  ‘Hopefully it’s not a problem tomorrow,’ Aquila said.

  ‘It won’t be a problem mate,’ Slie assured him, ‘all you need to do is move fast. I’ll do as much stealth damage as I can, and Nixie will keep your stamina full.’

  Aquila smiled.

  ‘But…speaking of raiding tomorrow,’ Slie stretched his arms, ‘I think it’s time for me to get some sleep.’

  ‘No problems. I’ll take the first watch,’ Aquila said.

  ‘You sure?’ Nixie asked him.

  ‘Yep!’

  Aquila’s head still turned with thoughts. Bega didn’t seem confident he’d be able to get hold of any information about Sofia and Alister – and although he had acknowledged the fact that his old friends might have already died, Bega seemed to think that it was a strong possibility. He knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep at the moment, even if he tried.

  ‘Okay,’ Nixie said laying out her bedroll.

  ‘Wake me in three hours,’ Slie said slipping into his own bed.

  ‘No problems,’ Aquila replied.

  Silence filled the campsite.

  Aquila found himself sitting back against the trunk of a large oak tree, looking up into the leaves of the canopy. He found a small part where the canopy broke and he could see the purple sky. Looking up at the stars was mesmerising, and calming in an odd kind of way. His mind still continued to swirl with thoughts. Thoughts about his friends, thoughts about the morrow, and thoughts about the things to come. He had somehow forgotten about the outside world now, it was as though it had only ever existed as a faraway memory – even though his life had been completely different a little over a month ago.

  ‘Mind if I join you?’ a voice came from the darkness behind him, though it was familiar enough to Aquila at this point that he was hardly concerned.

  ‘Sure,’ Aquila said, moving over to make room against the oak tree.

  Nixie sat next to him, close enough that their shoulders were touching.

  ‘Can’t sleep?’ Aquila asked.

  ‘My mind just won’t stop ticking, you know.’

  ‘I get you,’ Aquila said quietly.

  ‘Are you feeling okay?’ Nixie asked.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I can tell that you haven’t stopped thinking about your friends – ever since you spoke to Bega about them.’

  Aquila leant against her shoulder.

  ‘Is there such thing as spell to detect thoughts in this game?’ Aquila asked, ‘or is reading minds just a thing all girls can do.’

  ‘I’m not sure it’s a girl thing. I just try to pay attention to the people I care about,’ Nixie said placing a hand in his hair.

  ‘Sophia could do it. She could always tell what I was thinking. You know that you remind me so much of her,’ Aquila said.

  ‘How so…what’s she like?’

  ‘Gentle. Caring. Beautiful. She always pays attention to her friends. You know I think you would really get along with her.’

  ‘I’d really like to meet her. And your friend Alister too. What do you suppose you’ll do once you find them?’ Nixie asked.

  ‘It was just a thought; but I was hoping that maybe we could all travel together. Me, you, Sophia, Alister and Slie. They might have other people they’ve been travelling with. It would be nice though.’

  ‘They’d be more than welcome to join us,’ said Nixie.

  ‘I’m glad to hear.’

  A moment of silence passed.

  ‘Nixie…did you join the game with anyone?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘And how did you…find out about the game.’

  ‘A stupid, random email. It was so weird. I kinda thought it was a spam email, but I clicked on it anyway. Next thing I know, I was signing up for the beta test. I still thought it was a scam. Heck, it’s stupid was such a stupid thing to do, you know, go to random address on my own – a fourteen year old girl. But the whole concept seemed to be too appealing. Like someone who knows an apple is poisoned but eats it anyway because it just smells so delicious. I think there must have been a data leak or something. I doubt I was randomly targeted.’

  ‘Did you leave behind a family?’

  Nixie nodded.

  ‘I had a little brother. And of course, my mum and dad. We lived just out of Manchester, on a quant little farm. It was lovely, it really was. But my parents were a little old fashioned. They didn’t really let me play too many games. I kinda had to beg them for a computer, and I was only allowed to play it for an hour a day when they finally got it for me. It wasn’t like we couldn’t afford one. It was just that they didn’t like computer games. Maybe that’s why I was so tempted by the beta test.’

  ‘Sorry if I’m overstepping, but, is Nixie your real name?’

  Nixie laughed.

  ‘Of course not. It’s Nicole. Nixie it’s kind of an odd nickname. How about you?’

  ‘My real name is Sebastian. Aquila is just something I came up with – it means eagle in Latin; Sophia always used to tease me because my online gaming names were so lame – so I cooked this one up to surprise for her.’

  ‘I’m sure she’ll love it! And how did you three get roped into this game anyway?’

  ‘Sophia heard about it. From someone else at our school. I think you’re right. This whole things seems to be too well planned – almost like this game knew exactly who they were targeting. Anyway, I guess like pretty much everyone else in here, we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. Maybe we’ll find a way out. Or maybe this is our life now.’

  ‘Well…until we do find a way out, I think we should use our time, our money… our skills, as best we can. Some players are thriving in this new world, but others are… less secure.’

  ‘And you want to try to be there for them?’ Aquila asked.

  Nixie nodded.

  ‘Did you have some kind of plan in mind. A way to do it I mean.’

  ‘I had a stupid little thought…’

  ‘Do you mind telling me your stupid little thought? I’m sure it’s not actually as stupid as you think.’

  ‘Maybe…maybe not. I wanted to form a clan. With the three of us. But we could recruit others. And grow. Your friends could join us. In this game there seems to be power in numbers. So far, people are grouping up to keep themselves safe, or overpower helpless players. Maybe we could…you know… dedicate ourselves to protecting people. Helping people. It was just a thought, and it will probably be hard to pull off but...’

  ‘I love it!’ Aquila said.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Absolutely. I’m in! Once we finish the raid I think we float the idea with Slie. We’re only a small group but we’ll grow.’

  ‘You think it could work.’

  ‘Without a doubt. It’s a brilliant idea.’

  Nixie leant over and kissed Aquila lightly on the cheek.

  ‘Thanks.’

  Aquila wasn’t looking at her, but he could sense her warm emotions glowing.

  ‘I think I’m actually getting kinda sleepy now,’ Nixie laughed.

  Aquila rubbed her back.

  ‘We are going to take down a high level boss tomorrow, so it might be a good idea to get some rest.’

  Nixie jumped to her feet.

  ‘Night Sebastian.’

  ‘Night Nicole!’

  Nixie slipped into her bedrole and silence settled over the night once more.

  ***

  ‘I think it’s just over here,’ Slie said. Sure enough, they rounded a large tree trunk, and a cave-like tunnel appeared burrowing into the ground.

  ‘I don’t see anything else that could be the entrance to a boss raid. This must be it,’ Aquila said.

  They approached the cave together, and began walking along a path that descended into complete darkness.

  ‘Eek. I can’t see, I don’t like this,’ Nixie said.

  ‘Just follow us,’ Slie said, ‘we’ll make sure you don’t run into anything.’

  ‘Since when did the Umbra get darkvision anyway. I thought that was an elf thing.’

  ‘Since they made the game I guess,’ Slie said.

  ‘I don’t think you need darkvision when you can do this,’ Nixie said as she flicked her hand and a small orb appeared floating above them and providing them with more light than a torch would have.

  ‘Since when did you have a spell that could do that?’ Aquila asked.

  ‘It was a pretty cheap scroll that I bought off the cuff yesterday.’

  ‘Shouldn’t you be saving manna for the boss fight?’

  ‘This spell only consumes a tiny bit of manna. By the time we get to the raid it will have regenerated.’

  ‘Okay,’ Slie said.

  They continued down the narrow tunnel. The ground beneath them was hard, but the wall around them began to ooze with slime. The glowing ball that Nixie had cast, continued to follow them like a loyal dog. After about ten minutes of walking, the tunnel began to level out, and another ten minutes after that, they came to a large double door with two blue torches burning on either side.

  ‘This is it,’ Slie said.

  As they approached the door, a blue text appeared hovering in front of it.

  Boss raid.

  Difficulty class: easy.

  Despite their assurance, Aquila couldn’t help but feel a little nervous. They had fully prepared themselves with healing items, and buffs – Nixie had even cast divine grace on the both of them a few hours earlier. Yet, something still nagged at Aquila, he had an odd feeling that something was going to go wrong.

  ‘Do we just…push it open?’ Nixie asked.

  ‘I suppose,’ Slie said as he stepped forward and placed his hand against the hard wood. The door suddenly swung open of its own accord. The room ahead of them lay in darkness; with both Aquila and Slie only able to make out feint details.

  ‘Let’s go,’ Slie whispered.

  Slie walked forward; Aquila and Nixie followed side by side. As soon as they had fully entered the room, the doors swung shut behind them – and then several blue torches lit up all at once. They were in an extremely large underground arena, with rocky walls, and a blue tiled floor that had snowflake patterns painted beautifully over it. They barely had time to take it all in before a bunch of blue orbs appeared in the middle of the arena, and began swirling around each other until they collided formed a light blue phantom-like creature about three times the size of a normal human. A tag appeared above the creature: Ice Sprite – Level 18.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  ‘Stick to the plan,’ Slie said, ‘Nixie stay back, and only heal if it’s an emergency, focus on stamina. Aquila has plenty of healing items. Aquila, get in there and take the heat for us.’

  With that, Slie ducked down, and disappeared. Aquila nodded and ran forward with his bow out; he let off two arrows as quickly as he could. The arrows collided with the phantom, but only did 3 damage in total, barely putting a dent in the ice sprite’s health bar. It didn’t matter. The point wasn’t to do damage, but rather to get the monsters attention. And it worked. The frost sprite flew toward him and lifted up its arm. As it did, a large five-meter-long blue sword appeared in its hand; it seemed to be a sword made of ice, as cold mist rose up around it. A moment later it slashed sideways with speed that caught him off guard. Aquila dashed backwards, and the sword missed him, but his stamina bar dropped a little over a quarter of the way. Without thinking, he’d pushed the limit of how fast he should have been moving.

  ‘Nixie!’ Aquila yelled.

  ‘On it!’ Nixie shouted back as a green glow appeared around him. The frost sprite slashed again less than a second later, which caught Aquila off guard, because for an attack that had such a long reach, and was so fast, he’d expected there to be a longer cooldown. The sword passed straight through him, and depleted his health bar by just over a quarter. Aquila took a health potion from his quick select belt, squeezed it, and his health shot back up to full.

  There seemed to be a few seconds respite between its second attack. Enough for Aquila to heal up and ready himself. The next blow came exactly as the previous had come. Not only did Aquila jump backwards, but he also jumped sideways. He couldn’t risk the sprite getting too close to Nixie.

  Then it happened. The Sprite’s health dropped significantly. Almost a quarter of its health disappeared in an instant. Slie had gotten in a sneak attack with his dagger. The sprite turned. Unfortunately it had spotted Slie. Now it was Aquila’s turn to go on the offensive. Slie ran, trying to put as much distance as he could between himself and the attacking frost sprite, but the sprite was relentless in its pursuit. But Aquila dashed forward, faster than both Slie and the sprite, with his sword out, approached the sprite and slashed its back several times. It did more damage than Aquila had expected, lowering its health bar down to a third. And what was more – the sprite turned to face him. Aquila jumped back, expecting it to attack with its sword; but instead it put its arms in the air – and several bats that looked as though they where made of ice, appeared all around it. Aquila didn’t have time to count them, but if he had to guess, he would have had to say there were around ten. Their tags appeared in front of him.

  Ice bat – level 2.

  Before he could even think, Aquila had his bow out and was letting arrows fly. The bats were dying with a single shot, the only problem was that most of his shots were missing. Many of them were approaching him, but his heart almost leapt out of his chest when he saw that some were also flocking towards Nixie.

  Aquila was a flash. An instant later he was in front of Nixie, shielding her from the oncoming ice bats. They were close enough to be within sword reach, and so he had his weapon out and was slicing furiously.

  They exploded into large puffs of ice, every time he hit one. They came, and came, and just when he’d taken care of the last one, a large blue sword came flying at him from within the mist – it cut straight through both him and Nixi. He had decent armour, so the blow didn’t do too much damage to him, but it halved Nixie’s health bar. Another blow was incoming. Nixie didn’t have the agility to get out of the way in time. Aquila hadn’t put any points into his block skill, but at the moment, it was the only way to keep Nixie alive; he lifted his sword up just as the sprite’s blue sword swept sideways at the both of them. The two swords, Aquila’s small silver one, and the Sprite’s large blue one, collided with a loud clang. The force was enough to knock Aquila down, and send him tumbling across the dungeon; causing multiple hits of damage along the way.

  When he finally pushed himself up he saw that Nixie hadn’t taken any further damage – but he was only able to see her for a split second. A moment later the sprite was upon him again, swinging its sword down through him with an unfortunate crit. His health bar dropped to 0. Almost immediately, a bright swirl of stars and colours began twirling around him, and his health rose up to 20. That was it for divine grace.

  Slie had clearly taken the opportunity to get in another sneak attack, because the Sprite’s health bar dropped again. This time it lowered down to a third. This was it. They had almost defeated it. I red glow appeared around him, bringing his health back to full; Nixie had broken the rule. But it didn’t matter. Aquila jumped to his feet.

  ‘All in Slie!’ Aquila called as loud as he could.

  Aquila swung his sword several times. He could see the sprites health bar lowering. The Sprite let off another attack, but Nixie’s healing quickly negated any damage that the sprite did. After a few more sword swings, and another sneak attack from Slie, the Sprite’s health dropped complete; and it died in an explosion of ice which did a little bit of damage to all of them.

  Aquila fell back and breathed a huge sigh of relief. Slie and Nixie were beside him a moment later, each of them with a hand on his shoulder.

  ‘I’m not going to lie,’ Nixie said, ‘I was a little bit worried for a moment there.’

  Slie waved his hand.

  ‘We had it in the bag the whole time. Common, let’s get the loot together.’

  Monsters in the game normally left items laying on the ground. But the frost sprite left a large blue coloured chest in its place after they had killed it. Slie kicked the chest and the lid flew open. A window appeared above it, a window that he assumed that all three of them could see. Within the chest window, there was two hundred coins, a blue sword, a cloak and several arrows.

  ‘The sword is yours Aquila,’ Slie said with a smile.

  Aquila looked back and forth between Slie and Nixie.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  Nixie waved her hand.

  ‘Do you think either of us are ever going to be using a sword?’ Nixie said, ‘Go ahead. We’ll split the coins. Slie; you can take the cloak and the arrows.’

  Aquila touched the sword icon; it immediately disappeared from the chest and appeared in his inventory. Its stats were amazing, well, amazing for him anyway.

  Ice sword.

  16 base damage.

  Frostbite: enemies hit with this sword have a chance to receive the frostbite effect.

  Aquila focused on the frostbite title. Another window appeared underneath it.

  Frostbite: an effect that lowers a players speed by ten percent and does a small amount of damage over time.

  Aquila equipped the sword and held it out in front of him. It was long, and bright blue, with frosty vapour that seemed emanate from the surface of the steel.

  ‘Not bad,’ Slie said, ‘but check me out.’

  Slie and Nixie both looked at him. He wore a cloak that seemed to shimmer; reflecting the colours of the blue tiled floor and the walls around them.

  ‘Looks cool. But a little counterintuitive? You’ll never be able to disappear while you’re wearing that,’ Aquila commented.

  ‘Actually’ Slie rose a finger in the air, ‘quite the contrary. This cloak here blends into the environment of the surrounding area. When I go into stealth mode, nobody will see me except those with the highest perception levels.’

  ‘Very cool!’ Aquila said, ‘I think it’s only fair though, that we give Nixie a little bit of extra money. You know, considering I got a sword, and you got a cloak.’

  Nixie placed a hand on his back.

  ‘We’re a team,’ she said, ‘we’ll distribute items as needed.’

  There was a gleam in her eye that brought joy to his heart. He nodded in agreement.

  ***

  The three of them retraced their steps back through the dark tunnel. Nixie still kept the bright little orb hovering above them, even though Slie and Aquila could see perfectly well in the dark. Aquila still held his gleaming blue sword out in front of him, fascinated by the new addition to his arsenal. Slie, in turn, hadn’t put away his cloak. But he really had no reason to.

  ‘Well I’m all out of manna potions,’ Nixie said.

  ‘We’ll use the money that the Sprite dropped to buy some more,’ said Aquila, ‘there were a few close calls back then. I can see why you had to use all of them up.’

  ‘Close calls? Like when?’ Nixie said.

  ‘Hmm. I don’t know. Maybe when those bats swarmed you,’ Slie said.

  ‘Or when you got caught in the Sprite’s attack; and your health got cut in half,’ Aquila added.

  Nixie scratched her chin.

  ‘Oh yeah.’

  ‘I’ve heard of this spell,’ Slie started, ‘a spell we might need to get hold of for you Aquila.’

  ‘But I don’t use magic…’

  ‘You’ll use this one. It’s a spell that draws enemies towards you. I don’t know what it’s called – but I think we should do some investigating once we get back to Ambrosiana.’

  ‘You’re right, that could be useful.’

  The mouth of the tunnel that led out into the forest was visible now, it let streams of natural light into the dark cavern. Nixie waved her hand and the little orb that hovered above her disappeared.

  They stepped out of the cavern and into the forest a few minutes later. Spending an hour underground, in a dirty cave, only made the forest seem even more beautiful than it had been. With rays of sun that streamed in through the gaps of the canopy creating little yellow circles on the forest floor, as well as the bees that buzzed around, and the birds that sung a graceful song from within the thick growth. The colours were extraordinarily vibrant, almost too beautiful to be real, of course Aquila knew they weren’t real, but that didn’t make it any less mesmerising. It was all calming and relaxing, until an arrow zoomed out of nowhere towards them. Aquila saw it in time to dodge out of the way, but several more flew towards Nixie and Slie, doing several points of damage.

  ‘What the!?’ Aquila remarked.

  Aquila squinted. Several tags appeared all at once around them, there were five figures, crouched down, hiding behind the trunks of the trees. Aquila pulled his bow out and shot at one of them, which missed by a short stride. The figure stepped up out of hiding. A tall wood elf strode out towards them, with its weapons out. The rest of the elve’s companions rose to join him. Another wood elf, a dark elf, a half-blood and a human.

  ‘I have a feeling that these guys are trouble,’ Aquila whispered. He turned over to Nixie, her manna was three quarters restored and her health was full. Aquila turned to look over at Slie, but the Umbra had disappeared. As Aquila looked around, he noticed that Slie’s tag was already circling up around and behind the group that was approaching them.

  ‘Two against five. I think we can handle this. Especially because they’re probably all worn down from the fight with the Sprite.’

  ‘What do you want?’ Aquila called.

  ‘Hmm, not much,’ the wood elf said, ‘just all of your money. And your items.’

  Aquila looked at his new blue sword, then over at Nixie. Aquila looked in Slie’s direction and shook his head.

  ‘You camp out here waiting for parties to finish the raid, and then you rob them after they’re all word down,’ Aquila said to the elf.

  ‘Yep. Something like that.’

  Aquila huffed.

  ‘Fine. Take what you want. We’ll give you everything we have.’

  ‘I’m afraid it’s not as simple as that.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Aquila said, ‘how complicated can it be?’

  ‘We can’t tell what’s actually in your inventory, you see. So we can’t really be sure you’ve given us everything; besides, we can’t have you going along and telling every player on the street what we’re doing here. I’m afraid you’re going to have to give us everything after we’ve killed you.’

  Aquila gulped nervously. He looked over to where Slie’s tag hovered behind the player speaking to them. Aquila could tell that Slie was waiting. Waiting for his signal. He felt Nixie take him by his arm. Aquila could tell she was scared. She’d never been in this situation before – outnumbered and threatened with death. The only one of them who knew what this felt like was him.

  ‘You know this isn’t sustainable. Most people who make a living this way end up dead. There are always bigger fish in the sea.’

  ‘Maybe so. But at this very moment – we are the bigger fish.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be too sure,’ Aquila bluffed, ‘we have friends coming to meet us here. They’ll arrive any moment. Walk away now.’

  ‘We could walk away. Or we could finish you before your friends arrive. If they really are coming that is.’

  Suddenly an arrow came flying towards him. Aquila had his sword out in front of him and slashed the arrow from its path.

  ‘Slie!’ Aquila called.

  Several more arrows came at him, he blocked two of them with his sword, but one hit him and did five points of damage. He was in the forest. He could easily dodge these shots, but he didn’t want to move away from Nixie. The health bar of the wood elf in front of him dropped down to half within a second. Slie had made his move.

  ‘What the?! Are there more of them?’

  ‘Nixie, just get out of here. You’ll have a few seconds while I distract them!’

  Sorry for what I’m about to do Sophia. But I don’t really have any other choice.

  While the wood elf and his companions were looking around for the source of the attack, Aquila dashed forward and let his sword fly. The elve’s health bar dropped rapidly; much more rapidly than it would have with his old sword. It dropped below half, then under a quarter.

  The elf turned to look at him, a twinkle of fear in his eyes.

  ‘You brought this on yourself,’ Aquila said as he swung his sword and drew the last few hit points from the elve’s health bar. The wood elf exploded into a million pieces and then disappeared. The other players were onto him an instant later. A combination of swords and arrows were flying towards him. A few of the hits phased through him due to his high agility level, and he dodges a few more; but at least two hits met their mark and lowered his health bar by a quarter. He knew he had to be careful with how much damage he took – Nixie’s manna bar was limited, and Aquila had used up most of his healing items during the boss fight.

  There was still a wood elf, a dark elf, a half-blood and a human before him. They faced him in a half circle, the human and dark elf with a sword pointed at him, and the wood elf and half-blood with armed bows. Another attack halved the health bar the dark elf. Slie was still in the shadows, unseen. But not for long. The dark elf, who had been attacked, turned and spotted him.

  Aquila knew Slie wasn’t at his best when he wasn’t in the cover of the shadows. Aquila moved to defend him, but suddenly two players were in his way – the wood elf and the human – forming a wall between Aquila and Slie. Aquila knew that Slie was facing off the dark elf and the half-blood alone. Aquila used more speed than he should have to dash around the players in front of him. But the wood elf was fast, just as fast as he was. Aquila moved back and forth, up and down, but wherever he went – the wood elf was there too. Then the wood elf let his sword swing, cutting through Aquila several times, and bringing his health bar just below half. A familiar red glow appeared around him, refilling his health bar – he knew Nixie’s healing wouldn’t last for very long.

  Aquila exchanged blows back and forth with the wood elf. Aquila was slightly faster, but it was hard to avoid damage altogether when he had two players attacking him at the same time. He glimpsed Slie in the corner of his eye at the exact moment that Slie’s health bar dropped to zero. Luckily, Slie still had divine grace activated and a bight blue glow appeared around him and his health bar was restored by 20hp. Slie had almost taken out the dark elf; but now he was in quite a perilous situation himself.

  Aquila jumped back several feet and had his bow out and an arrow equipped within seconds. He let a missile fly; it zoomed over the shoulder of the wood elf in front of him and hit the dark elf (in front of Slie) in the back. It wasn’t quite enough to kill the dark elf, but Slie stabbed his dagger rapidly in the dark elve’s shoulder and finished of the dark elf. The wood elf and the human in front of Aquila turned just in time to see their companion die.

  ‘Dammit!’ the Wood Elf yelled as he turned his attention back to Aquila, ‘this isn’t going as well as last time!’

  The human and the wood elf began attacking him again at the same time. Aquila pulled out of the way of the human’s sword swing, but the elve’s attack cut straight through him. Once again, Nixie began refilling his health bar with her magic.

  The human pointed over to Nixie.

  ‘The healer,’ he said, ‘we kill her and it’s over for them.’

  No.

  Aquila ran back to defend Nixie; but the wood elf was faster. The Wood Elf only managed to attack Nixie once, before Aquila knocked him down from behind. But it was an attack the drew half her health. The Wood elf, who had been knocked prone, rolled over and was back on his feet within moments. The human and the elf faced Aquila, who stood erect and tall, like a living wall that separated the hostile players from Nixie. Aquila knew that Nixie had focused almost all her attention on healing magic. She wasn’t used to fighting. If they got past him then she was probably dead.

  Nixie saw things from a different perspective. Her main job was to keep both Aquila and Slie’s health bar up. And because that was her main focus, she noticed them dropping rapidly. Too rapidly. She couldn’t keep up. Her manna was almost out. Slie had gone invisible in a desperate attempt to disappear from the half-blood, but the half-blood was using wind blasts against him; an attack that did little damage but had a wide area of effect. Whenever Slie tried to get close enough to attack, one of the wind blasts would knock him backwards. And whenever he tried to shoot an arrow, the wind blasts would knock it away.

  Meanwhile Aquila was furiously dodging the attacks of the wood elf and the human, while occasionally getting an attack in himself, but he was slipping up more than more than he was successful. Nixie knew he wouldn’t last much longer.

  Her hand hesitated slightly when she selected her racial ability, Necrotic Healer, and highlighted the only two names in her party: Aquila and Slie.

  ‘Aquila, you have to survive. You have to find your friends!’ Nixie yelled. Her hands glowed a bright blue, and she threw them into the air and cast the spell. Nixie’s health bar dropped by half, which left her on 1hp as she had already taken damage during the boss raid. Aquila didn’t realise what was happening until he noticed his health refill until it was completely full. He turned, and looked at Nixie wide eyed as she stood behind him, her health bar lowered to 1hp. Her eyes locked with Aquila’s for half a second and her lips curled up into one final smile.

  ‘Run!’ Aquila said, but it was too late. The wood elf had quickly figured out what was going on, and a moment later he had passed Aquila and sliced her through the middle with one clean swing. Nixie waved to Aquila as her body slowly disintegrated and she disappeared. Aquila stared wide eyed and frozen to spot as the elf turned and gave him a sinister grin, as if he was pleased with what he had done.

  ‘Eye for an eye, don’t you think. You kill my companion and I kill yours.’

  Aquila gritted his teeth, and clenched the hilt of his sword so hard that his knuckles began to turn white. The wood elf could tell that Aquila was visibly angry and prepared himself for an oncoming attack. But what he wasn’t prepared for Aquila to turn and dash towards the half-blood that was facing off with Slie.

  ‘Tayo!’ the wood elf screamed, and the half-blood turned in time to see Aquila charging at him like an angry bull. The half-blood didn’t have time to move out of the way, but he did have time to shoot a white projectile straight at Aquila, as spell that Aquila was all too familiar with. It hit him and Aquila felt his feet lock up; but Aquila was prepared. Just as his feet closed together, Aquila had his own spell out, a spell that he cast on himself.

  The counterspell.

  The effects of the binding spell disappeared almost immediately. And now the half-blood was out of manna. Aquila closed the gap between the half-blood and slashed until the half-bloods health was depleted completely. Of course he’d gotten hit by a few projectiles as he did, but he had enough extra health to tank the damaged. The half-blood’s face contorted as he perished and died. Aquila turned to face the wood elf and the human, who were now only meters away from him.

  ‘Who’s next?’ Aquila screamed.

  The wood elf rose his eyebrows, and his face contorted with the sudden realisation that they were outmatched. The wood elf turned to run, with the human close behind, but Aquila pursued them mercilessly. He caught up to them in a heartbeat, and overtook them a second later.

  The elf rose his hands in the air.

  ‘Please. Stop!’ the elf pleaded. But Aquila didn’t stop. He attacked and attacked until they were both dead. And then he fell to his knees, looked up at the canopy of the forest, and screamed as loud as he could. His cries echoed through the forest.

  Aquila stopped when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned to see Slie standing over him, with sorry eyes.

  ‘She’s gone Slie. She’s dead.’

  ‘I know…’ Slie whispered with a hoarse voice, ‘I know.’