Wild Era 3, Ch 24: Soul Sage

The manager’s howls gave way to a flood of information in Kelin’s mind. It was a mix of images, events, people, names, and more. 

His Soul Search spell interpreted it and presented it to him in the same way as a memory crystal, although it was more chaotic, so it took a few minutes to sort through.

By the time he finished, his expression was dark. 

He reinforced his hand with mana and twisted, snapping the manager’s neck like a twig. A sharp crack rang out as the man slumped to the ground and died.

After that, he searched the guards’ souls as well. They knew less than the manager, but they’d seen many things. These two seemed to be his main supporters among the guards.

The manager had tried to keep things close to his chest as he betrayed and sold more than one merchant family to the pirates.

He avoided the nobles, since they had better security and connections, but merchants who stayed at this resort routinely went missing.

He snapped the guards’ necks as well, letting their bodies fall to the earth, and a flare of soul magic incinerated all three of their souls for good measure.

It hadn’t been difficult for him to suppress these three, no more than it was for him to handle Level 205 monsters. Monsters were usually stronger than adventurers at the same level and he had little issue dealing with ones far higher than him. 

Compared to that, these guards were nothing, not even equal to an Elite monster at the same level. They had Rare classes with half or fewer of his attributes.

He’d had a Legendary class from the beginning. Over time, that created an attribute advantage that grew with every level. 

His familiarity with the nature of mana and of mana fields did the rest. 

No one at this level would be capable of tangling with his control over the local mana unless they were a true genius.

He looked down at the three corpses and his anger flared, but he forced it to turn calm and clear instead. A faint fog of golden flames raged around him and turned still.

Getting angry was fine, but it wouldn’t help him rescue Taren and his family. That required old age and wisdom.

And more than that, speed.

There were still ten minutes until his Soul Sage clone reached the pirates, so he disintegrated the corpses and sent a few messages to the guild at Stormhill, telling them what had happened here and what to do. 

They would be by to clean up.

He turned his attention to the rest of the resort, scanning it for the other guards he’d seen in the memories. The manager and these two guards had been the core of the problem, but there were others who had helped. 

They weren’t as directly involved, but they were far from innocent.

Soul arrows flared out from his hand like prismatic rays that crossed the resort. Each one struck one of the culprits. They were all at the First Evolution and had little resistance. Half a dozen guards fell left and right as their souls ignited. 

That single move wiped out half of the resort’s security team in a single breath.

Gaius swept through the earth, collecting their bodies and gear. He brought them back and tossed them at Kelin’s feet. 

A wave of Kelin’s hand stripped their items and stored them away. He didn’t need it, but it would be some payback for Taren when he found him.

Then he disintegrated those bodies as well.

The experience from the manager and the guards swirled around him and became his own. It wasn’t much, but it proved a point.

The order he’d given the manager was part of the reason. 

It had reinforced his words and brought this area to the Path’s attention, like a court of judgment, so that it could evaluate their behavior and the local laws.

They were criminals and he had evidence, so he got the experience for killing them, just like he would for bandits or exiles.

The problem here was deeper than he’d expected, only the edge of a much larger operation. 

The manager was selling off merchants to the pirates, but the pirates were working for Sarathia.

The manager hadn’t known all of the details, but he’d seen the pirates meeting with Sarathians and had even met some Sarathian nobles himself and been thanked for his work.

His storage bags contained gifts they’d given him, mostly gold and mana crystals, but some rare incense, herbs, and other things as well.

Beyond that, dozens of merchant networks and nobles were potentially involved. They’d all been given gifts or paid off to look the other way and sometimes to help. 

The manager hadn’t known all of the names or even seen them, but he had met some and been privy to enough discussions that their presence was obvious.

Sarathia’s influence had spread like a web of corruption throughout the region, one that touched the free states, the ocean and pirates, parts of Celadon, and more.

It was a massive problem, one that went far beyond this resort. 

Entire villages of people were disappearing, raided by the pirates and shipped off somewhere over the ocean into Sarathia control. All signs pointed to the northeast, the same direction the pirates were taking Taren’s family.

He didn’t know what was going on there, but he would find out.

As for the wider political issues, he had skipped the guild council and sent his report directly to the guild commander, Lorna Yaslen. 

She could take care of the rest.

Perhaps fittingly, she shared a name with Taren’s daughter. He hoped it would convince her to act swiftly.

His clone was almost to the target, so he took out a stack of talismans, which he activated one after the other.  

Layered shields surrounded him, three dozen deep. 

He would have to make new talismans for the Second Evolution soon, but these would do for now.

He watched as his clone closed in on the target, watching through its eyes as it saw a ship’s sails in the distance. 

The manager’s memories said that most of the people who were kidnapped were sent to the northeast, but he hadn’t known the final destination.

The ship was closing in on an island, one that Kelin didn’t recognize. Based on his map, it was one of the Isles of Azure Sand. 

They were a chain of golden islands filled with jungles and ruins off the northern tip of the free states, along the eastern edge of the Ocean of Storms. 

If they had been more hospitable, they would have been a pleasant location, but they were filled with wild monsters and elemental surges. Only a few villages of hard-edged settlers and desperate types lived there, as well as some adventurers. 

Along with their other issues, they were full of dungeons, ones that often broke in dangerous monster waves, but the villagers and the monsters who lived there saw the breaks as a good chance to get dinner, so the guild only sent teams there once in a while to check on things.

It wasn’t clear what the pirates were doing with them.

Kelin scanned the ship and the waters around it and moved in closer. His clone flickered as it flew across the ship’s deck. 

It was a shimmer of flame in the air, barely noticeable as it moved across the deck, marking the location of the pirates and the captain. 

The ones from the resort were scattered across the deck and the stern, and the captain was on the forecastle looking out toward the island they were approaching.

Besides them, there were a dozen other pirates in the First Evolution and some weaker ones that were still under Level 100, making close to thirty in total.

After he took note of them all, the clone ducked through an open hatchway and began searching the lower decks, moving through every cabin and into the hold.

The cabins seemed to be the pirates’ room and except for a few spots, most of them were empty. 

The hold was a different story.

There were dozens of people chained up inside, some of them in chains, others in mana-sealing restraints, and some just in ropes. 

They came in all ages, from children to the elderly. 

Kelin’s anger flared as he searched through them, noting one injury after another. Most of their wounds hadn’t even been bandaged. Blood and other fluids covered the hold, making it a stinking pit. 

If it hadn’t been for the naturally high Constitutions that humans had, many of them probably would have already succumbed.

He let out a breath he’d been holding as he found Taren, Esla, and their children chained up on one side. Some special attention had been paid to separate them from the rest of the people, which marked them as important, but it wasn’t much more than an invisible line and heavier chains. 

Taren and Esla were barely half-conscious and covered in injuries, but they were still alive as they slumped against a wall on one side of the hold in an area that was divided slightly from the main group.

Petru and Yaslen were beside them, less battered but more terrified. They looked like pale shells of themselves and they stared at the area around them with hollow eyes, barely moving.

Yaslen’s dress was torn and her arms were wrapped around her knees as she huddled next to her mother.

Petru’s arm was around his sister’s shoulders as he pressed close by. He was touching Taren’s leg with his other hand, which was as far as the chain around his neck allowed him to reach.

Kelin could have waited to see where the ship took them and what the pirates did, and perhaps even to scout the defenses, but he wasn’t that cold-blooded.

There was also no guarantee what the ship would encounter when it reached the island.

As soon as his clone found them, he snapped his fingers. 

A spiral of flame wrapped around him, rising from his feet to his head, and he swapped places with his clone. Then he was standing inside the ship’s hold, right next to the kids.

A wave of mana sealed the area and created a silence ward throughout the hold, and then he swiftly drew his staff around him in a circle. 

Runes flared into golden life as set up a ward. Taren, Esla, and the kids were inside with him, while the rest of the hold was outside. 

He drew out his Soulfire Sigil and set it in the air to float above his shoulder. Golden light flared across the interior of the ship, making the prisoners gasp as they hid their eyes.

Random shouts tried to form and he saw lips moving in surprise, but most of the sound was blocked.

He ignored the reactions. Silence or not, it wouldn’t be long before the pirates showed up.

He knelt down in front of Petru and Yaslen, his features illuminated by golden flames, and held his finger to his lips as he gave them a smile.

The boy jumped as he saw him and then stared, but it was only a second before he broke out into tears. Yaslen joined him a second later as she realized who he was.

The two of them reached out for him, grabbing onto his arms and pulling, but the chains kept them from leaping up.

Taren was struggling to sit up and he was raising his arm like he wanted to attack, showing that he was barely aware of what was going on, but Esla was staring at him in shock. Her features were lined with stress.

She asked something, her eyes wide and her lips moving without sound. 

Kelin made out the word “rescue.”

Yes, everything will be fine, he sent silently to all four of them. The hold is silenced. Give me a moment.

Esla sagged with relief as tears appeared at the corner of her eyes and she grabbed her husband’s hand, her knuckles tight.

There was no time to waste, so Kelin analyzed the chains binding them and then he created a blade of mana and swiftly cut through them, severing them from the walls and from each other. 

A moment later, a more careful blade of mana cut through their manacles and collars as well.

As soon as they were free, Kelin took out one of his teleport scrolls and pushed it into Esla’s hand.

Keep this as a back up, he told her. It’ll teleport up to six people to my chambers at the guild in Highmist. I only brought two of them along. If things go badly, use it to get your family out of here.

“What are you going to do?” she asked, clutching the scroll against her chest. 

She’d been too surprised before, but it turned out that she was capable of telepathy with her mana too. 

“I’m going to take over the ship,” he said, giving her a calm smile. “It might get destructive, so stay here.”

He took out a pile of talismans and a spare spatial ring that had come from the guards at the resort. He could see that all of hers had been stripped away by the pirates. He stuffed the talismans inside and passed it to her.

“Use these as needed. There are some shield and healing talismans, as well as some offensive ones.”

Then he placed his hand on Taren’s chest and sent a wave of healing soulfire through him. As it passed, he could feel the man’s body knitting itself back together, but there was a lot of damage.

“Keep healing Taren with those talismans,” he said. “I’ll be busy for a bit. Help the others in the hold if you can, but cover yourself in a shield talisman first. People get chaotic in situations like this and they might attack you.”

He turned to the kids and sent a wave of healing mana through each of them. It made their bruises fade away in an instant and a healthier tone appeared on their skin.

“Good job leaving all those toys around,” he said. “It told me something wasn’t right.”

Petru and Yaslen were too overwhelmed to say much and were still crying, so he patted them on the heads and stood up.

A flame flared to life above his hand, swiftly resolving into an eighteen-inch tall phoenix, and he sent it toward the family, where it began to spiral around each of them in turn, radiating more healing magic.

On his other side, a whirlwind of stone began to spin through the air as Gaius appeared. It took the elemental longer than usual, since he couldn’t form here easily.

There was no earth to travel through or to manipulate, so everything came from his mana reserves and the stone that he could summon.

The hull creaked as the elemental tested it with a foot, but a thought from Kelin made him pick it up again. The half-completed limb turned back into spiraling bits of stone.

If Gaius’s full form appeared, he’d probably break through the hull and sink into the ocean. For now, he’d have to stay as a stone whirlwind.

Kelin looked out at the rest of the hold and his thoughts rang out.

“I am a Knight Commander of the Path and a member of the Stars Alliance. I have come to rescue some friends of mine and you as well. Be calm. Stay in the hold and try to free each other. I’ll take care of the pirates and be back soon.”

As he walked through the hold, his mana blade flashed, severing one chain after another, but he was careful not to break the shackles on anyone who looked too angry or whose soul was dark.

He didn’t need a rebellion on his hands.

Stay here, he told Gaius. Protect Esla and the others. Keep the peace. If a fight breaks out, wrap them all up in stone and leave them for later.

A rumble of agreement came back from Gaius, as well as irritation that there was no earth to work with.

Even if you sink, you’ll be fine, Kelin told him, chuckling. It’s not like the water is going to hurt you. You’ll just hit the bottom and walk back out.

Gaius’s grumbles followed him as he headed to the main stairs out of the hold.

Behind him, the phoenix finished layering healing magic on Taren and flew back to Kelin, where it turned in circles above his head. 

Its flames blended with the light of the sigil that was hovering above Kelin’s shoulder, intensifying his aura until it looked like everything around him was full of leaping flames.

The hatch leading out was locked from the other side, but a crack of wood sounded as he carved it apart and kicked open the doors.

Brilliant sunlight poured through the opening, turning the darkness in the hold bright, and he leapt through.