Wild Era 2, Ch 29: Connections

Kelin tossed his sigil into the air and drew a ward circle with a quick swing of his staff. 

The others raised their guards as the golden ward blazed to life.

“Impressive reflexes.” A rumbling laugh came from the area as a figure walked out from behind a boulder. “Not that it will matter.” 

The man who was speaking was a burly fighter with a narrow and pointed black beard, which contrasted oddly with the rest of his physique.

Kelin raised his eyebrow as he saw it.

Behind the man, three other people followed, each of them with drawn weapons and surrounded by flaring auras as they prepared to attack.  

Kelin analyzed them all. There was a thin veil trying to obscure their classes and information, but he ripped through it in short order and saw who they really were.

Jaster Hunt. Wind Hunter-Reckless Tracker. Level 154.

Hatas Loren. Poison Blade-Hidden Archer. Level 107.

Farel Nostas. Rain Savant-Distorted Mirror. Level 110.

Lusin Keen. Sawblade Scion-Swift Executioner. Level 108. 

Guild: Wind Hunters.

Jaster’s class and level had already given away their origin, as had the series of wind-element tattoos across his forearms.

This was the boss of the Wind Hunters, and apparently the three lieutenants that were left. They were the top forces in the guild after he killed Orest Nellen.

There were a number of potent magical items on them, including some that could be a threat, but Kelin just shook his head.

Blaze ignited through his meridians and he began to shape silent spells. 

It made his aura swell, but it would be difficult for anyone without significant mana awareness to notice, since his ward was already filling the area with a bright signature.

Then he pulled out a few Soul Veil talismans and activated them as he let their energy obscure the area.

The others behind him had already drawn their weapons, but unlike what Jaster probably expected, they also showed no concern. 

At Level 154, Jaster was a threat to them, but it didn’t get much of a reaction after what they had just faced.

The three behind him were barely worth a mention. All of them only had Rare classes to boot.

Maro and Galin’s hands tightened and Serai’s mana grew sharp as they prepared to fight. They remembered how Orest tried to kill them and were eager for revenge.

Kelin released a pulse of soul mana that sent a chill wave across the clearing, making the Wind Hunters look around uncertainly. 

It was a combination of a sensing spell and a warning.

He leaned on his staff as he let the soulfire crackle around him, flaring and snapping like a cloak. 

Then he silently traced the Seal of Silver Stars in the air. A moment later, it sprang into existence, gleaming as its energy flowed across the area.

He already knew that Jaster wouldn’t have had the resources to find him on their own. The Soul Veil talismans ensured it on the way here and being in the dungeon would have veiled the rest without a high-level Seer. 

It would have taken significant effort from a more traditional form of spying. 

They’d apparently spent long enough inside the dungeon that the baron had a chance to catch up.

“Does Verasun have some fascination with ambushing people outside of dungeons,” he asked, raising an eyebrow, “or is it a personal hobby?”

If he counted Yaris’s ambush of him a while back, Orest’s ambush of Maro and the others, and now this, this was the third time.

The main issue with attacking people outside of dungeons was that it was nearly the oldest trick in the book. 

Every bandit thought about and most tried it, but by the time they got to the second or third attempt, they died.

That was because it was a stupid idea to attack adventurers outside of a dungeon unless you had overwhelming force. 

The guild took a hard line on it and would eagerly hunt down anyone who tried. It was in direct opposition to their purpose.

Even if you managed it, your days were numbered.

“Look at you, all bold and arrogant,” Jaster laughed. “You think you get to ask questions?”

His smile was mocking as he pointed a wind-patterned longsword at Kelin. 

“I’ll cut that out of you.”

Kelin ignored him as he glanced around the area. Beside his shoulder, the Seal of Silver Stars flickered as it recorded what was happening.

“Where did the guild guards go?” he asked, focusing on the only part that he really cared about.

There were no blood stains or other signs of a fight, so it looked like they had been called back or distracted in a non-lethal way.

That was for the best. 

He would have felt guilty if they’d been harmed because of him.

The Wind Hunters had probably been too cautious to directly challenge the guild, but if the signs were wrong and these four had killed them, he would add it to the tally and take it out of Verasun’s hide.

“I’ve been waiting to take care of you ever since you killed Orest and Yaris,” Jaster said, becoming angry as Kelin continued to ignore him.

Wind energy gathered around the tattoos on his arms and began to whistle as it turned into spiraling blades that surrounded him and stretched along his blade.

The winds intensified as he slashed toward Kelin.

A highly concentrated wind blade separated from the storm around him and sliced across the area. It was fast and difficult to see.

The three behind him had been waiting and they attacked at the same time with a mix of attacks. 

A storm of arrows that glowed with green trails of poison, strange shimmering rain that felt like a mirage, and hacking blows that hummed like sawblades filled the area.

The attacks exploded across the ward, releasing powerful cracks of sound and storms of energy that flowed across the surface.

Kelin’s mana dipped for a moment and a small spiderweb of damage spread along the surface of the defense. 

At that moment, the Seal of Silver Stars shimmered and he felt the change as the Wind Hunters were marked as bandits.

“You get the other three,” he said as he glanced at his allies. “It should be eye-opening to compare your classes to theirs. I’ll take care of Jaster.”

With that, he flicked a series of talisman shields around each of them and then he dismissed the ward. They spread out, their eyes blazing with fury. 

They’d long wanted revenge on Orest and the ones behind him. 

Now they had an opportunity.

Kelin tasked Gaius to watch over them if things went wrong. A small storm of pebbles flowing across the ground marked the elemental’s presence as he moved.

Jaster was attacking again as an even stronger wave of wind blades swirled together, forming a storm around him. There were howling canine faces in the wind, like the element was turning into hunting hounds that were raising their heads to the sky.

There were a dozen of them that began to coalesce, their eyes glowing pale white and their bodies lean and translucent.

Then Kelin released a wave of Soul Paralysis.

It was a thunder of soul magic that crashed through the area, and when it hit, Jaster and everything around him froze.

The Wind Hunter boss shuddered as his face went pale. His body locked into place and the hounds in the wind shattered into fragments like broken glass, which dissolved in the air.

Kelin paid no attention to it as he walked forward. Flames trailed around him in a cloak and wrapped around his arms and staff.

“You aren’t even close to the most powerful thing I’ve faced recently,” he said as he stopped in front of him. 

There was no need for another pulse of paralysis. 

The current one was imbued with the power of Ascending Flame and was growing stronger with each moment. A thread of soul energy connected him to it. 

Despite Jaster’s struggles, his soul was weak. Kelin could see it clearly and it was a mottled thing covered in light and dark stripes, each of which represented flaws in his mind and abilities.

Some soul seers might have called it corruption, but it was a bit more complicated than that.  

Souls were delicate things. The damage was simply a sign that Jaster had done many things that backlashed on him.

If Kelin had been more powerful and had access to his old Law, he could have read the history of the damage. At his height, he could have done a soul search, directly scanning Jaster’s memories and awareness.

For now, that was out of reach. It was a dangerous thing that wasn’t to be done lightly, not until he had his Law back that could guarantee his soul stayed separate.

But he could still read the changes in Jaster’s soul as he asked questions, and he had the Seal of Silver Stars, which would work as a truth spell and report things to the Path.

The seal shimmered as he sent it a thought. Then its light spread around the area, shining on Jaster, who was struggling to break free.

Kelin tuned out the battle around him. His friends could deal with the other three. 

“You work for Verasun,” he said, keeping the statement simple. 

There was a flicker of response in Jaster’s soul that confirmed it, but as it did, Kelin saw strands of black soul energy rising out of a ring on the man’s finger, which began to spread through the air.

It was easy to identify as a curse from an oath artifact, something that Verasun had given Jaster to keep him silent. 

The question was where he’d got it. 

This type of artifact was very limited in the galaxy. Anything that focused on the soul rather than mana was. 

To most people, the power was invisible and unavoidable.

Since Jaster wasn’t directly speaking, the curse wasn’t moving quickly, but the flicker of his thoughts was enough to get its attention.

Normally, Kelin would have intervened, since those artifacts were a cruel death, but he had no intention of doing so this time.

“He sent you here?”

The same response came again, confirming it, but since it wasn’t spoken aloud, the Seal of Silver Stars didn’t record it. 

Only Kelin saw it.

The curse threads from the oath artifact began to spread across Jaster’s body, reaching for a few other artifacts on him.

Kelin isolated each one in a mana shield and pulled them away, tossing them to the side before the threads could contaminate them.

There were a few decent things there, but nothing that was over the First Evolution, so his interest in them was limited.

“Verasun has been behind the Wind Hunters for a long time,” he said, clarifying some things. “He has used your guild to create a number of new dungeons.”

Both questions were confirmed by Jaster’s response, but the curse was becoming agitated. Half of his body was covered in the dark threads that only Kelin could see.

He wasn’t sure Jaster was even aware of it. The man was still trying to escape and there was only anger in his eyes.

At the rate the curse was spreading, even without Jaster talking, there was only another question or two before things would reach a critical point.

Kelin chose the next one well.

“Verasun is working with Hugo Whitestar,” he said, focusing on the guild’s politics and the man who had caused trouble on the council.

The response this time was flat, which meant Jaster didn’t know the answer, but it was enough that the artifact reached its tipping point.

The curse threads had spread about three quarters of the way across his body. Now they swelled with power, drawing soul energy from a tiny well in the ring.

They stabbed into Jaster’s body and twisted, like a cloak of serpents stabbing their fangs into him all at once. The man let out a howl of agony as his veins turned black and his limbs began to swell.

Kelin didn’t bother stopping it. He had no intention of dealing with cursed artifacts unless he had to, since they often held surprises.

Jaster’s body twisted as muscles snapped and veins shattered, and then his bones began to twist under the force. 

A few seconds later, his entire body turned inside out and tore itself apart, erupting in a shower of dark and sizzling blood across the area.

The blood hissed as it burned away in the air, incinerated by a wave of soulfire before it could touch Kelin or the others.

Kelin glanced at what remained of the man, which wasn’t much, and then he sent a wave of soulfire across the remains, reducing them to dust.

Only a few artifacts and storage items remained behind.

It was a fitting end for the Wind Hunter.

He glanced across the area to see how the others were doing, and then he created a stone chair as he sat down to watch.

It looked like they would be busy for a while.

Serai was in her Winter’s Visage, shrouded in a storm of ice and cold as she fought against the Poison Blade archer, while Maro and Galin had squared off against the other two, creating three separate battles.

The Wind Hunters had some experience on them, especially with fighting at the First Evolution, but they were holding their own. 

It shouldn’t be long before they turned the tide.

Gaius had already intervened a few times to block artifacts the Wind Hunters tried to use. Shards of stone and waves of chaotic mana covered the area.

Kelin kept half an eye on them as he gathered up the things from Jaster. He’d gotten enough confirmation from him about why he’d come, despite the man’s refusal to speak.

Verasun had given him quite a few dungeon artifacts, most of which were in the mid First Evolution, but he wasn’t overly impressed.

Some were cursed, others had drawbacks, and the most common type was single use. 

These seemed powerful to those who had no understanding, but they were the most useless things a dungeon could grant.

None of them would really enhance someone’s power. 

He wasn’t sure if Verasun had decided to sacrifice Jaster or if he’d really thought this would work. Perhaps he’d imagined four First Evolution fighters would be enough, especially with one at 154.

Verasun was underestimating him, but that was a good thing.

He pulled out more Soul Veil talismans and activated them one after another, tossing them into the air where their energy spread out across the area.

It would help to conceal what happened here.

If Jaster had been another 30 levels higher or at the Second Evolution, things would have been more difficult, but after Kelin’s own Evolution, the Wind Hunter was well within his ability to deal with.

It also gave him the chance to wrap up an old promise, when he’d told Orest that he wouldn’t be the last Wind Hunter he took care of.

The power of that group was broken.

It satisfied one of his earliest desires for revenge, ever since they’d tried to kill Yao and Naomi, and he felt a sense of completion.

If Jaster hadn’t come to find him, he would have searched them out back in town. 

This had saved him the trouble.

Given the Wind Hunters’ personalities, he suspected that more than one of the weaker members left would turn criminal, but they were no longer a threat.

The guild could clean up the rest.

Or perhaps Verasun would do it as a way of covering his trail.

Instead of worrying about it, he turned his attention to the baron, who was his main enemy in town.

This attack reminded him of some critical connections.

The Sarathians had those negative classes, which made him think of the assassin that Verasun had sent after him before, whose class had been Hand of Decay. 

It was the same element as the lich they’d just faced.

If he’d had Decay Resistance back then, he would have suffered less from that injury.

He hadn’t put it together before, but now it was making him wonder if there was a connection between everything.

Had that assassin been connected to the Sarathians and Undeath?

Hugo Whitestar, Verasun, the Sarathians, the assassins’ guild, the spread of negative classes, and Undeath....

What if they were all connected?

He didn’t know who was behind the assassin’s guild, but he knew they weren’t based in Celadon, and from what he’d seen when dealing with them in the city, quite a few of them had negative classes.

It wasn’t evidence yet, but it was possible their main base was in Sarathia.

It was something he would have to investigate.

For now, he turned his thoughts to Verasun instead, debating how he should respond to this latest threat.

After a moment, as he looked over at how the fight was going. A smile tugged at the edge of his lips as he looked between it and the Seal of Silver Stars at his shoulder, which was recording everything.

What did a noble care about the most?

The answer was always money and reputation.

“Finish them off,” he said calmly. “We’re taking their heads back to town with us.”

He wondered how Verasun would deal with them on his doorstep.

And a recording of Jaster exploding under a curse when asked about him.