Wild Era 2, Ch 15: Send It

Highmist was bustling with people going about their morning work, but it didn’t take Kelin long to work his way through the crowd.

As he turned another corner, he took out a dozen Soul Veil talismans and silently activated them one after the other.

With each one, a layer of obscurity descended around his aura and he felt the pressure of mystical attention sliding off of him. His bracelet, which was warm from blocking scrying attempts, also cooled down.

There were enough Fire sources and Fire elemental users in the city that the talismans worked at almost their maximum efficiency, making his signature just one more scattered among thousands. The only better places would have been in a Fire-aligned dungeon or something like a volcano.

It would be difficult even for a Second Evolution seer to find him. As for any at the Third or above, the talismans would help against casual efforts, but not something in depth.

He would take his chances with that.

Stacking the talismans helped to extend their duration, but only a little, since otherwise the power would weaken. He would have to keep activating more to maintain the veil.

There was no time to waste.

He walked steadily through the city as he headed for one of the merchant streets near the walls. 

Before long, he found the location of the Thousand Leaves Adventuring Supply.

The information from the guild’s memory crystal was comprehensive, with a detailed list of mercenaries associated with the organization, their methods of business, and even some of their more secretive habits, including their more private meeting places.

He scanned the store with his senses, but he didn’t bother to go inside. He’d only come here to confirm that it was a front. The people he wanted weren’t there.

He ducked through an alley and came out on a separate street. Then he headed to a smaller blacksmith shop, one with a large walled yard that happened to touch the back of the supply shop on the opposite street.

Sounds of voices and the clash of weapons came from the yard.

On a good day, it might have been confused with a regular blacksmith shop, but this was one of the assassin’s training sites. 

He went up to the counter inside, spent a few moments talking to the clerk, and then waited.

Two minutes later, a muscular man in a leather apron dusted off his hands as he walked into the store from the back yard.

“You’re the one who wants a job?” he asked in a low rumble as he looked Kelin up and down. 

His eyes were sharper than the rest of him, and despite that he looked like a blacksmith, there was an edge of violence in his aura that said he spent his time on other pursuits.

He was one of those listed in the guild’s information, a mid-level trainer for new recruits.
His Level was around 120 with a warrior-type class and probably a real smith subclass to keep up appearances, but Kelin didn’t analyze him for the details.

“You don’t look like much,” the trainer said, shaking his head. “You’re too old and fat for this work. Suppose you could sweat it off, but you’re best to just leave now. Doubt you can do what’s needed.”

“I’ll manage,” Kelin replied easily. “Let’s find out.”

With the stone he’d added, his appearance did look like a muscular but slightly fat warrior.

“Your funeral,” the trainer said as his eyes sharpened with a cruel glint. He didn’t appreciate Kelin’s contradiction, as minor as it was.

“Follow me,” he said before he growled over his shoulder to the clerk. “Boy, watch the store. No more customers right now. Only orders. We’re out of stock today.”

His words were more than they seemed. He’d just told the boy to deny any immediate requests for assassins and only to take contract offers for the guild to consider.

“Yes, boss,” the clerk replied diffidently.

The smith led Kelin through a narrow hallway full of discarded weapons that filled it with broken blades and rusted points. They made for a harrowing passage with barely enough room to walk.

If anyone had tried to rush through this, they would have ended up impaling themselves, and Kelin could sense trap triggers in the walls and floor that would make it even worse.

The backyard opened before them, revealing a wide and well-appointed area filled with racks of training weapons, weights, and target dummies. There were also logs to carry, ropes to climb, posts standing up at different heights to jump between, and more.

It had taken up some space behind the other shops in the area and was larger than it seemed from the street, stretching about two hundred feet long and half that wide. 

Silence wards were engraved into the walls every ten feet, except for one area near the blacksmith shop that was next to an outdoor forge, and there were concealment ones mixed in between, which would block the view of the yard from above, making it difficult to spy on it from a neighboring roof. 

Apparently they did try to keep up appearances.

The area was large enough that thirty assassin trainees and a handful of trainers were scattered throughout, working in various areas.

Most of them were between Level 60 and 90, with the trainers at the First Evolution. Their classes were a mix of rogues and warriors.

Mage assassins were trained in a different location.

As Gaius spread through the stone all around, Kelin scanned their souls and appearances, taking them in swiftly as he compared them to his notes.

About a third of those here were known to the guild. The rest were new. The aura of ready violence hung around most of them, especially the trainers.

There was also a man tied to a post who was being whipped, probably as some form of discipline. He had a dozen bloody lines across his back and the trainer holding the whip wasn’t done yet.

“If you want to be one of us, you need to pass the first test,” the smith next to Kelin said as he bared his teeth. He pointed at the yard.
“Those will be your teammates. They need to know you’re not trash. So get ready to prove it. If you do well, I’ll consider taking you on as a trainee.” 

Then his eyes turned colder.

“We aren’t that weak adventurers’ guild. You came here, so there’s no more backing out. From now on, every breath you take, you have to earn. If you don’t impress me, you won’t be leaving here alive. I’ll twist your head off before you walk back through that door.”

“Let’s see then.” Kelin’s expression didn’t change.

“Combat assessment!” the smith shouted as they walked into the yard. “New meat!”

As soon as they heard the shout, the trainees dropped what they were doing and moved toward Kelin. Within a moment, all thirty of them had surrounded him at the center of the field.

The five trainers were on the outside, watching it all.

The only saving grace was that none of the trainees had brought over a weapon. It was all bare fists and the cold expressions of the trainees said they were looking forward to it. 

The desire for violence radiated from them as knuckles cracked on every side.

“You know the rules,” the smith growled. “If he doesn’t fight, he dies. If he’s weak, he dies. If he survives, he’ll settle the scores with you later, if he can.”

The smith looked at Kelin, his eyes now full of cold disgust.

“For this one, make sure he can’t. He’s not worthy of being one of you. Don’t hold back. Kill!”

Abilities flared throughout the circle, hardening bodies and infusing them with mana and stamina.

There wasn’t much time for Kelin to prepare as the circle tightened, but he didn’t need to. His expression stayed calm the entire time.

The guild notes said that over half of the assassins didn’t survive their training, and this type of greeting was probably the biggest reason. Some newcomers were sacrificed to stoke the killing intent in the others, especially when the trainers didn’t like them. 

If he’d been a real trainee, he would be beaten to death here.

As the first fists and kicks rained down toward him, he raised his hand and Blaze filled his meridians with power. 

Soul energy poured through him.

A crushing tide of Soul Paralysis ripped through the crowd, freezing the entire group of trainees with their arms still raised. Some of their fists had just landed against Kelin’s body, but all they struck was hard stone.

The spell was like a drop of water spreading through a pool, stretching outward in silence, and it struck the trainers next.

The smith froze, his body turning stock still as he was about to shout. The rest of the trainers followed, until everything living in the yard was silent and still.

“I have to thank you for gathering together,” Kelin said quietly. “You saved me some effort.”

The Blaze-powered Soul Paralysis cost him 135 soul energy after the ten percent reduction from his staff, but it was so powerful that it had almost crushed the souls of everything in the courtyard.

Even if he left now, some of them would never recover. Their souls and abilities would be crippled.

There was no need to say anything else as he began to cast.

He dropped Blaze and began to form soul arrows. They flew outward, striking the trainers. Since they were at the First Evolution, he used three each, but they were only normal ones.

Endless Flames burned in each of them, driving the heat to rise.

Then he unleashed Gaius as his body grew thicker and broader, until he was a dozen feet tall and resembled a stone golem.

His hands reached out, crushing one of the trainees after another. Blood flew and bones broke as he snapped necks, crushed skulls, and shattered rib cages. 

Every blow killed as he tore them apart.

Before he was done, he raised up a few and smashed them into the ground, leaving them half buried in broken flagstones.

Almost all of the sound was contained by the silence wards on the walls. The few thuds and cracks that escaped from the section by the forge were quieter than the training that had been going on before.

By the time he was done, all thirty-five of those who had been in the courtyard were dead and broken, including the trainers. Their bodies had been ripped in half and hurled across the area, painting the walls in blood.

It was a scene of utter devastation.

Kelin dusted his hands off as he let the dense layer of stone around him disintegrate. All the blood fell away with it, leaving him untouched in the same clothes he’d been wearing.

There wasn’t even a wrinkle in his cloak or dust on his boots.

Besides Soul Paralysis, he hadn’t used a single spell that would leave an aura behind here, just pure brute force, and Gaius’s energy was effectively unnoticeable, difficult to separate from the earth itself.

That made it difficult to trace who had done this, even if someone found it immediately.

He collected all of the storage items from the trainers and a few from the trainees. Then he employed a few more Soul Veil talismans, further muddying the traces before he walked to the wall. 

When he reached the base, he chose a point next to one of the concealment runes. He pulled the hood of his cloak up and let Gaius’s strength infuse his legs as he jumped.

The wall was only about fifteen feet tall and he cleared it in a single leap, never touching the surface. On the far side, he landed in a crouch in an alley.

He glanced around the area, but it was silent. A small gate blocked the entrance and the voices of passersby came from the street nearby.

He broke the gate’s lock with a spike of stone, opened it, and walked out onto the street, where he merged into the traffic and pushed back his hood.

He turned a couple of streets and then ducked into a breakfast tavern, where he ordered a cup of coffee and some food.

His mana was fine, but his soul energy was under half after the empowered paralysis spell, and he sipped his coffee as he recovered. 

After his energy was restored and he’d eaten, he headed back out into the city again. 

His mood was untroubled by the deaths he’d just delivered. 

The guild details had been damning and the assassins had shown their character in their willingness to kill a new recruit.

He would have liked to use Wildfire or to get some practice in with Reactive Sigils or another spell, but those would leave more aura traces behind. 

Unless his life was at stake, Wildfire was something he planned to only use inside a dungeon, since the traces there would be invisible from the outside.

As he walked, he slowly shifted his features, letting his waist thin out and making himself a few inches taller. The changes were gradual and he turned corners several times, so unless someone happened to be following him and watching his face, they wouldn’t notice.

Before long, he looked like a completely different person, a tall and muscular warrior with scarred features.

He checked his reflection in a window on the street, confirming that it was different enough, and then he headed toward another location mentioned in the guild notes.

There were four secret sites that the guild knew about in the city.

By noon, he had visited all of them and left similar scenes in his wake. 

Except for Blaze, he didn’t use a trace of mana or soulfire, only pure soul energy and Gaius’s strength.

His stock of Soul Veil talismans disappeared swiftly as he burned through dozens of them every hour, but he ignored the cost.

He didn’t manage to get all of the assassins in the city, especially the Second Evolution ones that were in more secure locations, but he wiped out their training centers and everyone he found inside.

Early afternoon found him back at the guild, where he checked in with Jesra and booked his old crafting hall. 

He had burned through seventy Soul Veil talismans, so he got to work replacing his supply. 

He spent the rest of the day creating one after the other. His speed at making them was fairly quick now and he could create one about every ten minutes. 

His mood was calm and his mind was untroubled by the manner in which he’d spent the morning. Old experience steadied his mind and made him see the greater picture.

At the end of the day, Highmist would be better off without those he’d killed. 

Humans were supposed to spend their time killing monsters and clearing dungeons, and then facing the Chaos Gates, not taking contracts to kill each other.

He would have liked things to have gone in a different direction and for it to not have been necessary, but it wasn’t the first time he had taken matters into his own hands. 

Sometimes unpleasant tasks needed to be done.

If the guild had been stronger, their threat alone would have contained the problem, and there would have been no need.

That was how politics worked. Sufficient threat maintained the peace and prevented wars. 

Only when one side saw weakness would they act.

He managed to get through thirty talismans before Sandren knocked on the door.

He glanced up at the sky, where the sun was setting through the translucent crystal roof, and then he went to answer it.

Sandren stood in the doorway, her arms folded and her eyes narrow with worry. She let out a sigh of relief as she saw him, but she didn’t seem as angry as he thought she might be.

He’d never hoped to hide his actions from the guild.

Avoiding local seers was one thing. The guild was another.
“Kelin,” she said as she started to look angry. Her foot was twitching as if she wanted to slam it into the ground. “What did you do?”

“Come in first,” he said, staying calm as he led her into the room and closed the door. 

A wave of his hand brought out a bottle of high-quality whiskey and a couple of crystal glasses. He set them on a spare table as he pulled two chairs toward the center of the room. He poured some whiskey into each glass and handed her one, and then sat down on the chair.

He tilted his head back as he looked up at the colors of the sunset.

He didn’t immediately answer her question.

“I take it the guild responded, or you wouldn’t have heard,” he said. 

“Yes and no,” Sandren snapped as she sat down beside him. “They sent a message about you, but it was only to the captains here and it wasn’t clear. It said to make sure you didn’t need to do anything else. It also warned us to keep a better eye on the city, so that people didn’t have to take justice into their own hands.”

She sniffed at the whiskey in her glass and then she tossed back the entire thing in a single swallow. 

At her level, it would take a seriously strong drink to even give her a buzz. This one was nothing.

Kelin added a bit more whiskey to his own glass, and then he passed her the bottle, since it looked like she needed it more.  

She took a swig from the bottle, but then she scowled and filled her glass halfway.

Her words generally fit what he had expected from the guild. He just hadn’t been sure how they would respond about him.
“What did they do after that message?” he asked.

“An hour ago, a Platinum-ranker teleported above Highmist and destroyed the assassin’s main base,” she replied. “She was a warrior and they didn’t even use magic. She just punched down once. Her punch turned into a pillar of wind and flame that crushed the building like a sheet of paper. 

“Then a warning not to challenge the guild echoed across the entire city. She listed a few crimes from the assassins, including attacking a guild member on our property. The only place that didn’t hear it was here inside the guild.”

She shook her head.

“Every known member of the assassin group is dead. Their bodies just fell out of the air after that and landed on the rubble, from the one at the high Second Evolution down. The guild didn’t destroy their bases in other cities, but this one is completely gone. Even their store is rubble now.”

That was about what Kelin had expected. It was also why the guild being short staffed shouldn’t matter that much here. 

One high-ranker could deal with problems just fine.

He sipped his whiskey. It had a pleasant taste like sweet autumn fruit and roasted oranges. 

“They almost didn’t do it, you know,” Sandren said, shaking her head as she looked at him. “I heard from a friend who’s a low-ranking member of the council. I wouldn’t have put it all together without some information I got from her. That’s how I know you did something.”

“What was the trouble?” he asked, but he wasn’t surprised.

“One of the council members argued against interfering in ‘minor matters,’” Sandren replied, frowning at him. “Hugo Whitestar, he’s around Level 350.”

“I’ll keep him in mind,” Kelin said, although he didn’t tell her it was because now he knew who the most corrupt member of the council was. 

“The rest disagreed with him?”

“Yes,” Sandren replied, “they said it was important to make a statement and ensure that the guild wasn’t challenged again, or that this world would become less peaceful. They were still deliberating on the matter when they received a message. Whitestar was arguing against it. After the message arrived, there was an argument and he was forced to concede.”

“Do you know what the message said?” Kelin asked. 

“Only the council received the specifics, but my friend heard them mention your name and that you had already attacked the assassins. They argued for a while, but then another message came that said the assassins were gathering to respond. That was when the guild sent someone to settle things. They refused to allow it.” 

Kelin nodded.

The guild had been pushed to its bottom line.

With the commanders already deliberating a response, and then the assassins not wanting to back down, they had to do something. Otherwise they would have looked even weaker. 

“What did Whitestar say to that?” he asked. “And about what I did?”
“He wasn’t happy, apparently,” Sandren answered. “He suggested exiling you and using you as an example to others to not step out of line, but it was shot down by the rest of the commanders. 

“It probably helped that they already had the packet on you that I sent up, so they knew how promising you are, as well as your heritage. In the end, they decided to conceal your attack and finish what you started, making it all look like the guild’s decision.”
Kelin smiled slightly. He wasn’t surprised that the guild had concealed his part in things. 

The assassins needed to be punished, but if they announced that someone else did it before them, they would look weak. At most, they could admit that a guild member had acted independently, and then cover it up by saying that they had authorized it.

“Even before I learned that, it wasn’t hard to figure out you did something,” Sandren added, “not with the guild message to make sure you didn’t have to do anything else.”

Then her voice sharpened.

“But why did you go and attack them rather than waiting! And more importantly, why did you go alone!” Sandren slammed her fist on the table. “I could have helped! What if their Second Evolution boss had been there?”

A sense of relief washed through Kelin at the words as most of his worries disappeared.

He’d been concerned Sandren would be against his actions, but with the guild’s response matching his, she had apparently let it go.

“I wasn’t sure you saw the need,” he explained. “That Hugo Whitestar, if deliberations had gone on, he might have talked the other guild commanders out of it. That’s why the guild is suffering here.”

“You think he’s a traitor?” Sandren suddenly looked troubled as her gaze sharpened. 

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Kelin said, shaking his head. “It’s hard to say, so let’s leave it there. But either way, his push for delays and ignoring minor matters is causing the guild issues. 

“This destruction of the assassins is what was needed, to make a statement. This will help to keep things peaceful here and the guild will get things done more easily for the next year or two, until people begin to forget.”

Sandren frowned, but she didn’t disagree.

“Have the other captains put it all together?” he asked.

“They might soon, but it’s not a guarantee,” Sandren said. “They know you did something, if not what. They have friends higher up who will talk though, and you know how rumors can spread.”

Kelin nodded. 

“Try not to tell them too soon,” he said. “I don’t want it to spread into the city.”

“So what did you do exactly?” Sandren asked, looking at him sharply. “I still haven’t heard that part.”
“I wiped out some of their training bases,” Kelin said. “And everyone inside. That’s why they wanted to hunt me down. Although I doubt they could find me that easily.”

They would probably have tried to attack random guild members, not him, which would have only put more nails in their coffin.

“What!” Sandren looked upset again. “You could have ended up as a bandit! You can’t go killing so many people who aren’t marked by the Path!”

“Don’t worry,” he replied. “They all had souls that were weighted by crimes. I checked first. The Path won’t mind.”

Sandren gave him a doubtful look, but seeing as he wasn’t marked as a bandit, she let it go.

They had been assassins.

She was right to worry, since one of the most common ways to get an outlaw mark was to wantonly engage in murder sprees. 

People killing each other wasn’t in the Path’s interest, which was why it prevented experience gain from it. It would eventually notice your actions.

However, even if some of the assassins had been innocent, it wouldn’t have affected him.

He was the Lord of Wildfire.

Earning a title came with certain considerations. Even if he didn’t have all of the rights that came at the Fourth Evolution, he still had some of them.

Lords wouldn’t end up marked as bandits easily. 

Otherwise, they couldn’t carry out their duties. It was why they could wage wars against other kingdoms and authorize executions.

It was possible for the Path to mark a Lord as an outlaw, but it required extreme circumstances, like wholesale slaughter of villages and the innocent.

A few assassins and their trainees were nothing.

He finished off his whiskey as he looked up at the fading sunset that was swiftly turning to night.

With all of the local assassins dead and the guild’s statement, he didn’t need to worry much about an immediate response.

It was possible one of the other branches of the assassin organization might try to track him down, but if they did, they were more likely to find out from a leak in the guild than anything.

There was a good chance they wouldn’t dare.

Even Whitestar probably wouldn’t go that far, since there wasn’t much advantage to hunting him down. He also wouldn’t be able to hide it from the other commanders for long.

The guild could try to punish him, but that wasn’t likely either. 

What he had done was justified, both as a response to the attack on him and in the broader sense of the guild’s authority. They weren’t going to reward him for it, but punishing him was out of the question. 

“You know, you’re either going to rise like a meteor or crash like one,” Sandren said with a sigh as she poured the last of the bottle into her glass and finished it off. “So what now?” 

“Shadowfall,” Kelin replied. “And those guards. Nothing’s changed.”

Although he did still need to make more talismans, which set back his ability training a bit.

He might have to add a few extra days here to make up for that.

“I’ll see what I can do to make sure no one talks and to clean up any evidence about you,” Sandren said as she stood up. “Just try to tell me the next time. You can trust me.”

“I know,” he said with a smile as he stood up and walked her to the door. “Let’s hope there isn’t a next time.”

He already knew there would be, but he didn’t say that. If it wasn’t the assassins, it would be someone else testing the guild.

The only question was when.

The next time, maybe he would let her know before he dealt with it.

He bid her good night with a quick embrace and then he pulled out a cup of hot coffee to balance the whiskey as he went back to his work table.

He sat down and breathed in the steam, letting it roll through his senses, and then he got back to work on the talismans.