Wild Era, Ch 29: Barrow Fort (Double)

It took Kelin about two hours to make his way through the forest and find another trail of undead that steadily increased in strength.

The dungeon continued to send the skeletons to find him, which helped to speed things up.

Things were going fairly well so far, partly because he’d chosen the dungeon well and partly because the level difference here was much less than it had been when he was in the last dungeon, but good things didn’t always last.

The dungeon didn’t seem to have been tampered with so far, which helped to keep its difficulty where it should be, but he was cautious as he moved forward.

Eventually he came across the second camp. 

Instead of a walled fort with buildings, this one was a large burial mound. The dungeon was living up to the barrow in its name.

A single entrance marked the front of the mound, framed by timber pillars and a massive, half open door. 

Luminescent crystals radiated an unearthly blue light across the door, marking out a ward. They were a variant of the necrotic gems he’d found, but they had less energy inside.

The mound was about the same width as the first camp at two hundred feet across, but it was covered by black moss and dirt and was much longer, extending into the distance for perhaps a quarter mile or a bit more.  

A combination of Gaius’s senses and his own told him that the barrow was made of framed wood and stone that had been covered over by dirt to create a mound. Then the moss had grown over the top of it, perhaps as a replacement for grass in this twisted forest.

The door was about ten feet across and it was open just enough for a couple of skeletons to walk out side by side. 

He studied the entrance for a while and analyzed everything in sight, but nothing came out. 

It looked like he was going to have to go into this one.

That meant his advantage of fighting at range was going to drop significantly. 

He sighed as he checked on the talismans he had left and tossed a few more into his belt. He’d only used a couple of them, but he had a feeling that was about to change.

Fighting undead at close quarters was not something a mage should spend their time doing. The haste belt he’d just picked up would help a little with his reaction time, but his Constitution and Agility were not very good, which would make it harder to resist injuries and to dodge them.

If Maro and Galin were here, he would have let them take the point and rear guard, and then he and Serai would have had more time to cast in the middle, which was the usual arrangement for this type of situation.

Since he was on his own, he’d have to rely on Gaius’s stoneskin and other abilities that could augment his short-range defense.

It was a good thing he’d made a lot of talismans.

He pulled out one of the Runic Shield Talismans and activated it, letting the barrier settle around him. Beneath that, yellow runes flared up across his skin, covering him in a thin layer of stone armor.

Then he tightened his grip on his staff and headed toward the doors.

He studied the ward and quickly deciphered its purpose. It was a detection ward that would leave a mark on him and make him blaze in the sight of any undead inside the tomb.

There would be no sneaking around inside the barrow.

The result wasn’t unexpected, and there was no good way to destroy the ward without blasting away the entire entrance to the tomb, which would be a giant waste of mana, so he ignored it as he walked through. 

The ward slid over him with a touch of chill necrotic energy and left its mark. It was a tracery of necrotic energy that clung to his mana shields, trying to sink into his skin.

If it had been a weaker ward, he could have shed it by dismissing his mana shield and summoning a new one, but this ward was persistent throughout the entire barrow. The effect would simply reappear as soon as it sensed him again.

There was no getting away from it. 

If it touched his skin, it would also act like a slow poison on his vitality. It hadn’t broken through yet, but he wasn’t concerned. His poison resistance should be strong enough to ignore it, and if not then some soulfire would take care of it.

As he walked into the barrow, cold blue lights ignited, illuminating a long hallway with doors and alcoves on either side. 

Some skeletal forms in battered armor leaned against the walls in the alcoves, their arms crossed over their chests as if they were asleep standing up. 

Ornate carvings and some ledges were interspersed between the alcoves, and the tops of some doors had more necrotic gems illuminating them, interspersed between individual wards.

“Interesting,” he murmured as he studied it all. 

Each individual door could hold a group of undead, a trap, or possibly some loot worth collecting. 

The hall was too long and filled with magical darkness for him to see the end, but he could make out a web of black and blue energy in the distance. It matched the glow of wards on the doors nearby. 

It looked like he’d have to go through them one by one. This camp was going to take a lot longer than the first one. 

The only advantage to being in close quarters was that Gaius’s senses were strong, so hopefully he’d have some warning about what was inside.

As he headed toward the first door, a blur leapt out at him from a shadowed alcove near the wall. Gaius had confirmed it was empty a moment before, but it was filled with something gaunt and skeletal, and sharp claws ripped toward him.

As he dodged backward and raised his staff, he automatically analyzed it.

Shadow Ghoul. Undead. Level 55.

Key Ability: Shadow Phase.

[This ghoul isn’t much different from its more common cousins, but it has the ability to phase through nearby shadows, giving it a strong advantage in dark areas. It is skilled in ambushes.]

His dodge was decent for a mage, but even with the haste belt, it wasn’t enough to get out of the way. 

The ghoul’s claws tore through the runic talisman’s shield, sending a web of shattered runes flaring around Kelin, and ripped half-inch deep furrows into the stoneskin.

As it completed its strike, it tried to dodge back to hide in the shadows, but before it could return, a blast of soulfire seared toward it and its head exploded.

Its body collapsed to the ground.

“So that’s how it’s going to be.” Kelin grumbled as he pulled out another talisman and activated, renewing the runic shield. At the same time, Gaius filled in the damage to the stoneskin.

Then he looked down at the ghoul.

It was a gaunt, twisted figure about five feet tall with mottled dark skin and it was skeletally thin, with a waist that was barely ten inches across. Its claws were three inch blades at the tips of its fingers. When its head had been intact, it had a mouth filled with sharp fangs.

A moment of effort with his mana blade freed its core from its chest, and he stored it away with the other ones he had. 

At some point, he was going to have to rebuild a simple telekinetic spell to pull out cores for him, but his mana density would have to increase a bit more first. 

At least Persistent Spell would help that along.

The shadows on the wall were empty again, so he ignored them as he turned back toward the door he’d chosen. 

When he reached it, he studied the ward on it, and then he reached out and tapped on one of the necrotic crystals, sending a pulse of disruptive mana into it.

A wave of cold energy crackled over his mana shield, but it couldn’t reach him, and then the wards went dark. The door creaked as it swung open.

Inside, there was a small chamber that resembled a monk’s cell, except instead of a bed it had four stone ledges where corpses could be interred. On a table between them, there was a space for incense and offerings.

Two of the ledges were occupied by skeletons lying atop them and dressed in ragged armor. As soon as Kelin walked in, blue lights blazed in their eyes and they sat up, swinging themselves off the ledges as they began to stand.

Skeletal Warrior, Level 55.

A Soulfire Bolt tore through each of them, turning their heads to dust, and their bodies collapsed backward, hanging over the ledges where they had been lying.

Kelin scanned the area, but there was nothing of interest except their cores, so he retrieved both of them and headed back out to find another door.

In the distance, the web of black and blue energy was just a fraction dimmer than before. It had been weakened when he removed the ward from this room.

He was six steps down the hallway toward the second door when another black blur leapt out from the shadows at him.

He spun as quickly as he could, but once again the shadow ghoul’s claws tore through his defense and shattered the talisman before he could respond with a Soulfire Bolt.

Its head disappeared in a flare of soulfire and it collapsed to the ground, but Kelin grumbled about it anyway.

His lack of Agility was really showing now.

A week or so since waking up hadn’t been enough to fix his body, so he was still malnourished, but even if he were at his natural peak, his class wasn’t designed around that attribute.

He would just have to endure it.

He activated another talisman and retrieved the core. Then he walked on. 

At least the talismans were saving him some mana.

This was one of the dungeons that had apparently been designed to test its challengers in different ways. 

The structure of the small rooms would have made it hard for a team to face the skeletons together. They would have had to rush inside or risk being split up, and whoever was in the rooms first would have to fight the skeletons alone for a moment.

If something ambushed them from behind while they were entering, it could get messy.

While he wasn’t fast enough to avoid the ambushes, at least he had a decent defense and could take the hits, even if it was costing him a bit.

He also had the advantage of killing things in a single spell, which made it less likely that he would get pinned between monsters. 

Still, it would be helpful if he had a reactive spell that could respond to the ghouls’ attacks. 

That thought stuck in his mind as he considered the possibilities, and he let it brew there on its own as he continued down the hall.

The next several rooms were much the same as the first, with the only difference being the composition of undead inside.

Sometimes there were two warriors and sometimes three, or they were mixed up with some spearmen instead, but their levels all tended to be around 55 or 56.

Shadow ghouls continued to ambush him every few steps, but it was hard to predict which angle they would come from. The hall was narrow and the shadowed alcoves were close enough that they could appear and attack him almost instantly.

Before long, there was a trail of shattered ghoul corpses strewn across the floor between half a dozen empty doors with broken wards.

He was steadily burning through his stack of Runic Shield Talismans, so he swapped out one of them for a Runic Scale talisman and found that it could take two blows from a ghoul before breaking, so he started using those instead.

With half the hall complete, it was enough to gain another level and he reached Level 56.

He added the free points to his Intelligence, taking it to 483, and continued on.

It took him another hour to reach the end of the hall, and along the way, he broke the wards on the remaining ten doors, destroyed another twenty-odd skeletons, and eliminated ten more shadow ghouls.

He also burned through six of the Runic Scale Talismans.

The monsters were all roughly the same level as him, so with Gaius getting half the experience, it took around forty of them for a single level. It wasn’t enough to level up again yet, but it made for steady progress.

When he broke the ward on the final door, the web of light at the end of the hall disappeared and the area past it came into view.

It was another long hallway stretching through the barrow, and it was long enough that it looked like it covered most of the remaining length, at least if it matched what he’d seen from the outside.

In the distance he could see another black and blue necrotic ward. This one had no mana links to other parts of the hall, which meant if he could reach it, he should be able to break it.

There were no doors in this part of the hallway, only dozens of alcoves, with a new one every few feet. Ghostly white pillars also rose up from the walls every thirty feet or so and stretched overhead until they met in the middle, like the bones of a ribcage.

It looked like this part was going to be purely about ambushes. He frowned as he debated how to approach it. 

His rough guess placed the number of ambushes at somewhere between twenty and thirty before he could reach the end, and there was a chance there would be something else besides shadow ghouls in the mix to make it harder. 

If he walked through at his current pace, dealing with one at a time, it would take a while and he’d burn through at least twenty talismans. 

After some thought, he decided to try it a different way that would speed it up. It might also save a few talismans.

He took out a handful of Runic Scale Talismans and activated them all, layering six shields over himself. That was 90 mana worth of defense, and it should be good for around a dozen hits from the ghouls.

He took out the Soulfire Sigil disk and ignited a sigil in it, and he held it tightly in his left hand. Its brilliance filled the area around him, making it feel warmer and more secure.

Then he created a sphere of soulfire and held it at the top of his staff, slowly letting the intensity build. It cast a brilliant light that drove away the shadows around him. 

He glanced left and right down the hall, and then he sprinted forward.

He stuck to the center path, but it was only a few feet from the alcoves. As he ran past each one, shadowy forms leapt out at him.

Even with his unimpressive Agility, he was running fast enough that he kept ahead of some of the attacks and the ghouls had to stop and spin around to catch sight of him. 

Then they leapt after him, phasing into the shadows as they moved. They were like apparitions appearing and disappearing, but the soulfire blazing from his staff kept them from reappearing directly on top of him.

As he passed the first white pillar, a ghostly howl ripped through the area in a chilly wave. It was a freezing and paralyzing force that struck his ears and soul at the same time, trying to root him in place.

Its energy rebound from the wards on his soul, but it made his steps catch for a moment before he shook it off and continued running forward.

As he did, he saw two ghostly white forms phase out of the pillars, and he analyzed one as he continued running.

Drowned Phantom. Level 56.

Key Abilities: Terrifying Howl, Paralytic Touch.

Kelin ignored them as he continued running. There was a train of half a dozen ghouls and now those two phantoms chasing behind him. 

As he passed more alcoves, ghouls continued to leap out at him, and when he ran by the second white pillar, the same howl came again, sending a shudder through his steps.

He was more prepared for it this time and his wards had hardened, so when it hit him, it was only a momentary distraction and it didn’t do much to slow him down.

The same thing happened again with the remaining white pillars and more ghouls continued to leap out after him, but within a dozen seconds, he closed in on the ward at the end of the hall.

Now and then, a ghoul managed to reach him and slashed at his defenses, but the layered shield around him held up against the blows, even though it was swiftly thinning out.

By that point, there were at least twenty ghouls and ten phantoms behind him. It was hard to count them as they continued phasing in and out of the shadows.

When he passed the final pillar and two more phantoms appeared, he picked a spot ahead of him and raced toward it. 

When he reached it, his staff cut an arc through the air as he spun in a circle, swiftly erecting a ward, and he raised the Soulfire Sigil high in his left hand.

Then he released the spell that had been building on top of his staff this entire time.

A Soulfire Inferno exploded a dozen feet in front of his ward and roared down the hallway. The tight confines of the hall were a perfect field for the spell, and it filled the hall with blazing golden flames for thirty feet and more.

Screams of the undead ripped through the air as ghoul claws tore at his ward, but the layered defense of the ward and Soulfire Sigil meant that the mana expenditure was low. 

It wasn’t much different from blocking all the wraiths in the Shieldrun Forest Dungeon, and his mana was slow to drop. 

Persistent Spell bolstered both his ward and the duration of the Soulfire Inferno, but he held the channel to the inferno open and continued to feed it mana. 

It wasn’t cheap and the initial twenty mana turned into thirty and then fifty. 

The impacts on his shield continued like hammer blows for a few moments, but they began to slow, and then they faded away completely.

When everything was still, he let the inferno continue to burn while he and Gaius both scanned the area, but neither of them could sense any undead remaining. 

The area felt hot and clean, so he let the inferno die away and looked around.

The charred corpses of two dozen ghouls littered the hallway, while the phantoms were nowhere in sight. Their ephemeral bodies had simply disintegrated in the heat. 

A few dark cores lay in the hallway where they had been.

He left the ward up as he studied the result, and then a smile tugged at his lips. After being attacked so much in the last hallway, he felt vindicated. 

This was what being a mage was all about. 

He’d also just sped up this hallway by at least an hour, saving himself a bunch of time.

Then a welcome notification rang in his mind.

Congratulations, Lord of Wildfire.

You have gained a Level.

You are now Level 57.

Your Soulbound Elemental has also gained a Level.

You gain 1 Wisdom, 3 Intelligence, and have 5 free points to assign.

He added the free points to Intelligence, taking it to 491.

Then he sat down in his ward as he began to meditate. That run had taken a little over a hundred mana, along with the cost of the talismans, but it had been worth it.

It didn’t take him too long to restore his mana, and then he stood up and let the ward fade, but he kept the Soulfire Sigil disk tucked into his shirt. He had a feeling he was at the end of the hall, so it might come in handy against whatever was behind this second ward.

He cleaned up the hall and stored away the undead cores. There was little else in the way of loot from this group except for some necrotic crystals that must have been on the phantoms. They were a little smaller than the ones from the trolls, but otherwise they had a very similar feel.

He stored everything away and then he turned to the ward. It only took him a moment to decipher its mana structure, and then he sent a soulfire bolt searing toward three different points.

Three ward stones exploded, one after the other, and the web of energy swiftly thinned and disappeared.

On the other side, tall white stone pillars arched up from the walls, forming a long room that was a hundred feet long with a raised throne at the end. 

It resembled the barrow wight’s hall at the first camp to a certain extent, including in that a runestone was at the end of it behind the throne, but the figure sitting on the throne was very different.

A ghostly woman in a long dress sat on the throne. Her body was transparent and made of swirling blue and white smoke. Her hair was long and tangled behind her head, but it floated around her as if it were alive, moving on unseen currents in the air.

Desolate Banshee. Level 62. Elite.

There were no other monsters in the hall, only her.

The hall had a quality of despair to it, as if it were drenched in solitude and loneliness. It made it seem like the banshee’s hair drifting on the air was a solemn farewell to a distant relative, one that was waving slowly at their passing.

She sat calmly on the throne, looking toward Kelin with a distant gaze, but it didn’t look like she would move unless he went further in.

He was surprised for a moment by the Elite tag, since there was usually only one in a dungeon.

For a moment, he debated if it was down to tampering by the Sarathians, but since nothing else was out of the ordinary so far, he decided it was just a result of the dungeon’s high mana density.

The banshee had grown stronger from the concentration of energy here, which meant her magic resistance and abilities would be more advanced than normal.

Still, he wasn’t overly concerned. The banshee was only five levels above him and his soul wards were strong.

Her abilities were similar to the phantoms outside, but more advanced. 

She had an Aura of Despair that would reduce the speed and defenses of anyone around her, a Paralytic Touch,  and a Rending Wail, as well as various forms of resistance, including a 90% reduction to physical damage.

His major consideration was how to best use his abilities in order to get them to advance, since if he kept using Soul Arrow or Wildfire all of the time, it wouldn’t be good for comprehensive growth.

His thoughts returned to the reactive ability he’d been considering when the ghouls started ambushing him, and this time he looked at his Explosive Sigil class ability too.

That was the only class ability he still had at Basic.

He had no real use for the ability as it stood, since everything it could accomplish could be done more easily by just throwing a Soulfire Bolt at something. 

It might have been useful if he were in the habit of laying traps for his enemies, but that wasn’t his style. That issue was why it was still at the lowest tier, but in order to get the best class evolution in the future, he needed to upgrade it. 

Class Evolution options took into account the tier of your abilities, so if he wanted to get the best class possible when he reached Level 100, he had to work on this one too. 

Since the banshee wasn’t attacking him, he raised his ward again and sat down on the floor, turning his thoughts inward as he studied the ability, tracing its pathways throughout his spirit.

He could either force himself to use Explosive Sigil and try to upgrade it into something else at a higher evolution, or he could take a different path. 

He was leaning toward the second option. 

The best way would be to slightly alter the ability until it became something that was more useful to  him, effectively turning it into something else. 

Normally, altering abilities was done by the Path, which had an enormous amount of experience and power to draw upon. It generally happened either by deliberate choice during an evolution or as a result of constant small shifts in the ability that changed its core nature, which the Path then recognized and completed.

But it could be done manually.

Given the limitations of that type of change, it would have to be something relatively close to the original and still be something that matched his class. That meant an ability that used runes or a sigil, soulfire, and that was explosive. 

Being triggered by proximity would also help.

Explosive Sigil was supposed to be placed on an area and it would trigger when the conditions were met, whether that was monster presence, time, or another variable that the caster willed into it.

When he laid it out like that, the idea of transferring the ability’s ‘set area’ to himself, or perhaps to his mana shield, was a change that he might be able to make.

It was only a small shift from initial ability design, and it didn’t require heavily modifying its structure throughout his meridians.

Given the nature of the ability, he would have to rewrite the pathway in his spirit from being a separate area to himself, but that was an easier change than going the other way. 

It would simply be turning it from one area to a more personal one.

Modifying the trigger to react to an attack was already within the design of the ability.

The complexity of the change was still well beyond what a Level 57 Mage should have been able to do, but he had an old familiarity in creating new classes and abilities.

Everyone at the Fourth Evolution and higher had to do that work for themselves, basically redefining their abilities and existence with each new class they evolved into at Levels 400, 500, and 600.

By the time someone reached Level 699, like he had been, they were an old hand at it.

It was also the realm of a soul mage, since abilities were heavily woven into the structure of the soul as well as the physical meridians, and without the ability to touch both, it would have been more dangerous.

This type of Basic Evolution ability was still complex, since it was tied into an entire web of evolutionary options later on, but for the most part he could ignore the higher laws that went into the structure.

It wasn’t like he could see them right now, but he could guess what they were, and he knew they would work themselves out as long as the basic function was harmonious. 

The Path would help with it as well, since that was part of its purpose, although he’d have to wait until his Evolution to ask it. For now, he just had to make sure that he didn’t fundamentally damage his meridians with the change.

It took him a handful of minutes to trace out the entire pattern in his spirit, and he placed unique markers along the line, making the structure of the ability glow in his soul sight.

It was lucky now that the ability was still at the Basic tier and that he’d barely used it. The pathways that formed it were thinner than the other abilities he had, which meant they would be easier to change. 

It was like pulling out a single thread from a tapestry and replacing it, rather than a thread that had grown into an expansive web and woven itself deeply into the whole.

He located the part of the ability that was related to proximity and then he compared it to the pathway that was part of his class’s mana shield ability. 

An ability was very similar to an enchantment carved onto the soul, with similar runic structures that defined how mana or stamina should flow.

The Explosive Sigil’s pathway was longer and more complex than his mana shield’s, with half a dozen branches that were related to setting it in various other structures.

He studied the pathway for a while, debating how to modify it.  He wove a tracery of soul energy around each pathway, laying out the necessary changes.

He could preserve all of the extra pathways, since they would be useful for establishing different facets to the new form of the ability, but he would have to change the core path that defined distance and remodel it to be similar to his mana shield.

When he had the complete design laid out, he began gathering soul energy. 

Gaius’s presence flowed into his soul at the same time, providing a sense of stability that calmed his nerves.

Then he surrounded the ability with soul energy and began pulling on the main pathway, slowly tugging it backward and shortening its structure. 

A tearing pain flared through his soul like he was yanking at the roots of his existence, but Gaius’s presence helped to push it away.

He continued tugging, slowly moving the pathway back toward the center of his spirit and modifying it with each tug.

He had to shift the placement of the runes that made up the structure, carve new channels to adjust their layout, and modify some of the smaller structures as well, so that they would efficiently support a close-range spell instead of a distant one. 

It took him ten agonizing minutes to get the changes into place as sweat poured down his body, and the flickering wildfire storm of his soul wavered as he worked, flaring and dimming in response to the changes.

His soul in this life was thin, even with the wards he’d woven on it, but that also meant it was easier to make the changes.

As he worked, he continually channeled soul energy out to where the pathway had been, soothing the areas that had been disrupted. They felt naked and empty.

In contrast, the area where he’d moved the ability to was blazingly hot, boiling with new energy as the structure pressed against the area.

He’d chosen with care, however, and the new area was in an open part of his soul where nothing else existed. It was near his mana barrier, but not touching it, so they would both have time to grow.

That proximity would also help to tie the two abilities together, or to fuse them into one, if that was a route he chose in the future.

When he was finished, he let out a huff of breath and then he looked at the result.

The ability’s pathways had been shifted and redesigned, and it was settling into the new location. It would take it a few days to feel easy there, but it was already available to use.

Notifications from the Path were ringing in his mind.

Some of them had appeared while he was working. Others were a result of what he’d done.

Warning! Altering the key function of a Class Ability is dangerous! Proceed with caution!

There were multiple notifications like that. He dismissed them all and looked at the result.

Congratulations, Lord of Wildfire.

You have successfully altered a Class Ability.

Your Class Ability: Explosive Sigil (Basic) has been modified.

It has been reclassified as Reactive Sigil (Basic).

[This ability is designed as a close-range defense for the Soulfire Warden. It allows you to shape a sigil of soulfire or another energy, which you can then place in your aura or attach to your mana shield. When you or your mana shield are struck by a hostile force, the sigil will trigger, releasing a blast of stored energy at your foe. 

At the Basic tier, the sigil will expire after a single use. At higher tiers, there is a chance for it to endure. You may currently apply three sigils to your soul or mana shield. If the trigger condition is the same, they will all react to a single attack.

Mana Cost: Variable, 5-15 at the Basic Tier.]

The pain of modifying the ability was still there, but he was satisfied with the change.

If a ghoul tried to ambush him now, it would get a blast of soulfire in the face. 

Or perhaps three of them. 

That was the result of leaving the extra trigger pathways on the ability, rather than removing them. They allowed him to build those extra sigils, and each of them could have their own trigger condition.

Just based on that option for three sigils, the ability was already better than the original. Explosive Sigil could do multiples too, but only at a higher tier than Basic.

There were a couple other notifications waiting for him. 

Congratulations, Lord of Wildfire.

For successfully modifying your soul, you gain the Trait: Soul Artisan.

[Those who can work directly with the soul are rare. You are one of them. You already have the ability to perceive the structure of the soul, but this Trait will enhance your sight, allowing you to perceive the energies of the soul more directly. It will also steady your hand and will, making it slightly safer for you to make changes. 

This Trait grants you +5 Aura.]

For successfully modifying a Class Ability, you gain the Trait: Ability Artisan.

[Creating Class Abilities is a core feature of higher Evolutions. You have succeeded in doing so early. For that, you have earned this trait, which enhances your understanding of Class structures and inherent energy pathways. 

You have gained the ability to see where abilities will complement and conflict with one another, which is a core part of understanding harmonious and disharmonious Paths. 

This Trait grants you +10 Intelligence.]

Both of the Traits were added to his status sheet under Innate Traits, right beside his affinities.

Traits like that were a mark of accomplishment in a certain area. 

The Path was acknowledging his ability. 

The 5 Aura and 10 Intelligence granted with the Traits didn’t hurt either. It took his Intelligence to 501 and his Aura to 210.

He could feel the changes to his sight and the slight increase in stability in his soul’s touch, as well as the new perception of his abilities.

He focused on the sense of harmony and disharmony that came with Ability Artisan and studied the changes that he’d made. 

He was pleased to see that the ability glowed with a harmonious light, humming slightly in his perception as it resonated with his other abilities.

He’d once been called the greatest Soul Mage in the galaxy. 

It was nice to see he hadn’t lost his touch.

He checked on the banshee, but she was still sitting on her throne, so he closed his eyes as he meditated to recover his energy.

A little while later, he turned his attention to the new ability and swiftly constructed three sigils. They glowed in his soul sight like small golden runes, each filled with 5 mana.

He placed two of them on his mana shield and one on his aura. That way, two would go off as soon as his shield was struck, while the third would be a reserve in case something broke through it.

Whatever tried to ambush him next would have a surprise in store for it.

It also meant that he would be a little bit safer now if he were ever stunned or paralyzed, since the sigils would temporarily defend him. And unlike his talismans, they benefited from all of his class bonuses.

When he stood up, his Soulfire Sigil was floating over his shoulder and it still had about half an hour left. He would have to find a way to put it on a string or something, or perhaps create a new disk that could be worn like a medallion, but for now carrying it would have to do.

He grabbed it with his left hand and tightened his grip on his staff with his right. 

Two soul arrows appeared around his staff, spinning with a rainbow light as they orbited it. A moment later, two more joined them.

The Soul Artisan trait that improved his soul’s stability had a second effect, one which perhaps the Path hadn’t intended, which was that it stabilized his casting just enough to allow him to hold those first two soul arrows ready while forming a second set.

His staff, with its soul affinity wood, made it even easier to store them.Now if he had a moment to prepare, he could create a slightly more powerful attack.

It would work for Soulfire Bolts too, but given the banshee’s resistances, the soul arrows were better.

Then he activated a Runic Scale Talisman and walked forward toward the banshee. 

As soon as he entered the hall, she floated off of her throne and her expression changed. Her jaw unhinged and became a mouth full of long ethereal fangs and a horrifying wail ripped through the area.

It was like a sonic wave slamming into him, and it tried to freeze his blood and tear at his soul at the same time, but it slid away from the wards on his soul.

Right behind that attack, the banshee was flying toward him. Her elegant hands had turned into long claws and she covered the distance in an eyeblink, reaching for his throat.

She was too fast to track with his eyes, but as she slammed into the talisman’s shield, she was still for a moment.

His talisman shield shattered at the same time as he unleashed the four soul arrows directly into her body.

The effect of the arrows wasn’t immediate, especially given her resistance, but they sank into her soul and began to burn. Since she was an ethereal being, they were visible like four rainbow sparks floating in her chest.

His mana shield took the brunt of her attack as the talisman faded, and the first two sigils he’d imbued into it were triggered. Then her claws ripped through his stoneskin and touched his skin, triggering the third one too.

Three bolts of soulfire appeared from the surface of his mana shield, exactly where she had hit him. They were almost the same as the Explosive Sigil had been, in that they were more like golden pillars of flame than bolts. 

Each of them was six inches wide and they blasted into the banshee, hurling her ephemeral body backwards.

Her claws had just managed to touch him, leaving thin trails of blood behind. He felt the cold touch of necrotic energy trying to paralyze him, but the effect was minimal, so he ignored it. 

The soulfire that was running through his meridians would deal with it.

The banshee blinked out of existence as she recovered, phasing through some structure of space in the hall, and then she was standing off to the side. 

Her head tilted back as she howled again, and another wave of chilling force crashed over the hall.

Kelin ignored it as he hurled two more soul arrows at her, which joined the other four in her torso, and then two more.

The banshee blinked out of existence before the second pair of arrows hit her, but the arrows were already locked onto her signature. They curved in the space, heading for the throne, and as she reappeared just in front of it, they struck.

She howled as the arrows joined the others, and then rainbow flames began to flicker throughout her body, rising from the eight arrows stuck in her soul.

The flames grew larger, climbing through her form until it looked like rainbow streamers were flaring up from her limbs. Her body and white dress both caught on fire, and then the flames soared higher, completely engulfing her.

She threw her head back as she let out a final howl, but the energy in this one was faint.

Then her body dissolved into rainbow smoke. 

The remaining energy drifted away in the air and the hall seemed to become instantly warmer. The desolate feeling that had oppressed it before was gone.

Three items clattered to the ground where the banshee had been. 

Kelin let out a breath as he reinforced his mana shield and reset the reactive sigils he’d used. Then he walked up to check on what she'd left behind.

There was a banshee core, a high-quality necrotic crystal that was larger than the ones from the trolls or phantoms, and an amulet.

He stored the first two away and picked up the amulet to examine it.

Banshee Bane Amulet (Uncommon: Professional).

[This artifact is designed to shield the wearer’s soul from a banshee’s wail and prevents her scream from damaging the mind. It also helps to prevent stunning and paralytic effects from the undead, although its resistance can be overcome with enough power or a significant level difference.]

It was a useful artifact, something that would be good if his mana and soul energy ran out. 

Items were dropping frequently thanks to the high mana density. If it had been a normal density, he would have seen a lot fewer things, from necrotic gems to rarer artifacts like this and the haste belt.

If he’d been on a team, they would have had to debate who got it, but that was the advantage of being solo.

He hung the amulet around his neck, tucking it into his shirt next to his guild badge.

Then he looked at the runestone behind the banshee’s throne and pulled out the two-handed bone sword again. 

Soulfire flared around him as he swung.

Three blows later, the runestone exploded into fragments and he felt the mana connection to somewhere in the distance snap.

This time, he could feel the distinct presence of a third tether somewhere in the distance. He got a vague impression of its direction, but that was all before it disappeared.

At least it confirmed that there was only one more runestone to break. 

As the tether disappeared, the sense of the undead and the pervasive necrotic energy in the hall became even weaker, until it felt almost like a normal building.

He picked up all of the runestone fragments and stored them away with the sword, and then he turned and headed back out of the hall.

There was one more camp to find out there.