Wild Era, Ch 27: River Barrow Dungeon

The plains came to an abrupt end at the banks of Sirenflow River, descending in a sheer cliff to the rushing water below. 

The river itself was a sparkling blue mixed with green highlights in the sun, and the sound of its current filled the cliffs with its roar.

The entrance to the River Barrow dungeon was in a cave along the cliffside, and to get down to it there was a barely noticeable path that cut down the sheer side of the cliff face. It required either incredible balance or some help from the elements to descend safely.

Kelin held onto the cliffside with a tether of mana as he descended, using it like a makeshift rope. The agility enchantment on his boots helped here, giving him a sure footing even as the mist from the river made the cliffside slippery.

At the entrance, there was a shallow cave with the dungeon portal at the back, which shone with the same silvery black light that they all did. The available space was only about six feet deep, just enough for a small team to gather.

Before entering, he took a moment to check his gear and to shift around some of the talismans he’d made, splitting them between his spatial belt and his storage pocket.

It was about the same difficulty to access either one, but it was a good way to separate things to use immediately and those he wanted to save for later. If it ever came up, it also let him conceal the fact that he had a personal storage space.

He kept half of his potions and talismans in his belt, along with the alchemist’s mortar and pestle he’d made before. 

All of the talismans he’d made should be useful here. He would keep a good number back in case he got into a pinch, but he wanted to test them out. But if he didn’t use them here, he could sell them back at the guild.

Then he looked at the dungeon entrance. His smile from when he’d read the description appeared again. 

This was one of the top dungeons he wanted to enter, and there was a good reason for it.

Most people feared the undead and tried to avoid the dungeons that had them, but as a fire and soul-affinity mage, they were practically designed for him to destroy.

Undead hadn’t always been in the galaxy. 

They’d appeared at some point during the Chaos War, although it was hard to pin down an exact year, since they had shown up slowly, but by the time they did, it was clear they’d been there for a while. 

It had been closer to the beginning of the war than the end, so they must have snuck in a little less than three thousand years ago. 

Theories differed on whether they were the result of an enemy spell or invaders from a Chaos Gate, but now that they’d appeared, it was effectively impossible to get rid of them. 

Even scorched earth policies hadn’t worked. 

More than once, the army had destroyed every sign of their presence and the land where they’d been, but they always reappeared again somewhere else.

In the end, the guild had given up trying to eliminate them completely and simply dealt with them like any other wild monster. 

Given their natural inclination to curses, necrotic energy, and poison, undead were one of the more dangerous types of monsters to encounter. 

Unlike the elemental energy that humans used, they drew on something else that was close to the essence of death, but an inverted form that still animated them, which was where their affinity for necrotic energy came from. 

It was also where their poison originated, which was evident in their attacks and in the miasma that surrounded them. It had a paralytic and destructive effect on living things, causing vital processes to cease and then decay.

Watching it in action was unpleasant and being its target was worse.

Their form of undeath was also tied into soul magic, and as the top soul mage in the galaxy, he’d done some studies of them in the past. 

One of the reasons he wanted to come to this dungeon now was to explore the new facets of soul magic with his class and to study the undead starting here in his first evolution.

They were basically the polar opposite of the healing and recovery aspects of Soulfire Warden, so hopefully they would give him some insights into the law he needed to develop in this life, with the goal of expanding his soul magic to greater heights.

He pushed the thought away as he finished settling his gear. Then he stepped through the dungeon portal.

As the silver-black barrier rippled around him, the world disappeared and the Path’s voice rang in his mind.

Welcome to the River Barrow Chaos Remnant.

The same information about the high mana density and danger appeared, but he’d just looked at it on the way here, so he dismissed it as he arrived in the dungeon.

Instead of a cave, grey skies stretched out above a twisted, skeletal forest made of dark branches and moss. The area was expansive, stretching off to the distance where everything faded into a dense, grey fog. 

The ground beneath his feet was hardened stone, like the bedrock of a cave, but it looked as if it had been worn down by the passing of thousands of years. Streams of water cut across the ground, flowing directly across the stone like a spray of mist, leaving it filled with small depressions and eroded areas that made for tricky and slippery footing.

Hopefully, the land would rise, but right here it was definitely a mix of Water and Earth mana.

He cast a minor Water spell to waterproof his boots and prevent them from getting drenched in the flows. It was one of the many elemental spells that anyone could use with a bit of training and an old favorite of adventurers, one that was used in every rainstorm to proof clothing and tents, and for when you had no choice except to travel through a storm. 

Ahead of him, the forest was growing directly from the stone. The roots of the trees spread out in it like it was common earth as they spread out in every direction, creating a tangled expanse as they sent the streams of water tumbling over and around them.

It would have been freezingly cold in here, but the Ring of Everlasting Flame kept him comfortable and warm.

“A world of the undead,” he muttered as he took it all in. 

He was standing behind the thin barrier that blocked the dungeon portal from the rest of the dungeon, just like in the last dungeon. 

There was no clear direction to go, just the forest sprawling out all around him, so he turned and put a soul imprint on the portal, marking it so he couldn’t lose his way. 

There was no point in delaying here, so he raised up his mana shield and camouflaged himself as he walked through the barrier and into the forest. 

This time, he suppressed his soul signature and life force as well, using his mana shield to hide them, since the undead were attuned to those energies. 

He swiftly left the portal behind as he moved deeper into the forest. 

His new staff appeared in his hand and its surface glowed with a faint tracery of soulfire as it tapped along beside his foot.

It wasn’t long before he came across a group of wandering skeletons. There were three of them ambling along between the trees. 

Their bodies were made of a dark bone that matched the trees of the forest, and an ethereal grey flame burned along their bones and the spaces between, giving them a ghostly presence.

He analyzed them at a glance.

Skeletal Scout. Level 50.

Skeletal Scout. Level 50.

Skeletal Warrior. Level 55.

The scouts were holding bows made out of a dark bone that matched their bodies, with wickedly barbed bone arrows already drawn on the strings. 

The warrior had a broad shield and longsword, both also made out of bone. A few dark sigils were carved into the surface, giving them a weak enchantment that made the bone harder and lighter than it would have been otherwise.

The ghostly grey flame around them was drifting away from their bodies like mist. Kelin knew that if he breathed it in for too long, or even just walked through it, it would try to poison him.

It was partially a physical poison and partially magical.

Fortunately, his poison resistance was pretty decent now, and his soul was well warded to prevent it from affecting him on that side.

As soon as he analyzed them, the skeletons spun in place and raised their weapons, targeting the area where he was hiding behind his mana shield, but he didn’t stop to introduce himself. 

His Staff of Soulfire glowed as two soulfire bolts appeared around it, and he immediately released them at the scouts.

The bolts tore through the air in golden lines of fire and struck the scouts directly in the center of their foreheads. Their skulls exploded from the impact, and the force was enough to rip the remains completely off their neck, sending the burning shards flying away into the forest.

The scouts stood there for a moment, their headless bodies still raising their bows, and then the grey flames emanating from them flared upward, disappearing from their bodies.

Their lifeless bones clattered to the ground.

The skeletal warrior didn’t waste time looking at his compatriots. He was already rushing toward Kelin with his sword raised.

A soul arrow seared through the air and sank into his skull with a flicker of rainbow light.

The undead’s eye sockets were filled with that grey flame, but as soon as the arrow struck, it began to waver. The warrior stumbled as he continued running forward, but then a rainbow flame began to burn inside of the grey flames, like a spark catching on dry wood.

The rainbow flames surged in force, stretching out from the warrior’s head, and lines of rainbow light ran down its spine, through its chest, and out across its limbs. Flames roared upward as the rainbow light burned away at the grey energy. 

Within seconds, the soul flames covered the warrior‘s entire body, consuming all of the grey energy that had animated him, and he collapsed to the ground.

Unlike with the skeletal scouts, no grey flames remained to dissipate into the world.

A chime of experience rang in Kelin’s mind as he moved forward.

He searched the three skeletons and extracted a core from each of them. He picked one up to examine it more closely.

It was a small grey sphere that looked like it had been made from the undead’s condensed energy. Shadowy lines swirled around it and gave it an ethereal presence, making it look like a solidified ghost that could come back to life at any moment.

He tucked the cores away into his storage and checked the undead for any other items, but all they had were their bone weapons, which weren’t of any use to him.

Without the undeads’ unique energy to maintain them, the weapons would crumble away in short order. 

He left them where they were as he continued walking through the forest. 

Based on the other information he’d gathered about this dungeon, these wandering undead were the weakest types. 

There were supposed to be three separate undead camps, as well as a final castle that held the dungeon boss. Each camp needed to be cleared before the gates to the castle would open. 

Supposedly, there were runestones in each camp that linked to the castle gate and protected it. The gate could probably be forced, but there was no point, since he wanted to clear out everything in the dungeon for the top reward anyway.

100% completion was the goal.

The location of the camps moved around and it was possible there were more or fewer than three, but three was how the dungeon was usually designed and each camp would have loot of its own.

He just needed to search through the forest until he found them.

The soulfire bolt he’d used on the skeletons was his standard type now that the ability had grown stronger. He could make it weaker, but this version took just under 5 mana per cast. 

It would have been six, but his staff and his efficiency boosts dropped it down. 

5.7% mana efficiency from his tunic, 5.1% Fire magic efficiency from his belt, and 10% Soul and Fire magic efficiency from his staff combined for a 20.8% savings on Fire spells and slightly less on soulfire, since the belt’s bonus was cut in half, at 18.25%. 

Since all of the enchantments were slightly different types, they stacked together nicely.

His soul spells had the least reduction from enchantments, but thanks to his staff, they still saved 10%.

Persistent Spell was also making the mana structure of the bolts tighter, which would help them to hit harder against armor and resistant bone shields or other defenses. 

He was also continuing to refine them as he cast, pushing the ability as much as possible. Combined with that and the 57.5% damage bonus to Soulfire that he had at the moment, the spells were blazingly bright.

He was Level 52, higher than the skeletal scouts, so it was overkill against them, and the warriors didn’t fare much better.

As he continued through the forest, he moved in mostly a straight line, letting Gaius’s sense of the earth below his feet warn him of danger. His own soul sense was capable of identifying the undead too, but his range was limited.

Gaius had the advantage of being able to sense their presence on the stone of the dungeon floor.

He encountered several more groups of wandering skeletons similar to the first ones, usually two or three at a time, and he eliminated them quickly before moving on.

The undead energy of the dungeon was becoming more concentrated as he went deeper, and the grey mists that filled the forest were more obvious. He felt the tinges of cold brushing along his skin as he walked through it.

The mist tried to deaden his sense of touch and infiltrate his body, but his poison resistance cleared it away quickly and prevented it from harming him. 

Otherwise, he would have found himself moving more slowly and eventually he would have fallen to the ground, paralyzed and unable to move.

The only fate at that point would be to wait for either the undead or the poison to kill him. It was a toss up as to which one would get there first.

If he did die in this dungeon, there was a high chance that his corpse would rise as an undead and join the ranks of the skeletal mages here, or perhaps as a more unique type.

Fortunately, his affinity for Fire and Soul magic both helped to prevent that outcome. Even if he died here, the undead would get about as much use from his soul as they would from a sphere of flaming magma. 

Explosions were optional.

He chuckled at the thought as he cleared away another group of wandering scouts and a warrior. Then he looked around at the forest.

The trees were a bit darker and taller here, with thicker branches. Small bone white lights floated across their bark like will-o-the-wisps. He reached out and captured one of them to study, and then he let it go again.

It was a form of concentrated soul energy with a tiny bit of vitality, just enough to make it drift under its own power, but it couldn’t really be called alive.

He hadn’t seen the type before, but it was probably either a normal environmental effect that the Path had given to the dungeon or a side effect of the undead’s energy in the area. 

If he‘d had a higher law of Soul Magic to enhance his vision, he could have seen more, but for now it remained a mystery.

He moved on through the forest, keeping a close eye out for changes.

He hadn’t sensed anything out of the ordinary yet, and he didn’t expect that this dungeon had been tampered with, but if it had been, he would find out soon enough.

As he continued killing the wandering skeletons, he eventually felt the attention of the dungeon settle on him. It was a vague premonition of danger brushing across the nape of his neck.

The sense of threat all around him picked up at the same time, and he felt Gaius’s warning that the skeletons were beginning to move more quickly in his direction.

Two groups were merging together and running toward him.

He gripped his staff more tightly and then he pulled out one of the talismans from his belt as he turned in the direction of the approaching group. 

When they came into view, there were six of them and the forces were stronger than before.

There were two Skeletal Scouts at Level 50, two Skeletal Spearmen at Level 56, and two Skeletal Mages at Level 58.

It was the first time here that he’d seen the spearmen and the mages. Their appearance and the increased density of the patrols should mean that he was getting closer to one of the camps.

The scouts had bows, while the spearmen each had a long bone spear, and the mages had bone staffs that glowed with a dark light. The haze of undead energy around the mages was darker too, almost black in the hollow of their chest and in their skulls.

It was purer in them than in the weaker undead.

As soon as he saw the mages, Kelin channeled two soulfire bolts through his staff and sent them at them. Mana shields sprang up around the mages and the bolts exploded a foot away from them. 

The difference between the spells was stark as the mana shields buckled and nearly failed. The persistent spells bored halfway through the mages’ barriers before they dissipated. When they did, the shields wavered as if they were on the verge of destruction.

The mages shuddered as they stepped backward, but their movements were smooth as they raised their staffs and sent bolts of dark light at Kelin in reply.

At the same time, the scouts fired their arrows at him and the spearmen began to run forward.

When he saw that his spells were deflected, Kelin smiled slightly. It was always better to have somewhat challenging enemies. A second bolt would probably shatter their barriers, but instead he decided it was time to test out his gear.

He activated the Runic Shield Talisman in his hand and a shimmer of golden runes appeared directly over his skin as the shield formed. He could feel its presence like a thin mana barrier.

Then he let the arrows and the spells come.

The mage’s bolts arrived first, and he identified them as a type of dark necrotic energy, but as they closed in on him, the bracer on his right arm shimmered as mana flowed through the core set into the engraved mithril. Runes hummed across the surface as it glowed.

A ripple of enchantment spread outward around Kelin in a sphere, and the mage’s bolts were deflected to the side and away from him. 

One flew to the right and the other to the left.

As the arrows approached, something similar happened with the bracer on his left arm. A distortion in the air appeared in front of him and the arrows struck it. 

Then they shot away at different angles, clattering against the tree branches in the forest before they buried themselves in tree trunks.

From the feel of the bracers’s magic, they were barely stressed by the defense. They could probably do the same thing at least fifty more times before they needed to be recharged.

Since they’d just blocked two arrows and spells, that meant about a hundred arrows or a hundred simple spells before he needed to pour mana into them. 

A complete charge in each bracer was also about a hundred mana, which meant a point per deflection. If something stronger than that hit him, they would drain faster, but it was an efficient enchantment.

He was satisfied with the purchase.

He could have asked Gaius to help him deal with the skeletons, but he decided against it, since he wanted to get more exercise with his own abilities.

The talisman was his extra line of defense now. 

He withdrew his own mana barrier and placed it just below the talisman’s shield, so that the disposable one would break first and not drain his mana. 

Then he sent two soulfire bolts searing through the air at the skeletal spearmen that were running toward him. He paid special focus to the persistent cohesion of the spell, doing his best to intensify it, since that would help the ability to grow.

Both of the skeletons’ heads exploded into fragments as the two soulfire bolts tore straight through and continued on. If anything had been directly behind them, they would have taken the blows next, but unfortunately the mages and scouts were off at an angle.

Two more arrows and necrotic bolts were deflected by his bracers, and then he sent two soul arrows at the scouts. A moment later, they were both consumed by rainbow flames as the energy in them burned away.

He turned his attention to the mages, which were much more interesting than the other undead, and he studied the third set of necrotic bolts that flew his way.

He wanted to experiment on these undead and test out his healing abilities on them, so instead of just overwhelming their defenses, he walked toward them, letting his bracers continue to do the work of deflecting their spells.

Normal trees and bushes would have withered away when they were struck by that energy, but when they landed around him, the forest had no reaction, which showed that its nature was already well aligned with the undead.

As he closed in, the mages didn’t run. They just raised their staves and sent different spells at him. Ghostly hands reached up from the ground to grab at his feet, while a dark net of energy fell down from above.

His bracer had a little more trouble with those spells, since they weren’t as direct as bolts, but it still managed to block them.

When he got into range, he raised his staff and released a pulse of soul energy. Both of the undead froze in place, shuddering as the energy that animated them compressed under the force.

Soul Paralysis worked well on the undead, although they would shake it off eventually.

He reached out to the one on the right and his hand glowed with Touch of Soulfire as he placed it against the bones of the undead’s chest.

The skeletal mage let out a ghostly shriek as its chest began to melt away. The soulfire on Kelin’s hand incinerated the dark energy that was filling its torso and the bones began to turn white instead of black, like they were cinders in an inferno.

A moment later, the mage’s torso crumbled away and its body collapsed into death. Threads of soulfire were still blazing around its head and spine, burning away the remaining dark energy, but its ribs had completely disintegrated.

He turned to the one on the left and fired a pair of Soulfire Bolts directly at it, at point blank range. Its shield buckled under the first, but while it was paralyzed it wasn’t able to reinforce its barrier. 

The second bolt tore straight through the shield and the mage’s head exploded.

“Interesting,” he said as he glanced down at the mages.

He would have to explore the connection between soulfire and their necrotic energy more. The two were almost opposites of one another.

He’d already known that undead were harmed by healing energy, but what he’d used was slightly different, more of an arcane and elemental version of healing.

It seemed it was still enough of a contrast to work, but unlike regular healing it seemed to work by consuming their energy and using it as fuel, rather than just canceling it out.

It was too bad it required touching them to function, but it was a nice backup if any undead got close to him.

It made him wonder if his Soulfire Sigil could harm them. It would be slow, but it was something to consider. Perhaps it would be enough to negate the regeneration of a particularly difficult undead.

He gathered the cores from the group of skeletons and then he checked on his bracers, but they were fine. They were gathering ambient mana to regenerate their charges, so he wouldn’t even need to refill them himself unless he used them too much. 

A couple of minutes later, the runic shield from his talisman shattered. The runes that were floating across his skin disappeared, evaporating into ambient mana. 

With the thought of experimenting on his mind, he headed deeper into the forest to find another group of skeletons. 

The camp these had come from should be around here somewhere.