Wild Era, Ch 25: Guild Report

As Kelin looked around the forest, birds chirped and the rustle of small animals sounded from the brush, marking a stark contrast to the dungeon.

His senses and Gaius’s confirmed that the area was clear. No other adventurers or assassins were around.

Sarathia probably had limited forces here and it was likely that the assassin he’d killed was the only one assigned to this dungeon, but there was always a chance that there were more.

For now, none were around.

It was midmorning, which was a good time to exit the dungeon. At least it meant he could travel back during the day.

Behind him, the others appeared a moment later, appearing from the portal in front of the massive tree that marked out the entrance to the dungeon.

“Why don’t you come back to Highmist with me?” Kelin offered as he turned toward them. “I know one of the guild captains there and it might have better security than Cerith. They’ll help to sort out the Sarathian plot, as well as to locate other dungeons where the same thing might be happening.”

He wanted to make the offer, but he wasn’t surprised when Maro shook his head.

“We should head back to Cerith,” he said as he shared a look with Serai and Galin. “We need to settle things for Sarella there, including with her family. After that, I want to clear up that assassin’s status and make sure everyone knows who he was. There has to be some others around, and the guild needs to start referencing everyone who’s gone missing. The bounty on that one says they’re already keyed in to it, but I don’t know if they have all the information about overseeding the dungeons.”

“We’ll come to Highmist soon and look for you,” Serai said. “It would be nice to team up again. It’s hard to find reliable people.”

Her voice was sad as she looked at Maro, who was carrying Sarella’s body over his shoulder. 

“We won’t forget you,” Galin agreed, his tone firm. “You saved us in there. I’ll remember that.”

“You returned the favor at the end,” Kelin said, thinking of when they’d struck the drake’s head out of the way just before it could bite him. “I’d say we’re even.”

“Things like that aren’t counted among friends,” the dwarf replied, grumbling. “It was only a little shield throw anyway.”

Despite his grumbling, he was serious as he looked at Kelin. Dwarves didn’t name someone a friend easily, and when they did, they meant it.

“Friends then,” Kelin agreed with a smile. His heart was touched by the words. It had been a long time since he’d made friends in a dungeon run. 

“If you don’t show up in Highmist soon, I’ll come to Cerith to check on you,” he said. “I wasn’t planning on grouping up for dungeons, but I couldn’t have done that final battle alone. The drake was a surprise. We worked well together.”

He might have managed it if he’d been able to divide the monsters up, but he probably would have had to retreat and come back later with another dozen levels.

Even at 52 now, it was on the lower edge for the dungeon.

“I'm sorry I couldn’t do anything for Sarella,” he added, shaking his head. “She deserved better.”

“She did,” Maro agreed with a sigh. “We’ll see you soon.”

Then he looked at Galin and Serai. The three of them shifted their bags as they gave Kelin a wave, and then they turned toward Cerith. A few moments later, they disappeared into the forest.

Kelin shifted his own oversized backpack and then turned in the opposite direction, toward the road that led back to the ferry and Highmist. 

The bag and the items he’d tied to the top stretched up about five feet over his head and were wider than his shoulders. He wrapped some bands of mana around it to brace it to make it easier to carry. 

Then he raised a camouflaged mana shield and began to jog.

Before long, he reached the road and dropped the camouflage, joining the sparse flow of traffic heading back to the ferry. He got a few glances, but more because he was alone than because  of the bag.

Adventurers were a common sight, so the only result was that a couple of the looks were envious as they lingered on his bag. He ignored the looks, since the average level of the ones sending them was only in the 30s and 40s. 

The higher level travelers knew that if he were actually wealthy, he’d have spatial bags to carry things.

When he arrived at the ferry dock, he had to wait about half an hour, but then he rode it across the river and continued on his way. 

A few hours later, he was back at Highmist and approaching the gates. All he had to do there was show his guild badge and they waved him through.

He skipped the food carts this time, since his bag made it awkward, and headed straight for the guild hall.

Jesra was on duty and it didn’t take him long to report what happened with Sarathia.

“Overseeding the dungeons?” Jesra froze as she heard the report. “And a Sarathian assassin? Let me call the captain for you. She needs to hear this.”

It only took a couple of minutes for Sandren to arrive. Once they were in her office, Kelin gave her an even more complete report.

“That’s a problem,” Sandred said as she tapped her fingers on the desk. “If that’s what it sounds like, Sarathia is breaking the guild accords. We’ll have to look into it. If there’s more than that one instance, the guild will sanction them. 

“The impact from that will have wide repercussions, since it will mean shutting down all aid we give to their cities, from logistics to dungeon information, as well as the various crafts and trade that we support in every city. It’s no surprise they were trying it in secret.”

She looked across the desk at Kelin.

“Give me a few hours to look into this. I’ll get our information team on it. I’ll confirm the identity of that assassin you saw and look for more like him. Now that we know what to look for, it shouldn’t take too long to cross reference. Jesra can pay you the bounty for him out front, since that’s already confirmed on your badge.”

“This talisman and some poisons were on the assassin,” Kelin said as he pulled out the Arcane Cage talisman and set it on the desk. “The poisons didn’t stand out as especially unique. That talisman is the most significant.”

He added the pile of the weapons that the assassin had as well, but the dark metal they made from wasn't particularly identifiable.

Sandren looked at the weapons and shook her head, but then she picked up the talisman.

“The weapons could be from a dozen different cities inside of Celadon, but this talisman isn’t something you see every day,” Sandren said as she examined it. “Rare. I’ll give it to the information team and see what they think.”

“I'll leave the weapons for you as well," Kelin said as he shook her hand. “Let me know what you find. I’d be happy to help with more dungeons. I’m going to spend a couple of days in the training rooms here, and teaching the kids, and then I’ll head back out.”

“Speaking of that,” she said, “let me add some bonus credits for the information you just brought. Can I see your badge?”

Kelin passed it over and a minute later, another 70 guild credits appeared on his badge.

He'd already received the main reward for the dungeon quest from the Path when it added the guild credits to his badge, but a bonus was always nice.

“I can add some more depending on what we find and how important that assassin was,” Sandren said as she handed it back to him, “and I can at least give you that for a dungeon that was unexpectedly hard. Good work clearing that one. I’ll send word to Cerith to do the same for the others who were with you, and for the healer’s family. The guild will help to support them if needed.”

“I’m sure they’ll appreciate that,” Kelin said. “See you soon.”

With that, he waved to Sandren. Then he left her to her work as he headed off to pick up the bounty from Jesra.

A few minutes later, he had the 10 gold in his storage and he headed off to the guild shops with his backpack. 

On the way, he stopped and picked up the cores he’d left there, as well as all the mana crystals from the mine. Now that he had a dungeon run on record, he was going to pile them in with the loot.

It wasn’t a perfect concealment, since their affinities didn’t really match the dungeon he’d just been in, but it would work well enough. The guild dealt in thousands of mana crystals every day and that would help to obscure their origin.

And frankly, he didn’t care about the mining company paying attention to him any longer. They might have a few powerful fighters among their backers, but they wouldn't go against a guild member over something like this without significant evidence, and there was none.

At the guild shop, long counters were available in front of attendants who were waiting to count up the results of dungeon runs, so he chose one that was free and emptied almost everything from his bag and storage onto the guild counter, along with all of the mana crystals. 

The attendant there didn’t even blink. She just counted up all of the materials and then gave him a list of prices they would buy it at.

He kept a few things to use for crafting, including some of the drake scales and fangs, since they would be a good base for rune carving, but there was far too much for him to use in a few days and not all of it was useful, so he sold off the rest, including everything he’d had left over from the mine originally.

He could buy better materials now that were appropriate for his crafting level. 

It was a good use for guild credits, along with other things like gear and potions, and the rent for the kids.

He glanced over the list and approved it. Then he handed it back to the attendant and waited as she totaled everything up.

62 wraith shards at 9 silvers each, 47 poison drake scales at 10 silvers each, 5 drake fangs at 15 silvers each, 4 drake talons at 23 silvers each, 20 vials of drake blood at 4 silvers each, 6 vials of venom at 11 silvers each, and 38 Hesen cores at an average of 12 silvers each.

19 fire braggan hides at 1 silver each, 7 braggan cores at 4 silvers each, 12 Flametear Serpent cores at 10 silvers each, and 2 Stoneclaw Crawler cores at 6 silvers each.

That added up to 1,976 silvers, which was 98 gold and 16 silvers.

Then there was the real windfall with the mana crystals: 22 high-grade fire affinity mana crystals at an average of 5 gold each, and 20 medium-grade ones at 2 gold each.

That was another 150 gold.

He ended up with 248 gold and 16 silvers.

It was a good sale.

He only kept materials from the first treant and stone bear for his own use. The treant heart, bark, and spirit amber were soul-aligned, so they would be useful to his crafting, and the bear hide and teeth could be used for rune carving practice. 

As for the Heart of Stone from the stone bear, he decided to let Gaius eat it. 

He could sense the elemental's interest in it, and it was the least he could do for him.

He nodded at the attendant in thanks and passed her a gold as a tip for the quick count. Then he headed for the guild shops.

On the way, he took out the Heart of Stone and held it in his hand. A layer of stone formed around it, along with glowing earthen runes, and then it was gone.

Gaius had taken it into his soul chamber, where he could eat it at his leisure.

Once Kelin arrived at the shops, he browsed through the gear and looked at the spatial bags. Then he checked on spatial crystals. 

This time, he was in luck as there were three low-grade ones for 60 gold each, just a bit more than a small spatial bag that cost 50 gold. The crystals were slightly flawed, which reduced their value to enchanters, but it made no difference for his purposes.

He bought all three of them, which used up a chunk of what he’d just gained, but it was worth it. With those three crystals, he could expand his storage by a significant amount, more than he would gain from three small storage bags.

He got the 5% discount from the guild as a corporal, which saved him nine gold.

He tucked them away and then he stocked up on five health and five mana potions, of the same basic tier as the ones he’d used in the dungeon. There were more expensive versions, but the price for them scaled dramatically, so these would do.

That cost 9.5 gold after his discount, but he used the guild credits for it, which took most of his supply. He’d had 210 credits, which were worth 10.5 gold, and after that he only had 20.

He was going to drop those into his guild account for rent after this. It was enough to cover about five days for the kids.

He’d spent a bit over a day in the dungeon, so they would have about two and a half weeks of rent after that. It was enough for a bit, and there was the line of credit they could draw on if needed.

He had 108 gold and 77 silver left as he browsed around the guild shop, and this time he turned his attention to gear.

Good gear was expensive, but he was outleveling his own crafting ability, so it was worth taking a look.

He ended up replacing his bracers with much better versions that would provide him passive deflection of missiles and spells. They cost him 45 gold each after his discount.

One was a Bracer of Deflection, and the other was a Bracer of Spell Warding.

They were made out of a thin layer of enchanted mithril layered on top of Uncommon-grade leather. The final result was an Uncommon artifact with Professional quality enchanting and crafting.

Both of them had Self-Repair and Durable enchantments on them, as well as the standard resizing one.

Unlike his old work, these bracers had reactive shields. He wouldn’t need to pay attention to the enchantments unless he was adding his own mana to reinforce them.

The enchantments were based on monster cores that were embedded in the mithril surfaces, and that metal was hard enough that they could be used to block blows and protect his arms, just like armored bracers. 

The cores gave them the ability to regenerate their mana charge over time, so they could maintain the shield on their own as long as they weren’t stressed too much. If their charges dropped too low, he’d have to recharge them with his own mana.

If it came down to an extreme test, the cores would support the enchantments until they ruptured from the strain. Even if that happened, the rest of the bracer would endure. It would just be inert. Either he or the guild enchanters could replace the cores later to restore the enchantment’s power source.

They were solid examples of guild work and some of the best artifacts that could be bought for the price. They should last him well into the First Evolution unless something happened to them.

He happily replaced his old bracers and sold those off to the guild attendant for two silvers each. The attendant sighed and tossed them at a bin on the far side, where they would be used for some random purpose, probably teaching apprentices how to dismantle enchantments.

It was kind of funny, so Kelin wasn’t offended. He was well aware of the quality of the bracers that he’d made in a pinch. He just chuckled and checked how much money he had left.

He was down to 18 gold, which wasn’t much, so he spent a few gold on restocking his supplies and some better clothes that weren’t made out of braggan hide, although none of them were enchanted, which at least kept the cost down.

He wasn’t going to change his clothes yet, but the ones he bought were from a durable but light material that could handle a similar set of enchantments as soon as he had time to add them.

Since he needed to be able to engrave the runes, the clothes had to be durable enough, so these were made of a material called Firestorm Leather. 

It was a thin but dense material that could handle the runes, and since it wasn’t enchanted, it wasn’t terribly expensive. It was a dark and burnished gold color with red hues running through it. 

The color was pleasing, since it reminded him of Irian. That was one of the reasons he'd chosen it.

It had similar Fire Resistance and Durable properties as the braggan hide, but it was Uncommon instead of Common grade, so it would take a lot more damage before it showed wear and tear, and the quality was Professional, the same as his bracers.

If he had the chance, he would try to add a self-repair enchantment to them to keep them in one piece.

Then he headed to the front desk, where he transferred his remaining guild credits to the account for the kids and rented a room for the night.

Jesra told him that Yao and Naomi were taking advantage of the guild training and were in one of the practical survival courses, which taught how to make campfires and survive in the wilderness. 

It was a key class for a lot of young adventurers and as city kids, they’d never had much experience with wilderness survival, so it was a good one for them to take, but they wouldn’t be done until the end of the day.

Still, it made him laugh, since they were apparently thinking about adventuring more than the mana circulation he’d told them to practice. Hopefully, they were doing both at once.

With some time on his hands, he rented one of the guild’s basic enchanting rooms and got to work on rebuilding the enchantments on his new set of clothes.

With the new advancements to Runic Engraving from the dungeon, he made some progress on the enchantments and the results were slightly better than his last set of clothes. 

His Affinity Focus ability, which was the root of his enchantments that added mana efficiency and other bonuses, was still at Basic, which capped at a 5% bonus, but the result was multiplicative with Runic Engraving, which added up to 15% at Advanced, giving him a maximum 5.75% bonus for each piece.

Thanks to the improvements, he was able to get much closer to the maximum this time.

He ended up with 5.7% mana efficiency on the tunic, 5.3% mana recovery on his breeches, 5.1% increased Fire efficiency on his belt, and +5 Increased Agility on his boots.

When he was done, his total bonuses from his gear were looking better. 

The bonuses were multiplicative with his base bonus, so if he took his current mana regeneration and combined it with Soulfire Sigil, the 5.3% mana recovery boost on his breeches raised it from roughly 53% to 56% per hour.

On top of the clothes, he had the 10% fire and soul magic efficiency from his new staff, as well as its 10% power bonus to fire and soul magic, and the 25% Fire boost from the salamander’s ring.

Thanks to the staff’s nature as an affinity-based focus item, its bonuses stacked with the enchantments on his clothes.

He also had his class bonuses at 35% to Fire and Soul magic, so when everything was added together, his Fire magic was boosted by 70%, while his Soul magic was boosted by 45%. 

Soulfire benefited from the merger of the two at a 57.5% bonus.

The power boosts didn’t apply to Soulfire Sigil, which operated independently on the engraved disk, but they worked for all of his combat spells.

The set only took him about an hour and half to finish, so after that he took out the squares of hide from the Stone Bear and started creating runic talismans.

He was only trying to improve his crafting skills, so he focused on one design for a disposable mana shield, designing each of the talismans to erect a brief shield barrier.

The rune pattern on it focused around a shield rune and a basic mana reinforcement structure, very similar to a basic mana shield. Since it was a talisman, it could store a small charge of mana on its own, but once it was used, it couldn’t be altered and it would burn through the charge quickly.

Faster, if it was hit.

Thanks to the size of the talismans, he was able to finally put Arcane Refinement to use. 

The ability was designed to correct flaws in the mana structure of the material he was working on, as well as to repair damage, which let him correct minor flaws and led to a better end result.

It also let him clean away the bear’s fur and clarify the result, so that when he was done it looked like a small, rectangular piece of rune-covered parchment that was about four inches tall and three inches wide.

When he finished the first one, he analyzed it.

Runic Shield Talisman. Common (Average).

[This talisman is designed to create a basic mana shield around the user, which will absorb damage equivalent to ten points mana before it expires. Duration: 3 minutes.]

His skills had improved a bit and Arcane Refinement showed its value, as marked by the Average quality of the talisman. That was a step up from Poor, which was what his old clothes had been.

It took him about twenty mana to create the talisman, with a little over half of that stored in the result, but the activation of it required nothing from the user, which was the main advantage of talismans and scrolls.

He had several dozen of the hide squares from the bear, so he continued to work on making more of the same talisman for a while, slowly improving his effort with each one. 

It was a complicated process of overlaying the runes and the enchantment into the mana structure of the hide and making sure to seal the mana away efficiently in the lines so that it wouldn’t dissipate, while also balancing it for performance.

His focus was intense and his mind began to ache by the time he finished a dozen of them, so he took a short break and then pushed on. Crafting was excellent training for the mind and mana control.

More importantly, temporary shields like these were fantastic in dungeons, and since he could make them himself, it was like storing spells for later.

After he created the twentieth talisman, he shifted gears and began creating an offensive talisman instead. When it came to back up spells, you really couldn’t have too many.

For that type, he chose a basic soulfire bolt spell, since it was the primary energy for his class.

The structure was based on a standard Fire Bolt talisman structure, but he changed the runes to use soulfire instead and then infused it with his own affinity.

When he completed the first one, he analyzed it.

Soulfire Bolt Talisman. Common (Average).

[This talisman is designed to release a Soulfire Bolt at a designated target. The bolt contains ten mana. It is a single-use talisman. Once used, it will disintegrate.]

Ten mana meant that it would do about the same as a five or six mana bolt from him, since it didn’t benefit from his bonuses.

It would make for a good reserve spell.

He took a short break to let his mind relax, and then he got to work making more of them. 

He ended up with 18 of the Soulfire Bolt Talismans before he ran out of bear hide.  

It was good practice, but quantity and challenges were the name of the game for crafting, so it wasn’t enough for his crafting abilities to tier up yet.

He checked the time, and then he headed out to meet the kids.

He had a few of the drake steaks left, so he was going to cook them for dinner. 

After that, since they had agreed to be his apprentices, he planned to teach them a bit about magic theory and mana circulation.

And the importance of poison resistance.

A little while later, he found the kids at their room and had a cheerful reunion, and then he started cooking the steaks for them.

“You killed a poison drake?!” Yao’s eyes were wide as he stared at Kelin. “What was it like?”

“Big,” Kelin said with a chuckle. “About forty feet long, and taller than this room.”

He pointed at the steaks that he was grilling over the fireplace’s enchanted stone plate. 

“But the rewards are also high for dealing with something like that. That’s the nature of dungeons. Just remember to know yourself, so you don’t overestimate what you can accomplish. Even if you think you’re fine, dungeons can surprise you, like this one did me.”

It was common, but still hard-earned wisdom, and this was the right time to deliver it, right on the tale of the dungeon run when the kids would feel the meaning in it.

He’d given the full story of the assassin and the drake, as well as all the wraiths, and he hadn’t spared them the details of Sarella’s death or Maro’s missing arm, or of Galin who had barely been holding his stomach in. 

He wanted them to know the dangers, since it would temper their expectations in training. It would also teach them that healing magic was essential.

When the steaks were done, he flipped them out onto plates, and then he spent a while answering questions about the dungeon and asking Yao and Naomi how their first day or so had gone.

They hadn’t been here long enough to do too much yet, but it was a good start, and since he’d just come back from a dungeon, it was reassuring for them to see that he would return.

After the steaks were gone, he spent the evening teaching them about mana circulation with more direct methods, including making his own mana circulation visible to them in bands of soulfire that looped around his body, and explaining how it all worked.

“There are simple and complicated circulation patterns,” he explained. “You will start with a basic version, and then your class and choices you make in life will necessitate changing it. Sometimes significant injuries can also alter your mana circulation, but usually not in a good way. Until you correct the damage, you’re often not at full power.”

He separated out individual strands of fire and soul energy, shifting them into separate patterns as he explained, and then he helped both of them find their mana cores and the heart of their soul energy. 

They needed to have a feel for each of those, since they were the foundation that the circulation patterns worked around. It would also help them to get in tune with their mana regeneration in the future.

He wasn’t sure if either of them would develop a soul affinity, and he suspected probably not given how rare it was, but there was no harm in helping them find the heart of their soul.

It would help to ground them for some meditation practices.

With that, he pointed them at the next most important passages in the books they’d picked up from the guild and wished them a good night and to train hard.

Then he headed back to his room to sleep in a real bed. The thought made him chuckle, since it was turning out to be rarer than he would have liked.

In the morning, he would head back to the crafting rooms and burn through the rest of the Stone Bear’s fangs and claws, as well as the poison drake scales that he’d kept behind. 

Perhaps it would be enough to tier up in another one of his subclass abilities, like Affinity Focus. 

He couldn’t neglect them, since when he reached Level 100, the strength of his Evolution for his subclass would depend on what he’d accomplished with it and what it was ready to become.

He liked Arcane Artisan and its value was already self-evident in his clothes and talismans, as well as the alchemy bowl he’d made in the dungeon, but every class had higher forms. 

He didn’t want to be stuck with a weak version as he evolved.

The crafting also reminded him of his homeland and all the arts that had flourished on Irian. He would be letting his people down if he failed to make the most of the opportunities in front of him.

As he fell asleep, he dreamed of runes and wildfire spreading through the Void, spinning around the golden expanse of his ancient world.