Wild Era, Ch 21: Poison Wraiths

Twenty poison wraiths poured out of the forest and toward the soulfire barrier on the road.

Kelin didn’t wait for them to get any closer before he started casting.

Two soul arrows formed in his hand and struck the wraiths a hundred feet away. Two more followed as he worked on thinning the pack.

Soul arrows were the best on these things, for efficiency. Soulfire bolts would work, but he would have to hit the crystal shards they used as a core for the best effect. 

“I won’t be able to stop all of them,” he said as he formed a third pair of soul arrows and released them. “We’ll have to fight together. Kill them as they try to pass through the ward.”

The ideal solution here would be to Wildfire everything, but he would need to let them all gather together first. Until he saw what the origin of these things was and could guarantee killing it, he didn’t want to risk leaving himself injured and defenseless.

The other three adventurers moved to the edge of the ward. 

Serai began to send icy bolts of mana at the wraiths, which tore through their bodies in explosions that sent a rain of poisonous mist across the forest.

Galin joined in with an earthen axe that he summoned and hurled across the distance. The axe’s body glowed with elemental energy, and when it struck the wraiths it carved a path through the horde, sending a rain of mist outward in its path.

The attacks were destructive, but as they passed, the mist that formed the wraiths merged back together, swelling like a fog bank across the area as it swept toward the wards. 

They’d suppressed some of the individual wraiths, but they weren’t making much headway on the combined force. It was like fighting a cloud.

Maro joined in with a series of flaming axes that were similar to Galin’s. He hurled them across the distance and sliced wraiths in half. Explosions followed as their essence caught on fire.

Of the three, his attacks were the most effective, since the poisonous mist was the weakest to fire, but the blazing trails it left slowly fused back together as well.

As they did their best, Kelin continued releasing soul arrows, but he was judicious with his mana. Each one brought down another wraith.

It didn’t take long for the wraiths to press against the wards, swirling around the team in a spinning storm. Their eyes glowed with venom and their talons scraped along the wards, sizzling as the soulfire burned them.

A sound of shrieking accompanied their spiral, scraping at Kelin’s mind and ears along with the wards, but he ignored it.

His soul was too strong to be affected by the noise, especially with the wards he’d woven into it, even though it was an attack.

His companions weren’t so lucky, their expressions growing taunt as they fought against the sound and the negative energy it carried.

The soulfire ward could have blocked the entire effect, but it wasn’t efficient and it would have limited how much energy they could project outside, so they would have to adapt.

The attacks from everyone accelerated now that the wraiths were closer, raining down on the horde and slowly thinning their numbers.

In between soul arrows, Kelin unleashed a wave of fire that incinerated the mist as it pressed on them.

In a couple of minutes, all twenty of the new wraiths were dead, most of them to soul arrows, but he could sense more approaching in the distance, at least as many as they’d just faced.

His mana was under half and his soul energy was just above it.

At the rate it was going, they could take two more waves like that and the third one would kill them, and that was if there were only twenty wraiths in a wave.

He could stretch it out a bit by focusing on the wards and letting the others work harder, saving his mana for as long as possible, which would probably get them through another one or two waves, but the basic calculation didn’t change too much.

The experience from the wave rang in his mind, but it wasn’t enough to level up yet. 

“We need to move,” he said as he sat down and began to meditate, “but we’ll have to recover as much as possible first, or it’s a dead man’s run.”

He couldn’t summon up a true sense of fear for this level of enemy, but the reality of the situation was stark. 

If they didn’t move, they would die. It was only a matter of time.

“Can we escape from the dungeon?” Serai asked as she looked around. She sat down as well, taking the chance to meditate.

She took her cue from Kelin and although she looked anxious, her fear was well controlled. 

“Unlikely,” Kelin replied. “The wraiths move quickly and with this many here, there are probably more scattered around. We just didn’t see them earlier. We can either try to gather them up and kill a wave of them at once, which might clear the path to the exit, or we push ahead and destroy the source. Either way, we can’t let ourselves be pinned down here for long. The wraiths will not stop coming.”

“I vote for pushing ahead,” Maro said immediately, clenching his hand around one of his axes. He was sitting down too now, recovering his mana. “We don’t know what’s at the exit and if we retreat on the back foot, it won’t help clear this dungeon.”

“Aye, things will get worse if we leave here now,” Galin said, grumbling as he looked out from the wards. “This place was ready to burst already. We haven’t done enough to stop that. At least finishing it would be worthwhile.”

“And it means Sarella’s death won’t be in vain,” Maro added with determination. “If the dungeon breaks, it will threaten Cerith and Highmist both. The entire Shieldrun Forest could end up poisoned by these things.”

He looked at Serai and Galin, and then he focused on Kelin, as if he felt like he needed to convince him the most.

“The dungeon boss is supposed to be only Level 68 at most. If we push ahead, we might not win, but we will at least have tried. And if we don’t win, that’s a better way to go than running like dogs with our tails between our legs and admitting defeat to Sarathia.”

Flames were running along Maro’s body again and he was gripping his axe so tightly his knuckles were white. His veins stood out on his arms. 

“Better to break them than be killed while running away,” Galin growled in agreement, looking more energetic as he weighed his axe in his hand. He slammed the butt onto the ground, making a deep thud. “Let’s do it or die.”

Kelin gave them a brief smile, since he’d been hoping they would choose to press ahead. Otherwise he would have taken them to the entrance and then come back alone.

Albeit with a bit more preparation.

“Death knocks for everyone,” he agreed. “There are worse ways to go.”

He should know.

Retreating helped nothing, so pushing through to see if they could burn it all down was the best way. 

When in doubt, attack.

That was what it meant to be part of the Stars Alliance, to be a true adventurer. 

When people thought of dungeons, they saw the wealth, but there was a greater purpose behind them, one that was just as risky as other parts of the Chaos War.

What angered him the most was that someone had deliberately tampered with this dungeon to make it dangerous to the area. There were enough dungeons that did that naturally. The world didn’t need more.

It was a line he would not allow to be crossed. 

He would find the people behind it one day, even if it meant crushing Sarathia to root them out.

“Focus on the defenses here and meditate,” he said as he reached out to Gaius, checking on the area. “We’ll let the wraiths build up around us until we’re either at full mana or we can’t take it any longer. It’ll be more efficient to kill them when they’re bunched up. When we’re ready, we’ll move.”

Then he worked on reinforcing the wards, and Gaius helped by solidifying the earth beneath them to make sure the wraiths couldn’t tunnel through it. 

It let him use a bit less energy.

Every impact on the wards drained half a point or so of mana, but the defenses were much sturdier and more efficient than his mana shield.

He was at almost 34% mana regeneration per hour naturally and the Soulfire Sigil boosted that by 35%. It was multiplicative, so he had about 46% mana recovery per hour.

He was gaining back almost 174 mana per hour, so the wraiths would have to hit his barrier about six times a second to drop his regeneration to zero.

The sigil helped that too, improving the ward by 30%, so it was closer to eight times a second.

His class’s defensive nature was proving itself.

“Will these help you?” Serai asked as she pulled out two blue potions from a belt pouch and offered them to Kelin. “I only brought three. You should take two of them.”

They were basic mana potions, made by an alchemist. 

Each one could recover about 50 mana, but you couldn’t drink them in a row. 

They were standard adventuring gear, but expensive at a gold each. It was why he hadn’t been able to stock up on any himself.

Fortunately, the assassin had provided him with four that were similar.

“I’ll take one, thank you,” Kelin said as he accepted it from her. He tucked it away in his new spatial belt. “I have a couple others. I’ll use this if it comes down to it.”

His Soulfire Sigil helped to ensure that their recovery was quick, both for Maro’s health and for their mana, but as the minutes passed, more wraiths began to build up.

Before long, there were twice as many as the last wave. 

They spun outside of the wards in a green storm, slashing at the barrier.

It was a drain on Kelin’s mana, but he hardened the barrier and let them strike it, channeling the force into the earth. His sigil reinforced the wards, and Maro and Galin both slashed at the wraiths as they touched the barrier, which helped to keep them from pressing too close.

Even with the wards and the sigil, his mana continued to drain, but it was slow. The only upside was that his soul energy was recovering swiftly.

Fifteen minutes later, he decided it would have to be enough. Maro was looking healthy and the team should have regenerated enough mana to move.

Kelin’s own mana was at 150, which was 40% of his maximum 370, but his soul energy was up to 180 of 196. 

He drank one of the mana potions. It was like a mix of icy wine and fruit, a strange concoction that dissipated into a wave of mana in his stomach, which spread outward through his meridians. 

It felt unpleasant, like ice in his veins, since its energy signature was slightly different from his. He cycled his mana, working to eliminate the foreign affinities and make it fully his own, and his mana crept up toward 200.

There were sixty wraiths outside the barrier now.

“Time to move,” he announced. “I need your help to kill all of these, and then we’re going to head in deeper. If we need to stop again, we’ll do the same thing. I’ll shield you while you meditate, and then you’ll have to do the bulk of the fighting as we move.”

His own mana wouldn’t regenerate much, but he would try to stick to soul spells.

He’d spent most of the time while they recovered considering what else he could do at his current power level, but the options were limited, and they weren’t much more efficient than a soul arrow or a Wildfire.

“Let’s do it,” Maro agreed as a wave of flame billowed up from his skin.

“Maro and Galin, pour mana into the ward,” Kelin said. “I’m going to convert it into an attack. Serai, use whatever area spells you think are best. Once the ward breaks, hit whatever’s in front of you and follow my lead as we move.” 

When everyone was ready and their spells glowed around them, streams of mana began to pour into the ward.

Kelin worked swiftly to reshape the barrier. Arcane runes slid across the surface, gathering energy from the earth and fire mana.

He was able to incorporate the energy from Maro and Galin fairly easily, since he shared those affinities, but the ice from Serai would have been harder, which was why he’d told her to do her own thing.

She was gathering a storm of hail and icy blades between her hands, ready to unleash it as soon as the ward broke.

The wraiths were pressing tight to the edge of the barrier, which began to separate at Kelin’s command. Sharp lines divided it in eight areas, each of them turning into an arced section that glowed with runes. 

“Now,” he said. 

At that moment, the ward split down the lines and exploded outward, turning into eight spinning blades of fire and soul energy. Below each one, the earth erupted into a field of spikes that shot upward. 

The ward blades spun across the field, slicing through the horde of wraiths, and the earthen spikes impaled them from below at the same time.

The team didn’t wait around to see the effects play out. As soon as the ward fell, they started running.

“This way!” Kelin led the run as he shouted to them, heading down the road toward the center of the forest.

The blast had caught at least three-quarters of the wraiths, but some were reforming, so they needed to move.

Serai was the fastest and she caught up to Kelin in an instant, followed by Maro. Galin was in the rear, but he stomped along with his full strength, making it sound like a wagon was chasing them.

They were already a good way into the dungeon and the road was straight, but it was too much to ask for the dungeon boss to be right around the corner.

They had a headstart on the wraiths, and that group had been concentrated from the closest ones in the forest, but as they reformed they streamed through the air after the team, chasing them down the road.

They made it almost two miles before the wraiths caught up.

“Turn and fight!” Kelin’s instruction rang out as he swiftly inscribed a new circle of soulfire and Gaius assisted him with hardening the ground.

A wave of ice from Serai blasted back down the road, turning into a rain of frozen spears that shredded the oncoming wave of wraiths, and Galin joined in with a wave of earthen energy that sent a shockwave across the ghosts, sending them tumbling through the air and making it harder for them to avoid Serai’s spells.

Axes made of flame from Maro joined in, spinning like tornadoes as they sliced through the wraiths before they dissipated into nothing in the distance.

The three didn’t stop there. They poured out all of their mana in the battle, sweeping the road behind them clear.

Kelin ignited a Soulfire Sigil and then he focused on erecting a stable and efficient ward as he let them work. 

Before long, the majority of the wraiths on the road were dead, overwhelmed by the onslaught. The three slumped to the ground inside the ward as they began to meditate. 

Kelin sat as well, maintaining the ward as he joined them. Notifications rang in his mind as he looked across the area.

Between the initial explosion and this fight, more than sixty wraiths had died, but he could see a few new ones already streaming toward them. 

They had made some progress, but they would have to repeat this until they reached the dungeon boss. 

The only saving grace was that it seemed like the Hesen had abandoned this area or had all died, so except for the wraiths, they saw no other enemies along the road.

He focused on the ward as he let the other three recover their mana, and then he checked his notifications. 

Congratulations, Lord of Wildfire.

You have gained two Levels.

You are now Level 44.

You gain 2 Wisdom, 6 Intelligence, and have 10 free attribute points to assign.

Kelin ignored the rest of the notifications and threw the free points into Intelligence, raising it to 386.

About an hour later, the wraiths had built up outside the barrier again. 

This time, there were only forty of them, but their levels were slightly higher than the ones before.

“Ready to do it again?” he asked. 

He’d been conservative on his spells and with the time to meditate his mana was hovering around 60%. It had taken the wraiths some time to gather their forces again, and he’d made the most of it.

The question got three grim nods.

“Channel your mana into the ward,” he reminded Maro and Galin as he began modifying it for another explosion.

A few moments later, the ward exploded outward and tore apart the wraiths, and then they were racing down the road again.

When the wraiths caught up, they’d made it another two miles. They spun in place and this time their spells were layered even more tightly than before. 

A storm of ice, waves of force, and fire rained down on the wraiths, tearing them to pieces.

Then they were resting inside the soulfire barrier again as they recovered their mana.

Notifications rang in Kelin’s mind, telling him he’d gained another level and reached 45, so tossed the free points into Intelligence, bringing it to 394.

Serai and Galin had also gained a level from that fight and were 49 and 53 now. Maro hadn’t gotten one yet, but he was still the highest at Level 54.

An hour later, the wards exploded around them and they did the same thing again.

Kelin’s staff slammed into the cobblestones as he skidded to a halt, relying on the team to do what they were supposed to as he erected another barrier.

This time, they only wiped out about thirty wraiths, and the new ones gathered more slowly, giving them a chance to catch their breath.

With the level of the wraiths increasing slightly, it was enough for Kelin to gain another level and for Maro to reach Level 55. Serai also reached Level 50.

Kelin added the free points to Intelligence, bringing his maximum mana pool to 402.

“We should be getting closer,” he said as he studied the changes to the forest around them.

The forest was different here, more like a garden than a true forest. The ruins that had been scattered along the road were more complete as well, framing buildings and arches that stretched through the trees. It was like a part of an abandoned city had merged with the forest. 

There were still no Hesen, but he could sense stronger wraiths approaching.

Poison Wraith, Level 55.

Poison Wraith, Level 56.

The weakest wraith here was in the low 50s, with several in the mid-fifties.

There weren’t as many of them, but they flew faster. Their impact on the wards was also stronger, making him frown. 

His mana was hovering around 60% still, thanks to how they were trading off, but his soul energy was nearly full. 

He shifted the strength of the wards toward soul energy, imbuing them with a stronger flame to burn the wraiths, and then he meditated with the others.

“This part will be more difficult,” he said. “This batch is faster and they won’t give us much time to outdistance them. They also won’t die as quickly. Shield yourselves well and run. We should be almost at the end.”

Maro and the others nodded, and then they focused on their meditation to restore their energy.

Kelin did the same while studying the wraiths. These looked more reptilian than the weaker ones, with the impression of scales and a long snout.

They should be resembling the beast that had spawned them, so that narrowed down the options.

It was definitely more reptilian than serpentine.

When the team recovered, his soul energy was down to 80%, but his mana had risen to about the same.

“Same thing,” he said as he began to alter the wards. “Get ready.”

This time, when the ward exploded, the wraiths tumbled backward, but only a couple of them were killed. 

The team raced down the road, but the wraiths recovered quickly and flew after them. Their screams echoed in the air as they reached forward with long talons.

Kelin felt half a dozen impacts on his mana shield that made his mana drop, and then he saw wraiths passing him as they reached for Serai and Maro.

Behind him, he could sense Galin being swept up in the flow, nearly buried in a wave of green.

Poisonous bright slashes tore through Serai’s shield and sent her stumbling across the road, and then Maro was swarmed as well. 

His axes rose as he leapt toward Serai and spun in place. A tornado of flames swirled around him as he hacked at the wraiths and tried to defend her, but green talons sliced through the storm and left bloody wounds across his arms and chest, and then his legs.

Galin’s shout of fury rose up from behind Kelin and a shockwave of earth energy roared outward, sending wraiths tumbling in every direction. If Gaius hadn’t intervened, it would have picked Kelin up and hurled him away as well.

When Kelin looked back, he saw the dwarf was buried beneath four different wraiths. Their fangs were locked onto his limbs and he was bleeding from a dozen green wounds.

Serai was lying where she had fallen and Maro was slowly toppling over above her, even though he was trying his best to prevent it.

A flame ignited in Kelin’s limbs as he caught his balance and then he raised his staff into the air. A flood of soulfire rose up with it, surrounding him like an ocean. Runes burned in the flames as they leapt and arced across the surface.

When he slammed the staff down, the soulfire exploded outward in a massive wave. Its outer layer was pure force that tore the wraiths off of the team and hurled them away.

Then the wall of flames swiftly broke apart into soul arrows, massive ones that looked more like spears. They stabbed into the wraiths and pinned them to the ground and to the trees.

Before they could recover, Kelin spun in place, inscribing a new ward circle on the ground, and Gaius grabbed the three adventurers and dragged them inside.

A moment later, the ward sprang up and sealed the circle, and then he ignited a Soulfire Sigil and placed it in the air. Its light shone down on Serai, Maro, and Galin, showing off the glaring wounds across their bodies.

They were convulsing as the poison took hold of them, but the fire of the sigil slowed its pace, adding a tinge of red back to their complexions.

The healing effects of the ability were wide-ranging, but it couldn't do it alone.

Kelin muttered as he grabbed one of the mana potions and drank it. Then he began working on Serai’s wounds, his hand tracing over each slash as he purged the poison as swiftly as he could. 

She was the weakest of the three and the most likely to die from her wounds, so he started with her, but she was also the least wounded, which meant she was the fastest to deal with.

The regeneration from his sigil was helping the other two more.

She only had four cuts, and as soon as the green mist boiled away from the last one, he turned to Maro, swiftly getting to work on him. 

Galin was last, since he had the highest Constitution and a dwarven physique that was naturally resistant to poisons, but by that time Kelin had to drink another mana potion. 

When he finished working on him, his mana was down to 30% and his soul energy was hovering around half again. 

A dozen wraiths at Levels 52 to 55 were spiraling around the ward and sometimes attacking, but they were wary of it. Flares of soul fire shot out from the surface and turned into a soul arrow whenever one of them got too close.

Kelin had already killed six of them while he was healing, thinning their numbers to prevent more damage to the wards. It was a delicate balance as to what would save more of his mana.

Fortunately, there were fewer wraiths here and no new reinforcements had come in yet.

Now it was an uneasy stalemate.

He was tempted to kill the rest, but he was waiting to see how long they would delay before attacking the wards again. 

Every minute gave him back a little more mana. 

He had two mana potions left, and he knew Serai still had both of hers, but he held off on drinking them. He considered their options as he waited for the team to recover and did his best to meditate. 

They’d reached their limit in terms of how far they could use the same tactic.

But perhaps it was far enough.

About three hundred feet ahead, just on the edge of his sight, he could see the road opening onto a plaza. Only the corner of it was there, but the trees gave way to the outline of towering buildings that were visible in the distance.

When the three recovered enough to talk, he pointed at what he could see.

“We should almost be there,” he said. “One final charge and we’ll see what’s waiting for us.”

Maro sat up with a groan as he looked to where Kelin was pointing, and he nodded. The poison had wiped him out for a bit, but under the influence of the Soulfire Sigil, his grim determination was coming back.

Galin looked much the same as he hammered his axe butt into the ground, and while Serai was still pale, she didn’t let that stop her from agreeing.

“We can do it,” she said. “If we kill all of these around us and run for it, we can make it there.”

Galin nodded in agreement.

“What do you think the boss is?” he asked. “A bigger wraith?”

“We’re about to find out,” Kelin answered. “But from these wraiths, it should be a big lizard with a poison affinity.”

He kept up the shield as everyone recovered.

When they were ready, instead of letting the ward explode, he set it to turn into a wave of soul arrows and targeted every single wraith around them.

“Run for it,” he said as he triggered the spell.

A wave of soul arrows exploded outward from the ward, searing through the dozen wraiths nearby. 

Kelin didn’t wait to watch them die as he ran forward. 

All around him, the other adventurers raced ahead too. After what had just happened, they knew better than to hold back.

They crossed the three hundred feet to the plaza in seconds, leaving a trail of dead wraiths behind.

Icy blue mana spiraled around Serai, while Maro was a flaming tempest. Galin looked almost normal by comparison, but he glowed yellow with earth energy.

Kelin skidded to a halt as he reached the edge of the plaza, sensing the presence ahead of them.

The plaza’s elevation dropped swiftly as he looked out on it, turning into a massive bowl that was like an arena carved out of the center of the forest.

Now that he was here, he could easily see the boss.

It was a massive thing, probably twelve feet tall and almost forty feet long. Its wings looked like they would reach just as wide if it spread them out. Its scales rippled with a bright, shining green mana in a dozen different shades. 

Poison Drake. Level 68. Elite.

The beast had pride of place at the center of it all, standing crouched like a green dragon on top of a massive slab of stone that resembled an altar.

Over a dozen Hesen were gathered around it, and above its wings, a storm of poison wraiths swirled.

There had to be at least a hundred of them.