Waking up feeling refreshed from his stressful activities the day before, Marcus got up and took a long warm bath for the first time in a while.
'Ah, it has been to long, even if my current body does not feel things exactly the same way as I used to, warm water still helps to ease the soul. I managed to finish up everything I needed to do to get ready for my dungeon delve with Wild Wind tomorrow so I should just spend today practicing my abilities and figuring out combinations that work well together.'
Getting out of the bath Marcus transformed back into his ghost form letting all of the water slide off him before he got dressed and headed out of the inn and then the city. Finding a secluded field in the middle of the forest Marcus began practicing with his skills and spells.
'Mana body, lightning strider, speed burst.'
"BOOM"
'Ouch, using three abilities that boost my speed at once was a bit difficult to control, but if I can get it down my speed will be truly formidable.'
Marcus then spent hours executing the same three abilities trying to figure out how to control his speed but, in the end, he found that while he could manage two of them at once all three either sent him crashing into a tree or rocketing off into the sky. Eventually he had to stop and regenerate, or he was going to destroy his physical form.
'Ugh, that was rough, but I have a better understanding of how to use these abilities, now to practice with my spectral arm and ranged spells.'
Welling with determination Marcus went on to exercise his magic spells and spectral arm until the sun started to set and he could no longer stand having exhausted his mana and stamina.
'Huff huff, I needed that, just having abilities that are strong is worthless if you do not know how to utilize them. I think I am ready for tomorrow now. My biggest concern is to conserve my mana, when I chain a bunch of my skills and spells together, I can drain it pretty fast so I should hold back unless the situation demands it.'
After laying around on the ground for a few hours to recover and watching the sunset over the horizon Marcus stood back up and stretched out his body. He then found his way back to Loursend and slipped through the city walls and entered into his inn. Getting back to his room Marcus plopped onto the bed and fell asleep letting his physical and mental fatigue fade away.
'Hm, I wonder where they are, we said that we would meet up right after sunrise, but they are already around an hour late… Wait there they are, but Harold is missing did something happen to him.'
As he got closer Marcus could see that the members of Wild Wind had downcast eyes and seemed to be worse for wear.
"Hey, are you guys okay where is Harold, is he planning to meet up with us later or did he have something else he needed to do today."
Shaking his head and putting on a fake smile Bryce responded saying, "Sorry Irene, Harold will not be coming today, he came down with fever and is resting in bed, but we can still go do the jobs we were planning to do today without him."
"Are you sure we can do this another day when Harold is feeling better if you need to take care of him."
"NO!... I mean we are all ready and Harold would feel bad if we did not go today on his behalf, anyway we should get going since we are already late."
Bryce and the other members of Wild Wind then hastily walked out of the guild hall and made a beeline for the dungeon. On the way there Wild Wind was far quieter and less cheerful than they usually were and would only respond with one-word answers when talked to.
'Hm something bad must have happened to Harold, maybe the sickness he has is really bad and the medicine is really expensive, that is the only reason that I can think of that explains why they are so adamant on doing these requests.'
Walking past the guard station Marcus begrudgingly handed over the five-copper entry fee since he could not justify sneaking in with Wild Wind around. Once inside Bryce pulled out a map and said that they should head to clear out the dire bats fist since it might take a while and was best to do while everyone was fresh. Once they arrived in front of the cave where the dire bats had made their nest Marcus noticed that Bo's shield still had the dent, they wanted to repair in it.
"Hey Bo, I thought you were going to get that dent repaired?"
Hearing Marcus' question Bo looked startled and then responded nervously.
"When we took it to the shop, they told us that the damage was pretty much only cosmetic and that it would not be worth it to be repaired."
'Really, I am pretty sure I kicked the shit out of that shield, but I figure if my theory is right, they need all the money they can get.'
With everyone geared up they approached the cave entrance seeing a couple of bats hanging from the top acting as sentries. Bryce then turned to Marcus and told him to take the one on the right while he took the one on the left. Bryce pulled out a javelin from his pack and looked back at Marcus waiting for him to cast his spell.
'Okay a level nine and eight bat, nothing to be afraid of, lightning javelin should do the trick here.'
Casting his spell Marcus let lose his lightning javelin while Bryce threw his, however, while Marcus' lightning javelin hit the bat square in the chest Bryce's went wide a few inched from the bat.
'He missed, I know Bryce mainly fights with a sword and shield, but the bat was not even moving.'
Unfortunately, Bryce's miss not only left the bat unharmed but also awaken it as it let off a loud screech signaling that there were intruders. Around Two dozen large bats then swarmed out of the cave and began assaulting Marcus and the members of Wild Wind. Realizing that he was being surrounded Marcus immediately cast his iron skin and lightning strider spells. Using his increased mobility and near impenetrable defense Marcus moved nimbly swinging his scythe around cutting through the bats trying to kill him.
With each swing he killed or incapacitated one of the bats, but the swarm seemed to never end and when he looked over towards wild Wind, he notices that they were on a complete defensive and mostly just shooing the bats away from themselves and towards Marcus.
'Come on none of these bats are above level twelve, I understand that it is important to not get hurt but they do not even seem to be trying to kill any of the bats.'
After fighting for around two minutes Marcus had killed over half of the dire bats and the remaining ones had taken to the air wary of getting close to Marcus' scythe. Seeing that Wild Wind had not left their turtle formation Marcus resigned himself to finish off the remaining bats and cast his iron sphere spell and sent it ramming through the remaining bats.
Realizing that they had no chance the two surviving bats tried to flee but Marcus gave a fast pursuit. Sending his iron sphere, crushing one into the ceiling Marcus jumped towards the other trying to slash it with his scythe but the bat took a nosedive dodging the attack. However, Marcus had expected this and used one of the moves he had practiced yesterday, and he summoned his spectral arm under his feet using it as a foot hold in mid air to spring towards the bat. Unable to stop its momentum the bat tried to turn around and bite Marcus but only found the tip of his scythe ramming down its throat killing it.
Marcus then cut one of the ears of the bat as proof of defeating it and removed its magic core before hobbling back over to Wild Wind exhausted. When he arrived, Marcus found Bryce and the others already cutting off the ears of the bats and collecting their cores. Needing a rest after having used nearly all of his mana Marcus sat down on a rock to recover but when Bryce saw this he said, "Hey Irene this is no time to rest we need to collect the ears and cores before more monsters come by."
Resentfully Marcus got up and began cutting of bat ears and collecting cores.
'What the hell is wrong with them today, are they purposefully trying to get on my nerves, they only killed a few bats while I killed over twenty, and when I sit down, they act like I am slowing them down. I have half a mind to just ditch them now and complete the rest of my requests on my own. I will give them a little longer to get their attitude together or I am out of here even if they are down because Harold is sick.'
Once they had finished with the dire bats Bryce said, "Okay now that we have finished here, we should head to the area where the scarlet carp spawn."
"Are you sure, the giant shrimp are a lot closer, and I would like to rest a bit before we move own to restore my stamina and mana."
"We really should go to the carp now since the area can get pretty crowded if we take too long, you can rest once we get there."
Not waiting for Marcus' response Bryce stated making his way in the direction of the scarlet carp. A bit pissed off with Bryce's domineering attitude Marcus unenthusiastically followed Bryce since the scarlet carp roe collection was his request anyway.
'Shouldn't we have arrived by now where is Bryce leading us, is he perhaps lost, maybe I should check my map real quick even though Bryce said he would lead the way.'
Taking out his map Marcus retraced their steps and realized they had taken a wrong turn a few corridors back.
"Hey Bryce, I just checked my map and I think we are going the wrong way we need to turn back and get on the right path."
Bryce turned back towards Marcus with frightful eyes before responding and saying, "Um this is an unmapped route that we know of it is a short cut when we come around that bend over there we will enter into the room where the scarlet carp are."
'Whatever I will follow them around that bend and if we are not at the scarlet carp, I am going to give my farewell and go it alone.'
When the group came around the bend, they entered a large dark room that appeared to be a dead end and Marcus then heard a loud clang as a metal grate fell behind them closing off the entrance. After the grate had sealed the entrance, a pudgy old man walked out of the shadows followed by six well equipped guards. The old man then turned to Wild Wind and said, "Good work you lot, as I promised I will return your friend to you."
Turning his gaze towards Marcus the man glared and said, "Did you really think you would get away with what you did to my son you bitch, you have sullied the name of Poulsen and now you are going to pay for it."
Chapter 50 Betrayal