Once more, into the mud.

That was my first thought, looking upon the misty swamp in front of us, unchanged from the state we had left it, just two days earlier. We, on the other hand, were rested and in high spirits, planning to finally push deeper, not just roam the outskirts, hunting undead and killing them for experience. It had allowed us a massive boost in power and level but the amount we gained now, with some fifteen level on the strongest undead, was just not worth the time-investment.

“Let’s see what is going on in the deeper reaches.” Adra muttered, taking her position in the back of our formation. In the meantime, Sigmir took the lead-position, with Rai and Ylva flanking her. Lenore and I were, as always, responsible for magical traps and attacks, keeping an eye out for anything that might harm us. Looking closely, I was reasonably certain that there had been a small change in the overall composition of the swamp, a tiny bit more death-magic in the soil, compared to water and earth, but a balance was kept.

The undead attacked us again, soon after we entered the misty swamp, their attack quite predictable and by now, we easily and quickly dispatched them. We had killed so many of the undead, I had had dreams of them and my ability to freeze their bodies in just the right way to stop them from moving and allow the others to destroy them was something I had cultivated to the point that I literally could do it in my sleep. As always, they had magic-support but merely weak attempts to restrain us, which we could either dodge or I could block with a sheet of ice. As long as we didn’t get complacent, there was no threat involved.

For once, we didn’t move parallel to the edge of the swamp after the first attack but we held course, moving deeper into the mist. It was an eerie feeling, despite knowing that the sun should be high in the sky, the swamp was dim, a perpetual twilight hanging over it. I preferred the darkness but the strange, misty twilight gave me the creeps. Even the noises seemed to be muted, no birds or other animal-sounds, just the sounds of water and occasionally wind in the trees.

“There’s a light over there.” Sigmir said, causing us all to ratchet up the vigilance, unsure what a light might mean. I looked over and frowned, at first glance, it looked like a strange lantern but somehow, I knew better. First of all, I could vaguely see the magic radiating from it, a strange mix of fire and death but even more than that, the fire was vaguely green, a pale, unhealthy colour that made me think of death and high-school.

Knowing that whatever it was needed to be investigated, we switched our target, carefully moving towards the light. It was a trap, as much as it could be a trap, with us assuming that it was a trap, negating the surprise-aspect of it being a trap. Maybe calling it a lure would be better. Whatever caused the light seemed to be near one of the small lakes in the swamp, a stagnant pool of foul liquid, smelling of death and decay. It was the sort of water that one wouldn’t drink, no matter how thirsty.

As soon as we were close enough to get a good look, the trap sprung, just as we had anticipated. The flame itself turned out to be just that, a floating orb of green flame, a Will-o-Wisp as Observe called it, surprisingly high level at level 85, but nothing we couldn’t deal with. The other half of the so-called trap were a couple of undead, jumping out of the brackish water and trying to get a grip on those nearby, to drag them into a watery grave. It was a tactic we had seen before, only now they had additional magical support, namely the wisp.

While the others made sure that the shambling crawlers were dealt with, I kept the wisp at bay, gathering information on its abilities. It seemed to be a dedicated spell-caster, throwing orbs of the same green fire that it was made of towards us, which I reflexively blocked with panes of ice, letting the fire splash against them and fizzle out. It worked, but not quite in the way I had anticipated, instead of turning the Ice into watery steam, the green fire seemed to burn the ice away, or maybe corrode it, without leaving anything I could detect behind.

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Out of curiosity, I used my vines, and a large amount of Astral Power, to toss one of the undead into one of flaming orbs, with a rather annoying result. The fire seemed to be absorbed by the undead and to me, it looked like some of the damage the undead had suffered earlier was restored.

Following that line of thought, and after ripping the test-undead apart, I broke off a thick branch from a nearby tree, using it as a bat to smack the next orb of green fire, trying to hit a homerun. My batting needed a lot of work, especially when using the vines to control the bat, but it was good enough to bunt the orb of fire. It acted as I had anticipated, quickly consuming the branch, gaining in strength but losing momentum, before dropping into the water below. Getting hit would be painful, but if we were careful there shouldn’t be a problem.

“Can you immobilise the wisp?” Lenore asked and I could hear a strange hunger in her voice.

I considered her question for a moment, before replying. “I can certainly try.”

With that, I used the water below the wisp to create a large chunk of ice, before dividing the newly created ice up into shards, forming them into a stationary cage around the wisp. It seemed to hold for a moment, before it flared up, consuming the ice around it and dimming in the process.

“Ok, that doesn’t work.” I muttered, more to myself than anything else, before deciding on a different course of action. There was enough darkness around for me to work with and from a few of the thin shadows nearby, dark tendrils, made from translucent shadow, conjured with a mix of the Shadow- and Twilight-runes, stretched out, wrapping around the wisp. It flared again and I felt some Astral Power drain from me but the tendrils were still there, keeping the wisp immobile, right where I wanted it to be.

“That should hold it for a while, what do you have in mind?” I asked Lenore, curious about her plans.

“Simple, it looks tasty.” she answered, the earlier hunger now even stronger. I felt her leave her Hallow and land on my shoulder, before she beat her wings and took flight. For a bird of her size, holding position in the air should have involved rapid wing-beating but somehow, she was able to do it without that. She simply floated in front of the wrapped-up wisp, a strange, localised eddy holding her up, allowing her to open her beak and slowly consume the wisp. I could feel its frantic tugging on the tendrils I had used to bind it and saw it flare twice more, but to no effect. It got smaller and smaller while the colour changed, traces of flickering yellow and orange sparking away.

Soon, a piercing screech, like chalk being dragged over a blackboard, ripped through the swamp causing the following silence to feel even more oppressive and foreboding. The wisp was gone, leaving behind nothing but fiery sparks that were quickly dying down, like a sad, small firework. Lenore, radiating a feeling of smugness came back to me, landing on my shoulder and sharing her vision with me. The dying sparks were pure Fire-Astral-Power, no longer coherent enough to stick together and certainly not dangerous.

“That was tasty. I’m afraid we’ll have to kill as many of those wisps as we can.” Lenore said, while a feeling of desire was swept along with her words. If she was able to consume enough of the wisps, she would be able to breach the second divide as soon as she reached the required level, which seemed to be one-hundred.

Looking into my notifications, I decided to indulge Lenore as much as possible, the wisp had given me a nice chunk of EXP, even while being a few level lower than me. Ten, maybe twelve more of those groups, and I’d get another level. The swamp was dreary and annoying but somehow, it also allowed us to gain an insane amount of strength.

“Any scratches on one of you?” I asked, looking at the others.

“No, we managed just fine. What about you, that thing looked different.” Adra asked, nodding towards the spot where the wisp had died.

“No problems. Hopefully, we’ll be able to find a few more of those wisps, they are good exp.” I answered, before letting Sigmir take the lead again.