Rune Seeker

The fact Double Trouble+ itself didn’t have a cooldown was – as Yanily would say – overpowered. And it wasn’t the only thing, as solar energy practically boomed off Hiral. Like when he’d used the deadly combination of abilities before, a second version of his double-helix emerged from his skin to circle around his body. More than that, it was the runes floating around him that drew his attention. Their influence – their Edicts – infused everything he did with their power.

But, unlike last time, he could feel there was a piece missing. Maybe a piece wasn’t the best way to describe it. Whatever it was, the Primal Chord – or something else – was telling him he could add even more.

Something to test later.

As energy exploded off three of the other party members, the Reinforced Runeoceros took a thundering step forward. It got just the single pace – its body clearly heavy beyond belief – before Seeyela Bamf’d onto its back and thrust her daggers into the break in its armor. Above its head, the long, red health bar tinged green, then everything vanished within a flash of white.

Skyfall+, buffed by Yanily’s own Eloquently Enraged+, hit like the hammer of an angry god – or maybe an angry Primal Storm Dragon – and blasted fragments of shattered armor like shrapnel.

Heaven’s Punishmentindeed.

Even as the great beast staggered under the titanic blow, Runes of Impact and Rejection flaring to life around it, a curtain of black unfurled at its side, completely obscured from it by its own girth. While the portal itself seemed small and unintimidating compared to the huge Wild-Boss, the fiery avatar that came out was anything but that. Wings of flame spread behind Seena, and her Phoenix Sheath seemed more real under the influence of her buffs.

At her sides, two floating tomes glowed fiercely, while Li’l Ur – on her shoulder – chanted in an ancient language. Circles of blue, runic script gushed from his hands, down Seena’s right arm, and around the mass of spiralling fire she held. The twisting drill had to be almost four feet long, and writhed like a bound serpent, eager to get off its leash.

As she began to thrust the lance forward, the Wild-Boss seemed to have a flash of inspiration – or maybe some kind of danger sense telling it just how much trouble it was in – and it started to pivot. Runes surrounded the terrible horn, preparing to gouge the woman before she could hit it – or at least ensure mutual destruction – but something got in its way.

In its fallen star form, the Emperor’s Greatsword slammed into the Rune-o’spowerful horn, rune against rune vying for supremacy. The Wild-Boss was powerful – physically and with its abilities – and versus anybody else, it would’ve easily come out on top. But, with the runic Edicts reinforcing Hiral’s strike – along with the enhancement from his Second-Skin of Ur’Thul – and the fact his weapon was S-Rank, the beast had no chance.

The clash of the two forces meeting delayed the Runeoceros’s counterattack just enough for Seena to complete her thrust. At the same time Hiral’s sword cleaved through the horn – sending the thing spinning away – Seena’s drill reached the exposed flesh of its side. Bad things happened.

Without its thick plating to dull the progress of her spear, the spiraling mass of flame did exactly what it was designed to do – drill deep into the Wild-Boss’s body. As big as the monster was, the flames vanished within its side at the same time the arc of Hiral’s swing scarred a gouge along the front of its face. Blood splashed into the air from both wounds, seemingly attracting blades from the Bloodletting Field, and the Rune-o staggered a step.

Then the side of it exploded.

Another quarter of its health bar vanished in the blink of an eye as blood, flame, and force jettisoned out of its right flank. The rest of its heavy body stumbled in the opposite direction, before one of its thick feet caught something on the floor, and the whole thing toppled over. Next to where it’d just been standing, a pair of flaming wings unfurled from shielding Seena against the visceral shower she’d almost received, though smoking meat and chunks of… stuff… littered the floor around her.

“Remind me not to stand so close next time,” she mumbled through the party chat.

“We’re not done!” Seeyela scolded everybody. Already, the woman appeared on top of the fallen Rune-o’s side, daggers needling as she delivered dose after dose of deadly poison. If the Wild-Boss could survive that kind of wound, it had to have an incredible healing ability. On the other hand, if it didn’t, it was in for a long, painful death.

It was the least the party could do to put it out of its misery. And with all of their most powerful buffs still active, it shouldn’t take long.

“Yan, use Turn Back the Clock on Skyfall+, and get ready to use it,” Hiral said. “That’ll be the finisher. We’re just going to chip it down a bit further, first. Seeyela, keep doing your thing…”

“That…” she said, “… was…” between stabs “… my plan!”

“Seena, Drahn, do whatever you can to make sure that thing doesn’t get back up.”

“On it,” Seena said, Snaring Roots reaching out of the ground to tangle the Rune-o’s skidding legs as it tried to somehow right itself. At the same time, Spearing Roots jabbed from the floor, though they didn’t even attempt to punch through the Wild-Boss’s armor. Instead, they formed braces over its wide neck and parts of its body to pin it down.

All the while, the very floor beneath the monster softened, and the beast began to sink. It didn’t go far – even with how heavy it was – but it made it nearly impossible for the thing to get back on its feet.

“Left, Right, you’re with me,” Hiral continued. “We’re hitting the head while Yanily goes for the heart.”

“Ready when you are,” Yanily replied, spear spinning around him and lightning arcing in all directions to crawl across the stone of the tunnel.

“As soon as we’re in position,” Hiral replied, darting in front of the Rune-o’s face. Its large eyes swiveled in all directions as it struggled to keep track of each of the party members, but then finally settled on Hiral.

All three versions of him.

With his doubles at his sides, Hiral hefted the Emperor’s Greatsword above his head, flaring its power with his solar energy. Purple flames gushed from his Right side, a titanic punch already winding up, while a ribbon of infernal water hung in the air on his left.

Hiral’s fingers squeezed around the hilt of his weapon, but the Primal Chord wasn’t telling him to swing yet. The music in his ears had taken on a percussive element, merging with Yanily’s Chord of the Primal Storm, and pulling them towards simultaneous strikes. And yet, there was something else buried within the notes of his Chord.

With Eloquently Enraged+ expanding the power of his runes – and their associated Edicts – he felt a new resonance with each of his doubles. Standing side by side like that, it occurred to him just how separate they were, while at the same time all being one. It was a strange dichotomy – one that’d never felt stronger – and his Rune of Connection was practically glowing around his neck. Thick threads stretched from him to his doubles, dozens of them, showing visually how intertwined they were.

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That wasn’t anything new, though. How those threads seemed to loop through the Edicts hanging in the air, however, very much was.

Without thinking about it – Yanily was already streaking up towards the ceiling as a bolt of spearman-thick lightning – Hiral flooded solar energy into his runes. Increase, Breaking, Impact, Separation, Expansion, Sealing, Absorption, Separation, Gravity, and of course, Connection.

Edicts flared with energy, while another resonance sang from directly behind him, but he didn’t have a chance to focus on it as the power of all three versions of Hiral coming together blurred their forms. Almost like the opposite of Foundational Split, solar smoke smudged their outlines as they struck as one. For the briefest of seconds, they were whole, but not. Their minds remained individual, and Hiral experienced their emotions for the first time.

Feelings of worry over his recklessness, along with care for his sisters and the other party members mixed with his own. Above his head, the fallen-star form of the Emperor’s Greatsword flickered with purple flame, while the stream from Left’s Dagger of Sath alternated between running from the sword of the dagger, flashing like still images of reality shifting.

At the same time, black from the Second-Skin of Ur’Thul stretched between them, lines of yellow, white, and purple rewriting the script across their bodies. There – in that combined script of runes, double helix, Meridian lines, and tattoos – lay another, deeper truth. The Edicts. It tickled the back of Hiral’s mind, but seemed to be held back by something. There was a wall there, preventing everything from fully coalescing. If he could just…

The epiphany ended when sword, dagger, and fist – all empowered by those Edicts of power – slammed as one into the Wild-Boss’s head at the same time Yanily crashed from above.

The Reinforced Runeoceros’s health bar – tinted green by venom – vanished into sparkles of solar energy which faded into the world turning white. Between the two colossal strikes, Hiral would’ve expected a boom like thunder, and the whole tunnel shaking.

Instead, there was only peaceful white nothingness. In that frozen moment, he felt his doubles still connected, the bonds of their genuine friendship and care for him filling him with warmth. That strange resonance still sang from behind him, on a held note of the Chord of the Primal Echo, and runic Edictsfloated unbound around him. To each one, he felt a connection – his connection – and the power they held over the rules of the world. Within them lay his path, his next steps, once he mastered them.

Like the Primal Chord, there was a kind of music to them… or maybe he was getting it backwards. Maybethey were the source of the tune he heard? The implications of that bounced around in Hiral’s head enough it almost hurt. If his guess was correct, would they also be the source for the Primal Chords the others heard?

And, more importantly, how could he tap into that?

The question ejected him from the white pause, and the boom he’d earlier expected came with a jarring eruption that literally threw him backward. High Dexcorrected his body mid-flight, while his Atn felt the air passing around his party-members. Tethers of Gravity and Rejectionslowed their flights until everybody landed safely – and definitively not splattered against a wall.

“Thanks for the save,” Seena said through the party chat. “You get everybody?”

“No, I was playing favorites,” Hiral joked. “I let everybody else get flattened.”

“Hiral…”

“They’re fine. I got them all. Except for Yanily, since he was the source of the shockwave.”

“Yeah, sorry about that,” Yanily said. “Managed to tap into the Splinter on that one a bit more.”

“No problem,” Seena said. “Is it done?”

“We’ve got notifications,” Seeyela said. “And there’s only a crater where the Wild-Boss was. I’d say we’re good.”

“Okay. Check the notifications real quick. After the side-effects of Eloquently Enraged+ fade, we’re moving. All that commotion might attract some attention we don’t want.”

While the others started doing that – their eyes glazing over like they were reading notification windows – they also dismissed their powerful buffs. All of them except for Hiral.

He still had that lingering connection to the Edicts floating around him. It had weakened compared to when he was in the white, but he closed his eyes and focused on the sensation. There was something there, and the better he understood it, the more he’d be able to take advantage of it in the future.

Moving from one rune to the next, he tried to home in on what was attracting his attention. Separation, Gravity, and Energy, it wasn’t from them. Connection? No, not that one either. Running down the list, he went through each rune as the seconds of his buff ticked down. Then he went through them a second time when he couldn’t figure it out.

Part of the problem was he – frankly – didn’t know what he was looking for. His instincts were telling him there was something there, but he wasn’t getting any hints beyond that. The runes felt just the same as they always did…

It’s not the runes!

Sudden inspiration swept over him as he stopped looking at the runes themselves – Edicts or not, he was familiar with them – and instead started looking at his connections to them. That was the different part! He’d already realized it and then dismissed it as a result instead of a cause. If they were…

Eloquently Enraged+ ended with an abruptness that dropped Hiral to his ass from where he stood. The world – and all his thoughts – slowed like he’d been plunged in molasses. The breakthrough he’d been on the verge of making slipped through his slow-moving fingers, even though the penalties had been lessened by the buff’s upgrade.

It’s fine, he told himself, grasping on to the feeling he’d had just before losing the buffs. He could go back to it next time he had a break to test his buffs together. The answer lay in there, despite the wall preventing everything clicking into place. Once he figured out what was blocking him from achieving… something… he’d put it all together. He just had to figure out that wall. And stop it from being a wall’ish wall…

Yeah, thoughts… slow…

Instead of forcing his brain to try and do something it couldn’t do – think – he instead opened the first notification window. Reading wasn’t as hard as thinking, somehow.

Congratulations. Achievement unlocked – Fully Countered

Through your usual reckless behavior, you took the potential damage that would’ve killed you, and instead turned it back on your enemy.

Please access a Dungeon Interface to unlock class-specific reward.

Hiral blinked at the notification. I did? Did that have something to do with that punch he’d landed? Something about the runes he’d used… but he couldn’t put his finger on it. The after-effects of his buff were making his thinking just slow enough. Either way, he’d find out when he found a dungeon interface. And that wasn’t the only notification window waiting, apparently, so he moved to the next.

Congratulations. Achievement unlocked – A Tough Nut to Crack

You have defeated a Boss-level or higher opponent with potent defenses and more than ten times your endurance.

Please access a Dungeon Interface to unlock class-specific reward.

Even though Hiral’s thinking was moving slower than… something that moved really, really slow… his eyes locked on the particular wording of the notification. Boss-level or higher. Since when was there a higher than Bosses? Something about that new information sent a shiver down his spine.

Just what does the PIMhave in store for us? Maybe using a dungeon interface will tell us.

Planning to ask the others what their thoughts were on it – when he probably didn’t sound drunk – Hiral moved on to the next notification.

Congratulations. Achievement unlocked – Running Wild

You have found and defeated a rare Wild-Boss.

Please access a Dungeon Interface to unlock class-specific reward.

Hrm. Rare, not unique. Which means there are more of those out there.

Closing the window in front of his eyes, Hiral nearly jumped out of his skin when he found Seena sitting knee-to-knee with him and staring intently at his eyes.

“Yeah,” she said, patting him on the leg. “We’ll give you a minute.”