Rune Seeker

“Raid Bosses,” Seeyela said after Hiral’s debuffs had faded, and they’d begun discussing the notifications. “That’s got to be what the PIMP meant.”

“I guess it would make sense.” Seena nodded. “Traditionally, we’ve had party leaders,” she pointed at herself, “and raid leaders.” She pointed at her sister. “Until we’d actually started getting into dungeons and stuff, I didn’t know why it mattered, other than that’s what we’ve always done.

“Now though, knowing dungeons hold a maximum of six people – the same size as Grower parties were always trained to be – it does make me wonder why we had raid groups. Three parties, six people each. Exactly.”

“I thought it was because only three parties could go into a dungeon at one time,” Yanily said, somehow with another pastry in hand.

“That’s what I’d figured too,” Seena admitted. “Seeyela makes a good point though. What if this higher-level-than-a-Boss is a Raid Boss? Are we going to find a dungeon we need eighteen people for?”

“Or, worse,” Drahn piped up. “Are we going to find a Wild-Raid-Boss out in the field? Something we need eighteen B-Rank or higher people to stand a chance against.”

Seven heads turned to look at the exit leading out of the tunnel. Running into something that took eighteen people to fight…? Yeah, that wouldn’t be good.

Actually, do we even have eighteen people – well, 13 more – we could count on for that kind of encounter? The Shapers and Growers were strong, but without the same level of dungeon gear Seena’s party had, would they be able to keep up?

“Hopefully not,” Seena finally said to Drahn’s question. “Either way, though, we’re going to find out. Looks like debuffs have faded from everyone.” She looked at Hiral. “Time to keep going. You have Nivian’s trail?”

Hiral focused on the thread leading up to Nivian’s Connection above them. Something about it didn’t seem quite as high as before. Are we getting closer?

“I’ve got it,” he told Seena. “I think we might be catching up.”

“How do you think they got by the Wild-Boss?” Yanily asked, then licked powdered sugar off his fingertips.

“It may not have been here,” Left said. “It could’ve moved in after they passed through the tunnel.”

“Just another thing to ask them when we catch up,” Seena said, and everybody got the message, getting to their feet. The “rest” was over, and they moved together past the crater Hiral and Yanily had made. Arriving at the exit out of the tunnel, they got their first good look at what lay beyond as lightning lit up the sky and illuminated the land.

And what a big sky it was. Each thick bolt of lightning seemed to stretch for miles and miles over the endless, flat land ahead of them. Just when Hiral thought he’d spotted the end, another flash would show the sky continuing on. Sure, having lived in the sky, he logically knew it was a really big place. But, to see if like that – even at night – was something else entirely. Somehow, the clouds were tremendously high up, but he could feel how thick they were, like they had a weight of their own, while rain poured down across the landscape.

There was a word for this type of place, he’d read it in a book… but what was it? Ah! It was a savanna. Sparse trees, standing not taller than twenty or thirty feet, dotted the land, bushy tops offering small shelter from the constant rain. Actually, it wasn’t just dotting trees – there were several long stretches of groups of them clumped together. The rest of the space seemed to be tall grass swaying in the rain.

“You know,” Hiral said, mind working at normal speed again as he stared out into the rain. “There has to be more to the world’s magic than we know. With the constant rain – other than when Fallen Reach passes over very limited sections of land – wouldn’t you think the entire surface would be flooded? But, it’s not. Take this place, for example. The grass and trees, shouldn’t it just be a soggy mess?”

“It could be,” Drahn said. “And we just won’t notice until we take a wrong step.”

“Drahn has a point,” Seena added. “We don’t know what our footing is going to be like.”

“Except for the path,” Yanily said.

“The what now?”

“The path. Right there,” Yanily pointed off to the side, almost directly in front of them. Two glowing roots stretched from the tunnel entrance off into the night. They vanished quickly in the tall grass, but even then, it was clear the grass actually didn’t grow between the roots.

“So much magic we know so little about,” Seena said. “Hey, are those your flowers there, Drahn?”

“They are,” Drahn said. “Nivian and Wule followed the same route.”

“With how few trees there are, it should be pretty easy to follow from above,” Seeyela said. “Mounts?”

“Actually,” Hiral said, scrutinizing the plains in front of them. “I don’t think we should.”

Stolen novel; please report.

“Why not?” Seena already had her hand out in front of her like she was planning to call on Vili.

“I don’t know if you can see…”

“We can’t,” Seena interrupted gently, punching him in the shoulder. “We don’t have your attunement.”

“Right. Okay. There are a lot of animals out there,” he said. “I see what look like more Runeoceroses. Runeocerii? Whatever.”

“More of those monsters?” Drahn thumbed over his shoulder at the crater. “We barely dealt with one.”

“These looks smaller,” Hiral said. “And not as bulky. I don’t think they’re the reinforced variety, so probably not Wild-Bosses. Besides them, there is also something that reminds me kind of like a horse, but the legs are different. Thinner and bendier. Horns on its head.”

“Sounds kind of like a Tri-Horn,” Yanily said. “They’re pretty fast runners. Couple of those out there too?”

“They only have two horns, but there are more than a few. I’d say… hundreds. A huge herd of them. Oh, actually, more than one herd. Then over there… yeah, I don’t even know how to describe those things other than huge. Big enough to make the Wild-Boss look small, with some kind of tentacles or something on their faces.”

“All the more reason it sounds like we should be flying,” Seeyela said.

“Just the opposite. I don’t see anything in the sky. Nothing. Maybe I’m just not noticing them, but…”

“Tell us what you’re thinking,” Seena said, putting a hand on his shoulder.

“Two main things. First off, the mounts are big, and there’s nothing else flying. With the rain falling like it is, it’d make us stick out like a sore thumb to any Enemies nearby.”

“But, it’d be fast,” Seeyela said. “With that much rain, they’re going to notice us anyway.”

“Maybe not.” Hiral pointed towards the largest herd, before remembering the others couldn’t make out the details of what he was pointing at. “All those animals out there aren’t dead. And with that many of them, they’ve been around for a while. The Enemies are either ignoring them, or only killing a few. Either way, I bet they’re desensitized to animals moving on the ground.”

“We’re less likely to get noticed if we walk?” Seena asked.

Hiral was about to offer the choice of using the skates they’d gotten, but one look at Drahn and that option was out the window. The man didn’t have the same gear they did. “Yeah, I think walking – or probably running – is our best choice.”

“Makes me nervous being in the open like that,” Seeyela said.

“Oh, I’m definitely not suggesting we let our guard down,” Hiral quickly said. “With herds that big, there has to be something out there that hunts them beside the Enemy. Probably multiple somethings, if being on the surface has taught us anything. Don’t be too surprised if we run across the B-Rank equivalent of Troblins either. Any idea what that would be?”

“Something ugly and mean,” Yanily said. “The perfect thing to stab.”

“We can both agree on that,” Seeyela added.

“Walking it is, then,” Seena said, squeezing Hiral’s shoulder. “Thanks.”

He nodded in response, reaching up to put his hand on top of hers. With this quick sequence of runs down to the surface, they hadn’t had much time together. Well, alone together.

“Ahem,” Drahn coughed. “There’s something else we need to decide on.”

“What’s that?” Seena asked.

Drahn pointed at the glowing roots. Or, maybe his white flowers. “Are we following the path, or cutting straight across to follow the Islan… Hiral’s route? We might save some time taking the second option, depending how winding those roots are.”

“We’re also not dungeon hunting,” Yanily said. “Not that I’d really object to it – you know how I feel about experience – but we’ve got a goal here.”

“Look at you being all responsible again,” Seeyela said, wiping an invisible tear from her eye. “They grow up so fast.”

“The only difference with Yanily I’ve seen since he was knee-high to a grasshopper is he’d need a bigger diaper,” Drahn said evenly.

“You saying I’m fat?” Yanily asked right back.

“The pastries…” Seeyela started.

“We’ll follow the roots,” Seena interrupted. “Yes, it might take a bit longer, but if Nivian and Wule followed them, cutting straight might not actually be faster. Also, knowing where the dungeons are could help us out later.”

“A bit of zone mapping?” Hiral asked her.

“Yeah. Right now, everything out there is unknown to us. We have no idea what’s beyond the next tree, or past the tall grass. It’s kind of like a… there’s a phrase for it. A mist of…”

“Fog of war,” Hiral filled in.

“Yeah, that! We need to lift some of the fog by wandering around a bit. Last time we were running from the Enemy, we had no idea where we could go that was safe…”

“No place really was,” Yanily pointed out.

“True,” Seena conceded. “Still, the roots have generally been safe paths. So far. It goes without saying, don’t let your guards down, but if nothing else, the area around the dungeon entrances would make a good place to camp if we need it. Any objections?”

“You’re the boss, Boss,” Yanily said. “Just point me where you want me to go or what you want us to hit.”

“Thanks, Yan,” Seena said, before taking a step behind Hiral. Then she tapped him on the shoulder.

With a nod to the woman, Hiral drew his RHCs from his thighs, and took one look back into the tunnel. His domain ability had faded, but once they left this structure, there was no telling the next time they’d find something similar. And, the lizardman had built an impressive wall. A tall, impressive wall. Which meant there was something out there in the savanna they wanted to keep out of their city.

Time to go find out just what that is.

And, with that, Hiral took his first step out into what had to be at least a B-Rank zone, his friends close behind him.