Rune Seeker

Hiral dismissed the flashing, red notification window with a forceful thought – the damn things were always harder to get rid of than normal notifications – and hauled his eyes down from the sky. The fact he could see the clouds and lightning above snapped his attention to the condition of the small forest they’d been travelling through.

Well, what was left of it.

The battle with the hyena pack had devastated the area. Seena’s fireballs had created more than one new clearing, while acid and lightning had felled dozens of trees. Hiral wasn’t innocent in the destruction, either, with his last attack carving a long path. If the trees had been taller or thicker, the damage wouldn’t have been as bad. Except, they weren’t taller or thicker, so there was no use ruminating over would’ves, could’ves, or should’ves.

Right now, he needed to figure out what their options were. With the rest of the party lined up to deal with whatever form of Chimerebus came back at them, Hiral weighed their choices. One, they could stay and continue the fight, but they’d need to end it quickly. The wanton destruction of the forest had to stop, or they’d have no place to hide – though, from looking around, that was already not a great option. Then again, did they even need to? If it was only a smallEnemy coming to look at what all the commotion was, maybe they could take it?

Eyes going from the forest back to the sky, he leaned heavily on his high Atn to pick the invisible creature out of the falling rain. There had to be at least one there somewhere, yet he couldn’t spot it. Where are you…? Still not finding anything, Hiral was about to activate his time runes to give him longer to search, when he noticed something else.

The rain was getting… lighter? It hardly seemed to be falling anymore, in fact. Could the Enemies be moving off to something else more interesting? As he held out his gloved hand, he watched the large drops splashing against his palm. Odd for the drops to be so heavy while the rain was so light…

Looking straight above him, he got the answer to that small mystery – hiding was definitely out of the question. And so was fighting.

Invisible tentacles thicker than Hiral was tall roped out of a central mass nearly as big as the forest itself. Almost leisurely, they snaked down towards where the party fought, the sheer bulk of the monster blocking most of the rain from above. And, Hiral really, really didn’t need the flashing red notification to tell him just how dangerous that thing was. View did that for him.

Enemy – High-A-Rank

“Seena,” Hiral whispered into the party chat, even though the Enemy likely wouldn’t hear him. “We need to leave. Now. A-Rank Enemy right above us.”

“What about the doggo?” Yanily asked.

“The now-High-B-Rank, six-headed doggo,” Seeyela updated them.

“We’ll have to try and outrun it,” Hiral said, eyes locked on the tentacles as they weaved their way down from above. At the pace they were going, the party had thirty seconds or so before they arrived.

“Didn’t Drahn say it’ll chase us?” Yanily said.

“Have to risk it.”

“We’ll buy you some time,” Right said, purple flames flaring as the double stepped in front of the others.

“Be careful with Drahn, though,” Left added in. “The potion helped, but his leg is in bad shape.”

“Boss?” Yanily asked.

“Where are we even going to go?” Seena said.

“Seriously, anywhere but here,” Hiral said. Twenty seconds. “Even if it’s just further down the path. Maybe the dungeon is close.”

“Okay,” Seena said, making a decision. “Left, Right, thanks. Yan, grab Drahn. Hiral, lead the way. Sis, you’re with me in the back.”

“Got it, Boss,” the rest of the party said at once, and Hiral darted down the path. The Emperor’s Greatsword went back over his shoulder with a practiced motion – it wouldn’t help him here – and he turned all his attention to finding them an escape route. Trees blurred by on both sides as he ran, eyes scanning for options the entire time. Not even ten seconds later, though, he realized the others weren’t keeping up.

The way Yan was awkwardly carrying Drahn – the man really wasn’t moving well – they were slower than they needed to be. Without thinking about it, Hiral threaded solar energy into his Runes of Connection, Attraction, Decrease, and Gravity, then stretched that ribbon through the opening of the Ring of Amin Thett behind him to the struggling tracker. Something felt like it was missing, so he added in Energy on a whim, and it all clicked into place as the Ring lit up with a ribbon of light that took on a visible form.

Wrapping around the other man like Hiral was tying them together, the weight suddenly came off Yanily’s shoulders. It wasn’t powerful enough to carry Drahn by itself – though maybe it could be with the assistance of the Edicts, if he figured them out – but it would be enough to help them move quickly. There was still that feeling of a wall between Hiral and those Edicts without the assistance of his buffs, and part of him wanted to stretch his senses to see if he could push through.

No, they didn’t have time for him to experiment right now, and his stop-gap measure was enough. So, putting the matter aside for the time being – and ignoring the look from Seena that she’d ask him about this later – he put all his attention back into the path ahead of him.

The one that ended very abruptly.

They’d barely gone more than a few hundred feet from where they’d fought – from where Right and Left still fought, from the sounds of things – and they’d already found the end of the forest. The trees stopped in an almost visible line, like even they were afraid to stray too far from each other. Instead, ahead of them, the path sloped down slightly, then seemed to completely vanish. Tall grass? Did the ground swallow the path? With the darkness, it was hard to tell exactly what he was looking at, until another fabulous discharge of lightning above lit up the wide plain spread ahead of him.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

It wasn’t grass. Or trees. Or even the ground itself.

Dozens, hundreds, thousands of eyes reflected the flash of lightning as Hiral stared at the massive heard standing frozen in the pouring rain. Even thousands may’ve been an understatement, as the shoulder-to-shoulder beasts stretched as far as he could see. The nearest one had to be about five hundred feet from the edge of the trees – and the Enemy descending from above – but they weren’t moving. Not an inch. Were they even breathing? What were they…?

Another flash of lightning, and the pieces clicked in Hiral’s brain. There were so many of them, so tightly packed together, and completely motionless, they would feel like the just another part of the landscape to the falling rain. They were hiding in plain sight.

Unlike all the other monsters Hiral had seen since he’d come to the surface, these ones didn’t protect themselves from the Enemy with spikes, hard shells, or acid-blood. They used camouflage. And, if it could work for them…

“I have an idea,” Hiral said. “Might be a bit risky.”

“Can’t be riskier than… holy shit!” Yanily said, just as the ground shook like something had taken a huge step.

Hiral whipped his head around to see the outline of two huge tentacles sweeping through the forest. Purple light flashed from the ongoing battle, but it moved away from the tentacles as the massive appendages searched.

“You better still be moving,” Right said over the party chat. “Once that thing catches us, that’s the end of keeping its attention. Hyena doesn’t look like it’ll be easily caught either.”

“Out with your plan, Hiral,” Seena said.

“Herd of those plains animals five hundred feet ahead of us,” Hiral said. “They’re sticking together and not moving to hide from the falling rain.”

“They’re standing in the rain to hide from it?” Yanily asked.

“Not now, Yan,” Seena said.

“He’s right,” Hiral said. “With so many of them, they look like another feature of the land. We’re going to join them.”

“What if they attack us?” Seeyela asked.

“They’d have to move to do that, which would mean the Enemy would see them,” Hiral replied. “I don’t think they will. At least not until it’s gone.”

“Which means we need to be even further gone,” Seena said, and gave him the shoulder tap. “Lead the way.”

Keeping his tether on Drahn to make it easier for Yanily to support the tracker, Hiral took another second to plan his route. They needed a break in the bodies big enough for them to slip into, and hopefully weave through. If he could just… there!

“Going,” Hiral said, and dashed forward. The instant he left the minor cover of the trees, the rain hit him in sheets. Pouring was an understatement, with the rain adding a physical pressure to his shoulders almost like his Intimidating Aura+ did. Worse, without the lightning constantly coming, he wouldn’t have been able to see more than a foot in front of him. The tall grass slapped at his thighs as he left the path provided by the roots, though – luckily – Path of Butterflies kept the party’s feet from slipping or sinking in the mud.

“The path?” Seeyela asked as they moved.

“We’ll have to find it after we exit the herd,” Hiral said, glancing back and up as he closed on the motionless animals. Then almost wished he hadn’t. The Enemy had clearly noticed their sudden movement in the rain, and one of the other tentacles was starting to move in their direction.

Rejection and Expansion weaved together in a heartbeat, spreading out behind the party like a wide series of canopies. Each one wasn’t more than a few feet wide, but suddenly there were dozens of planes blocking the rain. That should keep it busy for a moment.

With that done, they were at the herd, and Hiral had to turn his attention – and his Atn – to getting them through. A heavy, musky scent washed over him as he arrived, then he pushed himself between two of the lithe beasts. While each one wasn’t nearly as big as the massive Runeoceros they’d fought, the things still stood taller than Hiral by at least a foot. Their back legs had reverse-jointed knees, and enough muscle he imagined they’d be fast if they wanted to be. Probably also have a nasty kick.

Luckily for the party, his guess had been right about the herd’s behavior as they all pushed their way into the commune. Eyes widened as the group moved in, but the animals didn’t move a muscle. A slight tremor went through some of their bodies, as if they were wondering if a new predator had just arrived, but the primal fear of the thing in the sky above them kept them from reacting. Some of the larger animals had a pair of jagged horns protruding from the sides of their heads, though none of them turned in the party’s direction.

“We won’t hurt you,” Hiral said quietly as he carefully – but quickly – moved deeper into the herd. Sure, he didn’t have any way of knowing if they’d understand his words, but it made him feel better to try and comfort them. And, as he went, View gave him a bit more information on the animals.

Voltaic Plains Sprinter – Low-B-Rank

Interesting name…

“How deep are we going?” Seena asked through the party chat, though he could still feel everybody following thanks to his sensory domain.

He’d really need to put some more effort into that, considering how well it was working. Not only was he using it to track the people following behind; he was also using it to map out the path ahead of them.

“All the way,” he replied to the party leader instead of lauding his own ingenious technique. “If we can pass through and exit the other side, hopefully that’ll put enough distance between us and the Enemy to find another place to hide.”

“Why don’t we just stay in here?” Yanily asked. “It’s pretty dry, and if the Enemy can’t find us…?”

“As soon as it’s gone,” Drahn spoke up, his voice somewhat hoarse, “the herd will move. They may not be predators, but with the sheer number and weight of them, they’ll stomp us into the ground without noticing.”

“Pleasant,” Yanily muttered.

“Which is why we’re still moving,” Hiral said.

“Hiral,” Seena said into a private channel just for him. “Think we can stop long enough to feed Drahn another potion or two? Something about that acid is causing problems. I think it got into his blood, and it’s doing something.”

“Oh that doesn’t sound good,” Hiral said. “Hold on, let me find somewhere.”

“Thanks.”

While still moving, Hiral changed his focus from using his sensory domain to scout a path, to finding a space between the animals big enough for the entire party. Unfortunately, it took several minutes of continued trekking deeper into the herd before he found anything, and in that time, Drahn’s breathing had grown ragged over the party chat. Luckily, though, the Enemy hadn’t gotten any closer to the herd.

Left and Right distracted it again?

“Set him down, carefully,” Seena said as Yanily helped the tracker into a seated position. The group hadn’t really found a clearing, instead huddling between the legs of a group of the taller animals. “Drahn. Drahn? How’re you feeling?”

“Been better,” the man said, forcing a half-smile. “Though my leg doesn’t hurt as much anymore.”

Something about that comment made both Hiral and Seena nervous from the look she shared with him, and they immediately began to unwind the bandages Left had somehow found the time to apply. Beneath the soaked cloth, the man’s leather armor had been corroded straight through, and the flesh of his thigh didn’t look any better. It was raw, ugly, and literally bubbling. How he wasn’t outright screaming in pain was a mystery.

“Do you have a debuff?” Hiral asked, eyes locked on the red bubbles at the edges of the wound. No way that was natural.

“Huh?” Drahn asked with a shake of his head. “Sorry. Yeah. Something called Invasive Blood. It looks like it… it… it…” the man trailed off.

Then began to seize.