Rune Seeker

“We’ve got a problem,” was all Hiral had a chance to say before another massive smash shook the ground. This time, the shockwave from the impact sent a swell across the mix of flattened grass and mud. The party members managed to stay upright – since they’d mostly been crouched around Drahn anyway – but the Sprinters surrounding them were forced to reposition their feet to keep their balance.

And in that small shuffle, the illusion was broken. Nearby heads turned towards a throaty call that echoed from the end of the herd opposite the forest. With his sensory domain pushed to the maximum, Hiral spotted bodies shifting, pushing to angle towards the origin of the call. A nervous tension rippled across the beasts’ flanks, the muscles under their hides preparing to live up to their names.

“Uh oh,” Yanily said, obviously catching on to what Hiral was sensing.

While his domain wouldn’t let him see anywhere close to the far side, he didn’t really need to. He could already feel it in the shifting air around them. The herd was starting to move. In seconds, the effect would reach the area they hid in, with the Sprinters dashing off to remain with their brethren.

“What are we going toooooooo…” Seeyela’s words drawled out as Hiral activated his Runes of Time Dilation and Contraction.

He needed what the runes offered – time – to figure out an option. Like Seena had said, the mounts weren’t their best plan. The moving herd would attract the Enemy’s attention, assuming there was only one, and then flying above that? No way the squid would ignore them. Which meant their best plan was to stay on the ground with the herd. Hiding among them, like they had been doing, but somehow keeping pace.

Hiral could probably do that with his Dex, among other things. Everybody else though? Drahn, especially, since he was unconscious – it wasn’t going to happen. Somebody carrying the tracker would already slow them down, even with Hiral’s runic manipulation to make him lighter. Sure, he’d tethered people to him in the past with Attraction to pull them closer, or Gravity to make them temporarily lighter. But, to keep up with him while he moved at the speed he’d need to go would degrade those tethers before they’d even gone a few hundred feet.

They’d always worked better in short bursts or while moving slowly.

Then again, the tether he’d used to help carry Drahn had been fine over a longer distance. Was that because he’d tied it through the Ring of Amin Thett? And… what would that even matter…? Except, his mind went back to the images of the Edicts appearing within the ring. Those concepts – and the power they represented – weren’t things that could actually be bound inside the confines of the ring. But maybe, just maybe, it could act as a shortcut to allow him to connect to them.

Already feeling the pressure of time trying to reassert its control in the back of his head, Hiral reached out with his tethers. He’d need Gravity, Connection, and Decrease to reduce the party’s weight. From there, Attraction would keep them closer, and maybe Sealing to bind them to him. But, even with the runic energies being guided through the Ring of Amin Thett, the tether was too fragile. It’d fall apart as soon as he got up to speed.

It also didn’t feel the same as the last one he’d used… and he couldn’t see it. That was it! A thread of Energy joined the rest of the runic streams, and the Ring flashed as the six powers combined. From the base of the back of his neck, the energy invisibly flowed into the center of the ring, only to form tendrils of sparking, liquid light that emerged from the other side. With the almost leg-thick bolts of pure, constant lightning that hung like they had weight, Hiral reached out and wrapped them around his friends, then tested their strength.

It still wasn’t enough. While they certainly looked impressive, the streamers were still too flimsy. Hollow. He hadn’t taken any power or influence from the Edicts at all. His earlier analogy had been wrong. The connections he’d formed hadn’t cracked the door, it’d barely turned the knob.

But he needed the power of the Edicts now – he was sure of it – and he could feel them right there. Sure, he could break through temporarily with Eloquently Enraged+, but if the escape took more than a few minutes, they’d be even worse off than they started. He couldn’t risk that – it wasn’t reckless, it was stupid.

If power was all he needed to bridge that gap, though, then maybe he could just brute force it. He had plenty of solar energy capacity and output. Time to put it to use.

Ignoring the slamming headache from his time runes, Hiral flooded his connection to the Ring of Amin Thett – and the six runes in particular – with power. More and more and more, he forced solar energy into them, the wall between him and the Edicts shaking as the pressure built. That wasn’t the only thing shaking, either, with the cracks he’d molded to put the Ring back together glowing under the stress.

But Hiral didn’t stop. He actually pushed more power into it all, dumping half his solar energy in one go. The sudden onslaught crashed against the metaphysical ‘wall’ like a tidal wave, while the backlash of it ballooned pain across his body. Not random spots, either. His left forearm and shoulder – Attraction and Decrease. Right thigh – Sealing. Neck – Connection. And, maybe worst of all, his back – Gravity and Energy.

It almost felt like there was a water skin filled past bursting just beneath his skin in those six places, and it hurt far more than having the flesh and muscle burned off his hand. But he was closer. The newly formed lines of Connection between the runes and their Edicts vibrated in tune with each other and…

In tune!

Latching on to the inspiration – partly to ignore the building pain – Hiral strained for the melody of the Primal Chord. Where… where… there! Hidden beneath the rumbling combination of the storm and his deluge of energy to crush the wall in his way, he found the familiar tune. But, despite the ordeal he’d forced himself into, the Chord was calm. Even. Around and around. It was… repeating. No, not that. The second repetition wasn’t as strong as the first, and felt more distant. The third took that even further. It wasn’t repeating, it was… echoing.

And the form it took, it reminded Hiral of Cycling.

Following the melody of the Chord, Hiral took the sea of solar energy he’d dumped into his connection with the Ring of Amin Thett, then began to move it like he was Cycling it in the metaphysical space. One full rotation, and he could barely even see anymore, the pain from his time runes like a spike straight through the back of his head. The second rotation he didn’t try to control, letting the movement of his first motion carry the energy naturally around. As soon as the third rotation began, he started over at the first, turning his sea of energy into a whirlpool.

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Like that, over and over, despite the pain boring in his skull, he turned the pressure against the wall into a suction. Then, instead of pushing his runes out to the Edicts, he pulled just the tiniest whisper of the Edicts into his runes.

All at once, the glowing white of the six runes on his black Second-Skin of Ur’Thul bled out into the fabric in arcs of white lightning. Unlike the energy that coursed over Yanily, none of this actually left Hiral’s coat, all staying confined within the two dimensions of the material. Small cracks of the energy spread over to connect with his double helix, a new pain joining all the rest as if his PIM had been lit on fire.

Almost… there…

Hiral did one more rotation of the solar energy, and with that, it clicked into place. The white runes on black fabric in those six specific locations became their own negative – black on white – as did the nearby double helix. More than that, the fabric wasn’t fabric anymore. Gone was the unbelievably soft material, replaced instead by pure energy, though still connected and unblemished where it met the rest of the regular Coat of Ur’Thul.

Sure, he’d only transformed a small portion of his coat – though why the coat changed at all was a question for much later – but he could feel new strength flowing into the streamers through the Ring of Amin Thett. Gone was the hollowness, replaced by a true strength that would last as long as Hiral could hold this form.

And, despite the burning pain running through his PIM, the worst of it was over. Aside from reality really, really trying to reassert the normal flow of time.

With this, it should be enough.

“… ooo do… the hell?!” Seeyela finished her sentence as Hiral released the effect of his time runes, the normal flow snapping back into place.

Giving his party one second to process the crackling ribbons of thick light cradling their bodies – and for the pain to clear from his own head – Hiral said two words. “Hold on.”

“Hold on?” Yanily asked.

“To what?” Seena said at the same time.

They didn’t get an answer as Hiral shoved animals aside with Rejection, then launched off the ground and out of the herd of Voltaic Plains Sprinters. He kept his leap low, barely clearing the press of bodies – with his four party members getting dragged behind by his scarves of energy – and his foot landed on the back of the first Sprinter. Before it even realized he was there – or felt the touch of his foot – he was gone again, surging forward. Ahead of him, the massive herd had truly begun to shift, with the lead animals spreading out beneath the flashing lightning.

The animals nearest him had hardly moved, and still seemed almost frozen by comparison. A lingering effect of his time runes? No, he was just moving that fast.

Back to back to back, he lunged side to side, so much like he had in the training room up in Fallen Reach before he’d even had a class. As he went, the animals he used as platforms gradually grew further and further apart, the ‘surface’ becoming more uneven as he needed to vault from their flanks as often as their backs.

Landing on the side of one, he dropped into a crouch, hands touching the tough hide at the same time his feet did. On his left, almost half of his previously black sleeve had been replaced with white. Energy flaked off it as he paused, though it was replaced immediately by his own stores of solar power, and then he was gone again, leaving motes of fading energy in his trail.

Bounding like that from Sprinter to Sprinter, he covered almost a thousand feet in seconds to reach more open space. Then, as soon as his boots touched solid ground, he took off at a sprint himself. Despite how far he’d gone, he still hadn’t reached the edge of the herd, and quickly fell in amongst the rushing beasts.

There, like that, Hiral’s mind went to how Left moved when he took on the Touch of the Primal, and something about it seemed right. Then, almost as if he’d learned a weapon skill thanks to his advanced class, Hiral’s body shifted, and he dropped down to running on all fours, more of the white energy from his strange transformation leaking down to form small claws on the ends of his fingers. Speed increasing, he weaved back and forth through the Sprinters.

Wide, Sprinter eyes – that almost seemed to glow in the dark as they magnified and reflected the light he was giving off – turned in his direction when they spotted him. When they watched him speed ahead of them. Faster and faster he went, arms and legs churning as he loped and weaved through the collection of beasts. All around him, he spread his sensory domain, taking in the information to react as the herd moved.

A beast suddenly turned in front of him, and Hiral sprung ahead, left hand barely touching the thing’s back as he spread his legs to vault over it. His Coat of Ur’Thulsnapped in the air behind him, startling the beast, but Hiral was already gone. Touching down, he cut hard right by two-stepping and then leaping left and springing off another Sprinter’s side. With his Rune of Gravity empowered by the Edict, changing his own weight to dart back and forth was almost second nature, and he bolted into a newly formed opening between animals. Ten steps, and he cut left again, once more moving with the herd.

Pouring on the speed, he pulled ahead of the traffic congestion, then leapt one more time to clear a group of three Sprinters that seemed to be the leaders. The beast in the middle had horns that twisted around each other, almost like a crown atop its head, and it huffed in surprise as Hiral landed ahead of it.

A small wave with the glowing fabric on his left arm, and he lowered his head and charged onward, the rain pouring down now that he didn’t have any beasts shielding him. This was the riskiest part – getting separated from the herd – but he’d spotted the telltale glow of the roots during one of his previous vaults. And it led straight towards another, larger, wooded area.

If he could get the others in there, then hopefully they’d be safe from the squid. As long as there weren’t more Chimeras.

If there are, we’ll deal with it.

With the goal in sight, Hiral poured on one more burst of speed, the four scarves streaming behind him and holding his friends. A few seconds later, he raced under the cover of the trees, but still didn’t slow. One mile, two, he ran, the ground scrolling past beneath his hands and feet, until finally he felt like he’d gone far enough. Cutting his mad dash and turning sideways, Hiral skidded along the ground, his Walk on Water ability preventing him from splashing the wet mud around, and he came to a stop.

Next to him, comfortably wrapped in ribbons of thick light, two of the party members looked at him with wide eyes. Each of the sisters seemed to have a dozen questions on their lips, but all eyes went to the other two. Drahn was still unconscious, so he didn’t have much to say.

And Yanily… well, Yanily was apparently sleeping.

Of course he was.

Hiral could only chuckle as he gently put the others down.

“And just what was that?” Seena asked him as soon as her feet touched the ground. On her shoulder, Li’l Ur’s hands were clutching her hair in a death grip – Undeath grip? – like he’d been holding on for dear life.

Note to self, Ur needs an anchoring ribbon too.

To Seena, however, he smiled. “Something new I figured out,” he said, finally letting the transformation go. The burning pain scorching along his PIM faded immediately.

And so did consciousness.