Rune Seeker

“The Emperor is dead?” Hiral asked quietly, a surprising pang of pain at the words. Until this moment, he hadn’t really cared if the man – Was it even a man? – was alive or not. Sure, he had the sword, so he knew there was an entity out there somewhere that went by the name or title of the Emperor, but it didn’t matter.

Now, though? With the sword and the Edicts being connected, he had to wonder – again – what kind of the path the PIMP was leading him down. And if the Emperor had still been alive out there, somewhere, maybe he could’ve answered some of those questions.

“Why do you all look surprised?” Yanily said, matter-of-fact as usual. “Hiral’s sword is broken. And Dr. Benza had it. If this Emperor guy was still around, I can’t imagine either of those things would be true.”

Hiral couldn’t help but nod at the spearman’s logic.

“How did he die?” he asked.

“He…” Li’l Ur started, then stopped and shook his head. “He…” The lich’s boney fingers wrapped tightly around Seena’s hair like he was physically trying to hold on to his thoughts. “I… can’t remember. It was… important, though. I…”

“That’s okay, Ur, don’t force yourself,” Seena said with worry at the little guy on her shoulder.

“I…” he said looking up at her. “You’re pretty.”

And that was the end of Li’l Ur’s lucidity for the time being. His bouts of reformed-legendary-evil-level knowledge were growing longer and longer the stronger Seena got, but they still had limits. The fact they’d gotten as much out of him as they did was practically a miracle.

“Thanks, Ur,” Seena said, patting the lich on the head again, and passed him another lock of her hair to play with. That seemed to make him infinitely happy. With her pet distracted, Seena focused on Hiral again. “You can ask him more about it later, when he’s up to it.”

“I know,” Hiral said. “No need to push now. That was already a lot to sift through.”

“More importantly,” Yanily spoke up. “Can you do the glowy thing again?”

“Preferably without the groping part,” Seeyela added. “Pretty sure Favela said no touching.”

“I…” Hiral started, then looked at Seena. “Was it really that bad?” he whispered.

“No,” Seena said. “They’re just being dramatic.”

“Even my wife doesn’t touch me like that,” Drahn said.

“Weren’t you unconscious the whole way?” Hiral asked, and Drahn’s face cracked into a small smile before he turned away.

The bastard was trying to get in on the fun of bullying him! Which… just made Hiral smile too. If he could joke with them, maybe some of those old prejudices really could be worked past.

“Back to Yanily’s question,” Hiral said, shaking his head slightly. “I think I can do it again… partially.”

“Partially?” Seena asked.

“I really didn’t almost die,” Hiral said very clearly before anything else. “However…”

Seena’s eyes narrowed dangerously.

“However, it wasn’t comfortable,” he emphasized how minor it was very quickly. “I basically forced open new Cycling channels within my body. And the PIM. It… hurt like hell. I can still feel them, but I think I need to ease off on how much I push them, so I don’t do any permanent damage.”

“If that’s a risk, maybe you shouldn’t do it again at all?” Seena suggested.

Hiral shook his head immediately. “Like a muscle, I’ve got to push it to get stronger. Just not… so far each time.”

“Was what you did,” Yanily said. “Was that the full power, the full – what did Li’l Ur call it? – the full Aspect?”

“Don’t think so,” Hiral said. “Just a fraction of it. So, I guess I’ll work on using a fraction of a fraction for the time being. Very carefully and not recklessly at all,” he added and looked Seena in the eye. She clearly didn’t believe a word of it.

Yanily, on the other hand, just whistled. “If that’s just a fraction,the Aspects might be stronger than Eloquently Enraged+. Maybe we all need to get to work on figuring them out.”

“I can walk you through what I did, though I’m not sure it’ll be the same for you all.”

“Sure,” Seena said. “But not now. You think you’re good to move again? It’s been safe here so far, but I’d like to put some more distance between us and the squid if you’re up for it.”

“No problem,” Hiral said, starting to get up, and Yanily came over to offer him a hand. While he didn’t need to get pulled to his feet, he couldn’t help but appreciate the support from his friends, and he let Yan and Seena help him up. “Kind of feels like after getting a decent workout. Drahn, how about you?”

“It’s not too bad,” Drahn said, patting his bandaged leg. “I’ll keep up.”

“No need to push too hard,” Seena said. “Not until we need to. Sis, you good to scout ahead?”

“On it, Boss,” Seeyela said with a quirked smile before slipping her helmet over her head. Then she vanished with a bamf.

“You sure about Left and Right?”

“Yeah,” Hiral said. “I’ll call them back if we run into something we can’t handle.”

“Good,” she said, then wrapped her arms around him in a tight hug. “Really, I’m glad you’re okay. And, thanks for getting us out of there like you did. Nobody said it, but I think we would’ve been in trouble if you didn’t do all that. Reckless as it was.”

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Any of you would’ve done the same,” he said, returning the hug and just savoring the feel of her close to him.

She gave him one more tight squeeze – a sure sign she was going to let go – then backed up a step. “I wish we could…” she started quietly, just for him. “But we can’t. I need to check on Drahn.”

“I know,” he said. “We still have plenty of later. Don’t worry.”

A nod, a smile, and she walked over to talk to the tracker.

Hiral watched her go for the second it took her to move away, and then Yanily smoothly moved into where she’d been standing.

“Little close there, Yan,” Hiral said.

“But, now that it’s just us,” Yanily said with a wink. “Go on. You know you want to. Nobody else is watching.”

“Uhhh…” Hiral started.

“The glowy thing. Do it.” Yanily said almost breathlessly, eyebrows wiggling like they were dancing to the Chord of the Primal Storm on his forehead.

Hiral glanced in Seena’s direction, and she was firmly distracted checking up on Drahn already.

“Just once, to make sure it still works, right?” Hiral asked the spearman.

“Exactly.”

Nodding – and only glancing at Seena one last time – Hiral gently pushed solar energy into the new channels he’d forced open when he’d reached for the Edicts earlier. A soft burn, like pushing his muscles during a workout, followed the energy as it traced its way along. Careful and slow, Hiral kept an eye on the flow, noting where it wanted to go, and areas of slight resistance.

The spots around the six runes he’d used during the mad dash were smooth and open, which made sense, since they were the paths he’d brute-forced. Near his other runes, though, there was still a barrier of some kind. Almost like a plug. While he could possibly force them open, every instinct in his body was telling him not to do that. Especially not any time soon.

He hadn’t exactly lied to Seena about his condition, but looking more closely like he was, he could see the stress he’d already put on his channels. Bursting open more of these plugs would not be good for him. If anything, it was more likely it would ruin the natural flow of his channels. No, his better – and less reckless – plan was to let the flow of solar energy past these nodes naturally erode them. It’d take longer, and maybe he could force one much later if needed, but it would be much, much safer.

Interestingly, through the monitoring of his channels, he noted the effects of the chimeric blood he’d used to reforge parts of his body. It was that process that’d paved the way for the new channels, and he could feel the subtle influence of the magic from the Gloves of Ur’Thul he’d added. The almost random combination of events had played a major role in making reaching the Edicts possible.

With his cursory examination of the channels done, Hiral more directly moved the energy towards those six runes – and the Edicts they should connect to. For some reason, the Ring of Amin Thett had enabled the process, and he made sure to thread Energy and Connection to the space within the ring. As soon as he did, something within his channels – and his blood – ignited, and the PIM across his body began to glow more brightly.

A second later, the connection with the ring clicked into place, and white energy billowed out from Hiral’s neck – where his Rune of Connection was – then tightened back up and condensed around his throat. Like a loose-fitting scarf, the energy hugged the lower half of his face, just below his nose, then twisted behind him to pass through the center of the Ring of Amin Thett. From there, thanks to his sensory domain – When did I even activate that…? – he felt the two ends of the scarf gently flapping in a wind that wasn’t there.

The new accessory wasn’t the only change, either. Like before, the six, activated runes on his body bled their white color out into the jacket, turning them into a negative of before. The black, fabulously soft fabric of the Second-Skin of Ur’Thul transformed into a pure white energy, with the runes themselves turning black to sit inside the energy. This change only occurred in the few, very specific locations, so part of his left sleeve was now white, as was the center of his back, and, finally, his right thigh. Interestingly, only the nearby double-helix pattern changed as well, with the rest of it maintaining its previous, yellow flow.

Since he wasn’t able to put quite as much energy into it as the previous time, it looked a little more… splotchy… in comparison. He also didn’t have the same appearance of clawed fingers from the energy, but that wasn’t a concern.

“So?” Yanily asked. “How is it?”

“Not bad,” Hiral replied, opening and closing his hands as he flexed both arms. Despite only one of his sleeves glowing, the boost was equal throughout his body. “It’s not huge, maybe a twenty percent boost to my stats – and it only burns a little – but I think I can keep this going for a long time. My absorption rate is pretty much keeping my topped off.”

“You can glow as much as you want? Without a cost?”

“There’s a cost… it’s just not large enough to matter when I’m standing still. In a fight, when I’m using other abilities too? I’ll have to be more careful.”

“Still OP,” Yanily said. “Any debuff when you turn it off? Should I be ready to catch you again?”

“I… uh… guess we should find out,” Hiral said slowly. “Ready?”

“I got you,” Yanily said with a small wink, and held his hands out to either side in preparation for catching a falling Hiral.

“Thanks. Here we go,” Hiral said, hyping himself up, then cut off power to his pseudo-aspect. The glowing scarf vanished within the blink of an eye, along with the runes reverting back to their white on black. And Hiral, he… felt fine.

He didn’t pass out. His channels didn’t feel like he’d had fire poured through them. He didn’t even have a debuff.

“I’m… fine,” he said, almost surprised. “No debuff or downside to using that.”

“Does it have a name from the PIMP?” Yanily asked.

“Nothing, so it’s not enough to trigger an ability evolution yet,” Hiral said. “That’s okay, though. The practice of moving the energy through my channels is good. Were you able to see what I did?”

“With Cycling+, yeah.” Yanily gave him a thumbs up.

“He wasn’t the only one,” Seena said, coming back over with an eyebrow raised. “Didn’t we just… you know what, never mind. It’s safe?”

“It’s safe,” Hiral confirmed, even going as far as re-igniting the pseudo-aspect. “And getting easier the more I use it.”

“You going to keep glowing the whole time we move?” Seeyela asked, reappearing with a bamf.

“You think it’ll make us stand out more?”

The woman shook her head. “It’s actually not very bright. More like wearing white, instead of black. Just a touch brighter.”

“Then I’m going to keep it going,” Hiral said. “I’ve got a lot of things I’d like to test…”

“Of course you do,” Seena chuckled.

“Do you think Left and Right are out there glowing wherever they are?” Yanily asked with a wistful glance back the way they’d come.

“How all this works with them is one of the big things I want to test,” Hiral admitted. “But, I doubt anything will happen unless they’re at least close to me when I activate it. And, before you ask, I’ll wait until we find the dungeon before I do any of that testing. They can cancel their own summons, so if they haven’t yet, there’s a good reason for it.”

“Speaking of the dungeon,” Seeyela said. “I think I found it.”

“It’s in the woods?” Yanily asked.

“Not… exactly,” she responded cryptically. “It’s better if I just show you all. Everybody ready?”

Seena looked at Drahn before saying anything.

“I’m ready to go whenever you are,” the tracker said.

A look from the party leader to Hiral – he just nodded he was ready – and she clapped her hands together. “Okay, let’s go find our first B-Rank dungeon.”