Rune Seeker

Just savoring the feel of Seena’s hand in his – and the small smile on her face – Hiral ignored the notification that popped up in front of his face until Yanily not-so-subtly coughed. One more second, and one more squeeze, then Hiral let go and turned his attention to the glowing window. As soon as they got Nivian and Wule back, they could slow things down.

The Lost Refuge of the Lost – Wild Dungeon

B-Rank

Top Clear Times

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Attempt Dungeon?

Yes / No

“Nivian and Wule still haven’t cleared the dungeon,” he pointed out, though everybody was clearly thinking the same thing.

“We might even beat them back out if they’re taking it slow,” Yanily said. “Can you imagine Wule’s face?”

“No,” Seena said. “Because I’ll be too busy looking at it. I can’t believe we’re so close.”

“Not getting any closer standing around in here,” Seeyela pointed out, gesturing to the usual, sterile, white room they’d appeared in. The red portal had vanished without a sound behind them, leaving them alone with the notification window in the simple room.

“True,” Seena said with a nod. “Hiral, you want to bring Left and Right back out before we get started?”

“Of course,” Hiral said, immediately activating Foundational Split, and solar smoke peeled off him to form his two doubles at his side. After the mad dash from the strange Chimeras – and the giant Enemy – without them, it was unsurprisingly comfortable to have them nearby again. “Hey guys, thanks for covering for us back there. Find anything interesting while we were apart?”

Instead of the usual flippant remark Hiral would’ve expected from his doubles, they instead shared a very serious look with each other.

“Actually,” Left started. “We did. Something we’ll need to discuss, but it would be best to wait until after we’ve been reunited with Nivian and Wule.”

“We’ll need them,” Right added, his face still deadly serious.

“Uh…” Hiral started, a little taken aback by the vague proclamation. “Care to give us a hint?”

Another look shared between the doubles.

“We found a sealed raid zone,” Left said.

“One that won’t be sealed for much longer,” Right clarified. “From the message we got when we found it, it’s not something we can ignore.”

Hiral looked at Seena as the dream of slowing down fled his mind like it’d just called Nivian’s stew soup.

“Of course there’d be something else,” Seena said, rubbing the bridge of her nose. A sad smile in Hiral’s direction – clearly having the same thoughts he did – and then she donned her party-leader face. “Sounds like there’s a story to this,” she said, and both Left and Right nodded. “Like you suggested, let’s save it until we’ve got the others with us again. Then, we’ll figure out what we need to do.”

“Raid zone,” Yanily said, gently elbowing Seeyela in the side. “You know what that means?”

“No,” Seeyela said.

“Er…” the spearman started, obviously not expecting the response. “Raid zone means we need our raid…”

“No,” Seeyela said again. “I’m not the raid leader. That’s not me anymore.”

“Sis,” Seena said.

“I’m not doing it,” Seeyela said. “I’m not the best person for the job. And, before any of you even start to argue, we can talk about it later.”

“We will talk about it later,” Seena agreed.

“Good. So, how’s about we get on with the stabbing? This is a dungeon, and a wild, B-Rank one at that, so we should put our game-faces on.”

With the reminder, the casual, friendly atmosphere immediately vanished to be replaced by the calm professionalism they’d nurtured over their previous visit on the surface.

“Hiral, Right, you two good with being up front for this?” Seena asked. “Until we get Nivian back…”

In answer, Hiral ignited his new pseudo-aspect, the six runes – and the black fabric around them – reversing their colors, while the energy scarf unfurled behind him. Surprisingly, at the same instant he did that, energy flared off Left and Right, as they apparently benefitted from the same buff.

Except, it didn’t look exactly the same. They didn’t have runes. For Right, it was his Meridian Line glowing black on white fabric – on his left arm. Even though he hadn’t previously had a Meridian Line over there!

“Oh yeah,” Right said, catching on to the same thing Hiral had. “Now this is what I’m talking about.” More energy glowed from the same spots as Hiral on Right’s back and right thigh, and the double had a dangerous grin on his face.

“It seems you aren’t the only one with boons from the pseudo-aspect,” Left said, and Hiral tore his eyes away from Right to look at the second double. Like the other two, Left glowed in the same places, but for him, he had tattoos glowing along with everything else.

“Your tattoos…” Hiral started, and Left nodded.

“Stronger,” Left said, putting his hand to his forearm and shaping the Dagger of Sath. Instead of coming away with a faint, purplish glow – from the Infernal Conjuration ability – the weapon was instead black, almost like it was made of a burning ink. Flickers of purple sparked within, showing it hadn’t lost the Infernal component, but something stronger had definitely taken over.

“What does it… do?” Hiral asked, partially mesmerized by the new aura emanating from the liquid dagger.

“I honestly don’t know,” Left said. “It may not be different at all – other than stronger – but I feel like there’s more to it now.

“I’ll have to…”

“You’ll have to…” Hiral said at the same time.

“Test!” everybody else finished.

“We know,” Seeyela said with a chuckle.

“But we’ll be doing it inside the dungeon,” Seena said.

“One sec,” Hiral quickly said, holding up a hand to make sure Yanily didn’t hit the ‘yes’ button. “One more thing I need to check first. It’s fast!” Then, before anybody could argue, he cut off the power to his pseudo-aspect, and the glow vanished from all three versions of him. Even Left’s Dagger of Sath returned to its normal form. “Okay…” he mumbled before reigniting the pseudo-aspect, and the glow burst from all three.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

The Dagger of Sath, though, stayed in its normal form.

A quick dismissal and reshape of the weapon brought it back out as black ink.

“So, I need to be in this form for you two to get the benefits,” Hiral reasoned. “Anything you shape will lose the extra power – whatever it is – if we leave the pseudo-aspect, but can be reshaped easily enough. There’s a bit more of a drain on my solar energy than when I was by myself, but it’s manageable.

“And our right thigh, do you have the Waters of Frey now?”

“I do,” Left said with a nod, the tattoo clearly visible on his leg.

“That’s amaaaa… Waaaaaait!” Hiral said, his mind connecting where he was glowing to Left’s tattoos. “Your back. The spear!”

Left shook his head. “It’s somehow still incomplete. My guess is you need a third rune on your back – there’s still space – before I can shape it.”

“Damn,” Hiral said. If Left had the Spear of Clouds… but he didn’t. No use dwelling on it. He’d just need to figure out another rune to fill in the space, and then connect to the Edict.

Hiral sighed, then shrugged. “I think that’s enough information for us to start the dungeon.”

“Really, this time?” Yanily asked, hand hovering in the air and fingers wiggling.

“We’re ready,” Hiral told Seena.

“Your RHCs?” she asked him.

Hiral clenched his fists closed. “I think I’m going to start like this. I need to see what these Edicts can do.”

“Just don’t…”

“Be reckless,” Hiral finished for her. “I know. I’ve still got to switch things up for Ever Changing+, so I’ll go to whatever works best.”

“Okay, good. Everybody else ready?”

When Drahn, Seeyela, and Yanily all nodded, Seena gave Hiral the shoulder tap.

… which didn’t really do anything since they were still standing in the white, ready-room.

“Yan,” Hiral said. “If you would?”

“One B-Rank dungeon, coming right up!” the spearman said and tapped the air.

As soon as the scene started to change, Hiral and Right moved to the front of the party, while the others spread behind them, weapons ready. They’d landed in all kinds of situations with their entrances into the dungeons, so there was no telling what could be waiting for them.

Nothing, as it turned out.

At least, nothing that wanted them immediately dead.

Similar to the dungeon-entrance they’d left when entering the portal, they found themselves in some kind of cave. Underground? It was tough to say, but there was a lot of stone above their heads, and the passageway was narrow enough it wouldn’t allow more than two of them to walk shoulder-to-shoulder. Veins of some kind of white, glowing material stretched along both sides, the floor, and the ceiling – looking almost like frozen lightning bolts – and providing just enough illumination for the party to see.

“Not a natural cave,” Left said after the party had a chance to make sure there wasn’t an attack coming. If anything, it was almost too quiet. “I think we’re in the results of some kind of collapse. Only the way the boulders fell on each other created this space.”

“The path that was ahead of the dungeon interface?” Seena asked.

“It’s possible,” Left answered with a shrug.

“Either way,” Hiral added. “Only one direction we can go. Behind us is a dead-end.”

“Your domain thing?” Seena asked him, and he nodded.

“It’s easier with the pseudo-aspect,” he replied, then started forward, Right falling in a half-step behind him. With the sensory domain active – though it wasn’t an actual ability yet – he didn’t worry much about getting ambushed. Then again, as the party moved slowly, and he carefully felt along the path ahead of him, he quickly realized the trap he was putting himself in.

While the sensory domain had advantages, it also had the glaring weakness of not actually being his sight. It was almost like running his fingers over something while he had his eyes closed. If he knew what he was looking for, like a path – or movement – it was easy. Those things stood out. However, static things like what he assumed was the wall or floor, those fell into the category of background noise, and he practically ignored them.

If there was a rock monster or something waiting motionless in the path ahead of them, he’d never notice it until it attacked.

Just another reason not to get cocky.

With all that in mind, they continued down the path, until his domain felt the tunnel widen into a larger space. “Terrain is changing,” he told the others quietly. “Tunnel is ending. Still not sensing any monsters or anything, but don’t let your guard down.”

“We won’t,” Seena replied.

Reassurances made, Hiral threaded solar energy into his Rune of Impact – paying careful note at how the energy of his pseudo-aspect passed a kind of internal node – then flared the power around his right fist. Then, to test the difference he powered his Rune of Energy up around his left fist. The path and speed of the activation happened so fast, it was finished before he’d really even conceptualized what he wanted to do. And the effect?

Hiral’s fist practically glowed like he’d reached up and taken the sun in the palm of his hand. The corona of energy completely hid the outline of his hand and wrist, but there was no discomfort to it at all. As a bit of a downside, however, it was a noticeable drain on his solar energy.

“You stealing my thing?” Right asked from beside him as the pair reached the end of the tunnel, and stood looking at the larger cavern ahead.

“Never,” Hiral said, already cutting off the stream of energy. Intuitively, it felt like it would be pretty destructive to anything – other than him – that he touched. On the other hand – no pun intended – it was too costly to maintain if he wasn’t using it.

Is that because of the pseudo-aspect, or because it’s the Rune of Energy?

His Rune of Impact barely had a draw at all – completely negligible – now that he’d formed it. Just one more item to add to his list of things to test. For now, though, he had more important matters to consider, the rest of the party exiting the tunnel to join them in the cavern.

A collapse was an understatement, and yet… not. Huge chunks of stone filled much of the ‘space’, if it could even be called that, while the only clear paths lay between where the rocks leaned against each other. Some of these paths were dozens of feet wide, the rock-walls on either side bordering on mountainous. Others were so narrow, Hiral would be hard pressed to shimmy sideways through.

And, even more out of place… that wall over there wasn’t a cliff-wall. It was a house-wall. With an actual window in it, darkness beyond like there was a room attached. It wasn’t the only one. The longer Hiral looked, the more he spotted the ruins of buildings – and then it hit him the fact he could see anything at all.

Like the tunnel, more of those lightning-shaped veins ran through the stone, throwing a steady stream of light into the area. Sure, it created a lot of shadows, but everything remained perfectly still. Perfectly quiet.

“Why isn’t anything attacking us yet?” Yanily practically whispered. Without the party chat, even Hiral probably wouldn’t have heard him. Something about the unnatural silence almost made the place feel like a graveyard. The light from the crystals made everything hard lines of dark and light, black and white.

There was no gray. Just the stark feeling of finality, and the stale air in every breath.

Nothing has lived here for a long, long time.

“We’re sure this is a dungeon?” Seeyela responded.

“Hiral, see anything?” Seena asked instead of answering the other two.

“Nothing looking for a fight,” Hiral said.

“It was a town, once,” Left said, and everybody glanced in his direction. “Or, maybe even a city, unless all the buildings are in this area. Some of them are even higher up.” With that, he pointed up into different crevices between the gigantic chunks of stone, more and more walls, ceilings, entire buildings becoming apparent now that they were watching for them. And at all angles.

“Are we under where a city collapsed?” Seena asked the most logical question.

“We have to be, don’t we?” Seeyela said.

“What could’ve made something like this happen?” Drahn chimed in.

“Nothing good,” Yanily said.

But, Hiral wasn’t listening – at least not completely – his eyes going over the lines of the buildings. The familiar lines. Like the town they’d found in their first trip to the surface, these buildings were built by the same people. They had the same general construction, and after his time in the Rise of Fallen Reach dungeon – where he’d actually built hundreds of these buildings – he was even more sure of it.

The only question was, what could’ve made the whole city fall through…

Hiral stopped like he’d been slapped in the face.

Buildings like what he’d constructed.

Fall.

No. Fallen.

“This…” he started, barely able to believe it himself, though it had to be. “This isn’t some random city. This… This is one of the other islands from Fallen Reach. One of the two islands we watched get destroyed.

“We just found the Builders or the Bonders.”