Rune Seeker

“Or at least,” he amended, looking at the destruction. “What’s left of it.”

“Do you think anybody could’ve survived?” Seena asked, clearly remembering the scene that’d played out in front of all of them other than Drahn. “It looked… bad.”

“Assuming that’s how it actually happened,” Seeyela said. “Hiral’s theory was we played the roles of somebody who was actually there, but maybe not exactly how they played them. Events could’ve been different too.”

“It’s possible,” Hiral admitted. “Or my theory could’ve been entirely wrong.”

“Why would it be a dungeon now?” Yanily asked. “If it’s really one of the islands. Are we supposed to finish off any survivors? Did some of the monsters make it down?”

“Even if they did, this all happened a long time ago. And, look at this place, nothing lives here.”

“Perhaps, further in?” Drahn suggested. “Just because the destruction is this bad here, it doesn’t mean the entire dungeon is like this.”

“He’s got a point,” Seena said. “We’ll move ahead assuming something is going to try very hard to kill us. It’s still a dungeon after all.”

“Could be like the Forge of Ur’Thul,” Seeyela suggested. “A non-combat dungeon.”

“Pretty sure the Urn tried to kill us at the end there,” Yanily reminded them all.

“Either way,” Seena said. “Hiral, you ready to… er… what are you doing?”

Crouched down in front of the group while they chatted, Hiral had his hand on one of the glowing, crystal veins in the stone floor. “It’s the same as the crystal roots up in Fallen Reach,” he said. “I should’ve realized it right away, but the color was different. Maybe because they were getting real, constant sunlight. This is definitely one of the islands.”

“Do you know which one?” Seena asked.

“No, but I’m one sure we’ll find the answers in one of the buildings,” he said, standing back up.

“Want me and Left to go look around?” Seeyela asked her sister.

The party leader thought about it for a moment before shaking her head again. “Not yet. We still don’t know what kind of dungeon this is, and I don’t want you to stumble into something like those Ghost-Web Spiders. Stick together for now. Hiral?”

“Ready,” he said, deciding on one of the wider paths that led deeper into the dungeon. Then, as soon as the familiar tap hit his shoulder, he started ahead. All around him, his sensory domain stretched and felt along the edges of the rubble-strewn cavern. But, it wasn’t the domain that picked up the first clue as to where they were. No, it was his eyes that landed on something stretched out into the path ahead from the debris of the wall on his right.

A crystal arm, with three thick digits at the end.

Unbidden, one of his first – and most terrifying – memories replayed in his mind. A crystal palm, with a glowing Rune of Separation – though he didn’t know what it was at the time – reaching forward to press against his chest. A simple touch that seemingly ripped him in three.

The arm on the ground was the same as the crystal construct that’d started him down his runic path.

“You see it too, huh?” Right asked him.

“See what?” Seena said from behind.

“Ahead in the path,” Hiral said. “Looks like the same crystal construct that attacked us before. Well, me, mainly. The one that made the footprint you were told to avoid.”

“The one that gave you your runes?”

“That’s the one.” By that point, the party reached the motionless arm in the tunnel. The arm still connected to the rest of the construct half-buried under massive rocks. From the fractures running along the surface of the crystal, there was no way it could’ve survived.

And likely no way Hiral could fix it.

“Does this mean the one that came after us before was B-Rank?” Yanily asked, gently prodding the hand with the blunt end of his spear. No reaction.

“It would’ve had to have been,” Hiral reasoned. “No other way it could’ve stood up to those Shapers.”

“This… this is what we were taught to avoid?” Drahn asked. “The square footprints? It doesn’t seem so terrifying.”

“Try being E-Rank and having it chase you through the woods,” Seena said. “Repeatedly.”

“While making things explode into cubes with a touch,” Yanily added.

“This must be the Builder island,” Hiral said, mostly ignoring the back and forth between the Growers. “That’s the only reason I can think of why this would be here.”

“Does it have same rune as the other one?” Right asked.

“Go ahead and check,” Seena said. “Just don’t go exploding on us.”

“I’ll keep the exploding to a minimum,” Hiral said, crouching down and flipping the hand so it was palm up. “Ah, never mind. Just a Rune of Rejection. Maybe they all have the same runes…”

“I know we should keep moving,” Seeyela said. “But, I have two questions.”

Hiral reached out with his sensory domain, but the tunnel ahead and the chamber behind were empty. “Still clear for the moment.”

“Okay, what’re your questions?” Seena asked.

This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

“First off, how did one of these get all the way over to the that zone where we ran into it?” Seeyela asked. “Pretty sure we’re not anywhere close.”

“We’re not,” Left confirmed. “Though, as a B-Rank entity, it’s conceivable it walked.”

“Or got tossed there when the island was destroyed,” Yanily suggested. “It was missing an arm, and had cracks all along it. Nothing E-Rank could’ve done that.”

Seeyela shrugged like either answer could be the truth – or maybe something in between – and that seemed good enough for her. “My bigger question is… these things are B-Rank. Why were they on the island in the first place?”

“They could be like the items in the…” Hiral started, then stopped as his eyes widened. “In the vault! The vault that was on the Builder island!”

“You mean the vault that has all the loot in it?” Yanily asked. “All the up-to-S-Rank-loot?”

“Exactly that one!” Hiral said. “It might be down here. Well, a dungeon version of it… I guess. Though…” he trailed off as another thought occurred to him.

“I know that look,” Seena said. “And it means you thought of something bad.”

“Maybe,” Hiral admitted. “B-Rank is almost the strongest Dr. Benza’s people could make, right?” The others nodded before he continued. “Well, if you were going to put all of your other most powerful items in one place – a vault – for safe keeping, what else would you put around it?”

“Guards,” Seeyela said. “You think these things were set up to protect the vault? Uh, and could there be A-Rank versions?”

“Could be. Though, I’d be surprised if we had to fight any in a B-Rank dungeon, wild or not. Either way, any golems – A- or B-Rank could also be very against somebody trying to force their way in. The vault exists to help the PIMP motivate people, not get looted by a lucky party.”

“I don’t think that’s why we’re here,” Seena said, even as the others all looked at the B-Rank construct on the ground. “This is a wild dungeon, and they’ve all had a point. Finding the vault – while that’d be great for us – doesn’t seem like the right kind of point. Not while the PIMPneeds it to hand out dungeon rewards.

“No, there’s something else down here, waiting for us.”

“That’s not ominous at all,” Yanily said.

“Not one bit,” Seeyela said flatly.

“Hiral, anything else you can learn from the construct before we continue?” Seena asked him.

“Just one random thing I want to try,” Hiral reached down and used his Mold Crystal ability on the arm. The crystal seemed to resist his touch… at first. With a few seconds of effort, and some extra solar energy, he was able to manipulate the previously hard substance like it was a somewhat resistant clay. “Was kind of hoping my ability would give me an easy way to stop these,” he told the others as he got ready to stand back up. “No such luck. If we do have to fight one, it’ll be the old-fashioned way.”

But, just as he was about to take his hand away from the arm, a small spark of energy coursing through the body drew his attention to its back. What could that be? There, between the shoulder blades – and within a shattered section of crystal – sat another, separate shard. About as long as his hand, and maybe an inch in diameter, the thing practically glowed to his eyes.

“Something else?” Seena asked, obviously catching his pause.

“Maybe.” Hiral reached out and dusted aside the crystal fragments from where the construct’s body had been shattered. Somehow, miraculously, this other crystal shard was still intact, and he lifted it out of the body. Almost immediately, a notification popped up, thanks to View.

Solar Core – B-Rank

A nearly eternal source of power for limited constructs and devices.

“Solar Core?” Seeyela asked. “That something you can use?”

“I guess?” Hiral stood up and held out the crystal to give everybody a good look at it. “It’s probably the kind of thing that powered the spheres we fought up on Fallen Reach. The Mediums might even use them, as well. But, what would we need it for down…?”

He cut off as a new notification popped up in front of his face.

Dynamic Quest – Solar Core’s Not Included

You’ve found a fully-charged Solar Core, but what could it be used for?

Find a use for the Solar Core: 0/1

“It’s a quest item,” Yanily said.

“A… quest item?” Hiral asked. “Did you just make that up?”

“It’s in the guide,” Yanily said with a shake of his head.

“How long is this guide?”

“Focus, people,” Seena interrupted. “Naming aside, Yan’s right. This must be our first lead on what we need to do here. Thoughts?”

“It’s a power source,” Hiral said immediately. “We need to find something needing that power.”

“Another construct like this guy?” Seeyela toed the crystal body near their feet.

“The Mid-Boss?” Yanily suggested, a gleam in his eyes.

“Probably not,” Seena said. “Why would we have to power it up before we smash it again?”

The spearman just shrugged.

“Either way, we’ve once again stood around and talked too much,” Seena chuckled. “We have an idea what we need to do, so let’s get on it. Hiral, hold onto that, will you?”

Hiral replied by dropping the Solar Core into his Interspatial Ring. That done, he motioned Right, and the two of them moved ahead of the group to continue forward.

“Tunnel is sloping down, slightly,” he told the others, though it couldn’t have been more than fifteen degrees.

“Still nothing trying to kill us, either,” Yanily said.

“Stop sounding so disappointed about that,” Seena told him.

“Yes, Boss,” Yanily said, and the group continued on in silence.

It took them almost five minutes before Hiral’s sensory domain bulged out of the end of the tunnel, once again finding a larger space ahead of them.

“Get ready,” he said. “Another bigger room ahead. Still no movement.”

A quick double-check on his active runes – the drain remained barely noticeable – and he slowly exited the mouth of the tunnel. Then he let out a low whistle as the scene laid out before him rolled over him with a powerful sense of deja-vu.

It was just like the city he’d helped build on Fallen Reach. In a way, if he didn’t know better, he’d even swear it was the same place. Under the sterile light of the crystal veins, there had to be almost a dozen, intact city blocks filling the large cavern. Empty streets ran between quiet buildings, nothing but darkness within the windows and doors.

Homes and shops meant to carry a civilization into the future stood apparently unused. It was eerie, and terribly, terribly sad. Just looking at the place reminded him of the friends he’d made in the Rise of Fallen Reach dungeon. And, even though he still wasn’t sure if they were real, it made him miss them.

For the Builders who’d been on this island when the rain washed over it. When the giant squid appeared in the clouds above. When that monster ripped everything apart… what had they gone through? And, yet, somehow, this had endured.

Did that mean, somewhere, there were survivors?