Rune Seeker

Hiral’s feet touched down at the same time everybody else’s did – on the far side of the room from where they’d just been – but he didn’t dash forward like the others. No, he practically stood still, focusing on his power flowing through the scarves to his party members. On the connections he’d made with the people ahead of him, and most importantly, on what he could do with those connections.

Restoration was still going strong, working with the potion in Yanily’s body, the Waters of Frey, and the Banner of Courage to mend the spearman’s wounds. And, Hiral had said he’d protect them from the golem’s runes – which he would – but was that all he could do?

A smile quirked his lips as he began to test.

First came his Rune of Increase, while he focused on the simple concept of his friends’ attributes. Almost immediately, the others moved faster, reaching the golem just as the three illusions spun around and started their dash back to attack the party.

Yanily’s spear lashed out with a barrage of lightning-fast thrusts to hammer into the Guardian’s shield of Rejection, while the others split off to circle around. Fire erupted from Seena’s bulky gauntlets, washing over the side of the golem, and Seeyela vanished with a bamf. From the other side, Right and Left criss-crossed their way into melee range, lines of infernal fire and inky water overlapping with the afterimage left by their pseudo-aspects.

Out and around came the golem’s scythe to cut the doubles off – literally – and Left smoothly took the lead, his Dagger of Sath rising to parry the blow. Comically undersized compared to the incoming weapon, Left didn’t hesitate in his movement, trusting in Hiral to protect him from the terrible power of the Rune of Separation.

Hiral’s own rune flooded down through the connection, bolstered by his Rune of Decrease and its Edict. As soon as it reached his double, it raced along his limbs and into his dagger, glowing with a power only Hiral could see, almost like the Rune of Separation etched itself into the liquid weapon. Now, it was only the question of whether or not Left could…

Scythe met dagger, and where Hiral expected a titanic clash, it was entirely anticlimactic. No shockwave. No explosion of opposing forces, though the sheer weight behind the golem’s strike was enough to push Left back. But, in that brief opening, Right ducked inside the Mid-Boss’s guard, while Seeyela appeared on top of the arm to run straight up the still-moving limb.

/(O_O)

The suddenly shocked face of the Guardian didn’t slow Right or Seeyela, and Hiral channelled more power though his connection with the two. Impact and Breaking joined Increase as Right’s fist pulsed with power, the infernal flames creaking as they degraded reality where they passed. For Seeyela, Hiral added Gravity to reinforce her own powers, along with Compression to focus the tips of her fangs.

As one, the pair struck, Right’s fist smashing into the golem’s chest, while Seeyela drove both of her Fangs of the Lady into the golem’s shoulder. Green and purple light spread through the joint, veins of it crawling their way down the arm and deeper into the chest. And, where the light passed, the crystal seemed to lose some of its shimmer. Meanwhile, Right’s hammering blow gushed hungry flames up the opposite side of the guardian, while simultaneously jerking the whole, massive Mid-Boss to the side.

Crablike legs scrambled on the floor for purchase as the thing slid ten feet to the side. Worse for it, the sudden movement did nothing to dislodge Seeyela, her feet glued to the thing’s arms with a quick application of her own gravity powers. Dagger strikes continued to rain down on the golem from where she perched, literally chipping away at the joint and injecting more of the deadly venom with every stab.

One, two, three, four, five, six, in quick succession, she almost looked like she’d taken a page from Yanily’s Reed Spear Style, and finally the golem seemed to have had enough. Up came another of its arms, and the Rune of Energy blazed to life. Seeyela only glanced at it before getting back to the stabbing, and Hiral pushed his own Rune of Energy up the connection.

Once again powered by the Edict of Decrease, Hiral’s protection encompassed Seeyela a heartbeat before the golem’s attack washed over her. Like nothing had even happened, the woman continued her rampage, a section of the shoulder joint clearly missing from where she’d ravaged it.

Seeing that its attack had no effect on Seeyela, the golem quickly changed tactics, erecting its shield of Rejection between its body and her terrifying daggers. Which, unfortunately for it, left it exposed to Yanily and Seena on the other side.

Both quick-stepping in to join Right, the two attackers immediately went to work while Hiral bolstered their abilities. To Yanily, Hiral channeled another instance of his Rune of Breaking, while also adding his Rune of Time Contraction, further speeding up the spearman’s blur of attacks. Seena, on the other hand, got more Increase and Compression, with his mind focused on the miniature, flaming tornadoes in her hands.

The tornadoes she promptly drove into the small of the golem’s back, if it could be called that. While Yanily’s spear sounded like hail on crystal, the resounding impacts echoing across the room, Seena’s attacks released a resonating grind that sent a shiver down Hiral’s spine – and took solid chunks off the Mid-Boss’s health bar. The next moment, Left dove back into the fray, while Seeyela backflipped off the Guardian’s arm, then Bamf’d midair to reappear at its side and drive her daggers into one of the leg joints.

All the while, Drahn stayed back near Hiral, peppering the golem with his pollinated arrows. One, two, three he rapid-fired them, while Hiral added his Runes of Absorption and Attraction to the shots, speeding up the terrible solar-pathway damage the poison would do. It was all just too much for the golem to handle, and its health continued to plummet as pieces of its body shattered or degraded under the continuous assault.

By the time its illusory copies arrived, the Mid-Boss was already at fifty-percent heath and continuing to fall. And, if it thought the reinforcements would make the same difference they had before, it was in for a rude shock.

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Keeping up the buffs on his party members, Hiral turned most of his focus to countering the attacks by the three new additions who seemed to think they could flank the party. Still closing that last dozen feet, they started by charging up the Rune of Energy – the easiest for Hiral to deal with, and he gave quick instructions.

“Don’t slow down, I’ve got this,” he said, not even bothering to guess who the target would be, and reinforced everybody with his own runes. First came the solar energy pulse, and then when the blast scorched across Seeyela for a second time – and she didn’t even flinch – the Guardian must’ve figured out something was up.

Almost immediately, the Runes of Impact glowed to life on the four golems’ clublike arms, and they wound up to strike at different targets. Seeyela – of course, the golem really seemed to hate her – as well as Right and Yanily, while the Mid-Boss itself turned on Seena.

“Seena, parry!” Hiral barked out – that attack would be real no matter what. Then, as the predictable solar energy pulse came, he focused on his senses. Which one would…? “Yan, you too!”

Without hesitation, the spearman’s spinning weapon moved from being on the constant attack to line up perfectly with the swinging arm at the same time Hiral’s own Rune of Impact reinforced it. Wings made of concentrated storm clouds burst from Yanily’s back, while arm-thick bolts of lightning thunked into the ground like tethers.

Seena, meanwhile, crossed her fiery pair of weapons in front of herself and flared the sheath around her body. Armor of churning flames covered her from toes to shoulders, and the vicious beak of a bird of prey materialized in front of her face as the phoenix’s head materialized. Like with Yan, Hiral made sure her weapons were ready.

All happening within heartbeats, the two stood strong as the clubs crashed into them… and barely did anything. With the pairs’ quick reactions, they’d negated the worst of the natural weight behind the blows – neither even taking a step back – while Hiral dealt with the Impact.

It can only use one rune at a time. No mixing it up.

From there, it started really going downhill for the golem. The party went to work methodically dismantling the great beast, and left Hiral to negate its attacks and continue buffing them. One more Energy attack was tried before the golem seemed to give up on that and moved to purely physical attacks. Clubs and scythes got parried – Hiral perfectly countering the runes on the weapons – while the party members themselves got better and better at dealing with the attacks.

After blocking three more of those strikes, the golems’ fourth attack saw it winding up its clublike arm yet again. Something about it was different though, and two of the illusory constructs closed on Yanily – he was doing almost as much damage as Seeyela by this point with his blistering spear-strikes. Up and over came one club, while the other swept around, like they were trying to make it impossible for the spearman to parry.

Unbothered by the aggression against him, Yanily repositioned his feet and brought his spear up into a position to parry either attack. It wouldn’t be perfect, but it would be enough. Then came the pulse of solar energy, and Hiral’s eyes widened.

It wasn’t the Rune of Impact lighting up – it was the Rune of Breaking.

“Yan, claw!” Hiral shouted, but it was too late as the twin clubs passed harmlessly through the spearman, and a thick claw snapped out to grasp him around the chest. Knowing what was coming next, Hiral used the Rune of Breaking he’d already infused Yanily with to counter the destructive damage housed within the limb.

One second, two, three seconds the claw tried to break Yanily, but it didn’t seem to have the physical strength to damage him through his armor, and the rune was useless. Yanily just smirked, and the next second when the claw faded, he burst towards the ceiling in a bolt of thick lightning.

That was the cue for the others as well. Seeyela’s daggers took on a terrible new glow, the dark green pulsing and dripping to the ground where the stone sizzled and spat. Right’s fist glowed with a dark fire that churned in the air, popping and cracking like reality was tinder to his flames. Seena’s twin, flaming tornadoes actually got less dramatic, focusing down to two-foot batons of concentrated fire – but the heat radiating off of them melted the stone at her feet. Left shaped his Touch of the Primal and summoned The Pack, a pair of howls echoing out to buff the party even further.

Drahn… well, he did his best… and a small bed of flowers popped up around the golem, to make it look like the four-crab-legged monster was frolicking in a summer field.

There, with the whole party closing on it with what appeared to be devasting attacks, the Guardian had to choose which it would try and block with its shield of Rejection.

(T_T)

Almost in slow motion to Hiral’s eyes, his friends lunged in, color and energy staining the small space around the fifteen-foot golem. Four arms tried to move to block attacks, but everybody present knew it wouldn’t work, the golem included. Around Hiral’s friends, the illusory constructs began to swing their scythes in the hopes of making somebody abort their attack – or at least ensure mutual destruction.

Then came the pulse of solar energy, and Hiral saw something he hadn’t noticed before – another rune hidden almost at the top of the Guardian’s body. One he didn’t recognize! He noted that for later as the shield of Rejection appeared in front of Seeyela’s stabbing daggers. Predictable. The venom had been ravaging the golem, there was no way it would want more of that in its system.

With Yanily in the air, and Left representing probably the smallest threat to the golem, that just left Seena and Right as the potential targets. A target the surge of solar energy to its runes made perfectly clear.

“Don’t slow!” Hiral shouted, jerking his hands forward. Four spheres zipped into the space behind Seena, barriers forming and reinforced with Separation to intercept the materializing scythe. Not as strong as any of the individual party members, the shields faltered under the natural weight of the strike. Shattering the next second, one of the spheres got bashed into pieces by the dull blade – but it bought Seena the second she needed to clear the swing.

Flaming batons drove into the base of the golem where its legs connected, striking the same spot Seeyela had already weakened with her venom. There was barely a sizzle before the limb broke and gave out under the Guardian’s weight. As it started to fall, Right appeared out of nowhere, a haymaker of a punch coming straight across to blast the bottom of the unbalanced golem out from under it. Kicked up and practically horizontal to the ground, the Mid-Boss got a good lookat Yanily as the spearman hit the ceiling and bounced back down.

(o_O’)

Skyfall+ lived up to its name as it slammed into the helpless golem, then further smashed it to the ground. One shockwave after another rolled out from the consecutive impacts, shaking the room – maybe even the entire dungeon – and sending arcing electricity across the floor and ceiling. After the initial flash cleared, Yanily was left standing with his spear driven blade deep into the construct’s chest.

(X_X)

“Not fooling me a second time,” Seeyela said, appearing directly above the golem’s head with a bamf. Even as the face started to change – and the four arms jerked to catch one of the two party members – the woman mercilessly drove her Fangs of the Lady down with dramatic finality.

Dynamic Quest Complete

Congratulations. Achievement unlocked – ~(o_O)/~

You have defeated a forgotten guardian of a lost facility belonging to a people who never truly got to see the sun.

Please access a Dungeon Interface to unlock class-specific reward.