Rune Seeker

As the party started off again towards the next Mid-Boss, Hiral sheathed the Greatsword of Amin Thett over his shoulder, his emotions conflicted. Nothing had really changed. He’d gotten all his equipment through dungeons and the PIMP – he couldn’t argue with that – but suddenly he was second-guessing why he’d gotten it. And what it meant about the things he’d accomplished.

Achieved.

Had everything been set out by the PIMP because it needed somebody with Hiral’s connection to runes? Was that the extent of what he was contributing? Yanily had said he was fine with being a tool, but Hiral couldn’t honestly say the same. He agreed with the PIMP’s goals. Agreed to work towards them. Not with the PIMP directly, but with his party. His friends.

On the other hand, without the power – and gear – he’d gotten through the dungeons, they never would’ve saved Fallen Reach. So, could he fault the PIMP’s methods? While his head said ‘no’, his heart definitely had other ideas.

And, here, in the middle of a dungeon, that wasn’t the time to dwell on it. Especially not while they were moving towards a Mid-Boss. Instead of brooding on what getting the Regalia of Amin Thett could mean, he turned to what he’d gained from it. He couldn’t really complain.

Despite some of his mixed feelings, he smiled. He still had Stormstrike’s abilities, even without the weapon in hand. In fact, the two abilities were listed on his status window as available for use.

And, since it had been more than a minute – the cooldown of Emperor’s Decree – he concentrated on swapping weapons. One blink, he was looking at Stormstep and Lightning Strike, and the next, the two entries were gone from his active abilities section. An additional blink, however, had a massive, bipedal rat-warrior standing in front of him, paired axes over its shoulders. It looked him up and down – like it was weighing his worth – then stepped forward and turned into a cloud of solar smoke that washed across Hiral’s body.

Another look at his status window showed two new listings under his passive abilities – Bleeding Wounds and Hack and Slash.

He wasn’t limited to taking active abilities! Hiral couldn’t stop an even bigger grin from spreading across his face as he imagined using the Greatsword of Amin Thett along with the overpowered abilities from the Bestial Axes. Maybe it wouldn’t be quite as good, since using the two, paired weapons led to fast stacking of the ability – and Frenzy – but with the sheer power the sword brought…

“Somebody is thinking happy thoughts,” Seena said, her hand back in his. It probably wasn’t his imagination she was holding tighter as well, in case he decided to run off again. “But did I just see a giant rat out of the corner of my eye?”

“Uh… you could say that,” he said, explaining his testing – along with the sudden appearance of the Bristle Pack-Rat King – and then it was her turn to smile.

“As Yanily would say…”

“OP!” the spearman finished for her over the party chat.

“You’re still listening in?” Seena asked flatly.

“Not my fault you talk in the general chat instead of a private one,” Yanily said. “At least you’re not flirting again.”

“Yes,” Seeyela added. “We can all be thankful for that. Hiral most of all.”

“Why me?” Hiral asked.

“Because it’s one thing for me to have accepted you might be good enough for my little sister,” Seeyela said. “It’s another thing entirely to have to listen to the play by play. And since I’m against gouging my own ears out, the next best option is just removing you.”

“That… doesn’t really sound like the best option to me,” Hiral said. And, as Seeyela Bamf’d back in front of him from wherever she was scouting, he almost reached for his sword.

“Think I found our next target,” she said to Seena. Then she looked at Hiral. “What?”

“He thought you might’ve shown up for some casual stabbing,” Right said from nearby, the damnable double actually chuckling at it.

“No stabbing my guy, casual or otherwise,” Seena said. “We need him to tank.”

“That’s your reason?” Hiral asked.

“My second reason,” she said with a squeeze of his hand. “More seriously, though, what did you find, Seeyela?”

“Another building that stands out as different,” Seeyela explained. “There’s a tunnel around the corner ahead. Not a natural or man-made tunnel. One left over from everything falling. On the other side of it is another facility that looks… a little more sinister than the first one. I think it was another research facility of some kind, but it wasn’t able to contain whatever experiment went wrong.”

“Aww, no more Lost loot?” Yanily asked.

“Who knows,” Seeyela said with a shrug. “Felt a lot of strange energy from the place. Definitely some gravity shenanigans going on there, but also saw pools of acid or poison, flames that appeared out of thin air and vanished the same way. Lightning crawling along the ground like a living thing, as well as ice and water in places neither should be.”

“Wish we had Wule and his elemental buffs,” Seena said. “At least each of us has some resistances to a few of those.” Then she looked at Drahn and Hiral. “Well, three out of five ain’t bad.” Then she looked at Right and Left. “Three out of seven is worse.”

Right held up his new gauntlets.”

“Okay, four out of seven is… passable,” Seena amended.

“I might be able to do something to reduce – Reject, technically – the damage from the elements. It won’t be as effective as with the last Mid-Boss, because I was directly countering the runes, but I can try. Probably only one type at a time though…”

“Anything could help,” Seena said. “What’s going on, anyway? You changing roles from tank to some kind of buffer?”

“Can’t I do both?” Hiral asked.

“I don’t know, can you?”

“Sounds like he’s going to try,” Right said. “Don’t worry, we’ll pick up his slack.”

“We always do,” Left said.

“Okay, I think that’s just about enough ganging up on me from all of you,” Hiral said.

“It’s just because we love you,” Seena said.

“And we show our love through stabbing, right Yan?” Seeyela said.

“Mid-Boss!” Hiral reminded them. “Focus.”

Seena gave him one last squeeze of her hand, then donned her party-leader face. “Hiral’s not wrong, and remember, this Mid-Boss probably has the other half of some kind of rune. We don’t know what it will do, but the last one let the Guardian attack from its illusory doubles. Expect something similar. Aside from that, environmental hazards.”

“And in case anybody forgot,” Yanily said. “Don’t stand in the fire. Or the ice. Or the poison… or gravity… or lightning. Just, maybe don’t stand anywhere.”

Hiral looked over at Left. “Think you can help with that?”

The double nodded and reached down to the tattoo on his left calf. With a surge of solar energy and a pull of his hand, a streamer of thick energy followed his fingers, then burst apart into a swarm of pink butterflies. No sooner had they appeared, than the Path of Butterflies raced underneath each of the party members’ feet.

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“Smart,” Seena said. “Sis, lead the way.”

Seeyela hopped up into the air, stopping on a plane of butterflies a foot above where she’d started instead of dropping back down, then turned and started down the street. Falling in behind, the rest of the party kept an eye out on both sides of the road – despite noseemingly random encounters in the dungeon other than the Glass Cannons – and quickly reached the tunnel she’d described.

Big enough for two people to go side-by-side, Seeyela didn’t slow as she entered.

“Tunnel is about a hundred feet long,” the woman in front explained. “Once we get out, I spotted a ramp down the other side, but we won’t need it with the butterflies.”

“Down?” Hiral asked.

“The ground the building was on collapsed,” Seeyela explained. “Looks like it was made up of several towers. You’ll see.”

After that, the woman was quiet, though it didn’t take long for the party to reach the end of the tunnel. And, at that point, he saw exactly what she was talking about. The center of the cavern had collapsed almost like a sinkhole had opened up underneath, dropping the main structure straight down. Unlike the first facility they’d found, this one wasn’t isolated from other buildings, and the rubble from those houses – or whatever they were – lay shattered against the facility. They obviously hadn’t fared as well in the collapse.

Worse, none of that was even the strange part. Like Seeyela had said, unexpected energies permeated the air, with rushes of flames appearing in a flash at random places in the cavern. On the far side of where they stood, a waterfall ran up the wall before disappearing into the distance. Pools of bubbling green liquid dotted the level the party stood on, not to mention the ramp Seeyela had considered they take. It really, really didn’t look like they should walk through that liquid.

Or breathe in the fumes.

It didn’t even end there, with lightning running along the walls of the facility in constant arcs. Weirder still, unless he was mistaken, it was only two bolts of lightning that never ceased moving, like they were trapped on the building.

“That… really doesn’t look like a place we should be going into,” Drahn said. “Which, I guess, makes it the perfect place for a Mid-Boss.”

“Not sure even a Mid-Boss would want to be down there,” Yanily said.

“It might be stuck there,” Hiral said. “Protecting something, like the Guardian was.”

“Let’s find out,” Seena said, giving Hiral the ol’ shoulder tap.

Stepping ahead of the others, Hiral reached back with the scarves of his pseudo-aspect – splitting them into one for each party member – and formed a light connection. Protecting them against the Guardian’s runes had opened his mind to all kinds of new ways to use this power, but he was still too new at it to get complicated. For now, he just needed to be able to protect them from the elements as much as he could. While being able to move, be aware of his environment, and possibly fight.

Two of those three things being something he hadn’t done in their last Mid-Boss battle.

Putting aside that hurdle for the moment, he threaded his Rune of Rejection through the connection, gently wrapping the party in shields to push away any errant energy that came their way. A glow similar to the solar smoke that formed into Right and Left spread across the others’ bodies, then solidified into an aura tight against them. That wasn’t so bad. Except, as soon as he took his focus off the others to step forward, the image he’d been holding in his mind – protecting the others – shattered almost immediately.

And the shields of Rejection went with it.

“Hiral?” Seena asked as she held up a hand, the solar smoke rising from it like she’d just stepped out of a hot bath.

“Hold on,” he told them. “Little tougher than I expected. Let me try again.”

Another shield of Rejection went out – once again hardening into a field tight against their armor or skin – then winked out of existence as soon as he stopped concentrating on it. He needed to be focusing on the image to maintain the protection. Which was all fine and dandy if he was planning to stand in the same place and do nothing else.

That’s not good enough. How can I make this work?

Thinking back to the Guardian, it had been able to use its shield of Rejection in the fight with the party – while it was doing other things. But, then again, it’d only been able to use it in one direction at a time. Previously, Hiral had used the rune to Reject the rain, and he’d even created little talismans for the others to protect them from the rune. Maybe he could do the same thing now to…

Hiral shook his head. No, those talismans worked because it was rain. And, even then, if the downpour was heavy enough, it would get through the field. Against something more volatile like fire or lightning, he’d need to be focused to prevent it from getting through. Even a small amount would be enough to hurt the others…

Small enough?

Rejection wasn’t his only option. He’d used his Rune of Decrease against the Mid-Boss as well. With Rejection, it kind of felt like all or nothing. Either it Rejected or it didn’t, up to the level of strength of what was coming. Light rain, his talisman stopped. Heavy rain? The party got wet. Was that making the concept of his focus more rigid? He didn’t really have an answer to that question, but his instincts were telling him he was on the right track.

If he used his Rune of Decrease, though, he wasn’t trying to stop everything. Sure, he reduced the Guardian’s runic power to basically zero, but that was also because he was using his own runes to streamline the process. Here, he just wanted to reduce whatever was coming in by enough it wouldn’t kill – or maim, preferably – any of the party members.

And, Hiral had the Edict of Decrease to work with.

Let’s try that.

Cancelling his energy to the Rune of Rejection, Hiral instead directed it to his Rune of Decrease, the Edict appearing in his vision. Almost immediately, he felt the Edict’s influence on his connection to the others – on the concept of Decreasing the effects of incoming energy. It was better – more stable – but still not perfect.

A step forward, and the auras hugging his friends held firm – barely. Okay, he could move and maintain this, but anything that truly took his attention away would ruin the effect. Fighting was out of the question. Was there a way he could do this better? The Edict was taking a lot of the load off his mind, almost like it was locking his concept into place.

Hrm, is my idea still too big? I’m trying to reduce all the environmental energy that could come at them when we go down there. What if I focus on one or two?

“You got it, Hiral?” Seena asked, the aura hugging her bulky gauntlet like a second glove. To them, it probably looked good enough.

“Almost there,” he said. Another thread of solar energy into the rune and Edict rewrote the concept he’d laid over the others, modifying it slightly to decrease any fire or lightning energy that reached them.

Sparks of blue and red sped out and along his scarves, then transformed their auras to match. Now, instead of the soft yellow glow like a sunrise, they were outlined in alternating patterns of blue and red, like a ripple constantly moving across them. Another pulse from the Edict locked the concept in place, and Hiral took a step back.

Did that do it?

Even as he asked himself the question – his attention wandering just to do that – he didn’t feel the protection he’d laid over the others waver. The Edict was holding the concept all by itself, and visibly – to him – hovering nearby. Just to be sure, Hiral moved solar energy into his other runes, quickly activating and deactivating them to see if the party buffs would fade, but nothing changed.

Success! But, what did I learn? The Edict will support a minor concept all by itself by locking the idea into reality. Which… now that I think about it… is… wow. OP. Very, very, OP. Still, very minor though – don’t get too excited. This will, at most, reduce fire or lightning energy by about fifty percent. And, I can only do something like this for runes I’ve connected to their Edicts.

That just means the Runes of Decrease, Connection, Gravity, Energy, Attraction, and Sealing. Heh, just. That’s not a bad starting place at all, and another good reason to figure out how to unlock the other Edicts.

“I think I’ve got it,” Hiral told the others as they looked at the faint red and blue running across them. “It’s not perfect, but it’s the best I can do for now. I need more…”

“Testing,” the party all said at the same time.

“Was… actually going to say practice,” Hiral said, then shrugged. “Testing works too. Thanks for volunteering. Anyway, this should reduce any elemental damage you take from fire or lightning by about half. Any more than that, and I can’t hold the aura while doing anything else. Like explaining this.”

“What about what you did back with the Guardian?” Yanily asked. “Those buffs were a lot stronger.”

“They were… because that’s all I was doing,” Hiral said. “I’m hoping with practice – and yes, testing – I’ll be able to do that again while also contributing directly.”

“Something to work on when we get out of the dungeon,” Seena said. “This is more than good enough for the time being. As for getting inside this place, I think that doorway at the bottom there is our best entrance. Anybody see anything else?”

“Whole building is in surprisingly good shape,” Drahn said. “Built out of strong stuff. I don’t even see a crack on it, despite the rest of the damage around here. Door is our best plan.”

“Agreed,” Seeyela said.

Seena nodded, then looked at Hiral. “Do you need another shoulder tap?”

Hiral chuckled. “No, sorry about the delay.”

With that, he turned and jogged down into the pit of chaotic elements.