Rune Seeker

Sweltering heat filled the room, like they were standing in a sauna, as the massive ball of fiery plasma chewed through the wall where Banst had been. Long seconds – much longer than seemed reasonable – passed before a new quest notification popped up in front of Hiral’s eyes.

Dynamic Quest Complete

Congratulations. Achievement unlocked – Face the Music

You have defeated an Infested buried beneath ancient rubble and the sands of time.

Though you walk away victorious, some of her words leave you unsettled.

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

“Unsettled?” Yanily asked. “Why would I be unsettled? Wait, is it talking about my spear? Did something happen to my spear?!”

The spearman took a step forward before the sheer heat of the still-burning sun forced him back in line with the rest of the party.

“Can’t you turn that off?” he asked, obviously concerned about what the temperature was doing to his beloved weapon.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. One second,” Seena said, holding up both hands. “Just wanted to make sure, you know?”

“I’m pretty sure,” Yanily said, making the notification window visible – even though they all had the same thing.

“Stop your whining.” Seena shook her head, then put her thumb and middle-finger together in an all-too-familiar fashion. A snap of her fingers, and the glowing sun vanished with a pop of rushing air. A clink followed something spear-shaped and glowing falling to the floor. Still, the heat had hardly lessened, and in Seena’s other hand a second ball of fire appeared.

“How is more fire…?” Seeyela started, until the new flame began spinning slowly, and the temperature in the room noticeably dropped.

“Fighting fire with fire,” Seena said. “Ugh, that was terrible. Even for Hiral.”

“I didn’t even say anything!” Hiral said.

“You were thinking it. Don’t even pretend you weren’t,” Seena said, then looked at her sister. “I can use other fire – or heat – to power up my abilities. So…” She pointed at the new fireball.

“And what are you going to do with this one when the room is cooler?” Seeyela asked, crossing her arms.

Seena blinked. A look at Li’l Ur – the mini-lich just shrugged – and then back to her sister. “A portal?” she asked.

“I think I can help with both of those things,” Hiral said, reaching back out into his Domain with the Rune of Dreaming while he was still buffed with Eloquently Enraged+. Doing what he’d done to diminish the sound had been eye opening, though – like the rest of his runes – he needed to test those limits.

One thing he definitely knew was that having the buffs – and the easier connection to the Edicts – made his ability to overlay his concept on reality much simpler. Reaching out through his Domain, along with a healthy dose of Connection, Hiral focused his mind on the temperature of the room when they’d entered.

Within seconds – along with Seena’s influence – the heat vanished, leaving only the rotating ball of flame above the party leader’s hand. Even that was noticeably cooler than it would’ve normally been, and Seena snuffed it out by closing her hand.

“Dream thing?” she asked him.

“Yes,” Hiral said. “And, before you ask, it’s much easier to affect things that are energy based. Especially stuff created by abilities. Directly impacting Banst, for example, wouldn’t have worked.”

“Can you use it to increase that buff you give us through your gropey scarves?” Yanily asked, already jogging in the direction of his spear.

“I… don’t know,” Hiral admitted. “That’s a great thing to test.”

“We’ll have plenty of time later,” Seena said. “Let’s get Yan’s spear and… and what? I don’t think Banst had a Solar Core in her chest.”

“If she did,” Yanily said. “You fried it.”

“After you stabbed it!” Seena shot back.

“Children,” big-sis-Seeyela chided. “Left looks like he has something to offer.”

Looking over at the double with the remaining wolves from The Pack, Hiral had to agree with Seeyela – Left had the I-have-an-idea look on his face.

“The field in front of the orchestra,” Left said, pointing towards the devastated stage. “It did not have the same quality of solar energy Banst herself did. It was more,” he looked up like he was trying to find the right word. “Sterile.”

“You think the shield protecting the golems was part of the building itself, not something Banst was doing?” Hiral asked, catching on. Then he looked at the shredded seating around the auditorium. “What kind of crowd did they expect?”

“Likely not one with as much firepower as we brought,” Yanily said, jogging back over to join the party, with his spear in hand. The weapon didn’t look at all the worse for wear, though the spearman himself was frowning. “No Lost gear,” he said quietly, just for Hiral.

“Ah.”

“If your theory is right, where would the core even be?” Seeyela asked. “And… uh… did it survive the aforementioned firepower?”

Stolen story; please report.

“I have some ideas,” Left said. “Let me check while you deal with the coming after-effects of Eloquently Enraged+.”

“Thanks,” Seena said, finding one of the few still-standing seats and plopping into it. “While I’m thinking of it though, how come you didn’t use that new tattoo of yours? The helmet of peace or whatever?”

“Herald of Peace,” Hiral corrected.

“It’s on his head, give me a break.”

“The Herald tattoo requires a manifestation before its abilities can be used,” Left explained. “Much like The Pack does. However, until Hiral reduced the effect of the Threnody, neither of those tattoos would shape – or form – through the interference. By the time I would’ve been able to shape it, other things were better suited.”

“It still works fine?” the party leader asked.

“It should,” Left replied before jogging over to the ruined stage. A quick shaping of his Wing of Anella, and he hopped up to begin the search.

“Right, why don’t you join back up with me, that looks like it hurts,” Hiral said, looking at his other double sitting in a chair near Seena.

“Oh, it does,” Right said. “But it was so worth it. Did you see the look on her face?”

“Wasn’t anything compared to the look on the squid’s face,” Seeyela started. “Do squids have faces? Whatever, did you see how it reacted when it tried to move on Yan and his sponsor formed? I think it almost had a heart attack.”

“Heaven’s Punishment,” Li’l Ur said from Seena’s shoulder. “Is like any dragon – very possessive of its property.”

“I’m property now?” Yanily asked. “Neat.”

Nobody got to comment on the spearman’s reaction, as the powerful buffs ended the next second. Hiral’s entire body slowed, along with his thinking – though it wasn’t nearly as bad as it used to be – and he cancelled Foundational Split on his right side. As soon as his tattoos and Meridian Lines appeared, he found a seat and dropped into it. All things considered – the ruined theatre, the charred stage, smoke and ionized air filling his nostrils – it was pretty comfortable.

As the only one who wasn’t debuffed – besides Left – Drahn took it on himself to poke around the rubble and keep watch. Though, looking at him – and maybe it was just Hiral’s debuffed senses – the man seemed like he had a lot on his mind. Disappointment at how he performed? Banst had pretty much ignored him the entire time, and that couldn’t feel good.

The tracker was too far for Hiral to ask, and wouldn’t answer him anyway, in all likelihood. Sure, they were on better terms, but they definitely weren’t buddies yet. He could bring it up with Seena later. For now, though, Hiral just closed his eyes and waited for the debuffs to go away.

Luckily for everybody, they didn’t have to wait long for those after-effects to fade. Around the same time Hiral stood up and stretched, Left shouted “Found it!” from the stage.

“Need any help?” Hiral asked.

“No,” Left responded, opening some kind of trap door. A few seconds later, he lifted the final Solar Core so everybody could see.

“Should be the end of the quest when I take it,” Hiral said, walking over towards the stage and activating Foundational Split. Another quick thread of energy grabbed the two swords he’d pulled from the Ring of Amin Thett and stored them away again.

“Then back to that first building?” Right asked as he peeled off.

“Yup. Where we’ll see if that device actually works.”

“You don’t think the Infested was the point?” Left asked quietly as he hopped off the stage with a beat of his single wing to land in front of Hiral and Right. “What she said about the things that sent the Enemy.”

“No, that’s more an unfortunate bonus,” Hiral said with a sigh. “If her information was the main point, we would’ve had a quest or something for it.”

“Speaking of quests,” Left said, extending the Solar Core for Hiral to take. As soon as he grabbed it and dropped it in his Interspatial Ring to join the others, the expected quest notification popped up.

Dynamic Quest Complete

Find a use for the Solar Core: 1/1

You have found all the Solar Cores needed to restart the RACIAL Scanner. Return to the device to get your answers.

Additional Minor Solar Cores Obtained: 5/5

Major Solar Cores Obtained: 2/2

“Answers to what?” Yanily asked. “Did we have questions?”

“Yan, we have a list of questions that’d stretch from one end of Fallen Reach to the other,” Hiral said with a chuckle.

“Yeah, I guess,” Yanily said. “Just feel like the PIMP is being extra vague with things lately. Also, did anybody else notice we didn’t get a dungeon clear achievement yet?”

Hiral glanced quickly at where his new notifications usually popped up, and… Yan was right.

“No dungeon interface either,” Seena said.

“Do we get it after we activate the scanner?” Seeyela asked. “Or is there a hidden Boss?”

“Sure hope not,” Seena said, putting her hands on the chair’s armrests and pushing herself up. “All our big buffs are on cooldown now. Everybody ready to go? Drahn, find anything interesting?”

“Nothing, you trashed the place,” the tracker said flatly.

“Banst… helped…” Seena replied lamely. Then she shook her head and brushed the comment off. “Let’s get back and see if Hiral’s theory on what this racial scanner does is correct. Then…”

“Nivian and Wule,” Seeyela and Yanily said together.

“Nivian and Wule,” Seena agreed. “Finally.”

Heading through the wreckage of the theatre, Hiral was quietly relieved when he found the doors out were no longer sealed. A simple push, and the immaculate entry away greeted them – though it looked like a few things had been knocked over from some of the dungeon-shaking exchanges earlier.

“Was half-expecting something to be waiting out here for us,” Seeyela said.

“Don’t jinx it,” her younger sister asked. “We still have to get back to where we started. Keep your eyes open.

And the party did, staying alert the entire way back, with Hiral’s sensory domain spreading around them to warn of any ambush attempts. None came. Instead, just a few minutes later, they arrived back at the building that housed the racial scanner.

“Shouldn’t take me long to install the Solar Cores,” Hiral said. “Any objections to doing it now?”

“None,” Seena said. “Get to it.”

Giving the party leader a thumbs up, Hiral went to each of the slots on the outer wall, systematically withdrawing one of the Solar Cores from his Interspatial Ring as he went. When he was down to just one major core left, he looked again to Seena.

“Everybody ready in case something happens,” she said, though she needn’t have bothered. The party was ready for anything. “Do it.”

One more look around the room – the other cores were already supplying power to the system – Hiral slipped the last core into place, and gave it a slight twist until it clicked. As soon as it was secure, energy flowed outward to his senses, running up the wall to join with dozens of other connections, before spiraling through the room. Similar to in the Asylums, the crystal roof of the dome lit up with soft light, but the real power ran under the floor. Lines of converged on the center of the room, and a familiar image appeared.

Dr. Benza.