Rune Seeker

The more Hiral looked at the window – and read the description – the more he felt his gut reaction was the right one. Not even considering the fact the PIMP seemed like it was trying to remake them in the image of those who came before, there was the fact these offered abilities were random. There wasn’t even a list of possible abilities that could activate for Resonance. How would that play out during a fight? Random abilities firing off could distract or hinder the party as much as help.

No, this wasn’t the right ability for him or his party. The only question left was whether or not he could do anything about it.

With the windows, the only things he’d ever really done before was read and dismiss them. This time, instead, he reached out and touched the screen, then threaded his Rune of Connection into it. Glowing strings sprung to life in his vision immediately, reaching from the screen to dozens of places along his PIM, energy pulsing within. Another, thicker strand – more of a rope, really – went from the window to the dungeon interface.

That has to be both the power source for the new ability, and the instructions to rewrite my PIM.

Moving from the dungeon interface, Hiral turned his attention to where the strands connected with his PIM. Like he’d figured, he could almost see the changes being made to the script along his body. Interestingly, he could tell it wasn’t complete. Or, more like, it wasn’t finalized. The changes were there, ready to go, but because he hadn’t closed the window, it hadn’t locked into place. They were malleable.

Which meant… did he still have a chance to change it?

Looking closer, he noticed Resonance of Lost Heroes wasn’t the only ability that hadn’t been finalized within his PIM. All the new abilities he’d gotten in this achievement session remained incomplete. There was a hint of one more achievement waiting for him as well, but so far it didn’t look like it was doing anything. He’d probably have to wait to see what the window said, so he put it out of his mind for the moment and focused on the ability he knew he was getting – the one he didn’t want – and how he could change that.

Maybe it doesn’t set until after the last window is closed? Which means, if I’m going to alter these, it’s got to be through this window interface. Like my PIM has the rules of how my abilities work, this window must possess the guidelines necessary to rewrite those rules.

Except… following one strand, then the next, and the next, and a dozen more after that – none of them went to his runes. Why wasn’t the window that connected to his PIM connecting to his runes? They were his abilities too, weren’t they?

Had the PIMP ever directly given him a runic ability? If anything, his first three runes – Separation, Attraction, and Rejection were the closest, but even they didn’t come as abilities. Hiral got those from the golem branding him with the runes, basically. Yes, there was strong evidence to suggest the PIMP had somehow taken control of that golem to seek Hiral out, but those runes were still external to Hiral’s PIM.

Every other rune since those, they’d come from his exposure to runes etched in something. Many had been from items or places within dungeonscreated by the PIMP, but once again, not directly through achievements.

That had to mean the PIMP couldn’t give him runes as ability rewards. If it could, wouldn’t it have already gifted him all the ones it needed him to use instead of making him figure things out himself? Then again, there was the chance it was all about balance, and him figuring it out was a way for the PIMP to give him more powerful runes, but something about that seemed a bit off.

No, it seemed more likely the runes existed outside of the PIMP’s control. Or maybe outside of its power. Which, considering what the Dr. Benza in his dream had said about the runes themselves wanting to be found, almost made sense.

And his PIM, it wasn’t actually runes. It was a language like runes, and Hiral had gleaned understanding of it during his runic epiphanies. He’d watched – and felt – it change as he’d grown stronger with his runes.

The PIMP wasn’t the only thing that could alter his PIM – his runes could to!

Which meant if there was any way to change this ability here and now, his runes were the key. Too bad he didn’t have any ideas for a runic epiphany at the moment. Then again, the option literally right in front of him was probably the most direct route to what he needed.

With a direction in mind and his fingers still pressed against the achievement window, Hiral gently channeled his Rune of Energy forward. If anything was going to let him start the process of manipulating the strands – and his PIM – that was it. Except, he couldn’t push the energy past the tips of his fingers. To his rune, the window was a supremely solid surface, keeping his senses from touching the underpinning structure guiding the current change.

More energy – more pressure – and the window vibrated to his eyes, but his energy didn’t move even a fraction of an inch. It was a solid surface, perfect in every way to his senses as he switched to viewing it with Cycling. The energy leaving his fingers ran across the surface and around the edges to meet at the other side, but the window’s dimensions seemed to exist outside of what he physically saw. Like it went deeper into reality than his eyes were designed to see.

… reality?

Didn’t he just get a rune that could help him with this kind of thing?

Bet this wasn’t what you had in mind when you put us in this dungeon…

A thread of solar energy went to his Rune of Dreaming as Hiral focused on reducing the barrier keeping him out of the inner workings of the notification window. At first, the same resistance he felt against his Rune of Energy welled up to stop him, but he willed it to soften. To let him in. It was a notification window, and he would open it.

That was his concept. His will. And powered by his new rune and the Edicts around him, the window obeyed.

Pain lanced through his head the instant the protections on the notification window faded, the true scope of it suddenly expanding before his eyes. On and on it went, filled with meaning and complicated equations that he could almost understand. The problem was there was simply too much. All at once.

This window didn’t just hold the instructions for the new abilities he’d gotten – it held instructions for his entire PIM. Every character and inch of script across his body was detailed within the window. All the rules of his abilities stood naked before him.

Naked like the burning sun, scalding his eyes and mind as it crushed him beneath an insurmountable weight of knowledge. It was too much. There was no way he could take it all in – like being dunked in an ocean and getting told to drink it all in one gulp. Shutting off his Rune of Dreaming would allow the barrier to spring back into place, but it would also prevent him from doing what he wanted. What he needed.

No, he didn’t need to shut the window again, just filter some of it out. But what?

Squinting his eyes at the pain hammering on both sides of his head – far worse than his time runes – Hiral tried to look at everything and nothing at the same time. Focusing made it worse, but he couldn’t just ignore it all. There had to be a way to…

A gossamer thread of light within the madness pulled on his attention, and he forced himself to block everything else out. Following that short string felt like traveling hundreds of feet deeper within the window – pressure growing on all sides – until it finally reached a section of glowing characters. Characters that stood out from the rest.

Why they were different, he couldn’t tell. Was it color? Size? Font? His brain wasn’t making sense of what his senses were seeing – his eyes had stopped working like eyes by this point – but these equations were different. Unfamiliar…

Call of the Wild. It suddenly made sense why he didn’t know what this was, he’d just gotten the ability. It also explained why it looked different! It hadn’t become a finalized part of his PIM yet. That… that was his starting point.

Quickly filtering out any of the equations that didn’t glow the same way Call of the Wild did within the window, Hiral trimmed down the overwhelming mass of instructions to just five sets. Five new or modified abilities. He ignored the sixth that didn’t seem to do anything. Each glowed slightly differently – or maybe they hummed – it was impossible to tell with his senses all blending together. That didn’t matter though, this was what he could work with.

Moving from Call of the Wild, Hiral found Power Shot+, then Vengeful Echo Aura+ – there was a common type of connection between some of the instructions that had to be from the empowered nature of the abilities. Next to the aura was his true target, Resonance of Lost Heroes. A complex tangle of script like a ball of twisted yarn. There was a method to the madness, but it was still a lot.

And it was already so entangled in his PIM, that trying to pull it free would take other things with it. Barely looking at the overlapping areas from the corner of his eyes was enough to drive more spikes of pain through his skull, so he retreated to just studying the new ability.

And it was fascinating. The ‘rules of the universe’ was no understatement. The script – even only the basic parts he could understand – outlined how the complicated ability would work. He even had to suppress a chuckle at the section outlining how the manifested abilities of the Lost Heroes really were based off stories.

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

The PIMP was almost improvising, but it was still too much randomness. The more he looked at it, the more he saw. The generated abilities could be anything. Movement abilities like the one Nivian used, or Yanily’s Skyfall. Defensive abilities like Seena’s wings – that would lock the user in place – or powerful attacks that may not differentiate friend from foe. All of it was powerful.

All of it was a risk.

No, he couldn’t use this ability if he took it as it was. But, how could he change it? It was clearly too complicated for him to try and rewrite. That wasn’t even counting the fact that although he could understand some of the language, he certainly couldn’t produce it.

And that gave him an idea – and once again his runes would be the answer. Reaching out to the equation for the Vengeful Echo Aura+, Hiral gently pulled on the lines he needed with his Rune of Attraction. The strangest sensation washed over his body at the same time he moved the lines and overlayed them across the Resonance of Lost Heroes.

Just have to line them up right…

With the two scripts – one above the other – where he wanted them, Hiral swapped from Attraction to Absorption, pulling the aura script down onto the Resonance. Then, out came Breaking and Dreaming again.

He’d considered using Separation to outright remove the random part of the ability, but then he wouldn’t have had any of the strange energy making up the equation to work with. Worse, the whole thing could’ve come undone. No, with Breaking and Dreaming, Hiral softened the characters in the equation, then pulled on the aura line again with Absorption. This didn’t combine the two lines – he didn’t pull hard enough for that, though he probably could’ve – but it did prompt the Resonance line to reshape itself, almost like a stencil.

It's working!

With that small – but most important – change made, Hiral’s attention turned to the other three abilities he had access to without completely frying his brain. Was there something he could use there? Yes!

A little of that. Maybe a touch of this. Oh, definitely that right there…

Hiral pushed and pulled the lines of equations, overlaying and weaving them within the Resonance matrix. Distantly, his body twitched and sweat, and a building fatigue joined the near-constant pain in his mind. If he kept pushing this much further, he might seriously damage his PIM, so he released his grip on the different equations, letting them float back to their normal positions.

Then, with just the Resonance filling his vision, he gave it one last look. It wasn’t perfect, but it also wasn’t bad for his first attempt. And, if things worked like they should, it would make the ability not just usable, but almost as strong as what the PIMP originally gave him.

More importantly, it would be his ability, and would better fit his party. His friends.

With that all done, Hiral pulled his mind back out of the window he’d practically dived into, and it took everything he had not to simply fall over. Vertigo combined with nausea in a nasty one-two combo that nearly took him out at the knees, and only a hand on each shoulder kept him standing.

Left and Right were right there with him, literally holding him up. The rest of the party was standing around him in a semi-circle, worry on their faces. A quick look at the dungeon timer showed he was already twelve minutes into the sixty-minutes before they got kicked out. That’s how long he’d been inside the ability, editing the equations.

How long he’d been standing stone still and unresponsive too, most likely.

“Something reckless?” Seena asked from right in front of him, and it took him a second to notice both of her hands were on his chest. It wasn’t just his doubles helping hold him upright.

“Why would you…?” Hiral started to try and play it off, but his voice came out a coughing wheeze, like he’d barely been breathing for those twelve minutes. After a solid bout of hacking – with his doubles looping under his arms to help keep him up – he straightened again. “Maybe a little,” he admitted.

“Only you could do something reckless by standing still,” Yanily said, though there was worry on the spearman’s face, just like the others. “What did you do this time?”

“I… think I edited a skill,” Hiral said, and got blank looks in return. “The achievement reward, I didn’t like it. So, I used my runes to try and change it.”

“You can do that?” Seeyela asked.

“Not easily,” Hiral admitted. “But, yes.”

“What skill did you change?” Yanily asked.

“Before that,” Seena interrupted, reaching up to cup Hiral’s face in her hands. “Are you okay? Your eyes were glowing like Yan’s when he uses some of his abilities.”

“Already feeling better,” Hiral said, and he meant it. His PIM had settled, the pain and nausea had faded, along with the weakness.

“Good,” the party leader said, squeezing his face tighter. “Then stop doing things that make me ask that question! What the hell made you decide to try and change a skill? Left, I thought I asked you to keep him out of trouble.” Her head turned on the double so quickly it was a miracle she didn’t pull a muscle.

“You think too much of me,” Left said flatly.

“Give the guy a break,” Right said. “Left, I mean. Hiral deserves to be punished for what he did. Maybe a whip would be… oooph.” The double cut off as Hiral’s elbow found his gut.

“Why don’t I just show you what the new skill is?” Hiral offered anything to change the subject.

Seena looked between the three of them, squeezed Hiral’s face once more to remind him to stop worrying her, then stepped back. “Fine, let’s see what you did. Was it worth it?”

“For no other reason than the point of it? Yes,” Hiral said, and Seena gave him the you’ll-have-to-explain-that-later look. “Also, it’s a pretty great ability, if I do say so myself.”

Then, a thought shared his new achievement window with the party.

Achievement: Face the Music

Reward: Class Ability (Active): Resonance of Heroes

Worry not on the darkness of the road ahead, for new heroes stand with you.

Resonance of Heroes: Grants a party-wide buff that echoes abilities of the new generation of heroes.

Grants Ability (Passive): Resonance to user and members of user’s party within range.

Resonance: Chance on ability usage to repeat as a Resonance Echo.

Note: Abilities generated by Resonance have a chance to manifest as a Building Resonance, charging for up to 3 seconds before releasing.

Note (2): Building Resonance attacks do up to 45% increased damage, while Building Resonance support effects see 45% increased proficiency.

Note (3): Chance to manifest as a Building Resonance increases against enemies of higher Rank than user, or of Unknown Rank.

Note (4): Range of Resonance of Heroes is 200 feet from user at time of usage.

Note (5): Duration of Resonance—2 minutes per Rank

Note (6): Cooldown—60 minutes

Note (7): Cooldown between Resonance Echoes – 10 seconds.

A smile replaced Hiral’s previous frown at the Resonance ability. This was far more what he was after, even just in principle. The echoes were kind of his thing at this point, but more than that, his party wasn’t relying on the power of somebody else. They weren’t trailing after.

No, with this, the echoes were following them. It was an oddly small change that made all the difference to Hiral, and it eased a weight off his chest. Like this, maybe he could forge his own path.

As long as the PIMPdoesn’t get too insulted by it…

A new blinking notification sprang up in the corner of Hiral’s eyes, as if the PIMP had heard his thoughts. With the others still reading through his new ability, he left the window shared, and peeked at the new one, half-bracing for a sarcastic reprimand.

Congratulations. Achievement unlocked – Cracking the Code.

Through reckless behaviour, you have done the improbable, pulling aside the curtain to reforge an existing skill into one of your own.

It’s yet to be seen if this was wise or not.

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

Hiral’s eyes lingered on that last line. The PIMP didn’t seem to be angry with his tinkering, but it also hadn’t gone unnoticed. A thought dismissed the notification, and the expected follow up window came immediately.

Achievement: Cracking the Code

Reward: You didn’t die.

With a stunt like that, you should be a vegetable right now.

Bonus Reward: Class Modification: Enduring Mind

Enduring Mind: Exposure to the building blocks of PIM magic has sharpened your mind. Gain resistance to mental overload and insight into future modifications.

You’re just going to do this again anyway.

He took back his earlier assessment – the PIMP was definitely annoyed at him. On the other hand, it sounded like it was surprised he’d made it through in one piece. Maybe – just maybe – that was more dangerous than I thought it would be. The Enduring Mind trait would certainly help if he decided to do it again.

And he would if the PIMP tried to force him down a path he didn’t want to go. It was all a question of whether it would try again or not.

Dismissing that window, Hiral found his whole skill-editing process had interfered with the natural flow of notifications – one more waiting for him.

Achievement: One Less Threat

Reward: Class Modification: PIM Upgrade

Encountering an ancient Infested of a different race has led to PIM energy optimization.

All PIM attributes increased by 10%

Hiral had barely started reading the notification when a burn passed through his entire body. Runic equations throughout his PIM rewrote themselves in an instant, and then it was done. Just like that – as if to make the work he’d just completed look amateurish by comparison. Whether or not that had actually been the reason, the result was immediate – he could feel it throughout his body. His attributes really had increased by ten percent. Still, he popped open his status window to check.

Attributes

Strength (Str)—18 (15+22) = 66

Endurance (End)—18 (15+22) = 66

Dexterity (Dex)—20 (15+212+16) = 384

Intelligence (Int)—18 (15+22) = 66

Wisdom (Wis)—18 (15+22+22) = 94

Attunement (Atn)—20 (15+212) = 360

Despite his current, moderate annoyance at the PIMP, Hiral couldn’t help but be impressed by how much he’d grown under the magic it… provided. To think he had almost four-hundredDex. And his Atn was only slightly behind at three-sixty. Even though they’d only gotten to level three through the dungeon, his growth was impressive.

From the looks on his friends’ faces, he wasn’t the only one who’d gotten the upgrade, so he let the final window fade. With that notification vanishing, he felt a strange sort of ripple run across his body. No, it was across his PIM. The abilities had finalized within him. Funny he’d never noticed that before.

“I know we all have a lot to talk about,” Seena said. “And we will. Hiral’s new ability is just the beginning. But, first…” she trailed off, and they all looked at the interface.

“Nivian and Wule are waiting for us,” Hiral said.

“They are,” Seena said, her face a mix of emotion. Anticipation at seeing them mixed with the fear of them not still being out there. That the party had taken too long in the dungeon. Then her face hardened. One way or another, they’d be reunited soon. “Exit dungeon.”