Rune Seeker

Hiral stepped away from the others – just in case his explosion ended up being dangerous – and walked over to the edge of the light. There, he sat down and looked closer at the Recall Token. Hrm, his original interpretation of the rune there wasn’t actually correct. It wasn’t a Rune of Return, at least, that was what his gut was telling him.

It was close, but not quite. It also wasn’t the obvious Rune of Recall either, though his instincts told him something like that existed out there.

“So, if you’re not recall or return, what are you?” he quietly asked the token in his hand. “I’m sure it’s close to those two concepts… but… bigger.” Whatever it was, it contained those two ideas, and this particular token acted as a focus to… to what? It sent the user back to their homes. No, not quite. It wasn’t like it took them to their houses, but instead to the Grandfather or Measure.

Those weren’t their homes, but they were important places for every Grower or Maker. Not a home, but a… an origin point. In a way, their lives – connected to the PIMP – started there. At the Measure, Hiral got the crystal embedded in the center of his chest – the core of his PIM.

The token returned them to their origin… it… restored them.

With the realization, the Rune of Restoration in the token seemed to grow sharper in his eyes. There wasn’t any explosion yet, since he still needed the other rune in the pair, but he was definitely correct about this one.

“Restoration is a pretty big concept,” Hiral said quietly. “Could I use this for healing? Ugh, I don’t want to be a healer… but I guess it would be useful.” Even as he said that, though, he instinctively knew healing was part of restoration, but it wasn’t that simple. He didn’t have the same skills Milly did – the same education – and he’d be hard pressed to guide the rune to properly undue severe damage. Maybe the small cuts and bruises were possible without risk, but he’d need to be careful with anything bigger.

Abilities like Chain Heal were self-guided, in that the magic already knew what it needed to do to repair damage. Many healing abilities were like that, though there were also others that relied on the user’s knowledge to get the most from them. Milly would be aiming for those, where her training and knowledge would make those abilities cost less and heal more.

Using the Rune of Restoration wouldn’t have that self-guided function, and would act more like the second category of spells. In other words, if Hiral didn’t know what to restore, he could very easily miss something. He could restore fingers, but forget the hand they were connected to. That wasn’t even considering things like bones, muscles, and flesh.

No, he’d need to be very, very careful. Though, maybe he could use the rune to empower his High-Speed Regeneration+ since it already had the magic to guide itself. Testing for later.

Careful testing. Okay, so what is the paired rune for this?

Thinking about restoring something would mean it had to be in a damaged state. Could it be a rune of damage? No, his instincts told him that existed – probably with a rune of fixing or something – but this wasn’t that. Like recall or return was to restore, damage was akin to the concept he was looking for, but not quite it.

Destruction? That’s kind of the opposite of restoration?

That idea felt closer… but still wasn’t quite right. Destruction felt too big, as if it was the concept above what he was looking for.

Which means there’s another level above restoration, too.

Damage was too small, while destruction was too big. What was in between those ideas? If something was damaged but not destroyed… that meant it was…

Broken.

As soon as Hiral’s mind landed on the idea, a glowing image of the Rune of Restoration lifted from the token in his hands, then flipped over to its mirror image. The Rune of Breaking.

WHOOOOSH, solar energy erupted off him as the double-helix pattern on his body ballooned outward. He barely had time to hear Yanily say “And there he goes,” before all external sound vanished from his ears.

As often happened when he exploded, the yellow script expanded until it circled him in a sphere of glowing lines. Within each line, characters became sharper – more real – as they asserted increased control over their reality. No, over Hiral’s reality. Yes, runes and their associated scripts were the laws of the universe given form, but he’d always assumed they were purely external. They were written on his body to allow him to control forces outside of himself.

However, as these lines grew stronger, another realization came to him – they didn’t just affect the outside world. Each and every modification further empowered his own body in subtle ways. It wasn’t like he was gaining more attribute points or abilities, but a small fragment of the truth of the runes and the script was literally embedded in his body.

Maybe it was his higher Atn since he last got a rune – or it could be the fact he was B-Rank now – but he felt his own body getting modified along with the scripts. The Rune of Restoration added a sliver of its power to his body’s natural recuperative power. Even further, he saw – within the yellow script – where his High-Speed Regeneration+ ability resided, and those characters specifically grew sharper.

As for the Rune of Breaking, it was almost a broader change. All his offensive abilities absorbed a hint of the concept, adding a new type of damage to them. It didn’t feel like it would suddenly change the tides of a fight, but every attack would hit just a little bit harder. And, as he watched his abilities get modified, he noticed how the new rune differed from the Rune of Separation.

While Separation split things cleanly – like a razor – Breaking did as its name suggested. It was brutal, and ugly, with no care for symmetry or control. It was almost pure chaos in its need to break things apart, no matter what shape or form that took. Also, compared to Separation, it would work better with blunt damage as opposed to cutting – though it would work with slashing weapons to some degree. Just not as well as Hiral’s other rune.

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Lost in the understanding of his runes, the idea of time faded as he considered the implications of what he was seeing. Through gaining new runes, he also gained a measure of their concept on himself. Like his own reality wasn’t only growing sharper, but also stronger. Was there more to these concepts though? And, could the process be reversed? Instead of absorbing the concepts onto himself, could he in turn…

His double-helix pattern suddenly snapped back to embrace his body, and his train of thought cut off so abruptly he almost blacked out. A split-second of weightlessness, then he fell on his back to the ground with a dull thud. Thanks to his B-Rank body, he grunted more out of reflex than any sort of discomfort, but still couldn’t immediately move. As usual, the runic expansion had drained all his solar energy, and he activated Cycling+ while he lay on the ground.

Huh, Cycling+ got improved by the Rune of Restorationtoo.

It wasn’t huge, but there was definitely a small increase in the solar energy he was absorbing.

But… what had he been thinking about just before the epiphany had ended? There was something there. No, it’s gone. For now.

“You dead?” Nat called over. “Again?”

In response, Hiral lifted one arm off the ground and gave his sister a thumbs-up.

“He’s fine,” Seena said. “Just bottomed out his solar energy doing that.”

“Where did Left and Right go?” Milly asked.

“They explode with him,” Yanily said. “Or, the poof when he explodes. Don’t worry, they’re fine.”

“I’ll bring them back out in a minute,” Hiral said, already feeling less exhausted.

“Come on,” Seena interrupted. “Keep practicing. Staring at your brother won’t make him go any faster.”

“I’m not a pot of boiling water,” Hiral grumbled.

“You’re a pot of exploding water,” Yanily offered.

“Thanks.” Hiral’s tone was flat.

“You’re welcome,” Yanily said sincerely.

As soon as Hiral heard the others get back to their training, he closed his eyes to observe the changes on his body. Now that he was looking for the effects his runes had on him, he found it wasn’t just the latest two that’d made changes.

All his runes gave him what he could only describe as hidden multipliers. His High-Speed Regeneration+ still had the same text.

(Lost) High-Speed Regeneration+: Passively regenerate 3% health per 10 seconds as long as you have solar energy to power the ability.

While under the effects of passive High-Speed Regeneration+, deal bonus damage proportional to the amount of health missing from maximum.

Note: Passive healing can be supercharged for a burst of active health restoration (Cooldown: 4 minutes).

Note (2): After using active health restoration, passive Regeneration is reduced to 5% per minute until cooldown expires.

Note (3): Bonus damage increases relative to health lost and Rank.

None of the numbers from the ability had changed, but there was more to it than what he was seeing. He could feel it in his bones. Literally. The Rune of Restoration was magnifying the healing of the ability beyond what was stated. It wasn’t a groundbreaking amount – maybe not even another percent – but it was there.

It wasn’t the only thing, either. All his runes were improving his body and abilities. The Rune of Increase was probably the best example of that, enhancing anything that would benefit from an increase by a minor amount. His stats were performing above what the numbers read, and that was added on to the natural benefits of a higher-rank body. All his offensive abilities did slightly more damage – which stacked with his Runes of Breaking and Separation. The Rune of Decrease was lowering all his cooldowns, his solar energy costs, and the amount of damage he would take if he got hit. It likely didn’t end there, either.

His time runes improved his reaction speed and how quickly he processed information, working in tandem with his Dex and Atn. Absorption was definitely helping recover solar energy, and maybe it was his imagination, but Compression almost felt like it was making that solar energy more pure. Refining it so it was in turn more efficient.

Hiral opened his eyes and shook his head. He could easily spend hours just inspecting his own body and trying to figure out how his runes were interacting with him physically. Now wasn’t the time for that though – he had enough solar energy to summon his doubles – and the others were waiting on him. With that in mind, he activated Foundational Split, Left and Right forming out of the billowing clouds of solar energy to either side of him.

“I don’t believe the runes were doing that before we hit B-Rank,” Left said as soon as he materialized. “A new benefit of the higher Rank?”

“Guess that explains why I felt like I was hitting harder than I should be,” Right said from the other side. “Figured it was just cause we were in a lower-Rank dungeon.”

“Little of column A, little of column B?” Hiral said. “Wonder if the amount the runes improve us will go up with Rank then…”

“There’s a good chance it will,” Left said. “Only one way to find out. And, no, it’s not testing.”

“Clearing dungeons and Ranking up!” Right filled in.

“Yup,” Hiral agreed. “Before that, though. Left, you should’ve gotten access to another tattoo…”

“I did,” Left said, brushing aside the bottom of his Coat of Ur’Thul to show the tattoo on the back of his calf glowing brighter than it had before. “Path of Butterflies.”

“Great. That could be really useful with a party setup.”

“Agreed.”

“You might need to look into getting some new tattoos at this pace, Hiral,” Right said. “Won’t do me much good, but if you put more on the left side…”

“If I can complete that quest, maybe it won’t matter,” Hiral replied. “Then he’ll have access to all his tattoos again.”

“If you’re all sitting up and talking,” Seena interrupted, leading the rest of the group over. “That means you’re finished exploding.”

“For now.” Hiral chuckled.

“What did you get?”

“Runes of Restoration and Breaking.”

“Oh, you’re the healer now?” Yanily asked.

“No such luck,” Hiral said. “I might be able to patch up simple stuff, but the power of the rune is too broad for anything more complicated.”

“Isn’t broader better?” Seeyela said.

“Not always. It’s like using calculus to count how many apples you have in front of you.”

“What’s a calculus?” Yanily leaned over and whispered to Milly.

“A kind of complicated math,” the girl responded, but was nodding in understanding with Hiral. “Can you only use your runes on yourself?”

“No,” Hiral said. “Most of them I use externally.”

“Does that mean you could use the rune on me to increase the healing of my spells?”

“That’s a great question. I never considered it.”

“We need to test it!”

“Yup,” Seena said. “They’re definitely siblings.”