Rune Seeker

Six minutes into the timer, moving quickly, the party had only needed to deal with one small monkey pack, and even then, it was like they’d just happened to stumble on each other.

“You’re sure this is the way?” Wule asked, presenting the same question on Hiral’s mind.

“Definitely,” Left said.

“Left’s sense of direction has never led us wrong before…” Seena started, then mumbled, “Literally, I guess. Anyway,” she continued, louder, “we’ll keep going. We’ve still got most of the timer remaining.”

“We should be quite close, actually,” Left called back from where he jogged beside Nivian. “Around one more corner, that street ahead there, and then a straight shot to the building the soldiers indicated.”

“Doesn’t it seem like this part of the city got… quiet?” Hiral asked, his senses straining for input. Despite his high Atn, even he could barely make anything out, and it was all distant. The hooting monkeys, previously so loud, had apparently moved in a different direction.

The question was—why?

“They must be following the NPCs trying to get out of the city,” Seeyela said. “A small group like us? Not worth the time or effort.”

“Especially not with all our prejudice,” Yanily said, then stumbled. “Uh, sounded better in my head.”

“Most things usually do,” Wule grumbled as Nivian and Left rounded the corner ahead of them.

“Well, whatever makes it easier for us,” Seena said before glancing at Nivian. “Though even I’d admit the experience would be welcome.”

“Speaking of experience, did any of you actually look at your notifications?” Hiral asked. “Our experience started going into escrow during that escort quest.”

“I didn’t look, with everything going on,” Seena said. “Just figured we didn’t get enough to level.”

“I saw that,” Yanily said. “What does escrow mean?”

“Means, like, in savings,” Hiral said. “It’s being held until later for some reason. So, we’ve got it, I guess, but can’t use it. I had the same thing happen to me while I didn’t have a class.”

“Did we get experience before the escort quest?” Seena asked. “Those monkeys we saved Livik from?”

“More crowing,” Yanily said. “All of our experience so far has been that. Still don’t get what birds have to do with experience…”

Hiral shook his head, not even bothering to correct the spearman. “Maybe something to do with it being a wild dungeon?”

They rounded the corner behind Left and Nivian, only to find them stopped cold in the street. What…? Hiral started to think, but simply looking straight ahead gave him the answer to that question—and raised a dozen more.

A gray sort of fuzz covered the buildings and the street ahead, muting the light of the glowing roots so they looked like colored veins under the pallid flesh of a dying city. Even hanging above the street, crossing from building to building, the fuzz—no, not fuzz, the webbing—hung in thick strands connected by a finer mesh.

“Think I know why the monkeys don’t come this way,” Wule said, pointing ahead and to the left. There, trapped in the web, one of the gray hurler monkeys dangled lifelessly, its body emaciated and thin, like something had sucked it dry.

“Why didn’t you say anything in the party chat as soon as you saw this?” Hiral quietly asked Left as he moved up to join his double.

“Didn’t think my words would do it justice,” Left said, and Hiral couldn’t argue. “Easier to see than explain.”

“Have you seen any of what made the webs?” Hiral asked.

“That’s the other reason I didn’t say anything. It’s quiet. Too quiet. I’ve been watching, but there’s nothing moving.”

“It’s eerie,” Nivian agreed. “I feel like I’m being watched, though.”

Hiral scanned the webbing—thicker, of course, as it continued down the street—but, like Left, he saw no sign of what had made it. Then again, what was he even looking for? Spiders, obviously, but how big? Were they normal spiders, no bigger than the palm of his hand? Looking at the finger-thick strands of the silk-like material crossing from building to building, normal was probably out the window.

“Guessing our destination is further towards the middle of all this?” Seena asked Left.

“Straight ahead, about three blocks,” Left said, and Hiral stared in that direction.

After one block, the buildings on both sides of the street were barely visible under the webs. By two blocks, it looked like they were completely gone—just a tunnel of web leading further—and he couldn’t see anything beyond.

“That cave of webs looks reaaaaaaally suspicious,” Yanily said. “I mean, totally a trap.”

“Yes, totally a trap,” Seena agreed.

“Twelve minutes,” Wule said, updating them on the timer. “Think I know why getting here was so easy.”

“We should get moving,” Seeyela said.

“Before we go, do you guys know of any D-Rank spiders that could do this?” Hiral asked.

Seena thought about it for a second, then nodded slowly. “Yes and no. There’s a D-Rank area that’s off-limits. It’s right next to an E-Rank. You know the one I’m talking about, right, guys? Off on the other side of the Whispering Lake?”

“Yeah, it’s super creepy too,” Yanily said.

“We’ve never gone over there,” Seena went on. “It’s right on the edge of where the magic of Fallen Reach keeps the rain at bay, and even our D-Rankers don’t bother with it.”

“How come?” Hiral asked.

“Aside from the very short window to get in and out, it’s too dangerous.”

“And, let me guess, spiders?”

“Maybe? From the E-Rank side of the lake, you can see what might be webs on the trees. Could be something else, though.” Seena shrugged. “Short version is, I have no idea what this could be.”

“Then we move carefully,” Seeyela said. “But we have to move.”

“Yes, Nivian…” Seena started, but Hiral held up his hand one more time. “What is it, Hiral?”

“Normal spiderwebs are pretty flammable, right?” Hiral said, then pointed down the street.

“Damn,” Seena said, catching on. “That’s a lot of my offensive abilities out the window if I can’t use fire.”

“So, we need to test,” Hiral said. “Now, before we go in.”

“You and your testing,” Seena sighed. “But you’re right. Pick a small patch of webs that hopefully won’t light the whole place up, people, and see what abilities you can and can’t use. You’ve got thirty seconds.”

Unlike Seena, Hiral didn’t have any fire-type abilities, but the bolts from his RHCs with the Rune of Energy modifier did generate a lot of heat.

Energy, huh? Hiral looked down the long street full of webs. If his RHCs didn’t start the whole thing blazing, maybe there was a way to make the trip to the center faster. The others had already started bringing normal flames and infernal flames close to the webs—Right included—so Hiral unholstered an RHC. A quick search found him a patch of webbing that didn’t look to be too connected to anything. A brief check to make sure nobody else was already burning the place down, and he shot a bolt at the webs.

Like a hot knife through butter, the blast cleanly cut the webbing, leaving each side to slowly drift down before hanging loosely. Dropping to a crouch, Hiral pulled a fork out of his Spatial Ring and gently lifted the webbing up to get a look at the end. Seared, but not smoldering. It’s pretty sticky, though.

Hiral gave his fork a tug, and while the web resisted, it eventually let go. Still, that was just one small thread. Getting more than a few of those stuck to his body could completely bind him, and his mind went back to the image of the hanging monkey. Worse, the Lashing Vines over his shoulders were having a field-day, slapping nonstop at the webbing all around him. Unlike his RHCs, the slight infernal component to them didn’t seem to be strong enough to completely burn away the webs, and they quickly got tangled.

In nothing short of a few seconds, the two vines connected at his shoulders were completely immobilized, though they still continued to thrash, threatening to pull him into the webs. That’s no good.

Hiral turned his attention to the buff notification in the corner of his view and, with a focused thought, dispelled the vines. Didn’t know I could do that.

With the vines dismissed, the pull on his shoulders vanished immediately, and he went back to his tests. He’d tell the others about the vines—if they didn’t figure it out themselves before then—but he didn’t have much time to get more information.

What about the ground? Hiral turned his attention to the webbing on the ground, but to his high Atn, the texture was definitely different. More taut, like the wire of an instrument, while the sticky stuff was closer to silk. And his fork didn’t stick to the ground-webbing like it did to the hanging stuff.

So, like Seena would ask… what’s the trick?

“The hanging stuff burns, but it burns too fast to spread much,” Seena said. “The stuff on the ground, though, doesn’t seem to burn at all.”

Hiral stood to find the others finishing off their tests as well. Like Seena had said, normal fire seemed to travel the furthest, but even that burned out completely after only a few inches. Pure infernal fire—like from Right’s fist—acted similar to Hiral’s RHCs, simply disintegrating the webbing without spreading at all.

“The Lashing Vines are a problem,” Wule said. “I had to dispel the buff before they dragged me into the webbing.”

“You can dispel the buff?” Yanily asked, dangerously close to getting pulled into the hanging webs as the vine on his shoulders continued to thrash and yank.

“Yes, Yanily,” everybody seemed to say at once.

The spearman’s eyes darted to the side, and he made a face like he was thinking really hard. Then the vines disappeared. A roll of his shoulders, and Yanily stepped forward, then leaned casually on his spear. “This should be easy, then.”

“Says the guy who almost got eaten by his own buff,” Wule said with a shake of his head.

“No Lashing Vines while we’re in the webs,” Seena confirmed. “And seeming easy is what makes me really nervous.”

“Nervous, or easy, or both, we’ve got eleven minutes,” Wule said.

“Even with the fire, moving through all this sticky webbing is going to be slow,” Nivian said from the front of the group. “Ideas?”

“I’ve got one,” Hiral said, lifting his hand in the air so that the Ring of Amin Thett rose with the motion.

“The death beam is your plan?” Seena asked.

“It’s not fully charged—not even close,” Hiral said, “but it should do the trick.” Without waiting for another comment, he pointed down the street and concentrated on the Rune of Energy within the empty space of the ring. As before, the rune formed and then curled into a ball while visible arcs of solar energy empowered it. A second later, a two-foot-wide beam sliced through the webbing straight down the street.

Hiral only had a heartbeat while the beam existed, but a fractional change of the angle cut a cone of web-free space for the party to move through down the cavern. Then, with the energy of the ring spent, the device settled down to once again float behind Hiral’s back.

“I could’ve just thrown a fireball or two,” Seena said with a smile. “But that was probably safer. Okay, folks, let’s move.”

With that, Nivian took the lead again, quickly leading the group into the tunnel of webs. Hanging threads drifted as they passed, and the occasional one got stuck for a moment before tearing. They’d barely gone half a block before movement above caught Hiral’s eye, and he shouted a warning to Nivian as something as big as a dog unfurled and dropped down at the tank.