Rune Seeker

Hiral followed the others out of the portal while they chatted about what they’d do differently the second time they ran the dungeon, but he stopped as soon as the fresh air reached him.

Something was… wrong.

He stopped dead in his tracks, straining his senses to pick out what was bothering him. There was still a heaviness to the air—moisture—so the rain hadn’t been pushed back by the islands yet. That moisture wasn’t the problem. There was lightning in the air, though it tasted… distant, which meant it probably wasn’t bad enough for the Enemy to be nearby.

But… there was another taste in the air; that was what was bothering him. What was it?

Hiral licked his lips and drew in a deep breath while the others seemed to notice how he’d stopped. The conversation cut off, and the others looked around the entrance chamber for the dungeon interface. Unlike the previous lobbies they’d been in, there hadn’t been any natural animals here making the space their home, so it was just as empty and quiet as it had been when they went in. With the main anthill being so close, there was no way anything else wouldn’t have been hunted and killed…

That was it. The taste and slight scent on the breeze.

“Blood,” he said. “Lots of it.”

“What?” Seena asked, her two tomes already floating beside her, while the others also had their weapons drawn.

Hiral activated Foundational Split to bring Left and Right out, then looked at the party leader. “I smell blood.”

“Even if it is, we can’t stay down here,” Seeyela said. “They’ve ripped the roof off of us before.”

“I’ll check with the Way of Shadow,” Left offered, and Hiral nodded for him to go. A touch of the tattoo on his chest, and the double’s whole body grew dark—almost invisible where it wasn’t touched directly by light—and he darted to the tunnel leading up to the surface.

Outside, even with the glowing roots providing illumination, there’d be more than enough shadow to make Left almost impossible to see.

“Should we head back into the dungeon?” Yanily asked.

“Even if we wanted to, there’s that one-hour cooldown before we can go back in,” Hiral said.

“We’ll wait to see what Left finds,” Seena said. “If it’s bad, we either head back to the Asylum tunnel, or follow the roots to the next dungeon.”

“Asylum tunnel is hours behind us,” Seeyela said. “And we have no idea how far the next dungeon is.”

“I don’t see a lot of better options,” Seena said.

“We’ve escaped the Enemy before; we can do it again,” Hiral said.

“Do we need to escape?” Yanily asked. “No, Seena, before you ask, I’m not being overconfident, but we’re not E-Rank anymore. We’re a lot different than the last time they came after us.”

“Dr. Benza…” Hiral started.

“Said they come in all shapes and sizes,” Yanily said. “I know, if one as big as a mountain is out there waiting for us, we should run. But if it’s something smaller? We’re going to have to stop running eventually if we want to rescue Picoli.”

“You may get your chance to do that sooner than you think,” Left said suddenly as he stepped out of the shadows, something wide and square in his hands.

“What did you find?” Hiral asked.

“Dead ants by the dozens,” Left said. “And, from the looks of it, they were killed by something punching them very hard.”

“Punching? You’re sure?” Seena asked.

In answer, Left held out what he had in his hands: a section of ant carapace with a clear fist-print in it.

“Looks like punching to me,” Right agreed, even going so far as to measure his own closed fist against the indentation. “Smaller hand than mine.”

“A woman’s fist?” Seena asked quietly.

“Could be,” Right said.

“Picoli?” Yanily asked.

“It might be another Infested,” Hiral said, but he didn’t really believe it. While there might be more of those monsters roaming around, the memory of the sadistic, glowing grin staring at him as they fled the Troblin Keep wouldn’t go away. Maybe it was a coincidence, or maybe it had somehow followed them. Either way, it felt like Picoli.

Good.

“We’re not running,” Seena said.

“Nobody was thinking it,” Yanily said, his hands twisting on the shaft of his spear. “If she’s here, it’s because she wants us to save her. Or…” He licked his lips like he didn’t want to keep going, but he went on anyway. “Or, she wants us to stop her.”

“One way or another, we’re getting that thing out of her,” Seena said. “Here. Now. She’s suffered long enough.”

“Then she and Balyo can rest together,” Yanily said, eyes on his spear, though it didn’t seem like he was really looking at it. No, he was gazing at something else in his mind. A shake of his head snapped him out of it, and he turned towards the tunnel leading up. “What are we waiting for? Give Hiral the shoulder tap, and let’s do this.”

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“Hiral, do you think you three can keep her attention on you?” Seena asked. “We don’t really know how strong she is, but she took us apart last time we fought her. And… there were more of us then.”

“I don’t have Infuriate,” Hiral said, “but I think we can make it work.”

“Or, we can just put her down so quickly it doesn’t matter who she even thinks about going after,” Right said. Then he caught himself and looked at Seeyela. Picoli had been one of her party members, after all. “Sorry,” he said quietly.

Seeyela had her helmet in her hands, staring at the eight red eyes looking back at her, emotions warring on her face: Grief, anger, loss, and finally determination as her own eyes hardened. “No, you’re right,” she said, looking up at Right. “We were too hesitant last time. Didn’t… Couldn’t commit to doing what needed to be done until too late. And it cost us dearly.

“We can’t make that mistake again. If we go out there and find the thing that took Picoli from us, we need to hit it with everything we’ve got. I won’t lose one of you.”

“No mercy, no quarter, no hesitation,” Seena said. “Everybody got it? If you can’t do that…”

“I can do it,” Yanily said. “I don’t want to, but I will.”

“Me too,” Hiral said.

“We owe her that much,” Seeyela agreed, sliding the spider-helm over her head.

“Then it’s settled,” Seena said. “Left, lead the way.”

“We’re going towards the main anthill,” Left said. “Turn left when we leave the tunnel. You can’t miss the corpses.”

“I’ll go first,” Hiral said, putting a hand on Left’s shoulder, pulling up the hood on his Coat of Ur’Thul, and starting up the incline out of the room.

The sound of the falling rain grew louder as he got closer to the exit, the water falling straight down just outside the rune-covered entrance, and Hiral flexed his fists. Open and closed, open and closed, open and closed.

Death Knell, Stormstrike, the Reinforced Blightsteel Sabre, and the Runic Blunderbuss all came out of the Ring of Amin Thett to float behind him in a gentle arc, but he didn’t take any of them in hand. Nor did he draw his RHCs or the Emperor’s Greatsword. No, he’d start this the same way Picoli fought—with fists and runes.

With the Chord of the Primal Echo dancing faintly between the raindrops, Hiral stepped past the protective boundary of the dungeon lobby, a shiver running down his spine. Cold rain splashed gently on his face, though his hooded coat protected him from the worst of it, and his doubles stepped out beside him.

Dressed in their matching long, black coats, only half of their bodies glowing with runes and Meridian Lines, they struck an imposing image. Right’s arm flared with purple flame that emanated from the back of his clenched fist. Those flames ran up to his shoulder, then down his back and the side of his chest. Left, opposite, shaped his Wing of Anella, the frigid blue flames freezing the rain that fell near it so that small needles of ice pierced the ground.

Hiral didn’t have anything as dramatic-looking—just the faintly glowing, yellow double helix wrapping loosely around his body, and the iridescent runes on the black of his Second-Skin—but it wasn’t likely the Infested would be intimidated anyway.

“That way,” Left said quietly beside Hiral, and he turned his head to spot the first ant corpse. And the second beyond it. Then the third… the fourth… the fifth, almost like…

“A trail of bodies,” Hiral said. “It wants us to find it.”

“Let’s not disappoint it,” Yanily said, stepping out of the tunnel and into the rain.

Without another word, Hiral stalked along the path of broken bodies towards where they’d earlier seen the Hive Guardians. Now, nothing moved but the falling rain and distant flashes of lightning. The glowing roots within the trees shed their familiar light, casting shadows like trailing monsters on either side of the party, but somehow Hiral didn’t worry about their flanks.

Whatever had killed the ants wanted the party all to itself; it hadn’t left any other threats nearby. Then again, that didn’t mean it was alone, but Hiral’s expanded senses didn’t feel anything either.

Step after step brought them more bodies, the ground practically thick now with broken carapace and limbs. The ants had rushed headlong at the invader of their territory, heedless of the massacre, and died in droves. Hiral’s senses scanned the scene as he moved—though his eyes stayed straight ahead—and he could feel the fatal wounds to each of the monsters, between the sound of the rain hitting them and the way the air passed over.

Like Left said, most of the ants had died to what seemed to be simple punches—from a fist so strong it shattered D-Rank carapace. Others, though not many, had been cleanly dismembered or beheaded, like the assaulter had paused their march to wait for more victims to arrive.

“How many dead?” Seena asked quietly.

“Hundreds,” Hiral said, skirting a mound of corpses so tall it completely blocked out the view of the trees beyond it. And it wasn’t the only one. From there, they followed a canyon-like trail between piled corpses, rain washing the thick blood from the bodies to pool in a soggy mess at their feet. Thanks to his Walk on Water, Hiral didn’t have to worry about his boots sinking in, but the sucking steps of those behind him reminded him they weren’t so lucky.

“This didn’t happen that long ago,” Left said.

“How do you know?” Seeyela said.

“The bodies aren’t even cold yet,” he replied.

Hiral extended one of his hands to the side to drift through thin steam rising from the hot blood.

“If this was meant to scare us,” Yanily said, “it’s not working. Actually, it’s kind of pissing me off.”

“Add it to the list,” Seena said as lightning flashed and thunder boomed somewhere distant.

“We’re getting close,” Hiral said quietly, a new sound reaching his ears after the thunder faded. A cracking, almost like wood breaking, but there was more bend to it before each inevitable snap. They rounded another curve in the corpse-ravine, and then it ran straight, the almost mountainous anthill rising up directly ahead of them.

Easily climbing to two hundred feet at its peak, it extended to the sides so far that Hiral couldn’t make out the ends. A large tunnel of some kind stood off to his right, a faint hint of movement within—ants, from the feel of the wind across their bodies—but nothing came out. Perhaps the monsters had finally learned their lesson, or, more likely, they’d run out of guards. There were other, smaller tunnels dotting the anthill as well, but they were likewise quiet.

No, it wasn’t until Hiral’s eyes lifted all the way to the peak of the monsters’ nest that he found something alive.

There, amidst a ring of dead ants numbering in the hundreds, stood a lone individual. As Hiral watched, one hand casually ripped the head off a faintly struggling ant, then held it up to the sky as if in offering at the same time lightning flashed.

Bolts crossed the sky, leaping from cloud to cloud in multiple directions, but they ended abruptly miles to the right as they ran headlong into a massive storm wall. Even in the pitch dark of the night, the wall was practically alight with constant lightning.

That has to be the storm wall pushing up against the magic of Fallen Reach, which means the sun is just on the other side of that. A few hours more, and we’ll be standing in the light again.

But that was later. For now, Hiral turned from the furious tempest to the figure on the top of the anthill. The figure now looking his way.

A glowing, skull-like grin peered down at him, a hole where the nose had been, eyes burned out by the creature inside. Tentacles wound out of the figure’s shoulders, down its arms, over its chest, and across its legs, while two more crawled up its neck to clutch the top of its head.

“Picoli,” Yanily practically hissed.