Rune Seeker

The stopper came off the vial with a simple flick of his thumb, and Hiral began pouring the shimmering liquid across the blade. Like before, the vial’s contents seemed to know exactly how much was needed and where it should go. Unlike before, the energy provided by the liquid lingered within the crystal, and Hiral felt a tug on his strands of Connection.

The edge of the blade. It’s uneven… and dull.

Hiral pushed his Mold Crystal ability into his fingers and traced them along the edge in an attempt to refine and sharpen it. No improvement. Just doing the same thing he’d done before – even with the benefits of the vial – wasn’t enough. He needed to improve his own process as well. How could he…?

My runes. Connection is already helping me see the problems, but what else can I use to make this sharper? Of course…

Energy flowed into his Runes of Compression and Separation as he brought his hand again to the blade. A touch of Rejection created an aura of even pressure between his fingers and thumb, and he again – slowly – ran his hand down the length of the blade. Compressing the crystal as he went, he trailed behind that with the concept of Separation. He didn’t want to actually separate the blade – that’d be counterproductive – but like when the runes floated around him during Eloquently Enraged+, he could improve the cutting power of the weapon by adding this hint of the rune.

As soon as he finished, the energy from the vial snapped into place, spreading evenly and then sinking deep. But he wasn’t finished yet. While the sword was indeed sharper, the flow of necrotic energy was sloppy at best.

Staring hard at the blade, it was clear the channels for the energy were erratic and haphazard. Which was a very fair assessment, considering he’d barely scratched the surface with Cycling when he’d originally reforged the blade. Now, though, with his newfound knowledge and the aid of his runes, he pushed his Mold Crystal to the limits of his Atn.

His Runes of Expansionand Unsealing rearranged the channels while widening them, making it easier for the necrotic power to flow. From there, he used his own Rune of Energy to scour the newly modified channels of minor impurities, then strengthened them with Increase and Sealing. That last one, especially, made a huge difference, preventing the corrosive energy from leaking out to places it was never meant to.

Once again, the vial’s power locked into place, and the glowing black energy around the blade somehow deepened. Still… still he wasn’t finished, though. The weapon itself had been refined, made stronger, but remained locked at C-Rank.

A line of sweat ran down the side of Hiral’s face from the concentration, but he didn’t slow. All that was left was to evolve the weapon to B-Rank. The only question was – What would it take?

Most of the energy of the vial remained within the weapon. Dormant. Waiting. Ready. All he needed to do was take whatever wonderous properties resided within the glowing liquid, and use it as the catalyst to transform the weapon.

Like it was that easy.

Or, could it be?

He’d already applied the concept of Separation to the blade itself – well, the edge, to be more specific – but could he also wrap the whole weapon up in that? And, while he was at it, could he use Energy to reinforce the necrotic component? His reliable Rune of Increase to bolster both of those aspects, then layer in the new Rune of Breaking to overall up the sabre’s damage potential? Now that he was thinking about it, wouldn’t the Rune of Unsealing be perfect for this situation?

Sure, it’d almost brought about an apocalyptic reaction when he’d tried it on the Emperor’s Greatsword, but that was because the weapon was purposely sealed. By something much stronger than Hiral. There couldn’t be much harm in trying it on a C-Rank weapon.

Probably.

And, even if there was risk, it was probably to the sabre itself. He liked the weapon, but the opportunity to test the application of his runes to the crafting – and enhancing – process was worth that risk.

Throwing a sideways glance at Seena, he found the party leader already looking at him. As soon as their gazes met, she rolled her eyes.

“Everybody back away from Hiral,” she said. “He’s got that look. Somehow, he’s testing something – even though we’ve all used our vials already – which means he’s probably going to explode.”

“Really hoping to avoid the exploding part this time around,” he said.

“Yet you don’t deny the testing part,” she pointed out.

“Not denying it at all. The vial says you need a craftsman when upgrading an item from C-Rank, and that’s what I’m doing. I… just think I may have a way to do it a little better.”

“Back up extra far,” Seena instructed the group, and everybody moved at least thirty feet away. Left and Right ushered them back another twenty feet after that.

With the others safely out of immediate range – though a look at the mountain-sized crater encouraged him to rethink that statement – he threw his attention into the final step of upgrading his weapon. Through the maintained thread of Connection, Hiral twined the power of multiple runes and – more importantly – the concepts they represented.

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Energy, Separation, and Breaking got combined with Increase and Unsealing, just like he’d planned, pushing the influence of the glowing liquid deep into the material of the weapon. Black sparks lit within the crystal as the necrotic energy gushed inside the newly expanded channels. The edge, already greatly sharpened, seemed to fold in on itself, over and over. Along the hilt, the runes he’d inscribed when first creating the weapon glowed fiercely, drinking in the influence of his other runes.

All the while, the sword pushed back through his connection. It wasn’t that it was alive or anything like that, but it resisted the level of change he was trying to force on it. The crystal – and the metal core itself – threatened to break down under the power he had infused into it, but he couldn’t back out now.

The power was already there. Removing it would just leave a void within the weapon, rendering it hollow and completely useless. No, the answer wasn’t lessening the power, it was increasing it. Or, making the sword more capable of accepting it. That was it.

Runes of Attraction and Absorption flared to life, their power and concepts flowing into the sword along with all the others. Sweat ran lines down his face as he juggled eight distinct runes, focusing the strength of six of those in only the limited places they needed to go. These last two runes, though, were different. These he spread out, through the crystal and metal both. Into the runes he’d inscribed in the weapon, and even within the necrotic energy itself.

With these, he forced the sword to suck up the magical liquid from the vial faster than it normally would. As each drop merged with the sword, the processes sped up – both the empowering of the weapon and the breaking down of its material components. Before, the physical material had been rupturing faster than it could be reinforced. Now, though, with his intervention, the roles were reversing.

The sword absorbed the power faster, quickly growing strong enough to endure the next wave of power that came crashing down on it. Along with that, the other six runes had refined aspects of the weapon, pushing them to their own evolutions.

Just a little… more…

He felt the weapon on the brink, and simultaneously yanked away the influence of the runes he’d been using, and replaced it all with the Rune of Sealing. It finished with a flash of black energy that drowned the entire dungeon in darkness. Just a split second, and then it was gone, leaving Hiral sitting – sweating – with the sabre on his lap.

“One of your bigger explosions,” Yanily said. “You okay?”

“Fine,” Hiral said. “Let’s see how the sword is doing…”

With a small, silent prayer to the PIMP, Hiral looked down at the weapon until View activated.

Blight’s Mercy – A-Rank

Once a rank-and-file weapon of little significance, this sabre has been reforged into a creation reminiscent of those who came before.

Seek not the mercy of the Blight, for all it shall grant is a swift death.

Effects: Weapon inflicts additional (true) necrotic damage.

Note: (True) necrotic damage greatly slows natural and magic healing without applying a debuff.

Note (2): Effects of (true) necrotic damage do not naturally fade over time, and must be overwhelmed with excessive healing.

Note (3): (True) necrotic damage has reduced effect on constructs, does normal damage to undead, and increased damage to the living.

Note (4): Amount of (true) necrotic damage inflicted can be increased by feeding solar energy to the weapon. Amount of increased damage is relative to the amount of solar energy used.

A notification blinked in the corner of his attention, but Hiral ignored it for now as he read the weapon information a second time, while he stood and lifted the sabre out to his side. As before, black energy like a thick liquid ran along the blade, dripping down to sizzle on the ground. The abilities didn’t read much different than before, except for that one key word that got added.

“Hey, Li’l Ur,” Hiral said. “What’s true necrotic damage?”

“The anathema of life,” the little lich answered. “And the path that only ends in death. Those few of my army who could use it were called the Blight, for that is all that was left behind when they marched to war.”

“Doesn’t sound ominous at all,” Yanily said. “Why are you asking?”

“Go ahead and use View on this,” Hiral said, holding the weapon out.

“Whoa now,” Seena said barely a second later. “Wasn’t that C-Rank before? I thought the vials only took things to B-Rank at the most?”

“Like I said, I figured out a way to do it a little bit better,” he explained. “Used my runes to power the transformation.”

“It obviously worked,” Seeyela said. “Think it’ll be much different?”

“Only one way to find out…”

“Testing,” everybody other than Drahn said at the same time.

“Just… at least wait until we get to the Endless Tunnels again,” Seena said.

“You’re not going to let him solo that one too, are you?” Yanily asked.

“Stop whining,” Seena said. “And no. He can just play a little in the entry way before we get rolling. Better we all know what the sword can do before we get to place that needs something like that.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Yanily agreed. “Can we do achievements so we can get going? All of this not-fighting is making me stiff.”

“Please,” Seena said. “Unless you need a minute, Hiral?”

“Not a full minute, but just one second…” Hiral said, opening up the notification that’d been blinking in the corner of his Party Interface.

Congratulations. Achievement unlocked – Take Pride in Your Work

You have crafted the first A-Rank item in 5,827 years.

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

“Don’t tell me you got another achievement?” Seena said, obviously aware of his tells.

Instead of answering, he just shared the notification window so the others could see it.

“That’s… a long time,” Seeyela said.

“Almost six-thousand years,” Seena said, looking at the lich on her shoulders. “Is that when you Progenitors were around?”

The little lich tapped its boney chin as he seemed to think. “Perhaps? I slumbered within the urn for a long, long time. That many years could’ve passed.”

“Do you think my sponsor would know?”

“Even the Mother of Flame may not know, nor the Void-Venom Empress,” Li’l Ur said. “I could feel it when they aided you in Fallen Reach, they had also recently awakened – or been reborn, in the Mother’s case. It seems the world has truly begun to turn again with the awakening of the Primals.”

“Great to know,” Yanily interrupted. “But it doesn’t get us any closer to getting our achievements and moving on to the next dungeon so I can stab something.”

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I agree with Yan, here,” Seeyela said. “I’m kind of missing the stabbing.”

“Fine, fine,” Seena said, then looked at Hiral. “Would you mind?”

“Sure thing,” he said, swiping his hand over the interface crystal again. “Achievement Rewards.”