Rune Seeker

Hiral sat with the others in front of the dungeon interface, eating a packed sandwich—courtesy of Nivian’s planning—and listening to the storm howl outside. They’d gone and run the dungeon one more time—a quick clear, under twenty minutes, since they weren’t toying with the ants and wanted to blow off some steam—and now they waited for the storm to pass.

With a free minute and food in everybody’s mouths, Hiral opened up the achievement reward window he’d gotten for killing the Infested.

Achievement: Goodbye, Old Friend

Reward: Class Ability (Active): Double Trouble

Double Trouble: Double the cooldown on any ability to increase the effects by 50%.

Note: Abilities with no cooldown are unaffected.

Note (2): Abilities can transcend traditional limits through the use of Double Trouble.

From the brief conversation after completing the dungeon, they’d all gotten abilities related to cooldowns. Yanily got one that let him reset all his cooldowns, while Seena’s let her use an ability an additional time before her cooldown kicked in. Seeyela’s reduced her longest cooldown by ten percent for each stack of venom applied, which could be really strong in the right situation. Especially if she was scoring critical hits.

They were good abilities, all of them, but the reason they’d gotten them had turned everybody off.

That just left one other notification window that’d popped up during their battle with Picoli.

Spontaneous Ability Evolution: Tattoo Combination Unlocked – Touch of Night

By combining the Way of Shadow and Touch of the Primal tattoos, channel a fragment of why people are afraid of the dark.

Touch of the Night: Magnifies all aspects of both Way of Shadow and Touch of the Primal while in darkness.

Note: Reduced effect while in light, and ability is negated by direct illumination.

An ability evolution was never a bad thing—even though only Left could benefit from it. And this one would make him a terror whenever he could move under the cover of darkness. A quick test after the fact had showed the double taking on the same appearance as the one of the creatures they’d spotted in the entry hall of the Forge of Ur’Thul. So, this Night thing—whatever it was—was something that had fought against the Squalians in the past. Something powerful enough to rank up there with dragons…

“How much longer, do you think?” Seena asked Hiral, pulling his attention away from his own inner thoughts.

“Should be any time now,” he answered, closing the ability window. “It took almost an hour for the storm wall to pass over us last time.”

“When we were hiding in the dome of thorny roots?” Yanily asked, and Hiral nodded. “Good times.”

“Seems like forever ago,” Seena said.

“Do you think… they think we’re dead?” Seeyela asked. “Uncle Caaven? Favela?” She said her daughter’s name with a hitch in her voice.

“Some of them might,” Seena said. “But Favela? She knows you better than that. Knows nothing would stop you from coming back to her.”

“I hope so,” Seeyela said, and then her face creased into a scowl. “And I hope her father didn’t just let her eat sweets the whole time I was gone. I swear, if that man wasn’t taking care of her…”

“You’ll hug him until he pops?” Seena asked with a chuckle. “I’ve seen you two together. The man can do no wrong. At least, none that last.”

“He does have the most adorable smile when he’s trying to get out of trouble,” Seeyela said with a hint of wistfulness in her voice.

“We’re going to have to tell their families,” Yanily said. “The others, I mean.”

“That’s on me,” Seeyela said. “I’ll do it.”

“Not alone, you won’t,” Seena said. “And, I have to talk to Vix’s family—ugh—and Nivian and Wule’s aunt. That woman is not going to be happy. They were all she had left from her sister.”

“At least you can tell her both her nephews are still alive,” Seeyela said. “Sort of. Maybe don’t get into the whole undead thing.”

“Definitely leave that part out,” Hiral suggested. “Too complicated. Just say they’re alive and fighting to stop a great evil from spreading.”

“Are you calling me a great evil?” Li’l Ur asked.

“Uh…” Hiral said, looking at Seena.

“More like a legendary evil,” Li’l Ur said, likewise looking at Seena. “In… a past life. Reformed now. A reformed, legendary evil.”

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“Not sure that will make a difference to their aunt,” Hiral said.

“Just leave Li’l Ur out of it completely,” Seeyela suggested. “Unless you want their mom to use him as fertilizer for her tomatoes.”

“She loves those tomatoes almost as much as her boys,” Seena said. “Would you even make good fertilizer?” she asked the lich, who only looked mildly offended.

“Wouldn’t he explode?” Hiral asked, which snapped the lich’s head in his direction. Apparently, he hadn’t considered that part of her power.

“Saving him for when I really need him,” Seena said, casually taking a bite from her own sandwich.

“Mistress,” Li’l Ur said, practically shivering where he hovered in the air.

“I’m kidding, Ur,” Seena said. “I wouldn’t blow you up. You’re too cute.”

“And a reformed, legendary evil,” Hiral said. “Don’t meet those every day.”

“How long are we going to spend on the islands before we go up to Fallen Reach?” Yanily asked. “Er… are we going? Or is it just Hiral?”

“I don’t think I can do it on my own,” Hiral said.

“You won’t,” Seena said. “We’re going with you, though I don’t know how most of the Islanders will feel having Nomads in their city.”

“It doesn’t matter how they feel,” Hiral said. “Once we explain why we’re there… what we’re trying to do… they’ll listen.”

“Will they?” Seeyela asked. “If it was that easy to get along, we would’ve done it generations ago. And I wouldn’t have almost been killed by a group of Islanders down on the surface.”

“My father is on the council—the people who decide what happens in Fallen Reach,” Hiral said. “Even if the others won’t listen to me, he will.”

“You were classless the last time you saw any of them, weren’t you?” Yanily asked, and Hiral nodded. “And now you’re coming back C-Rank and with an advanced class. They might listen to you more than you think.”

Hiral nodded slowly as he thought about it. The spearman did have a point. Then again…

“They don’t have View,” Hiral said. “They may not even notice I have a class at all.”

“Uh, then pull out your sword, your death beam, or, I don’t know, your doubles made of pure solar energy?” Yanily offered.

“He has a point,” Seena said, pointing at Yanily with what was left of her sandwich. “It won’t be hard to prove.”

“They may be surprised he can’t use tattoos or shape,” Left said from where he leaned up against the wall playing cards with Right.

“All the more reason he’ll get their attention,” Seeyela said. “Either way, Seena is right—we’ll be going with you. One of the Fallen waking up sounds way too big for us to sit on our hands and wait to see how it plays out.”

“I wish we could’ve heard Dr. Benza’s plan to put the Fallen back to sleep,” Hiral said. “Or even which one was waking up.”

“Do you know anybody who might be able to help figure it out?” Seena asked.

“I might, actually,” Hiral said. “My friend—my only one in Fallen Reach—could help us.”

“The, uh, what did you call that class? The Academic?”

“Exactly. His name is Gauto, and he studies all kinds of things related to the island. Even if he can’t help us himself, I bet he can introduce us to somebody who can.”

“Sounds like we’ve got a plan forming, then,” Seena said. “We’ll follow the storm wall until we get to the jump point. Actually, we’ll test our mounts along the way, and if they can make it all the way up themselves, even better.”

“We’ll have to be careful when we get up there,” Yanily said. “A phoenix and a Dracolich are going to attract the wrong kind of attention. We don’t want to land on a field full of Spearing Roots.”

“It’s a good point,” Seena said. “Maybe you or Seeyela should go first to warn the people around where we’re going to land.”

“It’ll be fine if we land at Uncle Caaven’s dock,” Seeyela said.

“Hrm,” Seena said, “you’re probably right. Either way, once we get home, we talk to the people we need to—Favela and our families—and then head up to Fallen Reach. The sooner we start looking for a way to stop the Fallen from waking up, the sooner we save the city. When we get up there, Hiral, take us to your dad first, and then your friend after that. Hopefully one of them will be able to help us.”

“And if they can’t?” Seeyela asked.

“Then we keep looking until we figure something out,” Hiral said. “We can always check in with Arty too. He’s connected to everything.”

“Sounds good to me,” Seeyela said. “Anything else that comes up, we’ll play it by ear. On the off chance, though, that people aren’t thrilled to see us, how many B- and A-Rank people are in the city?”

“No A-Ranks,” Hiral said. “The last one was… well… a very long time ago. B-Rank is the highest anybody has achieved in centuries, and even they took decades to reach that. There is one person who is getting closer to A, but she’s still dozens of years away at the pace people in Fallen Reach level up.”

“The dungeons make a huge difference,” Yanily said. “We’d all still be E-Rank if it wasn’t for the dungeons. Probably for another year or two, too.”

“Yeah,” Hiral said. “They only really get experience from competing in the Amphitheatre, I think. And not much, if I understand right.”

“If we tell them about the dungeons and get them working with Growers to enter, all of that could change,” Seena said. “For both our peoples.”

“Except we’re all actually one people,” Hiral said in reference to one of Dr. Benza’s Tutorials.

“Getting people to accept that may be harder than convincing them there are ancient, psychotic researchers of absurd power sleeping hidden within the city,” Seena pointed out.

“I wish I didn’t agree with you,” Hiral said, “but I very much do.”

“Us succeeding here will help bridge that gap,” Seeyela said.

“Guess we’d better succeed, then,” Yanily said, taking a drink from his waterskin.

“Were you considering not succeeding?” Seena asked.

“Just saying we should be extra sure,” Yanily said.