Rune Seeker

With his legs in better condition, thanks to Wule’s attention, Hiral followed the others over to the dungeon interface in the crater left by the exploding Infested.

“You know, I don’t think it’s as big as that one you made in The Mire,” Nivian said, looking at Hiral.

Hiral did his best to glare at the tank, but… objectively speaking, Nivian wasn’t wrong. The Infested’s explosion had been a lot of flash and heat, but not a lot of concussive force.

“Even his death beam made a bigger hole,” Yanily said, thumbing over his shoulder towards the long line of melted stone down the length of the street.

“I think he has a thing against roads,” Wule added. “Wasn’t The Mire incident on one too?”

“It’s an incident now?” Hiral asked.

“That’s how Nivian wrote it down in his journal,” Wule explained.

“Nivian has a journal?” Yanily asked.

“You read it!?” Nivian said, then quickly looked around. “Uh, I mean… I have no idea what you’re talking about…”

“Guys, interface,” Seena said. “We’re on a timer here, and Left and Right are waiting on us.”

“To make sure Hiral doesn’t explode,” Nivian said, apparently happy to change the subject, before looking at Hiral. “Uh… Hiral, this is usually the part where you say you’re not going to explode.”

Hiral scratched at the side of his nose. “I think I figured out another rune, but I haven’t spent enough time considering it to really understand it. After we get the achievements, I’m going to… you know…”

“Explode,” Nivian said, nodding. “Wonderful. Who has the honors this time?”

“Seeyela,” Hiral said immediately. “She basically did all the damage to the Infested with that amazing portal-window trick.”

“That okay with everyone?” Seeyela asked, and they all nodded to her and gestured to the interface. “Okay, then.” She slid down into the crater.

“Oh, good. Wasn’t sure if the floor was going to give out or not,” Wule said quietly, and Seeyela spared him a quick scowl before waving her hand over the dungeon interface.

All at once the city plunged into darkness, an unnatural silence like being at the bottom of a vast ocean coming with it. Through the massive hole in the ceiling, strange ribbons of light flashed and danced, quickly weaving their way in and along the ceiling until the party once again had enough light to see by. And, like always, there were six chests along the edge of the crater: five very small, simple chests, and a sixth, much larger and more ornate chest. Down beside the interface and Seeyela, a seventh larger chest had also appeared.

“Let me guess, the fancy one is for Hiral?” Yanily said, but Hiral was already shaking his head.

“No, this one here has my color on it,” he said, pointing to a small gemstone that matched the yellow of his status window.

“Oh? Really?” Yanily asked, practically running over to the larger chest and leaning down to look at the stone. “Maybe it’s just the light…”

“That’s Seeyela’s,” Seena said flatly. “This one here is yours.” She pointed to one of the little chests, barely bigger than a closed fist.

“You sure? Maybe I should just peek in and…” At the matching glares from the sisters, the spearman added, “Right, coming over there now.”

Hiral just shook his head at the usual antics, then crouched down and picked up the small box. It wasn’t nearly as ornate as the last two boxes he’d received, but to be fair, he hadn’t done as much in this dungeon. Oh, well. With a slight click, he flipped open the lid of the chest to reveal a simple-looking ring. A second of concentration brought up the ring’s information to his View ability.

(Lost) 1st Generation PIM Enhancement Ring

+3 to all stats.

One of the original attempts to modify and improve the PIM past basic functionality.

All were believed to have been lost.

“Plus three to all stats?” Hiral said to Left and Right, who stood beside him. “Even at D-Rank, that’s not bad at all. That’s almost five full levels’ worth of attributes.” He turned his attention to the rest of the group. “Did everybody else get the same thing?”

From the looks of things, four of the five had gotten another ring identical to his, with only Seeyela looking at something different.

In her hands was what looked like… a head. A white, carapace-covered head.

“Uh…” Yanily started, looking at Seeyela. “Did the loot gods give you the Lady’s decapitated head? That’s… generous…?”

Seeyela just rolled her eyes at the spearman. “It’s not a head…”

“Kind of looks like one, Sis,” Seena said.

“Helmet. It’s a helmet,” Seeyela said. “Part of a whole suit of armor. It’s A-Rank!” With this last detail, a touch of awe snuck into her voice.

“Seriously?” Nivian asked while everybody moved closer.

“Yes, it’s called the Armor of the Ghost-Web Matriarch,” Seeyela said.

“What’s it do?” Seena asked.

“Honestly, too much,” Seeyela said. “There’s a whole wall of text here, and I don’t think I can do some of it until I rank up. But, the big thing is camouflage. It’s white, like the Lady was, but it can change its color to blend in with a bit of solar energy.”

“Wow,” Wule said. “Between that and your portals, you might be able to play the role of scout.”

“Add in the party chat function, and yeah,” Hiral said. “That’s amazing.”

“Welcome to the cool-armor club,” Yanily said to Seeyela, pointing to his own hydra-scale armor he’d gotten from The Mire dungeon.

“I’ll politely decline the club invitation,” Seeyela said. “Anyway, it’ll take some time to figure out how to put all this on.” She looked into the chest, then stowed the helmet back in with the rest. “I’ll do that after achievements.”

“What’s in the big crate down there?” Wule asked, pointing at the last box that usually had some kind of communal items in it.

Nivian slid down into the crater and opened up the crate. “Looks like… some of that armor we saw those soldiers wearing? Maybe…” He dug around a bit inside the large box. “Maybe four sets of it, I think.”

“One for each of the rest of us,” Wule said.

“I don’t know if I see a point to it,” Seena said. “The armor didn’t do the soldiers much good.”

“And I don’t think it would be better than my bark armor,” Nivian added. “Did the dungeon miss the mark on this reward?”

“Maybe not,” Hiral said. “With my class skills, I might be able to improve the efficiency of the armor. And make it so it works with your bark armor, Nivian. Like the Rune of Attraction in your shield.”

“You have one of those runes in your shield?” Yanily asked.

“Yes, Yanily, we even talked about it before we left,” Nivian said. “And, Hiral, now that I got a chance to use it, I definitely notice a difference. Sometimes it feels like they’re trying to hit the shield.”

“Good,” Hiral said. “I’ll take a look at the armor to see what I can do with it before we leave. A Rune of Rejection or something in it might be all it takes to offer more protection. Or maybe just a Rune of Increase…?”

“Let’s do achievements before he gets going,” Seena said, pointing from Nivian to the interface.

“On it,” the tank said, waving his hand over the interface crystal.

Time Records

Achievement Rewards

Rank Evolution

Exit Dungeon

“Good luck, everyone,” Nivian said. “Achievement Rewards.”

“Achievement Rewards,” Hiral repeated along with everybody else, and a series of notification windows sprang up in front of him.

Achievement: The Best Defense…

Class Reward: Ability – (Lost) Echo Aura (self buff)

(Lost) Echo Aura (self buff) – When you successfully evade an attack, you have a chance to leave behind an exploding afterimage in your position.

Note: (Lost) Echo Aura (self buff) is a continuous effect requiring a constant, minor investment of solar energy, and a moderate investment for each explosion.

Note (2): Damage of explosions caused by (Lost) Echo Aura (self buff) is based on Atn.

Note (3): User of (Lost) Echo Aura (self buff) and party members are unaffected by explosions.

Note (4): Explosions. Explosions. Explosions. More explosions.

Explosions? Of course it’s explosions. I’m never going to hear the end of this. And what the hell is up with note four? But, kind of a double-edged sword, depending on what the solar energy cost is. Will the damage be worth constantly streaming energy into it? Right will just love testing this with me.

Hiral sighed and closed the notification window. Really, it was a potentially great ability, but why couldn’t it be something other than explosions? After a small shake of his head, he turned his attention to the next achievement reward.

Achievement: A Lady’s Touch

Reward: Class Modification: (Lost) Solar Drain

(Lost) Solar Drain – Your abilities now also drain a small amount of solar energy when they do damage.

Note: Amount of solar energy drained based on Atn.

Hrm. For a fight against something like the Troblin Lord, that could’ve been very handy. Anything, really, that can take a lot of punishment. Not so great for something like the Infested we had so much trouble hitting in the first place. If Left and Right also gain this ability—which I think they should, based on the wording—that could add up really fast. I like it.

I wonder if “drain” means I get the solar energy? Only one way to find out: testing! Let’s see what’s next.

Hiral closed the window and let the next one pop up.

Achievement: Know Your Enemy

Class Reward: Class Modification – (Lost) PIM Upgrade – Party Interface – Member Status

(Lost) PIM Upgrade – Party Interface – Member Status – Party window now displays health bar, solar energy capacity bar, and buff/debuff notifications.

Wule is going to love this if he got it too, which he probably did. It’s going to make it so much easier to keep track of how everybody’s doing in a fight. Simple yet very useful. Next.

A thought closed the window to bring up the final achievement for the dungeon.

Achievement: On the Trail of the Lost

Reward: Class Modification: Seed of the Lost

Seed of the Lost – An inkling of potential towards unlocking an advanced (Lost) class.

Nurture it well so that it may grow.

Are Lost advanced classes better than normal advanced classes? We’ll need to ask Dr. Benza next time we get to a dungeon interface that has him. Too bad this dungeon-version of him didn’t stick around. Then again, wild dungeons wouldn’t have even existed then. Now. Whatever.

Hiral shook his head before he tried to consider the time implications of when and where he was. By the looks on the other party members’ faces, they’d done pretty well with their achievements.

“Get some good stuff?” he asked Seena.

“Oh, yeah,” she said. “I just… I just… Wow. Did you get the Party Interface upgrade too?”

“Health and solar bars? Yeah,” Hiral said. “Along with a defensive ability, a solar energy drain, and a Seed of the Lost.”

“Sounds like we all got the same kinds of things for the dungeon, then,” Nivian said, coming over to join Hiral and Seena with his brother. “Wule and I were comparing. The only difference was the kind of defensive ability we got. Mine reduces any damage I take by a percentage based on rank up to a certain limit. After that, I need to spend more solar energy to reactivate it.”

“While mine is a flat kind of energy shield that absorbs all the damage I would take. And,” Wule said with excitement in his eyes, “after the shield absorbs its maximum amount, it bursts for an area-of-effect party heal.”

“Nice,” Seena said. “Mine is the same as yours, except when it pops, it does area-of-effect fire damage.”

“What about you, Hiral?” Nivian asked.

Hiral hesitated, which caused everybody to raise an eyebrow, including Yanily and Seeyela once they joined. No avoiding it. “Explosions,” Hiral said with a sigh. “If I can dodge an attack, I’ll leave behind a double that explodes.”

Five heads turned towards Left and Right, and then the party of Growers took a step back.

“No!” Hiral said with exasperation. “Not them. They don’t explode.”

“Well, that’s reassuring,” Right said.

“You would tell us if we were going to explode, wouldn’t you?” Left said.

“Of course I would,” Hiral said, only to amend with, “Probably. And, before you ask, the explosions won’t affect any of you as long as you’re in my party.”

“So he says,” Yanily said out of the side of his mouth, which made everybody chuckle nervously.

“Just another reason to leave him on his own to fight,” Seena chuckled. “Sis, Yan, you two get defensive buffs too?”

“Oh, yeah,” Yanily said. “I got something that makes me harder to hit as long as I’m attacking. Pretty small solar energy cost too.”

“Considering attacking is kind of your job, that should be easy to use,” Hiral said.

“Sis?” Seena prompted.

“Gravity Shield,” Seeyela said.

“That kind of sounds like it would make you get hit more,” Yanily said.

“Heh, I know, right?” Seeyela said. “The opposite. Apparently, it pulls attacks away from me. Gets stronger with rank too.”

“So, we all got the same kind of thing this time around,” Seena said. “And they all seem pretty good. They have that Lost tag on them?” After everybody nodded, she continued. “We’ll spend some time exploring how useful the abilities are once we get out of here. Before that… Nivian, you got another achievement, didn’t you?”

“Yeah,” Nivian said. “I didn’t appreciate the achievement title, but the ability is pretty great. Reduced damage taken for every debuff on me.”

“That, combined with your new defensive buff, is going to make you a pretty good damage sponge,” Yanily said.

“Lucky me,” Nivian said flatly.

“Lucky us,” Seena said seriously.

“What about you, Seena?” Hiral asked. “You got something else too, right? Something about ashes?”

“Yes, and I’m not sure if it’s amazing or useless. I’m leaning towards amazing.” Her smile grew. “Anything living I kill with fire has a chance to be reborn from the ashes as a… a kind of servant? It doesn’t sound like it’s actually alive from the description, and it has a limited duration, but it’ll follow commands and fight for me.”

“So, if you’d had that when you killed the Lady of the Web…” Hiral prompted.

“Yes! I could’ve had a Mid-Boss as my… uh… pet? Kind of a pet, I guess.” Seena shrugged.

“Does it have the same power it did as while it was alive?” Seeyela asked.

“No, sadly,” Seena said. “But, should still be strong.”

“That and the fire shield…” Hiral started.

“Molten Shield,” Seena quickly corrected.

“Sorry, Molten Shield. Sounds like your abilities are starting to lean more into that fire aspect.”

“They are, but this From the Ashes thing reads like it’s tying in the cycle of life and rebirth from a forest. So, maybe it’s combining elements—no pun intended—from all my abilities? Ah, we can figure that out later. You have to explode so Left and Right can get moving.”

“It really worries me how casually you all talk about me exploding,” Hiral said flatly.

“Well, it really worries us how casually you explode,” Nivian countered.

“That’s fair,” Hiral admitted with a shrug. “I’ll just go over there to…”

“Explode,” Nivian finished for him.

“Whatever,” Hiral said, throwing up his hands.

“I’m going to go poke around a bit, see if we missed anything,” Yanily said.

“Don’t go far,” Seena said.

“Yessir, boss,” Yanily said, then jogged off, spear in hand.

“I’m going to get changed, then,” Seeyela said, gesturing from the chest of armor to a nearby doorway.

Hiral put aside the continued conversation and sat down a safe distance away in the middle of the road. What he’d done—and seen—during the early part of the battle against the spiders and monkeys was definitely related to runes. It was the same rune he’d seen engraved in the tunnel walls when they’d been approaching the city. Originally, he’d assumed it was something to do with hardness, or maybe strength.

But the way time had slowed and then suddenly sped up again meant it was something else entirely. One orientation of the rune must slow the degradation of the wall. It didn’t make it stronger, per se, but instead kept it stronger for a longer time. That would explain how Hiral had been able to almost pause time, giving him the chance to assess the situation and choose his targets. Likewise, a flip of the rune would do the opposite.

If that was engraved in the wall, it would speed up how quickly it broke down, possibly weakening it enough to crumble well before its time. Good thing the engraver didn’t get that wrong in the tunnel. In the battle, when the rune had flipped in front of Hiral’s vision, that’d sped up the cooldown of his RHCs, letting him fire off five shots in the same time he could normally do one. Sure, there’d been a longer cooldown after, but it was worth it for the burst potential.

As he ran the theory through his head, a pressure began to build. Small jolts like electric shocks ran down the back of his skull, across his shoulders, and then down his chest.

The two runes he was thinking about were each half of something even more complicated than the Gravity, Energy, and Separation runes already on him. They were part of a Time rune, and some small part of him screamed he wasn’t ready for that yet, so he left that train of thought for later and returned to the smaller, more focused aspects of it.

Speeding time up and slowing it down. Time contraction and time dilation.

As soon as the concepts solidified in Hiral’s mind, the double-helix pattern running along his body quickly flared, and he vaguely heard somebody say, “Ah, there he goes” before energy exploded out of him on both sides. A sphere of light formed around him, split down the middle by the conflicting forces at work. On his right, time seemed to race ahead, the ground rapidly decaying as it grew brittle and weak with age. On his left, motes of dust hung in the air, forever suspended and unmoving in the glowing light.

Another pulse of light from the double helix, and the twisting lines of script rose off Hiral’s skin, slowly rotating around him. As Hiral watched the moving sentences he couldn’t even read, he noticed small changes in the characters, then felt searing pain across his chest. He snapped his eyes down to look at the two new runes etching themselves into his skin on opposite sides of his Rune of Separation. Then the double helix snapped back into place, and there was one final pulse of energy.

Hiral dropped to the ground from his seated position, body tired like he’d just run a marathon and his solar energy completely depleted. But, looking at his status window, the two new runes were now added to his list. The Runes of Time Contraction and Time Dilation.

“Uh… Hiral, I know you don’t want to hear it… but…” Seena called to him, though her voice didn’t get any closer.

“Yeah,” Hiral said without sitting up. “Exploded. I know.”

“Kind of a bad one too,” Seena said. “Did you even see what you did to the road?”

“He really doesn’t like roads, does he?” Wule asked.

“I saw,” Hiral said. “Sorry. Left and Right?” Turning his head showed him his tattoo-covered arms.

“They poofed,” Nivian said. “Didn’t even look surprised this time.”

A quick check showed him back at five percent solar energy, so he activated Foundational Split, and just gave each double a measly one percent. It wouldn’t let them fight if they needed to, but the whole point was for them to go scouting and then dismiss themselves to return.

“You guys know what to do?” he asked as they stood up, then in turn helped him to his feet.

“We do,” Left said. “We’ll see you in… about fifty-two minutes.”

“Good luck,” Hiral said, and the two doubles jogged off into the city.

“If you sent them off, that means you’re done exploding?” Seena asked, inching closer.

“All done,” Hiral said. “And totally worth it.”

“Bet the road doesn’t feel that way,” Wule said with a smirk.