Rune Seeker

“This is one of your camps?” Hiral asked as the group entered a carved-out cleft in the rocks bordering the EnSath River.

The rockface extending above him provided shelter to the supplies the Growers had obviously left behind in anticipation of the next group coming down. The supplies that were now scattered around the torn-up campsite. Like a miniature tornado had gone through the space, nothing was left untouched, even the ground and rock scarred like something had dragged a single, terrible claw through it all.

“It was,” Seena said, walking in slowly, her eyes scanning the wreckage of the camp.

“Does this happen often?” Hiral asked, drawing an RHC in one hand while he eyed the treeline around the camp. It didn’t look like this had happened recently, but he wasn’t an expert on that kind of thing at all.

“Occasionally,” Seeyela said. “We’re gone more often than we’re here, but…”

“But?” Hiral prompted.

“Never this bad,” Yanily said, lifting a torn backpack on the end of his spear. A split waterskin fell from the bag to join the scattered food beneath, and he tossed the pack aside. “Food is still here. That’s not normal.”

Crouching beside another outcropping of rock, Seena pulled out a broken spear and tossed it to the ground. Then a second. A third. A fourth. There was practically a pile of them by the time she was finished. “Left the food. Destroyed the weapons.”

“Not just the weapons,” Seeyela said, another ruined bag in her hands. “Everything they could find.”

“Shouldn’t be,” Seena said. “This camp is between their territories, and it doesn’t seem like either expanded. Besides, Yetis aren’t known for their smarts. They wouldn’t put the weapons back where they found them after breaking them.”

“And they’d definitely take the food,” Yanily said. “Salted and smoked meat like this? They’d love it.”

“No, something came in here with the intent to ruin the camp,” Seena said.

“Picoli?” Hiral asked, his eyes still on the trees outside the camp, Right and Left beside him. “Maybe she came here first looking for us?”

“I guess that’s possible,” Seeyela said. “We don’t know how long she’s been here waiting for us.”

“Or how she even got across the Sea of White,” Right said. “Any ideas on that?”

“Your Rune of Rejectionthing,” Seena said, tossing another broken spear to the ground. “Could you get across the sea with it?”

“I honestly don’t know if I’d have enough solar energy to make it all the way,” Hiral said. “I have Walk on Water, but the Sea of White is named that way because of how rough it is. I… Maybe?”

“How did she even know we were coming here?” Yanily asked, only to then stop like he’d thought of something. “Actually, what if Picoli wasn’t here for us?”

“What do you mean, Yan?” Seeyela asked as everybody looked at the spearman.

“The islands come this way, right? This is the first land after the Sea of White. The first place she could possibly reach one of the islands from. What if she was here to get up there?” He pointed out of the camp towards the floating islands coming their way.

“You think she was trying to get up…?” Seena asked, following the spearman’s gesture. Then she visibly shivered.

“It… would make sense,” Hiral said. “The Enemy can’t get up there because they need to stay in the rain. The Infested, though… they’re not limited like that. She really could’ve been trying to get up to your islands.”

“Good thing we stopped her, then,” Seeyela said.

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“Is it?” Hiral asked. “Sorry, I mean, of course it is… but… even if she did get up there, what was she going to accomplish? If we could stop her, I’m sure she wouldn’t have been able to do much damage. C- or B-Rankers would’ve done the same thing we did.”

“Any damage is too much damage,” Seena pointed out.

“You’re right,” Hiral said, holding up a hand to show he wasn’t thinking lightly of Grower lives.

“Hiral has a point, though,” Yanily said. “It’s not like she could’ve passed herself off as normal, not-infested-by-a-monster Picoli. Not with the injuries she had. As soon as she set foot on one of the islands, people would’ve known something was up. Was her whole plan to just go up and get killed?”

“Unless she was going up there to help wake up the Fallen?” Seena suggested. “Dr. Benza did say the squids that infest people were created by the Fallen. Thought they were pretty special and all that.”

“She’d still have to get from your islands up to Fallen Reach, which is no easy thing,” Hiral said.

“And are the feral Infested even capable of that type of planning?” Seeyela asked. “She seemed more animal than anything else.” She shook her head, then hissed, “I can’t believe I’m talking about Picoli like that.”

“It’s okay; we know what you meant,” Seena said.

“Thanks,” Seeyela said. “I just… Ah, forget it. Why did she do this, though? What’s the point of trashing the camp?”

“Did you guys find any jumpsuits?” Yanily suddenly asked.

“Thought you kept those at the jump point?” Hiral said.

“We do, but,” Seena said, looking around the wrecked camp, “Yanily is right. There’s usually one here. Just in case. All the camps have an extra one. Almost never get used, but better to have than not.”

“And it’s not here?” Hiral asked while the three Growers went about searching the nooks and crannies of the campsite.

“Not here,” Seeyela confirmed a few minutes later.

“She wasn’t carrying it,” Yanily said.

“Dropped it before we fought her?” Hiral offered. “Not like we went looking for it.”

“That must be it,” Seena said, but she was looking again at the islands inching closer.

“If Picoli really was going up there to wake the Fallen, do you think we stopped what Dr. Benza was worried about?” Yanily asked. “We were only strong enough to beat her because we had the advanced classes, just like he said. It fits.”

“Could be,” Seeyela said, “but I’ll feel a whole lot better once we get up there and check for ourselves.”

“I know we discussed going to the jump point and all that, but”—Hiral paused as he looked at the islands—“maybe we risk it. If the Rocs come, we’ll figure out some way to deal with them.”

“Your mount can carry three people, right?” Seeyela asked him.

“Yes. You have something in mind?”

“Out of everybody here, I have the best chance fighting one of those stupid birds up there,” she said. “I can teleport from them to your mount and back again if I need to. I just can’t summon my own Reflection while fighting.”

“I’d have to keep Left and Right inside me, but I guess that shouldn’t impact using the mount,” Hiral said. “I’d still have a few shots from my RHCs and blunderbuss if needed as well.”

“Yeah, and the Reflections only vanish if they take damage, don’t they?” Yanily asked. “We might be able to straight up outrun the Rocs.”

“It’s a risk,” Seena said slowly, like she was seriously considering it.

“Something in my gut isn’t sitting right,” Seeyela said to her sister. “Yeah, we’d be taking a chance on heading up there now, but I’d rather do that than wait however many hours we need to for the islands to get here.”

“I agree with Seeyela,” Hiral said, gesturing around the wrecked campsite. “This was probably Picoli…” He trailed off, eyes on the single scars through the rock and ground. The Infested had been all punches and blunt-force trauma. The cutting wasn’t her style. “Or maybe it wasn’t,” he amended. “Either way, it’s not adding up.”

“What about if a group comes down and finds the supplies they were counting on destroyed?” Seena asked, but even her voice sounded like she was looking for a solution to the question.

“We just need to get up there before anybody jumps,” Yanily said. “They’re probably only getting ready now. If we hurry, we can stop them… or at least warn them what it’s like down here.”

“Maybe we should find what did this…?” Seena said, but she immediately shook her head. “No, that wouldn’t matter. C-Rankers come down here to farm the ants too. Anything we could handle, they can probably handle.”

“So, we’re going up, then?” Hiral asked, sheathing his RHC back on his thigh. Since they’d been in the camp for almost ten minutes now, and nothing had jumped out to attack them, it wasn’t likely it was going to happen now.

“We’re going up,” Seena said. Looking at Seeyela and Hiral, she added, “I want a bit more of a plan to deal with the Rocs if they come.”

“Teleport and stab them,” Seeyela said confidently.

“You’re spending too much time with Yanily,” Seena said, squeezing the bridge of her nose.