Rune Seeker

The Fallen awakening?

“Yes, you heard me correctly,” Dr. Benza said, as if he could read Hiral’s thoughts. “I don’t know where you’ve gotten to in the Tutorials, but if you’re seeing this, you’re at least C-Rank. Or, if we’re really lucky, have advanced classes. So, I’ll just explain things here. Now.”

“Finally!” Yanily said with a sigh of relief. “I’ve been waiting for those words since we first met this guy.”

“Most of what I’m going to explain to you is covered extensively in the Tutorials,” Dr. Benza said. “But if you haven’t had the chance to view them yet, I’ll give you the most important details. And it all starts with the day we found the dying member of a very strange species. Something almost like a squid, but with a body that bends the light around it. Stranger still, it possessed a magic very unlike our own, utilizing powerful runes that commanded some of the foundational forces of how the universe operates.

“If you haven’t guessed yet, that was our first encounter with what we came to call the Enemy. This discovery was years before I was even born, and the creature quickly died in our care. Though we tried to nurse it back to health, we couldn’t figure out why it continued to get worse and worse. It wasn’t until years later we realized it needed rain. Not water—rain. Even now, we’re still not sure why, but rain is its natural environment. I’ve theorized that…” He trailed off, looking at something behind the party, then shook his head. “You’re right; my theories aren’t important now.

“Where was I? Ah, yes, the corpse. Even though the creature passed away, that didn’t stop us from dissecting it. Scientists and researchers spent years going over every inch of the body, trying to unlock its secrets. We were able to discover how they moved solar energy through their limbs—a much more focused activity than how we passively circulated it. But, beyond that… almost nothing.”

At this, Dr. Benza lifted his hands in front of himself and stared at them. “I can only imagine my predecessors’ frustrations. So many secrets locked away within the corpse, and they couldn’t unravel them. So, for years, the body stayed in storage, until one day, somebody asked a question nobody else had bothered with: Where had the squid come from? Surely it wasn’t a creature of our world.

“There was nothing like it in any of our records. Subtle inquires with the Troblins and their less advanced cousins, the Duggers, led to no answers. The lizard-like Squalians lent us access to their history records, and even their museum. Despite their excellent variety of species, from the bones of the extinct phoenix and reclusive dragon to marvelous mechanical constructs, they had nothing like the squid.

“By this point, dozens of years had passed since the discovery of the creature, and a new group of researchers took over the project. These were some of our best and brightest, perhaps ever, and they made monumental discoveries.

“They were able to trace the energy of the preserved corpse to another world entirely. Maybe world isn’t the right word. Realm would be better. A sister-realm that existed next to ours. And more than that, the researchers found a way to open the doorway to the other side.” Dr. Benza dropped his hands to his side and tilted his head backwards as if he were looking up at the ceiling.

“A doorway that should’ve remained closed forever. Yes, these researchers were the people who would become the Fallen, but we’re not quite there yet. Before that, they spent years unlocking that gate and prying it open. And then, when the barest black crack existed between our two realms, they pulled another of the squids through.

“With a new, healthy specimen, the experiments continued. The things they learned from the research—the torture—advanced our understanding of magic by leaps and bounds. It still wasn’t enough for them. No, they theorized there was even a way to steal the squids’ power for their own, so they pulled another through. Then another, and another… and more.

“With each squid they forced into our world, they widened the gate—a black crack in reality that seemed to feed on the life of the creatures passing across—and allowed bigger and bigger things to come through. More powerful things. Which only excited them further."

“I think I can see where this is going,” Hiral mumbled, but Dr. Benza continued before the others could question him.

“After somewhere around one hundred sacrifices to their research, the scientists made a revolutionary breakthrough,” Dr. Benza said, back to pacing. “By grafting a still-living squid to somebody, reinforcing the person with the squid’s limbs, they could use the squids’ magic. Could harness their power, without the need for the rain to sustain them.

“Those early hybrids were unstable, however. Powerful, yes, but they broke down quickly. From what I’ve read, their deaths weren’t pleasant. Or quick. External grafting wasn’t the answer. They needed something more… symbiotic. So, they continued their experiments, this time bioengineering the squids to meet their needs.

“More and more, they pulled specimens through the crack now as big as a true door, bodies piling like firewood. Their work produced results, though, and finally they created a batch of twelve perfect squids.

“Eleven of these squids were implanted here,” Dr. Benza said, reaching down to his own stomach, “and the Fallen were born. The squids’ tentacles stretched through their bodies, carrying unparalleled amounts of solar energy with them and empowering the Fallen with magic the likes of which our world had never seen.”

“Sounds like an Infested,” Seena said.

“He said eleven, didn’t he?” Seeyela asked.

Before Dr. Benza had a chance to say anything else, something flashed within the crack in the floor, a sizzle sounding, and a wide band of glowing smoke rose into the air.

“Hiral?” Seena asked, but he was already on his way back to the split.

A quick push of Rejection cleared the smoke to reveal one of his three ropes of crystal completely fried. Worse, a second later, a whole section of the crystal dome to his right blinked and then sputtered out, leaving light in just two-thirds of it.

“Hiral…” Seena said again.

“One second,” he said, focusing back on the two remaining ropes of crystal in the crack.

He couldn’t do anything about the dome for now—if it even mattered—but what was the cause? It didn’t take him more than a few seconds to figure it out: There was too much energy for his improvised connection to handle.

Maybe it’s the wrong kind of crystal for this? Or I did something wrong?

“My repairs aren’t going to last long,” Hiral explained, crouching down and reaching towards one of the ropes to try and reinforce it. “The energy is too much for them.”

His hand couldn’t even get closer than two feet before an arcing whip of solar smoke lashed across his palm. Jerking his limb back with a yelp of pain, he turned his hand over to find a nasty red welt forming and then vanishing under the effect of his Regeneration+.

“You okay?” Seeyela asked, the two sisters coming over to join him.

“Yeah, fine, but I don’t think I can fix this,” Hiral said. “We’re on a timer.”

“How long do you think it will last?” Seena asked.

“More than a second and less than a year?” Hiral offered with a shrug.

Seena glared at him, but she got it. “Yan, try activating the interface again. See if that will unpause Dr. Benza here.”

“Why me?” Yanily asked.

“Because you’re still right beside it,” she pointed out.

“Ah, good point,” he said, not even having to stretch as he waved his hand over the crystal.

“Now, you’re probably asking what happened to the twelfth squid,” Dr. Benza said, his image coming back to life like it’d never stalled. “It escaped. Back through the portal, but the Fallen didn’t worry about that. They were too busy being drunk on their own newfound power. And, in their defense, nothing happened… immediately.”

“You two should stand over by Yanily,” Hiral told them as Dr. Benza took a breath to collect himself. “I’ll keep an eye on things here as best I can.”

“Be careful,” Seena said, but the sisters moved away from crack, and Hiral watched the two remaining glowing crystal rods. The way they’re getting brighter and brighter can’t be good…

“It happened about a year later,” Dr. Benza said, drawing Hiral’s attention. “Around the same time the Fallen turned their attention from research to dominance. I still don’t know why anybody was surprised. Of course people with that much power would want to rule. But, that’s not what we’re talking about now. This was also when they started actually being called the Fallen, for how far they’d fallen from grace. Once lauded as our people’s greatest minds, they were now moving to overthrow our government. To take the rule for themselves.

“And, if we’re being honest with each other, they would’ve succeeded if the squids didn’t pry the crack open from their side at that point. Now big enough to drive a carriage through, monstrous versions of the creatures the Fallen had experimented on rushed through, and they weren’t happy. Even worse for the rest of us, the modified squid that had escaped through the crack returned—with its progeny. This squid saw the Fallen as some kind of gods who had created it, and it led a faction of its kind to join with them.

“Now, we weren’t only dealing with wild, angry squids, but also the Fallen and their fanatical, otherworldly followers. It was… a bad time… And this was when I was born.

“Our empire was in chaos around me as I grew up, forces on all sides fighting for survival. The wild squids battling against the Fallen and their troops were the only thing that really gave us a chance to scurry off to the side, so to speak. While they struggled for control, we fled. Hid.

“And… continued some of the Fallen’s own long-lost research. This would be what led to the development of the PIM system and the PIMP. It took some consultations with the Squalians, and access to something they called the Urn of Ur’Thul, but that gave us the final clues we needed to rebuild our understanding of magic from the ground up.

“I quickly found myself part of the team working on the PIMP, as my unrivaled skill and genius showed itself…” Dr. Benza again looked past the party. “I heard that, Laseen. No, don’t you snicker over there, Fenil. You know, two years ago, both of you would’ve been tripping over yourselves to compliment me…” He shook his head and continued.

“Whatever. While my team worked on the means to battle the Fallen and the Enemy, another team worked on a way to trap the Fallen. To delay them. And, as fate would have it, their plan solved one of our biggest hurdles: power.

“The PIMP would be revolutionary. It would change the world. Give us a chance to save our people and defeat the Enemy, except… it needed sunlight. Solar energy. Massive amounts of it. By this point in the war, the Enemy had already begun their weather alterations, bringing more and more rain to our world. Sure, the root system you’re probably familiar with existed even then—a natural evolution of a world with such a slow rotation—but it wouldn’t be enough to power the PIM system.

“And, worse, to keep the PIMP safe from the Fallen and the Enemy, we needed to build it deep, deep underground, in a place they would never find. How were we supposed to supply it with that power? We needed a location safe from the rains, so the Enemy couldn’t find it, and a place the Infested couldn’t destroy.

“We needed… Fallen Reach.”