Rune Seeker

A slight burst of Rejection eased Hiral’s landing onto the bridge beside Seena, though he had a hard time meeting her eyes.

“Really,” he said without looking at her. “I just got the idea when I saw what the others were doing.”

“He’s not entirely lying,” Right said, and Seena’s head went slowly from Hiral to the double and back again.

“Entirely?” Seena asked, and Hiral had to resist going over and strangling his double. Or, maybe he’d just throw him off the bridge. Oh, he could cancel Foundational Split, jump off the bridge himself – Right was pretty strong, after all – then reactivate the ability to watch the double fall. It’d save him on solar energy and… “Hiral,” Seena interrupted his fantasy.

“I’ve been playing with part of what I did there,” Hiral said. “The different images of me. But, I hadn’t considered using Dreaming or Exchange like this until what we did against the Death-Sphere.”

“What’s the big deal?” Yanily asked. “It worked.”

“Was creepy seeing that many of him,” Seeyela said. “But I agree with Yan. It’s done and we’re clear to keep moving.”

Seena nodded. “You’re right. Though, that doesn’t mean we’re done with the constructs here. Keep an eye out as we move. Hiral, Seeyela, and Left, I want you scouting around. Take care of any individuals you find. Keep us in the loop. Yanily and Gran, you’re sticking with the rest of us for now.”

“Got it, Boss,” Hiral said, while Left shaped his Wings of Anella. The two, blue-fire wings emerged from his shoulders, black and red – like ink in water – staining the inside of them. “Seeyela, you want to start with that bridge up above? Probably less Bamf’ing around if you go there. Left, some more below us, you head to them. I’ll handle this level. Sound good?”

Seeyela gave him a thumbs up in response, then vanished in a puff of purple and red smoke. Left likewise gave a nod before jumping off the bridge.

Wrong double, Hiral thought, giving Right one more glare before launching off on planes of Rejection. They all still had Path of Butterflies as well, but his own Rejection was just more comfortable for him. That, and with his new connection to the Edict, it was practically second nature. Like that, and with his RHCs back in hand, Hiral lowered his own gravity to casually jog through the air.

Actually… do I even need to jog?

Glancing at Seena – she wasn’t looking in his direction – this seemed like as good a time to test something as any, right? No enemies in his sensory domain. The escort group would take another couple of minutes to reach the exit from the room. It wasn’t like he was busy…

Pausing there in the air, a few more alterations to how his Rune of Gravity was working on him, and suddenly he was just ‘floating’. He wasn’t going up or down, or even shifting side to side. In fact, finding the right balance to hover had been almost instinctual. Because of the Edict of Gravity he’d connected with? Maybe.

And, unlike last time, he wasn’t feeling real gravity trying to exert its hold over him. Another benefit of the Edict?

Either way, on to the next step – movement. Sure, he could keep walking, running, or leaping like he had been. The explosive bursts of speed from Rejection were certainly potent in combat, but could he do something more consistent? Could he actually just… fly?

Gently Rejecting behind him, Hiral smoothly glided forward while staying completely upright. The soles of his feet left the planes of Rejection he’d been standing on – his toes dropping to point down – while a trail of pink followed his boots from the Path of Butterflies. It was like the poor things weren’t sure what they should be doing, so they fluttered around in a short trail.

Hiral didn’t move fast at this point, just a few feet every second, but the process gave him a good feel for what he was doing. Another tweak to Rejection immediately stopped him. There was a slight pull of momentum, but no part of him jerked forward, so there wasn’t some kind of center-mass to what he was doing. Good to know.

A few more starts and stops gave him a pretty good grasp on how he could use the ability to move simply. From there, he quickly progressed to traveling on a different axis. Back and forward were no more difficult than up and down, left and right, or even at angles. Conceptually, it was more challenging to move like that – like his brain hadn’t quite adapted to the freedom of three-dimensional movement, but with some practice… Yeah, he could do it.

Another glance down at the procession showed the researchers about three-quarters of the way to the exit – and Hiral’s sensory domain was still clear – so he had another minute or two. Time enough to move… a little faster.

Adding a slight layer of Unsealing around himself, Hiral looked straight up, then burst Rejection out of his feet. Whoosh would be an understatement, his body rocketing up like it was greased. That wasn’t really anything new, though, and as he rushed towards the bridge above, he changed the angle of his rune.

And jerked to the side like a puppet who had its strings yanked on.

Cutting off all Rejection a second before he smashed into a nearby pillar, Hiral let out a shuddering breath.

Okay, then. Sudden changes of direction aren’t ideal. Need to finesse it a little more.

“Hiral,” Seena said quietly – and privately – to him in the party chat. “Are you learning how to fly?”

“Uh, maybe,” he admitted sheepishly.

“You can do that now?”

“Not very well, as you probably saw.”

“That did look like it would’ve hurt.”

“Didn’t it?” he asked back with a chuckle. “Sorry, I’ll focus on keeping an eye out. I didn’t see anything in my sensory domain, so I thought it’d be fine.”

“It is,” Seena said. “Just, one thing.”

“What?”

“When you figure it out – and I know you will – can you take me with you? Flying on Vili is amazing. Flying without her… I… I’d love to try that. Left’s Path isn’t the same.”

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Floating up, completely free of anything but his own will, Hiral couldn’t disagree with the sentiment. “I’ll get it, and I’ll take you. Anywhere you want.”

“Perfect!” Seena said, a little bit of her excitement leaking into her voice. “Then stop standing – uh, floating? – around and get back to it. Once we go in the next tunnel, practice time is over!”

“You got it!” Hiral said, immediately throwing himself back into the practice. And, almost another pillar. Again. Those changes in direction were tricky. Who would’ve thought turning would be so difficult?

Still, in the few minutes Hiral had, he made some serious headway. It was enough to say he could fly, but not enough to say he could navigate a room like this. Even less likely that he’d be able to use it in combat yet.

Yet.

Unfortunately, his time was up, the researchers and their escorts arriving at the entrance to the next room. Hiral landed next to them as they approached, with Left and Seeyela arriving a few seconds later.

“I’ll give you some pointers,” Left said quietly to Hiral. “It’s not as easy as it looks.”

“It really isn’t,” Hiral said. His double had picked up flying with the wings so easily. Then again, the Wings of Anella were an ability, which meant they provided an instinctual knowledge about how to use them. Hiral was learning from scratch, using a combination of his own abilities to try to replicate the effect. His path didn’t come with a guide, but anything his double could offer would be helpful.

“What do you think we’ve got ahead?” Yanily asked, the party staring down a long, straight hallway. There seemed to be an actual closed door at the end of it. “More traps?”

“Let me check,” Hiral said, extending a slightly pushier sensory domain as far ahead as he could. Nothing happened, and the floors, walls, and ceilings all felt smooth and even to him. No slots for sawblades. No holes for toxic darts. No attacks of sound or fire.

The hallway seemed safe, which honestly just made him nervous about the door at the end.

“Don’t feel any traps,” he said finally.

“I’ll go,” Right offered, and Seena gave him a nod. Without looking back, Right jogged straight into the hall. He got fifty feet before he stopped and turned. “Actually does seem safe.”

“Keep going,” Seena said. “We’ll be right behind you. “Left, you, Romin, and Wallop next. Then the researchers, then the rest of us.”

Despite the added caution, the whole group made it to the door without incident, showing the hallway actually wasn’t trapped. Then, like Hiral, it made everybody look suspiciously at the doorway. This one didn’t have a convenient lever beside it, and instead had something similar to a dungeon interface against the wall. This one was – of course – made of the same brass as the rest of the place, and had a kind of notification window built into the top of it.

Thinking back, Hiral had seen similar devices in the room with the construct-assembly-line, and the researchers had been familiar with them.

“What is that?” Hiral asked at the same time Vorinal got one of the other researchers to check out the device.

“A mechanical interface,” the unnamed researcher said. “Tomorrow’s technology may not look it, but it’s very advanced. Crude in design, but the inner workings are often equal to – if not beyond – what we can do ourselves. The fact she was able to design it all without the necessary crystal needed to move solar energy is truly fascinating. Also, something we’ve never been able to figure out.

“These ruins, now that we’ve gotten deeper and found working systems, may actually help us solve many of those mysteries.”

“We’re not here to decode the secrets of Tomorrow’s machines, Lusco,” Vorinal said, and Hiral recognized another of the Fallens’ names. “Just to confirm this is where the specimen was found. And, to secure more, if we can.”

“I know, Vorinal,” Lusco said. “But who’s to say the secrets of the specimen aren’t also locked up in one of Tomorrow’s data drives? Even you have to admit the little we’ve been able to pull from those has been revolutionary.”

“Decrypting the drives is plan B,” Vorinal said. “We all agreed on that before we committed to this.”

“Or destroying them,” another researcher said.

“Or destroying them, Pallidis,” Vorinal conceded.

“You’re all talking far too freely about things we agreed to keep secret,” Bellina scolded. “Even the help might start putting things together.”

At the words, Vorinal turned fully around to face Bellina, then stepped closer to look down on her. Standing at least a foot taller than the woman, he was physically imposing compared to her, but she looked back up defiantly.

“Bell,” Vorinal said slowly. “I believe I told you stop addressing them like that. This is your last warning.”

“Or what?” Bellina challenged, while every researcher – Fallen – around them looked on nervously. By their body language, this wasn’t the first confrontation between the two.

“Or you’ll be off the project,” Vorinal said. “Access to all research and data will be revoked.”

“You wouldn’t,” she said, the simple and evenly-said threat somehow shaking her far more than even the lumbering constructs and danger of physical violence had. “You need me.”

“We do,” Vorinal admitted. “Which is why it would be a loss to the project to see you go. However, we are not here because we are better than anybody else. We are here because we are better-positioned to help everybody else.”

Bellina narrowed her eyes up at Vorinal. “You’re one to talk. Look at the boundaries you pushed. The laws you broke. And you talk to me about being nice to the help? The council is chasing after us because of how you illegally found the location of these ruins. If they catch us before we find the answers here, we’re all going to jail!”

“We all agreed,” Vorinal said calmly. “We all realize the reality of the threat the specimen poses, while the council simply looks at it like a puzzle the previous scientists couldn’t solve. We need answers – and solutions – before that threat becomes a reality.”

“And that’s why you need me!” Bellina said, like that was the end of the argument. Except, the warble in her voice told everybody around her she wasn’t quite as sure as she was putting on.

“Bellina,” Vorinal said the woman’s name softly. “If you look at these people here helping us as anything less than us, then that tells me you’re not really here for the reasons the rest of us are. It tells me you’re here for fame. Fortune, of some kind.

“The rest of us,” Vorinal stepped back and extended his arm to gesture slowly to the other researchers, each of them nodding slightly as the man’s hand passed. “We’re here because we want to save our friends and families. Our homes. Our entire people, if we have to.”

“We could be wrong about the threat,” Bellina said. “Or the he… the people helping us could report to the council what we find out here? We should be keeping them in the dark. Not talking like this in front of them.”

“They’re going to see things, Bellina, if we find what we’re looking for here,” Vorinal said matter-of-factly. “If anything, it’s better they know that going in. We chose them specifically because we believed we could trust them. They care as much about protecting our people as we do. I’ve been thinking about it long and hard since we arrived, and, if we get that door open to Tomorrow’s vault, I’m going to share what we know.”

“You can’t,” Bellina said. “I won’t agree to that.”

Vorinal paused at the statement, then nodded slowly. “You have a point, but you also don’t have a choice. The whole group – you included – chose me as the head of this project. Specifically, to make tough decisions on topics that would invite significant and delaying discourse. This is one of those topics. Now, if you disagree with that, or anything else I’ve said, I would encourage you to leave now.”

“You know I won’t do that,” Bellina said. “I want to be here as much as any of you.”

“Then, please, work with us,” Vorinal said.

Bellina crossed her arms as she stared at Vorinal, like she had an internal debate raging back and forth just behind her eyes. One second turned into five, then ten – Vorinal staying silent the entire time – before the woman finally nodded. “Fine,” she said. “You know I’m in.”

“Good,” Vorinal said, patting Bellina on the shoulder. Then, he turned to Seena. “I’m sorry about that, and the vagueness of our conversation. As mentioned, should we figure out the other mechanism to open the vault door, I’ll explain what I know. It’s not a lot, but I’ll share it.”

Seena looked around at her party, all of them having been paying pretty close attention to the conversation. This was a dungeon. The people weren’t real, which meant all of that had not only actually happened, but the PIMP had chosen to show it to them. It was important.

And, as Hiral stood looking at the group of Fallen in front of him, he had a sinking feeling he knew what they were talking about. A specimen? A threat?

Was this where they found the first Enemy?