Rune Seeker

Hiral woke up with a groan, shoulders stiff, then threw off his blanket and rolled his legs off the bed. Elbows on his knees as he shook off the mild headache, he reached for the glass of water he’d left on the nightstand and took a long drink of the room-temperature liquid.

Only when it was halfway down his throat did he stop and pause, his sleep-laden eyes snapping wide open as he looked around the room.

Not the tent he’d fallen asleep in, but an actual room.

And why am I in a bed!?

Stone walls, ceiling, and floor, from the looks of things, with a wooden dresser to match his bed and nightstand. A window with clear glass behind him let in the angled sunlight from the dungeon’s sky, and Hiral carefully put the drink back down.

Rubbing his fingers across his forehead, he wound his thoughts back, trying to figure out how he’d gotten there—wherever there was.

“After putting up that last building, we went drinking with…” he mumbled, the night playing out in his memories, only to stop cold again. No, that wasn’t right. Put up a building? Didn’t they just enter the dungeon and go to bed?

But, as Hiral thought about it, crystal-clear memories flashed through his head. He’d spent yesterday with Seena and Seeyela, helping build homes. And… and it wasn’t the first day he’d done that. He’d been doing it for… weeks?

Bang, bang, bang. The sharp knocks on his door snapped his head up.

“Come in,” he said reflexively, and the heavy door tentatively swung outward.

A second later, Seena poked her head around the edge, her eyes going side to side before settling on Hiral. “Are you real, or am I still dreaming?” she asked quietly.

“Pretty sure I’m real,” Hiral said before activating Foundational Split. Left and Right peeled off him to sit on his bed, and he noticed for the first time he wasn’t wearing his Second-Skin of Ur’Thul. A moment of panic flashed through him—until he remembered it was in his Interspatial Ring. It appeared on his body the next second, like he’d been wearing it the whole time.

“This is… very strange,” Left said.

“You’re telling me,” Right said. “Seena, do you know what’s going on?”

Seena stepped into the room and closed the door behind her, then went over and sat on the edge of the dresser like she always did.

Like she always does?

As if she’d just thought the same thing, Seena hopped off the dresser like she’d been burned, then snapped her eyes around to glare at the furniture.

“Mistress, what’s wrong?” Li’l Ur asked from her shoulder.

Instead of answering the mini-lich, Seena turned her attention to Hiral. “Are you… remembering things that didn’t happen?”

“Maybe?” Hiral said. “We did just get to the dungeon yesterday, didn’t we?”

“I thought so, but… if that’s true, what’s all this?” she asked, pointing around the room. “I remember helping you build that bed.”

“Hah, after we messed yours up three times, it was practically a snap.” He laughed, then stopped. “Wait, did we really do that?”

“We cut the legs different lengths the first time…” Seena said.

“Right broke the headboard the second time…” Hiral continued.

“Wasn’t my fault you cut it too thin,” Right mumbled.

“And the third time, the whole thing was too short,” Seena said, eyes wide. “Mattress wouldn’t fit.”

“We ended up giving it to Hideo, since he’s so short,” Hiral said, and Seena nodded slowly with him. “What is going on?”

“Ur,” Seena said, giving her lich a very serious look, “how long have we been here? In this dungeon?”

“We’ve been here…” he started, and then his skull of a face screwed up. “Mistress, something very unusual is going on.”

Bang, bang, bang. Another knock at the door made both Seena and Hiral jump. Then the door swung open and Yanily stormed in, Seeyela at his heels.

“Yan, what… what if I was asleep?” Hiral said. “Or getting changed?”

Yanily looked at Seena standing very obviously in the room, then back at Hiral, and raised an eyebrow.

“I said what if,” Hiral mumbled. “Never mind. I take it, by the looks on your faces, it’s happening to you too? How long do you think we’ve been here?”

“About a month,” Seeyela said, closing the door and leaning back against it. “I remember putting up a dozen homes, maybe more. I remember putting up this building we’re sleeping in. Part of me even remembers going to sleep in my bed—I can’t believe I’m calling it my bed—last night. The other part of me remembers holding my daughter and finding the Grandfather carved open yesterday.

“Which one is real?”

“Perhaps… both of them,” Left said. “When we entered this dungeon, The Rise of Fallen Reach, there was a message about time moving differently. This could be what it meant.”

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“I thought it might move faster in here, but not this,” Hiral said. “Yan, what about you?”

“What about me?” Yanily asked.

“This isn’t bothering you?”

“It was a bit confusing at first, but now that I know it’s not just me, it’s not so bad,” Yanily replied with a shrug. “I even got experience while I was sleeping. How can I complain about that?”

“You… Really?” Hiral opened his own status window to find more experience in escrow. When did that happen?

“Okay, look,” Seena said. “It obviously happened to all of us, but is it going to keep happening?”

Hiral thought about it, then nodded. “Probably. Like Left said, the name of this dungeon we’re in is The Rise of Fallen Reach, which makes me think we’re going to be here until the islands start flying. That’s almost two years from now, according to Dr. Benza and Cederk. Do any of you want to spend that long in here?”

The three Growers shared a quick look, then shook their heads.

“Exactly,” Hiral went on. “This time contraction effect we’re seeing, it has to be the PIMP’s way of getting us through to the end without making us spend years doing it.”

“But, why?” Seeyela asked. “Why do we need to be here for two years at all? Why not just drop us into the dungeon at the end of the two years? That’s when everything is going to happen. It’s what happened with the other dungeons.”

“Pop in, kill a few bosses, leave,” Yanily said. “The formula worked.”

“I can think of two reasons why it might be happening this way,” Hiral started.

“Some kind of balance thing?” Seena offered.

Hiral nodded. “That’s one possibility. We keep going back to that concept, so that’s definitely on the table. Maybe the PIMP needed to balance out us being here with needing to start at the beginning.”

“Why does it need us to be here?” Seeyela asked.

“And that leads to my second theory. The PIMP wants to show us what happened. For some reason, we need to see—to experience—the things that’ll happen over the next two years. This might not be just about the end—about what goes wrong—but also about the events leading up to it.”

“Again, why?” Seeyela asked.

“Because…” Hiral said, pointing at the others as his eyes widened. “Because we get to see them build Fallen Reach! There aren’t any towers here yet. No towers means no Fallen. We’ll be here when they put them in place. Which means we’ll have a chance to ask Dr. Benza how to put them back to sleep if they wake up!”

“The PIMP is giving us a way to get the information we should’ve gotten from the Asylum,” Seena said, nodding along with Hiral.

“Then we should go and ask him right now,” Seeyela said. “Get what we need and go back to bed. Wake up in two years—wow, can’t believe I just said that—then get out of here to save our families.”

“Do you think it could work?” Hiral asked Left.

The double seemed to think about it, then shrugged. “Maybe? If that’s the only reason the PIMP put us in here, then in theory it could.”

“What else could it want to teach us?” Seeyela asked.

“The other islands,” Yanily said.

“They don’t make it; we already know,” Seeyela said. “Unless this is about getting into that vault he mentioned?”

“As much as I’d like the loot, no, it’s not about that,” Yanily said. “The other two islands, they’re for Builders and Bonders, right? How much do we actually know about either of those races? Or what happened to them? Other than Hiral here, we haven’t seen anybody but Growers and Makers in… well, forever.”

“We might be able to figure out what happened to them…” Hiral said, nodding along with the spearman. “If we had the other races working with us, that’d be more parties running dungeons. More people to fight the Enemy.”

“Do we want to fight the Enemy?” Seena asked seriously.

“I don’t know,” Hiral admitted, “but I’m sure the PIMP wants us to. It might think the Growers and Makers aren’t enough. That we need the other two groups.”

“It would make sense if we go back, again, to the concept of balance,” Left offered. “Four races were likely created for a reason.”

“Okay, then here’s the plan,” Seena said after a moment of silence while everybody thought. “Let’s go with the assumption we’ll be in here for the next two years, with time flashing by when we sleep. On the days we’re awake, let’s learn as much as we can about the other two races, and about the Fallen towers.

“Yan, you’re on patrol every day. See if they can send you to any of the other islands to look around. Maybe talk to some of the people there.”

“What am I looking for?” Yanily asked.

“Honestly not sure,” Seena said. “Get to know people. Keep your eyes and ears open.”

“We know those islands aren’t going to end up with Fallen Reach,” Hiral said, “but maybe they still make it to the sky somehow. Or… or maybe the people have a hometown they’ll go back to. We just need information on where they might be in our time.”

“Will do,” Yanily said.

“What about us?” Seeyela asked.

“We’re all on construction duty today,” Seena said, giving her head a bit of a shake. “This whole memory thing is still a little disorienting. Anyway, we’ll use that time to find out what we can about the towers and their construction. Dr. Benza hasn’t been around much the last few weeks… Er… you know what I mean. Hiral, if you see him, see what you can find out. Sis, you and me, let’s see if we can’t figure out more information about the tunnel system they mentioned. Some of our answers might be in there.”

“We just got the sun back, and you want us to go underground again?” Seeyela asked, but she smiled at her sister to show she wasn’t being serious.

“Left and Right can poke around a bit as well,” Hiral suggested, and his doubles nodded. “Who knows what we can learn just by asking a few questions to the workers?”

“Think you can help us get dressed first?” Right pointed down, referencing the fact he was wearing simple pants compared to the Second-Skin of Ur’Thul.

“Ah, sure,” Hiral said, absorbing his doubles and re-summoning them in quick order. “Better.”

“So soft,” Right said, running his hand down the black sleeve.

“I don’t think he’ll ever get over that fabric,” Yanily said.

“Can you blame him?” Seeyela asked, her hand running up and down Left’s arm. “Seriously, Li’l Ur, what is this made from?”

“Trust me, you really don’t want to know,” the little lich said. “Legendary, reformed evil, remember?”

“I’m just going to pretend it’s silk,” Seeyela said immediately.

“Me too,” Hiral agreed.

Seena just rubbed the bridge of her nose, then walked over and opened the door. “C’mon, folks, we’ve got a job to do. Stay in touch over the party chat.”

“You got it, boss,” Hiral said, leaving his room and immediately turning left towards the mess hall. Despite the confusion of the mixed-up memories, his brain had reminded him of a very important fact: Today’s menu item was waffles.

And, apparently, he really liked waffles.