Rune Seeker

Hours later, with everybody well-rested and chowing down on a bowl of Nivian’s stew, Seena had them seated in a circle to discuss their new abilities. Hiral had to admit, he was pretty happy with what he’d gotten, not to mention the three levels’ of worth of experience they’d also received along with the final achievement. Putting all his points into Dex and Atn—as usual—got him to 75 in each of those attributes. With the ring, he was at 78!

Not bad. Even without using movement skills or abilities, he was fast.

“Yan, you go first,” Seena said, pulling Hiral out of his own thoughts. “What skill did you get upgraded?”

“One of my new Stormstrider abilities,” the spearman said. “It’s now Chain Lightning+. I used it against the zombies before. Maybe you saw? Anyway, the normal version couldn’t hit the same target twice. The new one can, and it leaves a damage-over-time debuff that runs electricity up and down the body. Might work a bit better against those undead.”

“You’ll have to hit me with that,” Hiral said, and Yanily raised an eyebrow at him. “Uh, I can copy debuffs, but I’ll explain when it’s my turn. Sorry for interrupting.”

“Sounds good for clearing a crowd,” Seena said to Yanily, though she gave Hiral a strange look. “How’s the energy cost?”

“With the new belt, not bad,” Yanily said. “Cooldown is a minute, though.”

“We can work with that. And your Chord?” she asked after seemingly making a mental note of his new skill.

“Chord of the Primal Storm,” Yanily said. “It’s like my Reed Spear Style and Dancing Spear Style got together and had a kickass baby. It incorporates moves from both, but it keeps me a lot more mobile. With the other two I pretty much had to stand still to use them to the fullest.”

“Even the dancing one?” Wule asked. “You seemed to move around.”

“But it was so predictable,” Yanily said.

“That’s how we beat the Lizardmen who used it before,” Hiral said.

“Exactly,” Yanily said, pointing at Hiral. “Don’t have to worry about that anymore. Can’t wait to try it out.”

“Thanks, Yanily,” Seena said. “I’m sure you’ll have plenty of excuses to use it soon. Wule, you’re up.”

“As for the upgraded ability, I’ve now got Nature’s Blade+,” Wule said. “Bonus to damage is fifteen percent, it lasts longer, and it has a chance on hit to do a follow-up attack. Kind of like your Lashing Vines, I think.” Seena nodded. “Other than that, I got the Chord of the Primal Tide. My first fighting style, but it’s not based on a weapon.”

“Huh?” Yanily asked, looking surprised.

“I know it’s odd, but it doesn’t matter what kind of weapon I use,” Wule explained. “It just has two—what does it call them?—stances. Offensive and restorative. Basically, the longer I spend in one stance before switching, the more powerful the abilities I use are after the switch, as long as they match the stance. So, if I attack a bunch in the offensive stance, but need to heal, when I swap to restorative, my heals are more effective. Then, if I heal a lot and swap back, my attacks will do more damage again.”

“How long does it take to change?” Seena asked.

“Just a second, though there’s a small solar energy cost,” Wule said. “On the downside, if I try to heal while in offensive stance, it’s less effective.”

“Guess you’ll need to practice swapping back and forth until you’re comfortable with it,” Seeyela said.

“Stance-dancing,” Yanily said.

“Sure, Yan,” Seena said. “Thanks, Wule. Nivian?”

“Swarm Tactics+,” Nivian said. “I can bring a third person when I activate it, and all three get a damage bonus on their next hit. As for my Chord of the Primal End, I get a stacking buff for every attack I block or take in place of somebody else. Not sure how exactly the ability figures out how I take a hit for one of you, but that part aside, the stacking buff both reduces how much damage I take and increases how much I do.”

“Great, both of those things sound like useful abilities,” Seena said, pointing at the tank with her spoon, then seeming to notice her bowl was empty. “Seconds?”

“Sure, here you go,” Nivian said, happily ladling more stew into her bowl.

“Thanks. Hiral, you’re next. What’d you get?”

“Killing Spree+. Bigger bonuses for each thing we defeat in a row,” he said, leaving out the exploding part for now. It wasn’t like it would hurt them not to explain it. “As for my Chord of the Primal Echo, like I said to Yanily earlier, depending on different sequences within the fighting style, I can echo buffs or debuffs I’ve experienced. Buffs on me, debuffs on enemies, to be clear.”

“So, we need to start laying the debuffs on you, then, huh?” Seena said, and did he see glee in her eyes.

Yes, yes, he did.

“As long as we have Wule handy,” Hiral said, and Seena waved her spoon around like that part hardly mattered.

“Anything else?” she asked.

“No, that covers it,” Hiral said, somewhat regretting his decision to explain his ability. Even Yanily was looking a little too excited at the thought of debuffing him.

“Sis, how about you?” Seena said, moving on.

“My Chord of the Primal Moon keeps me moving around, and lets me teleport or throw out portals at no cost if, like Hiral was saying, I perform the correct sequence of maneuvers,” Seeyela said. “We’ll definitely need to practice this so you’re all ready for the portals. My upgraded ability is Bamf+. It…”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Hiral interrupted. “It’s actually called Bamf?”

“Bamf+ now, but yes,” Seeyela said, looking somewhat embarrassed. “I can now take a second person with me at no extra cost, and the base range is further if I’m by myself. Kind of like Swarm Tactics+, I get a bonus on my next hit after porting.”

“That’ll be great for getting Wule out of a pickle,” Seena said.

“Me? Why just me?” the healer asked, but nobody responded… though they all nodded like it made perfect sense.

“That just leaves me, I guess,” Seena said. “One of my newest abilities got upgraded, and I’ve got From the Ashes+. I didn’t notice it before, but the ability only worked on living things, according to the description, which is why none of the undead I blew up came back.”

“Most things that get blown up don’t come back, so I think that’s pretty normal,” Hiral said flatly.

“Whatever,” she said with a shake of her spoon. “Don’t forget we need to debuff you later… for your own benefit.”

“Oh, it really feels like it’s for my benefit,” Hiral said, only to snap his mouth shut when Seena scowled at him.

“Anyway, this upgraded Ashes ability should work on undead, as well as something called a construct,” Seena said. “Not sure what those are. On top of that, the things I bring back often blow up like fireballs when they die. There’s also a chance that whatever comes back becomes a permanent minion. That could maybe be good, I guess, but we’ll see what happens.”

“My Chord of the Primal Flame is like you’d expect,” she continued when she was sure Hiral wasn’t going to say anything else. “Lots of fire. Nothing complicated like Hiral or Seeyela, but it taught me how to weave my different abilities into a fighting style so I’m dangerous at different ranges. Cinder will probably be my staple attack against single targets, but I can toss some fireballs if I need to.”

“Do you still need the tome to use fireballs and the little totems?” Seeyela asked.

“For now,” Seena said. “But—and this is new—I’ve got both listed under my regular abilities tab with little progress bars beside them. I think if I use the book versions enough, I’ll learn them as class abilities.”

“You’ve never seen that before?” Hiral asked.

“Never had an item that let me use specific abilities,” Seena said. “It’s new for us too.”

“It’s amazing how little we know about our own PIMs, even though they’ve been around forever,” Hiral said, looking at the tattoos on his arms. “I’m kind of excited to see what else there is to them.”

“And test it, I’m sure,” Seena said, and Hiral could only smile and shrug. That might’ve beenpart of it. Maybe.

“So, boss, what’s the plan?” Nivian asked. “We’ve got… how long until we need to reach the jump point?”

“One second,” Hiral said, activating Foundational Split, and Left and Right peeled off him.

“Somewhere between one hundred and fifty to two hundred hours,” Left said as soon as he fully formed in a seated position next to Hiral.

“We should assume the lower number, to be safe,” Wule said.

“Agreed,” Seena said. “That’s not a whole lot of time, but really, we’ve done well to get as far as we have.”

“No way to know if the other dungeons will take as long as this one did,” Hiral said. “I’d bet they’re corrupted and Lost too, though.”

“Probably,” Seena said before looking at the dungeon interface. “Since we don’t know where the portal is going to spit us out, and since the city was so dangerous already, I’d like to play it safe and spend a few more hours in here training with our new abilities. Make sure we can work together. Don’t want Seeyela portaling Wule somewhere uncomfortable.”

“Why is it me again?” Wule asked, and again, he didn’t get an answer.

“Six hours. Then another rest to make sure we’re in top shape. After that, we’ll be as ready as we can afford to be, and we’ll see where the portal sends us. Any objections or suggestions?”

“The door back to the second trial looks open,” Hiral said. “If Seeyela needs to actually fight something to get her abilities to trigger, we can probably use her training disc for that. Plenty of room for all of us.”

“Good idea,” Seena said. “I know you all already know it, but I’m going to say it anyway. Once we go back out into the city, things are going to be tough again. We’ve got places to be and things to do, but while we’re in here, we’re safe. At least for a few hours. Relax a bit while you can.”

“Relax while training with you?” Yanily asked, looking up from his stew. “I don’t think you’ve ever listened to yourself while motivating us.”

“You mean threatening us,” Wule said softly, though his eyes widened as he realized it was still loud enough for everybody to clearly hear. “I… probably shouldn’t have said that.”

“Oh, no, I think it was very informative,” Seena said, and something about the look on her face sent a shiver down Hiral’s spine.

Wule whimpered.