Rune Seeker

Hiral crawled forward on hands and knees, his whole body feeling like it was still hurtling madly down the stairs. The cold, stone floor beneath his fingers brought him some stability, but it still took all his effort not to keel over sideways.

Off to his left, Fenil vomited out the contents of his stomach with a wet sploosh, but that had to be more because of the concussion than the trip. A quick look at all the others likewise sprawled out suggested that maybe—just maybe—the trip had played some small part in it.

“Next time we do that, absorb us first…” Right mumbled.

“How about no next time?” Laseen asked.

“Save the complaints for later,” Seena said, already back on her feet—with only a slight wobble. “We got down here fast, and that’s what’s important. Dr. Benza, where to?”

“The discs are that way,” Dr. Benza said, still on his knees but pointing down one of the three halls leading off the room.

“Okay, then,” Seena said. “Up and at ’em.”

“You got it, boss.” Hiral hoisted himself up and offered Laseen a hand.

“Thanks,” she said, and with that, everybody was back on their feet. Well, except for Fenil, who somehow still had something left in his stomach.

Another thirty seconds of that and, really, this time, everybody was ready to go. A tap on Hiral’s shoulder set him jogging down the tunnel, the others close behind. From there, it didn’t take them more than a minute to feel and hear the wind picking up and rushing down the narrow hall.

“Tasting lightning energy,” Yanily said. “We must be getting close.”

“We are,” Hiral said. “Be ready for anything.” Then he darted out into the wide room with Left and Right fanning out at his sides. Nothing jumped out and tried to rip their insides out, but beyond the two Discs of Passage sitting ready, a not-so-distant storm raged. “Looks like the rain has reached the edge of the next two islands.”

“Then we don’t have much time,” Dr. Benza said. “If that monster attacks the Grower island before we get the spear to Hugor, then we might as well just throw ourselves off the disc.” The doctor ran ahead of Hiral to the control panel on the Disc of Passage. “What are you all waiting for? An invitation? Well, consider yourselves invited!”

Hiral’s RHCs came out in his hands as he and the others filed on.

“I know you said this thing has a shield of some kind,” Seena said to Hiral. “Does it have weapons?”

“It has us,” he said, walking over to the edge.

“Good answer. I’ve got this side.”

“Oh, count me in—I’ve got to test this thing out before we meet up with Hugor,” Yanily said.

The Spear of Clouds twirled in his hands, lightning and thunder trailing behind it in an oddly soothing way. Unlike the storm the spear’s power represented, the energy somehow gave off the same feeling of peacefulness as looking at a sky in the reflection of a placid lake. It wasn’t the fury or terror of the clouds the Enemy brought with them.

It was calm. Quiet. Pure.

And it was building.

“Guess that means I’ve got this side,” Seeyela said as she took the fourth and final quadrant of the platform.

“Left, Right, neither of you have much for ranged options, so I want you on the watch for anything that gets past us,” Seena instructed.

“You think we’re going to get attacked?” Fenil asked, sitting with his back against the control interface.

“I can almost guarantee it,” Seena replied.

With a touch of his arm and leg, Left brought out The Pack and Banner of Courage.

You have been buffed by Banner of Courage.

Critical Strike Rate increased by 15% for 180 seconds.

Critical Strike Damage increased by 45% for 180 seconds.

Attack Speed increased by 5% for 180 seconds.

Moderate Healing Over Time for 180 seconds.

Moderate Shielding granted for 180 seconds.

Immune to Fear and Fear-like effects for 180 seconds.

Solar Absorption Rate increased by 1 Rank for 180 seconds.

Now at B-Rank, thanks to the Second-Skin of Ur’Thul, the banner was just getting more and more overpowered. Especially when Left could stand in the center of the disc and cover the entire party. Not to mention the new addition of an attack-speed bonus.

“We’re leaving.” Dr. Benza punctuated his words with a small gesture on the interface, and a blue shield appeared to overlap with the gold dome from the banner. Then, just like that, the disc zipped out from its hidey-hole in the bottom of the island.

Hiral did a quick look in the air around him to make sure nothing was immediately attacking—and that there weren’t any rats waterfalling off from above—then turned his attention to where they’d come from. Just like the doctor had said, this part of the island would be completely shrouded in the mist brought up from the EnSath River. Did that mean those tunnels they’d come down through would be filled with water?

No. That wouldn’t make sense—there were stairs. Those passages are probably still there in our time. It has to be what Gauto found.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

With the general location of the entrance memorized—it couldn’t hurt to know where some actual Discs of Passage were—he refocused on his more immediate surroundings. Until his eyes fell on the devastation across the way, that is.

Where the fourth island had been, there was little more than a pile of broken stone spread over miles, individual boulders still shifting beneath the torrential rain. The massive tentacles that had ripped the island off the top of the mountain were nowhere to be seen, but by the way the lightning flashed in the thick clouds above, he could make a guess.

“The rain is already miles in on the islands,” Hiral said, “and moving fast. Doctor, take this thing to maximum speed.”

“Do you see the Enemy?” Seena asked.

“No, but I think it’s in the cloud above one of the islands.”

“Which one?” Dr. Benza asked, panic creeping into his voice.

“Not the Grower one,” Hiral said.

“So, it’s after the Builder island, then. It must sense the power of the objects hidden within the vault.”

“Can it destroy the vault?” Seeyela asked. “Or the items in it?”

“No,” Dr. Benza said. “Well, probably not. It’s hidden in a dungeon within a dungeon, so to speak. They probably had the vault door open while they were moving supplies in. As long as they close it before anything happens, it’ll be fine. And, if we can get the spear to Grandfather, then get down to the village, they won’t even need to do that.”

“You’re not going to take us to the same type of dock we just came from, are you?” Hiral asked. “That many stairs will take too long to get up.”

“No, you’re right. We need a more direct route.”

A few seconds later, the disc angled up sharply towards the edge of the Grower island.

“I see something in the air up there,” Left said. “Looks like… bats of some kind. Big ones. If I had to guess, they’re attacking the people. Like the rats were.”

“If they’re flying, it’s going to be harder for us to sneak past,” Laseen said.

“We’re not sneaking,” Hiral replied. “Take us straight through, Doctor. We’ll hold them off.”

“Expect another abomination Mid-Boss,” Seena said into the party chat.

“The middle of the island is our destination,” Dr. Benza said. “Everybody… get ready.”

Hiral gripped the stocks of his RHCs so tight his knuckles almost popped while doing a quick check to make sure his other weapons floated around him, then focused on the cloud of bats above. The monsters hadn’t noticed them approaching, but that would change any second now.

“Don’t attack until they come for us,” Seena instructed. “Every extra second they ignore us, the better.”

Eyes and weapons tracing the movements of the flying monsters—they were easily as big as the dog-sized rats from the last island—Hiral kept his fingers on the triggers. A couple of the bats seemed to catch sight of them, but no movement in their direction. Yet.

The disc rushed up and over the lip of the island so fast it swirled the grass as it passed, and Dr. Benza kept it low beneath the cloud of bats swarming in the air. Five hundred feet in, though, he was forced to pull higher into the air to avoid the bodies on the ground. Giant bats and people both practically carpeted the area, while pockets of combat still raged.

Parties, from the looks of things, fought against the swarming monsters, while huge insects the size of horses screeched and tried to avoid the pitched battles.

“Are those…?” Hiral started to ask, only ever having caught glimpses of the Growers’ insect-cattle.

“Yes, but no time for that now. Incoming!” Seena hurled a fireball into the air to explode in the midst of bats turning in the disc’s direction. A sphere of flame the size of a house blossomed, painting the ground in shades of orange and red, and Hiral’s Killing Spree+ started stacking up.

Let’s do this.

Pulling his triggers one after the other on cooldown, Hiral systematically started picking off any bats that got close. Unlike Seena, he couldn’t take out whole swarms of them, but his high Atn allowed him to spot and target the monsters whose attention they caught. With the disc moving at hundreds of miles per hour, it was flashing over the landscape. The party only really had to worry about the monsters that’d intercept them. Once the disc was past, the bats would never be able to catch up.

“Doctor, rotate the disc so Seena is at the front,” Hiral shouted, quickly using Shared Strength on the woman to give her a copy of Killing Spree+.

“Understood,” Dr. Benza replied, and the disc turned slightly as it raced ahead.

Catching on quickly, Seena slapped one of the tomes floating beside her, and four of her fire-spitting totems grew out of the edge of the disc. “Focus on the monsters in front of us!”

Hiral swapped out his RHCs for his Runic Blunderbuss, getting his first stack of Ever Changing+, and moved up with Yanily and Seeyela. A pull of his trigger burst in the center of a trio of bats diving in, outright killing the one he hit and shredding the wings of another. The third bat, however, still managed to careen into the path of the disc and then unceremoniously crash into the floor. One wing totally broken, it tried to push itself up, only to get mauled by six infernal wolves.

“What’s the point of the shield if the monsters can get through?” Yanily asked. Chain Lightning+ leapt out from the Spear of Clouds in excessively large arcs to fry entire swaths of bats as he asked, and a childlike grin split his face. “I’m in love.”

“The shield protects us from energy attacks and abilities,” Hiral answered.

“What energy attacks or abilities?” Yanily asked. He got his answer a second later, when a pair of bats seemed to pull up short in front of the oncoming disc. Back and forward went their heads as they spread their mouths wide.

A high-pitched whine tickled at the edges of Hiral’s hearing—buffered by the magic of the disc’s shield—as a visible cone of energy slammed against the blue barrier.

“That kind of ability.” Hiral took aim and pulled his blunderbuss trigger, blowing the two monsters aside for the platform to pass. “We don’t want them getting in here and doing that.”

Another pull of his trigger dropped a group of bats from the sky at the same time fire and lightning spun lines across the front of the disc. The fiery darts from the totems were never-ending streams, raking back and forth in wide arcs with so many possible targets.

Seeyela, instead of trying to drop Gravity Wells constantly as they moved, instead opted to put two of them right on the front corners of the disc itself. Since the party didn’t have to worry about the oppressive pull—and neither did the NPCs, thankfully—any monsters trying to swoop in from ahead got a very unfortunate surprise. Add in the element-spitting hydras growing out of each well, and bats died by the dozens.

Too bad they numbered in the thousands.

And they weren’t nearly as stupid as the party could hope. Seeing the death zone created directly in front of the disc, the bats chose to divebomb down at steep angles from above. Most simply missed the speeding platform, but several managed to land. More of a crash, really, but it didn’t outright kill the monsters.

“We’ll take care of the ones that make it on,” Hiral told the others, waving for them to keep their attention ahead. That done, he dropped the blunderbuss and pulled Death Knell and Stormstrike under his control.

Closing his hands into fists, he fell into a fighting stance as Left and Right joined him. The growl of six infernal wolves practically vibrated the air, and Hiral’s two swords twisted like they had a mind of their own.

The few large bats that’d made it onto the disc looked as if they suddenly regretted their life choices.

“Let’s go,” he told his doubles, and the three darted ahead.