Rune Seeker

“I guess the death beam doesn’t work on the undead?” Yanily said into the party chat.

“That shield is absurd,” Hiral responded.

“It is,” Nivian agreed. “I want it.”

“Dibs,” Wule said in reply.

“Argue over the shield after we pry it from this thing’s cold, dead fingers,” Seena said.

“I think its fingers are already cold and dead,” Yanily said.

“Doesn’t change my point,” Seena said. “Nivian, you good?”

“Hiral bought me enough time to get a new shield out,” the tank said. “I’m ready.”

“Okay, folks, the ghouls were just a warm-up,” Seena said. “This is what we trained for. Stop playing around.”

The small lull bought by Hiral’s trump card gave the party a few seconds to center themselves.

“Left, Right, you know what to do,” Hiral said, aiming his RHCs at the Death Knight as each of the other party members set their stances.

For its part, the Vassal of Ur’Thul dropped into a defensive posture, shield held up in front of it and its sword cocked back. Even with its back to several of the Growers, nobody had any expectations of being able to land a sneak attack while it was ready; it’d already proven itself far too fast for that.

“Go,” Seena said, and Nivian charged in first.

The tank’s whip slapped against the shield that came up to block it, and he brought his own shield up to catch the swinging sword. Thorny woodchips flew off from the exchange, but Nivian didn’t get knocked back this time, and Left and Right swept in from the sides.

Both darted and feinted, the Death Knight’s sword lashing out to intercept them, yet they managed to stay a heartbeat ahead. Neither side scored a hit, but that wasn’t why the doubles were there. Hanging purple smoke followed in their wake, circling around the Death Knight and clinging on wherever it touched. On its own, it would hardly do anything to such a powerful monster, but it was only one small part of the plan.

While the doubles sprinted out to circle around again, Hiral, Wule, and Seena went to work, lobbing ranged attacks in from three sides. Orbs of cold slapped against the shield that always seemed to be in place to block them, while the sword batted aside Hiral’s blasts. Seena’s Cinder slashed across the armor with every attack—its nature made it impossible to be parried—though it didn’t do enough damage to bother the Mid-Boss.

Yanily and Seeyela came in next, another quick exchange between Nivian and the Death Knight making sure it didn’t forget about the tank. Up into the air launched the spearman, hanging above for a heartbeat while Seeyela charged in low, daggers lashing out.

Ting, ting, ting, ting. The blades rebounded off the skull-shield that came around to parry them before going back to turn aside Nivian’s next attack. The inability to land a hit didn’t seem to slow Seeyela down, though, solar energy flowing around her like a guided river with each strike. A roll to the left and another lunge kept the Death Knight’s shield busy, and Yanily—still up in the air—spun his spear around.

Two more strikes from Seeyela, and then Yanily transformed into a bolt of lightning that crashed down towards the Death Knight. Around came the shield, unbelievably fast, at the same time Seeyela finally ducked and scored a glancing blow against the knight’s knee. Solar energy pulsed out of her in that instant, and the lightning bolt that was Yanily vanished into a portal directly in front of the shield before reappearing from a second portal behind the Death Knight.

With its shield out of position, Yanily drove his spear straight into the center of the armored undead’s back, pushing it forward while the shockwave of the impact blasted dirt out in a wide circle. Then, as it was knocked off balance, Hiral and Wule finally scored their first real hits, Distracting Shot and the orb of cold further slowing the Mid-Boss’s movements.

Still, even with the spearman practically hanging from its back—the Death Knight’s blue health bar had only dropped about ten percent—it whipped its sword around. Another pulse of energy from Seeyela dropped Yanily into a portal and out of danger to land lightly on the ground twenty feet away, and a pair of fireballs soared in to explode around the undead.

A sphere of flame as big as a house reached for the sky, and the party repositioned to continue the attack, though Hiral simply kept shooting. Pulling his triggers on cooldown,he fired blast after blast into the inferno as it receded, finally revealing the scorched Death Knight.

Its health bar was now at about sixty percent, and the blue energy leaking from its joints intensified while sinister energy pulsed around its weapons.

“Here comes phase two,” Hiral said.

“We’re ready for it,” Seena said, her sister beside her after bamf’ing away from the earlier barrage. “Keep it up.”

Hiral kept his RHCs trained on the undead, ready for it to make its next move, but instead of lashing out at the tank, the Death Knight swiftly drove its sword straight into the ground. Hiral pulled both of his triggers in response, but in less than a second, a thin column of blue light burst out of the dry earth and stretched all the way to the clouds.

With a radius of about fifty feet—the undead at the central point—the circular wall barely shimmered, transparent to the point Hiral almost wondered if it was his imagination, except his bolts of Impact splashed harmlessly against it. That’s not good. Worse, whatever the column was, it trapped Yanily, Nivian, Left, and Right inside with the Mid-Boss, while Seeyela, Seena, Wule, and Hiral were just outside the radius of it.

“What just happened?” Yanily asked over the party chat. “Where are we?”

“What do you mean?” Seena asked, clawing her hand down and across, her Cinder sparking across the blue shield.

“There’s a wall of dark blue around us,” Nivian answered, but he then had to go on the defensive as the undead vassal burst into motion.

It ripped its sword free, hurling dirt in a wide spray that reflexively made Nivian raise his shield. But that was just a distraction, as the Death Knight used its movement ability again to circle around behind the tank.

“Nivian, look out!” Seena shouted, while Right—who wasn’t far from the tank—lunged in with a purple glowing fist.

The double’s quick reaction likely saved Nivian’s life, forcing the undead monster to bring its shield in to defend itself. Purple flames exploded in a pillar of force at the collision, but the Death Knight’s sword snaked out and clipped Nivian’s side before the tank beat the blade away with his own shield.

Red blood leaked from the gash in the bark-like armor covering his body, but at least it didn’t look too serious.

“My healing isn’t going through!” Wule said, a hint of panic in his voice, and he ran up to the hanging blue wall. While Hiral pulled his triggers again and again, each blast hammering uselessly on the shield, Wule tentatively reached out, his hand passing smoothly through the curtain of light. “I’m going in,” he added, stepping through.

What’s going on? The shield prevents our abilities from going in, but we can pass through? Why?

Whatever the reason, Wule’s healing seemed to work. The wound on Nivian’s side mended shut even as he and the Death Knight continued their exchange, with Left and Yanily joining the fray.

“Okay, Wule, good job,” Seena said, also moving up to the wall. “Now get out of there.”

It looks like we all need to go through.

“I… I can’t get out,” Wule said, and Hiral looked from the Mid-Boss to the healer with his hand pressed up against the column of light. “It’s solid from this side.”

“It wants to keep us close to it,” Hiral said, but movement in his peripheral vision jerked his attention to the side. Weapons at the ready, Hiral spotted one of the ghouls crawling across the ground, and he quickly pulled both triggers.

The blasts thudded into the undead, jerking it to the side on the ground, but it kept moving. Stranger still, now that Hiral was looking at it, the blue health bar was nonexistent, and its arms and legs weren’t moving. No, it was more like it was being dragged or pulled across the ground by an invisible string.

And it wasn’t the only one.

Ghoul corpses—and there were a lot of them—were moving across the courtyard in two very distinct yet opposite directions. Is this the Death Knight? Well, whatever it was, it couldn’t be good.

“Seena,” Hiral said into the party chat as the Death Knight exploded into motion, Nivian vanishing at the same time to intercept the undead as it turned its attention towards Yanily.

“Yeah?” Seena asked.

Her tome floated beside her, and her body was poised like she was getting ready to run through the shield as well. It was just Hiral and the two sisters outside now, but their ranged attacks were useless like that.

“Need you to Fireball the ghoul corpses—something is happening,” Hiral said, pulling his triggers to fire at the Death Knight on cooldown. The curtain of light didn’t seem to be weakening in the least.

“Why would I…?” Seena started to ask, but then she must’ve noticed the undead corpses moving like Hiral had. "Oh, that can’t be good.”

“Same thing I said!” Hiral said, changing up his position to get a better angle—not that it mattered.

“Keep the Death Knight busy while I take care of this,” Seena said, fireballs appearing in a line above her right hand.

“What do you think we’ve been doing?” Nivian asked, deflecting a sword strike and ducking under the attack to shoulder-block into the Death Knight.

“Flirting?” Wule asked, a wave of healing energy passing from him to his brother. “But, what’s going on out there? We can’t see anything.”

“First blast incoming now,” Seena warned, all the ghoul bodies on one side of the courtyard conveniently bunching up as they got pulled… wherever. A flick of her wrist, and three fireballs soared gracefully to BOOOOM somewhere behind Hiral.

“First blast of what?” Yanily asked.

Heat and light flowed out like a wave, churning up the dry earth, and the massive explosion even caught the Death Knight’s attention for a second. Pausing and bringing its shield up reflexively, a small opening appeared for Yanily and Nivian both to land glancing blows, chipping away at the undead’s health. They can’t see outside the curtain of light, but it still can. It was still above fifty percent, but they were slowly and surely wearing it down.

Barely a second after the attacks landed, though, the monster’s shield came back around to unerringly turn aside every attack sent its way.

“So, this is what it’s like fighting Nivian, huh?” Yanily asked, flowing around the Death Knight with his spear a blur of dark metal and lightning. Every hit parried by the shield erupted in sparks and thunder, and the spearman never stopped moving.

“Next volley coming now,” Seena said, three more fireballs soaring over the melee to crash into the dragging corpses with a second BOOOOM that shook the courtyard. “That should do it.”

“Next volley of what?” Wule asked, the wake of the second explosion washing against the column of light without passing through, just like before. This time, though, the Death Knight didn’t even flinch from the lightshow. “And what should do what?”

“The ghoul corpses were doing something funny out here,” Seena said. “I took care of it.”

Then a notification window popped up.

Dynamic Quest

Something stirs and grows in the distance.

Danger rises within the shadows. Will you seek it out to cut it off at the source, or wait for it to shamble your way?

Note: It’s not taken care of.

“You all saw the notification?” Hiral asked, closing the window and backing up another few steps from the Death Knight. Was it his imagination…? No, it wasn’t. The charred ghoul corpses were still moving.

“Is that what you took care of?” Wule asked. “We’re still dealing with a Mid-Boss here.”

“Uhhh…” Seena said.

Something grows. Shambles our way. Dragging corpses.

“Afraid I might know what it is,” Hiral said. “I think we’ve got Shambling Graveyards forming on either side of us.”

“Either side…” Seeyela said. “You mean two of those monsters?”

“At least two,” Hiral said. “The corpses are still moving—what’s left of them. And how many more corpses are out there among the mausoleums from Seena’s pets?”

“Not my fault,” Seena said.

“Not saying it is,” Hiral said, Right, Yanily, Nivian, and Left furiously battling against the Death Knight the whole time. “We can’t afford to wait for them to come to us.”

“What are you suggesting?” Yanily asked, pole-vaulting acrobatically over the blue-rimmed sword before rolling away and lunging back in to unleash his Chain Lightning+. The arcs of electricity slapped against the shield, then got sucked into the skeletal mouth. “I really hate that shield.”

“Yup, and I really want it,” Nivian said again, charging in and exchanging a flurry of blows with the undead.

“Back to my question?” Yanily said. “Think Mr. Death Knight will kindly wait here and not shatter the Urn while we go stop the A-Rank monsters from forming?”

“Even if we wanted to, how could we?” Wule said. “We can’t get through the blue wall.”

“It wasn’t trying to keep us close,” Seena said. “It was trying to trap us because it knew the Shambling Graveyards were coming.”

“You’re probably right, but I don’t think they’ll be A-Rank in here,” Hiral said, pulling his triggers and still doing nothing useful. “And they’d probably be weaker before they absorb too many corpses.”

“Hiral’s right,” Seena said. “If we’re going to stop one… or two… of those monsters from forming, it has to be now. Hiral, Seeyela, that’s you two. You move the fastest, and you’re still outside the shield. Split up and find whatever is happening out there. If you can stop it, do it. But don’t take any major risks.”

“You’re sending them out alone?” Wule asked.

“We’ve got this,” Seeyela said, bamf’ing to a roof on one side of the courtyard. “I’ll go this direction. Hiral, you good for the other?”

“Yes,” Hiral said, spinning and sheathing this RHCs at the same time. “Watch which direction the corpses are moving. That should lead us to the source.” A burst of Rejection put him on top of one of the closest mausoleums, and then he dashed out alone into the necropolis.