Rune Seeker

Hiral hesitated instead of throwing his weapon at the mass in front of him, the top half of the gloopy mound of flesh actually sliding off to the side as the light in the glowing roots around him sputtered out.

Was that it? Had he killed it? Sure, the notification said he had, but what if that was Seeyela? Actually, was she even fighting hers?

“What was that notification?” Seena practically shouted into the party chat. “Did one of you actually start fighting the Mid-Boss?”

“Uh…” Hiral started.

“Not one of us,” Seeyela said, speaking for the first time since she’d been cut off earlier. “Both of us.”

“How do you know both of us?” Hiral asked.

“Because of… this!” she said, her voice coming out as if she was punctuating something.

Nothing happened.

“Maybe this?” she asked.

“Okay, this… has… to… be… it…” she went on, each word accompanied by an exhalation of effort.

“What are you…?” Hiral started, but another notification window popped up.

Dynamic Quest Complete

Congratulations. Achievement unlocked – The Shambling Shuffle

You have prevented two titanic monstrosities from forming.

Heart of the Graveyard slain (2/2)

Please access a Dungeon Interface to unlock class-specific reward.

Note: Rewards will be adjusted for defeating the enemies prior to completion.

“Well, that’s one Mid-Boss down,” Hiral said, closing the notification window for another to immediately appear.

Congratulations. Achievement unlocked – I Still Got This!

You defeated High-Ranking Elite, Mid-Boss, and Boss monsters of your Rank without aid.

Please access a Dungeon Interface to unlock class-specific reward.

“Oh, I got an achievement for that,” Seeyela said. “Something called I Got This! Hiral, is that the same one you have?”

“Yeah,” Hiral said. “Leads to One-Man Army, though it looks like I just got an upgrade to it for killing an Elite, a Mid-Boss, and a Boss.”

“Can… you…” Seena said, her voice strained over the party chat, “… compare achievement sizes later? Still have a Mid-Boss here to deal with.”

“On my way back,” Hiral said, sheathing his sword and doubling back to get out of the tunnel of roots where he’d entered.

Unlike when he’d plummeted into the root-shaft, none of the roots glowed anymore. In fact, they looked like little more than dried-out husks, shriveled up and ready to fall apart. That thought had barely crossed his mind when the whole tunnel collapsed in a pile of dust, and something thudded to the ground off to his right.

What?

Another thud to his left, and Hiral’s head snapped around to see a Troblin body lying broken on the floor. Understanding dawned on him as he looked up, the whole inside of the building dark. Without the roots holding them up… Shit!

Hiral threw power into his Rune of Rejection as he launched himself forward, the inside of the church literally beginning to rain Troblins.

It wasn’t likely a falling, withered Troblin husk would hurt him much, but it would just be… icky. Rejection-powered step after step got him out of the church hall as bodies fell from the rafters, though most of them were back where he’d started, and he skidded to a stop at the top of the steps. Part of him wanted to rush straight back to the party, but who knew what the dungeon would throw at him to slow him down?

Outside the church, like inside, the previously glowing roots lay crumbled and empty on the stairs and out into the gridwork of mausoleums. It wasn’t all the roots that’d died, though. Many of the ones still crawling up the walls glowed with the same weak light.

Those Hearts of the Graveyard must be able to take over some of the natural roots, or maybe create their own, when originally pulling the corpses to them. The one that chased me back into the city obviously didn’t need to; it just picked them up and stuffed them in its mouth.

While interesting, the theory really didn’t do much for him at that moment, and with nothing charging out of the darkness to attack him, it was time to get back to the party. Still, even though he didn’t see anything coming now, that didn’t mean things would remain that way. Back over the mausoleums the way he’d come was probably the best bet.

With one small modification.

The way he’d used his Rune of Gravity back inside the church made him want to test something else out.

Hope this works.

With that, Hiral crouched down, then launched himself up at an angle with a powerful burst of Rejection, the wake of it jetting out and shredding the roots behind him. As soon as his feet left the ground, he threaded energy into his Rune of Gravity and reduced nature’s hold on him. Just like that, he cleared two—no, four—times as much distance as a normal leap would’ve before he started to angle down again. Even then, his descent had a much softer angle than before, and he traveled eighty percent of the distance in a single leap, the courtyard just a few rows ahead of him.

Oh, I so need to test this more. Why didn’t I think of it until now?

No matter the answer to that question, Hiral returned his gravity to normal and looked to the continuing battle with the Death Knight. The Mid-Boss was down under twenty percent, but it was still fighting tooth-and-nail, holding back almost the entire party.

Seena had moved inside the boundary curtain to assist, but with everybody forced into close quarters with the monster, she couldn’t unleash her most powerful blasts. Cinder and her gout of flame—whatever it was called—were the best she could do, but they seemed to have next to no effect against the Death Knight’s armor.

Yanily, Left, Right, and Nivian all still had to contend with the monster’s shield, which seemed to be everywhere at once. All four of them sported minor wounds despite Wule pulsing with solar energy as he threw out heals.

Actually, it wasn’t just the four in melee range who were hurt; all of them had small injuries forming right before Hiral’s eyes. Seena and Wule, both standing practically beside the blue shield, began to bleed as razor-like cuts appeared on their skin or sliced through armor.

It was like there was some kind of slicing aura within the column of light.

“Almost back,” Seeyela said at the same time Hiral cleared the last building and landed in the courtyard.

“Be careful when you come inside,” Seena said. “There’s something in here cutting us up, but we can’t see it.”

Was there anything Hiral could do to help with that? A quick look at the Party Interface showed everybody was around eighty percent of their health—nothing too serious—but Wule was already below forty percent of his solar energy. The constant strain of topping off the wounds was obviously pressing him.

“Then I guess we need to kill that Mid-Boss faster,” Seeyela said, bamf’ing from a rooftop at the far end of the courtyard… then appearing flattened against the column of blue light like she’d run face first into it. “Ouch…” she muttered, falling through it as soon as her body fully materialized. “Nobody saw that…” She shook her head, then ran forward to join the fight as cuts immediately appeared on her.

Yeah, I need to do something about that.

Leaving his RHCs on his thighs, Hiral dashed ahead—though he made sure not to use any abilities to pass through the barrier. As soon as he stepped into the column of light, minor streaks of pain began slicing across his body. Nothing serious, and only one every five seconds or so, but they’d add up.

What are they, though?

Hiral opened his hand in front of himself and watched until something cut across his palm. Whatever it was, it was invisible to the naked eye. So, narrowing his focus, he pushed power into his Rune of Energy, a small sphere of light appearing around his hand up to his elbow. Just a few seconds later, there, something cut across his thumb just deep enough to part the skin, and Hiral tensed his sphere of Energy.

Whatever it was halted mid-flight, energy bound within denser energy, and Hiral focused on the feeling he got through the connection to his rune. It was the same kind of blue energy coating the edge of the Death Knight’s sword—just the tiniest fragment of it. With that feeling in mind, Hiral pushed the power of his Rune of Energy directly into his eyes, and a whole swarm of the blue blades of energy appeared before him.

Bouncing around the cage formed by the column of light, there had to be close to a hundred of them, all pinballing off anything they hit. The Mid-Boss didn’t seem to be controlling them; it’d just released them to careen around randomly. And that meant Hiral could probably do something about them.

While the others continued their battle against the Mid-Boss, Hiral pushed the feeling of the blades of energy into his Rune of Rejection and pushed. Dumping solar energy into his rune, he expanded his field across the entire courtyard encompassed by the curtain of light, though only about ten feet high.

Within seconds, the blades were forced above the party’s heads, and small injuries stopped accumulating. Health bars in Hiral’s Party Interface immediately began to climb, and Wule breathed a sigh of relief into the chat.

“I can’t keep this up forever,” Hiral said, his solar energy ticking down even with the improved efficiency from the sash around his waist.

“Whatever you’re doing is affecting its sword too,” Nivian said, fully catching a blow on his shield without the wood getting cleaved straight through. And, yes, looking closer, the blue energy along the edge of blade looked blurry, less solid.

It wasn’t just the blade, either. Even the energy pouring out of the spaces between the Death Knight’s armor lost some of its intensity.

“Hit it, now,” Seena said, clawing her hands in front of her for dual Cinders to rip across the Death Knight’s armor.

“Seeyela, aim for the left knee,” Yanily said while he charged in from the right, his spear whirling ‘round to engage the sword. Nivian, Left, and Right, meanwhile, charged in to occupy the shield at the same time.

“The…? Got it,” she said, and Hiral spotted the same thing she must have—the armor around the joint completely ruined to expose sinew and bone beneath.

Bamf. The woman vanished and then reappeared under the shield as it swung up high to intercept a leaping Right. Even as the Death Knight spotted her and began to snap its shield down to bash her across the back of the ahead, Nivian darted in and put his own shield above them both. In that split-second opening, Seeyela drove both her daggers into the sides of the Death Knight’s exposed knee. Green energy spilled into the joint, then up and down the leg.

Back across came the Death Knight’s sword to cleave Seeyela in two, opening it to a vicious hit from Yanily’s spear in the process, but Nivian again put himself between the Mid-Boss and his party member. A blue barrier appeared to Nivian’s side at the last second—his Orbital Shield flaring to life—but it wasn’t quite enough to completely stop the monster’s powerful attack.

The floating shield crashed into Nivian, who in turn slammed into Seeyela, and both of them went tumbling away in a tangled heap, blood following the arc of the Death Knight’s swing. A quick look at the Party Interface showed Nivian’s health down by a solid quarter, but it was already filling back up thanks to Wule’s quick healing.

With the tank suddenly out of the picture, the Death Knight turned its full attention to Yanily and took a step forward. Catching Yanily’s spear with the shield and pushing it out wide, the undead drew back its sword to strike, but then its left knee buckled. Suddenly off balance, the Mid-Boss toppled to the side as its joint crumbled to dust under the effects of the powerful venom from Seeyela’s daggers.

Worse—for the Mid-Boss—green energy crawled through the blue light spreading beneath its armor.

All that blue must be some type of solar energy, like what Yanily and Seena prefer for cycling. Which makes the Ghost-Web Venomespecially dangerous to it.

Despite its health bar being under ten percent, the Death Knight wasn’t completely out of the fight yet. Its sword slashed back and forth to keep Yanily at bay while it propped itself up with its shield.

“Left, shield arm!” Hiral ordered into the party chat, and the double twisted around to leave a hanging stream of water in his wake.

Seena, at the same time, pulsed with solar energy, and Snaring Roots stretched out the ground to bind the shield. While the roots wouldn’t normally be strong enough to contain the strength of the boss, all they needed to do was buy an extra second.

Noticing Left coming at the last moment, the undead tried to pull its shield up to deflect the blow, but the roots held just long enough, and Left brought his dagger down on the inside of the elbow joint. At the same time Left struck, Right came in from the other side, his purple-flame-enshrouded fist slamming into the distracted boss’s sword-arm.

Both blows sent out resounding shockwaves from their impacts. Left cut one arm clean off with his Dagger of Sath, while Right threw the other arm out wide. Between the two hits, the Death Knight was—for the first time—completely open, and it looked up just in time to see Yanily transform into a bolt of lightning.