Rune Seeker

The energy-half of the blade blazed to life as Hiral launched himself forward with a Rejection-powered leap, while the lich swiveled and struck out at Left and Right. If they hadn’t been so familiar with how Hiral used his Rune of Attraction, the dancing scythes in the air might’ve been a real threat, but as it stood, the doubles barely seemed to acknowledge the attacks. A slight sway here, a small dodge there, and the two fighters decimated the number of swirling bones.

Purple flames mixed with the blue of Left’s wing, and bones fell by the dozens. When Hiral joined in, his sword cutting a swath through the field of flying white, the lich had no choice but to fall back. Still, this thing was a D-Rank Boss, and the extra pressure seemed to bring out its competitive side.

The two dancing scythes quickly became four, then six, and finally eight, the lich’s hands directing an orchestra of death as the blades whirled and struck. Even with his growing mastery of his runes, there was no way Hiral would be able to keep that many weapons in the air—though it would be amazing if he could—and the three versions of him were suddenly the ones falling back.

As soon as the lich had the breathing room—Do undead even breathe?—it began tap, tap, tapping other bones circling around it. One after the other, the previously normal bones morphed into more of the bladed weapons, turning the whole field into a cyclone of razor-sharp death, twenty feet wide, with the lich at the center. Additional weapons just gave it more to throw at Hiral and his clones, pushing them back another thirty feet so they could keep the attacks at bay.

“No way we can dive into that without losing a limb,” Right said, batting aside two whipping blades and dodging a third.

“Death ray?” Left asked.

“Barely at half-charge after using it on the Death Knight, and we’ll only get one shot since there’s nothing to power it up on,” Hiral said. “With this thing at full health, it won’t do any extra damage either.”

“Could clear out the bones and give us an opening,” Left countered, slapping a flying scythe out of the air with his dagger. More and more of the weapons were coming their way, the lich practically standing in place as it hurled out its attacks.

No, standing in place wasn’t quite right. The lich was still moving with every attack, almost like it was following through on a martial arts kata to direct the weapons’ movements. But how could Hiral use it to his advantage?

“I’ve got a plan,” Hiral said, greatsword annihilating two of the scythes as they raced his way. He then changed his stance and reached out a hand for a third. The flying scythe dropped straight to the ground with a thought, and he nodded as his plan came together.

“Should we be worried?” Right asked while he and Left seamlessly moved to intercept any of the attacks sent Hiral’s way.

“It’ll probably be reckless,” Left said.

“Probably,” Hiral agreed. “We’re going straight for the boss. Cover me.”

With that, the two doubles charged forward, trusting in whatever Hiral’s plan was. He followed five feet behind, his sword in one hand and solar energy pooling in the other.

Twenty-five feet out, Left and Right crisscrossed, knocking scythes out of the air—just enough to send them zipping past Hiral.

At twenty feet, Left swept his Wing of Anella around in an uppercut motion, freezing a dozen blades in midair, and Hiral literally dove between them as they fell.

Fifteen feet out, it was Right’s turn to cut down a swath of cutting bones by bringing a fire-bearing hook around like a wing of flame. The bones were barely ash by the time Hiral passed.

Ten feet away, they were so close to the edge of the cyclone of blades it was almost impossible to dodge or parry the fast-moving attacks. Right slapped down one and elbowed a second, but a third drove into his thigh. The double didn’t even stumble, leaping into the air to kick two more aside. Left, for his part, lashed his dagger out to leave a constant stream of water in the air, cutting down bones one, two, three at a time, but one got past his defense, too, taking him in the shoulder. A second left a nasty wound across his gut, but then they were at…

Five feet, Hiral launched ahead with a Rejection-powered leap, charging between Left and Right while extending his empty hand. Pain lanced across his open palm, but he ignored it and pushed his built-up solar energy into his Rune of Gravity.

WHOOMP. Everything in a fifty-foot sphere in front of Hiral slammed to the ground, bone blades driving six inches in the dry dirt, and even the lich dropped to its knees. Hiral grunted with the effort of maintaining the gravity field. One second… two… He was at his limit…

Left and Right dashed past him, purple flame on one side, purple water on the other, neither affected by his ability. The lich’s blue eyes scowled as it tried to raise a hand, a blade—anything to defend itself—and Hiral’s hold on his ability faded.

Dozens of blades sprang into the air at the same time the doubles swung. From one side, Right’s fist came around like a sledgehammer, slamming into the side of the lich’s hooded head. From the other, Left’s Dagger of Sath struck where the Lizardman’s neck would be, the stream catching up at the same instant Right’s pillar of fire fully ignited.

SHOOOOM! The dual explosions ripped the undead’s head clear off its shoulders and launched it wildly end over end into the air, while the body slumped to the ground.

One of three bodies, at least. Left and Right both toppled down beside it, dozens of bone scythes impaling them. Grisly wounds leaked solar energy as Hiral ran ahead, and the two of them vanished in a puff of glowing smoke before he could arrive. They’d sacrificed themselves to land the finishing blow, and tattoos emerged on Hiral’s skin.

Luckily for everybody, a quick activation of Foundational Split negated that sacrifice, and his two doubles peeled off him to form at his side again.

“Sorry I couldn’t hold the gravity field longer,” Hiral said.

“We knew what we were getting into,” Right said. “Though, damn, that stung.”

“The others?” Left asked, and all three turned to check on how the battles were going against the remaining two liches.

Nivian and Wule, understandably, had made the least progress in their battle, though the Boss was at seventy-five percent health. The ice-throwing lich, on the other hand, dropped to the ground as Hiral watched, a Cinder slashing across its chest while Seeyela rode its corpse down, her daggers buried in its eye sockets.

“That just leaves one more,” Yanily said, lancing into the sky as a lightning bolt that reached the clouds in an instant. A heartbeat later, he plummeted back down, tearing through the hanging aura of blood droplets to drive his spear straight into the lich’s chest.

TheBoss and spearman hit the ground with a WHAM, dirt blown back by the impact, but somehow it was Yanily who looked like he’d taken the worst of it. Blood ran from a dozen wounds along his face and neck, and he coughed out crimson phlegm.

“That aura is some kind of debuff,” Nivian said. “Seeyela, get him out of there!”

“On it,” Seeyela said as Yanily stumbled off the lich and literally fell into a portal that opened beside him.

Thud. He hit the ground next to Wule, who immediately went to work healing the strange injuries.

The lich, for its part, pulled the spear out of its chest, tossing it to the side, then stood itself back up, the aura of blood hanging thick around it.

“It doesn’t seem to have a lot of powerful attacks, but every time we get close to it, we take… Hiral, what are you doing!?” Nivian shouted as Hiral charged into the field of blood droplets.

Pain immediately shot through his body at the same time a notification window sprang to life.

You have been afflicted with the Blood Volatility debuff.

Blood Volatility: Pain and injuries mount as blood vessels explode.

Suffer damage every second blood is infected.

Note: Blood Volatility lasts 5 seconds, but duration refreshes every second while within a Blood Aura.

Hiral took a quick swing at the lich, barely thinking about it, then started forward to escape the agonizing Blood Aura. He paused at his next step, though, then spun around and lunged for the lich, stretching out his empty hand.

This can’t work, can it? his pained brain asked, small eruptions bursting from under his flesh to spit blood into the air.

The lich, seemingly more than happy for Hiral to stay longer within its debilitating Blood Aura, didn’t even try to stop Hiral from reaching out for it. As soon as he reached this lich’s chest, though, Hiral focused on the Blood Volatility debuff and activated his Runes of Increase and Rejection.

Like he’d done back against the Troblin Butcher in the Troblin Keep, Hiral transferred his debuff from himself to the Boss. Sure, he was immediately re-exposed to the debuff since he was standing within the Blood Aura, and it would constantly refresh as long as he was there, but now the Boss would face the same risk, unless it had some kind of immunity to the ability.

By the way blood burst out of bone on the lich’s skull—it didn’t.

Hiral didn’t have time to celebrate the success, though. More pain exploded all across his body as the Blood Volatility debuff did its terrible work, and he stumbled away. Something in his eyes exploded, tinting everything red, the pain sudden and violent enough to drop him to his knees.

No, can’t stay here. Just going to get worse.

He told himself that, but he couldn’t rip his hands away from his eyes or get back to his feet, and more pain tunneled through his body. It was getting worse. Deeper. The debuff was far more dangerous than he’d imagined, moving from the surface level to his internal organs. How could he…?

Strong arms wrapped around his body and heaved him up like he was a child, then carried him somewhere while his feet dragged along the ground. Voices gnawed at his consciousness through the voice chat, but the debuff had done a number on his hearing as well.

And he’d only really been in there for a few seconds.

Another cascade of pain in his chest, and Hiral twitched within the arms carrying him. What could they…?

Something pressed against his lips, and then warmth leaked into his mouth. As it ran down his throat, the pain eased, and he began to make out the words slamming against his ears.

“Stupid and reckless!” Seena was saying.

“Wule, hurry,” Nivian said. “Potion is helping, but he’s bleeding a lot.”

More warm liquid crossed Hiral’s lips, and he greedily sucked it down, the rest of the bottle taking away the worst of the agony almost immediately.

By then, Wule was there, and more refreshing energy pulsed through Hiral’s body. Unlike the potion, which spread out generally, Wule’s healing went to work directly on the most injured areas. Seconds that felt like minutes of pain finally passed, and Hiral pushed himself to a seated position.

“I… I’m sorry,” he said. “That wasn’t how I’d planned it.”

“Of course it wasn’t,” Seena snapped. “But we’ll talk about that later. We have a boss to finish off.”

“How’s it going?” Hiral asked Wule as the healer helped him to his feet.

“Whatever you did, reckless or not, seems to be effective. Look for yourself.” Hiral followed where the man pointed to see the lich rolling around on the ground. It clawed at itself like its skin was on fire while worms burrowed through its insides.

Yeah, I know that feeling.

With everybody standing safely back, and the lich not putting up much of a fight, Seena took the time to ready all four of her fireballs. A quick trio of Cinders from her other hand to lower its fire resistance, and then she let loose.

BOOOOM! The field of red droplets vanished in an instant, the lich along with it.

Then all eyes turned to the final lich hanging within the cone of light above the Urn.

“Impossible!” the Remnant of Ur’Thul shouted. “You should never have been able to…”

The lich’s words cut off as four more fireballs erupted above the Urn, completely swallowing the floating monster. Solar energy pulsed out in a wave that knocked everybody from their feet, and then Hiral—again—pushed himself up from the ground just in time to see the glowing light around the Urn blink out.

Dynamic Quest Complete

Congratulations. Achievement unlocked – Get Back in Your Box.

You have prevented the Remnant of Ur’Thul from breaking its long imprisonment, and have unsealed the dormant power of the Urn.

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

Note: The Ritual is complete.