Rune Seeker

“Okay, everybody, as fun as watching Yanily skate into things is, we should get achievements done,” Seena said. “We’ll have to leave this dungeon in less than forty minutes.” After a clap of her hands and a few more seconds of zipping along a few inches above the ground, everybody skated back to the central dungeon interface.

“Good,” she said, waving her hand over the crystal. “Achievement Rewards.”

A small stream of notification windows popped up in front of Hiral’s eyes, and with an actual timer left until the dungeon spit them out… somewhere… he got right to it.

Achievement: The Shambling Shuffle

Reward: Class Modification: Solar Reserves

Solar Reserves: Increases your Solar Energy Capacity by 1 Rank

Upgrading PIM

Hiral’s eyes widened at the first reward, and then a building pressure spread from the center of his chest out through the double-helix pattern along his skin. Like his whole body was a waterskin being overfilled, he dropped to his knees—and he wasn’t the only one. All around him, groans of pain escaped the Growers’ lips, while green light shone from within their bodies.

PIM upgrade? Hiral mentally asked, because he couldn’t get the words past his gritted teeth and clenched jaw. After everything he’d gone through with the Blood Aura, his body was already sore, and this just pushed him to the brink of passing out. And yet, it wouldn’t let him. Despite his arms and legs feeling they had watermelons shoved into his veins, the limbs looked completely normal. His head literally felt like it was going to explode, and he reached a shaking hand up to his ear to feel if his brain was leaking out the side.

Hiral simply fell over and lay on his side, not even caring if his new clothes got dirty, his breaths coming raspy and fast. One second turned to ten, then thirty, as he reveled in the feeling of not hurting, focusing on his breathing. When he finally had control of his lungs and body again, he pushed himself to a seated position. Surprisingly, after all the pain, he didn’t feel weak. If anything, he felt great, and he pushed aside the achievement window—but not before glaring at it—and checked his status window.

His solar energy capacity was sitting at one hundred percent, with a newly modified rank of S+.

S+, huh? The same rating system Dr. Benza was talking about for advanced class equivalencies. One hundred percent…?

At that point, Hiral glanced at his arm to find the white tattoos displayed on the black coat, so he quickly activated Foundational Split.

“Sorry, guys, didn’t expect that,” Hiral said.

“Honestly glad you upgraded your PIM while we weren’t part of you,” Right said. “Even the memory of the pain was rough.”

“Yeah, that wasn’t fun,” Yanily said, lying on his Cloak of the Tempest a few feet away. It spread out like a storm cloud pressed to the earth. A strange sight.

“Everybody got a capacity upgrade?” Seena asked, also back in a seated position, flames cascading down to roll across the ground—though they didn’t look to be burning anything.

A chorus of affirmative answers sounded, but nobody bothered to stand up. Sure, they felt great now, but who knew what the next achievement reward would put them through?

“Great, we’ll talk about it after we get all our achievements done,” Seena said.

“Hope the rest don’t hurt that much,” Wule said.

“Don’t be weak,” Li’l Ur chimed in. “Pain leads to strength. All who are strong have suffered for it.”

“That sounds a lot like the balance thing Dr. Benza was talking about,” Hiral noted.

“Ah, my would-be apprentice again proves his worth,” Li’l Ur said. “You are correct; the balance demands… demands… What was I talking about?” The lich then drifted down to sit on Seena’s shoulder. The next second, he was playing with her hair. “So pretty…”

“Is he always going to be like that?” Nivian asked.

Seena glanced at the mini-lich on her shoulder as he twisted her hair gently around his arm and giggled. “I don’t know,” she said. “I think he might be changing from what he was into something else. Something more in line with my goals. We’ll see. Anyway, stop stalling and get your achievements done. We don’t have long.”

The party leader was right, so Hiral took a deep breath, closed the first achievement notification, and opened the next.

Achievement – I Still Got this!

Class Reward: Class Modification Upgrade (Conditional): One-Man Army+

One-Man Army+: When you have no allies within ten feet of you, you deal additional damage to enemies. Additionally, when you land the killing blow on an enemy, you are instantly healed for a portion of the enemy’s maximum health, and regain solar energy proportionate to the enemy’s maximum solar energy.

Note: Starting damage bonus is 10%.

Note (2): Damage bonus can be increased by defeating Elite or above enemies of your rank and level (or higher) without any assistance.

Note (3): Current damage bonus is 25%.

Okay, let’s see here. Distance from party members dropped from fifteen feet down to ten, so that means I can be closer to the others and still get the bonus. Nice. And then there’s that other effect if I land the killing blow. Bit of overlap with Killing Spree+, but I’ll assume they work together until I have a chance to test it. Doesn’t look like a huge upgrade at first glance, but it’s solid. And nothing is exploding.

Hiral read over the notification window one more time to make sure he didn’t miss anything, then closed it and opened the next.

Achievement – Till Death do us Part

Class Reward: Class Modification: (Lost) PIM Upgrade – Party Interface – Shared Attributes

(Lost) PIM Upgrade – Party Interface – Shared Attributes: Each active member in the party shares a portion of their highest attribute with other party members.

Note: Only one attribute per party member can be shared, even if two attributes share the highest value. In this case, one will be randomly chosen.

Note (2): Amount of attributes shared increases with time spent in the party.

Free attributes? Just for being in the party? Most of the others probably have wisdom as their highest stat, which won’t do me much good… but it’ll be a huge help to each of them. Then again, I bet Nivian is all about endurance. Yanily? Maybe dexterity. That could be good.

Hiral resisted immediately going over to his status window to check his new stats—barely—and instead shook his head. He should wait until all the achievements were done in case there was anything else that increased attributes.

Next, and the notification window vanished for the next to appear.

Achievement: Get Back in your Box

Reward: Class Modification: Selected Skill Increase

Please choose one skill from the following list to have its rank increased.

Skill Choices: Terminal, Eloquent, Enraged, Intimidate, Infernal Conjuration, Gourmand, Walk on Water, Internal Injuries (D-Rank), I Bow to No One (slight), Elemental Resistances (10%), Beauty Sleep, Inspirational Growth, Life of the Party

Wow. A choice of which skill to upgrade? Probably like the Killing Spreeupgrade… which would explain why it’s not on the list. No runes either. These all look like skills I got from achievements, so that must be the connection.

Hiral took a quick glance at the others. “You all get an option to upgrade a skill?”

“Yeah,” Seena said. “Easy choice for me. You?”

“Still working on it,” Hiral said.

“Don’t take too long,” she said with a chuckle.

“I know,” Hiral mumbled, turning his attention back to the list.

Terminal and Walk on Water were out right off. Maybe the upgrade would remove the possible side effect from Terminal, but if it didn’t, the ability was simply too risky to use unless the situation was dire. And what would upgrading Walk on Water look like? Sure, it was convenient, but he’d need something more impactful.

Eloquent and Enragedwere both amazing, but something about only upgrading one of them annoyed him. He always used them together, and they were balanced like that. Intimidate had been useful the one time he’d activated it, but he honestly kept forgetting about it.

Maybe because it doesn’t make anything explode. I’ll leave it as a maybe.

Gourmand and Beauty Sleep were both useful, but again, nothing flashy enough to waste a skill upgrade on. Infernal Conjuration would almost go in that category, but Right got a lot of use out of it. Another maybe. I Bow to No One was just frustrating with its slight modifier. Without an actual, clear indication of what it did, upgrading it felt like a waste. Elemental Resistances would be good… except they weren’t dealing too much with it at the moment.

Then again, if blood is considered an element, would that necrotic damage be considered one too? Again, there was no way to know how much of an upgrade it would be, but he left it on the maybe list.

That just left Internal Injuries, Inspirational Growth, and Life of the Party. Since Inspirational Growth was random, that could be ruled out—there was a chance he’d never see a benefit from it. Internal Injuries was very tempting to continue improving his damage, but then again, it wasn’t like he’d really been suffering in that department. And, if anything, Life of the Party would give the most benefit overall, since it would affect five people instead of one.

One more look at his list of maybes, and Hiral made his choice. They were all good, but really, this would be the best way for him to support the rest of the group. Still, he hesitated before making his final choice. He’d been kind of leaning into the solo-fighter role with One-Man Army+, but this last boss and its stupid Blood Aura had proven he couldn’t do everything on his own.

What that in mind, he made his choice, and the notification window vanished for another to quickly take its place.

Class Reward: Class Modification: Life of the Party+

Life of the Party+: Simply being in a party grants the following buffs to you and your allies:

+15% to all attributes, solar energy capacity, solar energy output, and solar energy absorption. Reduces solar energy cost and cooldown of abilities by 15%.

Hiral did a double-take as he looked at the upgraded ability. It wasn’t just the others who got the stat bonus now—he did as well! From the wording, they just needed to be in a party; the caveat about being nearby was gone. The ten-percent bonus to things had increased to fifteen, and now there were reductions to cost and cooldown.

“Absurd…” Hiral said with a huge grin on his face. He read the skill one more time, then closed it and moved on to the final achievement reward.

Achievement: Not Quite Dead Yet

Reward: Class Modification: Attribute increase (+10)

Highest attribute will receive +10.

Note: If two attributes share the same value, total will be split evenly among them (+5). If more than two attributes share the same highest value, two will be chosen at random and each receive +5.

More stats! For me, this means dexterity and attunement, I guess. Maybe I should consider actually putting points into something else…

Nah.

Hiral closed that window and found the others looking at him before he had a chance to check his stats.

“What?” he asked.

“I was looking at my stats, and my buffs, and I see this Life of the Party+,” Seena said. “That’s what you chose as your upgraded ability?”

“Yes…” he said slowly. “Is that okay?”

“It’s amazing,” she said, and the others nodded along with wide eyes. “With that, plus the Party Interface we just got and that last achievement, I think we’ll be hitting way above our Rank now. I almost feel kind of guilty for taking such a selfish skill upgrade.”

“What did you take?” Hiral asked.

“Cinder+,” she said. “Straight upgrade to damage and the fire resistance debuff it provides. It’s my main ability now, so it made sense… for me. I guess I could’ve taken something that would’ve benefitted the party more…”

“Don’t be silly, mistress,” Li’l Ur said.

“Mistress?” Seena mouthed at the lich.

“As my apprentice—even though he isn’t dead yet—it is his duty to protect you, my mistress, as he would protect me,” Li’l Ur explained. “Anything less would be… would be…” The lich trailed off and settled back down on her shoulder.

Seena just shrugged at the others, then looked at Hiral again. “Have you at least checked your stats? They’re kind of crazy. I’m guessing the attunement boost I got is from you.”

“And don’t forget to add in your points for leveling up,” Yanily said.

“We leveled?” Hiral asked.

“Four times!” Yanily winked. “This place was insanely good experience. Can we do it again?”

“Probably thanks to Seena and her exploding pets,” Nivian said, but Hiral wasn’t really paying attention, as he’d already opened up his status window.

Just like Yanily had said, he’d gained four levels—almost five—from the dungeon, and he quickly allocated his stats, then looked at the results.

Attributes

Strength (Str)—18 (3) = 21

Endurance (End)—18 (3+9) = 31

Dexterity (Dex)—20 (3+59+8) = 114

Intelligence (Int)—18 (3) = 21

Wisdom (Wis)—18 (3+30) = 55

Attunement (Atn)—20 (3+59) = 103

“Oh my…” he said, looking at the new additions in brackets. Those had to be the bonuses from the upgrade to Party Interface. “Plus thirty to wisdom!?”

“We aren’t very smart or strong, but we’re wise,” Yanily said proudly.

“Most of that is probably from Wule,” Seena said. “He puts almost everything into wisdom.”

“That’s ridiculous! And… amazing,” Hiral said. “So, dexterity is from Yanily, endurance from Nivian, and the rest of you all give wisdom?”

“It’s our main stat,” Seeyela said. “Though I’ve started branching more into dexterity now that I’ve got these daggers.”

“And I’m going a bit into intelligence,” Seena said. When the others looked her way, she added, “My fire abilities get a damage bonus from it.”

“Either way, this is going to make a big difference,” Hiral said.

“Yeah, those undead in the city won’t know what hit them,” Yanily said, thumping the butt of his spear on the ground.

“They won’t,” Seena agreed. “But, since we’ve got about half an hour before we have to go back out there, let’s make sure we’re as ready as we can be.”