Rune Seeker

“She wants to what?” Hiral asked.

“Run a dungeon,” Seeyela said.

“Without a tank or healer?” Hiral said, but there was less heat in his words. Yeah, it’d been a bit of a surprise, especially if the idea was Seena’s, but…

“I see you told him,” Seena said, her voice drifting into the workroom as she entered with Yanily, Left, and Right. Li’l Ur, predictably, floated beside her shoulder. “I was wondering what was taking so long.”

“So you came to us?” Seeyela asked.

“Why not?” Seena asked, sitting down on the bench beside her sister on the opposite side of the worktable to Hiral.

“You really want to run a dungeon?” he asked, and by the looks on Left’s and Right’s faces, that was news to them too.

“Maybe run isn’t the right word… I want to enter one,” Seena clarified. “Come on, since we’re all here, we’d might as well talk it out.” She waved Yanily over to take a seat too.

“You sound like you have a plan,” Hiral said.

“Start of one, at least.” Seena looked at Left. “You have that map with you?”

“Right here.” Left held up a rolled paper as long as Hiral’s arm. “May I?” the double asked Hiral, gesturing to the table, and Hiral moved his tools—and the swords—out of the way. “Thank you.” Left unfurled the paper on the table, and Li’l Ur floated down to hover above the map, lording over it as he inspected the details.

“Adequate representation for my mistress,” the tiny lich said quietly before turning to Left. “I could consider taking you on as a second apprentice. After you die, of course.”

“Of course,” Left said without missing a beat.

“The zone we’re going to?” Hiral asked, spotting the EnSath River, the mountains Seena had named the Horns, and a few other familiar landmarks.

“Yeah, I asked Left if he could recreate what we saw on the globe from memory, and he did a pretty good job,” Seena said.

“It’s not perfect, but it should be mostly accurate,” Left said.

“Don’t be like that; you did great,” Seena said, tossing the double a smile. “Okay, look, this is where the Disc of Passage should take us when we leave.” She tapped her finger near the bottom-right corner of the map. “This is where we need to go,” she continued, dragging her finger towards the center of the map where the Horns lay.

“At the speeds we usually travel, not accounting for your new mounts or the skates, I estimate the journey would take between twenty and thirty hours—possibly a little longer, if the terrain is difficult,” Left said. “The zone is similar in size to the first one where we found the Troblin and Lizardman dungeons.”

“Terrain isn’t too bad in this area,” Seeyela said. “We’ve had people coming down to it for generations.”

“Exactly,” Seena said. “Since I had some time to look at the map, I have a pretty good idea what’s where.”

“Anything dangerous?” Hiral asked. “What kind of wildlife can we expect?”

“Up here”—Seena pointed towards the opposite corner of the map from where they’d enter—“is probably the only place I’d worry about. There are these big worm things that hide under the ground. Pop out at the worst times to try and eat you.”

“Wonderful,” Hiral said.

“As for monsters, well, around the Horns”—she tapped the twin mountains that looked like their name suggested on the map—“there are two major species. The first are what we call Yetis. Big, humanoid creatures with a ton of pure brawn. Kind of like the Hulking Behemoth, but not nearly as strong or with the same healing. They’re only mid-D-Rank, though, so I don’t think we’ll have much to worry about.”

“Don’t forget the goats,” Yanily said.

“I’m getting to them,” Seena said, making small shooing gestures at the spearman.

“Goats?” Hiral asked.

“Stone Goats, we call them,” Seena said.

“’Cause they look like they’re made of stone,” Yanily filled in.

“Are they?” Hiral asked. “Actually made of stone, I mean.”

“Nah,” Seena said. “Instead of hair, they’ve developed this rock-hard outer layer. We thought it was to help them blend into the mountain and hide from the Yetis—they eat the goats—but now that we’ve seen some of the other monsters in other zones…”

“You think maybe it’s some kind of protection from the Enemy?” Hiral finished.

“Maybe?” Seena said. “Seems a lot of things have natural protection like that.”

“The goats dangerous?” Hiral asked.

“Not… exactly,” Seena said.

“They’re bastards,” Yanily said. “Headbutting bastards.”

“Huh?”

“Since the zone is D-Rank, we haven’t been down personally,” Seena said, “but we’ve talked to plenty of people who have. The goats aren’t friendly, and they’re very territorial. They’re also extremely adept at climbing up the sheer rockface. Probably the most treacherous part of coming down to this zone is getting back up to the jump point.”

“The goats like to headbutt people off the side of the mountain,” Seeyela summarized.

“Like I said, bastards,” Yanily said.

“Even for our folks at D-Rank, it can be fatal,” Seena said. “Groups have to be very careful climbing up.”

“Do we even need to go to the jump point?” Hiral asked. “If the flavor text on the Reflections is true, we might be able to fly right up to the islands.”

“We might,” Seena said. “And we’ll take that choice if we can get it. On the other hand, if we still have to jump, this is the place to do it from.”

“Fair,” Hiral said. “Other than worms, Yetis, and bastard-goats, anything else?”

“There’re two other main things. One is really rare, and the other is so numerous we don’t even know how many tens of thousands there are. The rare one is what we call Rocs, these giant birds.”

“Rocs? Oh, I think I’ve seen those when I looked off the edge of the islands. There’s a couple spots people go to watch them. How big do they get, anyway?”

“The small ones have thirty- or forty-foot wingspans,” Seena said.

“They hunt the goats too,” Seeyela said. “Pick them off the side of the mountain, then drop them from the sky to crack open.”

“They do the same thing to people,” Seena pointed out. “Same results.”

“Ouch,” Hiral said.

“Maybe not so much for the guy who can control his own gravity,” Right pointed out.

“True,” Hiral said. “Uh, if we fly to the island, will we have to watch out for them?”

Seena and her sister shared a look, and then both nodded. “That’s a good point, actually,” Seena said. “They’re the alphas of the zone. High-D-Rank. And the Reflections can’t take any damage. Getting up to the jump point and flying from there might be our best option.”

“Sounds like a plan, but you still haven’t gotten to the part about the dungeon yet,” Hiral said, grinning so Seena knew he wasn’t being too serious.

“That actually brings us to the last monster we wanted to talk about,” Seena said.

“The really numerous one? What is it, anyway? More spiders?” Hiral tossed a wink in Yanily’s direction.

“Don’t even joke about spiders.” Yanily crossed his arms.

“Not spiders, but close,” Seena said, circling her finger around the area between where they’d arrive and the jump point. “Ants.”

“Ants?” Hiral asked to make sure he’d heard right. “Like, ants ants?”

“Three-foot-long ants that stand up to your knee at the smallest,” Seena clarified.

“With mandibles strong enough to break the bones of Low-D-Rank people,” Seeyela added. “And that’s not accounting for the stranger variants near the middle of their territory.”

“Ants the size of dogs?" Hiral asked. “And you’re okay with this, Yan?”

“Yeah, ants aren’t scary like spiders,” Yanily said.

“Why not?”

“Eight legs just isn’t natural,” Yanily said.

“Pretty sure it is…” Hiral said quietly, only to shake his head—there wasn’t any winning arguments with Yanily. “The ants have a dungeon?”

“Yes… I think…” Seena said, tapping her finger in the middle of where she’d been circling earlier. “Usually we keep our people on the outskirts of the ants’ territory to, as Dr. Benza would say, farm them. They aren’t too strong, they’re solid experience, and they don’t chase if we have to retreat.”

“This is one of the most sought-after farming areas for any D-Ranker, even as they get to mid- and high-level,” Seeyela added.

“But,” Seena said, tapping her finger again, “there was an old report of a dungeon interface around here, near one of the larger nests.”

“Okay…” Hiral said, considering what she’d said.

“So, Dr. Benza only gave us a forty-eight-percent chance of succeeding. Maybe that’s because of how difficult the process is to put a Fallen back to sleep, or maybe it’s because he thinks there might be a fight involved. We’re all close to hitting level twenty, which means Rank evolutions, and Seeyela says she’s close to getting an advanced class…”

“You want to improve our odds if it comes down to a fight,” Hiral said, nodding along. “Sure, we could farm on the edge of the territory, but without a dungeon interface inside, we can’t evolve.”

“That’s not entirely true,” Seena said. “We could get Rank evolutions from the Grandfather up on the islands.”

“Ah, right, the big tree?” Hiral said. “I guess I could do the same by going to the Measure. Which means you want something else from the dungeon… Achievements?”

Seena tapped her nose and pointed to Hiral. “That’s a big part of it. Yes, we could farm the ants on the edge of their territory, but they’re not Elite, and we’d have to kill a lot. We could do it, but, on the other hand, since the area around the ants is only Low-D-Rank…”

“The dungeon probably is too,” Hiral finished. “Meaning we might actually be able to handle it without a tank or a healer.”

“Exactly. We have the potions if we need them—plus, this shouldn’t be a lost or wild dungeon. Just a regular, old Low-D-Rank dungeon.”

“With our equipment, two advanced classes, all of us on the verge of hitting level twenty already, and Left and Right, we figure we’re more than strong enough to take it on,” Seeyela said.

“And if we can’t—if we find it getting too difficult—we can wait the three hours until it kicks us out,” Seena said, finishing the plan.

Hiral tapped his finger as he looked at the map. It was a risk they didn’t need to take. They could probably hit 20 just on the normal ants—especially with Seena’s From the Ashes+—but then again, maybe this could also help push him towards an advanced class. What Seeyela was saying was true; being an Armsmith didn’t feel quite right for him. The challenge of doing a dungeon without Nivian and Wule might be just what he needed.

“I think it’s a good idea,” Hiral said. “Yanily, did they already talk to you about all this?”

“Nope,” Yanily said. “Doesn’t matter, though. Seena’s the boss—I go where she tells me to. Stab what she tells me to. You get the idea.”

“I do,” Hiral said. “Left? Right? Either of you see anything we’re missing?”

“More achievements and loot can only improve your chances of success on Fallen Reach,” Left said. “Clearing the dungeon, if we can, would give the PIMP another opportunity to provide us with the things we need.”

“That’s a good point I didn’t consider.” Hiral turned to Seena. “When do we leave?”

“Ten hours,” she said. “Since we… won’t have Wule and Nivian to save us if things go wrong, I want to talk about how we’re going to handle the dungeon, and any other fights we get into. After that, one more good rest, and we’re leaving. We may have to hunt a bit for the dungeon…” She trailed off as Hiral shook his head.

“Glowing roots will take us right to it,” he said.

“Damn, I didn’t even think about that. That’s one less thing we have to worry about. Still, ten hours gives us plenty of time to get there, clear the dungeon, then make it to the jump point with time to spare.”

“Even better, it’ll give us some time in the sun as Fallen Reach’s magic gets closer,” Seeyela said.

“Oh, I can’t wait to see the sun again,” Yanily said.

“You’re not the only one,” Hiral said, but his eyes went back to the map. The plan was a good one… so… what was going to go wrong?