Rune Seeker

Getting a bit wet turned out to be one of Hiral’s larger understatements. It took them almost ten minutes—even at the mounts’ top speeds—to find their way to the secret dock through the mist. When they arrived, they found it much like they remembered, albeit coated in a layer of water. There was even only one Disc of Passage sitting at the ready, but they wouldn’t need it where they were planning on going.

“Hiral, could you do your Rejection thing?” Seena asked, water literally dripping from every part of her—even the flaming Mantle of the Phoenix.

“Sure,” Hiral said, activating Foundational Split and then using his rune to dry each of them off with barely a thought. “You’re lucky Vili didn’t get doused on the way up, though.”

“You really think something like a little fog would slow down a Phoenix?” Seena asked.

“That was way more than a little fog,” Seeyela said, already over by the tunnel leading up. “And we don’t have time to dally. Come on.”

Hiral and Seena gave each other a quick nod, then jogged over to join Seeyela as she started up the stairs.

No sooner had she stepped into the tunnel than she stopped so quickly Hiral and Seena almost bumped into her.

“Sis? You okay?” Seena asked.

“Are you seeing this?” Seeyela asked, her voice practically a hiss.

“Seeing what?” Hiral leaned to the side in the narrow tunnel to spot what she was talking about. “Damn. Why is there a wall there?” he asked when he noticed the blocked-off tunnel.

“Not the wall,” Seeyela said. “This.” The last word came like she was spitting it out, and Hiral followed her gesture down.

To the dungeon interface.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Seena said. “Why is there a dungeon here?”

“To get us through the wall?” Hiral suggested. “Like in the tunnel after the first Asylum?”

“We don’t have time for this,” Seeyela pointed out. “We’re at three hours.”

Which is oddly coincidental, isn’t it?

“Thoughts?” Seena asked.

“Find another way,” Seeyela said. “I’m through playing the PIMP’s games. If it thinks it can keep me doing its dirty work by doling out some achievements like I’m some kind of addict, it’s got another thing coming. I’m not its…”

“How long would it take us to find another way?” Hiral asked, his eyes never leaving the dungeon interface. Like everything else the PIMP had done—like it or not—it had been for a reason. “A reason…” he muttered out loud.

“Hiral, you’ve got something,” Seena said. “Spit it out.”

“I think we should use this dungeon interface,” he said. “Do it, Seeyela.”

“Why?” Seeyela asked. “So the PIMP can kill one of us too?”

“Fallen Reach is a big city,” Hiral said. “Millions of people. How do you suggest we find Fitch in under three hours?”

“What does that have to do with a dungeon?” Seeyela asked, but some of the heat had left her voice.

“Quests,” Seena answered, catching on to what Hiral was thinking. “It’s like The Lost Palace of Creeping Death. Like that dungeon. It’s now, instead of in the past. Right, Hiral?”

“That’s what I’m thinking. We never would’ve found the seals or stopped the Urn without the quests leading us from one place to the next. I bet this is the same. The PIMP is trying to help us find Fitch, but we need to be ‘in a dungeon’ for it to be able to help like that.”

“Do we need it?” Seeyela asked. “Don’t you have friends who can help us look?” Then she slammed the bottom of her fist against the wall beside her. “No, we don’t,” she said, answering her own question. “We have to do this, don’t we?”

“We do,” Seena said.

“And what’s it going to cost us this time?”

“Probably Fitch,” Left spoke up. “If he’s Infested, like we believe, there’s no way to bring him back from that.”

“Being in a dungeon or not doesn’t change that,” Seena said. “Sis, I know you’re mad at the PIMP—I am too—and I hate to say it, but this is our best choice.”

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“I know.” Seeyela put both hands on the interface and leaned down over it. “Hey, PIMP, I know you can hear me. You owe us.” Then she swiped her hand over the interface crystal, and a notification window sprang up in front of Hiral’s eyes.

Congratulations! You have discovered a Wild Dungeon – The Fall of Fallen Reach

Dynamic Quest

Complete the Wild Dungeon – The Fall of Fallen Reach to save everything you love from destruction.

Note: Wild Dungeons are rare instances containing powerful Lost equipment and unique quests.

Note (2): Wild Dungeons appear randomly and may only be completed once.

Note (3): Wild Dungeons do not usually count towards Asylum access.

Note (4): Time within the Wild Dungeon – The Fall of Fallen Reach passes as normal.

Note (5): An advanced class is required to enter Wild Dungeon – The Fall of Fallen Reach

Enter Dungeon: Yes / No

“The Fall of Fallen Reach,” Hiral said, his eyes getting stuck on the dungeon name. It’s clear what we’re up against.

“Like I said before, dungeon or not doesn’t change anything,” Seena said. “We’re not going to let that happen. Sis, take us in. Clock’s ticking.”

“Got it.” Seeyela reached out and tapped what had to be her Yes button, and the wall on the other side of the interface slid open.

“It’s like you said, Hiral,” Seena said.

“The whole island is now a dungeon,” Hiral agreed.

“At least the wall’s gone and nothing stands between us and the city,” Seena pointed out.

“Except for almost a mile of stairs,” Seeyela said. “Can’t say I’m looking forward to this. Wait. Hiral…?”

“Yeah, I think I can arrange something a bit faster,” Hiral said.

“Didn’t we agree never to do that again?” Seena asked.

“This isn’t the same—opposite direction,” Hiral pointed out, already streaming solar energy into his Runes ofConnection, Unsealing, Sealing, Gravity, Rejection, Attraction, and Decrease. He then lifted everybody off the ground and engulfed them in something similar to his domain. “Weight down. Friction reduced. Boundaries to protect us from ramming into things. Tethers to keep us all together. I think that’s everything.”

“You think?” Seena asked.

“Let’s do this!” Right said.

“Glad to see somebody’s excited,” Seena deadpanned, but she tapped Hiral on the shoulder.

“This is going to take us in a straight line unless we hit a corner,” Hiral explained. “We’ll be moving too fast for me to turn us anywhere else.”

“Which means we’ll probably end up out by that Fallen tower,” Left pointed out.

“Probably,” Hiral agreed.

Then, with one breath, two, he pushed solar energy into his Rune of Rejection. Contained within the narrow tunnel for the stairs—with the people hovering inside an invisible cocoon—the sudden force shot them up the stairs at breakneck speeds. Hundreds of feet devoured within seconds, they passed one, two, three intersections before Hiral’s thoughts caught up with his screaming body.

At that point, with things finally feeling under control, a cave-in appeared out of the darkness directly ahead of them. Before Hiral had a chance to even consider reacting, the sealed cocoon hit the corner and turned hard right up another stairwell. Up, up, up the party shot, hitting a second cave-in, a third, and even a fourth, their direction changing with every collision before finally rocketing out of the tunnel into a wider room.

Hiral poured Rejection ahead to slow their momentum, but they still plowed through table after table—crystal weapons and armor jettisoning off in every direction—before hitting the wall on the far side. WHAAAAM! The sealed cocoon hit the stone hard enough to send spider-web cracks out from the point of impact, while the party inside… didn’t feel a thing. In fact, they barely wobbled within the cocoon during the entire ordeal.

Their stomachs couldn’t say the same, and as they began to make their opinions known, Hiral quickly canceled all his runes—vomit and the Rune of Gravity would not play well together. All five party members dropped unceremoniously to the floor and scrambled in opposite directions while fighting to keep their stomachs down.

After a tense moment—and a hard-fought victory to keep himself from puking—Hiral pushed himself to his knees and looked around. The others were still sprawled on the floor, and he didn’t look too closely at the puddles around them. As for the room, it looked a lot like where they’d dropped down into with Dr. Benza back in the dungeon. Well, the previous dungeon, I guess.

Tables that’d been loaded up with crystal weapons and armor were little more than kindling after the cocoon-vehicle finished with them, while their contents were scattered everywhere. All those things he’d expected, but something near his knees caught his attention. Moving the debris aside, he reached down and picked up a clipboard with notes in writing he recognized immediately.

“Gauto?” he asked quietly.

Quickly scanning through the notes, he found them to be an inventory of the room. Tearing his eyes away from the familiar—and atrocious—handwriting, Hiral looked up to find the ceiling broken, like it had collapsed at some point.

“Did you say something, Hiral?” Seena asked, pushing herself up to a seated position.

“I think I have an idea where we are,” Hiral said. “Gauto—the friend I told you about—said he’d found one of these rooms because the floor of the home collapsed. We must be there. Which is good, because I don’t think we could’ve opened the ceiling. I forgot those activation crystals don’t work in the city.”

“You mean we almost got all the way up here only to find ourselves trapped?” Seeyela asked. “Quite a coincidence we found the one building in the whole city with a broken ceiling.”

“Not a coincidence,” Seena said. “A dungeon.”

“Whatever it is, it’s a start,” Hiral said. “And, if it’s anything like the previous dungeons, just about now is when we’ll find some clue about what to do next.”

“You think it’ll be that easy…?” Seeyela started, but a shadow moved at the edge of the pit they were in, and all eyes went to it while weapons came out.

“Hiral, is that you?” Gauto asked from where he crouched in the room above. “I thought you were dead, so why are there three of you?”