Rune Seeker

Hiral kept one RHC drawn while he ran down the street, hugging close to the buildings despite Right’s warning. Something about standing out in the open in the cold rain sent shivers down his spine—and it wasn’t just his lack of a raincoat. The Enemy only showed up when the weather was at its worst, but the lighter rain around the town didn’t make him feel any safer, especially not when lightning still arced across the sky in the direction he was heading.

Still, he devoured the distance down the road to the wall surrounding the town, opposite where they’d come in—and where Left and Right had gone—and peeked out beyond. The twin glowing roots extended off into the night, continuing to follow the road, and the swamp spread around it on both sides. They hadn’t run into any monsters between The Mire and the town, but that didn’t mean there weren’t some waiting for him out there.

If this is the town from the dungeon, does that mean that huge Lizardman city is around here somewhere? Could we hide there if we needed to? If we could even find it…

After a quick minute of watching, spotting nothing other than the falling rain, Hiral couldn’t delay any more. With no telling how long it would take for his doubles to release the Prince, he gave the swamp one last look, then sprinted out and down the road. Left had said about fifteen minutes to the tower, a short enough distance Hiral could almost cover at a sprint due his higher End. With the water acting like a solid surface thanks to his Walk on Water, Hiral barely made a sound above the falling rain as he ran, and his head swivelled left and right, watching for any signs of movement.

If the Enemy attacked, where would it come from? They had to be huge to have the destructive power he’d seen, which meant he’d be able to see them coming out there in the swamp. Unless they’re under the water like the snakes.

Could they even be snakes themselves? No, something about that didn’t seem right, so Hiral discarded the questions and focused on watching his surroundings as he ran.

After five minutes, he hit a wall of heavier rain, somehow even colder than before, and immediately wished for his shredded raincoat. It wouldn’t do much to block the rain, but anything was better than nothing.

Anything?

Hiral pushed a small, steady stream of energy into his Rune of Rejection while he thought of the rain, and just like that, the deluge ceased. Slowing to a jog in surprise, he looked around at the fifteen-foot diameter sphere of dry air around him, not a single drop of rain penetrating. As he watched, the rain seemed to rebound, doubling in intensity outside his sphere of influence. Made it a bit harder to see, but considering he was finally free of the chilling rain, it was well worth it.

“Why didn’t I think of that sooner?” he asked himself. He’d done something similar back in the first town they’d visited… then completely forgotten about it after all the tension with the Enemy and Left dying. Stupid. But, done is done.

The self-deprecation finished, he picked up the pace, though he slowed again a few minutes later as the echoing thunder no longer sounded distant. If anything, it was right above him, and he narrowed his eyes while looking for the treeline Left had mentioned. With the sphere of Rejection around him, he couldn’t quite make out much in the rain, so he cut power to the rune.

The cold rain shocked him alert, and he instinctively took a shivering step forward as his eyes widened, but there, straight ahead, was the unmistakable outline of glowing roots twisting around dozens and dozens of trees. That had to be the forest, which meant… There! That must be the fort Left was talking about.

Odd. Hiral hadn’t heard any of that…

CRASH. Something slammed into the ground directly behind him, the impact blasting out a shockwave that sent him hurtling off the road and into the swamp. Ten, twenty feet he flew before he hit the surprisingly warm swamp water and plunged underneath. Barely closing his mouth in time, the water absorbed the worst of his momentum, and he paused, floating under the surface as the shock of what’d happened seeped out of his brain.

Something had snuck up on him… and very nearly flattened him. It had to be the Enemy. But, did it think he was dead? Forcing himself down deeper in the murky water, Hiral reached out and grabbed one of the thin, glowing roots gently floating up from the bottom. His weapons and the pack full of crystals on his back probably made the motion unnecessary, but it gave him a sense of control. With his End, he could hold his breath for a couple of minutes, so it might be best to just wait out…

No, this was the chance he’d needed. A way to the tower without being seen. Underwater. Assuming the swamp stretched all that way. Tactically, it would make sense for the tower to be mostly surrounded by water, especially if the Lizardmen were fighting Troblins.

As long as I don’t run into an entire nest of Barbed Swamp Snakes.

Only one way to find out. Hiral gently pulled himself along, root by root, so as not to disturb the water above him as he moved. He headed in the direction where he thought he’d seen the tower. He’d need to surface to make sure he was going the right way, but first, he needed to get further from where he’d hit the water.

Finally, several minutes later, Hiral’s lungs burning in his chest, he couldn’t delay surfacing any longer. Finding a particularly long root—one that stretched almost all the way up from the swamp floor to the surface ten feet above—he used it to guide his ascent. Slowly, oh so slowly, his head breached the waterline and tilted back. Cold rain splashed his face as he took a deep breath.

Lightning and thunder flashed directly above him, crisscrossing the sky in its fury as it lit up the heavy clouds. Another deep breath, then one more, and Hiral gently pulled himself back down and tilted his head forward so only his eyes and smooth head were above the water. The road he’d been thrown away from was back… that way… and, of course, there was no sign of what’d attacked—and nearly killed—him. How did the Enemy move so quickly and quietly? It was a question he’d need to answer if he wanted to survive the surface, eventually, but for now…

Where’s the tower?

He twisted in the water until he found it, barely a hundred feet away, then pulled himself back under the surface without making a sound. Just because he didn’t see the Enemy, that didn’t mean he’d gone unnoticed, so Hiral dragged himself back down to the swampy floor, then along it in the tower’s direction.

The still water flowed over his skin as he went, somehow reassuring him that nothing else was hunting under there with him for the moment, and the glowing roots grew thicker and thicker as he went. Thirty seconds, a minute, a minute and a half later, and he found the swamp floor sloping upward, arm-thick roots climbing with it. This had to be the ground the tower was on.

Hiral reached out and wrapped his fingers around one of the thick roots, pulling himself forward at the same time the ground shook. Then, again, the vibrations sent ripples even under the water. Something was smashing around up there, but it didn’t feel close enough to be the tower itself.

Hand over hand, Hiral pulled himself up the slope, faster than he’d moved across the swamp but urged on by the continued thumping that shook the ground. When his head breached the surface, there was one more titanic blow that set the top of the water rippling, and then silence.

That came from over near the trees.

Which put the tower between him and whatever was making that noise. This was his chance.

Hiral hauled himself out of the water, the cold rain washing away the modicum of warmth he’d gotten, and onto the muddy ground. Even though he sank almost up to his wrists as he pushed himself up, as soon as his feet touched down, it was like he was on solid stone again.

Mud counts for Walk on Water?

Storing that useful bit of information away for later, Hiral quick-stepped over to the tower, easily finding a crack down the side of the two-story building, and slipped inside out of the rain. One more look outside to make sure nothing was around, and he turned toward the interior—only to come face to face with a spear at his nose.

“Uh, Yanily?” Hiral asked, the purple-black blade of the weapon unmistakable.

“Yes?” Yanily asked.

“Think you could lower the spear?”

“How do I know you’re Hiral and not some kind of weird clone?”

“Like… Left or Right?”

“Yes. Exactly like that!” Yanily said, the spearpoint touching the tip of Hiral’s nose.

“Yanily, put that down before I put a Spearing Root somewhere you wouldn’t like,” Seena’s voice called from beyond Yanily, but Hiral didn’t take his eyes off the spear.

“You’re sure…?” Yanily asked.

“Yes!” Seena snapped loud enough Yanily jerked the spear away and left a nick of fiery pain on Hiral’s nose.

“Not nice, Yanily,” Hiral said, touching his nose with the tip of his finger, only for it to come away red.

“Sorry. But, look at it this way. I’ve gotten worse shaving.”

“You shave your nose?” Vix asked, and the friendly banter was almost like a warm blanket on a cold day.

Except they didn’t have time to sit around the proverbial fire.

“Hiral, how did you find us?” Seena asked.

“Left told me where you were,” Hiral said, inspecting the group.

Like Left had said, Cal was the worst hurt of the bunch, even though Wule was still working on her. One of her arms was slung in front of her, and she was covered in drying blood. Nivian, also, had a fair amount of the stuff on him, but at least he was up and mobile, pacing back and forth quietly.

“Figured that’s where he went,” she said, half under her breath.

“Lonil and Fitch, did you find them? Where are they?” Seeyela asked, coming forward to join her sister.

Hiral’s breath caught at the question, but of course she’d ask that. Wouldn’t it be the first question out of Hiral’s mouth if their roles were reversed? “I… couldn’t find Fitch,” Hiral said slowly. “I was hoping he’d somehow met up with you all. I guess not?”

Seeyela shook her head, but then her eyes narrowed, like she’d caught on to his omission. “Lonil?” she asked, voice low with a glance back at Cal, though the woman still appeared unconscious.

“Lonil… didn’t make it,” Hiral said with a soft shake of his head, unable to say more.

“What do you mean he didn’t make it?” Picoli asked. “You mean you didn’t find him, like Fitch?”

Hiral shook his head again. “I... I wish that was it. Lonil is… dead. I saw his body. Something caught him.”

“Something?” Seeyela asked.

“I didn’t see what it was, just what it did to him,” Hiral said. “I’m sorry. I tried to get to him, to at least bring back his… To bring him back in case I was wrong, but…” He just shook his head yet again and shrugged.

“Damnit,” Seeyela said, her curse coming out a hiss.

“At least Cal isn’t awake to hear it,” Balyo said. “She’ll be devasted.”

“That’s not our only problem,” Picoli said, then looked at the others. “I’m not trying to be heartless here, but without Fitch and Lonil, what does that mean for the rest of us? Not to mention the shape Cal is in. How are we going to clear the next dungeon to get into the Asylum?”

“We’ll get you through,” Seena said. “Rotate people in and out to make sure you get credit for the clear. We don’t need to clear it three times, but we can use that to make sure everybody gets through at least once.”

“I’ll never be Lonil, but I’ll take care of you,” Nivian said.

“Thank you,” Seeyela said. “Though there’s still the small problem of even getting to the dungeon.”

“Have any of you seen the Enemy?” Hiral asked. “Any hints on what it looks like or how it attacks?”

Seeyela and Seena both shook their heads. “It was all a blur when Cal got hurt,” Seena said. “And then by the time we got here, the rain was so heavy, I could barely see my own hand in front of my face. We were lucky to find this tower to hide in, but we could hear it out there looking for us, smashing around.”

“That seems to have stopped,” Hiral said, glancing out the crack in the wall at the continuing downpour. “Rain hasn’t let up at all. Is everybody ready to move? Left and Right are working on a distraction for us. As soon as it happens, that’ll be our cue to get into the forest.”

“What kind of distraction?” Seena asked.

“They’re waking up the Princeof the Swamp,” Hiral said, still peering out the crack. Had they done it already and he’d missed it? Or, worse, was the Princelong since dead like Right suggested?

“Shouldn’t we be closer, then?” Yanily asked, and Hiral turned back to the group to see wide eyes on most of their faces.

“Don’t you mean further away?” Wule said. “I seriously don’t want to deal with the Prince and the Enemy at the same time.”

“That’s the plan, isn’t it?” Seena said. “We won’t deal with either of them, because they’ll be busy with each other.”

Hiral pointed at Seena and then gave her a thumbs-up. “That’s exactly it. We just need to be ready to move.”

“Cal is in as good a shape as I can get her here,” Wule said. “She needs some dedicated rest, but we can move her as long as we’re careful. I don’t expect she’ll wake up anytime soon, but she’s also out of danger.”

“I’ll carry her,” Nivian said, but Seena shook her head.

“We may need your shield,” Seena said. “Vix, can you handle Cal?”

“She weighs next to nothing. I’ll take care of her,” Vix said.

“Good. That way, we can still move quickly, but say something if you need to swap off.”

“I can help if you need a break,” Hiral said. “And Right will be back by then as well.”

“How much longer do you think it’ll be?” Seena asked.

“Should be any minute now. They left the town the same time I did, unless they ran into trouble,” Hiral said, but his tattoos hadn’t emerged from his skin, so they were both still alive.

Just then, a tremendous ROAAAAAAAR echoed through the air, the whole building vibrating from the volume of it, and the distant sky lit up as arcs of fire and lightning sailed into the night.

“That’s our cue,” Hiral said.