Rune Seeker

“I’m sorry, you want to what?” Arty asked at the same time Seena spoke up.

“What? Why?”

Caaven and the Shapers just stood there with their mouths open, like that was the craziest thing they’d heard all day. Well, aside from when somebody had told them Hiral had jumped off a perfectly good island.

“You’re going to go find Mommy?” Favela asked from Hiral’s arms, and he looked down at the little girl.

“Mommy?” he asked. “Is your mother…?”

“Aunty Seena’s sister,” Favela said, which explained why Seena had been babysitting, and why Caaven seemed so familiar with her.

“Well, then, I guess I am.” He looked back up at the others. “Maybe,” he amended.

“If you’ll excuse us, I need a moment with my idiot apprentice in my office,” Arty said.

“We’re on a platform—what office?” Shaper Jenno asked.

“Fine, then behind those crates we didn’t unload yet. Happy?”

She just shrugged.

“Apprentice?” Hiral mouthed at Arty, but the merchant pointed at the slightly secluded part of the platform that was apparently now his office.

“Come here, Favela,” Caaven said. “Come to your grandpa and let them talk.”

“Do I have to?” she asked, but she was looking at Hiral.

“Just for a few minutes, okay? I’ll be right back. Promise,” Hiral told her.

“You’re not going to jump off the side again, are you?” she asked him, her face serious.

“Not unless you are,” he said, which somehow seemed to satisfy her, and she let Caaven take her into his arms. No sooner was she out of his hands than Hiral pulled his hood back up to hide the tattoos on his neck.

“Look at your arm, little one,” Caaven said while Hiral followed Arty over to the merchant’s office. “Grammy will get you fixed right up when we get back home. Does it hurt?”

As soon as he’d joined the man, Arty started, “First you jump off the island, and now you want to go down to the surface? Is this your rebellious stage or something? What’s gotten into you?”

“I’d like to know that too,” Seena said, rounding the crates to join the two men.

“You didn’t knock,” Arty said testily.

“No door,” Seena responded. “And if he’s really considering coming down with us, I need to be part of this conversation. You know it’ll be up to me to allow it or not.”

“And you’re considering it?” Hiral asked.

“You’ve gotten into a small amount of my good graces by hurling yourself off the island to save my niece. Doesn’t mean I’m going to say yes without knowing why. And the truth. Because by the look on his face”—she pointed at Arty—“this isn’t something the two of you planned ahead of time. Unless you’re way better actors than I’m giving you credit for.”

“We most certainly didn’t plan this,” Arty said. “So, Hiral, out with it.”

Hiral turned his head back toward where the others stood on the far side of the crates. Shapers would probably hear what he said, but he didn’t want to lie to Arty. And Seena had a right to know. When he turned back to the others, Arty seemed to figure out what was going through Hiral’s head, and the man pulled a flat crystal out of his jacket.

“Here, this should help,” he said, running his thumb across the top of the crystal. A small flash of solar energy passed into it before ballooning out to surround the three of them in what looked like a huge soap bubble. “They can’t hear us now.”

“What… what is that?” Hiral asked.

“Part of my collection,” Arty said. “But enough about that; it’ll only last a few minutes at most. Say your piece. And”—he looked at Seena—“just tell us what’s on your mind. If she’s related to Caaven, she can be trusted.”

Hiral looked down at his right hand and flexed his fingers in and out while he figured out how much to tell them. The pain and stiffness were already mostly gone from his grip on the kite, but he shook his head. He was just procrastinating.

“After the… uh… trip between islands, I got a strange notification. A blue one, like my status window. You have those—status windows, I mean. Right, Seena?”

“Yes, but ours are green. So?” she asked.

Hiral nodded. He didn’t know much about Nomad classes, but at least there was that similarity. “Right, when I landed on the other island…”

“Crashed, you mean,” Arty pointed out.

“When I landed, I got a notification that said something about an achievement being unlocked, whatever that means. I’ve never seen or heard anything like it before.”

“A notification for an achievement?” Arty said. “That’s a new one to me… but apparently not to our Nomad friend. What aren’t you telling us, Seena?”

Hiral looked at the girl, and yeah, she was acting totally squirrely. Still, she looked between the two men and seemed to come to some kind of internal decision.

“Look, I probably shouldn’t tell you this. We kind of keep it close to our chests, but…” She looked at Arty. “Caaven trusts you, and if you can promise to keep it secret, I’ll explain what I know.”

“Why would you need to keep it secret?” Hiral asked, but it was Arty who answered.

“Because it has something to do with the dungeons and where they find Quillbacks. If there is something else special there, the Nomads are worried we’ll muscle in instead of trading. Am I right?”

Seena nodded.

“It’s fine, we won’t tell,” Arty said. “Despite some… opinions between the Islanders and the Nomads, I’m one of the ones who believes we need each other. There is too much trade that happens between us for one to last long without the other. And I don’t plan on interrupting business. Hiral?”

“If it will help explain what I saw, and you let me go down with you,” Hiral said to Seena, “I can keep a secret.”

Seena looked at the two of them, as if weighing the sincerity of their words. Thankfully, whatever she saw seemed to be enough—like she’d said, jumping off the island to save her niece probably helped—and she nodded at them.

“Achievement notifications, we don’t talk about much because they happen so rarely, and only when we’re within about six or seven miles of a dungeon,” she said. “For you to have gotten it, we must be almost directly above it, which means we need to leave as soon as we get back up.”

“So, what’s this class-specific reward it talked about?” Hiral asked. And will it help me figure out how to actually get a class?

Seena shook her head. “We don’t know. Nobody’s been able to find a dungeon interface. I mean, we thought we knew what it was, but we haven’t been able to activate it, so we’re figuring the interfaces must be deeper in the dungeons.”

“Deeper? You haven’t completely explored them?” Arty asked.

Another shake of Seena’s head. “The Quillbacks are always in the outer part of the dungeon, and we’re pretty sure there is another inner part, but we haven’t been able to get into it. We’re missing something, but we don’t know what it is.”

“How many achievements have you gotten, Seena?” Hiral asked.

“Just two, and I’ve made almost forty trips to the surface. They aren’t common, but they also aren’t showing up on my status window. If that’s your only reason for coming down… well, I don’t know if we can help you.”

“I’d still like to try. The opportunity for a class… uh… reward… is too much to pass up,” Hiral said, and barely fought down the wince at what he’d almost said.

Seena didn’t seem to see anything wrong with it, but looking at Arty’s face, the older merchant had caught on to what Hiral was after.

“I’d like Hiral to go down with you as well,” Arty finally said. “If you need any more convincing, consider it repayment for me leaving my products for trade with you on good faith.” He pointed at the crates on the platform.

“There’s a risk, you know,” Seena said, looking Hiral in the eye. “A big one. There’s a good chance we’ll be racing to catch the last island, and I’ll be honest with you—if you fall behind, you’re on your own. I’m not risking my own neck or anybody else’s for you.”

“I understand,” Hiral said immediately. “I won’t slow you down. Or, if I do, I give you my permission to leave me behind.”

“This class reward is that important to you?” Seena asked.

“It is,” Hiral said. “And, if I can help you find Favela’s mother, then everybody wins.”

Seena crossed her arms, and one finger started tapping just above her elbow while she considered. “Fine, you can come. We probably have about an hour’s worth of prep to do before we jump. You’ve got that long to get up to speed on how our wingsuits work. Just throwing it out there, but I give you a fifty-fifty chance to faceplant from seven miles up.”

“I’ll take those odds,” Hiral said.

“They really aren’t good odds,” Arty said.

“Better than I’ve had in a while,” Hiral said, and Arty scrunched up his lips and nodded.

“But, again, this achievement thing, whether it works or not… it doesn’t make it back up to Fallen Reach, right?” Seena asked.

“It stays with your people,” Arty said.

“I’ll keep it hidden on my status window if we figure out how to make it work,” Hiral said.

Seena shrugged. “I really don’t get why this is so important to you. We haven’t figured it out in years; I don’t know why you think it’ll be any different for you.”

“I know, but I have to try,” Hiral said.

“Fine,” Seena said, looking over as the platform crested the edge of the island next to Caaven’s house. “Looks like we’re here. Like I said, you have about an hour to learn how to jump and not die. Usually, people train for weeks before they do it.”

“Weeks?” Arty asked. “And he has an hour.”

“All the time I can spare. Last chance to back out.”

“I’ll figure it out,” Hiral said.

“Good enough,” she said. “Oh, and even though I am trusting you both with this, I am going to explain our agreement to Caaven. If word of dungeons being connected to achievements gets out, that’s the end of the trade agreement.”

“I make good on my word,” Arty said somewhat defensively.

“You do, which is the only reason I’ve even agreed to all this. My uncle thinks quite a lot of you, for an Islander, and I trust his judgment.” Seena turned to Hiral. “I’ll find somebody to teach you how to jump the proper way, and then I’ve got to get ready myself. I’ll see you in about an hour.”

“Thank you for letting me come with you,” Hiral said.

“Thank you for saving Favela, but this makes us even,” Seena said.

“More than even,” Hiral agreed.

“Good. I don’t like owing people. And for what it’s worth, I actually hope you don’t die.”

“Me too,” Hiral said as the platform settled down on the ground where he would very shortly be jumping off again.