Rune Seeker

Runic energy gathered in the palms of Hiral’s hands – Rejection, Increase, Expansion, and Impact – as the Sentinel charged in his direction. Except, something else hit the construct first, a whomp of Impact splashing along its back and staggering it to the side.

The whole metal man took two heavy steps to collect its balance, before its red eye spun on its attacker.

Across the room, Romin kept his Runic Blunderbuss leveled at the Sentinel, while Wallop and the others kept the second one busy. Like a staring match between them, Romin didn’t blink, one, two seconds passing before he pulled his trigger again. Whomp, and the blast smacked into the Sentinel’s domed head, the Infuriate effect fully taking hold as it stomped a thundering step in his direction.

In the brief lull of not getting squashed, Hiral let his senses spread across the room. Yanily – in his Aspect form – pelted the other Sentinel with a near-endless barrage of spear thrusts, each and every one pinging almost harmlessly off the thick plate. At the same time, fire flashed across its body from Seena’s onslaught, while Seeyela Bamf’d around non-stop, a stabbing, venomous blur of death.

Except none of them were punching through the armor.

There only seemed to be one, relatively small hole in the chest plate – where Yanily had hit it with Skyfall+ – and its yellow health-bar sat at a solid seventy percent. Sure, they were wearing it down, but it wasn’t quick. And, like with the one Hiral and his doubles were fighting, the pistons and steam seemed to be ramping up, increasing the construct’s speed and power.

These aren’t quick kills, and we need to stop thinking of them like lower-Rank enemies we can one shot.

“Stop aiming to kill,” Hiral said into the party chat. “The armor on the head and chest is too thick. Try disabling the pistons. See if we can’t slow them down.”

“Knees and elbows,” Seena said, jumping back to give herself some room as she ignited her spinning batons. Yanily and Seeyela quickly changed their targets as well, while Wallop focused on keeping that Sentinel’s attention.

“Right, keep hitting the knee you aimed at before,” Hiral said, and his double nodded understanding.

These things are a lot like The Fourth Crusadeand his scales – very resistant to stabbing and cutting. So, let’s try punching.

Letting the claws of Separation fade from his hands, Hiral took the runic energy he’d been preparing to – hopefully – stop the Sentinel’s charge, and forged it into gloves around his hands. Another shot from Romin’s blunderbuss kept the construct moving in that direction as Hiral leapt back into the melee.

Above them all, Left shaped the Herald of Peace, quickly granting the whole party the benefits of Aura of Peace and Circle of Peace, at the same time another notification popped up. Hiral had just gotten a stack of Ever Evolving, which meant they were on the right track – even if critical hit chance and damage was basically useless for him right now.

Ignoring that, he dashed back in, then swept to the side opposite Right. While his double swung a blur of haymakers at the pistons reinforcing the left leg, Hiral went higher to see what he could do about one of the arms. Planes of Rejection got him some height, his eyes going briefly to the jagged cut in the brass arm from Left’s earlier strike. Considering how much damage the Dagger of Sath usually did, the injury might as well have been a paper cut. Focusing on the open wound wouldn’t help him, so he turned his attention to the joint.

Closer, he could make out what looked like a series of gears and locks working in conjunction with the piston. The setup had to be responsible for the bursts of speed and power the construct showed, though it likely suffered from something like a cooldown time. Each burst would need a build-up before release. He could work with that.

And, if he couldn’t, maybe he could at least break enough of the smaller pieces, so the entire thing fell apart.

One more Rejection got him into position – the construct’s eye not even turning in his direction – and he lashed out with an Impact-enhanced fist. As soon as he struck, he added Expansion, Separation, Breaking, and Compression, sending a line of resonating force through the elbow.

Hiral’s fist crunched against the B-Rank brass, neither giving, but his sensory domain felt the rattle of parts as his strike bypassed the armor. Another stack of Ever Evolving brought a smile to his face, and he followed up his first punch with a second, then a third and fourth. Thanks to his high Dex and Atn, he struck the same place every time – even without the benefit of the PIM-assisted crits – in the blink of an eye.

On the other side, Right dodged a backhanded swipe, then darted back it to slam his fist against the front of the knee. The whole construct stumbled as its leg came to a grinding halt mid-step, and the double swivelled to the side to pound on the piston mechanism. Unlike Hiral, Right didn’t have the runes to ignore the armor and damage the parts within.

Not that he needed them.

Powered by the Auroran Conquerors, Right’s titanic blow actually bent the brass of the piston and left a fist-shaped indentation. Between that and Hiral’s continued barrage tearing at the more delicate bits inside the construct’s arm, it finally seemed to shake off Romin’s Infuriate.

The single, red eye in the domed head went to Hiral first, and a spark was the only warning he had before the left hand rotated in his direction. There on the palm, the flickering flames he’d basically forgotten about ignited to life, gushing fire across the construct’s body, over its right arm, and directly at Hiral.

Acting on instinct, Hiral dumped solar energy into his Rune of Exchange, and suddenly he went from floating beside the Sentinel’s right arm, to standing beside its left leg. Impact coated his fists as he unleased a flurry of blows on the knee right next to him, the resonating force ignoring the armor to rattle the more fragile parts inside.

At the same time, Right burst through the gout of flame – the fire resistance from his Auroran Conquerors protecting him – to slam his fist into the damaged elbow. Metal groaned, and a distinct crack issued from inside the joint, the weakened pieces finally giving under the blunt-force trauma.

Meanwhile, with the confusion and distraction on the Sentinel’s part, Left dove down from above, his Wings of Anella sweeping across the still back of the construct. Steam that had been gushing out suddenly stopped, ice frozen in the pipes, and the whistle rose drastically in pitch.

The trio wasn’t done there, though. Left had already kicked back off the ground, slashing his wings across the Sentinel’s back to thicken the ice while he shot for the ceiling. Right, on the other hand, arrested his forward – joint-breaking – momentum by slapping the palm of his other hand next to where his punch buckled the arm. No sooner had he done that, than he brought his feet up and in to likewise land against the arm before leaping off in the other direction.

Not even a foot away, his form blurred with Exchange, and now it was Hiral in the air, RHCs back in hand as he aimed at the construct he sailed away from. Energy gathered in the barrels – only one second of Power Attack+ – and he pulled the triggers. The blast smashed into the domed head at the same time Right – where Hiral had been – slammed his lunging punch into the side of the knee. Integrity compromised by Hiral’s attacks, the joint buckled sideways, though the construct managed to stay upright.

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For now.

High above, Left had reached the ceiling, flipping himself upside down to press his feet against the metal. He bent his knees to absorb the upward momentum, and then he wasn’t Left anymore.

Hiral stared down at the golem now seventy feet below him, and reached over his shoulder for the Greatsword of Amin Thett. The blade burst into its fallen-star form, Gravity multiplying over and over as Hiral launched himself straight down. Rejectionsent a shockwave rippling out to the sides and he didn’t even have time to blink before he brought the greatsword down on the Sentinel’s shoulder.

Brass groaned and bent under the blow, and the weakened knee caved in sideways, the horrible tearing of metal joining the melody of the Primal Chord. With the sword buried the full width of the blade in the construct’s chest, Hiral released his hold on the hilt while flaring Rejection beneath him, stealing his momentum. While this saved him from becoming a Hiral-shaped puddle on the floor, it also forced him to pause.

Which was apparently something the golem was prepared for, it’s good arm ka-thunking as the piston brought a fist around at impossible speeds. A flash of a buff notification was all the time Hiral had before the blow hit him, then he was flying across the room. Flying… but not hurting?

Even his collision with the wall – hard enough to crater the metal – didn’t feel like anything more than dropping onto a soft bed. A quick look at the notification – and the impeccable timing of Left – explained everything.

You have been buffed by Shield of Peace.

All damage is negated for 6 seconds.

Probably the most powerful ability of the Herald of Peace, it also had the longest cooldown – Left wouldn’t be using that again for a while, but it had served its purpose.

Pulling himself out of the massive dent in the wall, Hiral drew his RHCs again, Power Attack+already charging as Right went in hard at the still-functioning arm. Blows echoed like a gong ringing over and over, the piston’s track bending and then seizing beneath the relentless onslaught. Three seconds later, Hiral released his triggers, the combined blast impacting the construct’s head.

With one leg weakened beneath it, and both its arms locked in awkward positions, the Sentinel had no way to keep its balance, and toppled backwards. At the same time it hit, though, the Primal Chord’s melody took a strange turn. Instead of pushing the attack, the Chord seemed to want him to…

The meaning behind the building whistle suddenly clicked in Hiral’s head, and his RHCs got tossed to the side for him to yank hard on Right with his Rune of Attraction. Not a second too soon, either, as the massive build-up of pressure exploded beneath the construct. Steam, force, and shards of jagged brass shot out to the sides as the construct itself blasted straight up.

Like a ragdoll, the Sentinel hit the ceiling, limbs splayed out, then seemed to hang there. Comically slowly – though it probably only took a second or two – the construct peeled out of the indentation it had left, its own weight prying it free to fall back to the floor. The wham of it ‘landing’ shook the room, but it somehow still wasn’t dead. Ten percent remained of its health bar, though only one of its legs looked like it worked, while both arms were clearly broken.

“Right, finish that off,” Hiral instructed his double, and turned his attention to the other Sentinel still battling the rest of the party. From the looks of things, Gran, Romin, and Wallop were more than pulling their weight to keep the construct occupied or distracted. The healer’s crimson threads had tangled the piston on the monster’s left leg, while Wallop constantly slammed into it to refresh Infuriate. This left the damage dealers free to do their thing.

Though… their thing was a little different than usual.

Seena rode the construct’s back, her flaming batons shoved down the pips while fire gushed out of the other openings. Yanily – Aspect faded – had threaded a spear strike between the piston-tracks on both the upper and lower arm, locking the thing in a bent position, and now seemed to be activating Chain Lightning+ over and over.

Finally, Seeyela had moved on from trying to inject her Ghost-Web Venom to layering on dose after dose after dose of her Gravity Venom. By the looks of things, she’d gone overboard, with the metal floor under the construct’s feet bending where it stood.

As for the thing’s health? Also less than ten percent.

Just a little more…

The Sentinel wasn’t going down without a fight, though, reaching its free arm over its shoulder to grab at Seena. At least, it tried to, Left diving down again and raking his wings across the limb. Ice caked around the piston, elbow, and shoulder, locking it in place.

The red eye turned to the double for just a second before Infuriate ripped its attention back, and in that split-second, Hiral arrived. Greatsword of Amin Thett back in hand, he skidded to a stop and then whipped it across right-to-left, tethering the weapon to the Sentinel’s tangled ankle. Gravity upped to make the sword weigh thousands of pounds, it still wasn’t enough to punch through the extremely durable armor. What it did do, though, was take the legs out from under the construct, crashing it sideways onto its frozen arm.

Seena rode the thing down as it went, more fire flaring in that second to burst out of the joints at the construct’s neck and waist. As soon as it hit the ground, Yanily – who somehow pivoted under his spear as the monster fell – stepped out and to the side. Then, like Wallop knew what was coming, the Rune-o charged forward.

Not at the golem though. No, he hit the spear like a fulcrum, prying the piston joint apart and popping the spear out to spin in the air.

Before it even landed, Yanily transformed into a bolt of lightning, shooting himself up towards the ceiling – catching the spear on the way – to rebound back down with Skyfall+. Even without the buffs of his Aspect, the attack crashed into the construct a second after Hiral hauled Seena out of the way with Attraction.

Sheer force and lightning drove the construct’s heavy body deeper into the floor, only for Yanily to appear standing on top of it. Lying there, mangled and broken, the Sentinel had no way to protect itself from what came next – Dragon Breath.

Color fled the room as Yanily leaned over it, the ball of energy forming in front of his mouth, before he roared. The blast struck the construct at point-blank range, finally smashing through the weakened dome of a head.

When the blast ended – and color returned – there was only a crater above the Sentinel’s shoulders, and its health bar was noticeably missing. A quick look to the other side of the room showed Right had finished his off as well, and the whole party took a deep breath. A glowing dome followed a moment later, the Banner of Courage appearing in Left’s hand – the buff back off cooldown.

“That was ridiculous,” Seena said.

“It was resistant to lightning,” Yanily said.

“And fire,” Seena added with a shake of her head.

“And venom,” Seeyela said. “And stabbing. And critical hits. And dirty looks. I was getting ready to throw a boot at it to see if that did anything.”

“We perfectly countered the last dungeon,” Hiral said. “And these guys almost perfectly countered us. No wonder the Bonder parties had trouble with them.”

“Speaking of Bonders,” Seena said, looking to Romin. “You did an amazing job keeping that thing’s attention. You and Wallop both. Good job. And Gran, you too. That would’ve been much harder – maybe even impossible – if you two didn’t do what you did.”

“Pah,” Gran said. “Don’t act so surprised, girlie.”

“I’m not, just…” Seena started, though she was forced to cut off what she was going to say as the researchers entered the room.

“Fascinating,” one of the unnamed researchers said, this one with a long, braided mustache that dropped down past his chin. “I wasn’t sure we would find any functioning examples of Tomorrow’s work here. It’s lucky they were so damaged before you engaged.”

“Damaged?” Yanily asked. “No, we did that.”

“You damaged it more,” another researcher said. “We saw as you started the fight. Tomorrow’s constructs were already severely damaged, though. There is no other way you – or anybody else – would’ve been able to defeat them.”

Yanily looked over at the party like the researcher was crazy.

“Dungeon,” Hiral reminded him. “Maybe the Sentinels were actually damaged when they came through here.”

“I guess that would explain how they would’ve survived a B-Rank threat,” Seena said.

“Can we stay and…?” the researcher started to ask Vorinal, only for the man to shake his head. “If we have time, we can collect samples on the way back. You all know what our priority is, and it’s not Tomorrow’s guardians. They clearly weren’t enough before, so we can’t expect them to be later.”

“Why do you keep talking about tomorrow?” Seeyela asked the researcher, and Hiral half-expected the man to freeze like dungeon entities tended to when they didn’t want to answer a question. That didn’t happen, though.

“Not tomorrow,” Vorinal clarified. “Tomorrow, as in TheCustodian of Tomorrow. This was one of her facilities.”