Rune Seeker

“Enemy,” Hiral whispered into the party chat, causing Seena, Seeyela, Yanily, and Gran to all whip their heads in his direction. “That’s what they found here. Why they’re back here.”

“It can’t be,” Gran snapped, then seemed to pause and think it over. “Or, can it?”

“I thought the first one was way before the Fallen?” Yanily asked quietly while the researchers worked on the interface to open the door in front of them. “Isn’t that what Dr. Benza said?”

“It was,” Gran said. “Which is why this might be possible. The Fallen went back and found more of them. Pulled more of them from their realm, and into ours. It’s what started everything. Their lust for power killed… everybody I knew.”

“Gran…” Seeyela said gently as the old vampire’s voice cracked at those last words. The party really knew so little about the undead, but getting her to share was like getting Nivian to add salt to his stew.

“Do they seem… lusty… to you?” Yanily asked. “They’re just talking about protecting stuff.”

“Some kind of lie, knucklehead,” Gran said. “Has to be. I know their crimes.”

“Did you see them yourself?” Hiral asked.

“What?” the vampire barked, her hood turning to look at him. Red-and-blue eyes glared from within the darkness.

“Look around the world, boy! We can all see them.”

Hiral shook his head. “Those are the results, not the cause.”

“What are you getting at, Hiral?” Seena asked before Gran could go off again.

“Just something Banst was saying,” Hiral said, referring back to the Infested they’d fought in the Lost Refuge of the Lost. Hiral still wasn’t sure if they were back in a dungeon then, and not actually underground with the real Banst. She’d seemed more real, somehow, than the other dungeon people. “She said we needed the Fallen to protect us from whatever sent the Enemy here.”

“And why would you listen to her, boy?” Gran asked, having heard the story of the dungeon even though she hadn’t been present herself. “She just wanted to use you to get herself out of there.”

“Maybe,” Hiral admitted with a shrug. “But we were already fighting at that point.”

“Yeah, and she was already losing,” Seena said slowly. “She could’ve wanted you to show mercy so she could escape.”

“Also very possible. Then again, what if she was just being honest? What if she thought we really did need the Fallen to have a chance? What if they,” Hiral pointed at the researchers fiddling with the mechanical interface, “thought they were doing the right thing?”

“How can their experiments have been the right thing?” Gran asked. “Don’t you know what they did? The horrors?”

Hiral held up both hands to pat the air. “I’m not saying those crimes aren’t terrible. Just… none of us saw them doing those things. It wouldn’t be the first time our history was… a bit wrong.”

“There’s no guarantee this dungeon is any more correct than the history,” Seena said. “Then again, what would it gain from lying to us? If anything, you’d think it would build on the propaganda. Tell the same story.”

“Maybe the PIMP can’t lie?” Yanily offered. “Actually, this isn’t a wild dungeon. It’s a normal one, right? Doesn’t that mean Dr. Benza and his people built it?”

“It’s different than the usual, normal dungeons,” Seeyela said. “This whole Ascender’s Tower thing. Six dungeons in one place. And, is it just me, or is it wildly convenient it’s right here where the Bonders need it?”

“Convenient or not,” Romin interrupted. “It’ll have to wait. It looks like they’re ready.”

Hiral’s eyes lingered on Gran for a moment – though he had no idea what expression was on her hidden face – before he turned to look at the researchers. Like Romin had said, the smiles and high-fives suggested they’d figured the interface out. Another few seconds later, and he was proven correct – the large door in the hallway splitting down the middle, then slipping into the wall on either side.

“Our part is done,” Vorinal said to Seena. “For now.”

“Another bridge,” Yanily said. The spearman was standing near where the door had opened, but he hadn’t entered the next area. “Not quite the same. Think our Mid-Boss is going to be in there.”

“On a bridge?” Hiral asked, moving over to stand before his friend. As soon as he did, he saw what Yanily was talking about. Much like the previous room, a bridge extended from the entrance across a wide, gaping nothingness, and to another exit on the far wall. The difference was the large, circular section of bridge in the middle. It looked far too much like an arena to not be one. “I completely agree with Yan on this one.”

“Other bridges above,” Seeyela said, coming up with stand beside him, along with the rest of the party. She pointed to where another bridge crossed higher up in the gigantic room. “Looks like more balconies as well.”

“Which means more Scorbalests,” Seena said. “We should expect adds during the fight.”

“Plan, Boss?” Yanily asked.

“If there’s a space like that on the bridge to fight, that has to mean the Mid-Bossneeds the space. It’s probably not a flyer like The Fourth Crusade or anything. That’s where we’ll meet it. Romin, you and Wallop will take the lead and keep whatever it is busy.”

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“Got it,” Romin said, then turned to look at Wallop as if the Rune-o had said something to him. “Yes, it’s finally your turn.” Romin rolled his eyes before explaining to the rest of the party. “He’s feeling left out after that last room.”

“Don’t worry, big guy,” Seena said to the companion. “You did a great job against the last Mid-Boss, and I know you’ll do the same here.”

Wallop replied by snuffing, stomping on the ground once, and then lifting his head proudly into the air.

“He says he won’t let you down,” Romin said.

“Good,” Seena said. “Sis, you’re on Scorbalest duty. If it gets to be too many, let us know, and Hiral or Yan will help out. Until we know what the Mid-Boss is or what it can do, I want to keep most of us around to deal with it.”

“No problem,” Seeyela said. “With all these efficiency boosts, I can Bamf a lot more than I used to be able to. Besides, my venom hardly did anything to that stupid death-ball.”

“The darts seemed to hurt it though,” Hiral said, thinking back to the green stain he’d seen on the metal.

“You mean these?” Seeyela asked, a trio of the darts appearing a few seconds later, held between her fingers.”

“You just pick up everything if it isn’t nailed down, don’t you?” Seena asked her sister.

“… no,” Seeyela said with a face that was very obviously forced straight, and the darts vanished.

“This isn’t even a wild dungeon,” Yanily said. “Will you get to keep those?”

“On a more serious and important note, I was hoping the dungeon would give me something with this toxin in it as a reward,” Seeyela said, completely ignoring the spearman.

“Should I help Seeyela?” Left asked. “Or would you like me to stay with the group for Banner of Courage and Herald of Peace?”

“Stay with the group until we know what the Mid-Boss is going to throw at us,” Seena told the double, and he nodded. “Vorinal,” she then said to the researcher, and he looked over at her. “Think your people can open the door on the other side from this interface?”

Vorinal tapped his chin for a moment. “Lusco?”

“It’s possible,” the researcher closest to the interface said. “It’ll probably take a little longer, but I can try.”

“Please do,” Seena said. “We’ll go clear out anything dangerous while you’re working on that. Everybody ready?”

Hiral lifted his RHCs off his thighs as he scanned the room one more time – no sign of any constructs yet. Didn’t mean they wouldn’t pop out of somewhere wildly inconvenient. “Ready,” he said.

“Go.” Seena tapped Wallop on the flank, and the big Rune-o trundled out onto the bridge with Romin at his side. The rest of the party followed quickly behind.

Fingers on his triggers, Hiral was already charging Power Attack+ on each weapon, along with the Piercing Shot+ he had ready. The whole group barely made it out onto the bridge before the double-doors slammed closed behind them. Next thing Hiral knew, the lighting in the massive room blinked off completely, then strobed back on in shades of red.

Spinning, crimson lights shone in the darkness along the walls, the balconies, and the bridges, while some kind of ringing bell – like when there was a fire up on Fallen Reach – echoed throughout the space.

“Something is coming,” Hiral said into the party chat, relying on the magic of the Party Interface to help the message reach his friends over the volume of the bells. Beneath his feet, the bridge was subtly vibrating, and it didn’t take long for them to all find out why.

There, at the center of the room – in the round, arena-like part of the bridge – something crawled up and over the side. Huge pincers – big enough to snip a man in two – led the way, while the segmented body and eight legs curled around the edge to haul the thing into place. Overlapping plates aligned across the whole body and joints, encasing the entire construct in thick armor. The scorpion-like tail came next, the thing easily as long as the rest of the body combined. This one didn’t have an arbalest on the end though.

No, where the smaller Scorbalests had bolt-launchers, this thing had what looked like a circle of forward-facing, extended tubes on either side of the huge stinger. The piercing weapon curved down – instead of up like a normal scorpion – and glinted blue, even in the red light. Other weapons sprung from the shoulders and the Mid-Boss’s back, Hiral recognizing them as a type similar to his RHCs he’d seen back in the Lost Palace of Creeping Death’s museum.

“Ranged weapons,” Hiral said. Except, as the tubes on the end of the tail began to spin, he realized he was more correct than he’d realized. The instant the spinning tubes got up to speed – so fast it looked like a single, blurred circle – they began spitting bolts of hard energy. The line of shots chunked shards of metal out of the bridge as it raced in the party’s direction.

“Scatter!” Seena shouted, the whole party – other than Wallop – diving nimbly to the side to narrowly avoid the rapid-fire blasts.

The Rune-o – on the other hand – simply lowered his head and took the barrage across his thick neckplates and back. The upgrade he’d gotten from the plating Seeyela had swiped from the Wild-Boss the party had fought when they’d first entered the savanna immediately showed its worth. Where even the brass bridge had chipped under the attack, Wallop’s armor barely dented, and the Runeocerossnorted and Charged forward.

The bridge trembled under the companion’s thundering sprint, hundreds of bolts ricocheting off his lowered head and shoulders as he shielded the party with his own body.

“Follow him!” Seena shouted, though she needn’t have bothered – the whole party already moving.

Seeyela Bamf’d off the side of the bridge to one of the balconies nearby, smaller Scorbalests already skittering out of their hidey-holes. Yanily used his winged movement-ability to bolt after Wallop, while Hiral snagged Left and Right with his scarves and simply darted forward, his supernatural speed making up for his lack of an official movement ability.

As for Romin and Gran, well, Seena took care of them, snagging them in her own movement ability. Mantle splitting on her back, the flames grew into a wide set of wings, though they were different than they had been. Instead of the two wings with thick feathers of a phoenix, four wings appeared, each the same shape as a bird’s wing, but seemingly made out of one, large feather each. No, not a feather, a petal – much like a lily’s.

Ever since her… meeting… with the Unnamed, Seena’s abilities had shifted slightly. Was it something the Unnamed did to her – or something Hiral did, when he swapped her PIM? Not that it mattered at the moment – the ability sweeping Seena and the others forward just like normal – as Hiral arrived at the Mid-Boss beside Yanily and Wallop.

A name and yellow health bar appeared above the thing’s body as Wallop slammed into it, the weight of the Rune-o’s charge forcing the Mid-Boss back with its metal legs scrabbling on the bridge for purchase.

(Mid-Boss – Construct) Tomorrow’s Scorpinator (Unknown Rank)

With Romin’s companion all up in the Mid-Boss’s face, the plating of its tail prevented it from angling down to continue raining fire on the tank. Instead, it brought its pincers in to grapple, though the sheer girth of the Rune-o prevented it from getting a good grip. Wallop, in turn, worked at goring any of his three horns – the one on his snout or those on his shoulders – into the construct’s metallic body. He didn’t seem to be having any more luck getting through the heavy armor, leaving the pair at a stalemate.

Except, Wallop’s reinforcements arrived before the Mid-Boss’s did, with Hiral and Yanily sliding in on either side of the Scorpinator while Right and Left zipped in behind the tank.

It was time for the second Mid-Boss fight to start in earnest.