Rune Seeker

“Not just a door, either,” Hiral continued, more of his surroundings resolving as he focused on his sensory domain. “There’s some kind of… I don’t know. Platform? Down a short ladder hidden under the right side of the balcony. Mechanism on it, and it looks like its on tracks on the wall. Will probably take everybody down to the bottom.”

“Right side, huh?” Seena asked.

“Got it,” Left said, and Hiral saw part of the balcony lift up like a trap door. “Ladder’s here like he said.”

“Why wouldn’t it be?” he mumbled under his breath. “Track looks intact, despite the fight. Should be safe to take, assuming one of the researchers can operate it.”

“Lusco might be drooling at the thought of using a working machine here,” Seena said.

It was Yanily who climbed down the ladder first though, with the rest of the party following.

“Wallop doesn’t do ladders well,” Romin said into the party chat.

“He does ladders at all?” Yanily asked.

“I’ll get him,” Hiral said. No reason to leave the companion behind if they had a way to bring him down. A controlled release of Rejection brought Hiral back above the balcony, and scarves of energy reached out to envelop the Rune-o. “You okay there big guy?”

Wallop nodded once and gave a small snort to say he was ready to go, and Hiral took them both back below the balcony.

There, he paused – the two of them hanging comfortably in midair – and looked over at the party. Lusco was fervently working away on figuring out the interface, while most of the researchers looked on. The others, along with the party, instead looked over the edge or directly at Hiral.

“You can just outright fly now, huh?” Seeyela asked him.

“Getting easier every minute,” Hiral said, subconsciously altering his flows of Rejectionand Gravity to stabilize himself. “Even holding Wallop up isn’t so tough.”

“How’s Drake going to feel about this?”

“Uh, let’s not tell him right away,” Hiral said. “Don’t think I’ll be as fast as him either. This works for a dungeon – or in a fight – but for any sort of travel, Drake’s going to be much better.”

“Figured it out,” Lusco said, interrupting the friendly chatter with a dramatic flourish of his hand. Which he then slapped down onto the interface. With barely a sound, the platform began to lower towards the bottom of the large shaft. Miraculously, the remains of the Boss had fallen in such a way they didn’t interfere with the path the platform would take. Or, maybe that was just dungeon mechanics.

Either way, Hiral lowered himself and Wallop beside the platform as it went. More and more of the researchers came to the edge to look down at where they were going, excited chatter erupting at spotting the massive Boss. That definitely wasn’t an everyday construct.

Which just reminded Hiral of the achievement notification’s flavor text. He really wasn’t looking forward to dealing with multiple of those things out in the wild.

Ugh, could one be a Wild-Boss? It would almost make sense.

Imagining dealing with the mountainous construct – and having to worry about attracting an Enemy at the same time – was more than enough to occupy Hiral’s mind until they arrived at the bottom of the shaft. There, Hiral’s sensory domain spotted a very convenient path under the Colossus’s remains that led straight from the platform to the door.

Hiral set Wallop down, then floated a few inches above the ground – to practice his control, not to look badass. Nope. Not that at all – over to the party. “This way,” he said when he got there. Another scarf of energy latched on to Seena, and he brought her up to hover beside him. “This okay?”

“Sure is,” she said, interlacing her fingers with his as they floated down the path leading to the door.

“Boy complains when I do that,” Gran said. “But when he figures it out himself? Show off.”

“I mean, I’m kind of jealous,” Yanily admitted.

“You would be,” Gran said.

Snort. Stomp. Stomp, and Wallop got everybody’s attention.

“Wallop would like to learn how to fly like that with his own runes,” Romin translated. “He believes he would be very graceful, and better at… dodging.” Romin made sure he looked at Gran for this last part. Wallop even winked for emphasis.

“I’m sure,” Gran said flatly.

“We can practice later,” Hiral promised Wallop – to a raised eyebrow from Seena – but quickly changed the subject. “We’re here. Wherever here is. Another door.”

“Lusco,” Vorinal said simply, and the researcher ran over, excitement clear on his face. This interface didn’t take more than a few seconds for him to solve, and the door slid up to vanish within the ceiling. From the slot if went into, the door was thick. At least three feet of the solid brass-like metal Tomorrow seemed to use for everything.

On the other side of the door, of course, stood another hallway.

“I don’t know what Tomorrow likes more,” Yanily muttered. “Hallways or death traps.”

“She’s known for both,” Vorinal said. “Often both at the same time.”

“Hiral?” Seena asked.

“Don’t feel anything,” he said, having already swept the hall with his sensory domain. “No traps, I mean. There are three doors at the end of this.”

“More Mid-Bosses and another Boss?” Yanily asked, a hint of excitement in his voice.

“Considering we’re two hours into the dungeon, I don’t know if we have time for that,” Seena said.

“Only one way to find out,” Seeyela reminded everybody.

The group moved down the hall after that, finding the three doors a hundred feet away, an interface beside each. The two side doors opened almost effortlessly, and while Lusco worked on the third – it was being stubborn, he said – the party entered the room on the right.

And stopped immediately when they found what it contained.

Dominating the center of the room that curved to the left, a large, cylindrical, glass tank sat filled with water. Tubing and pipes ran to, from, and within it, while numerous interface terminals filled one side of the room. Numbers and words scrolled across windows like notifications built into those devices – Lusco had called them screens. Readouts. Reports. Status. All of the thing within the tank.

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

And though it was still invisible, the outline of a squid was unmistakable.

An Enemy.

“We found it,” Vorinal whispered, awe and relief in his voice. “We really found it.”

The Enemy within the tank wasn’t huge, smaller even than the one they’d fought in the Rise of Fallen Reachdungeon, but Hiral was still shocked to see it so close. Moving closer, he noticed he could only see the outline of the invisible creature because the water inside the tank was constantly moving. It wasn’t a whirlpool or anything like that, just a small, constant rotation.

Something to do with keeping the squid from drying out? Dr. Benza said they needed the rain to… wait, is this still alive?

“Is it…?” Seena asked.

“Definitely dead,” Bellina said from where she stood at one of the terminals. Vorinal had moved up beside Hiral, his hand reaching out to press against the glass of the tank, but he turned at her words. “Don’t look at me like that. Definitely dead. Look at these numbers. It’s been dead longer than most of us can fathom.”

“How maintained are the remains?” Vorinal asked.

“Almost perfect,” Bellina said. “Wherever Tomorrow found this, she must’ve scooped it right up and plopped it in this tank immediately.”

“I can’t get the damn door open,” Lusco complained as he entered the room. “It’s not responding to any of the usual commands that I… I… is that it?”

“It is,” Vorinal said. “We can worry about the door later. This is what we’re looking for. Everybody, get to work. Let’s learn everything we can.”

Like a swarm of excited ants, the researchers spread to do their jobs, accessing terminals, studying the construction of the tank, and searching the rest of the room.

Now that Hiral had gotten past the shock of finding a dead Enemy in the room, he really took in the laboratory. All the equipment being used to maintain or study – he wasn’t sure which – the squid lay on the right side of the room. The left, curved wall was entirely bare. There was a lot of space there for more devices, so why wasn’t it being used?

“What’s this do?” Yanily asked from a corner immediately to the left of where they’d entered. Then, before anybody could answer – or even understand what he was asking – he slapped his hand on a rather large, red button.

As soon as he did, there was a vibration in the floor under Hiral’s feet, and then that wall he’d just been looking at started to rise. All of it.

“Yaaaaan,” Seena said flatly as every researcher in the room paused. The party, though, they instantly had their weapons out, putting themselves between the non-combat group and whatever was beyond that wall.

“There’s another glass wall,” Hiral quickly said, feeling it as he tried to push his sensory domain under the rising wall to get an idea what they were up against. “Can’t tell what’s past it.”

“I think we’re all about to find out,” Seena said, the wall lifting, lifting, lifting until it vanished into the ceiling.

If finding the dead Enemy in the room with them had been shocking, what lay beyond the glass wall was absolutely on another level. Even if most of them didn’t realize what they were looking at – Hiral did.

The back side of the room looked like it was formed from a natural cave, though the near side and room were clearly artificial. More of Tomorrow’s signature brass, but simple and heavy. Understandably so, considering what sat in the middle of the prison-cell-like chamber.

No, it wasn’t a living Enemy railing at the glass and threatening to get out. It was… worse.

A crack. A black crack in reality, like a frozen lightning bolt. It floated there – about as tall as Hiral was – in the middle of the air, black light leaking out from within. No wider than a finger, Hiral could almost feel the energy from the other side. An energy not of his world.

He’d seen these before, just once, when he’d broken the Rise of Fallen Reach dungeon in his attempt to unseal the then Emperor’s Greatsword. Black Gates, Dr. Benza called them. The doorways to the Enemy’s realm. The way they came through.

The way the Fallen brought them through, if Dr. Benza’s version of history could be believed. Though, having traveled with Vorinal and the others these past few hours, Hiral had to wonder about the accuracy of that particular version.

And the goal of the quest Hiral – and the others – had gotten after saving Fallen Reach.

Dynamic Quest – That’s Asking a Lot

Though you’ve saved Fallen Reach, the Enemy is still out there, with free entry into your world.

Will you let that stand?

Black Gates closed: 0/3

World saved: 0/1

A squeeze of his hand, and Hiral tore his eyes away from the Black Gate to find Seena looking nervously in his direction.

“You know what that is, don’t you?” she asked quietly.

“A gateway,” Vorinal answered for everybody. “This is where they came to our world from. Tomorrow had it locked up and secreted away the entire time.”

“The chamber looks intact,” Lusco said, his face pressed up against the glass as he tried to look at every square inch of what lay on the other side of the glass. “How did that first specimen escape?”

Vorinal seemed to consider the question. “The other room, opposite this one. Is there a broken tank there?”

“No tank at all,” one of the unnamed researchers said. “It looks half library and half experimental laboratory.”

“Hrm,” Vorinal said. “And though the guardians of this place were damaged, there were no breaches of the doors. No, that other specimen didn’t come from this facility. It was searching for it. It must’ve been able to sense this gate. To sense a way home.”

Then Vorinal stopped. Completely.

“Or,” he continued very quietly. “It sensed a way to bring more of its kind here.”

Everybody paused at those words, all eyes returning to the Black Gate.

“It… might be worse than just that,” Bellina said from where she stood beside one of the terminals. Her eyes raced back and forth like she was reading something.

“How?” Vorinal asked.

“Tomorrow labeled some of these readings and added a few notes. Almost like random thoughts as she was working,” Bellina said, clearly just talking while her eyes took in the last few lines of what she was reading. Finished that, she shook her head, then looked up at Vorinal and continued. “This terminal is monitoring what Tomorrow called a ‘Black Gate’, and it is – like you said – a doorway to another world.

“One we shouldn’t get close to, and why it’s locked up like that. The gateway itself is kind of alive, and it feeds off life. Not quickly, but prolonged exposure would be very-not-good for our health.”

“That’s it?” Vorinal asked.

“I wish,” Bellina kind of panic-chuckled. “Tomorrow indicates three different energy signatures in this monitoring equipment. The Black Gate itself,” she held up one finger. “Our new friend over there, which Tomorrow has labelled simply the Enemy.” Bellina pointed and held up a second finger. Then, very, very slowly, she held up a third finger. “And something Tomorrow put in big, bold letters, with what looks like an angry face beside it. She called them the Raze.”

“What are… the Raze?”

Bellina shrugged. “No details on that here, but…” she bit her lip as she thought, then pointed at the screen again. “There’s an energy reading here, measuring units of… something. I don’t know what they are or what the units are even called. That doesn’t matter. What does, though, is these thresholds Tomorrow identified. At fifty units, she says the Enemy,” Bellina said and nodded at the squid in the tank. “Sorry, at fifty the Raze will send the Enemy through. If those things don’t succeed, at ninety units, the Raze themselves will follow.”

“Does she say what happens after that?”

“She actually does,” Bellina nodded, her skin looking a little white. “We die. All of us. Everything.”

“How can she know that?” Lusco asked. “She could be… guessing.”

“Tomorrow doesn’t guess,” another researcher said.

“Because it happened before,” Bellina said, actually shaking now. “The Progenitor’s ruined cities. The thing that could push god-like beings to the brink. That could challenge technology like this.” Bellina lifted her arms to indicate the facility all around them. “The Raze came to this world before, and they either defeated or chased off the Progenitors. There’s a chance they’re coming again.”

Silence filled the room at the proclamation.

“What’s the read… reading at now?” Vorinal asked, his voice cracking midway through his sentence.

“Forty-two,” Bellina said. “And it’s been climbing. “Last year at this time, it was only at thirty.”

“We have less than a year…” one of the researchers said, leaning against the glass wall and sliding down to sit on the floor.

“We’re too late,” another whispered, head shaking. “We don’t have time to study…”

“No,” Vorinal said. “We’re not. We can’t be. We don’t need to study the specimen. We don’t need Tomorrow’s research about its biology. We found the threat,” he stopped and pointed at the gate. “All we need to do is close that.”

“I won’t let you do that,” a new voice said, and suddenly Hiral’s sensory domain was full of people that weren’t there a second ago.

All at once, the party whipped around toward the door where they’d entered, weapons drawn, to find dozens of heavily armed soldiers guarding a man dressed in a tacky robe. Even beyond what Hiral could see, the hall was packed with more of the soldiers, all of them radiating power from the strong equipment they carried.

They couldn’t be more than C-Rank – that’s what his domain was telling him – but his gut said something different. This was still a dungeon. These troops had literally appeared out of nowhere. If the party attacked, they wouldn’t be fighting C-Rank enemies.

“Zeed,” Vorinal said, eyes locking with the man in the robe. “So, you found us.”