Rune Seeker

A sweep of Hiral’s hand – along with five crescents of terrible Separation – and the warthog in front of him fell to pieces. At the same time, on either side of him, Right and Left moved in perfect unison with the Chord of the Primal Echo, simultaneously dropping two more unfortunate pigs. As all three bodies – or the parts of them – hit the ground, the kill counter rose to seventy-two of seventy-three.

“Looks like we have to find one more straggler somewhere,” Left said.

“Before that,” Right held up a hand, and looked at Hiral. “Did you really think running around in a circle and leaving copies of yourself would work?”

“Uh…” Hiral started, only to get cut off by another warthog wandering into the small clearing where the trio had partaken in wholesale, porcine slaughter. Since he’d gone through the last forty boars practicing his runes, Hiral casually drew one of his RHC’s, powered it up with Piercing Shot+, and then layered on his remaining Right Back at You. One pull of the trigger was all it took – straight through the monster’s skull – to drop it to the ground, and a notification window popped up in front of Hiral’s eyes.

Dynamic Quest – Beast Wave: Update

Chimeric Interlopers slain: 73/73

You’ve thinned the forces arrayed against the Hanging Garden, but the battle is far from over. Even now, staunch defenders struggle to hold back the tide smashing against their walls.

Worse – for you – a dangerous predator has taken notice of your activities.

Predator Defeated: 0/1

As soon as Hiral’s mind processed the contents of the notification – without needing his eyes to read it all – the other RHC came out in his hand. Back to back to back with his doubles, they turned to stare at the dozens of spaces between the stone spires all around them.

“Reads like a Mid-Boss,” Right said.

“It does,” Hiral agreed, then focused on the party chat. “Did anybody else just get a notification for a Mid-Boss?”

One second, two, three… four… five… no reply.

“Can anybody hear me?” Hiral asked again.

“Now that I think about it, we haven’t heard anything from them since just after we entered the maze,” Left said. “Not even Yanily.”

“Something blocking our Party Interface?” Right asked.

A glance at the health bars of the others, and Hiral shook his head. They’d taken some damage, but they were still all there and clearly visible. “Just the chat function, it seems.”

“Then this begs the question,” Left said. “Do we keep moving forward, under the assumption we’ll all meet up to take on the Mid-Boss? Or, does each path get its own?”

Hiral’s eyes snapped up and to the right, high in the glowing foliage draping the stone pillars as a burst of movement grazed the edge of his sensory domain. “There’s something here,” he said quietly to the others, concentrating on pushing his domain out a bit further. Under the constant criss-crossing of the stone pillars, the rain hardly fell, but his use of Rejectionwas just as sensitive.

“The Mid-Boss?” Right asked, fist glowing with purple flames.

Another graze of his sensory domain behind him, and Hiral side-stepped to try to get a better look, his doubles smoothly shifting to watch his back. “Whatever it is, it’s fast and agile,” Hiral said. “Or, it brought company.”

“Might be like the Army Ants from the Endless Tunnels,” Left said. “A number of separate Mid-Bosses based on the path.”

“We’re the biggest group,” Hiral said. “Sort of. But I’d rather we get more than Seena and Drahn. Anything moving this fast could be a problem for them if it can get in close.”

“Plan?” Right asked. “Wait for it to come to us? Or, try to flush it out?”

“There aren’t any ranged attacks coming,” Hiral said, feeling another graze on his domain, and shifting again to try to get a better look. Like before, by the time he noticed it, whatever was stalking them was already gone. “So, fighting it out in the open is probably to our advantage unless that changes. Let’s try waiting it out.”

Another invasion breached his domain directly behind him, but then immediately retreated as if it could sense the small push of Rejection against it. It had been in and out so fast, the thing had to be incredibly agile. Fast enough to get to them – if it wanted to – within a second or two at most. Even though it had been brief, it’d given Hiral a ‘look’ at what was circling them.

A lithe body with four legs, a long tail, and claws sharp enough to leave gouges in the stone where it’d just been.

“Some kind of big cat, I think,” Hiral said.

“If we’re waiting for it to come to us,” Left said, shaping the Banner of Courage, and surrounding them in its golden glow.

Hiral gave his double a thankful nod – the bonuses couldn’t hurt – but didn’t have a chance to say anything before there was another breach in his domain. Unlike the last time, though, this one didn’t result in an immediate retreat, and Hiral spun to raise his weapons as the monster streaked towards the edge of the stone columns.

Except, something else bloomed in his domain, and Hiral’s eyes spotted it a heartbeat later – a cone of expanding flame gushing out of an elevated archway. Thirty feet wide and getting bigger by the second, heat rolled ahead of the flames promising a very unpleasant time, and Hiral tossed his RHCs aside.

Runic power filled his hands in their place, Dreaming and Decrease stretching out from his left, while he forged a wedge of Rejection and Sealing with his right. The instant his extended concept met the flames, a powerful will emerged to challenge his own, like a pair of predator’s eyes locking on to him and triggering a primal, prey reaction.

Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

The hair on the back of his neck rose as a quick notification window sprung up and vanished in the blink of an eye.

You have resisted the Hunter’s Quarry debuff.

Flight or Flight (Fear) negated by Banner of Courage.

Hunter’s Quarry (No Effect): As prey, any damage you take from your hunter is increased by 20%, and you are unable to escape or hide from its senses.

Flight or Flight (No Effect): Reaction speed, Dex, and Atn are all reduced by 20% when in front of an apex predator.

Hiral almost choked at how serious those debuffs would’ve been if he hadn’t resisted the first and had Banner of Courage negate the second. Thank goodness Left kept us buffed with Aura of Peace. He didn’t have time to worry about that now, though, with the flames pushing through his concept, and his defenses yet unfinished.

Steeling himself, Hiral focused on his runes, and directed the Edict of Decreasein time with his Primal Chord to support Dreaming. With the next blink of his eyes, the rushing flames seemed less substantial. Colors faded. The roar and crackle of consumed air grew dimmer.

But definitely not enough he wanted to try to face them directly with his own body.

Instead, his other Edict in play – Sealing – combined with his Rune of Rejection to form a three-sided wedge directly in front of, and over, the trio. The still-powerful flames broke across the barrier as they filled the clearing. Heat clawed at the three within walls that shimmered under the onslaught, but thanks to Dreaming and Decrease, it wasn’t anything they couldn’t handle. Left’s Banner of Courage – along with Hiral’s High-Speed Regeneration+ – made short work of any damage he took.

Then, even as the ground blackened on both sides of them and plants on the stone pillars behind got turned to ash, the flames ceased. All around, the air rippled from the heat, while smoke from the scorched vegetation rose towards the curved ceiling, what there was of it. Through the haze, the Mid-Boss dashed off again, back into the security of the upper layers of the stone maze.

“What the hell was that?” Right asked. “I thought you said it was a cat or something? That felt more like Seena had finally had enough of you.”

“Still feels like a cat,” Hiral said, tracking the movement of the cat as it sped along the edge of his domain. In and out, like it was looking for a weakness – an opening – it poked and prodded at his senses. Well, if it was going to keep bumping up against his domain, he was going to take advantage of that!

A call of Attraction slapped his RHCs into his hands, fingers on the triggers – though he didn’t pull them – and he listened for the sound of the Primal Chord. Kind of like he’d felt a will challenge his own when he’d reached out with Dreaming, he could almost hear a growl pushing back against the Chord trying to control and predict the cat’s movements. It was too powerful to be drawn straight into the music leading to its own end, but that wasn’t entirely what Hiral had been listening for anyway. Instead, Hiral took a page from the Mid-Boss’s own debuff – Hunter’s Quarry – and reached out with his Edict of Connection.

As the circling cat – though Hiral still hadn’t actually seen the beast yet – made contact with his domain again, Hiral spun a tether of Connection to it. So small, and without any actual debuff attached to it, the Mid-Boss’s will didn’t appear to challenge the effect.

“Got you,” Hiral said under his breath, the Edict of Connection emerging to his eyes and pulling taught where it tied him to the Mid-Boss. It wasn’t anything as strong as a leash – it wouldn’t prevent the monster from escaping if it wanted to – but it would prevent the thing from hiding from him. With that advantage of the Mid-Boss’s suddenly gone, Hiral’s RHCs tracked its movement as it sprinted a circle around them.

Even with the tether, the thing was moving incredibly quick, bouncing between columns of stone and through nearly impossible spaces so fast it boggled the mind. With the natural agility and the benefit of the terrain, it had to believe there was no way Hiral or his doubles had an avenue of attack while it stayed hidden.

Too bad for it, Hiral’s sensory domain had already mapped out every opening, nook, and cranny of the thicket of stone pillars. All he needed to do was wait for… now! Fingers squeezing both triggers, a pair of searing bolts of Impact burst through the triple-rings of Piercing Shot+, speeding up as they went and getting buffed by Breaking, before flashing into the shadows between the stones. A split second later, a pained yowl of surprise replied at the same time Hiral’s sensory domain watched the monster stumble mid-leap.

Almost as ungracefully as Hiral had been when he nearly brained himself, the Mid-Boss careened off one stone branch, claws scrabbling the whole time, only to crash into a lower one. This time, the sharp claws managed to get hold of things, and the creature pulled itself up and behind another pillar. One safe from a follow-up shot from Hiral.

For now.

“Got it?” Left asked, eyes on Hiral’s weapons still poised and ready for the instant the Mid-Boss made a move.

“Yes,” Hiral said, attention mainly on his domain. “Didn’t do as much damage as I was hoping, though. If that’d been one of those warthogs – or around the same amount of health – those two hits would’ve outright killed it. Instead, all I think I did was piss it off a bit. It’s got to be our Mid-Boss.”

“It’s not moving now?” Right said.

“Not for the moment,” Hiral said. “It’s like it knows I’m waiting for it to move.”

“You handled its flames though,” Right said. “If it wants to try and kill us, it’s going to have to come in here with us, or pull out some other trick. It can’t win like this.”

“Can we, though?” Left asked. “It’s holding us in this clearing. Mobility like it’s been showing could be much more difficult to deal with in the narrow tunnels.”

“It might be hoping we move so it can try ambushing us,” Hiral agreed.

“Then I guess we’ll need to…” Right started, only for his words to get cut off by an unexpected notification window coming up.

Dynamic Quest – Beast Wave: Update

Chimeric Interlopers slain: 73/73

The walls have been breached!

A catastrophic mistake by the defenders has led to an entire flank being exposed. Chimeras surge towards the opening, sensing the weakness.

If the remaining champions are overwhelmed, monsters will flood into the city, laying waste to it and its citizens.

Key Defenders Remaining: 589/590

Predator Defeated: 0/1

Approximate time until the Hanging Gardens is lost: 32 minutes.

Hiral’s eyes widened at the notification. They’d had three hours! Then again, like Fallen Reach, this wasn’t really a dungeon. The PIMP had given them goals in the form of the Dynamic Quests, but they weren’t scripted like normal dungeons. Things had just gone terribly wrong.

And if his party wanted the Bonders’ help in the raid zone, Hiral and the others had less than thirty-two minutes to save them. Even as he watched, another defender fell, dropping them to five-hundred-and-eighty-eight.

He didn’t have time to wait around for the Mid-Boss to make its move. So, he’d have to make one of his own.

“New plan,” he told his doubles, and got ready to do something wildly reckless.