Rune Seeker

The impact with the ground below formed a second crater right beside the one Hiral had made less than a minute before, another wave of broken earth and dirt rushing outward. Dust plumed into the air, obscuring Hiral’s view, though he kept his eyes locked on the area.

It was far too much to hope something like that had ended the fight. It had never been the plan anyway, but if by some miracle…

“Well done,” the Beastman’s voice spoke, the dust blasting away with a thump of his staff. Already, he stood upright and entirely unphased within the compression in the ground. Small stones rolled down the incline towards his hooved feet, and he looked up at Hiral.

There was a pulse of power, like the goatman released his magic, and then a strain. The air around him warped, those rolling stones crushing themselves into the softer dirt, while cracks spread outward from The Archwizard’s hooves. Up to his ankles – or what amounted to ankles with hooves – sunk deeper into the ground as the crater itself expanded.

He’s trying to fly again, but the more power he puts into it, the more the Edict of Gravitypushes back.

Hiral eyed his solar energy, dropping slightly as he maintained his intent of The Archwizard being unable to fly. Would their opponent keep pushing? If he did, who would run out of energy first – Hiral or the goat? The only reason he was even holding his own in this contest of power was due to the Edicts seeming to have a vendetta of their own against the interloper to the world.

Just looking at how the Beastman stood unperturbed as he dumped massive amounts of energy into his spell, Hiral didn’t have high hopes of winning a battle of attrition. Even the grey, smoke-like energy clinging to The Archwizard’s frame to Hiral’s Cyclingseemed to be burning off as the goat flexed his power.

“I am learning much,” The Archwizard said. “A novel way to counter flight. But, tell me—“

The goat looked at Hiral, the teeth of his grinning mask gleaming.

Before Hiral even had a chance to process the words, the Shard of the Lost Epoch snapped in his direction, chains of magical force bursting out of nothingness to streak right at him. Four of the glowing constructs raced toward him, and he Rejected to the side to evade them. Of course, being magical, the chains cut at a ninety-degree angle to follow in an instant.

So, Hiral changed direction again – but the chains didn’t give up or slow. If anything, they increased their speed. The sound of rattling closed in on him even as Rejection bounced him around the air above The Archwizard. Problem was, the more he zigged and zagged, the more the chains filled the sky. Two of them had split off from the pack to circle around, creating a net to box him in while the other two inched closer.

But, while the Beastman’s attention was on Hiral like that, it meant he wasn’t paying as much attention to the rest of the party, and Yanily was suddenly right back at his side.

Without his Aspect up, the spearman danced in with his Reed-Spear Style, weapon of blur of thrusts. Even though his body still smoked from the tremendous lightning bolt he’d taken, Yanily’s spear powered toward his target.

On the other side, Right and Left had sped in, the former low while the latter went high. An Infernal-infused fist came up at an angle while a black-liquid dagger sliced down from the same side. All in all, the three party members had the goatman just as boxed in as Hiral was becoming. One of those blows would have to hit.

They didn’t. The damn Archwizard teleported away as easily as breathing – though he was still earthbound – while the chains never stopped.

Another burst of Rejection and… Hiral wasn’t fast enough. A chain snagged his ankle, crawling up his calf, and that was all it took for the other three to race in like they smelled weakness. Constricting around his body, the Beastman had him.

“Got you,” The Archwizard said in triumph.

“And I got you,” Seeyela said at the same time both her daggers jabbed down into the inside of the Beastman’s elbow, right in the space between his gauntlet and upper-arm guard. Green venom pulsed, spreading veins racing up and down the goat’s arm.

A grunt of pain, and the Beastman twisted, waving his staff-wielding arm toward Seeyela; that shimmering fist materialized, smashing into her and hurling her aside. At the same time, the chains that had Hiral bound dragged him helplessly across the sky – and straight towards a portal that opened mid-air.

Inside, dozens of weapons twisted and flailed like they were caught in a roaring storm. Swords, spears, claws with wicked blades, primitive axes, and every other kind of weapon Hiral could imagine – as well as some he’d never be able to – waited for him through the hanging opening.

Rejection poured out of him as he tried to change his direction, but nothing worked. He couldn’t slow at all where he was headed – where the chains were taking him – even as fire bloomed below from Seena’s assault on the Beastman. Hiral didn’t even have a chance to look to see if she’d hit before he reached the portal entrance.

The chains themselves hadn’t been the threat. The Archwizard was trying to throw him into some other place filled with animated weapons that’d rip him to shreds. Just inches from the portal, he could feel the bloody auras lingering on the instruments of death inside. None of these were normal weapons. They’d been soaked in so much blood and death on a hundred battlefields, they were practically alive with a hunger to maim. To destroy.

Just one of them would be enough to kill Hiral, and there were hundreds of them waiting for a piece of him.

Finally, the chains loosened as they hurled him the last foot into the portal, his body twisting to face the gateway he’d just flown through. The gateway closing as he watched.

Behind him, he could feel the weapons through his sensory domain, the storm they rode on just as hungry as the individual parts. And all of them turned to race in his direction.

Already the portal had shrunk to the size of his head, far too small for him to fit through, and his mind raced for an alternative. A way out. Was there one, or was this really it?

“Hiral!” a voice called his name, what was left of the portal filling with a familiar face. His face. Or, more accurately, Right’s face.

As soon as their eyes met, Hiral knew his double’s plan, and he activated his Rune of Exchange, appearing outside of the portal just as it closed with a pop.

The roar of battle filled his ears as soon as the pop ended, the portal completely gone – and Right with it. Knowing what was on the other side, Hiral didn’t hesitate to activate Foundational Split in quick succession. Thankfully, it worked as normal, his double peeling off him as Hiral breathed a sigh of relief and turned his attention to the melee below.

And what a melee it was!

He’d only been gone for seconds – at most – through the portal, and somehow his party now fought half-a-dozen towering humanoids of earth and stone around the Beastman. Standing even taller than The Archwizard, these bulky opponents didn’t possess his magical power and speed, but they more than made up for it in stubborn durability from the looks of things.

But, why were they suddenly needed?

Hiral’s eyes went to the twin wounds on The Archwizard’s arm where Seeyela had caught him by surprise, the feel of the Ghost-Web Venom spreading through his body to Hiral’s Cycling. It had made it all the way up his arm, down into his chest, and now circled where his heart had to be. A few seconds more, and it would reach the crucial organ, ending the fight.

Except, the goatman wasn’t giving up so easily. More of his seemingly unlimited power washed outward as he staggered to the side. His hand went to his chest, a rainbow of colors surrounding it and sending cascading waves of energy straight through his own armor.

Hiral grabbed Right with one of his scarves and shot down toward The Archwizard, but he wasn’t the only one who’d seen the opening, the rest of the party redoubling their attacks to get through the swarm of clay constructs. He’d barely gotten five feet before the Shard of the Lost Epoch lifted, and dozens of orange and black glyphs carved themselves into the air. Forming a dome around The Archwizard, the glyphs were finished in a heartbeat, then launched a barrage of the same purple-black beams that’d hit Gran.

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Having seen the effects on living things around where the beams had struck the vampire before, Hiral had absolutely no interest in finding what they’d do to him firsthand. Bursts of Rejection hurled him and Right in opposite directions, their direct assault quickly turning into dodging for their lives. An extra tether of Gravity and Attraction got Right to the ground where he had a better chance, while Hiral kept to the air.

Through his sensory domain, he dodged every beam coming his way. The initial salvo had been the worst, but they practically felt random after that. The Beastman wasn’t focusing on hitting the party – more of his beams striking his own elementals to no effect than anything else – and had instead opted for quantity over quality. Meanwhile, all his attention was on the Ghost-Web Venom coursing through his chest.

Correction, Hiral realized as he concentrated on Cycling, the venom that had been coursing through The Archwizards’ chest.

Now, the goat stood with a hole burned through the center of his armor, blood leaking out within, and a globe of green floating above his palm within a rainbow of colored energy. He’d torn through his own flesh to extract the venom before it reached his heart.

Madman.

“Absolutely wonderful substance.” The Beastman’s eyes lingered on the venom as if he was inspecting it, before giving a short nod. “I think I shall keep it to examine later.”

Snapping his fingers shut, the venom simply vanished, and he turned his attention back to the battlefield raging around him. Even without him paying attention, the party hadn’t been able to get any closer.

He’s not using his full power. Even ‘slightly adjusted’, he outclasses us by this much. How the hell are we supposed to beat him?

“I don’t know if we can do this without our buffs,” Seeyela said over the party chat in the pregnant pause of the goat’s actions.

“Even if we could use them, he’d just dispel them again with that wave,” Seena said.

“I might be able to stop that,” Hiral replied immediately, thinking back to how he’d pulled the Beastman to the ground – and more specifically what he’d done against the Arborean Uniclops. In that battle, his runic combination had pulled the power of things around him out. He’d broken them down, and bent them to his needs. And, with the Edictsholding a grudge against The Archwizard’s presence on this world, the combination might just be enough.

If he could do it. If it didn’t rip him apart in the process from the inside out. Then again, looking at their enemy, what was the alternative?

Giving up? Letting his friends get hurt?

No way in any of the nine hells.

“Hiral,” Yanily said, interrupting his thoughts before they could spiral. “Can you do anything to make one of my abilities affect everybody instead of just me?”

Hiral dodged another pair of the life-stealing beams while his mind switched over to process the spearman’s words. “I don’t think now is the best time to try and rewrite your PIM,” he finally said.

“You didn’t answer my question,” Yanily pointed out at the same time he drove his spear through one of the Elder Earth Elementals – according to View activating.

No, I didn’t. Could I do it? Using Connectionlike I do for the buffs I give the party… which are actually still active even after the dispel. It didn’t work on my runes! Is there a way I could help Yanily channel his buffs through my runes?

“I might have a way,” Hiral said. Even better, if it worked, it could give him an extra avenue to combat the dispel – assuming they had to deal with it again. “Going to take some testing.”

“Also not a great time for testing,” Seena said as she battled her own golems. “But we’ll buy you whatever we can. Make it count.”

“Archwizard is back in action,” Seeyela said, her sheets of Insatiable opening around the battlefield to suck up the black beams wherever they could.

The Archwizard seemed to notice the same thing, cutting off those attacks, and replacing them with columns of earth, bolts of lightning, blades of wind, spears of ice, and gouts of fire. All of them. Simultaneously. Coming at the party from every angle.

Each of them did what they could, dodging and blocking, but there were simply too many. Injuries cut at their health bars in the Party Interface, even Hiral taking damage as he zig-zagged down to get closer to Yanily.

Worse, his path had apparently been too obvious, the Beastman teleporting right beside the spearman, a magical fist formed and already swinging.

Yanily was only just turning as that shimmering fist arced around for his head. He’d never be able to dodge or block it like that. Hiral wouldn’t reach him in time, and…

WHAM! Romin Blink-Charged into the side of the Beastman, his Onslaught transformation still in effect. Runes of Impact flared from the collision, but primitive glyphs inscribed on the armor flashed in defiance, protecting the goat from the worst of it. Still, Romin was there, and he’d come in swinging.

Powerful fists rained blows in the Beastman’s direction, the first two missing, but the third connecting solidly with the armored face. The clang pushed The Archwizard back a single step.

“Locking horns, is it? Fine, then.” The goatman raised his hands. Several more of those shimmering fists appeared around him.

Just like that, the two heavily-armored warriors set their feet and clashed—fists of flesh and bone slamming against fists of magic—while the elements around continued to assault everybody else.

Hiral squinted at those shimmering fists. He’d have to do something about those.

“Yan,” he said, grabbing the spearman with a pair of scarves, then bursting away with Rejection. “We’re leaving.”

Yanily didn’t object or fight back, and the pair put a solid hundred feet between themselves and the warring titans in an instant. It’d have to be far enough, though no distance was enough when The Archwizard could teleport so quickly.

But, to Hiral’s sensory domain, Seeyela must’ve realized the same thing. Four Gravity Wells appeared around Romin and the goat, though they didn’t attack. No hydras emerged to spit death, and they didn’t pull like normal. No, to Hiral’s senses, these orbs felt like they were locking down space.

Seeyela was trying to prevent the goat from teleporting. Would it work? Hiral didn’t have time to find out, instead turning all his attention to the spearman and what he wanted to do.

He didn’t bother asking why Yanily wanted to do this – or even what ability the man wanted to share – Hiral just trusted his friend had a reason. A good reason. So, he focused on the problem.

Without the time – or the power – to rewrite Yan’s PIM right now, he began working on what he could do. His threads of Connection were going to be the key. They stretched from him to everybody in his party, even if they couldn’t be seen like his scarves. And, Hiral had already taken a kind of imprint of Yan’s PIM back when he had modified one of his own abilities before. He could use that, along with his Rune of Dreaming, Expansion, Unsealing, a little bit of Exchange, and a touch of Attraction.

Yeah, that should do it.

The runes almost primed and ready, Hiral gave one more glance at the battling pair to see one of the goat’s shimmering fists catch Romin in the chin with a brutal uppercut. Up and over, the tank flipped to land hard on the ground, and the Beastman’s head turned in Hiral’s direction. The bastard-goat knew they were up to something.

Romin wasn’t letting him get away that easily though, pushing himself to his feet and taking a step right back towards the Beastman.

“Enough of that,” The Archwizard said, a twitch of his staff bursting with power.

Romin hadn’t even gotten two steps before a whirlwind of churning air completely engulfed him. The wind was so strong, it utterly obscured the combined tank from view, red dust swirling up within. A containment ability? No, that wasn’t it at all, with glimpses of black emerging from the red.

There were shards of some kind of obsidian spinning in the opposite direction of the whirlwind. They’d tear Romin apart!

“Hiral…” Yan said as the goatman turned in their direction.

“Almost there,” Hiral responded, attention going to Romin’s health dropping like a rock within the obsidian whirlwind.

Another pulse of power rolled off The Archwizard, and Hiral’s eyes went straight to him. The goat stood there for a second, four magical fists hovering above his head, but nothing happened. Another pulse, and the goatman leaned forward.

Nothing.

Seeyela’s teleport block works!

“How remarkable.” The goatman eyed the gravity wells closely, almost looking through them. “Very, very interesting…”

A third pulse of power, and three of Seeyela’s Gravity Wells cracked like glass.

But not for long!

With that extra second his teammates had bought them, Hiral thrust his primed runes into Yanily’s PIM, the two of them both stiffening as their powers intersected. Like there was some kind of incompatibility of two PIMs linking up, a vicious feedback loop began resonating like a building, echoing sound throughout their bodies.

Hiral’s already strained solar energy channels – from forcing his intent on the Beastman to prevent flight – howled in pain. It felt like worms made of Seena’s plasma ate their way through his body. And it was only getting worse.

“Don’t… stop…” Yanily said, his hand snapping out to catch Hiral’s arm. “Almost…”

Through the pain, Hiral could vaguely feel Yanily pushing solar energy into two of his abilities. Sluggish because of the feedback loop – or maybe it just felt that way because of the ever-increasing pain – the ability activations seemed to take a lifetime. Worse, the more solar energy Yanily fed to the ability, the more it amped up the agony.

Hiral’s teeth clenched to keep from screaming out, and from the look on Yanily’s face, it was the same for him. Their bodies were like waterskins getting filled, and they were close to bursting. Would they even survive Yanily activating the abilities?

Hiral didn’t get a chance to consider the answer to that question – he just got it.

Enough solar energy flowed into the abilities to trigger them. The pulse that would’ve normally flowed within the spearman’s body instead shot out along Hiral’s lines of Connection to the party. In an instant, it was done, and Hiral severed his own link to Yanily’s PIM.

The pain faded immediately – though a dull soreness crept in behind it – and Hiral smiled as he realized what Yanily had done.

He’d combined Shared Strength with Hiral’s plan to give the entire party Turn Back the Clock. He’d reset all their cooldowns.