Rune Seeker

The flaming wings of Seena’s defensive ability shuddered as the shockwave rolled over her, Wule, and Hiral, but didn’t falter. A few seconds more of falling branches – as well as entire trees – and it seemed to be over, just like that.

The titanic form of Landbreaker loomed above, its head tilted down as it studied the craterous results of its handiwork.

“Hey!” Wule shouted with a raised fist. “Could you at least pretend to be careful! You could’ve smooshed us too!”

Hiral could only chuckle at the brother’s antics – it was that or sit in shocked awe – but then he stopped cold when he realized he could chuckle. Lifting his hand worked, though it still kind of felt like after a vigorous workout. A little shaky. A little weak. But getting better.

Politet’s poison was already wearing off.

No, that wasn’t it. His body had adapted to the change Politet had made to his solar energy. Adapted to… and improved.

It was the Chimeric aspects he’d taken into himself back when he’d saved Drahn in the savanna. They were still present in him, and they’d kept the benefits of the poison, while his body’s healing worked on disposing of the rest. That wasn’t all, either. He could just barely sense it, but that had to be Gran’s An Unfinished Weave in play as well. The two-percent chance to turn a disadvantage into an advantage.

He could already feel it as his body detoxed, his solar energy was stronger than ever. Smoother. More efficient. Faster. And, while not all the damage he’d done to himself against the Beastman was gone, it was definitely in better shape.

But, before Hiral could really dive into looking at himself with Cycling, the massive titan began to dissolve. Blue energy blew away as the wind seemed to pick up, and the head lowered to the ground near the center of the crater.

“Better,” Hiral said. “Little embarrassed though. He got me. Or, he would’ve, if Nivian didn’t show up.”

“He got us all,” Seena said, looking Hiral over once as if waiting to see if he’d chase them away again. When he didn’t, she practically lunged in and wrapped him in a tight hug. “Some kind of, I don’t know, not quite sleeping gas, but it made us all… distracted, is the best way to put it. Everybody just kind of sat around staring into space.” She leaned back from the hug – though Hiral was hesitant to let go – and left his hands on her shoulders. “We’d still be sitting there if Li’l Ur didn’t notice something was up.”

“My Mistress does not make that kind of face. Nor does she drool. Something was obviously wrong,” Li’l Ur said.

“Drooling, huh?” Hiral asked.

“Was not…” Seena said, eyes going to the side. “Anyway! Ur used that ability of his that removes debuffs from me. Once I could think again, I noticed Politet and Nivian were gone.”

“Nivian too?” Hiral asked.

“He’s resistant to a lot of things now,” Wule explained. “I don’t think whatever Politet did to us even worked. Or, didn’t work very well.”

“Yeah,” Seena continued. “Once I figured out something strange was going on, I shook Wule until he woke up.”

“You even slapped me,” Wule said.

“You weren’t waking up.”

“I was drugged.”

“Which is why I slapped you. Stop complaining, it worked.”

“Somehow, it did,” Wule confessed. “At least enough for me to use Nature’s Cleansing on myself. Cleared the debuff right up. Before I had a chance to do anybody else, though, somebody dragged me in this direction.”

“Good thing I did, too,” Seena said proudly. “Or, I guess it would’ve been, if Nivian didn’t get here first. Did I really see it right, was Politet going to saw your head off?”

“Sure seemed like it,” Hiral admitted, shuddering a little at the feeling of the rusty blade dragging across his throat. That… that wasn’t something he wanted to go through again. All in all, he was lucky the idiot alchemist spent so long talking instead of sawing.

“Any idea why he even did that?” Seena asked. “What did he want?”

“My Second-Skin, I think,” Hiral said. “Something about how an undead should have it. Still called it the Second-Skin of Ur’Thul.”

“You, as my would-be-apprentice,” Li’l Ur said. “Have earned that garment. That…” he gestured vaguely towards the crater, “has not.”

“He also called Li’l Ur a prop,” Hiral said to Seena.

“Mistress!” Li’l Ur said. “The remains need to be cremated. Destroyed!”

“You sure there is anything left after that?” Seena asked the little lich floating on her shoulder.

“He’s not quite dead yet,” Nivian said over the party chat. “Doesn’t have much longer, though.”

“Burn him,” Li’l Ur practically growled. “A prop?! I’ll show him!”

“Help me up?” Hiral asked Seena. “Let’s go make sure that’s the end of him.”

“You don’t have to,” she said.

“I do,” he countered.

“I’ll take one arm, you take the other,” Wule told Seena. “Never a double around when you need one.”

“How are they?” Hiral asked.

“They’re actually sitting across from each other like they’re looking into a mirror,” Seena chuckled as she and Wule lifted Hiral to his feet. “Whatever Politet used seemed especially effective on them.”

Hiral swayed a second in their grasps, then managed to stand on his own. The energy moving through him was impressive. Politet’s poison was still in his system – at least the good part of it his Chimeric traits had kept – and while Hiral would probably get an overall benefit in the long run, it wouldn’t be as strong as it was right now. The poison was almost like adrenaline for his solar energy channels. It’d even smothered the soreness.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“You good?” Seena asked.

“Think so,” Hiral said. “Maybe don’t go far though.”

“Happily,” she said, taking his hand.

“I’m not holding your other hand,” Wule said. “Don’t even ask.”

“You would if I was Yanily,” Hiral said.

“No, I definitely would not,” Wule said. “But he would ask.”

Hiral nodded at the truth of the healer’s words, then glanced down at the saw on the ground. A hand went to his own neck, and he forced the memory away. When he looked back up, well, the forest that’d been around him wasn’t much of a forest anymore. Trees had been toppled like a giant had trundled through there and then smashed a giant hammer down.

In other words, exactly what happened.

“We’re on our way,” Wule said into the party chat. “Don’t let him get away.”

“That’s not a concern,” Nivian replied.

It took the trio a few minutes to get to the tank, navigating the broken trees, mounds of moved earth, the large foot-shaped depressions, and then down the slope of the crater itself. At the bottom, they found Nivian standing above a very broken Politet.

The Undead’s transformation had faded – or been dispelled by the damage – and he lay in a pool of his own blue ichor. Most of his right side was simply missing, while his left arm ended at the elbow, and his left leg was bent up and around so that his ankle was next to his ear.

All in all, he wasn’t in a good way. But he was still alive. Unalive? Undead? Whatever.

“What are we going to do with him?” Wule asked Nivian.

“You know,” Nivian replied, staring down at the alchemist. “I only waited…” he turned to Hiral, “… in case you wanted to finish him yourself.”

“Hah, you… always act…” Politet wheezed from his crater. “Act like you’re… better than… me. Always… acting. Sure, you’re… strong. But… not as… smart as… you think.” He began laughing to himself at that, blueish ichor spurting from his right side in a dozen places and caking his mouth.

“Does he have another trick up his sleeve?” Seena asked, flames spinning to life in her free hand.

“Ignore him,” Wule said. “He’s just spouting more of his usual nonsense.”

“Not… this time…!” Politet laughed through the blue bubbles on his lips. “Idiots. Prideful… idiots. How many… will die… because of… your hubris?”

“What are you talking even talking about?” Wule asked, though the tone of his voice had changed, a hint of worry leaking in.

“The ex-general…” Politet wheezed. “After… the strongest… in the Cradle. Of course… you think… it’s one of you. Fools.”

“Who else would it be…?” Seena asked, then seemed to stop as the same name popped into everybody’s heads.

Grandmother.

She was A-Rank. The only A-Rank in the Cradle of Tomorrow.

They’d assumed Tomorrow meant one of them – and maybe even the Progenitor assumed they were the strongest – but if the Chimera had a way to sense strength, who would it be drawn to? A B-Rank with an advanced class? Or the A-Rank?

Considering Grandmother was back with all of the non-combatants, and Tomorrow said the ex-general wouldn’t be alone, they couldn’t risk sitting around in the forest any longer.

“We need to get back,” Hiral said.

“Finally… figured it out…?” Politet asked, body seizing as he laughed.

“Not that it matters to you,” Nivian said, stepping forward and reaching down to grab the alchemist by the throat. Then, as he pulled the broken body out of the crater, Nivian’s mouth opened wide. Further and further, his jaw lowered unnaturally long, and Politet seemed to realize what was about to happen, his laughter choking off and his eyes widening.

“No! No!” Politet wheezed, his stump of an arm trying to swat Nivian’s grip around his throat away. “Not that!”

“This was always how it was going to end for you,” Nivian’s voice echoed out of the distended jaw, his lips not even moving. Then, as the Death Knight took a deep breath, Politet began to scream.

Blue energy leaked from around the alchemist’s eyes, out of his ruined nose, his ears, and his mouth. His pained screams turned to ghostly howls as the sound no longer came from his physical body, but instead from the growing ball of blue in front of his face.

Seconds passed as Nivian hauled Politet’s energy out of what was left of his body, until the undead was nothing more than a corpse. In front of him, a globe of energy the size of a melon floated, before Nivian’s leaned forward and stuffed it into his mouth.

“Always odd to watch that,” Wule said. “But, can’t say Politet didn’t deserve it more than most.”

Nivian tossed the desiccated corpse to the ground, leaned his head back, then swallowed. Blue light glowed out of his eyes like beacons for an instant, then vanished.

“It’s done,” the tank said, then looked at Hiral. “I’m sorry I let that happen to you. I should’ve taken care of Politet a long time ago.”

Hiral shook his head. “Not your fault. We can’t go around punishing people for what they might do. Besides, we’ve got a bigger concern. If Politet was right – and I hate to say this, but I think he was – then that Chimeric Kindredmight be on the way to our camp right now.”

“Do you think Grandmother can take it?” Seena asked.

“I was going to ask you the same thing,” Hiral said. “But, even if she can… can she do it at the same time she’s protecting everybody else from whatever other Chimeras go with it.”

“We didn’t… finish healing everybody,” Wule admitted. “Politet’s drug stopped us. We’re still not in any shape to fight an army. But, I guess we’re still better than some D-Rankers. If we start to head back now, maybe we can arrive before…”

BOOOOOOOM! A distant explosion echoed, shaking the valley, while a plume of energy and debris shot for the sky above the ruined treeline.

“That…” Wule started. “Don’t tell me that was from…”

“The fortress,” Hiral said.

“Hiral, can you get us back there…?” Seena asked.

“Not fast enough if they’re already there,” Hiral said.

“We’re too late?” Nivian asked.

Too late? No, he couldn’t be. Wouldn’t be. His father was there. Gauto was there. Hell, his sisters might be there. He was not going to let something happen to them. But, what could he do? Sure, he was fast, but not fast enough. Seeyela’s teleports couldn’t take them that far, even if she wasn’t currently drugged up and drooling.

Hiral instinctively pushed energy into his time runes, and it flowed so smoothly, reality practically snapped as it paused, giving him more time to think.

Options. What are my options? Running is out. Teleporting is out. Hoping Grandmother can protect everybody by herself is out. What is there?

Almost desperately, he reached out to his runes – which again flowed so smoothly they activated almost before he knew what he was trying to do – and lines of Connection blossomed out through the air around him. To Seena, to the twins nearby, to his party in the woods not far away. And more, stretching in the direction of the camp.

As he looked at them, names popped into his mind. Elezad. Gauto. Arty? And, yes, his sisters, they were at the camp. Could he empower them through the Connections like he did with Emperor’s Decree and his party members? No, and even if he could, it wouldn’t be enough for the threat coming against them.

What else was there though?

Hiral’s hands tightened like they would close into fists if time wasn’t stopped, and he glared down at them. Then… he paused. That was the answer. Literally in the palms of his hands.

Could that work?

Reaching out with his mind, Hiral grabbed one of the strands of Connection and gently pulled. It was strong, which wasn’t a surprise. And it would have to be enough.

Letting his time runes go, Hiral stepped away from Seena and called Drake out of his Interspatial Ring.

“Hiral?” Seena asked as the dracolich emerged without his customary roar.

“I’ve got a plan,” Hiral said. “I think. Maybe. If it works. It’ll only get me back to the camp, though. So, you’ll need to get there as quickly as you can. Drake, I need a favor buddy. If this works, you need to carry Gauto back to the camp with you.”

“Gauto?” Seena asked, then shook her head. “Never mind. Do what you do. Save them.”

“I will,” Hiral said, grabbing onto that strand of Connection to Gauto, then poured power – and his intent – into his Rune of Exchange.