Rune Seeker

Chapter 56: Incoming!

Congratulations. Achievement unlocked – Belly of the Beast

You killed a Mid-Boss (or higher) class enemy from the inside. Yuck.

Please access a Dungeon Interface to unlock class-specific reward.

“Looks like I got an achievement, though,” Hiral said, extending his hand for Left to help him to his feet.

His double just looked at the blood-covered arm and took a step back. “We all got an achievement for completing the Dynamic Quest. Or, do you mean something else?”

“Something else,” Hiral said, shaking his hand again and looking at it as purposefully as possible.

“Oh, fine,” Left finally said. He took Hiral’s hand and helped pull him to his feet, the blood all across his body already congealing and making every movement stiff.

“Thanks, bud,” Hiral said before pulling Left in for a sticky hug. He let him go almost immediately, taking a moment to savor the shocked expression—is that really how I look?—then closed the first achievement window for the next to take its place.

Dynamic Quest Complete

This session of the King’s Court has come to a close.

Congratulations. Achievement unlocked – In the Prescence of Royalty

You have proven that royal blood flows just as easily as any other.

Please access a Dungeon Interface to unlock class-specific reward.

A thought closed that notification window as well, and Hiral shook his head at Left, who was still just standing there looking down at himself. “Oh, don’t be a baby.” Hiral reached out and reabsorbed the double. As soon as his tattoos appeared on himself again, he activated Foundational Split, and Left appeared without a drop of blood on him. “There. Better?”

“Much better,” Left said. “Let’s go—I’m sure the others are waiting.”

“Sure,” Hiral said, being careful of his footing with each step on the bloody back of the lizard. When he got to the shoulder, though, he simply leapt off and slowed himself down with a well-timed pulse of Rejection.

“Show-off,” Left called as he climbed down the hard way between deadly spikes.

“What happened to you?” Seena asked as Hiral walked over, painted in green blood from head to toe.

“I killed the King,” Hiral said, glancing over his shoulder at the absolutely massive beast. Green blood leaked from the sides of its mouth and in a long stream in front, as if it’d coughed it out. “And kind of made a mess doing it.”

“You’re not kidding about the mess part,” Yanily said. “Still, better you than me. That’s never going to come off.”

Come… off? Could that work?

Hiral looked at the rune on the inside of his right forearm, then thought about the blood covering his body and activated his Rune of Rejection. In the blink of an eye, the green stuff burst off him in all directions, leaving him spotless.

“Ewwww,” a voice said.

“Hiral…” Seena said, a dangerous edge to her words, and Hiral looked up from his arm to the group around him.

Now he was the only one not covered in lizard blood.

“That… that wasn’t how it was supposed to work…” Hiral said.

“You mean you did that on purpose?” Nivian asked, shaking his hand to try to get some of the blood off.

“Uh… no…” Hiral said. “Look, I can fix this. Just… everybody turn around so you’re not facing anybody else.” Then, one by one, he went around and rejected the blood off them. “See? Just like new,” he said when he’d finished.

“I’m traumatized,” Yanily said.

“Your boots are clean now,” Vix pointed out.

“Not sure that was worth it.”

“Hey, folks, I found something over here,” Right called from behind the body of the fallen Queen. “It seems like another totem of some kind, but this one is different.”

“Oh? Found something? Great, coming!” Hiral jogged over to his double, happy to get away from the blood soaking the ground—and the dirty looks everybody was giving him.

“What is it?” Seena asked as the others caught up.

“Take a look for yourself,” Right said, pointing at the totem tucked back in the narrowest part of the seashell-shaped area.

A skull sat perched in the center of an X formed from two bones. All that was atop three more of the long bones lashed together and driven into the ground. Tendrils of some kind of root extended out of the earth, then up around the bones to crawl into the skull’s eyes. The entire thing was covered in a writhing, inky darkness.

“Kind of looks like a staff stuck in the ground, or maybe a banner,” Wule said.

“A super creepy banner,” Yanily said.

“Those roots—I think they lead to that huge briar patch we saw from the entrance,” Left said, crouching down and pointing at a barely visible line of shadows leaking out of the ground.

“The totem connects to it?” Seena asked.

“Looks like it,” Left said.

“If this place is anything like Splitfang Keep, there will be one more Mid-Boss, and then the actual boss,” Nivian said. “How much you want to bet that Boss is hiding inside the briar patch? The other Mid-Boss is probably guarding the other totem.”

“And we’ll need to defeat both of them if we want to complete the dungeon,” Seena said. “You think we need to destroy this?”

“It’s the first thing that comes to mind,” Nivian said.

“I can do that, if you’d like,” Hiral said, hefting up one of hisRHCs. “Might be best if nobody actually touched that thing.”

Seena looked at the rest of the party, and when nobody had any other suggestions, she gestured for Hiral to go ahead.

A quick pull of the trigger shattered the skull and totem into a thousand small pieces, and the line of shadow running along the ground completely vanished. At the same time, the earth at the edge of the seashell-shaped bowl in the terrain where the shadow had led collapsed to reveal a new path.

“Guess we don’t have to circle back by the entrance,” Seena said. “Okay, let’s take a few-minute break to give everybody a chance to recover some solar energy, then we’ll move out. We’re not here to rush this dungeon run. We can worry about getting our best time on the third run. For now, let’s learn everything we can, as safely as we can.”

“Sounds good, boss. That last fight completely drained me,” Nivian said.

“Ditto,” Hiral added, and everybody turned to the huge lizard corpse.

“And yet you still had enough left to give us a lizard-blood shower,” Seena deadpanned.

“I think a rest is out of the question,” Vix suddenly said, drawing everybody’s attention before pointing over to the new path.

People were rushing through the break in the bowl, weapons drawn and wearing armor with strange helms. No, that wasn’t armor—those were their actual heads, and they had long, spiked tails trailing behind.

Humanoid lizards? Lizardmen? What?

“Do you think they’re friendly?” Wule asked.

“Judging by the weapons and angry shouting, I don’t think so,” Seena said, the Lizardmen’s guttural voices carrying over the distance to reach the party.

“They’re my people!” Yanily said, stepping forward with his spear to point at the spears they carried.

“I can see the resemblance,” Vix deadpanned.

“Enough jokes,” Seena said. “We’re all low on solar energy, but form up. We don’t know how strong they are.”

(Elite) Lizardman Warrior – High-E-Rank

“Definitely not pushovers,” Hiral said, drawing his RHCs and falling in behind Nivian with Seena. Right and Left couldn’t have much more solar energy than he did, but at only ten percent himself, he couldn’t afford to split what he had. “They’re Elite and the same level as us.”

“At least we outnumber them,” Nivian said, lifting his shield in front of himself and beginning to stalk toward the five rushing Lizardmen.

The four in front had, like Yanily said, spears lowered as they charged, but it was the fifth and final one in the back that got Hiral’s attention. Unlike the leather armor the others were wearing, this one was dressed in a long black robe, skulls adorning its shoulders, and it carried no weapon.

(Elite) Lizardman Sorcerer – High-E-Rank

“Sorcerer? What’s a sorcerer?” Hiral asked as the four lead Lizardmen closed within one hundred feet. “Can I shoot them?”

“Yes! What are you waiting for?” Seena snapped back, solar energy gathering inside of her.

Deciding to skip the snarky reply for the time being, Hiral lifted his RHCs and took aim. There’d easily be time for a couple of shots before they arrived, so all he had to do was…

The four bodies blurred and then stretched, exactly like Nivian did when he used his movement ability, and suddenly, the Lizardmen were right there. The first crashed into Nivian’s shield with enough force to push the tank back a step before he could settle himself, while the second and third spun off to deal with Yanily and Vix.

And spun wasn’t an understatement. Where Yanily was all stabs and thrusts, the Lizardmen’s spears were a nonstop, spinning dance of bladework. It would’ve almost been pretty, if Hiral had time to watch. The fourth Lizardman had actually vaulted over Nivian, landing behind the tank, and was now rushing right for Wule and Seena.

“Help Yanily and Vix,” Hiral ordered Left and Right, moving to intercept the fourth Lizardman.

Fast as it was, Hiral was faster, and he landed two shots into his opponent’s shoulder and abdomen as he raced to intercept. The blasts staggered the monster to the side, throwing off its charge, and it turned in his direction at the same time he leapt into the air and pivoted. Up Hiral went as he snapped his hip around to drive his heel into the Lizardman’s long snout with a flying kick, sending the monster stumbling back while he dropped back to the ground and raised his pistols.

That should… uh… get its attention?

Where he’d half-expected that to end the fight, the Lizardman in front of him snorted a gob of blood out of its nose and took its spear again in both hands, beginning to casually spin it as it glared at Hiral. Then it burst forward, spear swinging like a headsman’s axe for his neck.

A line of fiery pain crossed the front of Hiral’s throat, as he wasn’t quite fast enough to duck back—though he’d kept his head attached—then he had to dodge left, right, left, as the Lizardman stalked forward, spinning the spear from hand to hand in vicious diagonal slices. Just as Hiral got the timing down, the Lizardman changed it up again, whipping the spear around behind its back and then horizontally across at waist height.

The strikes were too fast to even give him time to counterattack. Hiral threw himself to the side, the blade of the spear passing just an inch above his back, then rolled to gain some distance. It wasn’t enough; the Lizardman was in the air with the spear driving straight down for his chest. Hiral leapt straight back, the spear’s blade stabbing in the space just between his legs as he spread them apart, then rolled back over his shoulders and to his feet, ready to dodge again.

But the Lizardman stood where it had landed, pulling the spear out of the ground, and looked at Hiral. Behind it, the rest of the party was doing everything they could to contain the other three warriors…

Wait, what’s the sorcerer doing?

Hiral turned in the fourth Lizardman’s direction just in time to see a ball of fire the size of a watermelon hurtling straight toward him.