Rune Seeker

Hiral watched as Seeyela and her party gathered up their equipment, only the occasional dirty look shooting his way as they found something broken or torn.

“Wow, they’re really holding a grudge, huh?” Yanily said from where he stood beside Hiral, leaning casually on his spear. “Ooooh, that was Balyo’s favorite spear too.”

“How well do you know Seeyela’s party?” Hiral asked.

“Seeyela is five or six rotations older than Seena—I always forget which—so we’ve actually been training together almost as long as I can remember. Big sis was always watching over little sis, if you know what I mean. Made her kind of like a big sister to our whole party, I guess.

“You probably don’t know, but we pick our parties pretty young, after we get an idea where our classes and abilities lean. I practically grew up with those two.” Yanily pointed at the two sisters. “Had a crush on Seeyela most of my life too, until she met Trev. Ah, Trev is her husband. He’s in a different party, D-Rank.”

“Do Growers have a lot of different classes?” Hiral asked.

“Not exactly. There are only six, but the abilities within them can vary a lot. Take Wule and Cal, for example. Wule can cure debuffs, which Cal can’t, but Cal can do broken bones, even though they’re the same class. Balyo and I are Spear Wardens, so our abilities focus on spears. But that’s about where the similarities end. We use different abilities, and have different strengths and weaknesses.”

“Wow. Up in Fallen Reach, we only have three classes. Shapers—those big, tattooed folks. Artists—they’re the ones who actually ink the tattoos. Lastly, there are Academics, but that one is kind of a catch-all class for people who don’t have the affinities to be either a Shaper or Artist. Ah, that’s not actually a fair way to put it. The Academics do a lot for the city, and it’s not like they’re washouts or something.”

“Only three classes? That’s insane,” Yanily said, and it certainly was when Hiral really thought about it.

Another dirty look in his direction answered his question.

Right. Growers and Makers don’t much get along.

“So, which of the three are you?” Yanily asked. “You can’t be one of those Shaper folks, unless you just need to drink more milk. Though, now that I look at you, you’ve got something on your earlobe there. It’s small… but…”

“Just decoration,” Hiral said quickly, his hand going up to his ear to rub the Perfect Sense tattoo there.

“Oh, man, you guys do those things for decoration too?” Yanily asked, thankfully already past the topic of class.

“Yes, but it doesn’t give me any abilities like it would a Shaper,” Hiral said, the words painfully true.

“Gotcha, gotcha. Do Shapers have any abilities other than the tattoos?”

“Nope,” Hiral said. “Their tattoos are their abilities, or magic, or whatever you want to call it. Well, their Meridian Lines—their PIM—boosts their physical stats by quite a bit too, I guess.”

“But, let me get this straight… Those big guys, the Shapers—they actually have to get the tattoos put on their bodies by that other class you mentioned? The…”

“The Artists,” Hiral finished for Yanily. “You got it right. They’re really dependent on each other. Shapers have no abilities unless an Artist tattoos them, using a special ink made with the Artist’s own blood, and drawn with a Quillback quill.”

“So, if there were no Artists, there’d be no Shapers?” Yanily asked.

“Correct, but, looks like they’re ready to go,” Hiral said, pointing at the other party grouping up. “After we get things figured out with the dungeon, we should talk more about this. I’m really curious to hear about some of the other Grower classes.”

“Sure, but only if you’re treating me to lunch,” Yanily said, and patted Hiral on the shoulder. “Nivian is playing hard to get with the sandwiches,” he added in a whisper.

“Uh, right after you show me what we can actually eat down here…” Hiral deadpanned.

“Deal!” Yanily said, and then the pair walked over to join the rest.

“Got everything?” Seena asked, another thoom of thunder echoing overhead.

Everybody looked up at the darker sky. The storm-wall had to be getting close.

“Everything worth getting,” Seeyela said. “Those Islanders did a number on our gear, but it looks like it was almost random. Either way, we can’t waste any more time here.”

With that, the group filed back out to the path, then turned left to start toward the dungeon, only for everybody to stop dead in their tracks.

There, directly ahead of them in the middle of the path, stood the three-armed crystal monster again. Small cracks spiderwebbed out of half a dozen impact points, but it appeared otherwise unharmed.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” somebody whispered.

“Isn’t that the thing that fought the Islanders? The C- and B-Rank Islanders?” another asked.

Hiral, near the back of the group, looked at the monster’s face and, just like before, felt its gaze look right back at him.

“Guys, I think…” he began.

“Seeyela, what do we do?” the woman named Cal asked over Hiral’s comment.

“We…” Seeyela started, but the monster made the decision for them, suddenly rushing forward. “Tanks!”

Nivian and Lonil dashed to intercept, the thorny shield and whip appearing in Nivian’s hands, while Lonil’s skin turned stony gray, and the man grew two feet taller in a heartbeat.

Like it would do them any good.

The monster charged in between them without slowing, twin backhands sweeping out and tossing them aside like playthings. The two tanks crashed into the woods on opposite sides of the path at the same time Yanily, Vix, Balyo, and Hiral raced up to meet it.

Yanily hit it straight on, spear flashing as he thrust, thrust, thrust, each attack accompanied by a small burst of solar energy, the shaft and blade bending while he sought openings. Balyo, on the other hand, darted out to the side and planted her feet, her spear held ready to thrust and solar energy building in the blade. That just left Vix and Hiral, who circled around opposite Balyo. The monster turned with them while it completely ignored Yanily’s assault.

“I’ll get its attention,” Hiral shouted, though he already had it, and skidded to a stop while Vix continued and circled so they had it surrounded. No sooner had his feet stopped moving than Hiral lunged forward, blades a blur in each hand as he struck.

Tink… tink… tink, tink, tink. His swords bounced off the crystal monster not even bothering to defend itself, and suddenly, three hands reached for him, palms glowing. The memory of Velina’s exploding Disc of Passage—and the way the monster had tossed around the other Shapers—had Hiral scrambling backwards at the same time Vix and Yanily hit the monster from both sides.

Solar energy pulsed with every strike, but the monster stepped forward to follow Hiral despite the twin barrages.

“Clear!” Balyo shouted behind the monster, and Yanily and Vix immediately backed off.

Oh, this can’t be good.

Even though Hiral couldn’t see Balyo behind the monster, the sudden rush of solar energy clearly meant something big was coming. Well, it wasn’t like his attacks were doing anything anyway, so Hiral spun to the side and leapt away—just in time. A giant spear of light slammed into the monster’s back.

The force of the impact added to Hiral’s own leap, and he flew uncontrollably through the air, pinballed off one tree, then another, before hitting the ground in a bouncing, rolling heap.

“Ugh,” he groaned, pushing himself up to his hands and knees, broken branches and leaves cracking with each movement, his swords both lost in the flight, and his body aching. The ground tilted sideways—no, that was Hiral tilting—but his shoulder hit a nearby tree, and he somehow stayed upright. Mostly upright. “That hurt,” he mumbled, though his End had taken the worst of it. He shifted so he could look back the way he’d come.

Man, that attack was way stronger than E-Rank. Did the monster…?

Forty feet away, the monster stalked toward him like nothing had happened. Vix danced in on its side, his form a blur as he landed blow after blow after blow, constantly moving, never slowing. He might as well have been standing still for how casually the monster slapped him aside.

Fallen’s balls.

Thirty feet. Hiral used the tree at his side for support as he pulled himself to his feet, but he wasn’t in any shape to fight or run.

Too bad. That thing isn’t going to give me the chance to catch my breath.

“Come on, then,” Hiral shouted as he charged—mostly stumbled—forward, three glowing palms rising as if to catch him.

Twenty feet, and a black-and-red ball of sparking energy appeared beside the monster. Nearby trees creaked and leaned toward the head-sized ball, and debris from the forest floor shot up to get sucked into it. Even the monster momentarily paused. Then one of its hands simply slapped the ball of energy, and it exploded in a shower of perfectly symmetrical cubes of energy before dissipating. Just like the Disc of Passage.

But that maneuver had taken the monster’s attention off Hiral, and he leapt as it turned back to focus on him.

“Hyaaa!” he shouted, snapping his hip around in the air as he put his entire 18 Str into the spinning kick.

Heel colliding perfectly with the side of the monster’s face, Hiral’s other foot met its chest. He let his knee bend, then kicked off back the way he’d come in an acrobatic flip that would get him safely out of range.

Except, as soon as he landed, two hands struck out like serpents and closed around his forearms like a vise. With unbelievable strength, the monster pulled his arms out to his sides so quickly, it almost popped his shoulders out of their joints, and then the third hand lifted between them.

Hiral looked down at the palm, at the glowing rune etched into the crystal. That… that was the same hand that had made the Disc of Passage explode.

What will happen to me if…?

The monster pushed its palm against the center of Hiral’s chest, right over his central Meridian Node. A brief, slicing line of pain ran straight down his center. There was a pull on his arms, and then the monster ripped him in two.

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