by Dakota Krout
I dropped a pair of boots for each of them, they cheered until they saw they were all left-footed. Heh. I dropped a pickaxe and a right-footed armored boot with the same force enhancing Rune as the Warhammer I had dropped yesterday, and a dagger with the inverted form of the Rune that had been on the ‘Demonologist’ dagger Dale had killed Raile with. I had studied it; turned out that the original dagger would pull the Essence out of its victims until it had enough to summon a powerful demon under the wielder's control.
The effect of the dagger they had now... I was unsure of. Maybe it would summon an angel? I’m sure I would find out eventually. After brief discussion, they agreed to sell the pickaxe and share the profits, though they cast lots for the inscribed boot. I’m fairly certain Hans cheated, while Dale fairly won the dagger but decided to get it checked by a Spotter before he decided to use it or sell it. Hans had no such compunctions, putting on his ill-gained boot and strutting around in mismatched footwear. With a look of glee on his face, he jumped and stomped down, activating the Rune.
*WHAM* A shockwave knocked Hans to the shattered floor, laughing all the while.
“Woo! Look at that! Left a footprint an inch deep in solid granite! I have so many plans for this!” Hans whooped as he prepared to stomp again.
“Maybe you do that in an open area next time?” Steve called sourly, holding ringing ears and wiping rock dust off himself. The others nodded their assent.
“What?” Hans replied, pawing at his ears.
“Exactly.” Steve loudly stated. “Let’s go, I still want to see a healer for my back. And my ears now. Then lunch, I’m starving.”
They climbed the staircase, allowing not very bright people to again push past them at the top. The newcomers had decided to ignore the warnings, it seemed. Yum. There was no other group close to the second floor Boss room, though the first Boss room had been cleared while I wasn’t focused it seems. I fixed my floor, really, smashing up my floor wasn’t the way to entice me to give good items again.
“What? Oh, fine. I’ll let you know if anyone makes it in here.” Dani grumbled. “Now I’m a watchdog.”
Meanwhile, I was astounded. These were definitely Runes, but they were so strong! Only one of them I felt confident I could use without destroying something, and none of these were Runes I would give out for defeating the relatively weak Mobs in my dungeon. This is coming from me, the one who happily gave out an enchantment on a hammer that could be used to blast open a mountain pass.
I focused in on the one Rune I would feel safe using, it looked exactly like a smaller version of the fractal of energy surrounding my Chi spiral. I compared the two in my mind, the Inscription had a slightly different curve in a few places that was odd to me, as it forced the pattern to be non-symmetrical. Was this a Rune for absorbing Essence?
I had to find out. In a dead end room on my second floor as far away from my Core as possible was where I experimented with unknown Runes. I lovingly thought of it as the ‘horrible failure with a few successes room’. Long name, amazing results. Over time, if I had been unable to repair the stone in here there would only be a smoking, simmering room full of molten rock and odd noises. It seems that poorly made Runes tended to explode. Who knew, right? That was one of the... nicer effects.
The Runes that I used corruption with that also turned out to be badly made Runes, had more… interesting effects. An air Rune I had drawn on a rock allowed it to scream, which it did constantly. Luckily, a Rune exploding underneath it had interrupted the flow of energy to the screaming rock, making it go silent again. Of course, now I wondered if rocks were alive. Dani told me I was being ridiculous, but… Screaming rocks didn’t seem to worry her much. As a rock-like being I felt for the poor little guy.
A multi-Essence Rune that I tried to make had convinced me not to try combining corruption again until I knew what I was doing. It had created a rift, which used all of the Essence so fast that I was angry at first. The rift snapped shut after only the blink of an eye, but the rotten, clawed hand that had made it through in that timespan was a testament to the continuation of working freaking carefully. Definitely had opened a rift into the abyss there, I really didn’t want to be responsible for allowing unbound demons onto our plane of existence. It did teach me to give the Runes very little power when I first activated them, at least until I was sure of their capabilities.
I digress, I wanted to see if this new Rune was used to accumulate Essence. I very carefully recreated the Rune to the molecular level, double and triple checking it to ensure that it was exactly the same as the one I had taken from Craig. I prepared myself to activate it, but was interrupted when Dani informed me that people had entered the Boss room.
“You were focused for about three hours; this is the sixth group that has come down to the second level. All the other ones got injured or turned around for some other reason.” Reported General Dani.
“Why did I have to be bonded with a weirdo?” Dani muttered.
“Quiet down, here they come.”
A head poked around the corner of the tunnel, “Hey! We made it!”
“Told you we would! Quiet down now, I want to have surprise on our side.” a deep voice admonished.
Fat chance of that happening.
“You have the net? Remember not to kill the Boss too fast.” Oh boy, this group was cocky. I would soon show them the error of their ways.
“It’s always wandering around, so group up and make sure to stay light on your feet. We know that one group in the morning plays up how hard it is to kill that beast. If that F-ranked group made it, we should have no trouble. Watch out for the giant bunny boys, it might still actually be able to do some real damage.” Mr. Deep voice sneeringly preached. “Get ready… Go, go, go!”
The five-person group ran in, weapons ready, but stopped and looked around confusedly when there was no apparent enemy to fight. Oh. They must have been in the dungeon when I revealed the overhead ambush it could use now. Screams were coming down from the gathered crowd, but they ignored them thinking it was the cheering that usually happened. I took the opportunity to look at them all carefully, they were all in the low D-ranks, the highest being Mr. Deep voice at D-rank two, several ranks higher than my F-rank nine Raile.
The sounds above rising to a crescendo suddenly, the deep voiced man looked up, and with a startled yell dove to the side in time to miss dying, but not fast enough to get away from the wave of blood that washed over him and the remaining members. Most of them took some damage, even if it was just from human teeth pinging off exposed flesh.
“Where did it come from?”
“Bobby! No!”
Their party in disarray, I expected a quick finish to the fight, but the leader rallied them, and they fell into position with the speed of much practice. Shock turning to anger, they charged Raile as a unit, a first for me I am pretty sure. I tried to leap at them, but two shield bearers bashed Raile simultaneously, hard enough to make his movement falter as the remaining two attacked the weak points in his armor, the joints on his legs. A few repeated blows were enough to force the joint into facing the wrong direction, Raile keened as both legs on his right side were broken.
“Move back!” Came the order, followed by the group smoothly retreating from the prone body in front of them. I was shocked, I knew that teamwork was effective,
which is why I had made the squads, but this was at a level I had not been expecting. Even Dale's group had more trouble than this, now I could see that it was because they were forcing Dale to fight and get experience, else they could have likely walked through here without issue.
“Get ready, it happens when he is hurt like this.”
I was confused for a second, until I saw a Glitterflit sprinting toward the downed Raile.
The speed of the Glitterflit allowed him to avoid the hastily swung weapons, but it had to slow down to heal Raile. The healing energy dissipated into Raile as a net collapsed around the squirming, golden bunny.
“Got it!” A voice laughed. “Piece of cake!” He poked the gold rabbit with a sword he was holding, which as it turns out was a very serious mistake.
The now-healed Raile had just gotten to his feet, when the soft cry of pain from the Glitterflit drew his attention. Raile’s pupils dilated as his long dormant ability awoke for the first time. The armor fell off of his body everywhere but his head, which shoved obsidian-sharp fragments of granite upward to create a deadly crown. The ability ‘Avenger’ flashed in my mind as I analyzed this unexpected change. I was finally going to see it in action!
The previously ponderous yet deadly Raile moved, faster than I had thought was possible. His armored head impacted the chest of the man holding the net with the force of a battering ram constructed by giants. The spikes tore the poor man’s armor apart like it did not exist, leaving a gaping hole in his abdomen. The force of the charge carried the man under Raile’s power into the wall, where he slowly slid down to the floor, quickly decomposing into goo, under my influence now.
The Glitterflit was still caught in the net, but it had been dropped on the ground. The D-rank two man barreled toward Raile, his sword easily piercing Raile’s unarmored flesh with a soft sound, like a tomato being chopped. Raile fell quickly, still savaging what little remained of the dead man, until he too succumbed to death's embrace. The completely shaken men gathered the net, Glitterflit, and the loot that I dropped, including a ring with a weak inverted Rune of liquid repulsion, then made their way to the surface.
~Twenty-Three~
Dale was excited as they waited outside the Spotters den. He would have called it their tent, but he had gotten a look inside at the filthy, cluttered area, and could only consider it an animal’s living space.
“What do you think it does?” He asked excitedly, shifting from one foot to the other. “Maybe it lets you stab things as far away as an arrow can fly!”
“Ehh…” Hans replied stepping harder than he needed to make the earth bounce around them. “Looked a lot like that demonologist dagger we lost in there.”
“That Rune looked completely different!” Dale proclaimed. “I get to keep this one.”
Hans scratched under his armpit, sniffing at the result, before answering, “Nah, looked like the same Rune, just backward. Prolly the inversed Rune.”
“Correct! You know your Runescript! Are you looking to become a Spotter when you grow up?” A cheerful voice assailed them. The Spotter had poked his head out and was offering the dagger back to Dale.
“Hell no.” Hans blithely stated.
Exasperation on his face, the Spotter wisely started to ignore Hans, “Well, this is a surprise for us, just so you know,” His face brightened as he talked to Dale, “Normally we charge a few gold per service, but the fee is waived as we had never seen this Inscription before! So, since we get two Runes out of it for our books, we will also give you one more on credit!”
“Thanks! What does it do?” Dale happily wondered.
“Well,” The Spotter started excitedly, making Hans groan, “The original Rune was used to summon demons with the energy it would gain by killing people or creatures, which it would store in an attached Beast core until released. This one will allow you to banish infernal creatures by stabbing them!”
“Oh, that’s… good?” Dale uncertainly stammered.
“It’s wonderful!” The Spotter erupted, “Necromancers and their darker subset of demon summoners hoard their knowledge! We almost never get a chance to study them, every piece of the puzzle gets us closer to stopping them if another war breaks out!”
“Oh. I guess I just haven’t really seen any undead, in, um… Ever I guess.” Dale confessed, as Hans started giggling softly at the Spotters bulging eyes.
“Just think! Instead of blasting them with enough Mana to rip a hole back into their dimension to banish them, you can just poke a demon with this and its own energy will be used to send it away! With the added benefit of weakening it! This new Rune may be the key to every future war!”
“Hmm.” Hans jumped in, “Seems like that Rune should be worth more to you than just ‘one on credit’ to me.”
“Standard terms and conditions apply, thank you for choosing the Mages Guild.” The Spotter disappeared back into his tent.
“Hey!” Hans shouted in shock.
Dale laughed, “It’s fine, Hans. I’d rather this Rune be out there, if someone else needs it. It won’t do us much good though, shall we go see what we can sell it for?”
“I suppose that is the best we can do.” Hans glared darkly at the silent tent. He accompanied Dale to the Guild tent to list the item for auction. They were talking to the clerk when Father Richard and Guild Master Frank walked in, heatedly discussing the church's lot.
“I don’t care that people are using it for an arena! I am building the church there, and that is final! They want to see fighting, they can listen to a sermon at the same time!” Richard was saying hotly.
“At least charge admission! You could triple your earnings in a single move!” Franks was obviously exasperated.
“Not everything is about profit! There are things worth more than money! I would never put a rule in place that might make people not have access to a place of worship!” Father Richard was aghast at the notion.
“Well, but, if you build a church around it, no one will be able to see into the Boss room! The light will be blocked!” Frank decided triumphantly.
“I’ll make the ceiling clear! If I can do it to three feet of solid stone and dirt, I think glass might be manageable!” Father Richard boomed with finality. He turned and noticed Dale, “Oh! Well hello, how is your training going, young Master Dale?”
“Ah, hello Dale, Hans.” Frank coughed, “Aherm, what are you two doing here?”
“Doing well Father! We found a uniquely Runed item in the dungeon, we are here to start an auction for it.” Dale answered them each in turn.
“Really? More inscribed items so soon! This place is a treasure trove!” Frank happily cheered, earning an ‘I-knew-it’ look from Father Richard. “What does it do?”
“We just came from the Spotters, turns out we found an item they had never seen before.” Hans was trying to drive up the price to the bored Guild clerk. “It has a Demonologists Rune in it.”
“What? Really?” Father Richard was now fully interested, startling Hans into silence. “Those are jealously guarded, what does it do?”
“Oh, right, your order is comprised of demon hunters.” Dale realized why the interest had suddenly grown, “It is an inverted demon summoning Rune, they promised that if a demon were stabbed with it even a little, the Rune would turn their own power against them and banish them back to the abyss.”
With a groan and sagging shoulders, Father Richard turned distrustful eyes on Frank, “That isn’t funny, Dale. Alright. Who set this up? That kind of Rune doesn’t exist; we would have found it before now. That kind of thing doesn’t just... fall into your lap.”
“It almost went into my throat a while back. The same day you made that huge celestial glass area someone tried to rob me; when they failed, they dropped a dagger accidentally. We lost it in the dungeon, but the inverted version showed up today.” Dale explained quickly. Frank nodded in agreement when Father Richard looked his way for confirmation.
“No, but we are on a different item, I won this one.” Dale cautiously stated, he hadn’t liked the way Father Richard had said ‘need’.
“What is the asking price on it right now?” Father Richard probed with shining eyes.
“A little over three thousand gold, though likely worth more with that information.” The clerk loudly interrupted, also eying the dagger. She worked based on commission.
Father Richard looked crestfallen for a moment before looking up, his face setting in resolution. “Dale, I don’t have that kind of money, everything I have is going toward building the church. Earth Mages aren’t cheap right now. I can offer you two hundred gold, and another… offer.”
Three thousand gold was exceedingly tempting, but Father Richard's mysterious manner was also intriguing. Dale decided to hear him out. “What might that offer be, Father?”
“If you give me the dagger, I’ll pull you into the D ranks tomorrow.” Father Richard pledged grimly.
“What? No!” Frank shouted, “Absolutely not!”
Hans audibly gasped, “Do it, screw money, do it, Dale. Damn it, do it.”
“He hasn’t even mastered all of his meridians! He can’t use his own affinity yet!” Frank continued shouting, face becoming red.
“It will be just as easy to teach him those things at the next ranks, and will take twenty years off of his breakthrough.” Father Richard’s eyes never leaving Dale.
Dale was just confused. “What do you mean you’ll pull me into the D-ranks? Isn’t that impossible? I can’t cultivate that fast, no one can!”
“It isn’t discussed, but it is possible. It doesn’t happen often, because of what can… go wrong.” Father Richard hedged. “I can do it, but it requires you to trust me absolutely, and me to trust you in turn. I won’t lie, there are risks, but this is all I can offer.”