Rune Seeker

Flat-footed from the surprise of something throwing a literal ball of fire at him, Hiral let his instincts take over, dropping the RHC in his left hand and activating his Rune of Absorption. Searing pain burned Hiral’s palm before the flaming ball vanished, the rune on his left bicep going from its usual yellow to a fiery orange.

I did it… Ugh…

But the pain was still there, like the fire had raced up the inside of his arm, scorching his veins, and he grimaced at the same time he caught movement out of the corner of his eye. Ducking back just in time, a spear blade whipped past his face, and he spun low under the follow-up horizontal slash. With a mounting pressure building in his arm, like a waterskin getting close to bursting, he dodged a third and then a fourth strike—suffering a gash across his chest for his effort—but the final attack took the spear out wide, and he finally had an opening.

With the Lizardman’s eyes on the RHC in his right hand, Hiral instead slammed the palm of his left hand against its armored chest, then released the hold he’d unconsciously had on his rune. Flame erupted out in a whomp that tossed the two combatants in opposite directions.

The explosion sent Hiral skidding along the ground and seeing stars, but he didn’t have the luxury of time to recover. Left hand still stinging from the initial burn, he hauled himself to his feet and looked directly ahead to see the Lizardman warrior struggling to get up. The front of its armor was completely gone, the scales and flesh underneath a charred mess, with the white of bone showing. The injury from the fireball was horrific—that would’ve been me—but the beast was already pulling its spear up like it intended to continue the fight.

And to Hiral’s left, the sorcerer had another ball of fire building above its upraised hands.

Have to deal with that first.

Hiral snapped his RHC in the sorcerer’s direction and pulled the trigger. The bolt of force hit it square in the chest and knocked it back a step, just enough to disrupt the flames above it. Hiral looked back at the warrior in front of him.

Now to finish you off before the sorcerer recovers.

Up came his RHC at the same time the Lizardman warrior launched itself forward. A snarl on its lips and heedless of its own injuries, the warrior charged in, spear spinning around to actually deflect the first shot Hiral sent its way. Then the second… and the third.

That’s… new…

And then the lizard was at him, spear swinging in for his head, but Hiral smoothly ducked under it and aimed his RHC at the creature’s knee. Pull. The blast slammed into the side of the creature’s leg, cracking the bone, and threw off its return swing.

I’ve got the timing of it down when we’re in close.

Hiral slapped the shaft of the spear safely past him on the next strike, then pressed the barrel of his weapon against the inside of the Lizardman’s elbow. Pull. The bone broke, but still the monster held on to its weapon, so Hiral ducked low and twisted around his opponent, back to back. Pull. He hit the sorcerer with another blast to keep it off balance as he stepped over the Lizardman’s tail, then sidestepped a rising slash as the warrior tried to catch him. With its bum leg and weakened arm, the blow easily went wide, and Hiral spun around while activating his Rune of Attraction.

Pain flared in his hand as he caught his other RHC, but he ignored it and hopped up and over a low swing of the spear. As soon as his feet touched down, he went down into a crouch to avoid the next high swing, then tucked the barrel of his RHC under his left arm. Pull. This blast hit the warrior right in the center of its injured chest, ribs crackling like dry paper, and the thing finally stumbled back in pain.

Not giving it a chance to recover, Hiral sped after it, sidestepping the first attack, then ducking under the second to come up inside its guard, his left shoulder practically right up against it. Before it could bring its weapon back again, he drove his right barrel into the center of its chest at the same time he slammed the left barrel into the bottom of its chin.

Then he pulled both triggers.

The Lizardman’s back exploded out as its head snapped up, and the body toppled to the ground while Hiral spun and aimed both RHCs at the sorcerer. Except the thing hung in the air from the dozen or so Spearing Roots punching through its body.

With that one obviously taken care of, he turned his attention to the others. Yanily and Left were finishing off the last one engaged with Nivian.

“Did I really see that thing throwing fire?” Seena asked, jogging over to join Hiral.

In response, he sheathed his RHCs on his thigh plates and showed her his burned palm. “You definitely did. And it hurt. Think Wule can do anything about this? Or this?” He pointed at the blood running down his chest. It wasn’t deep, but it stung.

“For sure. Come on. The others are all injured too, so he’ll probably use his group heal. Hey, Wule,” she called louder to the healer, “Hiral needs some healing too.”

“Get over here, then,” Wule called back from beside Vix, who had a nasty cut down the length of his right arm. Yanily and Nivian both had more than one wound as well, and even Wule had blood running down the front of his leg.

“Left, can you keep an eye out for more of those Lizardmen?” Hiral asked, the double looking no worse for wear.

“Sure,” Left said, jogging off to the side to get a better view of the path the attackers had come down.

“They were tougher than I expected,” Seena said. “Skilled fighters. Like, really skilled.”

“Nah, not that good,” Yanily said from where he sat. “Just a style we weren’t expecting. Once me and Vix got used to what they were doing, they got real predictable, real fast.”

“Yanily’s right. As soon as I had a feel for what it was doing, it wasn’t hard to avoid,” Hiral said.

“Says the guy with… How much dexterity and attunement do you have now?” Seena asked. “I’m surprised you got hit at all.”

Hiral thumbed toward the sorcerer hanging on the Spearing Roots. “The one throwing fireballs kind of distracted me,” he said flatly. “But, you’ve never seen these things before?” He thankfully sat down beside Yanily as Wule came over and began to use his group-healing ability.

“Never,” Seena said. “What were they called? Lizardmen? Any of you heard of these?”

“Nope,” Nivian said. “Thought the only thing in these parts were Troblins.”

“Do monsters in the dungeons have to be from around here?” Wule asked.

“They have been so far,” Hiral said. “But, what did Dr. Benza call these dungeons? Snapshots of time and space or something? I guess that means they must be from somewhere on the world, so we should expect to encounter them at some point.”

“I was hoping we could get a hint at what we’d find inside the dungeons based on what was outside,” Seena said. “Now, it means we could be walking into anything. I don’t really like that.”

“On the other hand, it kind of answers something else I was worried about,” Hiral said with a chuckle, then continued when the others looked at him. “The fourth race. I was half-worried it was Troblins, since they were the only other humanoid monster I’d seen. Though, I guess you did mention something called Duggers, so maybe there wasn’t really a worry.”

“Can’t say I’d want a Troblin in the party,” Yanily said.

“You kidding?” Vix responded. “Did you see how clean that room in the inn was? We’d never have to worry about tidying up.”

“Sure, and you want to pose for the art we found there?” Yanily shot right back.

Vix’s mouth opened, and then the man visibly shivered. “Agreed. No Troblin party members.”

“How’s everybody doing on solar energy?” Seena interrupted.

“Could use some more time,” Nivian said. “Those last fights completely drained me.”

Hiral slapped himself in the forehead. “Sorry, guys, I should’ve thought of this sooner. Left! Hey, Left. Can you drop a Banner of Courage for us?”

The Growers all looked at each other, then their eyes widened as they each remembered the solar absorption rate increase that came as one of the banner’s buffs.

Left gave another look at the path, then jogged over to the group and shaped the banner for them, though he stayed holding on to it after he drove it into the ground.

“Oh, yeah, that’s the good stuff,” Yanily said.

“Hey, Left, what’re you doing?” Hiral asked.

“It seems the time limit on the banner buff doesn’t begin until I let go,” Left said, looking at his hand around the banner pole. “I noticed it up on the back of the King, and it seems to be holding true now.”

“What? Seriously?” Hiral asked, but he quickly opened his status window. Just like Left said, there wasn’t a timer beside the buff notification. “That’s amazing. Nice catch!”

“It makes sense,” Left said. “The other tattoos don’t have timers after being shaped.”

“You didn’t know about this, Hiral?” Seena asked.

“Not like anybody else on the island has the Banner of Courage tattoo, so this is news to me,” Hiral said.

“Very good news,” Wule said. “A full extra rank of absorption will really speed up downtime, even when we drain ourselves dry.”

“Staying in one place during a fight may be too risky, though,” Seena said. “Let’s limit using it like this to between encounters.”

“Good idea,” Hiral said, then motioned for Right to come over. “I can’t get above thirty-three percent while you two are out.”

“I could use a nap anyway,” Right said. He reached out and took Hiral’s hand, quickly dissolving into solar energy, and the tattoos reappeared on Hiral’s body.

“What about Left?” Seena asked.

“Once we start moving again, I’ll reabsorb him to get closer to full,” Hiral said.

“S-Rank absorption, even without the cheating banner, is seriously like extra cheating,” Yanily said.

“It’ll let you take a look at the entire Spear of Clouds tattoo in one piece,” Hiral said.

“Don’t hear me complaining about your cheating. Nope, not one bit,” Yanily said, actually rubbing his hands together.

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