Rune Seeker

Odi, with the party behind him, held up the amulet, then flicked the back of it with one of his clawed fingers. A sound like a bell ringing chimed through the huge museum room, echoing off the walls and ceiling, and a familiar blue portal spiraled open in front of the group. Larger than the portals that normally led into the dungeons, this one stood about twelve feet tall and the same again wide, an unknown room on the other side.

Like almost everywhere else on the surface, glowing roots spread along the floor, wall, and ceiling in that room, but their light pulsed like a powerful heartbeat, and they shone neon in the darkness.

“What’s going on?” Wule asked.

“The Urn is using the root system to pull the energy to itself,” Odi said. “All the roots throughout the palace—the city—are carrying its sustenance. Once the Urn reaches its next threshold of power, it will extend its influence out beyond the boundaries of the city, and it will increase in power even faster.”

“It’s like the Heart of the Graveyard,” Hiral said, and Seeyela nodded at his words. “The hearts used the root systems to bring the corpses to them to become the Shambling Graveyards.”

“The root system has always had myriad uses,” Odi said. “This is the most sinister of them I’ve seen.”

“Sinister or not, we’re going to deal with it,” Seena said. “Once we’re through, Odi, which way?”

“There’s only one door in the room,” Odi said. “Take it, then turn left down the hall. The Urn will be straight ahead.”

“And Ur’Thul?” Hiral asked.

“He will be in one of two places,” Odi said. “The room with the Urn, or the laboratory. He keeps them separate so none of his experiments interfere with the Urn’s energy gathering.”

“If he’s in the lab, how long do we have?” Seeyela asked.

“A few minutes at most,” Odi said.

“Nivian, you know what to do,” Seena said, tapping the tank on the shoulder.

Nivian moved through the portal with the rest of the party tight on his heels—nobody wanted to risk getting left behind if the portal suddenly shut—and braced for an attack as soon as he was on the other side. None came. The room was eerily quiet, the air suddenly dry and stale.

Hiral fought to contain a cough at the first breath on the other side of the portal, and from the looks of things, he wasn’t the only one.

“We’re all through,” Seeyela said, her eyes on the portal and a note of admiration in her voice.

“Just in time,” Odi said, gesturing to the amulet in his hands as it cracked. One second more, two, and the small piece of jewelry shattered, the portal immediately following.

“What would’ve happened if one of us was in the middle of coming through when that happened?” Yanily asked.

“Better you don’t know,” Seeyela said.

“There’s the door,” Nivian interrupted.

“Take it,” Seena said. “Only a matter of time now until Ur’Thul realizes we’re here.”

The tank immediately went to the door and put his gauntleted hand on the knob. The glowing roots had long since grown across it like bars, and there was no way it was opening easily. Or quietly.

“Just do it,” Seena said.

Nivian nodded, then threw his shoulder into it, the vambrace magnifying the power of the hit by his End attribute. The old wood of the door didn’t stand a chance, shattering into a thousand pieces and exploding into the hall beyond as Nivian charged through.

Hiral’s weapons came out in his hands, and he followed the tank through, spinning to his right as Yanily went left. The hallway stretched out ahead of him, dozens and dozens of the roots swollen with solar energy all pulsing in time with each other. But that was all there was. No undead horde. No arch-lich.

“Clear on this side,” Hiral said, though he kept his eyes on the other doors in the hallway. Like the one they’d just come through, most were closed, but they’d just proven the old wood wouldn’t be stopping anything that wanted through.

“We’re moving,” Seena said from behind him, and he felt as much as heard the others start down the hall, the dry air swirling at their passing.

One last look, then Hiral spun and followed after the rest of the party, picking his steps to avoid walking on the bulky roots as much as possible. What had once been square halls of worked stone were now so thick with the pulsing vegetation they were practically rounded on all sides.

Like walking through giant veins…

“These roots aren’t giving off much energy,” Wule said quietly. “Even less than the ones that looked like they were dying outside the palace. And what I do feel is… icky.”

“Death-attuned energy,” Li’l Ur said. “The roots are processing what they take from the undead around the city, like how you Cycle, and delivering that to the Urn.”

“Is it dangerous?” Seena asked.

“Very, if it’s released from the vines,” Li’l Ur said. “I’d suggest you don’t damage them… except for my apprentice. Please destroy them as much as you want.”

“Why is it okay for me to?” Hiral asked.

“So you can die sooner,” Li’l Ur said plainly.

“Wonderful,” Hiral said, shaking his head. “If we accidentally destroy one of the roots, or get exposed to this death energy, is there anything we can do?”

“Cycle as quickly as you can,” the lich said. “You may be able to filter out the death energy from the natural solar energy. Without the connection, the death energy will cease to exist, like a parasite without a host. Ur’Thul, and the Urn, need the roots because they can’t process normal solar energy—it’s anathema to them—but they need it as a means of transport.”

“Could it hurt them? Kill them?” Hiral asked.

“Possibly, but any self-respecting lich would never be stupid enough to sit out in the sun long enough for the energy to become harmful. That, or they would have a processing station like here set up.”

“Too bad,” Seena said. “Where is all this solar energy going, then?”

“As I mentioned, the Urn is taking it all,” Odi said. “It’s very greedy.”

“Brighter light ahead,” Nivian said from the front of the group.

“Be ready for anything,” Seena instructed—not that she needed to, with everybody already on edge. “Hiral, you and your doubles get Odi to the Urn. The rest of us will hold off whatever’s in there.”

“Got it, boss,” Hiral said.

“Go!” Seena said, and Nivian dashed ahead, the others sprinting after him. Solar energy gathered in each of them as they readied their abilities, and they burst out of the narrow hallway into a larger room.

Obviously once a throne room of some kind, a grand hall spread out to their right—Odi’s room must’ve been in some kind of side hall—with the throne straight ahead of them. And there, on the throne, was the all-too-familiar Urn of Ur’Thul.

But, where was Ur’Thul himself? Not there, apparently—the entire audience hall was empty except for the hundreds and hundreds of power-swollen roots stretching towards the Urn.

“Spread out, cover Hiral and Odi,” Seena instructed before looking directly at Hiral. “What are you waiting for? An invitation?”

“Sorry,” Hiral said, sheathing the RHC from his right hand as he ran over to the Urn with Odi and his doubles behind him.

After being in the dark city, the bright light from the roots was almost blinding to the point of making Hiral’s eyes water, but he forced himself to keep them open as he approached.

“No lich?” Yanily asked, almost sounding disappointing.

“He’ll be here soon enough, don’t you worry,” Seeyela said as the other party members spread out to keep eyes in all directions.

The throne had once been a giant, gaudy thing, with a wide back and the carved likenesses of the King and Queen of the Swamp climbing up the seat and looking over where the emperor’s head would’ve been. Now, in that seat, the Urn sat with six finger-thick roots growing around its base. Those were the only roots on the throne, and they extended from the Urn to the floor, then out to a circle of thick roots running all the way around the large chair.

Just like the Heart of the Graveyard.

That thick circle seemed to act like some kind of central node for the incoming energy, though a quick glance around the room showed that not all the roots converged on this point. Yes, most of them did, but there were three other root-circles spread across the middle of the audience hall. What are they for? Something to do with the processing of energy? Filtering out the solar energy so only the purest death energy reaches the Urn?

That’s… terrifying.

But as Hiral’s eyes sat on the circle of roots, something else about his encounter with the Heart of the Graveyard sprang to mind, and his gaze drifted up to the ceiling.

“Fallen’s balls,” he cursed, the hundreds of dangling corpses clearly visible in the abundant light provided by the glowing roots.

These ones weren’t Troblins—all Lizardmen, by the looks of things—and they were so desiccated it looked like something had sucked them dry. Judging by the roots shoved down each of their mouths, that was probably exactly what had happened. The first sacrifices to get the whole process started?

“The seals?” Odi asked urgently from Hiral’s side, bringing his mind back to the present.

“What’s the holdup?” Seena asked. “We all see the army hanging from the ceiling. Let us worry about it.”

“Nothing—we’re on it,” Hiral said, threading solar energy into his Interspatial Ring and retrieving the seals. “What do you need me to do?” he asked Odi.

“Just watch my back… and stand outside the circle of roots,” Odi added after a second. “If anything goes wrong, I can survive the death energy, and I really don’t think you want to be the little lich’s apprentice for eternity.”

“Not so much,” Hiral said, drawing his RHCs again and stepping away from the throne. “If you need anything, I’m right here.”

“Mmmm,” Odi said, obviously not really listening as he got to work with the seals.

First, he took the two human seals, one in each hand, and slowly, carefully, held one out to each side of the Urn. Leaning down so he was at eye-level with his hands, he adjusted them until they appeared to be at exactly the same height, directly across from each other.

As if by magic—actually, definitely by magic—the two seals snapped into an orbit and began to rotate slowly around the Urn, glyphs in the crystal lighting up and fading in succession.

“That’s it?” Hiral asked. “Is it done?”

“Only the first part,” Odi said, lifting the Ancestor’s seal plate from where he’d put it down. “The first seal is in place, but not activated yet. I need to get the other seal set up.”

“How long will it take once that’s done?” Hiral asked.

“No idea,” Odi said flatly. “It’s not like I’ve ever actually done this before. Probably a few minutes at most. Now, let me concentrate.”

“Sorry,” Hiral said, though he kept his attention on what the Lizardman was doing.

Odi watched the slowly rotating seals, then nodded to himself, flipped the crystal plate upside-down, and held it above the Urn. Like the other seal he’d just placed, he moved the plate around until it seemed to find exactly the right place. As soon as it was where it needed to be, the plate shuddered in his fingers and refused to move another inch.

“It’s ready,” Odi said, reaching out and tapping a claw first on the plate above the Urn, then on each of the rotating seals. Within the crystal, the glyph sequences began to glow, surrounding the Urn in a sphere of light, but nothing more dramatic than that. “It will take some time to get going. Like the ritual back in the necropolis, these are self-maintaining. Unless anything stops them… we’ve won.”

“Then it’s a good thing I arrived when I did,” a voice like wind over a gravestone said from above, and a column of blue light burst up from the circle of roots around the throne.

Hiral’s eyes traced the light up, up, up, all the way to the ceiling. There, within the glow, a Lizardman floated down through the forest of bodies.

Not just any Lizardman, either. His nametag appeared above his head as he lowered down.

(Boss – Undead – Lich) Ur’Thul the Undying – Unknown Rank

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