Rune Seeker

Hiral cracked open the door to the war room – that’s what they were calling the space with the War Table in it – then poked his head in.

“Dad, you in here?” he asked even as his sensory domain ballooned out ahead of him. Rejection gently pressed against everything as Expansion carried it forward, painting a complete picture of the room’s contents, like another sense. Expectedly, a reply came from the far side of the table.

“Hiral?” Elezad asked, looking up from where he inspected the mapped-out rendition of the Cradle of Tomorrow. “Did you just get back?”

Not even having finished his question, Hiral’s father rounded the corner of the table and ushered his son to come in. Other than the two of them, the room was empty of people. Sure, there were chairs enough for the entire Trust – the council of six that advised Grandmother, their General – but none of them were present at the time. And, from the looks of the table with a spread of food, they hadn’t been gone long.

Hiral narrowed his eyes at his father. “You already knew I was back. And you kicked the others out.” He crossed his arms. “Nat and Milly said you did the same thing the first time they got back from a trial.”

His father paused mid-step, eyes looking everywhere other than directly at Hiral. The man’s mouth opened, paused, closed, then opened again. “So, what if I did? You three are so popular right now, I hardly ever get any alone-time with my kids!”

“I came to report on the trials we did,” Hiral said, resisting the urge to sigh at his doting father’s predictable antics. “Isn’t this a… I don’t know… an abuse of power or something?”

“P’shaw,” Elezad said with dismissive wave of his hand. “Aunt and Uncle were already complaining about taking a break,” he said, referring to the two Grower members of the Trust. The pair that seemed to get along with everybody other than each other. “Fyre said she was bored, and Ceelia wanted to talk to Burs before he headed out.” Those were the two Bonder representatives on the Trust. Which just left one more unaccounted for. The one Hiral actually trusted the least.

“Olimpas?” Hiral asked, the image of the Maker clear in his mind. The same image as the Artist who’d ordered Hiral killed the first time he’d been on the surface. Sure, the man had a possible excuse of another Shaper using an ability to copy his appearance, but nobody had been able to prove it one way or another. That left Elezad keeping an eye on the man.

“Wanted to talk to Ilrolik, when we got word you were all back,” Elezad said.

“News travels quickly around here,” Hiral said.

Elezad thumbed at the War Table. “Only because we were looking at the table when you returned,” he explained. “B-Rank areas suddenly got more detailed, and we got information on the trials you found and completed.”

“Ah.” Hiral nodded. Of course. The War Table was connected to their PIMs somehow, so whenever a party – or individual – returned to the fortress, any areas they visited updated on the map. “And since we were the only B-Rank groups out…”

“It had to be you coming back,” Elezad finished for him.

“Then, seeing as the map already has all the information I was going to give you, I guess I don’t need to report in,” Hiral said and started to turn.

“Whoa now! Not so fast,” Elezad said, quick-stepping over to his son. “There are things the map doesn’t tell us. Details about the trials and… and… trial… details,” he finished lamely. “We have finger sandwiches?”

Hiral chuckled. “Really, should the others be here for this?”

Elezad shook his head, expression more serious. “No, really, they needed the break. We all do. It’s been almost non-stop. I’ll update them in a few hours when we reconvene. Honestly, if it was anybody but you, I’d have locked the door and taken a nap under the snack table.”

“You can still do that,” Hiral offered, looking closer at his father. Now that the man’s antics had faded, Hiral could see the bags under his eyes. Sure, Hiral and his raid group had been out running a long trial, but it didn’t seem like his father had been working any less hard. “I can come back later to…”

“No,” Elezad. “This is good. I want to hear about your trials, and I’ve got a couple things to update you on as well. Need you to stick around for a bit, also.”

“Another Beast Wavedue?” Hiral asked, catching on as he followed Elezad around to the head of the War Table to get a better look at their half of the Cradle of Tomorrow. Like before, half the map remained clouded in a thick fog. People had tried sticking their hands into the fog to see if they could ‘feel’ any hints of what lay within, but all their fingers felt was the hard wood of a table. Since their side of the table had grown more detailed with each zone explored, Hiral just chalked it up to magic shenanigans and left it at that.

“One came shortly after you left,” Elezad said. “Put the interval between the first two waves around thirty’ish hours. With everything going on, we didn’t keep careful enough track. If it’s going to be a regular thing, the next one will be in ten to fifteen hours. Burs and his group were around for the last one, and we actually needed them a few times.”

“So, you want one of the B-Rank groups around at all times?” Hiral reasoned.

“Yes,” Elezad confirmed. “Sorry. I know it’s going to slow down your trial progress, but… look, let me be honest with you. Grandmother was a good choice to be our General. And, when that Ex-General

attacked, we would’ve lost a lot of people if she wasn’t here protecting them.

“But… she wouldn’t have been able to beat that thing. I’ve learned a bit more about her abilities since then, and she’s just not a fighter. Tough as one of the Fallen’s towers, but her – What was Nat calling it? – her build, that’s it, it’s not put together for fighting. If she was in a party, she’d be a back-line support. Besides her natural, A-Rank status, she doesn’t have much to throw at a fight.”

Hiral nodded again, thinking back to the Chimeric Ex-General that’d attacked the fortress after Hiral and his group had completed Tomorrow’s Playhouse. It’d been the closest Tomorrow had gotten to a perfect race – apparently – though it still hadn’t met her standards. Instead, she’d put it into some kind of stasis, to be automatically released and seek out the strongest person in the Cradle. Hiral and the others had assumed that would be one of them.

It wasn’t – the Ex-General had gone straight after the only A-Rank in the valley. Grandmother. And it had brought a small army with it. If Hiral hadn’t gotten back when he did – with Left and Right – things would’ve been far worse. He’d literally found the Chimera with its hand around Grandmother’s throat like it was about to throttle her.

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“Don’t get me wrong,” Elezad continued. “She stepped in during the last wave, and it really helped. She’s plenty strong, but if we need something done decisively…”

“You want people with abilities built around combat,” Hiral said. “Yeah, I get it. And, it’s fine. After that last trial, we could use a bit of a break anyway. Did somebody have this conversation with Burs and his group already? We’ll have to coordinate a bit to make sure none of us stay out too long.”

“That’s what Aunt and Uncle are doing now,” Elezad said. “Two trials or fifteen hours. That’s how long they’ll stay out.”

“Oof,” Hiral said. “I guess we were out longer than that. We got the two trials done, but it was what, a little over twenty hours since we left?”

“Around that,” his father said. “And, I’d like to know why the two trials took your groups so long…”

“Really only one of them,” Hiral said with a groan. “The other was quick.”

Elezad held up his hands to stop Hiral right there. “We’ll get to that. First, though, how are you?”

“I’m fine, Dad,” Hiral said immediately.

“Hiral,” Elezad said in his I’m-your-father-and-you’re-going-to-be-straight-with-me voice. “It’s barely been over forty hours since you forcefully put yourself into A-Rank. Then passed out mid-sentence and went into seizures. Milly says she didn’t do much, but I’m pretty sure she’s lying so I don’t worry. I don’t have the same attunement you do – or your fancy runes – but even I felt your solar energy take a serious nose-dive. Whatever you did, it looked like it was going to kill you. For a few hours there…”

“It didn’t kill me,” Hiral pointed out gently before his father could go down the what-if-path. “And, if I’m being honest here too, it probably would’ve killed anybody other than me. Look, before you start to worry, even if I wanted to do the same thing again – which I don’t – I don’t think I could. I had to use the Edicts to breach A-Rank unnaturally like that, and I just don’t have access to them regularly like that.

“Besides, I’m B-Rank-twenty now. I can evolve to A-Rank at any point, and I will when the others are ready.”

“That doesn’t change what you did,” Elezad said. “Or what it did to you. Are you really fine after that?”

“I really am,” Hiral said. “Now,” he amended. “My time on the surface and in the dungeons has gotten me a few advantages. More than a few. And, those combined with one of Gran’s abilities created a perfect – once in a lifetime – convergence of events that let me do what I did without outright exploding. In a bad way, I guess, since I explode pretty much on the regular.

“Dad, I did what I needed to do to beat the Ex-General. Yes, the side-effects were terrible, and I never want to go through them again. They also took me out of commission for a while, but I did recover.”

“That quickly?” Elezad pushed. “You were walking around like Grandmother. Without her cane.”

“Don’t remind me,” Hiral said. “Those first few hours after I woke up were the worst. My body heals pretty fast though. I was back to ninety-percent by the time we left for the trials, and the workout got me the rest of the way. You can ask Left and Right if you don’t believe me.”

“They would tell me…” Elezad said, seriously considering the suggestion.

“I’m a little hurt here that you don’t trust me…”

“You offered.”

“Rhetorically!”

“You need to make that more clear.”

Hiral just crossed his arms and stared at the man.

“And you need to work on that look,” Elezad continued. “It’s not nearly as effective as when Milly does it.”

Hiral winced just thinking about it. “She’s a bit terrifying, isn’t she?”

Elezad rubbed his cheeks like he was trying not to think about it, then gently slapped them, and stepped in to put his hands on Hiral’s shoulders. “I know other people have told you this, Hiral,” his father said. “What you did, it saved us from that monster. Thank you. I also know you did it well aware of what the consequences would be.

“I won’t tell you not to be reckless. Or not to do something like that in the future. If you hadn’t done that, I could’ve lost my girls.”

“And yourself,” Hiral said gently, remembering seeing his father unconscious between his sisters on the battlefield.

“Maybe, but, speaking from experience here, losing a child is far worse than dying, for a parent.”

“I’m sorry I put you through that…” Hiral said, referring back to when he’d first leapt from the islands to go down to the surface. When everybody had believed he’d died down there.

“I know you are,” Elezad said, not dwelling on it. “You had a good reason for going, and every reason to believe you’d make it back without trouble. No, what I’m getting at is that I’m not going to try to stop you from doing what you’re going to do. Instead, I’m going to give you the same advice my father gave me when I chose to be an Artist.

“You don’t have to be the best at what you do – I won’t love you any less – but do everything you can to try to be. You won’t be satisfied with anything less.”

“You know I will,” Hiral said.

“Good,” Elezad said, hands still on Hiral’s shoulders. “And I’m going to add my own spin on it, specifically for this situation. It’s a little different than me being an Artist, after all.

“Get so damn strong none of us have to worry about you ever again.”

“That… doesn’t really sound like advice…” Hiral pointed out.

“It’s kind of advice. Maybe more of a suggestion? Either way, do that.”

“Was always my plan,” Hiral said. “Me and my party. First, we’ll take care of whatever’s on the other side of this valley. Then we’ll figure out how to deal with the Enemy and the Raze.”

“If anybody can, it’s you,” Elezad said. “You’ve always been stubborn once you put your mind to something.”

“Have you and Loan been sharing notes or something? He says the same thing.”

“Your old trainer knows you pretty well,” Elezad said. “Enough about all that though. I’ve got one more question for you before you give me your trial report.”

“What’s that?” Hiral asked, honestly a little happy to move past the topic.

“How are things working out with Dole?” his father asked, removing his hands from Hiral’s shoulders and stepping back.

Hiral blew out a breath prior to answering. Before they’d gone out to run their trials, Nivian had had to find a replacement for Politet. The alchemist’s attempt on Hiral’s life – and the undead’s subsequent death at Nivian’s hands – had left a hole in the party. There hadn’t been a lot of B-Rank options either. At least, not until Elezad brought a familiar face to the group.

One of the two Shapers Hiral had met – and Right had threatened for using Hiral’s old nickname of Everfail – up in his father’s studio. Dole had come to the raid zone late, as part of a mixed-Rank group who’d banded together to clear three, low-Rank dungeons. Apparently, his unusual build had gotten him passed over during the initial selection process of who would come to the raid zone. That hadn’t stopped the man from finding his own way here.

After renewed apologies – and a real lack of options – Nivian had agreed to give the man a chance to see how he fit with the group. And, the answer?

“He actually wasn’t bad,” Hiral said. “I can see why Ilrolik didn’t pick him for the initial group – his tattoo combination is downright strange on paper.”

“But,” Elezad asked. “Did it work?” The man had a bit of a stake in the question, considering he’d inked most of those tattoos.

“Surprisingly well,” Hiral said. “Don’t get me wrong, they’d be downright terrible in the Amphitheatre of the Sun, but for a dungeon run or trials? Using them the way he did? They were good. He was good. And he fills the pseudo-buffer-slash-support role Nivian’s group needed. We’ll keep him around a while longer.”

Elezad nodded. “We’re seeing combinations like his tattoos on more Artist and Academic’s Mediums – and they have a real advantage with them – but I always saw the potential in what he asked for. I’m glad to see it working out for him.”

“Advantage?” Hiral asked. “Why would an Artist or Academic have an advantage?”

“Oh, maybe you haven’t heard? We’re just learning about it ourselves, really. Artists and Academics can slightly manipulate – or alter – the tattoos on the Mediums. Tweak the functionality a bit. Artists especially, if they ink the tattoos themselves. On the other hand, Academics can modify the effects on the fly slightly. Shapers get pure physicality out of their tattoos and Meridian lines, while Artists and Academics get flexibility.”

“Huh,” Hiral said, thinking it through. “I guess that makes sense. Wouldn’t be balanced otherwise.”

“And we’re still learning more about what the two groups can do. There are probably other advantages we haven’t even realized yet.”

“I bet Gauto is loving this.”

“Oh, he absolutely is,” Elezad said. “He’s been a big part of identifying differences in the classes. There’s a small group of Academics down here with us devoting any time they aren’t running trials on learning and documenting.”

“I’ll have to track him down while I’m back. I think he was looking for me before we went out on the trial run,” Hiral thought back to how he’d kept missing his friend.

“He was,” Elezad said. “And he should be back as well. Let’s get your trial report done so you can go find him.”

“Sounds good to me.”