Rune Seeker

“So,” Elezad started as the two of them looked down at the War Table, the map of the Cradle of Tomorrow sprawled out in front of them.

It was definitely more filled in than it had been the last time Hiral had a chance to look at it, but if he had to guess, they’d still only mapped out less than twenty percent of their side of the map. For a valley that should only be as big as Fallen Reach, the place was huge. Spatial shenanigans.

“We know the names of the trials you undertook,” his father continued, “as well as their locations and rewards – thanks to the War Table – but nothing about what was inside. What can you tell me?”

“Like I was saying before,” Hiral said. “One of the two was pretty quick, and the other must’ve taken… jeez… seventeen hours or so? It was a long one.”

“All combat?” Elezad asked, wincing. He was probably imagining any other group trying to pull that off.

“Thankfully not,” Hiral said. “Mostly not, actually.”

“Sounds like there’s a bit of a story there, so let’s start with the shorter trial. This one only took a few hours?”

“Less than two,” Hiral said, scanning the map until he found the familiar location he was looking for – a cave that looked like it had teeth at the entrance. Given the trial itself, maybe those were actual teeth. “The Gluttonous Maw – which, by the way, is what I think we’re going to start calling Right and his pastry problem – was a combat trial. Waves of combat, to be precise.”

“How many?” Elezad asked, already taking notes. “And definitely B-Rank? Any chance C-Ranks could do it?”

“Wouldn’t risk it,” Hiral said immediately. “It was eleven waves, with the final one being the cave itself. The theme of the fights was ‘things that want to eat us’, and that cave might be more of a stomach than a natural formation. The waves came pretty quick, one after another, as well, so I don’t think a C-Rank group could do it.”

“How did your group do?”

“We are… particularly well-suited to deal with wave-type encounters,” Hiral chuckled. “Our domains do a lot of the work for us, especially in the early waves. With Nivian and Ilrolik’s groups also there, we basically skipped the first half of the trial. Started getting tougher around wave six, but even then, we did just fine until the surprise final fight of wave eleven.”

“Something happen on wave-eleven?”

“Just Devison losing his damn foot again. I swear, is the thing actually attached in the first place? Even Gran was threatening to stich it ‘some place that’d make relieving himself real difficult’ – her words – but, other than that, no problems.”

“What can you tell me about the monsters and their abilities?” Elezad asked.

“Left and Yan are putting together entries for the guide,” Hiral said. “They said they’d be done in an hour or so. How about I bring you those? All the info you need – and more – will be there.”

“Yanily is really taking this guide thing seriously, isn’t he?” Elezad said. “Not that I’m complaining! The information is saving lives, no doubt about it.”

“Yanily… didn’t take losing people very well,” Hiral said. “When we first came down to the surface. I’m sure you heard. There were twelve of us at the beginning – not including Left and Right – and only three of us made it back to Fallen Reach. Sure, we got a few of those people back, but he still lost of a lot of friends. He doesn’t want to see other people going through that. If the guides save even one life, it’s worth it.”

“They’ll save a lot more than one,” Elezad said. “People are taking them seriously. And the ones who aren’t, well, luckily they’ve been in parties with others who were. So,” he tapped his notepad a few times, “I’ll wait for their data and stop pestering you with questions on the monsters. As for the reward, the table only gives us the name of it.”

“I was actually a bit surprised about this one,” Hiral said. “Gourmand+ was the reward. Straight to the upgraded version. Didn’t expect that from a B-Rank trial, though I guess the power of benefitting from two foods instead of one is pretty strong.”

“Interesting,” Elezad said, tapping his notepad again. “I was wondering about that, since this trial over here… oh where is it… ah, there!” He pointed at what looked like a group of six… picnic tables in a field? “This is an E-Rank trial – Second Stomach – and it also rewards the people who complete it with the Gourmand ability. No plus on it there.”

“One food buff?”

“One food buff,” Elezad confirmed. “This new information from your trial, along with something else we’ve been seeing settles another question that’s come up.”

“What’s that?” Hiral asked.

“Before that,” Elezad held up his finger. “If I remember correctly, some of your party already had the Gourmand ability, right? How did getting this new one interact?”

“Well,” Hiral said. “Everybody went straight to Gourmand+ whether they had the ability or not previously. My Healthy Living got that part of it upgraded as well. Didn’t do anything for the resting-portion, but I’m not complaining.”

“People who already had the base ability didn’t see any additional benefits?”

“Nothing,” Hiral said. “At least… nothing I know of.”

A few more quick words scratched on Elezad’s notepad before he put it down on the edge of the table. “Good information. Thank you.”

“No problem. Back to that question you mentioned…?”

“Of course,” Elezad said, and slowly waved his hand across in front of him to indicate the entirety of the War Table. “We’re estimating the Cradle has hundreds of trials. Maybe more, with most of them being at the lower ranks. Kind of like a pyramid. And, at the beginning, we had a lot of questions about what the rewards for all of these would be. For example, if somebody, somehow, went through every trial, just how full would their status window be?”

“You’ve got an answer to that now?”

“Not quite, but it’s becoming a bit more clear,” Elezad said. “First off, not all trials give ability rewards. Some of them give items. I think the guides are calling it loot.”

“Yanily does love his loot.”

“He’s not the only one,” Elezad chuckled. “The loot-trials are quickly becoming some of the most popular – and necessary. We’re even starting to figure out a queue system, to make sure everybody at the appropriate Rank runs them.”

“Why are they so popular? Good items?”

“You could say that,” Elezad said. “See, each trial rewards one kind of item. Not the same item for every person, but the same type. For example, this E-Rank trial over here, My First Weapon – aptly named – always rewards an E-Rank weapon appropriate to the person running it.”

“An E-Rank weapon is great… for E-Rank,” Hiral said slowly.

“But not great for D-Rank and above, right?” Elezad finished, catching on to what Hiral was saying. “Very true. Except!” He pointed at another section of map. “To the Winner Go the Spoils– a C-Rank trial – also offers weapons! We’ve only found the two weapon trials so far, but we’ve found head and hand-armor trials at two different Ranks, and body-armor trials at E-, D, and C-Ranks. We’ve also found one foot armor trial, a shield trial, and one that rewards magic rings. That last one was C-Rank too.”

“You’re thinking there are gear-trials at every Rank?”

“Exactly!” Elezad said. “To help each group transition smoothly from one rank to the next. All the trials we’ve found so far are Low-Rank too. Nothing too unmanageable for people who just evolved.”

“That’s pretty fantastic,” Hiral said, thinking. “Does that mean there are B- and A-Rank versions as well?”

“We’re not sure yet,” Elezad. “We hope so, but since there are so many less B- and A-Rank trials than the lower Ranks…”

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“By the time people get to B-Rank, they should at least be out running normal dungeons? Is that what you’re thinking?”

“We suspect it might be what Tomorrow was thinking,” Elezad said. “The Cradle seems designed to prepare the lower Ranks, and refine the higher Ranks. Since we’ve only got limited B-Rank raid groups, it’s a bit slower getting the data on these higher trials, and The Playhouse was the only A-Rank trial completed.”

“Did it ever, I don’t know, come back?” Hiral asked, looking at the section of the map where the trial had been. The city was still there – as well as the orchard outside of it – but the wave-like building was distinctly absent.

“No.” Elezad shook his head. “It was a one-time trial, it seems.”

“That’s too bad, but back to what we were talking about. The loot trials are all great, but what does that have to do with Gourmand+?”

“Ah, sorry! How the Cradle works is very interesting. I get distracted by it sometimes. As for Gourmand and Gourmand+, we’d been wondering what to do for groups who ‘missed’ a trial. For example, if we found a critical ability from an E-Rank trial much later, was there anything we could do for D-Rank and above groups? Or, should we stop groups from evolving until we’ve mapped more of the Cradle to see what trials there are?”

“Oooooh, I get it,” Hiral said. “But, if Gourmand is upgradable, with no downsides to getting or missing the lower-tier version, you don’t need to hold anybody back.”

“Exactly!” Elezad said, pointing at his son. “It’s great if people can get the abilities at lower Ranks to help them level up, but it’s not a huge loss if they don’t get them for whatever reason.”

“You were worried about me, weren’t you?” Hiral asked, pointedly looking at his father. “You thought we might miss out on most of what the Cradle has to offer because we were already B-Rank coming in, and we’ll be A-Rank very soon.”

Elezad looked a little sheepish at first, then seemed to decide to totally own it. “And your sisters too,” he said confidently. “Not to mention everybody else in the same situation. Really, you and your party could probably do without a few E-through-C-Rank abilities and not notice the difference. Some of the other C- and B-Rank people who came here? The Artists and Academics who are just now dipping their toes in this whole ‘fighting’ thing? They need every advantage they can get.”

“Speaking of which…” Hiral started, looking at his father. “I know I asked you to keep an eye on Olimpas, but when are the Trust planning to run trials?”

“Eventually,” Elezad said. “Don’t worry, we’ve been talking about it. How can we advise if we don’t experience some of what’s going on out there? Lead from the front, you know? It’s not time for that yet, though. We’ve got to get a better handle on how the Cradle works, and get an idea what the timeline looks like before the other half opens. We’re moving at a pretty good pace – I think – but we don’t know about the other side.

“From what Al says,” Elezad referred to the Arborean Triclops guide they’d found upon entering the Cradle. “The barrier separating us from the other side will drop when either side reaches the threshold of trial completions. We really want to be the ones who get there first for the most advantages.”

“You’re all doing a good job,” Hiral said. “People trust you. Most of you. Olimpas…”

“The Growers?” Elezad asked.

“And me,” Hiral admitted. “I don’t know. His story is plausible – he was impersonated. Or so he says. Still, it didn’t feel like that.”

“Grandmother and I are both keeping an eye on him. Not to mention Uncle and Aunt,” Elezad said. “But! He is good at administrative tasks like organizing this encampment.”

“Probably the only reason Seeyela hasn’t found him while he’s sleeping.”

“Would she actually do that?”

Hiral sighed as he thought about it. “If he was a threat to her friends – or her family – she just might.”

“Maybe we should send your raid party back out to run some trials after all,” Elezad joked.

“She’s a teleporter,” Hiral reminded his father. “Wouldn’t stop her.”

“She’s a little terrifying, if what she is.”

“You really have no idea,” Hiral said.

“No, I probably don’t. And… uh… since I don’t want to find out either, please don’t mention I said that.”

“Meh, we’ll see,” Hiral chuckled. “But, should we get back to the report?”

“When did you become all business? Can’t I just enjoy a chat with my son?”

Hiral just stared flatly at his father.

“Fine. Fine!” Elezad literally threw up his hands before shaking his head and picking the notebook back up. “Tell me about this other trial. The long one. What was it called?”

“Who Dunnit?” Hiral said. “This one was… not like anything else we’d seen before. It took place inside another city, a lot like where we found The Playhouse. We had to go through a portal for this one, and I think it was like a dungeon. Took us to an interspatial location.

“Hrm, a portal? We’ve only found a few like that. You think this was a dungeon?”

“Yeah, but not a PIMP-dungeon. The feel of the portal was different. Closer to what Seena’s Machinis Liber – the new book she got that summons Brass Cannons – does. I don’t know all the details, but Seeyela says they aren’t the same thing. Either way, it took us to a dungeon city.”

“And what was the trial in there? Any danger when you entered?”

“Not immediately,” Hiral said. “The gist of the trial is that we had to solve a murder mystery.”

“… not what I expected,” Elezad said.

“Hah, same,” Hiral said. “And not something we were quite ready for, which is why it took so long. There are three different factions in the city, and all of them had good reason to want the person dead. Lots of clues and leads, but also lots of dead ends. There had to be thousands of dungeon-created people in the city – though it wasn’t actually a full city, more like twenty blocks or so – and more than a few were… unhappy with us investigating.”

“What did they do?”

“Outright attacked us, a lot of the time,” Hiral said. “Word of advice to anybody who does the trial – don’t walk down dark alleys at night. You will get jumped. Every damn time.”

“But, now that you’ve completed the trial…” Elezad tapped the notepad again as he thought. “Don’t you know the answer to the mystery? Can’t we just use that to solve it right away?”

Hiral shook his head. “No, for a couple reasons. One, you need proof, not just accusations. We tried just saying ‘He did it!’ and hoping that completed the trial. Didn’t work. Without the evidence, it doesn’t register.”

“If we know what the evidence is…”

Hiral was already shaking his head again. “Look, maybe. All that info will be in Yanily’s guide on the trial, but – call this a gut feeling – I think the trial will be different next time. Same murder, but different murderer. I think that’s why there are the three different factions, and so many people.”

“Multiple scenarios?” Elezad asked, and Hiral nodded. “Annoying, but there must be a limited number of options. We’ll have to keep track and see if there is any repetition.”

“Probably smart,” Hiral agreed. “As for the reward for the dungeon, PIM Upgrade: A Glimpse of Tomorrow, it…”

“Wait!” Elezad stopped him. “Let me guess.”

“O… kay,” Hiral said.

“It’s giving you a percentage bonus to all your PIM given attributes,” Elezad said.

“It is,” Hiral confirmed.

“And!” Elezad said before Hiral could say anything else. “It’s probably… let’s see… twenty percent?”

“Correct again,” Hiral said. “Is this like the Gourmand thing? Somebody lower Rank got the same thing?”

“Kind of,” Elezad said, nodding. “We have a dungeon that gave a D-Rank version with the exact same name. Only a ten-percent bonus to attributes though.”

“So, five percent per level,” Hiral said.

“Yes, seems that way. We weren’t sure if it was a one-time reward – ten percent multiplier is pretty good, after all – or if it would be ten percent per level that would stack with each Rank. Looks like it’s actually somewhere in the middle. Probably five percent per level, that does stack.”

“It’s also additive to other multipliers,” Hiral said. “We’ve got a couple of abilities that function similarly, and it adds on to them instead of multiplying again. That makes it a little less powerful than it could be, but still very good overall.”

“Hiral, my boy,” Elezad said slowly. “Getting anymultiplier is huge news to most of us, and here you are, talking so casually, about having several of them. No, not casually, I think you were complaining!”

“I wasn’t… completely… complaining,” Hiral… complained. “Just saying it could’ve been a little stronger.”

“Mmm hmmm,” Elezad said. “Anything else you think I should know about the trial?”

“Not really,” Hiral said. “Other than the ambush-nature of the fights, they weren’t anything particularly difficult. At the end, we split the raid group into individual parties to investigate each of the three factions. We probably would’ve completed it faster if we’d done that earlier.

“Oh, and, the city is very different than anything people have likely seen before. It’s kind of like the city where The Playhouse was. Very… I don’t know how to describe it. Futuristic? Lots of metal and glass, with strange screens like status windows and moving images in them. It’s a lot to take in, and it can be really distracting.”

Elezad was back to tapping his notebook. “You think it’s a real place? Something Tomorrow saw from her world?”

“Maybe?” Hiral said with a shrug. “Stranger still, it didn’t feel like magic. Like her constructs – or the Mecha-Armor I told you about before – these things didn’t give off any energy I could sense.”

Elezad tilted his head back to look up at the ceiling. “This stuff about other worlds – other universes or whatever she called them – is a lot. Maybe too much, right now. We’re struggling with the idea of keeping Fallen Reach safe, just a little tiny piece of this world. And, she’s saying there are more worlds out there? What are we supposed to do with that?”

“At the moment?” Hiral asked. “Nothing. Sure, it’s great to know why each of our tattoos have such elaborate stories behind them, I guess, but does it change anything for us? We still have to deal with the Enemy and the Raze.

“Maybe down the road, somebody will explore some of what Tomorrow said. First, though, we need to survive the challenges in front of us. So, that’s what we’ll focus on. That’s what we’ll do.”

Elezad just looked at his son, a smile slowly spreading across his face.

“I’m so proud of you, you know that right?”

“Dad…”

“Really, Hiral,” Elezad said. “You’ve come so far. I always knew you would be something special, but every time I turn around, you impress me again and again.”

“Every parent says that about their kid.”

“They do,” Elezad admitted. “But they aren’t always right.”

Hiral shuffled slightly under the praise from his father. There weren’t a lot of people out there he cared about compliments from – but Elezad was one of them. “Thanks, Dad,” he finally said.

Elezad nodded at him once – smile still in place – then got back to business. “You’re right, too. The other world stuff is a later-problem. A later-problem for Academics,” he clarified. “For now, we have a Cradle to conquer.”

“Sounds like you’re planning a baby-napping,” Hiral deadpanned.

“It sounded better in my head,” Elezad admitted.