Runeblade

Kaius's blood ran hot and sang loud as he forced back yet another ridgecharger that came screaming over the edge of the cliff — literally, the herd had started howling like banshees the second they had caught the scent.

It was the morning of their second day of descent, and after making their way down a long slope of scree, they'd been forced to make their way across a thirty stride wide ledge that cut directly through the middle of an immense cliff. If that wasn't bad enough, the face was angled just right to leave their path perpetually drenched in shadow — and leave the already slick rock coated in potentially lethal patches of black ice.

He held the line next to Porkchop, right at the edge of the hundred longstride drop to the base of the cliff below. Blasted ridgechrgers had ambushed them in just about the worst spot possible.

Another three burst over the edge, utterly unbothered that they had just walked up a solid wall of stone. Gritting his teeth, Kaius hurled a Stormlash right at them. Lightning arced between the trio.

"This isn't so bad!" Porkchop yelled as he let out a whoop of excitement and lunged forwards. Dropping his shoulder, he smashed the stunned beasts back — sending them straight over the edge. They flailed desperately, a scream of primal terror escaping as they fell to their likely deaths.

The rocks at the bottom looked sharp, and more than one splash of red already coated them.

Kaius rolled his eyes at his brother's antics.

"Focus, Porkchop. Kenva and Ianmus barely have any room to move — if even one gets past us…"

"Yeah, yeah — I'm being careful. It doesn't make it any less funny."

Porkchop let out a roar as another pair tried to clamber off the side off to their left, racing towards their back line as an arrow slammed home into the frontrunners' throat.

Warden's Challenge took hold, ripping the beasts' attention back to their vanguard.

Kaius didn't see any more — too busy as a ridgecharger let out a rattling hiss and leapt for his throat.

He kicked back, throwing the full weight of his Will and intent behind another Lash. Rather than letting it burn free, he forced it into his blade — Stamina flooding his bond to enable the transfer.

A crackling field of burning arcs surged through his blade, blue-white light shining clean through its crystalline fuller and edge. He thrust, throwing his weight onto his lead foot.

Catalepsis wracked the ridgecharger, its spine contorting as a stride of crystal and steel made every muscle in its body contract at once. Kaius stepped in, booting it in the chest.

It flew over the edge, much like every other had before it.

He moved on, racing towards yet another — this one left blinded and gasping from a series of rays that had punched deep into its flesh.

**Ding! level 242 Ridgecharger - Stoneborn Acrobat slain - Experience Gained! Bonus Experience for slaying a foe of Significant Strength!**

…

**Ding! Runeblade Initiate has reached level 195 > 196!**

**+3 End, Str, & Int, +2 Dex, Wil, +1 Vit, Free - from Class & Racial Traits!**

Kaius grinned. So close! Perhaps Porkchop had the right of it. He pushed on, forcing the crippled ridgecharger off the cliff.

"Just be careful, yeah!" he yelled, focused on his patch of the cliff.

"They offer themselves up so nicely!"

"He's not really wrong, you know — this is pretty cathartic after all the bullshit in the jungle!" Kenva called out from the back of the ledge, loosing another arrow.

Before Kaius could reply, a large group let out a cacophony of chitters, rushing them as they clambered up. A lance-sized arrow shot past Kaius's shoulder, slamming into the frontrunner's chest. It shattered, leaving a gaping wound that silenced its cries.

Kaius kicked it off, slapping aside a raking claw as Ianmus blinded two more chargers with swift rays, the spells snapping out every couple of seconds from the golden keyseal that spilled from the top of his staff. They were easy pickings, one of Porkchop's Prismatic Shardwalls shoving both them and an uninjured ridgecharger right off.

"You know what, I feel the same," Ianmus said. "This is barely a step up from target shooting."

Despite his abundance of caution, Kaius couldn't help but agree. Even if the ridgechargers had proved to have startlingly good eyesight to spot them from so far off, and had the sense to gather in a large pack, it had mattered little.

The beast's choice of ambush site had proven disastrous. As much as the shallow plateau left his backline closer to the action then he would like, the thin path only meant his team had less area to cover.

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It might have worked against them, fifty levels ago — but now? The beasts were just offering themselves up for slaughter.

Thankfully, they hadn't killed every beast by throwing them to their deaths. One he'd stabbed through the eye, and finished off with a point-blank nail to the top of the head. Another had had its neck snapped by Porkchop, only to be peppered by rays and arrows after its limp body had been bound in place by Kenva's Ensnaring Seedburst. They'd have something new to eat that night.

Still, the fight wasn't over yet, and he'd build up some bad habits if he didn't focus.

When Kaius turned to fry a ridgecharger with a Lash before it could slip past him, another summited the cliff — lunging for his throat a moment later. He slammed his back heel into the ground, pivoting through his hips as he reached for Mercurial Reversal.

His blade blurred, skittering along the thick scales on the beast's jaw. It was still enough to snap its jaw closed, shoving its head to the side. Kaius twisted his wrists and pushed — sinking the empowered tip of his blade into its throat.

The beast's scales were tough — enough that they turned his blade more often than not without the use of his class Skills. With them, he was more than potent enough. Bladerite flared through his blade, further empowering his thrust.

He felt the resistance as he butted up against the base of the beast's skull — it lasted less than a blink. It went limp, blood spraying over the already slick stone. He ended its agony a moment later with a Nail to the eye.

**Ding! level 242 Ridgecharger - Stoneborn Acrobat slain - Experience Gained! Bonus Experience for slaying a foe of Significant Strength!**

The death heralded a slow end to the sudden violence of the attack — ridgechargers coming less and less frequently until Porkchop hurled the last one off the edge a few minutes later.

Kaius rolled his shoulders, loosening his tense muscles as he enjoyed the feeling of his racing heart. Walking over to the few corpses that remained on the ledge, he swiped them one by one into his storage ring.

"Nice morning workout, I suppose," Kaius said as he rejoined his team. Even if it was 'easy', fighting off two or three dozen goat-like reptiles the size of a large wolf was enough to work up a sweat.

His team didn't respond — their eyes glazed as they checked their notifications. Shrugging, Kaius decided to do the same.

**Ding! Class Skill Notifications Consolidated!**

**Latent Glyph of Aelina has reached level 192 > 193!**

…

**Mystic's Rend has reached level 169 > 170!**

…

**Latent Glyph of Eirnith has reached level 91 > 92**

**General Skill Notifications Consolidated!**

…

**Explorer's Toolkit has reached level 184 > 186!**

…

**Truesight has reached level 176 > 177!**

…

**Resonance Amplification has reached level 169 > 170!**

Kaius hummed in satisfaction. It might have been only moderate progress, but this close to the end, every scrap of it counted.

Muthryn — Vos — still languished at its low level of seven, but there was very little he could do about that right now. Not only did the cost of Redoubt of the Speaker make it prohibitively expensive to use — at least with his current mana — he still…struggled with it. He felt like he was on the verge of losing his sanity every time that incomprehensible rune crossed his mind, let alone the wracking terror that befell him when he actually used it.

But…regardless of the cost to his mind and his Resources, it was something he would have to learn to live with. At some point. For now he was happy to keep his practice to a cast or two whenever they made camp.

He blinked away the notifications. When his team had done the same they set off, making their way down the final stretch of the ledge before it turned into another slope of loose gravel.

"How's everyone doing with their Aspects?" Kaius asked as they walked. He hadn't had much luck with progressing Animus any further, but he knew Kenva and Porkchop were both in a stage of active and growing resonance with their second aspects. Their little tussle might have been enough to edge them a little closer.

The ranger let out a noncommittal grunt, "Progress is slow, but steady. I've felt on the verge of it for the past few days — meditation helped, at first. I think I just need the right push, now — it's something to do with freedom and flexibility. This fight wasn't it, but the Guardian might be."

"It helped me," Porkchop replied. "I was keeping track of everything I could, even the beasts I was sure Kaius had handled. It wasn't enough to tip me over the edge, but it's close."

Kaius nodded. Hopefully Kenva had the right of it, and the Guardian would be what they needed. Aspects did respond well to moments of stress and need, and he couldn't think of anything better to do that than a murderous depthsborn king.

At the very least, if the Guardian wasn't enough the Crucible would have to be. There was no way the beast lingering outside it was the only challenge they provided.

"Once we've killed it, what do you think we'll find in there?" Ianmus asked. "It's got a Guardian, and something suspiciously similar to a Depths portal. Do you think it might be some kind of secret, more dangerous biome?"

Kaius had been pondering that question since he'd first laid eyes on the thing.

"I think it's probably not so simple," he replied. "Everything else we've seen from the phase change has been fundamentally different from what we knew before. It would be odd for it to just be a more challenging delve. Why do that, when the same could be achieved by moving on to deeper layers?"

They reached the end of the ridge, moving onto the gravel slope that led down to the next section of gentler tussock. Their pace slowed as they sunk into the scree, sending it tumbling down ahead of them with every step.

"Well, it sounds like it might be designed as some sort of tool to help people grow strong — albeit an extremely dangerous one if you have to beat a bloody Guardian to even get an entrance. I wouldn't be surprised if there was some sort of test or challenge: something a bit more complex than a straight up fight." Porkchop said.

Kaius nodded, he agreed completely. Regardless, they would find out soon enough.

By the end of the day, they would reach their chosen campsite, and could start planning their attack. He couldn't wait — the manticore had already slaughtered more than one beast that had stumbled into its territory, so at the very least they would have the opportunity to study it.

Step by step, they descended the slope — drawing ever closer to the ominous spire of enruned obsidian at the biome's centre.