Runeblade

The obsidian obelisk thrust up towards the distant sky, an out of place spear of black. Awe filled Kaius's gut as he walked at the head of his team — he craned his head, taking in the full breadth of the structure.

After a full four days of recovery, they were finally here. The wait had been agonising — a black needle that taunted him from the horizon while he inscribed Redoubt over and over and over.

It was only now that he could truly appreciate how enormous it was, stretching up what had to be a hundred longstrides. It had been impressive before, but distance had made it seem smaller — and when they'd gotten closer, his attention had been focused on its lethal Guardian.

The pavilion of black glass that surrounded the obelisk was as wide as it was tall — and perfectly flat. Kaius's heel clacked loudly on its surface as he took his first step onto it. Mana rippled through the crystal, waves of orange emanating from the point of impact.

He paused, ready for something to happen in response. It already felt like he was intruding on some monument to fallen gods. The tension in his shoulders remained after nothing happened — suspicion winning the war against relief.

That wasn't enough to make him stop — they continued their approach. Cautiously. The Crucible might be an unknown, but he had never been one to shy away from risks, especially not one with potential rewards like this.

It wasn't like they could get any more prepared. Every single one of them had reached the cap of their tier, with most of their skills the same — or at least close. It wasn't like they could wait until they'd finished their aspects. It would be a waste — especially when the simple experience of the Crucible could be exactly what they needed to find their personal enlightenments.

Kenva and Porkchop's most recent discoveries had both been as impactful as they'd hoped.

The ranger had ignited Corporus — The Willow that Survived the Storm. Its effects were interesting, though Kaius could easily see how it fit into her acrobatic and mobile style. Her physical range of motion, balance, and bodily control had been increased by her Seed Acrobat's Physique, as had her ability to actually apply her strength through positions where she should normally lack leverage. Though she hadn't had much time to practice with it, it had been uncomfortable to watch her draw her bow physically behind her back. Still, he could easily imagine her using her new capabilities to move and strike in impossibly fluid ways.

Porkchop's advancement had been less visible, as had been the case with all of their Mentis ignitions. The General's Foresight had ended up being exactly what he had anticipated and hoped for — an expansion to his glass mind that made it far more effective at tracking multiple events at once. Kaius expected it would be a large boon to his brother's capabilities as a bastion, helping him assess and triage incoming threats.

Actually watching their ignitions had been by far the most interesting part of the experience for him. He'd been hoping to watch the odd glowing energy that seemed to come with ignition since his own previous experience. He'd missed the chance with Ianmus — too busy focusing on Old Thousand Eyes while the system initiated the process under emergency protocols.

Kaius couldn't help but smile as he remembered what he'd seen. The blip of light was getting stronger — growing not just larger, but lasting longer than the emissions he'd seen when he'd witnessed Ianmus and Porkchop's first aspect formations. What it did, and what it was? He hadn't the faintest idea! But it was doing something — and that was fascinating.

He was sure it was important. Though, whether it would come to a head with their final aspects, or was involved in the process that came next remained to be seen. Hopefully, they'd find out soon enough — the information package they'd received for being in the first five had said it would tell them more when they'd created all three.

Eying the rapidly approaching obelisk with a gleam in his eye, Kaius could only hope that the Crucible really would be enough to get them there.

Shoving the thought to the back of his mind, he refocused his attention on the shifting runes that rippled underfoot. With his most recent experiences with Vos, he'd grown…fascinated by the prospect of system runes. With how large and indescribable even a fragment of that Truth had been, he struggled to believe these more common elements were truly in the same category.

And yet…as they shifted, Kaius felt an uncomfortable level of familiarity with the warping two-dimensional shapes — like they had a shadow of the grandiosity of what he'd been given insight into.

The thought stuck in his mind, hanging like it had been nailed in place. He slowed his walk, ignoring the questioning looks of his team to watch the runes closer. Perhaps not a shadow — but maybe a shadow of a shadow?

Tonal Weaving and Truesight started to whir as he drew rune after rune in his mind. VOS was beyond him, that much was true — but it felt like it was drawn in some way he couldn't comprehend, a looming giant that he couldn't perceive even if it was standing in front of him. All that he actually saw — rather than recoiled in horror from — was a complex three-dimension rune that seemed to shift and morph without rhyme or reason.

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Almost like a shadow that warped strangely as an unseen object was rotated in front of a beam of light, revealing a new perspective.

Could that really be it? Was VOS written in some higher realm beyond what he knew, too alien for his mortal mind to comprehend? It seemed impossible.

How would he ever even come close to comprehending a shape like that? There was up and down, forward and back — that was it.

A dull thud set in behind his eyes as he tried and failed to find the space to add another axis to the foundational basis of bloody shapes.

He sighed, shaking his head — this was getting him nowhere. Even if he was on the right track, he couldn't wrap his mind around adding a new geometric direction — his mind simply wasn't built for it. He didn't doubt they existed — it was too neat of an explanation, too similar to the mind-breaking experience of Ekum's teleportation.

At the very least, it gave him a tenuous link. How it was that monstrosity of a rune could be related to his own glyphs and more simplistic two-dimensional structures. Though, it really only raised another question.

How in all of the desolated hells had Vesryn even discovered the damn thing in the first place?! It was one thing to devise simplistic flat runes from the warping shapes present on system structures and iterate from there. Rotten roots, he could even see how someone dedicated enough could stumble across glyphs.

But to go from glyphs to that?! It was unimaginable to him — genius beyond the pale, or the work of someone far more powerful than he could imagine. Likely both.

Kenva's sharp gasp from behind him made him look up — they were close to the portal now, standing right in the midday shadow of the obelisk.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Analyse the portal again — it's just confirmed the level limit."

Kaius flicked to the arch, focusing.

Crucible of Xenanra:

Challenge fate and be tempered, if you dare.

Level Limit - 200

Damn, it really was restrictive — if there had been any doubts that the Crucibles had been made to challenge pioneers and frontrunners, they were long gone. The manticore had been a tough bastard — likely more powerful than even a normal Guardian of a similar level. From what he knew, most delvers would need to out-level it significantly to have a chance of winning.

The traditional adage was that a strong and coordinated team could safely manage a Guardian twenty levels lower than them — it seemed it would take truly uncommon ability to even get access to a crucible.

And they weren't the first to do so. There were others, who knows where, fighting and growing in a way that was at least similar. Gods, he hoped there were. The world would be far safer that way — who knew when threats would arise that needed a frontrunner to be dealt with?

Taking a breath, Kaius met his team's eyes — they gave him determined nods.

He touched the portal. A chine sounded in his mind as energy surged within the structure, every shifting rune flaring to new heights.

**Ding! Access requirements met!**

**Enter Crucible? Exit will be unavailable until all challenges are completed!**

Kaius ripped his hand back.

"What's coming to kill us?" Porkchop asked.

"Nothing yet," Kaius replied cautiously. "But, unsurprisingly, we won't be able to leave until we are victorious — and the notification still didn't give me any indication of how we'll actually do that."

He turned back to his team. "The point of no return — last chance, do we want to continue?"

"'Course we do — it's no different from the Depths themselves, in that regard. Even if it is being cryptic." Kenva replied, shifting her weight restlessly. "Let's just get going, the anticipation is bloody killing me."

Kaius grinned and slapped his hand back on the runic arch — accepting the prompt that reappeared in his eyes.

The world warped as threads of power reached out and wrapped him in a steel grip. Light flashed, radiant mana exploding through the obsidian obelisk — changing glossy black to a roaring silver incandescence. For a moment — just a hair of a heartbeat — Kaius saw a blip. A core thread of white, running through the structure; uncannily similar to the seed of energy he'd seen in their Aspects.

Then he was gone, torn through the world as a maelstrom of power yanked him in a direction that he could only comprehend as in.

Spatial whorls overwhelmed his vision, whispered promises written in spirals that watered his eyes. Kaius reacted immediately, slamming his eyes shut as Truesight desperately tried to peer into what he saw.

Then it was over, and he was kneeling on a hard floor that pressed uncomfortably on his knees.

"Well, well. My first challengers — how exciting!"

The voice had a weight to it — a punch that rattled his bones — at odds with its soft timbre.

Kaius slammed his eyes open, leaping to his feet and drawing his blade in fluid motion. His team did the same behind him, racing to battle-readiness.

At first, he missed the speaker. All he saw was a large, but simple room made of the same volcanic glass that made the obelisk. It was lit in the same way, pulsing orange runes crawling like living things within the inky depths.

Then he looked up and saw who had addressed them. She sat on a plush divan of suede and lacquered wood that hung in the air like it had been suspended telekinetically, though he saw no sign of mana or other energies.

A woman, giving them an easy smile. She was strange, from a people unlike man, or elf, or aen, or anything he'd heard of. Her eyes were large, glossy, and pure white — set widely on a face of small and angular features. Black hair fell in ringlets, matching the colour of her immaculate but unadorned robes.

Power oozed from her very pores — radiated an intensity that screamed a strength and command that he had experienced only once before.

Her smile widened into a grin, revealing a double row of triangular teeth.

"Testy, aren't we?"

Kaius fell to his knees.