Rune seeker, p.1
Rune Seeker, page 1
RUNE SEEKER
©2023 J.M. CLARKE & C.J. THOMPSON
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CONTENTS
Also in Series
1. Everfail
2. Definitely Next Year
3. Time Trial
4. What’s Wrong With Me?
5. Best (?) Friend
6. The City That Chases The Sun
7. Nomads
8. The Fall
9. Achievement Unlocked?!
10. This Makes Us Even
11. The Fall 2
12. Personal Interface Magic
13. A Balanced Party
14. First Encounter With Troblinkind
15. Enter Dungeon?
16. Try Giving It A Sandwich
17. What Could Be Worse Than Troblins? Oh…
18. A Desperate Rescue
19. Trust
20. Race To The Jump Point
21. The Best Plan We Have
22. Round 2
23. Foundational Split
24. Left And Right
25. Rain & Darkness
26. Ambush!
27. Spending Stat Points
28. A New Foe
29. Just Keep Running
30. Enter Dungeon!
31. Splitfang Keep
32. Dynamic Quest
33. The Ritual Of Summoning
34. What’s A Mid-Boss?
35. Don’t Stand In The Fire!
36. Butchering The Butcher
37. It’s A Trap!
38. Eloquent And Enraged
39. Boss Battle
40. First Rewards
41. Exit Dungeon
42. New Runes
43. The Vote
44. Path To The Next Dungeon
45. Showing Off The Upgrades
46. Not A Dungeon, But…?
47. Troblin Might
48. Enemy
49. A Change In Scenery
50. Tutorial 2
51. Help
52. The Mire
53. I Got This!
54. Queen Of The Swamp
55. King Of The Swamp
56. Incoming!
57. They Throw Fire?!
58. Skill Evolution
59. Bows Vs. RHCs
60. The Ssscholarly Sssealer
61. Classs Isss Now In Sssessssion
62. Another Totem? Of Course We Should Smash It
63. The Prince Of The Swamp
64. The Emperor’s Greatsword
65. One Man Army
66. What Could’ve Done That?
67. Dungeon Farming
68. Let’s See What This Can Do
69. Can’t Stay Here
70. A Familiar Town
71. Part Of The Party
72. A Talk With Myselves
73. Lonil
74. That’s Your Plan?
75. The Slumbering Prince
76. Enemy 2
77. Enemy 3
78. Run
79. The Troblin Throne
80. Troblin Lord
81. No Holding Back
82. Solo Rewards
83. Asylum
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1
EVERFAIL
Hiral took a deep breath as he stared at the stylized sun on the heavy door in front of him. The same sun tattooed on the center of his chest; both the symbol and source of a Shaper’s power. His power, if he managed to pass the test…
No. No, he couldn’t think like that. He would pass this time. He had to.
“You’re nervous.” The gravelly voice of his teacher and sponsor, Loan, came from behind him. “You always roll your right foot and stand on the edge of it when you’re thinking too much.”
Hiral snapped the sole of his foot back down on the ground, the thin wooden sandal of his ceremonial outfit clapping on the stone.
“Nothing wrong with thinking,” he said to his mentor without turning. “You always tell me to visualize. I’m visualizing.”
“I tell you to visualize success. Shaping. Forging your will and the energy granted to you by the sun to bring your tattoos to life. This, what you’re doing now, is visualizing failing.” Loan’s comforting hand dropped onto Hiral’s shoulder.
Hiral took another deep breath, letting it flow out of his lungs along with the building anxiety. Loan was right; Hiral was nervous.
“I know you want to, so go ahead and take a look at your status window. I can practically see your fingers itching,” Loan said.
“I…” Hiral started. Would it make a difference? He knew what it said. What it always said. But, then again, if it had changed—finally—then maybe it would ease his nerves. “Just give me a second.”
Hiral reached his hand up to the sun on his chest and pushed gently on it, the warmth of the solar energy flowing through his body focusing on that spot. “Do you want me to share the window?” he asked Loan.
“No need. It will be your turn any minute now.”
Hiral nodded and pulled on the only magic he could use, his status window, and the information sprang to life in front of his eyes like he was reading from a luminescent blue page.
Name: Hiral Dorin
Race: Maker
Class: Unavailable
Attributes
Strength (Str) – 18 (0)
Endurance (End) – 18 (0)
Dexterity (Dex) – 20 (0)
Intelligence (Int) – 18 (0)
Wisdom (Wis) – 18 (0)
Attunement (Atn) – 18 (0)
Solar Energy Processing
Absorption Rate: S-Rank
Capacity: S-Rank
Output Rate: Unavailable
Abilities – Tattoos
Herald of Peace (Head, Left) – Unavailable
Herald of War (Head, Right) – Unavailable
Perfect Sense (Ear, Left) – Unavailable
The Crowd as One (Ear, Right) – Unavailable
Equilibrium (Neck) – Unavailable
Wings of Anella (Shoulders, Both) – Unavailable
Spear of Clouds (Spine) – Unavailable
Way of Shadow (Chest, Left) – Unavailable
Way of Light (Chest, Right) – Unavailable
Banner of Courage (Bicep, Left) – Unavailable
Banner of Despair (Bicep, Right) – Unavailable
Touch of the Primal (Abdomen, Left) – Unavailable
Abode of Asinef (Abdomen, Right) – Unavailable
Dagger of Sath (Forearm, Left) – Unavailable
Dagger of En (Forearm, Right) – Unavailable
The Pack (Thigh, Left) – Unavailable
Waters of Frey (Thigh, Right) – Unavailable
Path of Butterflies (Calf, Left) – Unavailable
Disc of Passage (Calf, Right) – Unavailable
Well, the constant training had paid off, with his Str and Dex both increasing by a point—that was no surprise, really. His eyes continued down the page until he found what he was looking for. Output Rate: Unavailable.
“No change to my output rate.” Hiral withdrew the power fueling the status window, and the page vanished. “I’m sure it’s wrong, though. I mean, I can open my status window, so there has to be some output.”
But, when had a status window ever been wrong? No, don’t think like that. It has to be.
“Remember your training,” Loan said, having had this discussion dozens of times in the past. He added a squeeze of Hiral’s shoulder. “You work harder than anybody else. Practice longer. Your mind is sharper than any of the other initiates and ninety percent of the full Shapers. Present company excluded, of course.”
“I’m also ten years senior to any of the other initiates, and older than many full Shapers. Present company excluded.” Despite his words, he found himself quirking a smile back at his mentor.
Meridian Lines spanne
If Hiral passed the test, mastered his power, that was what he would look like in a few years. Sure, he was leaner than his teacher—the man, like most Shapers, was almost as wide as he was tall, with arms as thick as Hiral’s legs—and, while the tattoos covering Loan’s seven-foot-tall body glowed with the energy he absorbed from the sun, Hiral’s were noticeably dark. Not for long, though. This time, he’d…
“You didn’t shave your head.” Loan’s words interrupted Hiral’s thoughts, and the older man glanced at the unruly mop on Hiral’s scalp.
“I…” Hiral started, but a gong sounded from the opposite side of the door, catching the rest of his excuse in this throat and setting his heart thumping like a drum in his chest.
“Breathe,” Loan said with another squeeze of Hiral’s shoulder. “Let’s go.”
Hiral nodded at his teacher, and the bigger man let go of Hiral’s shoulder and stepped in front of him. He then put both hands on the heavy stone doors and leaned into them, legs bracing.
Muscles bunched on Loan’s back between the wide strips of cloth that crisscrossed his upper half, Meridian Lines flaring as he called on his sun-granted strength. With the power of the Meridian Lines, and being mid-B-Rank, Loan had to have close to 160 Str—almost ten times what Hiral had, or more. A grinding along the stone floor accompanied a gentle grunt escaping the man’s lips, and a gap split down the middle of the doors, bright sunlight piercing the darker room.
The huge doors, symbolic in the strength required to open them, parted to reveal the open-air testing stadium. A warm, sun-drenched breeze rushed into the opening and over Hiral’s skin, his body instinctively reaching for the light and pulling some of that power into his core. While he couldn’t output any of that power—yet—drawing it in was just as easy as breathing.
“Come,” Loan said, taking his hands off the thick blocks of stone pretending to be doors.
He strode toward the center of the stadium, where seven equally massive Shapers stood waiting along with six much smaller initiates. Barely more than children, the oldest possibly ten years old, if that, they were almost comical beside the huge, sun-powered Shapers.
Years of pulling on the sun’s energy had made the Shapers’ physiques legendary. Each in the B-Rank and standing seven feet tall on average, their corded muscles bunched and flexed with every breath. Like Loan, their Meridian Lines glowed faintly from long use, though their individual tattoos varied widely, giving each of them unique strengths.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” one of the women said when her eyes fell on Hiral stepping into the stadium. “This is a waste of our time.” She focused her ire on Loan and crossed her arms.
“Jukil is right; we’re done,” the man beside her said, turning his attention to the six initiates.
Each of the children stood tall and proud where they lined up, none with more than the sun on their chests and the Meridian Lines running straight up to circle the base of their throats and connect to their shoulders. No tattoos to shape beyond the simple daggers on their inner forearms, and no intricate system of Meridian Lines stretching out across the rest of their body to strengthen their limbs.
Judging by a quick look, those tattooed daggers couldn’t be higher than C-Rank. None of the children would ever be powerful or influential Shapers—but if they passed the test, at least they would be Shapers. As for Hiral…
No. Stop thinking like that.
Still, compared to the full set of Meridian Lines connecting Hiral from scalp to toes, and the multitude of S-Rank tattoos painstakingly etched into his skin, they were practically naked. And yet… and yet they looked at him with pity and disdain. They didn’t hide their smirks, and the one on the left end even went so far as to elbow his neighbor and whisper, “The Everfail.”
“Hush, now,” the eldest of the Shapers said quietly, turning a quick glance on the children. Though her skin stretched and sagged from her almost two hundred years, her tattoos glowed the most fiercely of all. “Though you may have passed the physical test of giving shape to one of your tattoos, you are far from Shapers if you believe behavior like that to be acceptable.” Her eyes turned toward Jukil and the man beside her, as if reminding them of the same fact.
Jukil had the decency to look abashed, until her eyes settled on Hiral again. “Well, what are you waiting for? Let’s get this over with.” She jabbed her finger toward the center of the stadium.
Hiral let the bite in her words roll off him like the warm breeze. Her attitude wasn’t anything new. She’d been the same—no, worse—the year before. This time… this time, he would prove her wrong. He’d show them all he could do it, that he could pass…
“Your tenth attempt,” one of the Shapers said. “Nine times, over nine years, you’ve come before us, and been unable to shape even the smallest thing. Not the Daggers of EnSath on your wrists, the Wings of Anella on your shoulder blades, neither of the Ways of Light or Shadow nor the Waters of Frey, or the…”
“Vule,” the eldest Shaper said softly.
The Shaper who’d been listing off Hiral’s past attempts gave a small bow of his head to the elder. “No offense intended, Ilrolik. I’m merely curious as to why this initiate, this… man…”
“Everfail,” one of the children snickered, but straightened at a sharp look from Ilrolik.
“As to why he thinks this, his tenth test, will be any different,” Vule went on as if the child hadn’t spoken at all.
Hiral waited for a small nod of Ilrolik’s head before he answered. “I’ve trained extensively for the year since my last test, and my father has finished the last of the tattoos on my…”
“The Spear of Clouds is finished?” one of the quiet Shapers interrupted. “Truly?”
“… Yes,” Hiral said slowly. “He finished it within the last pass, and the bandages came off…”
“Yes, yes, yes, you heal slowly,” the not-so-quiet-anymore Shaper said, striding out from the rest and right up to Hiral. “We know. Just show us the spear.”
“I wasn’t planning on shaping the spear…” Hiral said, and the Shaper waved a quick hand to dismiss the thought.
“Of course you weren’t. Nobody has been able to shape it in thousands of passes, despite how many hopefuls have it inked. The odds of you bringing out more than a puff of light in the vague shape of the spear is so small, I would never…” He trailed off at a slight cough from Ilrolik. “Ahem, yes. Let’s see it, then.”
“I don’t… This isn’t why I’m here…” Hiral said, looking at the man.
“Please humor us,” Ilrolik said, coming up beside the other Shaper. “Your father’s work is masterful, and to finally see his rendition of the S-Ranked Spear of Clouds is a treat for us. We will proceed with your test after that.”
Hiral’s eyes went to Loan, and the man gave a small nod as he and the other Shapers walked over and encircled Hiral.
“As usual,” Loan said, “Master Dorin’s work is exceptional. It took my breath away the first time I saw it. Hiral, if you would…” He gestured to the wide swaths of cloth over Hiral’s shoulders.
Even the initiates crept over as Hiral slid the shoulders of the ceremonial robe down his arms so they hung loosely by the tight belt around his waist.
“Well, where…?” Vule started to ask, but the gasp from one of the Shapers behind Hiral had the whole group moving around behind him. Predictably, there were twelve more sharp intakes of breath as the others joined the first.
Hiral stayed perfectly still as their eyes became glued to the spear tattooed up the length of his spine. The less he moved, the sooner this would all be over so he could take the test.
“The detail… Amazing,” Jukil said in barely a whisper, and fingers traced down Hiral’s back.
“Master Dorin has truly outdone himself with this,” Ilrolik said. “His work is usually so small, but the scope of this has allowed for unprecedented detail. The spear almost looks like it could shape itself with the faintest application of power.”
“There has never been a more perfect version of the Spear of Clouds, I’d dare say,” Loan agreed. “Other than the original, I would imagine. Though, since none of us has ever actually seen it, perhaps my statement holds some truth.”
