Rune Seeker

“…and that’s all the tattoos I know they have,” Hiral said, two hours later. “Problem is, there could be more. In fact, I guarantee there are more.”

The group had slowed from a jog to a steady walk, the best the injured Growers could keep up. And, really, everybody was pushing their limits anyway.

“That’s… that’s already enough to worry about,” Vix said, his eyes wide after the details Hiral had given them.

Can’t say I blame them. Shaper magic is powerful, which is probably why so many of them have superiority complexes.

“I don’t know what we can do against half of that,” Nivian said. “Correction: I don’t know what we can do against most of that. Maybe one of them, we could slow down enough to… I don’t know, get a few people suited up and jumping. But a full group, with all those abilities on hand, at C- or B-Rank? We’re in trouble.”

“We’re only in trouble if they’re actually waiting for us,” Seena pointed out. “There’s still the chance that crystal thing hurt them enough to make them have better things to do than worry about us.”

“Hope the reverse is true too,” Yanily said. “That’s twice we ran into it. I’d rather not a third after seeing what it can do to a B-Rank.”

“It’s been a few hours since then. At this point, I think we’re pretty much okay…” Wule said, only for the ground to shake so violently, it sent most of the Growers stumbling to the ground.

Thanks to his high Dex, Hiral managed to keep his feet, and he quick-stepped to the side of the path and used a thick tree to help balance himself.

“No idea,” Seena shouted back, but it was all over a moment later, other than the distant sound of falling rocks.

“Does that happen on the surface often?” Hiral asked, walking over and offering Seena a hand to help her to her feet. “I think I read about something called an earthquake?”

Just a quick look at her sister, then Seena took Hiral’s hand and stood up. “Never when I’ve been down here. Sis?”

“First time for me,” Seeyela said. “Everybody okay?”

“No worse than we were five minutes ago,” Nivian said. “But, that sound… it came from ahead of us.”

“Ahead… The mountain?” Hiral asked, suddenly running through the tattoo inventory he’d shared with them again in his head. “The Way of Earth. It’s a tattoo that doesn’t get used much, because we have to be so careful with the ground up in Fallen Reach. Down here, though? It could be very… dangerous.”

“How dangerous?” Seena asked.

“Depends. How obvious is the path up to the jump point?”

Seena closed her eyes and rubbed the bridge of her nose. “To somebody flying? Very.”

“Let’s hope I’m wrong, then.”

“Let’s,” Seena agreed, and the group went back to a fast jog along the path.

The forest quickly grew sparser after that, the green cover breaking apart to reveal blue sky directly above and needle-like mountains just ahead. Faint dust hung in the air, sparkling slightly, and coated the branches on both sides of the path. Rounding a corner, then cresting a small hill in the path, the group got their first good look at the mountain they needed to climb to reach the jump point.

Well, would’ve needed to climb… had there still been a path.

It almost looked like the entire side of the mountain had come down in a wide avalanche, piles and piles of stones and boulders towering fifty or sixty feet in the air. And, beyond them, a sheer cliff face so perfectly smooth it couldn’t possibly be natural.

“Sons of bitches,” Seena cursed.

Half of the Growers just stood staring dumbfounded at the destruction. The other half turned on Hiral.

“The Way of Earth,” he said with a shake of his head. “One of the B-Rank Shapers must’ve used it. I don’t think C-Rank could’ve achieved this.”

“What does it matter what Rank they were? They’ve killed us,” one of Seeyela’s group said.

None of them had bothered to introduce themselves to Hiral, and he still didn’t know any names other than Seeyela, Picoli, or Fitch, but that didn’t make the woman any more wrong.

“Is there another way up?” Hiral asked Seena, ignoring the unnamed Grower.

“Maybe, on the far side of the mountain,” she said, looking at her sister. “Do you think we could make it?”

Seeyela was already shaking her head. “No. There might’ve been another path, once, but this is the only one we’ve used for generations. Besides, if those Islanders went to all the trouble of collapsing this path, you can bet they looked to see if there were more. Right, Hiral?”

“They had an Artist with them,” Hiral said, as if that answered the question. From the looks on their faces, it didn’t. “The Shapers—the ones with the tattoos—they don’t put many points into their mental attributes, focusing entirely on raw power. If the group was just Shapers, I’d say there was a chance another path might be intact.

“With an Artist, though? No. They almost entirely put their attribute points into their mental stats to improve their craft. They need higher mental stats, attunement especially, to craft higher-rank tattoos. It was probably his idea in the first place to do this.” Hiral gestured weakly at the sheared-off mountain.

“So, they really did kill us,” Vix said, dropping down to sit on the ground, his gaze locked on the unclimbable mountain.

Hiral’s eyes, at the same time, drifted up, up, up, past the floating Nomad islands miles above in the sky, to Fallen Reach. It was already well past the jump point, the spiraling mist below it leaving a curtain of moisture in its wake. It was kind of beautiful, in a way, like the water was carrying the floating island along through the sky.

And carrying it away from Hiral and the others.

Guess I missed dinner, and breakfast. Bet Nat is pissed I didn’t get the cake like I promised. No, that’s not fair. She’s actually going to miss me. At least Mom will be happy…

“When I told you you might die, this wasn’t exactly what I meant,” Seena said quietly from beside him, snapping him out of his spiraling inner conversation.

“Yeah, I expected a much more dramatic and sudden ending to this trip,” Hiral said, and quietly slapped one hand down on the other. “I’m sorry it turned out this way.”

“Me too,” Seena said. “It’s too bad too—for more than the obvious reasons, I mean. We finally figured out how to access the dungeon interfaces. Generations and generations, we’ve been in the dark about it, and all we had to do was bring an Islander with us.”

“Not a lot of trust between our two peoples,” Hiral said.

“It’s hard to trust Islanders, Hiral, when you’re literally above us. When Fallen Reach blocks sunlight from the only safe islands we have. All the others, the ones that actually get sunlight, could fail at any time. Sure, they usually last a few years, but not always. Let’s not even talk about some of the things we trade for that we need.” The anger in her words didn’t sound directed at Hiral specifically.

“It’s no different for us,” Hiral said, and had to pat the air to stop Seena from immediately objecting. “Really. Everything revolves around the quills. Without them, no tattoos. No Meridian Lines. And… up until today, I thought the only way to get those quills was to trade with your people. Though, I guess that’s still true since that group”—he vaguely waved his hand up toward the sky—“didn’t actually succeed.”

“No, but they’ll keep trying. And when they finally do get it right, everything changes. You Islanders ‘put up’ with us tagging along behind Fallen Reach, siphoning off some of the magic that keeps it afloat, because we can provide the quills. Once that’s gone, all those half-buried hostilities between us may not stay so buried. And, if it came to a fight, up there…”

Hiral couldn’t do anything but nod. Seena was right, in a fashion. That was how a lot of Islanders felt. Baseless racism, but it didn’t change the reality of it. If the people of Fallen Reach didn’t need the Nomads—the Growers—how far would they go to get rid of them? Most barely acknowledged their existence, turning a purposely blind eye to where the quills came from.

“If I’d made it back up, I could’ve talked to my father and Arty. Seen if they knew anything about this, and found out if it was sanctioned by the Council.”

“And if it was? Sanctioned, I mean. Would you have been able to change it?”

“It’s not the first time Islanders have come down to try and harvest the quills,” Seeyela said, coming over to join them. “But it is the first time they’ve attacked us like this. Maybe I should be surprised it took somebody this long to have the stones to do it, but frankly, I’m just too pissed.” At this, she turned that familiar glare on Hiral.

“You and me both,” Hiral said. “But, I can’t believe the Council would sanction this. I just can’t. My father is on the Council, and he’s always supported the quill trade. Says it makes us better people to need to rely on somebody else. Keeps us… humble.”

“Hah,” Seeyela barked, and even Seena was chuckling. “Humble is never a word I would’ve used to describe an Islander.”

“Well, until I met Hiral, at least,” Seena said. “For an Islander, he’s not too bad.”

“Does leave us the question of what we’re going to do with you, though, doesn’t it?” Seeyela said, meeting his eyes. “Maybe Seena’s group thinks of you the same way she does, but my party… we’re not so trusting. Not after what happened to us. Not after…” She pointed at the mountain.

“That’s an easy answer, actually,” Hiral said. “I… think I know exactly what we should do.”

“Oh, yes, very humble,” Seeyela said flatly to her sister, but then turned back to Hiral again. “Do tell. What should we do now that we basically have a death sentence? The rains will be on us within a few hours, and then…”

“Are you planning to give up?” Hiral asked, and both Seena and Seeyela gave him the insulted looks he expected. “Then, as I see it, we just need to find a way to survive until the islands pass by again.”

“Just survive, he says,” Seeyela said to her sister. “Like it’s that easy. Maybe you missed the part where nobody has ever survived to see another rotation?”

Hiral looked at Seena and smiled. “Pretty sure we already did something today that nobody else has ever done before. What’s one more?”

Seeyela looked between the two of them, her eyes narrowing. “Obviously, there is some kind of inside joke here, and I’m not a big fan of seeing that between my little sister and an Islander. For the moment, I’m going to put that aside so you can tell us what your big plan is.”

“We need to go back to the dungeon,” Hiral said simply.

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