Rune Seeker

Hiral looked up at the four-story building as lightning flashed high in the clouds above and the wind began to pick up.

“Rain’s getting harder,” Wule said, as if thinking about the same thing crossing Hiral’s mind.

“Shouldn’t we go in, then?” Yanily asked.

“Excuse me,” Left said from further down the street, near the edge of the forest where the paved roadway once again gave way to mud and dirt. “I think I found some tracks.”

“Let me see,” Picoli said, jogging over and crouching down to look at the mud with her Light Darts hovering nearby. “Tri-Horns, from the looks of it. That’s lucky.”

“Tri-Horns?” Hiral asked Seena.

“Hooved animals—kind of like a horse, I guess. They have three horns on their heads, and more along their spines. Very tasty.”

“You hunt them?”

“When we can find them,” she said. “Any idea how old the tracks are?” she asked louder in Picoli’s direction.

“Have to be recent for us to be able to see them in the rain. I’d say we just missed them.” Picoli stood, looking up and down the line of buildings as if she’d catch sight of them.

“We going inside or going hunting?” Lonil asked Seeyela.

“We could split up,” Seena offered. “One of us secures the building—and maybe those around it, just to be safe—and the other group could go get some fresh meat.”

Seeyela looked up as another flash of lightning lit the street, and thunder rumbled behind it. “No,” she finally said, drawing the word out slowly. “We don’t know how bad this storm can get. We didn’t pay enough attention around the dungeon. We’ll all go in together. I’m sure we’ll find more Tri-Horns later if they’re around.

“Seena, my party will clear floor one while you find a way up to the second floor and clear it. When that’s done, let us know and we’ll move to three while you go to four. Questions?”

“None. After you,” Seena said, and Lonil strode into the building at a nod from Seeyela.

“Say when,” Nivian said.

Seena gave him the familiar shoulder tap to send him in.

“If this is like the buildings up on Fallen Reach, look for stairs in a back corner,” Hiral instructed before following.

Glowing plants crawled along the floor, walls, and ceiling, providing a surprising amount of light to show how old furniture had been piled in front of the windows. Even the door they walked through had stuff piled in front of it, though it looked as if it had been bashed through. Windows on the far wall stood shattered, their stone frames pulled apart in many places, like something had ripped them open from the outside. The back-left corner of the building was missing entirely, rain pouring off the sides like small waterfalls.

There looked to be another room off to the left, which was where Lonil headed, and like Hiral had suggested, a staircase stood in the back-right corner.

“There,” Seena suggested, and Nivian was already moving.

“What happened here?” Vix asked.

“Bad things, obviously,” Yanily said as Nivian worked his way up the stairs, Wule right behind him, the others already climbing the steps as well.

Hiral ran his fingers along the wall on his right while he followed the others up the stairs, the stone cool under his touch. Solid, and still in good shape despite all the years. And rain—wouldn’t it ruin the mortar between the… hrm. No mortar, he realized as he looked closer. Somehow, the stones fit together so perfectly, there was barely a seam, let alone need for mortar.

Just like Fallen Reach. This has to have been built by the same people.

“I think…” he started, but a commotion at the head of the line cut him off, something hitting Nivian’s shield as the man tucked under it.

Whatever it was, it went right up and over the shield, then hit the line of Growers like a bowling ball through pins. People toppled forward or sideways in front of Hiral, until something caught him in the shins and pulled his legs right out from under him.

His chin hit a higher step with a painfully resounding thwack at the same time his chest did, knocking the air from his lungs and sending stars flashing in his eyes. He put one hand under himself to push up, but then something latched onto the back of his calf and, before he knew it, crawled up across his legs and back. A second later, his lungs still burning to take in air, powerful, bark-skinned limbs encased in glowing green bands of energy wrapped around his throat.

What little air he’d been pulling in cut off with brutal finality as the Troblin on his back squeezed. The others were still too busy trying to find their feet to even notice what was happening behind them. Hiral clawed at the arms with his bare hands, but even his 18 Str wasn’t enough to dislodge the thing quickly choking him to death.

Those green bands are a powerful buff to make a Troblin that strong… Wait… buffs!

With a pulse of solar energy, Hiral activated his Enraged ability. Power flowed through his PIM, and the double-helix pattern on his arms flared. With a newly empowered Str of 27 filling his body, he grasped at the Troblin’s arms around his neck, ready to pry them apart… but he didn’t have the leverage. The Troblin’s arms were too tight against his throat to squeeze his hands in, and he still wasn’t strong enough to simply peel the arms open.

Just how strong is that buff? Fifteen strength? Twenty?

Analyzing the buff wasn’t going to get him out of the situation, though. Darkness was already swarming in around the edges of his vision, so Hiral put his palm down to the step beneath him and activated his Rune of Rejection. Hiral—and the Troblin on his back—shot straight up to hit the ceiling with a violent crack, the arms around his neck slackening just a touch, then gravity took over.

“Ooof,” Hiral groaned, releasing his sole precious breath as he crashed back down on the stairs.

He slid his left hand in between his neck and the Troblin’s arms. It wasn’t enough to break the thing’s hold on him, but it did stop it from crushing his throat. Then, before it could wrestle for a better grip, Hiral twisted to the side and threw himself back-first toward the stone wall.

A breathy exhalation sounded in his ear at the impact, but the arms weren’t letting go, and he didn’t have the leverage from his position for another wall-slam. Worse, flaring green, the arms pulled tighter around him.

Need to do something about that buff.

Hiral’s hand bent awkwardly as he fought against the crushing press of the arms, but he didn’t have the angle to push them back, and even as he reached with his right hand, he couldn’t get hold of the Troblin. With nothing more than a pinprick of light left to his eyes, Hiral desperately activated his Rune of Absorption. Green light tore off the Troblin’s arms, then wrapped around Hiral’s.

You have been buffed by Troblin Might.

Strength increased by 15 for 10 minutes (540 seconds remaining).

With his newfound 42 Str, Hiral easily pried the arms away from his throat and gasped in a lungful of blessed air. Then, pulling the Troblin higher on his back, he finally found the front of its face with his right hand.

His Rune of Impact did the rest of the work. There was a sound like a club hitting a watermelon right behind his ear, and the arms went slack.

Shrugging off the body, Hiral pushed himself to hands and knees while he pulled deep breath after deep breath into his burning lungs. The others? They weren’t on the stairs right in front of him, but the sounds of fighting from the top of the stairwell echoed as his own rushing blood quieted in his ears.

One more breath and he got to his feet, only looking briefly at the glowing green bands of energy around his biceps—I absorbed the buff—then dashed up the stairs. Two Troblins lay right at the head of the stairs, one of them getting back to its feet, so Hiral grabbed it by its ankle and hefted it into the air upside-down.

(Elite) Troblin Warrior – Mid-E-Rank

Elites? Explains why they’re so tough, but why are they outside a dungeon?

The Troblin in his hand hissed at him, but that became a strangled yelp as Hiral whipped his arm up and around in a fast-pitch that sent the beast cartwheeling through the air to blast into another of its kind. The two Troblins vanished through a door and into an adjacent room, a loud crash signaling the end of their flight, and then there was silence.

Hiral drew both RHCs from his thighs and looked around the large room. Like below, glowing roots crawled along every surface, providing enough light to see by, and there were two hallways extending off the main room. Doors dotted the walls of both halls, and three Troblin bodies lay bleeding on the floor. Counting the one that’d tried to strangle him, then the two in the room, that made six.

“Yanily, Vix, make sure those two in there are dead.” Seena pointed toward the room Hiral had tossed the Troblins into. “Be careful. Could be more.”

“Got it, boss,” Yanily said, then he and Vix disappeared into the room. A few quick thuds later, they came back out, Yanily wiping blood from the blade of his spear. “Taken care of. Racial Growth hit level four too. I pity the next Troblins we run into.”

“Everybody okay?” Seena asked, turning as she spoke. She stopped when she got to Hiral, her eyes on the glowing green bands. “What’s that?”

“Seems I can absorb buffs,” Hiral said. “These things add fifteen strength.”

“Fifteen?” Wule asked. “For a Troblin? That’s a huge amount.”

“And, I’m not sure if you noticed in all the chaos, but these were Elites,” Hiral added.

The Growers’ eyes flicked as they read notifications, but they were all nodding. Well, all but Yanily.

“Hah! Level twenty!” he said with a fist pump.

“Congratulations,” Seena said, “but we’ll celebrate later. We need to see if there are any more of these little bastards hiding in here.”

“Good job,” Nivian said, giving Yanily a pat on the shoulder. They then led the party down the hallway that didn’t go to the stairwell.

Like Hiral had suspected, the building had to have been an inn, judging by the beds and dressers in the small rooms, though time had had its way with most of it. Little more than pieces of the wood furniture were left; the bedding and mattresses had long since rotted away. It wasn’t until they got to the final room at the end of the hall they found more than wreckage.

There, in what was the largest room they’d seen so far—more a suite than anything else—they found an immaculately clean room. Six neatly rolled but small bedrolls, folded blankets, a small table with dinner precisely served, and even an easel in one corner of the room with an in-progress drawing on it.

A drawing of an uncomfortably suggestive Troblin.

“What… what did we just interrupt?” Yanily asked.

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