Rune Seeker

Chapter 28: A New Foe

“I’m not keen on trying to swim,” Yanily said from beside Hiral.

“And I don’t think it’ll drain anytime soon,” Hiral said, watching the rain pitter-pattering into the surface of the newly formed lake. “Is there a way around it?”

“Probably?” Vix said. “But it’s always only been a path before. Maybe through the woods somewhere?”

“Without the sun to act as a reference point, we risk getting completely lost,” Wule said. “No guarantees we’ll find our way back to the path, or to the dungeon.”

“Can’t we follow the edge of the lake around until we find the path on the other side?” Left offered.

“Assuming it’s actually a lake,” Lonil said.

“It is,” Hiral said, crouching down by the waterline. “Look, the water isn’t moving, like a river would. For now, it’s all just right here.”

“You know, I don’t think we’re that far from the dungeon, if this is the part of the path I think it is,” Nivian said. “Maybe another mile past where the path rises on the other side.”

“And how far is that from here?” Hiral asked, trying to remember this part from earlier.

“Not that far, on a dry, sunny day,” Nivian said. “Five hundred feet, maybe.”

“Still don’t want to swim it,” Yanily said.

“We’re going around, like Left suggested,” Seeyela finally stated. “And since he’s the one who came up with the idea, we’ll go left in his honor.”

The others chuckled slightly, then started around the edge of the lake, the water on their right.

“Hiral, keep an eye on the woods,” Seeyela said. “I’m sure Troblins would love to find us with our backs against the water and nowhere to go.”

“Sure,” Hiral said, though he motioned to Left for the double to join him for a moment while they walked.

“Yes?” Left asked.

“I’ll watch the woods, you keep an eye on the water,” Hiral suggested.

“You think there might be something in the newly formed lake,” Left said, and it wasn’t a question.

“I have no idea,” Hiral answered. “Better safe than sorry.”

“Understood,” Left said, making his way back to the front of the line as the group moved.

As they walked, they found it wasn’t just trees on one side of them, with many of the mammoth trunks extending up from within the lake itself. The water rippled as the rain fell, but so far, nothing stirred on land or from within the dark depths. The Light Darts wound their way above the group and through the trees, tossing shadows as they passed behind branches and trunks, but didn’t reveal anything looking to make lunch out of the group.

Around thirty minutes later, Left called out from the front, “I see the path.”

“That wasn’t so bad,” Yanily said as everybody moved out from the woods and back onto the path, which continued to the left before vanishing into the water a few feet away on the right. “There wasn’t even a…”

SPLASH. Something hit the water directly out from them. Something big, as large ripples washed up on the shore.

“You had to say something,” Balyo said, lifting her spear and pointing it toward the water.

“We’re not staying to find out what that was,” Seeyela said, another SPLASH sounding off to their right. “Let’s go. Dungeon, come on, come on.”

The group all gave one last look over their shoulders, then continued up the path away from the lake, the mud squelching and slipping with every step. While the rain wasn’t as heavy as it had been at the storm-wall, it was constant and never-ending, turning the ground into a quagmire of sucking sludge.

“What do you think that was, back there at the lake?” Yanily asked Hiral a few minutes later, the water long gone from their small pool of light.

“Why are you asking me?” Hiral asked just as a branch high above them and off to their left snapped.

Hiral didn’t even get a chance to look in response to the sound before more branches started snapping, faster and faster, closer and closer to the ground, as if something was falling. Then a muffled thump hit the ground somewhere off to their side.

“You all heard that too?” Cal asked, but every head turning in the same direction answered the question.

“Yeah,” Seeyela said, snapping her head around in the opposite direction as the same branch-cracking thump pattern repeated itself somewhere deeper in the woods to their right. Then came a third somewhere behind them. “Keep moving,” Seeyela instructed, even repeating herself when Lonil didn’t get going quickly enough for her liking.

“There’s more,” Hiral said, his ears perking as the distant sounds of more branches breaking reached him. “Three—no, four—more.” He stopped at a much closer sound. “Careful, straight ahead!” he warned, just as a branch directly ahead snapped far above.

Left must’ve heard it too, because he grabbed Lonil and hauled the man backwards, toppling through Vix and Fitch, but possibly saving the tank’s life as something big thumped into the ground right where they’d been standing.

“What do you think you’re doing…?” Fitch cursed from the bottom of the pile, half-submerged in mud, while the others rushed forward to help them up.

“Everybody okay?” Seena asked, helping pull Left to his feet while Yanily and Seeyela helped Lonil up.

Vix and Fitch were back up only a few seconds after that, though Fitch was staring daggers at Left.

“Yeah, I’m fine, thanks to Left,” Lonil said. “What… what is that?”

All eyes turned on the strange mass ahead of them.

Easily twice the size of any of them, it was some kind of bulbous brown sac—almost like it was made out of wood, but far too moist for that.

“Doesn’t… doesn’t that look like those strange growths on the trees we see sometimes?” Vix asked, taking a step closer to the lump, then quickly jumping back as something within the sac stirred.

Another shift—something inside the sac clearly moving—and then five finger-length claws pierced the material, the sound like tearing cloth rising above the falling rain. Within seconds, a lizard big enough for a person to ride ripped its way from the cocoon, foot-long spines protruding in a ring around its throat, across its skull, and then down its wide back and long tail.

Easily twenty feet long as it unfurled itself, it turned to look at the group and opened its huge mouth to reveal row upon row of sharp teeth. A deep kind of croak boomed out of its throat. Its head rotated ninety degrees, and it launched itself forward.

Lonil was the fastest to react, his body hardening into stone in a heartbeat, and he leapt in front of the party as the lizard struck. Its maw closed around the tank’s torso like a vise. He grunted in pain, his feet sliding back through the mud from the lizard’s rocketing momentum, and the rest of the party barely managed to dive aside to get out of the way.

Fifteen feet further back, the lizard found enough purchase in the slick mud to finally come to a stop. Tail lashing for balance, it thrashed its head side to side, flailing poor Lonil about like a ragdoll.

“Get him out!” Seeyela shouted as a red sphere appeared right above the lizard’s back.

Unlike the Troblins who’d been sucked into the Gravity Well and annihilated, the lizard didn’t even notice the ability or its pull. While the rain in the air got sucked into the sphere, along with mud from the ground, the lizard ignored the force and continued to shake Lonil around madly.

“Damnit,” Seeyela swore. She snapped her fingers, and the Gravity Well erupted like a bubble bursting.

Water exploded in a tight circle with enough force to ripple across the lizard’s spines and bend its legs, the mud around it in a ten-foot circle flattening out. But, still, it didn’t let go of Lonil, though it did turn its head slightly to the side so it could see them from one large, unblinking eye.

Without waiting to see what the rest of the party would do, Hiral darted forward and found the spined tail already sweeping in his direction like it knew he was coming. One more step, his foot somehow finding purchase on the slick ground, and he kicked up and to the left to flip over the powerful appendage that swung underneath him. No sooner had he landed than the tail was already coming back, and even with his newly improved Dex, he’d never be able to jump it again.

Instead, letting his instincts take over, he reached out his left hand toward one of the trees along the side of the path and activated his Rune of Attraction. Like he’d been yanked by a giant hand, Hiral hauled himself out of the way as the tail came back, twisting in the air just enough to hit the tree feet-first and bending his knees to absorb the impact. Gravity took over a second later, and he dropped to the ground as Yanily slipped past the tail thanks to Hiral’s distraction.

Spear dancing and bending like a reed in the wind, Yanily laid into the side of the lizard, his lightning-quick strikes ringing off the thick spines and scales like a drum.

“Heavily armored,” Yanily shouted before the lizard spun supernaturally fast, its tail whipping around and colliding with his chest to hurl him backwards. He hit the ground just in front of Hiral, the leathers on his chest torn and blood seeping through. “Ow,” he muttered, but was already sitting up.

Lonil hung dazed from the lizard’s mouth, and while some blood ran from between the sharp teeth, it didn’t look nearly as bad as it could’ve been. Snap. Nivian’s thorned whip slapped into the lizard’s snout, and while the weapon didn’t leave any lasting damage, the lizard’s eyes narrowed as it looked at the other tank.

More than happy to have the monster’s attention, Nivian charged straight at it, his whip snapping out a second and third time to make sure its attention stayed firmly on him.

A rumbling growl rolled up the lizard’s throat, and it half-spit, half-coughed Lonil out of its mouth to flop to the ground, then sprang forward, jaw snapping.

Having seen the move once already, Nivian was mostly ready for it, his shield quickly growing in size as he planted it between the lizard’s closing jaws. The thorny shield gave a worrying creak as it bent under the strength of the powerful maw, and Nivian’s feet slid several feet back in the mud, but he held his ground. Then, bracing his shield with his other arm as well, solar energy pulsed from the man, and the thorns on the shield doubled in length.

That clearly pissed the lizard off. Another booming croak belched out of its throat, and its clawed feet scrabbled at the ground.

“Vix! Fitch!” Nivian shouted along with a huge pulse of solar energy, and the men appeared as if by magic beside him.

Without missing a beat, they each cut to the sides of the wide jaws stuck on Nivian’s shield and laid into the forward shoulders. Blows landed as fast as the falling rain drops, but neither damage dealerseemed to be able to punch through the tough scales.

“Set it up for Balyo,” Seena shouted, obviously seeing the same thing. “Right side.”

“She always gets the easy jobs,” Yanily grunted, back on his feet. “C’mon, Hiral. We’ve gotta distract it again.”

“I’ve got… another idea. Just let me test something out,” Hiral said as he remembered how Balyo had hit the crystal monster before. If that kind of blow was enough to put the lizard down, they’d be fine. But, on the other hand, if it wasn’t enough to finish it off, they needed to already be thinking about the next move—the spines and scales simply looked to be that tough. “Just make sure you aren’t between me and the lizard.”

“Uh… sure… whatever,” Yanily said, no time to spare as the others launched themselves at the lizard to keep its attention while Balyo swung around to the opposite side and began to gather solar energy in her spear.

“Seeyela, can you give me a couple of those Gravity Wells right above it?” Hiral shouted at the woman.

“Why? It didn’t work before,” she said.

“I know, but I need it to be lighter,” Hiral said. “Trust me on this, okay? Right, I want you to hit in the chin at same time Balyo attacks. Got it? As hard as you can.”

“I don’t think it has a glass jaw, but sure,” Right said, also focusing his solar energy in the Meridian Lines of his right fist.

“Left, I need you to get Lonil out of there,” Hiral said.

“Already on it,” the tattooed double shouted, darting in and narrowly avoiding a swinging claw, then grabbing Lonil’s hand and dragging him out of harm’s way.

So far, so good.

As soon as the red Gravity Wells began to appear above the lizard’s back, Hiral ducked around behind the tree he’d pulled himself toward before.

“I hope this works,” he muttered, bracing himself against the trunk as best he could with his right arm and leg, then extending his left hand toward the lizard. Now he just needed to wait for the right moment.

Light Darts zipped in and struck the lizard like stinging insects, their energy flaring with each impact but doing little more than heating the tough scales. A wild slash of the front claw managed to catch Fitch in the thigh, and the man staggered back with blood running down his leg from the three gashes.

“Balyo? How long?” Nivian shouted, legs spread as he fought against the lizard trying to thrash its head around like it had with Lonil. His shield gave another desperate creak at the same time Vix ducked back in for another barrage.

SNAP. The shield cracked in two, Nivian barely getting his arm out before he lost it to the lizard’s teeth, while the monster whipped its head to the side. The sudden jerking movement caught Vix completely unprepared, and the batting blow hurled him off to the side to crash into the bushes.

“Ready!” Balyo finally said, her solar energy peaking and her spear glowing like an earth-bound sun.

“Right!” Hiral shouted at the same time.

“On it!” Right shouted back, dashing in, grabbing Nivian’s shoulder with one hand, and hauling him back while sweeping his right hand down, under, and up.

Glowing energy trailed the Meridian Lines of Right’s punch, the force of it carving a divot in the mud at his feet, while Balyo set herself and lunged forward, her spearhead suddenly bigger than she was.

Now! Hiral shouted in his own head, flooding his Rune of Attractionwith as much solar energy as he could.

The two titanic blows hit the lizard at almost exactly the same time, Right’s uppercut catching it square in the jaw as the lizard’s head swung back from hitting Vix and lifting its front half from the ground with the aid of the Gravity Wells. Balyo’s spear strike simultaneously slammed into it from the side, crunching scales and spines with a horrific grinding sound, but still not quite punching right through.

But, there, hanging in the air, Hiral’s Rune of Attraction latched on to the lizard. If the monster had been on the ground, or if Hiral hadn’t had himself braced against the tree, he probably would’ve shot straight toward a spiny end. Instead, however, the lizard lurched through the air, twisting from the impacts of the two blows, to collide heavily with the tree right in front of Hiral.

The entire five-foot-wide trunk shook from the crash, something snapping as the lizard’s tail and back legs bent awkwardly, and Hiral toppled backwards.

Still, thanks to his 29 modified Dex, he was back on his feet a second later. He rounded the tree opposite the twitching tail to find the beast pinned to the trunk by its own spines. The front legs still lashed out and clawed for purchase, but hanging the way it was, it wouldn’t be able to pull itself free.

“Wow,” Seena said as most of the others rushed over, though Cal and Wule were moving to look after the wounded.

“The belly scales don’t look as strong as the others,” Seeyela pointed out. “Balyo, you got enough for one more?”

“You bet I do,” the woman said, setting her feet and gathering her solar energy again.

Six seconds later, her energy peaked, and she drove her powerful spear straight into the lizard’s exposed stomach. Unlike the scales and spines lining the top of it, these softer scales put up almost no resistance, and Balyo’s spear nearly cut the lizard in two.

“Good job, everybody,” Seeyela said. “Let’s make sure…” She trailed off as another lizard’s bellowing croaks echoed from somewhere deeper in the woods.

Then a second. A third. A fourth. A fifth.

From all around them.