Rune Seeker - Book 3: Chapter 49: Unsealing

While Odi’s notes about his progress with the runes he’d used to create the seal for the Urn of Ur’Thul were fascinating, they suffered from the same problem as Hiral’s conversations with Catchin: He already knew most of it. Long pages were devoted to the discovery of the Runes of Attraction and Absorption, and then even more when Odi made a breakthrough on the concept of the Rune of Energy.

Pages later, Hiral found sections on using the Rune of Expansion to determine the area the seal focused on, which was interesting. It made sense, considering how the Emperor’s Greatsword used the same rune to grow in size. Part of the whole unsealing process…

At the same time Hiral had that thought, his fingers traced along the page to stop on a rune he didn’t know, but one he should’ve guessed would be within the pages of the book: the Rune of Sealing.

Makes sense, considering what the whole point of this research was.

At first, Hiral thought it was just the opposite of his Rune of Separation, but, continuing his reading—that wasn’t quite it. Where separation seemed… literal—actually breaking things apart—the Rune of Sealing wasn’t about just putting them together. It wasn’t some kind of glue rune at all, in fact. It was almost a more metaphysical idea. Not quite at the level of his three advanced-concept runes, it still held deeper truths than something like his Runes of Increase or Decrease.

It was more like a… lock.

Hiral flopped onto his back and looked up again at the stars as the implications of the rune’s usage bounced around in his head. Even the dungeon they were in—all the dungeons, actually—likely used this Rune of Sealing to separate them from the real world. It had to be part of creating the pocket space the instances existed within, and maybe even their ability to reset themselves after the party left. The dungeons weren’t just sealed away from normal time and space, but also sealed within their designated times. Sealed loops.

He put his hand to his head, as simply trying to wrap his brain around it was giving him a headache. The complexity of it aside—as well as the actual details of how the dungeons worked—it felt right. There had to be something else at play that let the party in and out, along with the connection to the vault. Was that just the Rune of Gravity? Or was there something else involved in it?

Was it the Rune of Unsealing?

Even as the implications of that materialized in his mind’s eye, the double-helix script across his body exploded outwards into a now familiar sphere. Up he floated off the ground, while rampant energies cascaded off him to either side.

Characters within the floating script shifted and became clearer, even the stars above morphing as if they each held hidden truths. Hiral blinked, and the night sky began to suddenly rotate to the left, the pinpricks of light streaking into long lines. Then the whole thing just… shattered.

The stars—the sky itself—fell like shards of broken glass towards him. Spinning, twisting as they plummeted, each fragmented pane held thousands of the still-streaking stars, but they weren’t what really grabbed Hiral’s attention. No, it was what lay beyond the broken sky.

Between the shattered sky of the dungeon Hiral was in and the star-filled sky of the dungeon outside of it hung what looked like a black crack in reality. Almost like a frozen lightning bolt of pure darkness. The crack pulsed, and Hiral felt something look back at him.

As Hiral’s eyes widened, more of the cracks became visible, along with small pearls of light. Are those… other dungeons?

“What…?” he started to ask, but his double helix snapped back to his body at the same time the starry sky reformed above him. Not even a second later, his back thumped down on the ground, and his Meridian Lines and tattoos appeared on his skin.

Breathing deeply and unable to tear his eyes off where he’d seen those cracks—those gates—Hiral just lay there until he had enough solar energy to activate Foundational Split. Left and Right peeled off of him, likewise lying on the blanket on their backs, and together all three of them looked at the stars.

“What did you do?” Right asked. “Did you break the dungeon?”

“Maybe for a second,” Hiral admitted. “What the hell was that crack?”

“I think you know the answer to that,” Left said. “It was one of the gates the Enemy came through.”

“More than one,” Right pointed out.

“How many are there? Are Enemies coming through all of them? Are they right outside this dungeon?” Hiral asked the questions rapid-fire.

“Likely not,” Left said. “I suspect these dungeons don’t adhere to most natural laws, one being they don’t exist within the same reality our world does. I think you caught a glimpse of the space where the dungeons reside. Something like being within an Interspatial Ring.”

“And, you should probably be really careful with your new runes when you’re in a dungeon,” Right said.

“Why’s that?” Hiral asked.

“Guessing you haven’t looked at the results of your explosion yet?”

“Uh…” Hiral sat up. First, to his right, he spotted the wine bottle floating in the air. No, that wasn’t quite accurate. The bottle seemed to be suspended within a perfect three-foot sphere. Right carefully tapped the border of the orb with his knuckle, and it sounded almost like a solid object.

“I think you created a dungeon within a dungeon within a dungeon,” Right said. “A shame—this wine wasn’t bad. I wonder if it’s considered a Boss now?”

“Even if it is, that’s better than what’s on this side,” Left said, and Hiral turned that way.

While his Rune of Sealing had, well, sealed the wine in its own space, his Rune of Unsealing had clearly damaged the membrane of the dungeon. It wasn’t to the same extent as the shattered sky—he couldn’t see the space between dungeons—but all his instincts were telling him it wouldn’t be good to leave it there.

It didn’t seem like it was unstable—or could outright maim somebody—and if he pushed it hard enough, he might be able to force his way out of the dungeon entirely. A nagging voice in the back of his head told him that would be a bad idea, though. He’d basically used the Rune of Unsealing to unlock another door into the dungeon. And, considering what they were hiding from, he really needed to make sure it stayed closed.

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Standing up, Hiral looked down at the two new runes on his thighs—he’d have to talk to Left about the new tattoo the double had access to—but first things first. Relying on those same instincts as before, Hiral reached out a hand while he gently threaded solar energy into his Rune of Sealing. The connection with the breach in the dungeon snapped into place without much effort, like it wanted to be repaired. Fingers spread, he rotated his wrist to the left, and just like that, reality followed the motion and clicked back into place.

“It was just… tilted?” Right asked.

“Kind of,” Hiral replied. “I feel like if I used the other rune, I could’ve turned it in the other direction to open the breach wider.”

“Would that’ve just made a doorway out?”

“Don’t think it would’ve been quite that easy, but with enough time and work? Maybe.”

“Any way for you to use it like Seeyela uses her portals?” Left asked. “Weaponize it for whatever Boss we’ll have to deal with in this dungeon?”

“Not nearly fast enough,” Hiral said. “Keep in mind how much stronger the… uh… explosions are compared to regular usages of the power. Even if I could open the doorway through the dungeon—and I’m not even confident I could—it would take forever. No way a Boss would sit around and just let me do it.”

“Especially not when you’re the tank now,” Right reminded him with an elbow in the side.

“Har, har, you’re always so funny,” Hiral deadpanned. “All that said, I did get two new runes out of this. Sealing and Unsealing…” He trailed off as his mind turned to the sword over his back.

“Uh oh, he’s got that look,” Left said, and both doubles took a step back.

“The message I got about the Emperor’s Greatsword before said its power was sealed. Do you think using the rune will complete the quest?” Hiral reached over his shoulder and pulled the sword free at the same time he asked the question.

“I’d be surprised if it was that easy, but could be worth a try,” Left said. Then he took another step back. “We’ll watch from over here.”

“Honestly don’t think you’re far enough away,” Right said, literally more than twenty feet from Hiral.

“It’s not going to be that bad,” Hiral said.

“It’s an artifact-level weapon Dr. Benza said came from beings as powerful as Seena’s patron phoenix,” Right said. “Just… be careful.”

“You… may have a point,” Hiral agreed. Still, it wasn’t a good enough point for him to completely give up on trying. With that thought in mind, he threaded solar energy into his Rune of Unsealing at the same time he turned his attention on the sword in his hands.

Barely even touching the weapon with his consciousness and the power of his new rune, heavy, ethereal chains materialized around the broken blade. Not just the physical blade, either—the chains stretched beyond, like they completely encompassed the greatsword’s potential size. The substance of each link was easily as thick as his thumb, and made out of some kind of dark metal or stone. What looked like script-covered sheets of paper wrapped around the chain at regular intervals, the strange symbols glowing and shifting appearance as he looked at them.

From the way the binding wrapped the sword, it was obvious there had been another chain there previously. That probably vanished when I unlocked the Rune of Expansion. Based on what he could see, there were at least three more main chains, but it could be one more or less, with how they overlapped on each other. Still, three felt right, with there being three different colors to the glowing glyphs.

Threading slightly more solar power into his rune, Hiral’s will ran directly into what could only be described as a stone wall. His mind could feel it, solid and ungiving, long before he could even reach the chains. Was it another kind of seal? Or was the power of the chains just so overwhelming they had their own aura?

“How’s it going?” Right asked.

“Ask me again in a few minutes,” Hiral said, probing the length of the sword with the power of his rune.

There were definitely seals there. The more he inspected it, the more he got a sense for what he was dealing with—and it wasn’t anything to scoff at. Whoever had sealed the weapon had put a lot of work and energy into it.

Was it the PIMP that did this? And, if it did, considering how much power it put into the seals—not to mention the time and effort it takes to unseal it—does that mean the weapon’s own power exceeds it? It would have to, to balance things out.

That small spark of excitement at the true potential of the sword just made Hiral redouble his efforts. Going over every inch of the seals, he pushed more and more solar energy along it until… finally… he found what he was looking for. A crack. No larger than a strand of hair.

“I might have something,” he said, upping the volume of his solar energy flowing into the Rune of Unsealing and focusing it on the weak point. No sooner that he done that than a massive pressure landed on his shoulders, driving him to his knees.

Left and Right, even twenty feet away, were also forced down, while the ground—no, the whole dungeon—shook. An ominous rumbling echoed from below, from above, and, most terribly, from the sword itself.

Hiral forced his eyes back to the sword as the chains wrapping the blade began to writhe and shift. The strange material comprising the links flowed almost like a liquid, expanding and connecting, until it looked far more like a multi-headed serpent of some kind looped around the weapon. Where there had been glowing, colored pieces of scripted paper before, the serpents’ heads tasted the air.

And from the way they all turned in Hiral’s direction, they were hungry.

Nope. Just… nope!

Whatever was happening was some kind of defense mechanism to prevent somebody—like him—from cheating his way through the quest. And he wasn’t in any mood to deal with what were likely some kind of S-Rank curses.

Immediately shifting solar energy from his Rune of Unsealing to his Rune of Sealing, Hiral plugged up the crack he’d only barely begun to widen. It didn’t take more than the blink of an eye for the snakes—and the chains—to completely vanish from sight, leaving only the bare Emperor’s Greatsword in his hand.

“Well?” Right said, getting back to his feet.

“The seals on the sword might be somewhat alive,” Hiral said. “Trying to cheat to unseal it triggered some kind of protections that looked like they wanted to eat me.”

“And shook the island like it was an earthquake,” Left added, also back up on his feet. “Going to try again?”

“Seems reckless,” Hiral pointed out.

“Which just makes it sound more like you’re going to.”

Hiral looked at the sword, then just sheathed it again over his back. “No, I’ll follow the quest. I’m sure I’ll find some other uses for the runes along the way. How about you, Left? This should’ve unlocked the Pack tattoo for you.”

“It did.” Left swept the long part of his coat aside to reveal the new, glowing tattoo on the black Pants of Ur’Thul.

“What are you waiting for?” Right asked.

With a small nod from Hiral, Left reached down to his thigh and touched the tattoo of a glowing wolf’s head. It only took the double a second before he pulled his fingers away, a streamer of glowing smoke trailing behind. By the time his hand got a few inches away from his leg, the smoke burst apart, and six chest-high wolves prowled out from behind him.

These weren’t just normal wolves either—not even accounting for their huge size or the fact that they glowed like they were made from infernal flames. Long spikes extended from their joints, running down the spines and even along their tails. Teeth like daggers lined their terrifying mouths, demonic horns twisted from their skulls, and an uncanny intelligence lurked behind their glowing eyes.

“Infernal Conjuration works on them? Nice,” Hiral said. “And there are six of them…”

“The Second-Skin of Ur’Thul,” Left reminded him. “Lets me summon them at B-Rank.”

“Jeez, these things are stronger than we are?” Right asked, walking over to casually scratch one of them behind the ears.

“No, definitely not,” Left said. “Two or three of them together might be as strong as one of us, but their true use lies in their ability to scout and share information with me. They can also provide a few buffs and debuffs, depending on the wolf.”

“Oh?” Hiral asked, rubbing his hands together. “Buffs and debuffs, you say?”

“Aaaaand now we know what we’re doing for the rest of the night,” Right said.