Rune Seeker - Book 3: Chapter 64: It’s Not Going To Eat Us?

Dr. Benza lowered the Disc of Passage to the ground while the old man stood rooted in place. Before the platform was even settled, the doctor ran over to join the others. “Hugor, you okay?”

“Dr. Benza, good to see you made it,” the old man, Hugor, said. “I was afraid… Well, you can guess. Do you have the spear?”

The doctor looked at Hiral, who nodded and hopped off the disc.

“Eyes open for monsters,” Seena said into the party chat, but the group quickly followed after Hiral as he ran over to meet the old man.

Looking Hugor up and down, “rooted in place” was more than an accurate—if originally figurative—description. The man’s legs had literally become thick tree roots reaching into the stone at his feet.

“You’ve already started the transformation?” Dr. Benza accused.

“Yes,” Hugor said. “As you can see, it’s not an instant change. It didn’t seem like we had a lot of extra time to wait.”

“What if we didn’t make it in time?” Dr. Benza asked.

“Then we would’ve all been dead anyway,” Hugor responded, surprisingly calmly. His voice carried a tone of endless patience, of watching many grow up under his tutelage. Even his solar energy, as Hiral looked at it, was deep and calm. The man couldn’t be more than C-Rank—if that—but there was something unique about his presence. “The spear?” Hugor prompted Hiral.

“Of course. Here,” Hiral said, handing the weapon over. As soon as the spear left his fingers and settled into Hugor’s, a notification window sprang up.

Dynamic Quest: Update

Abomination Defeated: 1/1

Surviving Researchers: 3/3

Weapon of Legend Delivered: 1/1

That notification window vanished before Hiral even had a chance to finish reading it, only to be replaced by another.

Dynamic Quest Complete

Congratulations. Achievement unlocked – The Root of the Problem is the Solution.

You have successfully delivered the Spear of Clouds to its rightful resting place.

Bonus Objective Complete: All researchers survived to arrive with you.

Hidden Objective Complete: You’ve done the impossible and chased off the Enemy threatening the islands (for now).

Bonus rewards will be granted for completing Bonus and Hidden Objectives.

Please access a Dungeon Interface to unlock class-specific reward.

Part of Hiral got excited at the prospect of bonus rewards… until his eyes settled again on the hidden objective requirements. On what that had cost them. No bonus rewards would make up for what they’d lost, and he closed the notification window without another thought.

“Thank you for bringing the spear to me,” Hugor said.

“What will you do with it?” Seena asked, though she must have had the same inkling Hiral did.

“Hugor—Grandfather—has a unique, one-time transformation ability,” Dr. Benza answered for the older man, whose skin was already wrinkling like aged bark. “The transformation will allow him to spread the power of any one object he’s holding to cover a much wider area. In this case, that means…”

“He’s using the Spear of Clouds to push the storm back by using the Rune of Separation,” Hiral interrupted.

Dr. Benza gave him a minor glare at stealing his thunder, then nodded. “In short, yes. The actual explanation is far more technical, but that will suffice for an overview.”

“How long will it take?” Seeyela asked, the rain hammering down on them hard enough to practically bounce off the stone of the courtyard.

“Not long,” Hugor said, his hands around the spear’s haft now gnarled and knobby.

His clothes stood rigid and hard, the color of them changing to match the bark of his skin as the party watched. Even his face was widening and flattening, with his human features melting backwards into the unmistakable trunk of a tree, while his hair turned leafy and green. Somewhere along the way he’d even grown another two feet taller, and his body wrapped around the upright crystal spear, puling it deeper inside himself.

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“Do we need to stay and protect him?” Seena asked. “Or… are we done?”

“There’s one more thing we need to do, I’m afraid,” Dr. Benza said, though he turned to Fenil and Laseen. “And you two can’t come with us for this.”

“What? Why not?” Laseen asked.

“Because we won’t be coming back,” Dr. Benza said. “As planned, you need to stay on the islands and escape while you can.”

Fenil and Laseen exchanged a look, then both turned to Dr. Benza and shook their heads.

“No, we’re coming with you,” Laseen said. “You need us to finish the PIMP system.”

“She’s right,” Fenil agreed. “You’ll get too caught up in yourself to get anything done if we’re not there to keep you on track. Uh… did I say that first part out loud?”

“You did.” Dr. Benza somehow scowled at the same time he smiled. “We don’t have time to argue about this… but I respect you both enough to let you make your own choices. I have to remind you, though: This is your only chance to escape on the islands. After they’re in the sky, nobody will be coming up until the Enemy is defeated. The magic of the runes will keep anything away that isn’t from the islands.”

“We know, Doctor,” Laseen said. “We’ve made our decision.”

“Your father will have my hide for this,” Dr. Benza mumbled.

“If… If my father is still alive,” Laseen said, struggling to get the words out. “He’ll just be happy to see me.”

Of course, her father was probably on the other side of the portal to keep it safe. It’d be a miracle if he survived with how many monsters came through.

“Then let us all go together,” Dr. Benza said.

“Where?” Seena asked, annoyance in her voice at having to basically ask again.

“Down to the village in the valley,” Fenil said. “The activation scripts for all four—two—islands are down there.”

“Of course they are.” Seena rubbed the bridge of her nose. “No way to get everything started from up here? Rain is still falling too.”

“Hugor will take care of the rain within…” Dr. Benza looked at the old man, who was now clearly more tree than person. Gone were any features that would’ve marked him as human, instead replaced with branches spreading from his top half, the leaves beginning to droop like green waterfalls. The roots that had been his feet were now as thick as his legs, reaching for three feet in every direction. Even his trunk had more than doubled in size already, and the top of the growing tree stood almost twelve feet up. “Well, at this rate of growth, I’d say fifteen minutes.”

“Given the activation sequence, the timing should be almost perfect,” Laseen said. “Assuming we don’t all get murdered horribly on the way down.”

“You’re forgetting the Disc of Passage is broken,” Fenil said. “It will take us that long, if not longer, just to get down there.”

“We’ll have to risk using the mounts,” Hiral said. “It’s the only way we’ll get down fast enough. Drake can carry the three of them.”

“And what about you?” Seena asked. “Or are you expecting us to take on the Boss by ourselves?” She pointed between her and her sister.

“I’ll keep up on the ground using Rejection,” Hiral said. “With the Second-Skin pushing my runes to B-Rank, I think I can do it.”

“We don’t have a lot of better options,” Seena said. “If you start to fall behind, though, we’re waiting for you.”

“I won’t fall behind,” Hiral replied. Turning, he held out his hands to Left and Right, quickly absorbing them and then splitting off again. Giving them the bare amount of solar energy to materialize, it left him at almost full. “I’ll call you two when I get down.”

“We’ll be waiting,” Right said at the same time a notification window popped up in front of Hiral’s eyes.

Dynamic Quest

One last step remains. Escort and protect the researchers as they activate the magic to lift the remaining islands into the sky.

This is it. No snarky comments for once. Probably where we’ll find the Boss, though.

As before in the dungeon, a second window popped up when he closed the first.

Dynamic Quest: Update

Surviving Researchers: 3/3

Magic Activated: 0/1

No mention of an Abomination this time. Why does that make me more nervous?

“When you say mounts, are you talking about the terrifying…?” Fenil cut off as Hiral called Drake out of his Interspatial Ring. The Dracolich’s roar bellowed across the island, the rain shuddering at its passing. Then Drake did something different: It extended its long neck straight up and let out a keening wail that sounded unmistakably like grief.

Two more cries soon joined Drake, with Vili and even Bliss throwing back their own heads.

They know Thunderclaws and Yanily are gone.

“I know, buddy—I miss them too,” Hiral said as Drake brought his huge head down to nuzzle against him. “But we’ve got a job to finish. Need you to take these three and make sure nothing happens to them.”

Drake looked at the three researchers, and Fenil took a nervous step back under the weight of the Dracolich’s undying stare.

“It’s… not going to eat us, is it?” Fenil asked.

“Of course not,” Laseen answered. “It obviously doesn’t even have a stomach.”

“I’m not sure that makes me feel better.”