Chapter 16: Which Way Now?

Rune Seeker

Hiral hadn’t even gone twenty feet down the tunnel before the notification windows streamed in front of him again, appearing and vanishing so quickly only one remained.

Dynamic Quest: Update

Abominations slain: 9/9

You have destroyed the lingering work of a process better left lost.

Escape the prison.

Prison escaped: 0/1

Just as he finished reading that window, he found himself at an intersection of tunnels, and spotted Seena wandering down one of the paths towards him.

“Should’ve known you’d get here first,” she said, an aura of fire hanging around her in the shape of the phoenix, complete with taloned hands.

“I did go down the slide first,” Hiral pointed out. “Did you get that Disoriented debuff?”

“He can cure debuffs?” Hiral asked.

“Only some, and only on me,” Seena said.

“Either way, you’re lucky. It was rough. Had a rune backfire on me.” Hiral shook his head at the memory of the cold water rushing down his throat.

“Bad one?” she asked.

“Bad timing,” he corrected. “But now I can use that same debuff as part of my Chord.”

“That’s a plus. You had a Mid-Boss back there?” She pointed down the tunnel Hiral had come from.

“Two,” he said. “A ranged and a melee Army Ant. Created by the Fallen like the Lady of the Web, by the sounds of things.”

“Two, huh? Any problems?” Seena looked him up and down like she was trying to spot injuries.

“Not once that debuff faded,” Hiral said. “Did you only have one?”

“Yeah, and I didn’t get that achievement you and Seeyela got for soloing an Elite or above.”

“These things are too low in level. Has to be your level or above for the achievement, I think.”

“Which achievement?” Seeyela’s voice called down another tunnel, and the woman stepped out of the shadows a second later.”

“One that gives One-Man Army,” Hiral explained.

“Ah, yeah, these are too weak,” Seeyela said. “Too bad, too. It’s a great ability. Really shows when we get split up like that. Any sign of Yanily yet?”

“That should be him there,” Hiral said, pointing down another tunnel just as the spearman rounded the corner, his spear slung comfortably over his shoulder.

“Any problems, Yan?” Seena asked.

“Nah, just two ants in pants,” Yanily said. Then he stopped. “I didn’t even plan that.”

“Good, because if you knew you were going to say that, and still did, I’d have to punch you,” Seeyela said.

“We’re the last ones?” Left called, he and Right coming down another tunnel to join the group.

“To be fair, we did wait to see if Hiral was going to cancel our summons before we jumped down the slide,” Right said.

“Ah, sorry,” Hiral said. “I wasn’t sure if either of you were helping the others.”

“Don’t think we needed the help with these,” Seena said. “You two ended up together?”

“We did, and dealt with three of the Army Ants,” Right said. “Nothing we couldn’t handle, though that debuff made things a little more challenging than they needed to be. I can’t imagine an actual Low-D-Rank party dealing with those and not suffering for it.”

“Fifty-percent chance to backfire is not fun to deal with,” Hiral said.

“I guess we could’ve waited by the water for the debuff to fade on its own,” Seeyela said.

“Wouldn’t have advised that,” Left said. “There was something in the water. Something big.”

“You saw it?” Hiral asked.

“Just by the displacement of the water,” Left went on. “I bet if anybody hung around the island for too long, it would’ve made itself known.”

“Should we go back and take it on for experience?” Yanily asked.

“It could be A-Rank like the giants in the undead city,” Seena pointed out. “Besides, we still have to deal with the Boss here and clear the dungeon. Let’s focus on that.”

“Sure thing,” Yanily said. “Any idea which way to go?”

“Probably that tunnel,” Hiral said. “We all came down these tunnels, which leaves that one as the only other choice.”

“Everybody good on solar energy?” Seena asked, though by the flick of her eyes, she checked in the Party Interface as well. When the others all nodded at her, she tapped Hiral on the shoulder and gestured down the tunnel. “After you.”

Hiral drew his RHCs—though his swords still floated beside him—and started down the tunnel.

“You really think this is a prison of some kind?” Seeyela asked.

“Once,” Left said. “Maybe even still is over in the real anthill. These seem like the same kind of ants we fought before coming into the dungeon, other than being Elite and more specialized.”

“Those Artillery Ants we fought earlier line up with what I heard from people who got deeper into the ant territory,” Seena said. “I guess this could be some strange version of what the actual anthill has in it.”

“I wonder how long ago this dungeon was,” Hiral mused aloud. “The Palace of Creeping Death was pretty recent, as in… now… but the others have all seemed much older. The Necropolis of Ur’Thul definitely came after the Forge of Ur’Thul, I guess, but it seems the dungeons can really be from any time.”

“Just how powerful is the PIMP?” Yanily asked as Hiral continued down the tunnel. “If it can create dungeons and stuff like this, it makes it hard to believe the people from Dr. Benza’s time couldn’t beat the Enemy. Look how strong we’ve gotten since we came to the surface.”

“My theory?” Hiral said, glancing back at the others, and Seena gave him a nod to continue. “I think it comes back to the whole balance thing Dr. Benza was talking about. Sure, the PIMP had potential during the time Dr. Benza was around, but I bet it got stronger—a lot stronger—over the years since then. Basically, all the time it went unused until we entered the dungeons was building up how much power it could have.

“Now that people are finally using it, it’s got more leeway to give the best rewards—items and abilities—and do things like that first wild dungeon we found.”

“You think the PIMP did The Buried City on purpose?” Seeyela asked.

“Seems too convenient there was a wild dungeon that transported us to the other side of the cave-in otherwise,” Hiral said. “We’ve already been guessing the PIMP somehow reads our needs and caters to them, but what if it’s not just the abilities and equipment we get? What if it’s also big things like the actual dungeons we’re running? And even the ability to create dungeons on the fly?

“Sure, if we didn’t end up in corrupted, lost dungeons in the Lizardman city, we still would’ve gotten loot and experience, but think of the knowledge we would’ve missed out on. And that’s not even considering the last dungeon we did. The palace. We actually changed something. Freed the Lizardmen from the undead curse and stopped Ur’Thul from… who knows… taking over the world?”

“The PIMP saw a need—the world’s—and sent us to fix it?” Seena asked.

“Looks that way,” Hiral said. “I bet part of the balance is that the PIMP can’t act directly. I mean, it can’t go out there and fight the Enemy or stop an army of undead. It needs to act through agents—us—to get the job done.”

“Which balances out by it being able to give more opportunities to its agents to get strong,” Seeyela reasoned.

“Yup,” Hiral said, rounding a corner to find another wide room in front of him. “Something different ahead.” He slid his fingers over his RHC triggers, then jogged ahead, wary of any sort of ambush. Getting to the end of the tunnel, he peeked out to find the empty room, then stepped in.

About sixty feet around, the perfectly smooth floor and walls once again made an appearance, and Hiral looked up, up, up the sides of the very tall wall. The ceiling had to be almost four hundred feet up, and the walls were completely sheer, but there looked to be an opening of some kind all the way at the top directly in front of them. That had to be the way out, but getting up to it was another matter entirely.

“Guessing they didn’t want the Army Ants to be able to climb out,” Yanily said, running his hand along the smooth wall. “How are we getting out?”

“Is that line of sight?” Hiral asked Seeyela, pointing at the alcove all the way at the top of the cylindrical room.

“Yes… but it won’t be cheap to get us all up there,” she said. “Can you get yourself up?”

“No. Even the Rune of Attraction doesn’t let me get a grip…” Hiral stopped. “Wait, let me try something else.”

“Don’t be reckless,” Seena reminded him gently.

“This is absolutely not reckless.” He moved over to the nearby wall, put one foot up against it, and swapped his gravity. Quickly getting his other foot under himself before he faceplanted, he was easily standing on the wall—now his floor—while the others looked at him.

“No matter how many times I see that, it makes me dizzy just looking at it,” Seena said. “You can move around? How fast is it draining your solar energy?”

“It’s not,” Hiral said. “Just need some to activate the rune… then it seems to make this my new point of reference.” He gently tapped his foot against the wall. That one small motion had his other foot completely slip out from under him, though, and he ended up toppling onto the wall in a very inelegant heap. “Ouch.”

“Use your skates?” Yanily offered, pointing at the discs on the sides of Hiral’s lower legs.

“Good idea,” Hiral said, carefully pushing himself to his feet, then activating the Crystal Skates. A few quick strides with the skates under his feet had him zipping easily up and along the wall. “It’s kind of like being on ice.”

“Can you change our gravity like that?” Seena asked.

“I think Seeyela’s portal is safer,” Hiral said.

“Me too,” Seeyela said. “But, before I do that, you want to skate up there and make sure that’s actually the exit?” She pointed up to the alcove.

“Sure,” Hiral said. “Left, Right, let me absorb you and take your solar energy first. Then I’ll resummon, head up there, and pull you up after so Seeyela doesn’t have to portal you.”

“Sounds good,” Left said, and the two doubles came over to take his hands as he held them above his head from where he stood on the wall.

With a thought, Hiral canceled his Foundational Split, and the two doubles vanished… at the same time his original gravity reasserted himself.

A second inelegant fall had him faceplanting on the floor as his tattoos and Meridian Lines emerged from his skin.