(Second Book Complete!) Runeblade: A Delving & Skill Merging LitRPG

Kaius held his arm steady as he put the finishing touches on his Arcane Bolt hymn. In comparison to the sheer effort that his glyph had taken, the runic spell was simple to hold steady in his mind. Thanks to being directly attached to a supporting structure, all he had to do was draw. No saturating his arm with mana, no holding it steady with his will, just direct and simple inscribing.

The High Lothian spell was a pretty thing. Connecting to one of the outer spikes of his glyph, arcing to follow the gentle curves of his hand and arm. Shaped vaguely like an arrow that wrapped around his arm, the pure rune work scrawled across his flesh.

As he finished the final rune he felt the hymn snap into place, closely binding to his supporting glyph. Immediately he felt a pull on his mana. The arcane bolt inscription lit up, glowing as a portion of his mana pool was drained. It was a strange feeling. The mana wasn’t being spent. Instead it was sequestered, locked in place, forcibly constrained by his glyph as it was anchored into his spell.

Once fully saturated, the luminance dimmed. Runic inscription returning to a baseline black.

Kaius could tell from sensation alone that the spell had reserved nearly a full quarter of his pool. He’d check later to be sure, once he had recovered from the drain of channelling mana through his stylus. Either way, he was almost certain he’d be able to handle inscribing a full four spells with his current pool. It wasn’t much, but he had high hopes for the spell. Even if he had to reinscribe after every fight, having access to instantly castable magic was a massive strategic advantage.

Whistling to catch Porkchop’s attention, he waved his friend over.

“I’ve got the first one done. Once I’ve inscribed a few more shall we suit up and go test them?” He asked. Thankfully, with the support of his glyph inscribing the spells was pretty quick. Only taking him ten to fifteen minutes for the entire process.

Porkchop chuffed, ears perking up at the thought of finally leaving.

“I’ll go get our stuff! You keep inscribing!” Porkchop said, nearly bowling over an arm chair as he rushed out of the room, his claws scrambling for purchase on the hard ground.

Kaius shook his head at his friend’s antics, though secretly he felt much the same. He could feel the tightly wound anticipation in his back and arms. Almost jittery at finally being able to put his work into practice.

Taking a deep breath he calmed himself. Excited at the prospect of casting he might be, he needed his focus for inscribing. It might have been far simpler than his work on his glyph, but it was still runework. It still required a great deal of patience and a steady hand.

He snatched up his bronze stylus, channelling his mana into the implement as he started on his next spell.

…

Kaius loomed in the mouth of an alley. It was a narrow thing, barely two paces across, flanked on each side by a three story manor. The walls of the building were stark. Solid stone unbroken by adornment or windows. Evidently, whatever folk who had lived in these buildings had no interest in seeing into the narrow service passages that wound through the streets.

They’d left the safety of their cleared neighbourhood a few hours ago, pushing through the district as they made their way further into the second tier of the dwarven city. Much to Porkchop’s displeasure, they had yet to find any goblins. After spending months in one place, Kaius had had to relent to his friend’s restless desire to explore. They’d wiped out every cluster of depths-born near their base camp weeks ago.

Fully suited up for war, they had ventured out with all of their gear. Now that he had finished his glyph, Kaius had no intention of returning to their temporary home. Armour was donned, weapons secured, and they had taken everything they might need. Which, as it turned out, did not include much food. Thanks to the Depths unfathomable inclinations, each and every one of the manors they had explored up until this point had had a kitchen with foodstuffs stored under a stasis ward. Other than a few bare essentials in case that changed, they’d decided to completely forgo weighty supplies.

As they had started to push into the unknown, Kaius felt a familiar heat stoke within him. A hunger for battle. The rush of clashing steel and focus honed to a razor’s edge. The Bloodsong. He could see it in Porkchop too, the way his friends shoulders bunched every few steps, the slight jitteriness in his gate.

Working on his skills had muted that desire, his excitement at finally working on his glyph overshadowing it. Now, with his goal realised, it was like a dam had broken. A flood of tension and nervous energy welling up deep within him. The fact he had yet to test his Arcane Bolt only heightened his anticipation. He wanted, needed, the rush of his first cast to be accompanied by a symphony of burning muscle, cracking bone, and spilled blood.

On some level he could acknowledge that his growing bloodlust could be considered a concern. He paid it no mind. This was the Depths. You either learned to love it, or you crumbled and died.

Thankfully, they had found an outlet for their energy.

He leaned forwards, looming over Porkchop to peer down the main street. A few blocks ahead the paved road split in two, shooting off at acute angles. A troop of goblins milled around the wide open junction.

Nearly a full dozen chittered in their strange guttural language, jostling each other and only making a half attempt to keep watch. Beyond them, a few smatterings of archers sat partially concealed in what looked to be a store front, right at the corner of the angled building that sat at the crossroads. A few handful more of the low race lounging at the entrances to the manors that flanked the road.

They would make perfect targets to test his new spell. Kaius’s gaze drifted down to his arm, admiring the four black lines of script that weaved their way out from the spokes that served to connect the hymns to the rest of the supporting structure.

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Inscribing them had been quick work, only growing faster as he had gotten more practice with them. Just under an hour for all four, and he had no doubt as his familiarity with the hymn of Arcane Bolt grew that time would shrink further.

He could feel them. The roiling energy held in tension just beneath his skin. When the glyph had punctured his soul during its completion, burning itself into the deepest fibres of his being, it had forged a connection. Not only had it given him a mental link to his working -he knew that all he needed to cast now was a simple flicker of intent- it had linked itself to his status.

He pulled it up to check the changes.

Status:

Name: Kaius

Dynasty: Unterstern

Age: 18

Class Selection: 1 Year, 13 weeks, 6 days

Race: Human (Dynastic) - +1 free stats per level

Layer Reached: 2

Resources:

Health - 380/380 (2.8/min)

Stamina - 280/280 (2.8/min)

Mana - 430/430 (4.3/min)

Free Mana - 30/30

Reserved Mana - 400

Stats:

Endurance - 30 + 8 (38)

Vitality - 20 + 8 (28)

Strength - 20 + 8 (28)

Dexterity - 20 + 8 (28)

Intelligence - 14 + 8 (22) > 20 + 23 (43)

Willpower: - 20 + 8 (28) > 20 + 23 (43)

Stat Points: 0

Class Skills (0/10):

N/a

General Skills (9/10):

Rapid Adaptation (Heroic) - 17 > 19

Warforged (Unique) - 20

Explorers Toolkit (Unusual) - 11 > 12

Adamant Body (Unique) - 12 > 16

True Sight (Unique) - 0 > 9

Runic Lexicon (Unusual) - 0 > 18

Mana Manipulation (Unusual) - 0 > 20

Fast Healing (Rare) - 0 > 17

Stone Blood (Rare) - 0 > 14

Glyph Bound Hymns:

Arcane Bolt - 4

Honours:

Born for Slaughter

Sublime Prodigy - Glyph Binding

Bound Artefacts:

A Fathers Gift - Common Growth Longsword

Growth Conditions-

Gain a class (0/1)

Acquire suitable materials (0/3)

Forge a link (0/1)

Kaius’s eyes roved over the developments to his status. It amazed him to see what a few months of concentrated effort had wrought.

Thanks to the controlling array in his glyph, he and his father had expected a mental connection to his casting, but in all their preparations they had never dared to anticipate that the system itself would factor it in. It kept track of not only his prepared hymns, but added a line to track his free and reserved mana.

Though, as Kaius considered that he now knew that glyph binding was a full and complete mage discipline in its own right, he supposed it made sense. Although, he did expect more changes as he got his class. If his glyph was fully wrapped up into it, he expected that the glyph itself would probably be co-opted or even changed by the system. Bringing its capabilities under the purview of his class skills.

It was reasonably common for mages, especially manipulation magi. Manual workings often got their own section on the status that tracked devised spells.

Still, his new glyph wasn’t the only change that he could see. The time they had spent holed up at the manor hadn’t been wasted, not by a long shot. Three more legacy skills, two of which were either capped or right on the precipice. Hells, he’d even done enough cooking to squeeze a level out of Explorer’s Toolkit. Though he suspected that it must have already been close, cooking was relevant to a small section of the skill and he doubted it would have provided much experience since he wasn’t using magically charged or self foraged ingredients.

“Kaius, are you seriously checking your status now? Right before we are about to fight?” Porkchop asked, craning his neck to stare at him.

Kaius hurriedly closed his status, startled out of his pondering.

“Sorry.” He said, turning his attention back to the goblins.

There were a couple of ways they could approach this, the easiest being to draw the goblins into a confrontation in the alleys. It had been their main tactic, and with how successful it had proven to be, Kaius saw no reason to change it.

“Do you want to bait them in? They seem to get pretty-”

“Wuss.” Porkchop interrupted him. Before Kaius could get a single word in edgewise his friend charged out from the safe confines of the alley, an earth shattering roar on his lips.

His heart thumped as his hand shot out in a failed attempt to hold Porkchop back.

“Porkchop!” Kaius called after his friend, aghast. A dump of adrenaline hit him like a sack of bricks, and his blood starting to sing. He ran, sprinting after his friend.

“We’re gonna have some words after this!” He yelled after Porkchop’s sprinting form, who had the cheek to shoot him a look over his shoulder, tongue lolling out. Porkchop then snapped his head forwards to level another roar at the scrambling form of the goblins.

His scalemail clinking with every hurried step Kaius drew his sword. Feeling the solid comfort of steel in his grip his tension broke, anxiety at his friend’s reckless charge dissolving as a rush of savage delight flooded through him. It had been far too long since he had had some fun.

Goblins who had previously lounged in the manors entranceways rushed out into the street, joining those that were massing in the junction’s centre. Forming a solid wall of knives and clubs to break Porkchop’s charge. Behind them, archers started to loose arrows. Most focused on Porkchop, but Kaius felt stinging impacts as they pinked off his armour.

Porkchop drew close.

The goblins braced.

Kaius saw the exact moment the goblins’ screaming fury turned into dread as Porkchop activated his Amulet of Inviolable Momentum. Blurring into a leatherbound missile.

Porkchop hit the assembled formation in a cacophony of guttural screams and splintering bones. The sound was nearly enough to bring tears to his eyes.

Pandaemonium. He’d missed this. The rush.

It was time to take some skulls.