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

Crossing open fields that were gradually shifting into light woods, Kaius walked with his team. His eyes roved over the various clusters of trees that dominated the flat horizon, searching their depths for any sign of beasts that might challenge them.

While there were plenty of them about, it seemed there weren’t all that many of a large enough size to truly want to tussle with their group. Something that would no doubt change as they grew in strength. Beast bloodlines were odd things, and as more variants appeared, he had no doubt that even a common crow could become a threat.

While he would normally travel mounted for the speed advantage, with Ianmus there was really no point, and it felt more than a little rude to subject Porkchop to his weight for no reason.

Still, as the day had passed them, Kaius had been unable to get the conversation he and Ianmus had the previous night out of his head. There was so little that he knew of the glyphs that he had received from his class, and with all the excitement he’d yet to take the opportunity to really study them.

While he no longer possessed a true knowledge skill, Tonal Weaving did increase his comprehension of the glyphs and hymns granted to him by the system. With the addition of his Bladerite, he finally had another point of comparison.

With how quiet this leg of their trip was being, his curiosity gnawed at him. It settled on his mind like an itch, sucking at his focus. Every few moments he caught himself staring at nothing, thinking on the structure of his glyphs.

He sighed. Until he gave in and actually checked how much he was able to glean from comparing his two skills, he would be a useless scout. As it was, he was liable to miss something right in front of his face.

“Mind if I hop on? I want to meditate on my glyphs a little.” he asked, tapping Porkchop on the shoulder to grab his attention.

“Finally.” his brother snorted. “You really don’t need to put that much pressure on yourself to keep watch. I’m here too, you know, and it’s not like you’ll be insensate if you’re just sitting there with your eyes closed.”

Rolling his eyes at his brother’s jab, Kaius grabbed one of the leather straps on Porkchop’s barding and leapt into his saddle. Leaning forwards, he ruffled his brother’s fur before settling back and getting comfortable. Honestly, with the impact absorption of the stone charger leather, it cradled him better than almost anything else he’d sat on.

Closing his eyes, Kaius brought his glyphs to the forefront of his mind’s eye, tuning out the idle chatter that had started between Porkchop and Ianmus.

Mustering his will, he drew on everything he had learned—all of the sacred geometry and runic mystery of Drakthar, Stormlash, and Bladerite coming to mind at once. A dull ache throbbed at the back of his skull; the task a precarious thing that was only possible thanks to the Vesryn formations having been burnt into his mind by the will of the system.

At first, it was almost impossible to keep them all in focus. His mind would drift, focusing on one working to sharpen its edges, only for the others to become hazy and unfocused. Forcing himself to relax, Kaius took a slow breath and allowed himself to let go of the desire to clutch any single aspect of the workings, filling in the details piece by piece.

His effort was not in vain. Minute by minute, all three workings grew increasingly clear in his mind.

**Ding! True Sight has reached level 36!**

**Ding! Tonal Weaving has reached level 30!**

…

**Ding! Tonal Weaving has reached level 31!**

Eventually all of them burned in his mind, as crisp as if he had spent hours lavishly rendering them on parchment. Now the true work could begin.

Mentally distancing himself from the workings, he rotated them in his mind, viewing them from every angle. That was the true problem with the inscrutable Vesryn magic; they were three dimensional. He couldn’t just write them down. Honestly, without the skill and power to render them in the real with raw manipulation abilities, or mundane carving, he truly had no idea how someone would even go about learning the damn things.

Thank the gods he could visualise them.

Watching them closely, Kaius started to compare, attempting to find any sources of similarity. On a superficial level, there were none. At least, that’s what he thought at first. The runes that made up each one were different in nature, though there were commonalities.

He suspected that rather than being wrought from the same runic language, Vesryn might have been made up of a small collection. Though, far different from his original glyph, they seemed to share the same base level principles. It was the little things, the same symmetry in sacred geometry, and extremely similar cadences to the lines of runes.

He had no idea what any of it did, but he could spot the similarities. A common root. It was most stark with Stormlash and Drakthar, which made sense considering that one relied on the other to function. They both had the same aggressive bent—exaggerated flicks, acute angles, and slashing lines. Yet neither were utterly alien when compared to the Bladerite, all of them seemed to follow a similar grammar structure, and he could even spy a couple of common characters shared between all of them, though more were present in his spell glyph and hymn.

Kaius hummed, a small frown of surprise crossing his mouth. That was…unexpected, and utterly unlike any other runic language he knew of. Sure, all runes had similar principles, but each language was its own thing, and he had never heard of runes being shared across different scripts. It flew completely in the face of what he knew of sacred geometry. Each rune affected mana in a specific way, combining with others to make an effect. If, at the end of the day, they were interoperable, wouldn’t that make them all part of the same language after all?

But why the extreme stylistic disparity? If it was a language, it was one with far more depth and nuance than he was used to.

What’s more, he could see other similarities between Drakthar and his Bladerite that weren’t shared with Stormlash. Comparable clusters and arrays of unknown function, but with a broadly similar shape and placement within the overall working.

…Strange, but curious. Regardless, it was far too complex for him to work through now, not with how few examples he had. Hopefully there would be more glyphs in the future, and as Tonal Weaving grew he would be far better positioned to tease out their secrets.

Releasing the images with a sigh, Kaius felt the throb at the back of his head dissipate as he stopped pulling his mind in three different directions.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Rather than open his eyes, he decided to take the opportunity to think more on aspects. After all, Ekum the Pale had said it would take combat and meditation, and who was he to ignore the advice of a god?

They were related to personal truths; that much had been made clear by both Ekum and the system itself. Yet…he knew little of what sort of truth they might be.

What did he know about himself, truly and deeply?

Pausing, Kaius thought back on the life he had lived, and the path of hardship he had walked. Comfort and predictable security went right out the door, they were pleasant things, but not something he held overly dear. Hells, every time he’d come close to them, he’d started to get itchy within days.

No, he much preferred the excitement of the unknown, and the guttural rush that came from pushing up against external pressure and challenges. It was the struggle that he truly loved, the clawing fight to work his way just another hair closer to his goals. That exhilarating thrill to race to the finish, besting all who would contest him.

Victory, and satisfaction.

Something deep within him thrummed. Just. Barely even a quiver really, but he felt it all the same.

His heart thumped, kicking like a mule in his chest as he dived into his soulspace, the rising pillars of his aspects before him in an instant. They were…still. Unmoving. Irritation welled, frustrated energy bucking against his calm focus.

Suppressing the desire to snap his eyes open and jump to the ground in frustration, Kaius slowly worked through his previous thoughts. There had been something—no way he had imagined it.

Struggle and success was a thread he could follow. It was something he’d known about himself early, that once he had chosen a path for himself, his mind closed on it like a vice, and little would dissuade him from reaching it.

Another pulse. Watching from within his soul-space, Kaius saw his soul…quiver. Barely even a ripple, but it was movement all the same. Simultaneously, one of his pillars—the one he innately knew to be Mentis—reacted with the barest hint of an attractive force.

Desperately, Kaius dived into his memories, offering up proof of his assertions. Fighting through the depths, throwing himself against ‘unbeatable’ odds, suffering through his resistance training, and devoting every hour he could to finishing his legacy.

It wasn’t enough. Ephemeral as the breeze, the pulsing connection between his Mentis and his soul gutted out before anything more occurred. The thread was gone.

“Fuck.” Kaius thought to himself, balling his fists until his nails bit painfully into his palms.

He took a deep breath, balling up the aimless negativity, before letting it go with his exhale. Frustration was meaningless. What mattered was that he had felt something—a truth that had resonated within him.

It was a thread, and one he could follow. Though, perhaps not right now. Filled with bundled tension, he longed to stretch his legs. No doubt there was some element of epiphany and revelation to the aspects, and those couldn’t be forced. Like Ekum had said, it would take time and meditation to understand.

Opening his eyes, Kaius found himself confronted with Porkchop craning his head to look at him with curiosity, Ianmus doing the same.

“What?” Kaius asked, patting himself down to make sure that nothing embarrassing had happened while he was distracted.

“You were muttering.” Ianmus offered.

“And cursing a lot.” Porkchop finished.

Pushing his hair out of his face, Kaius sighed. “Sorry, just got a little frustrated. Started with a headache from visualising my glyphs, and then got worse when I tried meditating on ‘truths’.” he explained, curling his raised fingers as he finished his final word.

Ianmus groaned in commiseration. “I know what you mean. I’ve been meditating on them almost every night since we got the global notification, but I have yet to make any headway. Not even a glimmer of a feeling to let me know i’m moving in the right direction.”

Letting out a cough, Kaius scratched his head. Knowing that he had felt something when an academic like Ianmus hadn’t was both gratifying, and a little awkward. In all honesty, he could admit it was petulant to get frustrated in the face of progress, even if it was small.

“Well. That’s the thing. I felt something. Barely anything, but something.” Kaius said softly, as if it would soften the blow. It didn’t.

Porkchop and Ianmus narrowed their eyes at him in unison, though neither slowed their pace across the open grasslands.

“Details, please.” Porkchop said slowly, craning his neck to fix him with an intense one-eyed stare.

“Yes, Kaius. Tell us how you managed to stumble across a lead to the greatest mystery of our generation in a half hour of meditation.” Ianmus said, shaking his head. “I swear to the gods, prodigies are something else.”

Kaius rolled his eyes at the melodrama. Clearly, the two were jealous of the ironclad proof of his genius.

Theatrics aside, he was happy to share. Porkchop was his brother, and, much likeHonours, figuring out Aspects would bind Ianmus to their pact of secrecy. That, and he was an intelligent man who would no doubt be of great aid to figuring out their secrets.

“Well, it was honestly rather simple. I was thinking about things I thought were fundamental pillars of who I was as a person. I ended up thinking about how much I crave struggle and a lofty goal to strive towards, and how I can often be single minded in my pursuit of them.” Kaius explained.

“And that was enough to figure out an Aspect?” Porkchop asked with incredulous disbelief.

Kaius shook his head vigorously. “No, of course not. It was barely a glimmer of a reaction, I tried to follow it, take the thread deeper, but it slipped away from me. Must have been off the mark somehow.”

“More importantly, I’m far more interested in what that reaction was. Was it just a feeling?” Ianmus asked, searching his face as if the secrets he was looking for were hiding just beneath his skin.

“At first, it was just a feeling that disappeared quickly, but, when I repeated it again inside my soulspace, I saw my soul…flicker for lack of a better term. The lightest of pulses within its depths that rippled across its surface. Mentis reacted, pulling on my soul-fire by just a hair. I wasn’t able to get much more than that, it slipped away from me quickly. Hence the frustration.” Kaius explained, still feeling irritated that he hadn’t been able to gain anything more concrete.

Ianmus nodded, his brow furrowing in thought.

“Well, that’s not all that much, but at least we have confirmation it’s to do with our understanding of ourselves.” Porkchop suggested, watching dutifully ahead.

“I’m not so sure that’s the only thing we learned.” Ianmus murmured. “The bond you two share, it links your souls like other bond skills, correct?”

Kaius nodded, while there were many differences between his and Porkchop’s bond of equals, and a traditional bond skill, that much was at least true.

“Then why was Porkchop not able to feel the pulse in your soul?” Ianmus asked, curious.

Kaius’s eyes widened. Ianmus was right, he and Porkchop were bound so totally that simple surface level emotion flooded their connection with ease. Their actual souls shone brightly to each others senses, and something so integral to their being like a shift in that fire should have been immediately obvious.

“Can you think of why?” Kaius asked.

Ianmus shrugged, giving him an apologetic look. “I honestly have no idea. It could be that whatever you touched on was so subtle it slipped Porkchop’s notice, or it could be that whatever processes involve the Aspects are so personal it is occluded from him. Either way, it’s a clue.”

Kaius sighed. Great, another floating thread with little of substance to use to unravel the ensnared knot of unknowns. He resigned himself to let the mystery lie, for now at least. He was too worked up to do anymore today.

Frustrating or no, it was still a lead. Far more than most people had. He resolved himself to meditating on the topic with far more regularity than he had been. Leaving the discovery of aspects to chance was something he had no interest in.

After all, it was almost certain the first one there would get an Honour for their efforts, and the longer he could keep the secret of those from escaping into the wider world, the less he would have to worry about competition.

Shaking his head, Kaius cleared his mind of tantalising secrets and slid from the saddle. Ultimately, it was a future problem and a future goal. Right now he was hunting a spider, and they had planning to do.