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

Leaving the wreckage and ruin that was the spider’s nest behind, Kaius and his party made their way down the road to Holsborough, slowly trekking towards the edge of the Hanset Woods. Two days of travel, hunkering down in their dimensional tent in the evenings, with at least another one until they hit the edge of the swathe of lightly packed trees. Then it would be a day of crossing the plains.

Intshire was closer by at least half, but the township lay further away from Deadacre. It would have been fastest for them to have simply cut back the way they had come, but none of them felt it would be right to leave without at least giving word on one end that the assassin spider had been slain, and the worst of the road’s threats cleared.

Plus, he was sure that whatever salvage the locals would find would be a significant boon in the current times. While it was of no use to the likes of them, there were plenty of goods that would still be serviceable, if weather-beaten.

The lockbox though, that they could use. After accounting for their finds, they had another sixty-eight silver and ninety-seven copper to their name. A paltry sum, compared to the earnings they would get from this mission, but it was convenient all the same. A single gold was a large sum of money to most people, and having a weighty supply of lesser coingage would certainly help with paying their way through common taverns and the like.

As the sun shone down on the widespread green around them, Kaius watched their surroundings closely. The way the breeze shifted the canopies and caressed the heavy brush beneath. The song of birds, and the low level buzz of insects. A background song that could be hiding danger.

Not that he was particularly worried. While he was certain threats even more dangerous than the spider were appearing with alarming regularity, the realm was a large place, and they would have to be unlucky indeed to stumble across one so close to the range of another.

Still, as it stood, he was the closest thing they had to a scout, so he planned on doing his job diligently.

His vigilance was rewarded shortly after, Explorer’s Toolkit nudging his attention to a flashing blur a good two hundred strides into the trees.

Tilting his head, Kaius focused on the flash, clarity coming to him quickly. A trio of wolves, skulking from tree to tree. Mangey and thin, they looked starved. Desperate.

His heart beat stayed steady, without the barest whisper of vitalising glee that came with the Blood Song. They were…weak. Focusing on one who was peering around a wide oak, he pulled up its status.

Forest Wolf - Level 21:

Beast, Skirmisher

Sighing, he slipped from his brother’s back and palmed the hilt of his sword.

Ianmus and Porkchop looked at him in confusion.

“Nothing bad. Just some desperate wolves.” he explained without turning back, waving off any questions before they were asked.

Striding off the road, he approached the tree line.

His blatant, unthreatening approach was too much for the small pack. As one they bayed, charging from their cover as they raced towards him with foaming muzzles.

Out in the open, they looked less decrepit than he had thought. Still obviously hungry, but not generally underfed, nor did they look wasted to the point of weakness. Their grey pelts still even had a sheen, without a mat in sight.

Poor bastards. They’d just skipped one too many meals, enough hunger to force them into a confrontation they had no idea would be their end.

Slowing to a stop, he let them approach. His sword was still in its sheath, and his hands rested comfortably at his side.

The sheer nonchalance sent the wolves into a frenzy, their pace redoubling. Each one sent plumes of dirt spraying behind itself, as they wove between the trunks at a pace only possible after a full life hunting through the reaches of the woods.

Slavering snarls slipped from their muzzles, brown eyes focused on him with furious intensity.

It was almost admirable.

Then they came into range.

Kaius swept his hand out towards casually, a baleful shower of orange sparks hanging in a trail behind it. Blue-white cracked, throwing the surrounding trees into stark relief as a writhing bolt of lightning appeared in his hand before arcing towards the lead wolf.

It impacted with finality, two lesser streams of potent magic splitting off to the other two wolves.

Each and every one seized, muscles clenching with every scrap of strength they could muster.

Tumbling into a ragged pile of meat, the wolves collapsed dead and smoking.

**Ding! level 21 Forest Wolf - Able Hunter slain - Experience Gained! Reduced Experience for slaying a foe of Insignificant Strength!**

…

**Ding! level 22 Forest Wolf - Able Hunter slain - Experience Gained! Reduced Experience for slaying a foe of Insignificant Strength!**

Watching their prone forms twitch with the remnants of his magic, Kaius sighed and made his way back to his companions. Disappointing, but surprisingly common.

They’d suffered two more attacks from a variety of beasts, either those desperate, or so territorial they would willingly throw themselves at death. Fortunately, most things in the woods had some instinctive understanding of their strength, and had steered well clear.

Still, a proper fight would have been nice. Even if it wasn’t as fraught as the spider, it still would have been good to see some more significant gains than the bare smattering of three skill levels he had seen since then.

Ianmus shook his head at him, a wry smile on his face. “You look like you just got sentenced to six months of hard labour.” he teased.

That set Porkchop off, his brother chortling at Ianmus’s joke. “He does! Like he had to dig the next den tunnel!”

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Scowling at his companions, Kaius quickened his stride to rejoin them. “I can’t help it! That wasn’t even a fight! I could do a dozen of those and not see a single skill level, let alone a class one.”

“Chin up, man, you at least had that insight into your Aspects—why don’t you do some more pondering now that a few days have passed and see if you can share anything else?” Ianmus asked.

Kaius sighed, he was right. He had shared his revelation on the truths he had brushed upon in their fight during their first day. They’d all been fizzing with excitement at the prospect of delving more into the secrets of the latest addition to the system. Both Ianmus and Porkchop had felt a little resonance - Porkchop with Corporus, and Ianmus with Mentis - but both had been lesser things, equivalent to the slight vibrations he had felt previously.

The resonance, the insight into his motivation and mentality, had been different. More primal and central to his being. He knew it was the start of a path, one that would lead him to the prize. Unfortunately, it was frustratingly elusive.

As much as he wanted it to come quickly and easily, every time he had meditated on the concept of weathering all in his advance towards his goals, he’d gotten nothing.

Nothing, except for the sense that something was a little off, and that he needed time to digest the experience before more could be done.

Shrugging in resignation, Kaius jumped onto his brother’s back and settled into the saddle. Closing his eyes, he started to meditate.

Dominance and fearlessness in his pursuit of his goals. The need and drive to push ever onwards. The breaking of barriers. Inexorable pursuit of perfection.

He tried a dozen phrases and mantras, pondering how they fit into the mentality with which he approached everything.

The answer he came to was frustrating. They all did, but only in the general sense. As he watched his Pillar Mentis in his mind’s eye, he got nothing but the sense he was just a little off. A little wrong, by a hair.

Whatever the pillar wanted, the only thing he could tell is that it wasn’t some outside philosophy that he could mould to himself—some quip or phrase that he could use to describe himself. No, it was some sort of primordial truth, he could feel it in his bones.

Unfortunately, today did not seem to be the day where he would find it.

Opening his eyes, he sighed. “Nothing, again. I think I’ll just leave it; wait until we’re settled back in Deadacre when I’m less wound up.”

Walking beside him, Ianmus nodded in understanding. “I think that would make sense. Back at the Academies, whenever I was faced with a particularly troublesome question or mystery, I always found quiet contemplation of my understanding of the problem helped the best. Usually, after a few days of that, I’d just be walking the grounds before the solution would just jump to mind seemingly out of nowhere.”

Kaius nodded in agreement. Contemplation of what he already knew about himself, he could do that. Not now though, he still felt restless about turning in and collecting their next mission.

That, and the hell they would have to pay when Ro found out just what level the spider had been.

Groaning at the thought, Kaius pushed the fiery woman out of his mind and went back to surveying their surroundings.

Only another day or two to Holsborough.

…

Kaius’s prediction had been nearly bang on.

After another day of endless green and chittering birds, the Hanset Woods had gradually begun to thin. Snaking ever onwards, the rough packed road they followed led them across streams, through meadows and clearings, until eventually the trees grew so thin that ‘woods’ no longer fit.

By the next morning, they had returned to the plains proper—though one much more lush than the surroundings of Deadacre.

Grass sprouted to the waist, dotted with a dizzying variety of wildflowers that were spotted through the fields like sprays from a flicked painter’s brush. It was, in all honesty, beautiful. The air was rife with floral scents, and buzzing bees and nectar drinking birds flitted to and fro, the latter resting every few minutes in the many trees that provided shelter from the heat of the scorching late summer sun.

It was a peaceful journey. Even though they saw many beasts - all manner of grazers, and the odd predator that preyed upon them, nothing that Kaius had seen eclipsed the thirtieth level, and none had the lack of sense to attempt an attack on their persons.

As they travelled, discussions were bandied about to fill the time. His favourite had been their talks of their homes.

Ianmus had spoke of the famous city of Mystral. Coastal home of magic and spires. Apparently, the rumor that its walls were plated in glistening crystal had a nugget of truth to them.

A small nugget, admittedly. They were made of some sort of local stone, a kind of granite that had been naturally infused with mana, making the small crystals within grow large and refract the light with startling brilliance when the sun hit it just right.

It also made it tougher than sin, and the perfect material for building fortifications, even if it was twice as heavy as the mortal equivalent.

Of the spires, Ianmus had mostly spoken of his own. The Sunspire, one of hundreds within the city. A premier amongst premiers, it was one of the Twenty-Four, an academy that was far larger than most of the towers within Mystral.

Ianmus spoke of it fondly, the knowledge to be found there, and the architectural beauty. Of his fellow students, he had less kind things to say. At least, those of more noble birth who were apparently a veritable nightmare to get along with. They didn’t appreciate being shown up by a common-born, let alone a half-elf, and had made Ianmus’s life rather burdensome before his talent had proven too great to be denied.

Porkchop spoke of the dens, and the magical sights that could be seen within the deep Sea. Trees so tall and thick that each of them could lie end on end, and still only be half the width of their trunk. Carnivorous plants, and the titanic booms of powerful beasts warring in the night.

He also spoke of the life of his people. The works of art they wrought on the walls and surroundings of their dens. The great split between those that thought true beauty lay in the pure abstraction of visual art reduced to pure form, designed to draw a specific impression, and those who lovingly rendered scenes of the Sea - some lifelike, and others in representation of the impressions of the moment.

It was bizarrely foreign to him, the idea that a troupe of greater beasts could nearly come to blows over who was the best artist in the family.

Ianmus in particular had found that fascinating, and had been most curious about where Porkchop fell on the spectrum. To the man’s disappointment, his brother had only snorted, saying half the reason he wanted to explore was because he found the whole thing moderately ridiculous. Both styles had their merits, and he was firmly in the half of the family who preferred to wander and hunt than spend their days locked underground working on some ‘masterpiece’.

Though, he did let slip that one of his favourites was a scene of titanic lilies floating on a lake.

He himself had shared his life on the hunt, and the differences that the outskirts of the Sea had from the interior. The vistas he had seen, and the nights of contemplation as Father taught him the constellations of the sky.

Both of his companions had watched him cautiously at first, as if the stories so intertwined with his father would bring him anguish. He was a little surprised they hadn’t.

Oh, it ached, but it was overshone by the happiness he found in those memories—Of sharing his brightest days with his newest friends and family.

Eventually though, the conversation died as a smudge crested the horizon. Focusing heavily, Kaius brought the image into focus. A town, walled in heavily reinforced logs, with a dozen men at the gate.

Holsborough.

At the sight of their destination, a surprising amount of apprehension filled him. More than a few of the spider’s victims would have hailed from here, and they would be the ones who would have to bring news of its death, and share the details of what they found.

It was the right thing to do, but it would be a painful conversation all the same.