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

Kaius’s vision fuzzed as he fell in and out of consciousness. He was being carried, slung roughly over someone’s shoulder.

Everything ached—the remnants of his Health were not enough to fully recover from the beatdown he had just suffered. It was only by the blaring insistence of his Glass Mind that he had the wherewithal to stay limp and silent.

No need to let his captors know he was awake, even if it was only barely.

Through half-lidded eyes, he watched black-booted feet stomp their way through the long grass of the frontier. The rogue, it had to be—his every step driving his shoulder uncomfortably into Kaius’s tender stomach.

Struggling against the weight of the poison that was steadily dragging him back into oblivion, he tried his best to see how far they’d walked. Grass meant they’d left the Bonefields.

Then the rogue stopped.

“Chuck them in the cart,” the voice of the stranger who’d arrived at the end of their battle said.

The rogue grunted. Kaius felt himself lifted off of the man’s shoulder before he was roughly tossed forwards.

Fogged as his mind was, he didn’t have to fight all that hard to suppress his instincts to catch himself. He landed on something warm and soft—Porkchop, judging by the blood soaked fur that pressed into the back of his neck.

Cracking a lidded eye, his assumption was confirmed, right as Ianmus’s limp body was tossed on top of him.

He just barely stifled a groan as the man’s dead weight pressed directly on a half-healed cut on his chest.

Gods, it was hard to think. Even knowing how vital it was that he learned of their destination, he was struggling to keep his eyes cracked.

“You sure you’ll be able to keep them contained? They’re tough as nails. I wouldn’t mind sitting around for a month or two to keep things settled.” the rogue asked.

Kaius almost thought he heard a little respect in the bastard’s voice.

The stranger barked a laugh. “I’m sure you’d love that. No, my containment measures will be more than enough—don’t you worry, no one’s ever escaped Yon’s pit.”

Brushing off the stranger’s words—there was always a first time for everything—he focused as much as he could on the fact that the rogue wouldn’t be guarding them. Even through the fog that clouded him, he knew that it was unlikely the man would have offered it if there were already guards of his own calibre.

That was…good. He thought it was good, at least.

Unable to fight against the poison any longer, Kaius fell back into unconsciousness.

….

Water dripped on Kaius’s face, lurching him back to the world of the waking.

Opening his eyes slowly, confusion rolled over him as he struggled to process where he was. Last thing he remembered, they’d been fighting some dog-like beasts in the Bonefields.

Then…there had been an ambush?

Ice shot down his spine, banishing the last of his fatigue as the memories of their defeat and capture washed over him.

Lurching to a seated position, he looked around.

He was in a cell—three walls, a ceiling, and a floor made of a uniform cobblestone. It wasn’t exactly watertight. Moisture seeped through the seams in the stone—feeding patches of mold and moss that had made their home in the room.

Barely eight strides wide, he’d been left with almost no room to move—even if he could lie flat on the cold ground, he didn’t have enough room to stretch out his arms.

Switching attention to his body, Kaius scowled as he realised that his captors had stripped him of everything. His armour, blade, and everything else was gone—replaced by a moldy roughspun burlap smok that left the thick black lines of his glyphs bare to the world.

No doubt they would have plenty of questions for him about those.

Thankfully, he could feel his blade—his bond to his weapon yanking his attention far off to his left. Most likely they’d left it in a store room, or some kind of vault. Getting access would be vital to their escape.

With the communication medallion being destroyed before he could use it, it would be up to them to escape.

Holding his hand to his face to trace the lines of the sigil that was emblazoned on the palm of his swordhand, Kaius realised with a start that his captors had missed something.

A ring. The one that Rieker and Ro had gifted him that reinforced his mask. Kaius sighed in relief. The enchantment to redirect attention had held. That, at least, was something—the less information his captors could glean, the better.

If they couldn’t get through his mask, they wouldn’t know their levels, and escape would be just that much easier.

Setting his hand down, Kaius took in the final wall of his cell. A door of wrought iron bars was set in its centre, leading to a similarly depressing stone hallway that was lit by surprisingly bright wardlights.

Unfortunately, the lights were a cold blue-white that left him feeling exposed and uncomfortable.

“A fine choice for a dungeon.” he thought to himself with a snort.

Kaius took a deep breath. The worst had come to pass—they’d been captured, with no immediate way to escape. He knew what would come next.

Torture. Then a mindmage, when they realised they wouldn’t be able to get anything from him.

Surprisingly, the thought didn’t strike terror. Deep down, he’d expected this would happen at some point, and now that it had, he wasn’t about to sit around shaking in his boots. The only thing fear would do was dull his mind. If he wanted out, he needed his full faculties.

He knew he wouldn’t break—what he had gone through to earn his resistance skills as a child of fifteen would make any hardened torturer blanch. Pain, poison, fire, and void—each had been an ordeal that had almost broken him, made more brutal by the fact Father had used it as an opportunity to harden him for this very eventuality.

Even Ianmus had been through anti-interrogation training before he’d been deemed worthy of learning the legacy skills of his college.

A mindmage though…they wouldn’t have much defence against that. He’d give it a month, maybe two before they settled on that option—blackmarket mind crackers didn’t exactly strike him as cheap, especially not if they had to be trusted to keep legacy skills to themselves.

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Even with a time limit, he couldn’t exactly jump straight to escape—they would have to plan. Learn about their captors and where they were being held in any way they could, while they waited for complacency and routine to give them an opening.

Steeling himself for the hard days to come, Kaius dropped into his soulspace. He needed to check if his resources were still constrained.

In the burning light of his soul, he saw that they were. The once gaseous clouds of his Mana and Stamina were locked down tight, contained in their pools.

His glyphs though? They might not be.

Sweeping his attention to the tightly wound magic constructs that he had imbued into his flesh, Kaius let a wild grin spread across his face as he found tightly packed bundles of mana waiting for his command.

He might not be able to inscribe more, but he had what was left. Seven casts of Hateful Nail, four of Stormlash, six of Yellia’s Slip Step, and three of Trussant’s Expedient Shunt.

Every single one was precious, and he’d have to hoard them carefully for their escape.

He knew he had more skills to pick, and Honours to check, but he would have plenty of time to check on those later. Right now, he needed information. Starting with inspecting the inscription that had sealed his resources.

Pushing himself up to his feet, Kaius grimaced as he stepped into a small puddle of frigid water that had dripped from the ceiling.

Shaking off the drips, he searched the room—quickly finding what he was looking for. Around the rim of the ceiling, just out of reach, there was a long line of glyphs—recessed deep into the rock so that he wouldn’t be able to disrupt them with his fingers.

He didn’t recognise the exact script, but he didn’t need to. He’d seen this exact formation before—an example of a standard resource lockout inscription that Father had shown him. Following the lines to the door, he found a second set of runes—these ones in the more familiar Ykkardian script.

Physical reinforcement—a complex and strong formation too. No doubt a protection against a physical attempt at escape. Thankfully, he saw no wards protecting against spatial movement. At least, none he could recognise. Whoever had built this never expected to hold powerful mages.

The final inscription he found was a basic alarm ward—one set to trip if the door was ever opened without a key.

Kaius grinned. It was a victory—without protections to stop him using a Slip Step to get out of his cell, he could get out whenever he wanted. He’d still need a key to free his friends, but that was nothing a few casts of Hateful Nail couldn’t solve.

Pressing himself up to the bars, he peered into the hall.

Wide and straight, the passage ended in another reinforced door a good forty strides to his left. All along the corridor, more barred gates were set—each a cell as austere in his own.

Leaning on their bond to pull him in the right direction, he spotted Porkchop across the hall, two doors down to his right. His brother had been stripped of his armour, and was sprawled out prone on the ground.

One door further away, Ianmus lay in much the same condition—dressed in a smock that was an identical copy of Kaius’s own.

Seeing his companions held so close eased his tension, his shoulders slumping. It had been his largest worry, that they’d be split up and he would have to hunt them down through whatever prison they were being held in.

Right as he sighed and started to back away from the bars, Kaius caught a flash of movement to his left.

Heart hammering at the sudden shock, he snapped his head to its source—and nearly jumped when he found someone staring at him.

A woman, in a cell of her own—though of a species he had never seen before.

Her eyes were a piercing blue, absent of all traces of black or white, and her features were angular and lean. Almost like she was an elf, though instead of their refined grace she was cutting and sharp. Her ears were the wrong shape too, and she was far too short—even halflings like Ianmus towered over Kaius, and while she would have been notably tall for a human woman, she was still a head shorter than him.

That, and he was fairly sure her pale skin was verging on purple, though that could have easily been due to the light.

Once the shock of her unfamiliar features faded, Kaius noticed that not all of her lean features were necessarily due to her blood. She was gaunt. Almost skeletal, and her red-brown hair hung in clumped, thin strips.

Whoever she was, she’d been here a while.

“What’s the matter, manling? Never seen an aen before?” she asked hoarsely, her words biting.

Ignoring the barb, Kaius tilted his head at her. “No,” he replied, before he pushed her out of his mind and returned his gaze to the hall—searching for more evidence of security inscriptions.

The woman went quiet, evidently not expecting such a sudden dismissal.

While he wouldn’t leave an innocent down here if he had the choice, right now his priority was on learning as much as he could. Searching the ceiling, he found no trace of further formations. Explorer’s Toolkit was silent too, but he wasn’t sure if an alarm was close enough to a trap for his skill to work.

They’d only get one shot at this. It should be a pretty good one—with their sudden growth in strength, he was confident against the guards of this place. Especially since he still had his hazy memories of the team that had captured them offering to work as guards. Without jailors of a similar strength, they’d have little chance of surviving a head to head confrontation—especially since so little of Porkchop’s strength relied on his items.

“My name’s Kenva, if you wanted to know.” the woman whispered softly, her voice trembling as she said her name.

Startled out of his thoughts, Kaius looked back to her. Seeing her fragile peace offering, he knew he couldn’t just ignore her. The weight of her time in the dungeon was too obvious—it would be cruel.

“Kaius,” he replied, voice softening to just above a whisper. “Where are we?”

Kenva shrugged. “Not sure, really. Some compound near Deadacre, I assume. They caught me when I was travelling there from Grandbrook. Drugged me before I could run. Next thing I know, I’m in this cell.”

“How long?”

“A month, maybe two.” she replied, staring hard at the wall next to her.

Kaius winced—no wonder she looked like shit. Then he processed what she had said.

“Wait, you travelled across the frontier alone? After everything?” Kaius asked, surprised.

He knew the woman was likely strong, just on the simple basis she was also being held by a group that had clearly pursued them for the same reason, but a feat like that was impressive.

“Of course—I am a Zhdan. If a little walk was out of my power, I would shame my clan-name and the legacy they have gifted me.” Kenva replied, scoffing as if she struggled to believe the thought.

Kaius cocked his brow at her. That was…boastful. With the threats that had arisen on the plains since the phase change, she would have needed some real strength to have managed.

Seeing his expression, Kenva looked to the side.

“What do they want?” he asked. He was almost certain that he knew the answer, but it was best to have it confirmed.

Kenva seemed to shrink into herself. “Same thing they probably want with you. My knowledge. Don’t seem to care that I have a blood oath.”

Kaius watched her closely—the way she flinched at the memories. Her fragile nerves.

He was right—Torture.

Nodding to her, he set his eyes on his team.

He was confident in Porkchop—he was tough as nails, and they had each other to lean on during the pain. Ianmus though…he would be a weak link. It would be a delicate balance between preparation and waiting too long.

Thank the gods they could use Porkchop to communicate quietly—it’d help.

“You woke up pretty quickly—you must be strong, right?” Kenva finally said, her desperation for a conversation partner outweighing her wariness.

Kaius shot her a quick look. “I think that until I’m sure that you’re not with our captors, that we should keep our conversation topics to something less personal,” he replied.

It was a lie, of course—the girl had every physical and emotional sign of long term imprisonment. He just wanted to wait for Porkchop to wake until they could talk.

“Oh. Sorry.” Kenva replied, shrinking in on herself as she scooted back into the corner of her cell.

Kaius sighed. “I wouldn’t mind talking—it’s just best for both of our safeties that we act smart about it.”

That seemed to brighten the woman up.

“What did you want to know?” she asked.

“Well, for starters, how often do the guards check on us?”