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

It had been almost a full day since he’d woken in his cell.

Mostly, it had just been sitting and waiting. Ianmus and Porkchop had woken a few hours after that, and he’d briefed them as quickly as he could—using Porkchop as an intermediary just in case they were being listened to.

They’d looped Kenva into their conversations—asking her more sensitive questions, but had been careful not to mention any details of who they were, their builds, or their plan to escape.

She’d still been ecstatic at finally having talking partners, and they’d made sure to talk idly out loud to throw off any listeners.

Unfortunately, she knew little that was helpful. Their captors were fans of sedatives—knocking her out any time she was transported through the compound. All she knew was that after the first couple of week of holding out under torture, she’d been left to rot, the cell’s guard only checking on her once a day to throw a cup of slop onto the floor of her cell.

With all the down time he, Porkchop, and Ianmus had gone through their skill selections.

His were bitter sweet—both were glyphs, one of which was one that finally revealed why his class had required a soul-bonded companion. Unfortunately, in the current circumstances they were all but useless.

He needed his mana unshackled before he could inscribe his latest additions, and even if he could, he was unsure of how much help a level one skill would be.

To that end, he’d held off on picking a spell to go with his latest casting glyph. After escaping, their best bet to stay free would be to dive into the nearest Depths portal they could find—using the confusing warren and the lockout period to flee as far as they could. Considering the sheer variability of what they might find, he wanted to keep his options open to tailor it to their future needs.

Still, even if the skills weren’t the most helpful to their current circumstances, they were still great in their own right.

He pulled up their descriptions, refreshing himself.

Latent Glyph of Vyrthane:

Class Skill - Tier I

Affinity: Arcane, Martial

Type: Glyph-binding, Runic, Spellcasting

Selection Available!

Heroic

The ‘Glyph of Iron’, Vyrthane is the lynchpin of the Vesryn order’s rumoured invincibility. Its hymns are an adamant shield—defending the Runeblades from threats mundane and obscure. Stout and unshakeable, it is inscribed on the heart, where it can best defend the core of its bearer.

This skill allows the user to inscribe Vesryn barrier and defensive spell-hymns to be activated at will, limited only by the availability of mana to reserve into the working, and sufficient space on the body. Creates a hymnbook on the user’s status if one is not already present. Multiples of the same glyph can cast hymns inscribed on their counterpart.

Each level moderately increases the power, range, and area of effect of spell-hymns cast through the glyph.

Each level slightly decreases the physical size of inscribed spell-hymns.

Every 100 levels the user may learn another runic hymn of the relevant tier to add to their hymnbook.

Spell-hymns Known:

Tier I -

Selection Available!

….

Sigil of Vesryn’s Pact:

Class Skill- Tier I

Affinity: Arcane, Soul

Type: Glyph-binding, Runic, Bond, Enhancement

Selection Available!

Unique

A totem to the ancient pact that bound the Penswari to Vesryn forever more. A symbol of unity, it represents a sharing of strength—a seed that blooms when watered. Layered with glyphic gifts, it rests on the sternum, granting strength to the eternal companions of the order. Bestowed power, that will one day reverberate backwards in kind.

This skill allows the user to inscribe the Vesryn Pact Sigil on the sternum of their bonded companion, greatly increasing the distance at which they can communicate.

The sigil can be inscribed with glyphic formations that permanently bolsters the bondeds capability. Creates a formationbook on the user’s status if one is not already present.

Each level moderately increases the potency of inscribed formations, new and existing.

Every 200 levels the user may learn another inscription to add to the sigil.

Formations Known:

Tier I -

Selection Available!

Both skills were fine additions—beating out his other options by a league.

Vyrthane had been an immediate pick. After the back to back batterings he had received at the hands of the bone biters and his captors, the idea of shielding spells had been more than welcome.

Vesryn’s Pact on the other hand…that had been interesting. Something he hadn’t quite expected to see, but one that he welcomed all the same. Porkchop’s strength was his strength, and he knew that picking a skill like this in the first tier would serve them both well. It was highly likely that as the skill rose through future tiers, it would gain additional capabilities that multiplied the force that he and his brother could leverage when working together.

It had been enough of a tempter that he’d picked it over a Heroic metamagic—not that he was too stressed about that choice. He was confident that he’d be able to bring the skill up a rarity in tier two.

Porkchop and Ianmus had made their own selections as well.

His brother had picked Interceed the Weak and Jadecrash. The first of which was a skill that would let him rapidly reposition, and if used to intercept an attack meant for an ally, would significantly empower his retaliation. The latter was a little more interesting—it would let Porkchop coat one of his arms in jade during an attack, stunning his target.

In Kaius’s mind, both were perfect—building on the foundation that Porkchop had set as he worked towards being the unassailable anchor of their formation.

Ianmus, on the other hand, had only a single selection to make—a prospect that had irritated him greatly. After waking he’d spent a full fifteen minutes fuming that he’d been taken out of the fight so quickly and missed out on not only additional levels, but an Honour too.

In the end, he’d picked Starlight Alacrity—an ability that let him move incredibly quickly as long as he channeled mana into the skill, but only in straight lines. Kaius had expected him to pick another metamagic, but the mage had shaken his head—insisting that any caster who ignored mobility was as good as dead, and that it would mesh finely with his general skill Magister’s Dash.

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In totality, it was a bittersweet addition to their capabilities. They’d grown stronger, but had been captured with their resources suppressed. Without being able to fully dive into the newest avenue of their growth, it felt fake. Unreal.

Kaius leaned back on his hands, ignoring the cold touch of the damp stone as he sighed.

They’d get out—he’d make it happen. By the forsaken hells, he’d rather die trying to escape than let his jailors pick over his mind until they had found what they wanted and disposed of him in a shallow grave.

Right as he settled in to spend more time waiting, a door slammed out of sight from his cell, the noise booming through the hard stone hall.

Kaius jolted upright.

Footsteps clattered through the hall, drawing closer by the second. He launched to his feet, puddles splashing as he readied himself to get his first look at their jailor.

Through his cell door, he watched Kenva shy away—racing from where she had sat near her door to huddle in the back of her cell. Her eyes were wide—orbs of solid blue standing out in the murky shadows.

She was scared.

“Be ready, they might be coming for one of us.” Kaius pushed along his bond, willing Porkchop to pass the message along to Ianmus.

Every footfall hit his chest like a hammerblow—the anticipation building. He clenched his fist, knuckles whitening as he stood up straight, refusing to fall to panic.

They stopped outside of his cell.

A man leered through the bars, yellow teeth bared as the jailor’s eyes shone with a cruel delight from behind greasy strands of dark hair.

He was shorter than Kaius had been expecting. Stout, too—like a woodsman who’d let himself go. Dressed in simple nondescript dark leather armour, with a hammer looped at his belt, he looked like any other common thug that Kaius had seen lurking in the alleys of deadacre.

“Heard you’re a tough one—I like those. Makes it all the sweeter when you break.” the jailor said, his hungry grin spreading wider across his face. “And you will break—everyone does in the end.”

Kaius said nothing, letting the words roll over him like water. He refused to give the man the satisfaction.

Instead, he used Truesight, throwing the full empowered weight of his will into analysing the brute. He felt his probe hit the man’s mask, and shatter right through it like glass.

Human - Level 114

Brute

A hoarse yell escaped the man’s throat, his pockmarked face twisting in agony as he clutched his head.

Kaius only smiled.

And analysed the man again.

Too stunned to react the first time, his jailor hadn’t dropped his mask. He splintered it again, making the man howl in furious agony.

His third probe slid through—even a common thug had the sense not to be caught by the same trick three times in a row.

“You’ll regret that soon, you rat-fuck. I’m going to have fun watching you squeal.” the jailor growled, eyes burning furiously.

Standing up straight, he reached over and slapped a palm on the wall next to Kaius’s cell. A faint hint of mana flashed, and Kaius realised that the man had activated a formation.

Then all Kaius knew was pain, his body locking up as a searing heat coursed through every hair’s breadth of his body. Try as he might, he couldn’t help grunting involuntarily at the sudden assault—though he quickly leaned on Rapid Adaptation to help sweep the pain into a dark recess of his mind, processing the experience with dispassionate distance.

While he writhed on the ground, the jailor moved his hand over and mana flashed again. Gas followed, a dense fog drifting down from the ceiling, prevented from wafting out of the door by arcane edifice.

As he watched what he had no doubt was a sedative drift down, he heard Porkchop let out a heavy growl and felt his brother’s need to tear their jailor limb from limb.

“Patience,” he said, weathering the pain that still coursed through his body. “His time will come soon enough—I’ll be fine, whatever they do to me.”

“I’m going to tear him limb from limb.” his brother promised.

He knew his answer didn’t ease Porkchop’s worries, but it did stop him from futilely throwing himself at the barred doors—far better the jailor think his allies cowed by the display of dominance.

The gas reached him—smelling of soft lilacs and ocean spray.

**Ding! You have been afflicted by Poison, Dream - Gravebound Slumber, Tier 2**

So, they reused the same poison. That was sloppy.

As the poison coursed through his body, Kaius watched the jailor pull out a set of keys and a ward stone from a pouch at his waist, waiting for him to pass out.

That action sealed the man’s fate. They needed those keys to escape—which meant the jailor had to die.

Kaius faded, a slight smile on his lips despite the wracking waves of pain that washed over his body.

….

Kaius swallowed a groan, straining at the straps that held him to the table. They’d been at it for hours now. He’d woken up tied down, surrounded by what could only be described as a butcher’s den.

The walls were the same damp stone as his cell, but dozens of iron pegs had been hammered in, all manner of tools hanging down. Hooks, knives, files, vices, and other more inventive implements of pain.

A masked man in a bloodstained leather apron leaned over him, an inscribed fillet knife in hand. It dripped with blood. His blood.

Snapping his head to the side, his gaze burning into the other occupant of the room who was leaning against the far wall, dressed in a noble’s silks—the foil to the faceless pain of his torturer.

Smiling at him sadly, the man pushed an errant strand of his finely combed blonde hair back into place.

Kaius was going to kill the foppish bastard, on his father’s grave.

The tendons on his neck stood out in stark relief as he clenched his jaw hard enough that his teeth felt like they would crack.

Health surged, boiling through his veins as the energy raced to heal a dozen different fillets that had been cut from his inner thighs. They’d peeled back his skin—prevented the writhing membrane from sealing itself whole by nailing it down to his shin.

Now those nails were gone, and he could feel his flesh unfurling—creeping back up his bloodsoaked legs as the wound was made whole once more. It was a strain as much psychological as it was physical.

That was the problem with Health—all these bastards had to do was pump him full of potions to keep him healing and alert. Especially since their torturer seemed to have skills that heightened his nerves, and made it so that every slice seemed to bleed less and heal easier.

Their question was small—simple and easy. It was a trap. A way to make him break, make the next concession just that much easier.

He knew if he answered, it would lead to a road where they learned what they wanted, and then disposed of him. So he kept silent—refusing to answer even the most basic of questions, no matter what reprieve they promised him.

The finely dressed faux-noble looked at him with a pained expression, before his eyes flicked to the torturer and it transformed to disgusted.

“It’s so distasteful, being forced to do this to you, Kaius. I hate torture, you know.” he said, his voice soft and refined—like he’d come from a college in Mystral.

“It truly is a disgrace—If I had any other choice, I wouldn’t stand for it, but they’ve got me in a bondage of my own. You must understand, don’t you? If I don’t get the answers that my superior wants, it’ll be me on that table.” the man continued.

“So please—for your own sake. Just answer the question.”

“What did you eat for your last meal, before you were captured?” the torturer asked immediately after.

Kaius spat in his face, spittle thick with blood.

The torturer stood unmoving, uncaring as the spittle ran down his mask. It still gave kaius some visceral joy at standing defiantly in the face of agony.

The suited man sighed. “I really wish you hadn’t done that.”

With a swift yank, the torturer grabbed the flap of skin that had yet to fully heal, ripping it down as he tore the skin from his leg. With motions refined from deft practice, he pinned the flap to his shin with barbed hooks, the metal flaming as it settled deep in his flesh.

Reaching below the table, the torturer gripped a now-familiar jar. Salt.

Kaius gasped as the white dust hit his flesh—unable to help the most basal response to the creeping fire that alighted his exposed thigh muscles, the fibres rippling in uncontrolled contractions.

Then he felt the cold kiss of the knife, and he retreated from the pain—transmuting living horror into a dispassionate reflection of his bodily state. Deep in the recesses of his mind, Porkchop was waiting for him—his brother’s presence bringing the simple comfort of warmth and love that made the experience all the more bearable.

With every cycle, it grew easier, his captors’ attention holding less and less of a sway on his mind.

“What did you eat for your last meal, before you were captured?”

Kaius only chuckled, the noise breathy and wet.

And so it continued, their little cycle of inane questions and horrific acts repeating.

**Ding! Rapid Adaptation has reached level 113 > 134!**

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**Ding! Tempered By Dissonance has reached level 93 > 118!**

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**Ding! Lesser Regeneration has reached level 106 > 138!**

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**Ding! Brotherhood of Ichor and Animus has reached level 114 > 138!**