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

Swallowed in the dark belly of a tree, Nox did her best to ignore the thick scent of rotting wood and decay that filled her hollow. Hidden at the base of a venerable giant, it was a small space — likely a crack that had been flooded out by a large storm and rotted away. Curled into a ball for the better part of six hours, her joints ached, and the old bones of some sort of rodent jabbed her in the side.

Night had long since fallen, and she hadn’t heard a sound in hours. It was time.

Slowly, silently, she shoved at the mound of leaf litter she’d used to hide the entrance. Crawling free, her hands and knees sank deep into cold mud.

A crescent slice of moon shone down on her as she peered through the canopy. Three days until the new moon. It would take her one to reach the camp, but she was still cutting it close.

Not much she could do about that — Vainblood was a fucking nightmare, and it only got worse the closer she got to the Crater. She’d only made it because she’d circled the forest from its northern border to punch straight in from the eastern rim.

Sighing softly to herself, Nox brushed some of the worst of the muck from her trousers. She didn’t bother pulling the leaves from her hair. Even if they itched like mad, it helped to break up her profile.

Looking back up to the sky, she scanned the spray of stars that splashed across it like milk, settling on a single gleaming point. The tip of The Spear.

She set off; cold, wet, and silent.

….

A crisp morning breeze swirled through the trunks of Vainblood, filled with the trilling call of blue-bellied swallows that perched in the canopy over Kaius’s head. Further off, he could hear the soft burble of a creek worming its way through the forest, and the faint grunts of something rooting through the ground for breakfast.

But no angry beasts, and no men.

The former was good, and the latter worried him for the same reasons. They had two days until the Wellspring opened, and they had yet to see any sign of Brokenlight or the man’s camp.

They’d swept the entire west and southern edges of the Crater; they had to be getting close! There was no way the man would camp anywhere near the northern side of Vainblood. It was too close to the roads — the direct access point for any delver or hunter who came from the cities of Tennereth and Sidora. Even if expeditions into the high-mana zone were rare with the increasing danger, it was still entirely possible it would happen. It was a needless risk for a man who had so perfectly kidnapped an archivist out from under the nose of the duke.

That left the south that they’d already searched, and its border of unclaimed wilds, and the east, which held nothing but forest and meadows until the border of the Dukedoms.

But they hadn’t seen a single sign in weeks of travel. Even avoiding every battle they could, and moving as quickly as possible, they were running out of time. They would keep rotating around the Crater until they found it — but he dreaded what would happen if they took too long.

Kaius booted a stray rock, sending it tumbling across the ground, kicking up the autumn leaves that coated the ground. Porkchop swung his head over, his ears perking up.

“Where the hell are they?” Kaius complained with a huff. “We’re running out of time.”

“We’ll run into them soon,” Kenva replied, stepping around a patch of suspiciously bright purple and orange flowers. “The road to the border sweeps past the north-east of the forest — it would be idiocy to camp there, so they have to be in this region of the forest. I’ll check our surroundings with Leaf on the Wind again soon. No matter how skilled they are, someone will leave tracks that I can spot.”

Kaius nodded, though his heart wasn’t in it. Kenva had been doing that every hour for over a week, and it hadn’t done them much good. For finding the camp at least — she had managed to steer them clear of plenty of roaming Gold beasts. Some of those escaped had been narrow — especially the one five days ago. A pack of swirling shades had surged out of the rim of the Crater, charging in their direction. If Kenva hadn’t spotted the spirits three leagues out, they would have gotten bogged down in a fight for sure — one they might not have been able to win. That many golds at once was a tough ask, even for them.

Though, not every fight had been avoidable. There’d been enough for them to get a few more levels out of the journey. Skills too — Drakthar was at level two-ninety-nine. Just two more from his next spell.

That anticipation only made his restlessness all the more unbearable.

It was worse for Ianmus. The mage’s expression was flat as he picked his way through the tangled undergrowth, using his staff to push aside prickly-leafed bushes. He’d gotten a bit better since their late night talk, and had even opened up with the rest of their team — but he was still prone to longer-than-normal stretches of silence. The uncertainty couldn’t have been helping. If they didn’t reach the camp in time, and Brokenlight got entrance to the Wellspring, what would happen to Kanmost?

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The kidnapper wouldn’t need the Archivist anymore, and Kaius didn’t think that a Gold member of the Onyx would be the type to leave around loose ends.

A distant scream ripped through the forest ahead of them. A man’s scream.

Kaius froze, a twinge snapping underfoot. Not one of them breathed, waiting for any other sound. He almost couldn’t believe it — it could have been a beast, distorted by the distance and the thick forest.

Another scream, though this one was more of a battlecry than a surprised shriek of pain — definitely a man’s.

“Go,” Kaius said, meeting Kenva’s eyes.

The ranger nodded, breaking into a sprint. A single, bounding leap shot her towards the nearest trunk. Bark showered the ground as she kicked off again, snagging a branch. She fuzzed, melding into the canopy as she sprinted from branch to branch in total silence, disappearing into the distance.

Kaius made no move to follow. Right now, their best move would be to locate the camp undetected. If they engaged with the kidnappers without a full picture of the situation, they would only needlessly put Kanmost at risk.

Ianmus in the direction Kenva had left, eyes bright and his body stiff with leaking furor. That was good — a little heat in the blood never hurt anybody, and it would carry the man through the battle. He trusted the mage, simple anger wouldn’t be enough to make him rash.

Stepping forwards, Porkchop bumped Ianmus with his shoulder.

“Come on,” he said, nodding towards a jumble of small stones that were nestled next to a nearby trunk. “Let’s go wait over there.”

Ianmus jumped slightly from the sudden contact, looking back at them. He sighed, nodding.

“Yeah, let’s go wait.”

Walking over, Kaius took a seat on a stone webbed over by yellow lichen, and clapped his friend on the back. “It’ll just be a few hours, you’ll see. Kenva will be back in no time.”

…

Kenva fell from the sky, tearing through the canopy at full speed. She slammed into the ground, her feet sinking into the dirt as she crouched low to bleed off the shock of her impact.

Kaius and Porkchop were on their feet in an instant, his blade drawn and his brother’s armour summoned. He relaxed a moment later when Kenva waved them down, a wide grin on her face.

“It’s them!”

A wave of relief crashed over Kaius. He sheathed his blade, slumping back down onto his rock. Thank the gods. They’d heard more sounds of distant battle after Kenva had left, but they’d died off eventually. He’d been worried that it had been some delving team that happened to be in the area by chance.

It was, admittedly, a bit of a nonsense worry — but he hadn’t been able to help it. Sitting and waiting always did his head in.

“What did you find?” Ianmus asked, leaning forward as he stared at Kenva intensely.

“A hunting party. They were fighting a few silvers about half a dozen leagues away — waited for them to finish up so I could follow them back to camp.”

Kaius blinked. A hunting party? He’d have thought the scum would be holed in in some hidden nook, avoiding as much danger as possible. How had they even heard the man at that distance? Some sort of warcry Skill?

“That doesn’t make much sense,” Ianmus murmured. “I’d have thought they’d be trying to draw as little attention as possible, especially this close to the start of winter.”

“It looked like they’ve been trying to keep the surrounding area clear of threats — though I wouldn’t be surprised if they were scrounging up as much strength as possible.”

“Oh?” Porkchop asked.

“It’s a big camp. That hunting party was fifteen strong — three low Silvers, the rest high to peak Steel. Most of the Silvers I saw looked fresh, though I saw a solid core of veterans. I think they’ve been facing down stronger beasts with numbers, and gathering as much strength as they can to protect the camp.”

How long had they been in Vainblood? The experience penalties for any group with more than four members rapidly grew extreme. More importantly, that many men in a hunting party did not bode well, especially with Silvers involved.

“What did the camp look like?” he asked.

Kenva winced. “I didn’t stick around long enough to get a fully accurate count, but it looks fifty people, give or take. Most are Steel, and I spotted about ten fresh Silvers. Brokenlight’s core crew is stronger. I didn’t see the man himself, but there was another Gold, and three more High Silvers that the others in the camp were listening to.”

That was a bloody small army! He wasn’t too worried about the Steels, or even the low Silvers — they’d mow through them like wheat, especially if they were common scum lacking in Rarity — but dealing with them and Brokenlights crew? That many bodies would slow them down. They needed to scout this out — plan their attack.

“Please tell me there’s a safe spot for us to watch them,” Kaius asked.

Kenva smiled. “They’re set up in a ravine, and warded the place to shit, so I couldn’t get too close, but I did find an overgrown rocky outcropping that has a clean view of the entire thing. We can plan our assault there.”

Perfect. That meant they also had a spot to wait for Lord Flowers and his men to catch up to them. The man had sworn he’d stay within half a day, and the surprise appearance of mounted cavalry would be ...effective against a force that was stuck in a ravine. So would Starfall for that matter, though they’d need to locate where Kanmost was being held before he went levelling the camp.

Kaius slapped his thighs and rose to his feet. “Well then, let’s get to it!”