Rune Seeker

Hiral shook some of the water off his raincoat as he stepped into the building, the wind picking up outside and whipping the rain almost horizontally down the street. The storm had moved fast, charging the town like a runaway bull, and the visible wall of torrential rain was only a block away by the time he made it back to the building where the others should be waiting.

“That’s almost as bad as the storm-wall out there,” Hiral said, Left and Right dripping wet beside him.

“At least you have a raincoat,” Right said, and ran a hand down his arm to skim off some of the water.

“Oh, come here, you big baby,” Hiral said, absorbing and then resummoning his doubles in quick succession. “Better?”

“Much, thank you,” Right said.

“I have to ask, though,” Hiral started, pointing at Right’s legs. “You have pants when I activate Foundational Split, the same ones I do. Why don’t you have the raincoat?”

“Because we choose not to take a copy of it with us when we split,” Left explained. “For me, it would interfere with reaching the tattoos. For him”—he pointed at Right—“it’s about image.”

“The glowing Meridian Lines and tattoos look pretty badass in the dark,” Right said.

“Look badass?” Hiral asked. “So, let me get this straight. You’ve been complaining about being wet even though you’re choosing not to take the raincoat with you?”

“I thought I heard you three arguing,” Seena interrupted before Right could reply, poking her head out from behind the staircase. “Come on. The others are this way.”

“We’re not done with this conversation,” Hiral said quietly to Right, then turned his attention to Seena. “Not upstairs?” He then noticed the floor in the building was higher than the road outside, saving it from being covered in a layer of water.

“Found a nice central room in here. Completely dry, and no Troblins!” Seena said. “Yanily was disappointed, but I’m pretty sure Wule was terrified we’d find another one of those paintings. He’s still traumatized. How about you? Find anything else out there?”

“I checked a couple of buildings,” Hiral said, following Seena toward the back. “Only one of them was in any shape to keep us out of the rain, and honestly, it was worse than this one.”

He noted how well the stone walls around him had held up. The architecture was definitely different than what Fallen Reach had, with the Lizardmen using larger blocks that tended to be rougher around the edges. Still, whatever they used to fill in the cracks had stood the test of time and prevented even the slightest draft. The thick wood of the ceiling and braces had to have been brought in from somewhere else—no way it came from the twisting trees found in the swamps.

“No sign of Lizardmen, either,” he went on. “Not for a long, long time. Maybe this is morbid, but I didn’t even find bones. But…” He hesitated. Did she need to know about it? Yes, yes, she did. “I think I saw the briar patch the Prince was sealed in inside the dungeon. I don’t know if it’s still in there… but…” He trailed off, seeing something on Seena’s face. “What is it? Did you find something?”

“Cutlery!” Yanily answered as Seena and Hiral entered the somewhat crowded room.

The two parties had moved a large table—somehow still in one piece—over next to one wall, and stacked their packs in the other corner. Dripping raincoats hung from hooks near a door on the far wall, and Cal was handing out rations to anybody who even looked in her direction. Seeing how cramped the room already was, he reached out and pulled Left and Right back into himself, the tattoos rising up to coat his skin again.

“That is cutlery?” Hiral asked, eying the almost foot-long knife Yanily was holding up. Then again, the fork he had in the other hand was just as absurdly large.

“Lizardmen and… are there lizardwomen?” Yanily asked. “Whatever. If they’re the same size as the ones we fought in the dungeons, they had big hands. Need big spoons and stuff.”

“Spoons?” Vix asked. “For what?”

“Soup,” Yanily said knowingly.

“Back to the grown-up talk,” Seena said with a shake of her head. “Follow me.”

With a wave of her hand, she led him through the room and the door on the far side. The next room over wasn’t in nearly as good of shape as the first, the far end of the building simply missing and the rain pouring outside, but Seena turned to the right instead of continuing.

“Stairs?” Hiral asked, noticing the stone steps descending into the foundation of the building. “Why not camp down there?”

“Uh… you’ll see,” Seena said, and Hiral had no choice but to follow her down. As soon as he got to the bottom, he understood her reluctance to spend more time than necessary in the small room.

His skin practically crawled, like it wanted to jump off his body and slink its way back up the stairs, and there was an aura of fear lingering like a bad smell. In the center of the room, a totem like those inside the dungeon stood propped in the dirt, leaning slightly to one side. Coiled shadows writhed in its eye sockets and loosely hanging jaw like a mass of worms. Looking at the base of the totem, Hiral found the corrupted roots and the expected line of shadows leading to the wall and beyond—in the same direction as the briar patch.

“The Princeis still in there,” he said, shuddering slightly. “After all this time, it’s still sleeping.”

“And how annoyed do you think it’ll be if we wake it up now?” Seena asked, then shooed Hiral back up the stairs, obviously having had enough of the small room.

“Very,” Hiral said, turning and ascending the stairs. “I’m surprised Yanily didn’t break the totem as soon as he saw it.”

“Even he had better sense than that,” Seena said, almost sounding impressed the experience-hungry spearman hadn’t released a rampaging beast of unfathomable power.

“Wow. Other than that, find anything else?” he asked, eager to change the conversation and take his mind off the totem’s aura.

“We didn’t find much other than the cutlery in here,” Seena said, leading him back into the room with the others. “Some dishes, though I’ll point out not a single spoon or soup bowl, and that table. All of it in really good shape. You sure the Lizardmen have been gone that long?”

“Most of the other buildings are nothing more than a single wall, maybe two if they’re in good shape,” Hiral said. “This place is much better. Besides, look at the roots.” His gaze went up to scroll along the ceiling and walls. No signs of a leak, even after all the rain, and all the glowing roots came in through the doors to spread out across the room. “It would’ve taken years for them to grow like this.”

“Unless this is how it always was on the surface,” Wule said. “There’s a lot we don’t know, but if we assume the sun has always moved around the world at the same speed, wouldn’t it make sense these roots are part of the natural adaptation to that?”

“You may be right,” Hiral said, thinking about it. “I’d just assumed they came around at the same time the dungeons did. But, Dr. Benza did mention repurposing them for the path. The more I think about it, the more that makes sense. How else would the trees grow as big as they did? They need sunlight.”

“And those glowing roots provide it,” Wule said. “They probably get some kind of nutrients from the other plants in return. A symbiotic relationship.”

“You’re probably right,” Hiral went on, the puzzle of it scratching that curiosity that always made Gauto say he should’ve been an Academic. “Maybe they store the energy while the sun is overhead, then slowly release it the rest of the time.”

“Why do you all keep encouraging him? Drop the façade already,” Fitch interrupted from the side of the room. “What? You’re all doing it. Sure, I expect it from the two clowns”—he looked at Yanily and Vix—“but you too, Wule? I thought you were better than that.”

“Better…?” Wule asked, looking a bit like he’d been slapped.

“Yes. Better,” Fitch said. “Pretending to like the Islander just because we need him to get into the dungeons. I’m so tired of this.”

“Pretending?” Hiral asked, a dark voice in his head whispering Everfail. He looked toward Seena.

“No, we’re not…” she started.

“You are,” Fitch snapped. “You were talking about it right before he came back. Why don’t we just get this out in the open? He needs us just as much as we need him, so let’s quit it with the faux friendliness.”

Now it was Seena’s turn to look like she’d been slapped, her eyes wide as she looked at Hiral. “I wasn’t… We weren’t…” she started and stopped, and Hiral’s stomach dropped.

Even after everything she’d said to him before… it wasn’t true?

“Stop it, Fitch,” Seeyela snapped. “Hiral”—she turned to him—“Seena didn’t say anything before you got back. Fitch, for some reason, is just trying to cause trouble.”

“Or maybe Seeyela is just saying that to make sure you open the next dungeon for us,” Fitch said.

“Fitch!” Seeyela barked. “I’m not just saying that.”

“Look at his face,” Fitch said. “He doesn’t believe you. And why would he? He’s not one of us. Never will be. As soon as we get into the Asylum, you’ll see, Islander. We won’t need you anymore. Then what do you think will happen?”

“Fitch,” Seeyela said once again, this time carrying an iciness that made everybody in the room pause. “I think you need to step out for a moment.”

Fitch’s mouth opened like he was going to ask “or what?”, but the look on Seeyela’s face made the answer pretty clear. “Fine,” he finally said. “The room got too crowded anyway,” he added, opening the door and walking out.

Hiral watched as Seeyela stepped over and gently closed the door behind Fitch, his stomach in knots, then turned to look at Seena. He almost activated Foundational Split for the support, but pushed down that urge. Right had said the party wasn’t like everybody up in Fallen Reach. That they wanted him to be a member of their party. That they trusted him.

Well, then, he’d trust them too. That look on Seena’s face… She was terrified either that Hiral had found out the truth or that he believed the lie. Time to find out which it was.

“Hiral, we weren’t talking about you,” Seena finally said, her mouth taking a few tries to get the words out of her mouth, and her eyes meeting his.

“Uh… yes, we were,” Yanily said, and Seena snapped around to glare at him.

“What? We were,” Yanily said, Hiral’s stomach twisting more at every word.

“To be clear,” Vix spoke up, “we were talking about your sword.”

“My sword?” Hiral asked, his voice barely coming out past the lump in his throat.

“Yanily is jealous, but don’t tell his spear,” Vix said.

“Shhhh! She’ll hear you,” Yanily hissed.

Seena turned back to Hiral and took a step closer. “We weren’t saying the things Fitch said we were,” she said quietly. “We’re not keeping you around just to get into the dungeons.”

“It’s one of the reasons,” Yanily piped up.

“Not helping, Yanily,” Seena seethed out of the side of her mouth without turning to look at the spearman.

“It’s true, though,” Yanily said. “And Hiral’s doing the same thing too. Aren’t you, Hiral? You want in the dungeons just as much as we do. What’s wrong with that?”

“It’s… not the only reason I’m with you,” Hiral said, looking at Seena.

“And it’s not the only reason we want you with us,” she responded. “Sure, yes, maybe it’s oneof the reasons, if we’re being completely honest about it. But you can’t still think we secretly hate you or something.”

“I… don’t,” Hiral said, fighting against his own inner demons rising up again. His rational mind knew it was just his own history making him even consider Fitch’s words as possibly true. The setup—the active intent to hurt him—was so obvious, but he still couldn’t just let it go.

“Good, because we don’t. I told you, you’re part of this party,” Seena said, a bit of the fire back in her eyes. “And”—she turned to Seeyela—“if Fitch doesn’t watch what he says, there’s going to be a problem between us.”

“Not just with Seena,” Nivian said.

“I know,” Seeyela said. “I’ll talk to him after he cools down a bit. Hiral, you don’t know me as well as the others do, but I hope you’ll believe me when I say Fitch’s opinion isn’t everybody’s. Has Seena told you what his problem with Islanders is?”

“No,” Hiral said, still trying to silence the nagging doubt in his head. Could any reason really justify his behavior?

“It’s a bit of a story, but the short of it is he blames a merchant from Fallen Reach for his sister’s death,” Seena said. “He’s been angry for years and… then… here you are.”

“It’s a hard thing for him to get past, and you, coming down from Fallen Reach with a merchant…” Seeyela said. “You’re like the perfect target for all his pent-up hate. But he’s not a bad guy, if you can get past it.” She shook her head and rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Sorry, I’m not trying to make excuses for him. Just… when we all get to the Asylum, give him a chance to get to know you as something other than an Islander. You might be surprised at what you find when you get past the hate.”

“The merchant… was it Arty?” Hiral asked.

“No, it wasn’t,” Seena said. “And, really, we don’t even know for sure what happened to his sister. Look, I’ll give you the full story later. Now’s not the time.”

“I’ll talk to him,” Seeyela picked up. “If I can get him to stop being…”

“An asshole,” Yanily filled in.

“Yes, that,” Seeyela agreed. “If he can behave, can you give him a chance?” she asked Hiral.

“I’ll think about it,” Hiral said, part of him completely recoiling at the thought of spending more than five minutes with the infuriating man. And why did he have to be the one to give the other a chance? Hadn’t he already been doing that?

“That’s more than fair,” Seeyela said. “Even if it doesn’t work out between you and Fitch, you’re still one of us, if you want to be. I don’t know exactly what’ll happen when we get back to the islands, but you’re welcome to stay with us if you want to. And, no, before you even think it, I’m not just saying that.”

“She isn’t,” Caleon said. “She’s a terrible liar. Like, the absolute worst.”

Hiral nodded while he watched Seeyela. The way she looked him in the eye, the steadiness of her voice, and the lack of fidgeting. His high Atn took it all in and told him she was telling the truth.

“I’m going to keep an eye on Fitch. Make sure he doesn’t go too far,” Lonil said, taking advantage of the small break in conversation to slip out the door.

“Are we good, Hiral?” Seena asked him, while everybody else looked on.

“We’re good,” he said. “I’m sorry I believed what he said, even for a second. I…”

“It’s okay. We all have things we struggle with.”

“For Seena, it’s her cooking,” Yanily said, and Seena rolled her eyes.