Runeblade: You shall not pass, Wanderer!

Kaius stood in the cavern, holding his longsword out in front of him in a ready grip. His eyes coasted over its length, taking in the flawless steel decorated with a strip of sigils down the centre.

The sword had been a gift from Father. It had taken months of brutal sparring to merge Warforged, the second legacy skill in his dynasty’s collection. There were times when he almost thought his father hated him, with how mercilessly he had beat him on the training field. He came to understand that it had been necessary. A reality of the looming date of his class selection.

Allegedly made from an alloy of deep essence, meteoric iron, and a miniscule amount of orichalcum, it had been forged by a master smith. Much like the rest of his fathers gifts, it had been personally inscribed with enhancing runes by Father while he worked with a commissioned master craftsman. Their sole trip to Deadacre was a fond memory of an overwhelming riot of people, sounds, and smells. His burning desire to get out and see the world had only grown after that.

He’d watched Father use runes to make an arrow that had shot clean through a boulder once, shattering the stone like an egg shell. Yet the enchantments on his blade were comparatively minor. Thanks to its superior make and materials he could comfortably cut through leather and bone with ease. Durable, scalpel sharp, and perfectly balanced.

Its enchantments only served to reinforce those points. Magics of an unbreaking and self repairing nature. A honed edge that would never dull. Resistance to the elements, and the passing of time.

Father almost certainly could have enchanted the blade so the barest of nicks would have rent the life from his foes. At least, the sort of foes that he had any business facing in the first place.

That would have defeated the entire purpose of the gift. It was a tool. Reliable and dependable, certainly. But not something that would remove all challenges he would face. Father had sat him down on the very first day he gained the ability to learn skills, explaining it to him. They grew through struggle and strife. The strength of your class offering influenced in much the same manner. There were no shortcuts.

Even before he unlocked his access to skills and stats at fifteen, the entirety of Kaius’s life had been that of preparation. How to identify food and clean water, how to hunt and kill, two hours of running every morning, how to staunch an artery and more. All with practical examples - though in the case of an arterial bleed, it had been his father who had suppressed his healing and opened his brachial artery. Too dangerous for a boy without Health, his father had said.

Not that that had made it any less traumatising. He still remembered the way Father’s face had gone slowly white, while he was coated up to the elbows in his father’s blood.

It had been, and still was, the only way he would ever complete his skill evolutions and cap them at twenty in the measly five years between matriculation and class selection. With a good class he would have had a ticket out of the forest, one that his father had wholeheartedly supported him on. Promising that he had something lined up in Three Fields when that happened. That they wouldn’t need to hide when there was no chance of somebody spying on his training.

He’d wanted to be a Delver. Now he had to be one before he was ready.

There was no way he was going to let being trapped in the Depths come between him and that goal. Hell, given the way skill levelling responded to danger, it would probably even be a boon.

He’d had a level up for Warforged in the works for weeks now, and a single level might just be the difference that would keep him alive. A little training wouldn’t hurt. Besides, there was no way he was going to explore the depths without his Health topped off.

He raised his blade into a high guard, flowing smoothly through his stances. Weaving between imaginary enemies as his sword flashed out with blurring speed. A swift parry and riposte, twirling into an overhead strike that cleaved through an ‘enemy’ attempting to sneak up behind him.

On and on he moved, working out his feelings of frustration and uncertainty. Feeling the rhythms of his movements, and the slow burn of his muscles. Between his stamina and his Physical Conditioning he continued for a while, a familiar thrilling heat welling up within him.

**Ding! Warforged has reached level 17!**

Warforged:

Level 17

Unique

The pedigree of slaughter stretches far. From fist and rock, to bow and spear. The history of violence reaches to time primordial. You have steeped yourself in its arts.

Skill that enhances technical mastery with all weapons and improves the lethality of strikes. Novel and exotic weapons require a period of familiarisation that reduces with level.

Each level moderately increases proficiency with all weapons.

Each level slightly increases speed, control, and power of strikes

Merged from: Unarmed mastery, Improvised Weapon Mastery, Throwing Mastery, Dagger Mastery, Axe Mastery, Pole Weapon Mastery, Mace Mastery, Sword Mastery, Archery Mastery

Kaius stopped halfway through his swing, his chest heaving.

“Finally,” he thought.

Despite the fact that levels slowed as skills reached closer to their cap, Kaius was certain that the danger he was bound to face would only push Warforged to new heights.

Walking over to a pool of displaced river water that was far away from any rotting fish, Kaius rinsed the sweat off his face.

A quick look at his resources told him he was nearly topped off. He was ready to scout. Looking into the dim exit out of the entrance chamber, Kaius felt a mixture of dread and excitement flow through him.

It would be the first time he would be entering danger without his fathers watchful eye over his shoulder.

Kaius felt his breathing steady - shadows that previously loomed to hide imagined foes now wrapping around him to hide him in their embrace. Using Sneak made him feel at ease, especially in unfamiliar places. Common or not, the way it eased his movements, guided him on how to reduce his presence, was a rare comfort.

Poking his head around the cave's edge he surveyed the area. Much like the entrance room, the tunnel was mostly bare rock illuminated by the odd patch of softly glowing moss. More tree roots that pushed their way free of cracks in the stone. Clawing their way across the walls like creepers.

If it had been anywhere else, the effect would have been pleasant. Almost comely. Growing up in a forest had made Kaius rather fond of natural spaces after all.

Unfortunately, this was the Depths, and the writhing shadows that the roots threw off in the slowly pulsing light grated at his nerves.

Kaius held his sword at the ready.

Kaius wasn't going to bet his life on depths-born making their presence obvious, even if it was common. If there was one thing his father had hammered into him, it was that the Depths seemed to love breaking its own rules when it would put you most at risk. His father had told him about a brush with death he himself had had when a stone elemental had phased through a wall on the fifteenth layer.

That wasn't the only thing he had to contend with either. Tunnel sections were notorious for being littered with traps. If he hadn't had Trap Finding he wouldn't even step foot out of the entrance room.

Unfortunately, a level twenty Uncommon skill was far from enough to ensure his safety, and he had to leave the chamber anyway.

“Okay... Overgrown graves. Already know that probably means beast and undead types, but from the looks of it, the tunnels are following a natural theme. Probably not going to be artificial traps then, I think?”

Kaius scrunched his brow. His father had mostly focused on identifying the depths and parsing biome themes. Any actual lessons on delving strategies had been supposed to come later, once he’d gained his class. It was supposed to be his final lesson. A long awaited send-off before his father settled in for the easy life of a runic inscriptionist. Something he could do without his class skills and without straining his old injuries.

Taking a steadying breath, he took a final look at the safety of the entrance room, double checking that his pack was nestled safely off the floor on an errant root. While it had waterproofing enchantments, he didn't want to risk it being washed away if there happened to be another deluge while he was gone.

He’d made all the preparations he could. It was time to leave.

The passage ran off from the cavern, quickly splintering into a multitude of directions. He decided to keep left. The Delver's classic.

It didn't take long for Kaius to hit his first obstacle. A tangled mess of spiderwebs coated the cave from floor to ceiling, thick enough to almost completely obscure his view. Something darted across, crawling deeper into the nest and out of view.

Massive, hairy and black. Wider than the length of his foot. Physically, probably not all that dangerous. There was no way in hell the things were not venomous though.

‘Course the first thing I come across is bloody spiders,’ Kaius groaned to himself.

He’d always thought they were unnerving. Too many legs and eyes by far. Plus bugs had no right to have fangs. It simply wasn’t right.

He shook his head to throw off his nerves, Depths-born spiders or no, it wasn’t like him to quake in his boots at the first sign of a fight. Crouching down Kaius scrounged up a few fist-sized chunks of stone, courtesy of the omnipresent tree roots cracking the surrounding tunnel walls.

He would make them come to him.

Taking a breath to steady himself he stepped out from behind the bend in the tunnel, before pelting the spider's nest with the rocks. The stones sailed through the air, punching easily through the silk webbing.

The trail of carnage was followed by an aggravated chittering. Kaius calmly drew his sword.

“The silks are weak, that's good. No risk of being caught up.”

A single spider crawled free of the ruined webbing, approaching his position quickly. Furious at the invader that had dared to violate its nest.

Kaius ran forward, the spider raising its forelegs in response. Kaius thrust, his sword point piercing the creature's thorax.

The hardened steel punched through the bulbous sack of flesh, spilling grey-brown ichor freely across the floor as it clattered against the rock below with a clank. The spider screeched. Flailing, desperate to rid itself of the weapon embedded in its torso. Behind it, Kaius saw more racing towards him from further in the cave. Their numbers grew until they looked like a pulsating mat of black that seemed to bleed up the walls.

Kaius didn't stand on ceremony. He lifted his sword, spider still firmly impaled, and slammed it against the rock wall to his side.

The spider all but exploded.

**Ding! level 5 Lesser Cave Spider slain**

Kaius frowned when he saw the notification, connecting the dots between the below-average level of the monster, and the steady flow of similar spiders that were still leaving the nest.

“Of course it's a bloody swarm.”

The next spider dashed at him. With a grunt Kaius stepped forwards, bringing his foot down to stomp on the creature with his full weight.

**Ding! level 4 Lesser Cave Spider slain**

He swallowed his disgust at the resulting crunch-then-squish, already swinging his sword into one of its brethren that had taken to crawling on the wall, wincing as the gush of fluid splattered against his chest.

Still more spiders followed, Kaius fell into a gorge-rising routine of strikes and stomps that splattered both his surroundings and his body in ichor.

The steady flow of spiders abated, leaving just over a handful remaining. His stamina remained high, but it didn't do anything for the hammering of his heart, the burn in his arms, or the bellowing of his lungs.

A weight hit him, scrabbling on his back. Kaius felt a searing pain in his shoulder, numb agony spreading through the muscle from two sharp points. With a cry he reached over and grabbed at something hard and fuzzy.

Yelling in fury he ripped the spider off his back, its fangs tearing at his already healing flesh as the itch of expended Health coated the wound. He threw it to the ground. A rough stomp smushed the monster, its many legs flailing in an attempt to flee.

**Ding! You have been afflicted by Lesser Cave Spider Venom**

Kaius stared in horror at the notification.

“Fuck.”