Runeblade-Chapter 297B3 : Rematch, pt. 2

Kaius decided that knowing an indistinguishable patch of sand concealed a beast capable of tearing him limb from limb was an experience he didn’t enjoy.

As soon as Kenva had called out the presence of a soul-signature under the sand, he’d gone dead still. Following her outstretched finger, he bored a hole into the sand with her eyes, desperately searching for any mundane sign of what lay in wait beneath it.

There was nothing — it was as featureless as any other patch of the desert.

He knew it would be unlikely, but it still rankled to have his Skills bested so completely. At the very least, he wasn’t alone. As good as Truesight and Explorer’s Toolkit were, Kenva was a ranger with the legacy skills to match, and even she could only sense them when they were dangerously close.

“Kenva’s asking what you want to do.” Porkchop said — after their last encounter, they’d decided that before they sprung the trap, using his ability to talk silently was their best bet to avoid alerting a waiting ruinbringer.

“We back up, slowly — but be ready for it to pounce as soon as we do.”

His brother nodded and slid his greatshield through the air. Thanks to its enchantments, it had repaired itself somewhat from their previous encounter, but it was by no means in good nick. Twisted chucks of steel curved from its surface, and fired spines had punched nearly a dozen holes straight through.

A poor excuse for a shield, but it was the best they had, and utterly necessary until they removed the ruinbringer’s tail.

Drawing his sword slowly to avoid noise, Kaius took a cautious step back. Every handspan felt like the looming weight of an axe, his whole body tense as he readied himself to explode into motion, and defend his backline with War Haven.

He missed the comforting weight of his scalemail. Even if it had done little to hamper the raw might of the previous ruinbringer — unsurprising, considering it was only a first tier Rare — he still felt naked without it.

Despite his worries, there was no explosion of sand, no chittering war cry heralding a salvo of lethal spines. They backed up, putting a full hundred strides between them and the lurking beast; far enough that he was confident they would be able to prepare their assault without alerting their enemy.

“Stop,” Kaius said softly, some of the knotted tension in his shoulders unwinding. He stepped forwards, rejoining the front line.

“What now?” Ianmus asked.

“Bunker, then prepare a beam to remove its tail. Kenva can take the other.” He switched his focus to the ranger. “War Haven will have stronger barriers the smaller it is, how much space do you need to dodge?”

She turned to Ianmus, eying the distance between them. Taking a few wide sideways steps, she stopped.

“Covering both of us should be enough, especially if it won’t stop us from leaving like you said.”

Kaius nodded. Reaching towards War Haven for the first time, he cast.

Rather than the instantaneous effects of his other spells, mana didn’t immediately rip through the inscription, burning it to ash as it overloaded carefully balanced mana conduits.

Instead, Kaius felt a prompting, and a new sense opened up to him. Instinctively, he could feel the current maximum size of the barrier — a diameter just a few longstrides wider than the distance Kenva had created between her and Ianmus. He also knew that, if he wanted, he could infuse the energy of the spell into an existing structure — something he hoped would apply to their tent with all of its dimensional irregularity.

Impressing his intent on the inscription, he cast, and green motes drifted through his gambeson like smoke.

Clear, but still visible like it was made from high-quality glass, a dome appeared around his back line. Chimes sounded in his mind, a skill notification joining the others that waited for his attention.

Turning quickly, Kaius readied himself for the lurking ruinbringer to notice his outburst of mana. Nothing happened. He breathed a sigh of relief.

“Kaius, do you want me to use a spell similar to what I did with the goblins? I could potentially remove both tails in one swoop, letting Kenva strike directly for a claw or otherwise.”

Pausing to consider the mage’s suggestion, Kaius resettled his grip on his sword. It was an option, but only if it didn’t leave the mage drained — he would rather they took a little longer to kill the beast if it meant having Ianmus available for healing.

“Will it give you mana burn?”

“Probably,” Ianmus replied. “But only for a couple of minutes.”

Kaius shook his head, uncomfortable with the risk even a small period of exhaustion would cause.

A moment later, he felt the growing warmth of solar mana start to swirl behind him as Ianmus worked on his spell. A quick look back showed Kenva still waiting, her stamina charged Horizon’s Lance requiring less time to prepare than their mage’s attack.

An apple appeared in his hand, the least valuable object he had in his ring. His hope was that the ruinbringer reacted to changes in the sand above it. If he could throw something hard enough, it should be enough to bait the creature upwards.

If it didn’t, he always had Stormlash — no way the ruinbringer would be able to ignore that much noise and mana exploding over its head.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Solar mana continued to build, and he turned his attention to his brother. Porkchop needled the ground, large jade plates moving with him as he worked off the tension that Kaius could feel through their bond.

“How’re you holding up?” Kaius asked.

Hungry glee flooded back. “I missed fights like this, just throwing ourselves at something we have absolutely no right fighting.”

Kaius smiled — it was a sentiment that echoed his own bubbling excitement. There really was no place like the Depths. Spending time in the world above had undoubtedly been the correct move, but he’d long hungered for a challenge like this. It just wasn’t the same when proper fights took weeks of travel to find.

“Me too, buddy; me too.”

“Ready,” Ianmus said, his voice terse and focused.

“Me too,” Kenva added.

Kaius looked back at her in surprise — he hadn’t felt or noticed her drawing, but he supposed he did lack a sense for stamina in the same way he felt mana. She met his eyes, brow furrowed in concentration. Giving him a nod, mana spilled into her nocked arrow and engulfed it in the haze of a magically constructed javelin.

Taking a breath to steady himself, Kaius tightened his grip on his blade, and raised his arm.

He focused on the patch of sand he knew held a ruinbringer beneath it.

His arm snapped forward, muscles in his back and shoulder aching under the force of his throw. Red streaked forwards.

The apple exploded in a spray of kicked up sand and pulped juice.

Kaius palmed his sword. The air grew heavy.

Sand geysered as motion erupted from the desert surface, a shrill chitter of aggression filling the air. Its tails whipped, seemingly searching for the prey that had the misfortune to walk over its den.

Truesight flickered, and Kaius saw what they were facing. Another ruinbringer, at a single level lower than the previous one they had faced. He grinned, readying himself to sprint. He loved it when there were no unwelcome surprises.

Obscured as it was by the fine sand that had filled the air, it presented a difficult target. Neither Ianmus nor Kenva hesitated.

Just to his right, the roaring howl of burning air was joined by the deep twang of a bow being released.

A beam as thick as his wrist cut across the no man’s land that separated the scorpion from them, the air around the spell hazing from the radiant heat. Faster than thought, it cut into the base of the leftmost tail, scouring the chitin that protected it.

Then a projectile slammed into its twin, only visible as the briefest of azure blurs.

The ruinbringer screamed, shaking furiously as it searched for the source of the pain in the cloud of disturbed sand.

Kaius held his breath — if either attack failed, this fight would be a painful one.

Two still-jerking shapes fell to the desert floor. Now tailless, the scorpion went berserk — a grinding call of fury and rage highlighted by the snapping cracks of its pincers.

“Now!” Kaius yelled, grinning wildly as he kicked off the sand to sprint forward. Porkchop let out a low growl, charging next to him — his greatshield discarded to preserve it in the absence of armor-cracking projectiles.

Unburdened by the weight of his scalemail, Kaius all but flew across the desert, handedly keeping pace with his brother, who normally so greatly outstripped his physicality.

The ruinbringer spotted them. Eight segmented legs rippled, an undulating stride that allowed it to move with a shocking speed.

Kaius peeled left, leaving his brother to meet the charge — a task Porkchop took great delight in.

Right before Porkchop collided with the beast he summoned a slab of jade, sand flying outwards from the path of its movement.

The ruinbringer slammed into the Shardwall with a crunch. Porkchop gave it no time to get its bearings. Utilising Jadecrash to hurl himself into the path of a frustrated snap of its claws, he knocked aside the blow before pummelling the limb into the ground with an arm covered in shining crystal.

Kaius grinned, and approached the scorpion from its flank.

The ruinbringer brought its other pincer to bare, lunging forwards in a furious attempt to savage Porkchop’s shoulder, and revealing the thin overlapping plates that covered its own elbow.

Now it was his time to strike.

A salvo of Hateful Nails slammed home, their arrival heralded by a succession of cracks as they tore their way through the air.

Individually, the spells did little — burrowing halfway into the tough chitin of the second tier beast before becoming stuck fast. With a full fifteen, Kaius slammed the stakes into every visible joint into the limb, hampering the scorpions every movement.

It howled.

His Nails bloomed.

Chitin crackled and expanded, ichor wetting the parched sand as the ruinbringer tried and failed to yank its injured limb away from the pain. Locked up and limp, the pincer dropped to the sand below.

Turning towards him, the scorpion lurched — only for Porkchop to block its advance. He roared his Bulwark’s Challenge, before summoned crystal fangs cracked the beast’s thorax. He latched onto its side to pull it back. When his taunt wasn’t enough, he summoned a Shardwall and forced its attention back to him.

It hissed, snapping at him with its remaining pincer.

Arrows and burning rays flew, sinking deep into its vulnerable eyes to wound its core and limit its senses.

Buoyed by the continued success of their plan of attack, Kaius grinned. He just needed to take out the other pincer, and they would be in the home stretch — not even the scorpion's prodigious healing could solve the problem of metal wire being threaded through its joints.

He just had to get on the other side of it first. Good thing he had a spell for that.

Kaius lept, activating a shunt to fling himself fifteen strides into the air. As his arc crested, he cast again, and again when he started to fall too early — motes of blue falling on the battle below him like rain.

Bleeding off his momentum with another detonation, he turned and spun. Porkchop was holding down the ruinbringer well, though not without injury. His chest plate was cracked, and blood leaked in a steady stream down his right leg.

Still, with only a single claw to handle, he was managing far better than their first battle. That didn’t stop Kaius feeling like his heart was going to leap out of his chest at every slamming collision.

Feeling his intent, Porkchop roared and used Jadecrash to parry its snapping claw upwards, giving him a clear angle.

He unleashed. His Nails sunk home.

A burning satisfaction rose in his chest as the beast howled, left defenceless and unable to wound them.

Now all they had to do was hit it until it died — a daunting enough task in its own right, considering how tough the creature was.

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