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

Kaius clambered his way up a steep rise. The soil gave way beneath his feet, forcing him to steady himself with a hand as he caught his balance. Kenva was storming ahead, pushing her way through dense brush. One branch snapped back. Kaius snatched it before it could smack him in the face.

“Hurry!” Kenva said through their communication rings. They were close enough that speaking aloud might well give them away. “We’re almost there!”

“Easy for you to say!” Porkchop grumbled.

The slope was steep, and the footing treacherous. With his bulk, every step that Porkchop took threatened to send him backsliding down the hill. It forced him to plant his claws deep for traction, slowing him down as he tested his weight.

“It’s another hundred strides, tops!” Kenva replied.

“By the headmaster's beard, I bloody hope so,” Ianmus mumbled under his breath, barely audible over the wind.

Scrambling onwards, Kaius fought through the brush, and found Kenva crouched low by a toppled spire of rock. Easily forty strides long, it speared over the edge of a deep stone gorge, granting a clear view of the whole thing. Windswept bushes clung to its surface, holding onto cracks and crevices for dear life — decent enough cover for the bipedal members of their team.

Kenva waved them forward. “Come on, we can see the camp from here.”

Crouching down, he joined her, peering through the thick growth that spilled over the edge of the gorge. It was a deep thing — a hundred strides of vine-choked cliff lay between him and the floor of weathered stone.

It took Kaius a moment to spot the camp, too busy staring at the far end. A wall of black swallowed the gorge. The dense void called to him like a siren, an essence of ashen metal seared into the very fabric of his mind. He would never ever forget his brush with that creature. Even looking at the blackness made him feel uneasy. Was it even wise to enter the spirit’s domain? What if it reacted badly to his presence? He was likely the first person to see it in millenia.

Kaius forced himself to rip his eyes away — they had a man to save, and Brokenlight’s camp lay somewhere within the gorge. Scanning its length, he didn’t spot it at first. Deadwood and boulders scattered the floor, towering high like a maze of twisted battlements. Even if the stream that had carved open the ravine had dried up, it was clear that flash floods still moved through regularly.

He wondered if the camp had some way to prevent them, or if they only happened during the exceptionally wet Dukedom springs.

Following the nudge of Seargent’s Insight, his attention drifted to a tumbled mount of splintered trunks and broken stone that stretched out from the far wall of the gorge. It didn’t look natural.

Everywhere else, the water had left impressions in the silt and dust that coated the stone, wearing away in patterns. Every loose object in the gorge had been deposited according to the whims of those brushstrokes — long-vanished water once eddying up against barriers, and pooling in depressions.

Not so for the piles he was looking at. Any drag marks had long since been covered over by wind, but he was sure they’d been moved — or at least adjusted. They’d missed the pebbles. Every other obstruction had small mounds of pebbles piled up against them on the opposite face to the crater.

In the shadow of the hidden wall, he spotted the camp. A tight cluster of tents sprawling out from a central marque, camouflaged with deadwood and draped in the hanging vines of the cliffs that sat behind them. There was no smoke — anyone going to such lengths to hide would have thought to bring enchanted cooking plates.

“That’s them, alright,” Kaius said, watching the swarm of men who moved in and around the camp. It was hard to take a count — they kept dipping in and out of the tents, or walking out of view behind their barricade. Regardless, Kenva’s initial estimation seemed accurate enough — there was a fucking lot of them.

They were a scruffy lot; trailworn and dusty, but well-entrenched enough that none of them seemed exhausted by their long camp. Five men in thick leather aprons were butchering the carcass of a large scaled hog — potentially the beast that they’d heard them hunting earlier. Three were watching from close by, still wearing bloody chainmail — a stride long tear on the belly of one revealing a flash of skin through their chain and gambeson.

Their gear looked…acceptable. Nothing impressive, but the men he could see had decent arms and armour — albeit not all of it seemed well-maintained. Strong cutthroats, but not rich ones, then. Proper depths-wrought artefacts would have had self-repair enchantments, if not self-cleaning ones as well.

“Where’s Kanmost?” Ianmus asked.

That was the question, wasn’t it? The Archivist certainly wasn’t being held out in the open — he must have been in one of the tents — but they only had the angle to see into a couple of them.

“I think he’s in the big marque,” Kenva replied. “Most of the men give it a wide berth — the only ones I've seen enter are the mid-Gold and high-Silvers that I spotted.”

As she spoke, a man pushed open the flap to the large tent. He was…imposing — clad in enamelled black heavy plate, with a monstrous greatsword belted at his hip. He had a tufted helm under his arm, freeing his long locks of white-streaked brown hair. The second he left the marque, three men in stained gambesons rushed over to him, standing at a messy attention before the armoured man. That was odd. Did Brokenlight have military history? It was clear that his thugs were not used to the action, and he couldn’t see any other reason for the man to demand it.

And it was Brokenlight. The man was a high-Gold. That meant a minimum of two Golds and three seasoned Silvers. A dangerous threat, considering the other numbers they had backing them up.

Kaius frowned, pulling back from the edge of the gorge.

“Okay, we found the camp — but how the fuck are we supposed to attack that? They're fortified, and I can't exactly drop a Starfall on them when Kanmost is liable to get caught in the blast.”

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“I don’t think we can sneak him out, either.” Kenva replied. “They’ve warded the place to the hells.”

“What?” Kaius replied, poking his head back out of the bush to take a look.

Kenva quickly pointed out what she had spotted. Rune-inscribed metal stakes, hammered around the edge of the camp. They were blackened, hidden amongst twigs and scattered amongst boulders, and they were way too far for Kaius to be able to inspect the actual runework, but he was certain that Kenva was correct. It was some ward system. Though, deployable node-based wards like that were generally low powered — probably an alarm system of some kind, rather than heavy shielding.

“Hells,” Kaius cursed. They’d already seen a few at the mouth of the gorge, but those were easier to bypass.

“So what are we going to do?” Ianmus asked, glaring at the far off man in black armor.

“We watch, and we plan,” Porkchop replied.

“Do we even have the time? The Wellspring can be opened the day after tomorrow!”

“Porkchop’s right,” Kaius replied, nodding. “We’ve got time. It seems like the notebooks haven’t arrived yet. With how close things are getting, I think Brokenlight would have already left if he had them — who knows how hard it will be to find the Wellspring, even with directions.”

“So what? We try and strike before the man leaves?”

“No, we let him leave,” Kaius replied. “Kanmost too valuable to kill before Brokenlight gains access to the Place of Power, and too weak to risk taking into the Crater itself. With fifty men to keep the archivist safe and sound, I expect Brokenlight will hightail it into the Crater the second the notebooks arrive — that gives us time to plan.”

Ianmus hesitated. “That seems a fair assessment — but can we really gamble with his life like that?”

Kaius could understand his friend’s worry, but it wasn’t like they had any other choice. Kanmost would be in far more danger if they struck while Brokenlight was at the camp, even if Flowers did arrive in time to help.

He clapped Ianmus on the shoulder, squeezing it reassuringly. “We’ll wait. Just trust me. At worst, the mid-Gold or a few of the high-Silvers will stay behind. For now, lets plan how we’ll strike when Brokenlight leaves camp.”

Ianmus sighed and nodded, and they all crept forwards, peering into the gorge.

….

“There she is!” Kenva hissed, pointing towards the mouth of the gorge.

A woman approached — gods she looked ragged. Her hair was one giant mud-slicked mat, twigs and leaves jutting from every angle. Kaius couldn’t see one handspan of the original colour of her leathers and woolen clothes, they were so caked. He still recognised the silhouette from the hideout beneath Baanswell — the courier.

She staggered into the gorge — right through a line of hidden metal stakes. The camp exploded with activity, men diving for their weapons, hurriedly shrugging on chain, and buckling on chestplates. One archer in thin leathers clambered up the back of their deadwood wall, peering over the edge. He spotted the courier immediately, calling back down into camp.

In moments, Brokenlight was striding out of his tent, five men at his tail. Just behind the man in gleaming black plate was another Gold, though lower level. The man wore nothing but a thin linen shirt and leather trousers — utterly forgoing armour. His clothes bulged at the seams, threatening to tear with every movement. Reaching over his shoulder, he grabbed the haft of a massive two-handed bearded axe, pulling it free.

Four high-Silvers trailed after them — two mages, and two archers.

Kaius raised his brow questioningly at Ianmus, wondering if he could tell him anything about the mages. Their robes were nondescript, but any indication of their affinity could be extremely helpful when they eventually faced them.

Ianmus shook his head. “No Spire insignia.”

Drat. He turned his attention back to the gorge.

The courier was still staggering down when Brokenlight rounded the wall to his camp, watching the far off woman.

“Who goes there!” he boomed, his deep baritone echoing off the cliffs.

The courier stumbled to a halt.

“The shattered blade binds even knight’s steel!” she called back, a faint quaver entering her voice.

Brokenlight clapped, straightening as the other Gold scowled and threaded his axe back into its holster.

“Good, you’re finally here. Hurry along!”

Despite sounding cheerful, the man’s voice had a hard edge to it.

The courier broke into a run, clambering over loose stones as she made her way to the man. She stopped just in front of him, a stack of leather bound journals appearing in her hand.

“Splended!” Brokenlight said, taking the books before they vanished a moment later.

The courier waited silently, not meeting the man’s eyes — it meant she missed his blurring

backhand. Heavy steel with spiked knuckles smashed into the woman’s jaw. It shattered utterly, blood spraying from the ragged tears the spikes tore in her face. Her entire mandible flopped as she smashed into the stone below. The courier screamed in shock, clutching her face.

Hells. Kaius was surprised Brokenlight hadn’t snapped her neck. He'd put everything into the blow — even his hips!

The Gold stalked forwards.

“You were supposed to be here a week ago!” he hissed, jabbing at the woman with his finger. “Everything could have been ruined!”

The courier let out a meaningless slur, unable to form the words through her broken jaw.

“Shut the fuck up, take your platinum, and leave,” Brokenlight said, summoning a small chest, balancing its bulk on the palm of his hand. He hurled it at the woman. It struck her in the chest, caving it in slightly.

Without another word, he turned and left — leaving the woman gasping on the ground. The courier slapped a hand on the heavy chest of coin. It vanished, quickly replaced by a tonic. Downing the glowing amber fluid, the courier scrambled to her feet and glared at the backs of Brokenlight and his entourage. She staggered back towards the mouth of the gorge, clutching her ribs and jaw.

Brokenlight didn’t stop to enter his camp.

“Secure the prisoner! We’ll return in two weeks at the latest. If we don’t, kill the Archivist and do as you will.”

“Aye, m’lord!” one of the closest thugs yelled back.

Kaius narrowed his eyes. A simple honorific — or something messier? Regardless, Brokenlight was about to enter the Crater. They could strike soon.

“Get into position,” Kaius said, meeting Porkchop’s eyes. His brother had stripped off his under armour — what better way to pull the men out of the camp than a sudden beast attack?

“And the courier?”

He waved Porkchop off. “Leave her, she’s not worth ruining our ambush over.”

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