Runeblade

Chapter 48 : Target Rich Environment

Lying down on the ledge that overlooked the Depths' recreation of a lost dwarven city, Kaius focused his gaze on the creature that lounged at its highest heights. He had to know more. Eagle Eye had more to give, but his eyes already felt like he was trying to look through vinegar. The less that was said about his headache, the better.

It was a Guardian, he knew it. With how little success that they had had searching for the one in the Overgrown Caves it was most likely to be the one they were destined to face. Learning as much as he could about the beast was vital. Even if it would be agonising.

He further released the grip he had held on Eagle Eye since he had received the skill. The Guardian slammed into full relief. The visual detail felt like a branding iron burning its way into his skull. Kaius choked back a scream, grinding his teeth together with a creak.

**Ding! Eagle Eye has reached level 10!**

The level up brought the faintest hint of relief, like a single one of the thousand blacksmiths who pounded on his temples had gotten bored and stopped.

Previously he had only been able to tell the scale of the beast by comparing it to the pillars and statues that dotted the ritual plaza at the top of the city. In turn, they were roughly the same height as some of the smaller buildings situated on the previous tier of the city.

**Ding! Eagle Eye has reached level 11!**

The Guardian came up to roughly half of the column's height. Considering that the 'small' buildings in the richly ornate city quarter below were three stories tall, the Guardian must have been easily thrice Kaius's height.

**Ding! Eagle Eye has reached level 12!**

An escalating stab of pain caused Kaius to scrunch his eyes closed with a groan.

"Kaius..your eyes." Porkchop said.

"Huh?" Kaius wiped at the tears that had been pooling. Pulling his hand back he saw they were streaked in red. He saw every line in his palm. The way the surface tension of his blood pulled it in narrow lines down the minute channels.

Kaius frowned. "I should have noticed my Health draining.." he muttered through the fugue of the mental load of his skill. It had activated, he realised. Even now it was suffusing his eyes, fixing the damage his skill was doing. It was minute, a small enough trickle that he hadn't noticed it through the tidal wave of visual information he was being inundated with.

He shook his head, turning back to the Guardian. This was important. If the drain on his Health was this low it wasn't doing any serious harm, it didn't even come close to outstripping his regeneration. Pain was just free training for Rapid Adaptation anyway.

"Maybe you should take a break." Porkchop said, looking at him with concern.

"No." Kaius shook his head. "I'm fine, it's good training. Give me another minute or two and I'll tell you what I've learned."

Turning back to the dwarven fortress city, Kaius refocused his gaze on the Guardian. Letting his skill ramp back up to full power. The immediate spike of pressure in his head drawing a wince from him.

Bound in rippling muscle, the creature's skin was thick and craggly. Not quite scaled, but it still looked like it would turn a blade as well as any leather armour. Now in full detail, the club it wielded was clearly a rough hewn tree trunk, slightly whittled down to a grip at one end. Crude spikes had been hammered in. It was a savage thing, something that would paste him in a single blow. He doubted even heavy-plate would do much.

He'd seen it like before, but never so large. Some kind of troll or ogre. His only encounter had been from a distance. When a lesser cousin of the Guardian had wandered down from the mountains that cut off the deep Sea from the rest of the forest. Father had said it must have been starving, as they usually avoided areas of low mana. He still remembered the way his father had dismantled it. Carving it to pieces as it tried to squash him with a boulder that must have weighed as much as an ox. Bloody thing had taken hours to die, even after it had spent its Health.

Kaius doubted the Guardian would be any different.

**Ding! Eagle Eye has reached level 13!**

Now that he was paying attention, he felt the drain on his Health ramping up with every second he kept his skill at full strength. It had dipped notably with his level up, as had the throbbing ache in his head, but it wasn't enough to outstrip the damage he was accumulating. He needed to finish up his scouting fast.

He focused on the Guardian, trying to Identify it. It took a force of will for him to get the skill to work. While the skills description didn't mention a distance limit, it seemed to have one all the same. Spiking his agony as he stretched the skill.

With a ding, a notification sprung into his face.

??? - Level ?:

???, ???, ???

**Ding! Identify has reached level 4!**

**Ding! Identify has reached level 5!**

**Ding! Eagle Eye has reached level 14!**

**Ding! Rapid Adaptation has reached level 18!**

The backlash hit him, driving into his brain like an iron spike in spite of his pain resistance. Kaius let out a cry of pain, slamming his eyes shut. He tried to tamper Eagle Eye back down to a manageable level, but he struggled to focus through the fugue of his overworked mind. Even with his eyes closed, he could see the trace amounts of light shining through his lids. Highlighting the delicate blood vessels that spiderwebbed through the delicate membrane.

"Kaius! That's enough. Turn off the skill." Porkchop growled in concern, nosing at him.

"I'm trying." Kaius ground out, gritting his teeth.

He reached out again, strangling his skill. Damping the overwhelming sensations. Slowly, ever so slowly, his vision dimmed. Reducing to a level where he no longer felt like every slight flick of his eyes would make him through up.

Sighing in relief he pushed himself up, shuffling back from the edge of the ledge.

"Okay, that didn't exactly go how I wanted it to, but I learned a lot."

"Didn't exactly go how you wanted it to? Kaius, you looked like you had gotten into a staring match with a basilisk. Eyes should not bleed like that." Porkchop said, punctuating his last sentence by nipping Kaius in the ear."

"Ow!" He slapped his friend away. "Stop that! Gruesome or not, I barely lost any health, got the answer to your question, and levelled the skill more in a handful of minutes than I could have otherwise in a week. It was worth it."

"It better have been!" Porkchop said. "What'd you see?"

"Well!" Kaius smiled. "There are a fucking lot of goblins."

"That's it? I'll have your hide if that's all you saw." Porkchop swatted at him with faux anger.

Kaius laughed. "Just kidding. There are a bunch, but they're spread out. Distant enough that we should be able to deal with one group without bringing another down on their heads." Kaius slung his pack off, pulling a waterskin and rag free to dab at his bloodstained face.

"Oh, and I could see what I'm almost certain were three Champions." He said, shooting Porkchop a grin.

Porkchop froze, his ears perking up. "Loot?"

"Yeah buddy. Loot. That's not all. There's a bloody Guardian, I'm almost sure of it."

Porkchop stilled, looking at him intently. "You're sure?"

"Almost certain." Kaius nodded. "Big fucker. Some sort of ogre or troll with a massive club, right at the very top of the city. Probably ridiculously strong and durable, but there are much much worse matchups. Besides, who knows how long it would take us to find another one. This city must be almost all of this biome, others might need us to search for months."

Porkchop grumbled. "There are also much easier matchups. An ogre, even one that didn't over level us, is more than strong enough to crush us with a single swing."

"Better than something too fast for us to land a hit on. I'm sure we'll be faster than it. Besides, we have over a year until I get my class and you evolve. At the very least it will be a good back up if we can't find anything better." he said, mopping at the red that streaked his face.

"This is true."

"Now!" Kaius clapped his hands. "The first Champion candidate is outside the city. There's a bunch of fields of mushrooms down there, but most are pretty spread out. The one we're looking for is riding on some sort of wolf thing. He's got a spear, but he's pretty lightly armoured. I think if we can kill the mount he should be pretty easy to deal with. What do you say? Time to get some more loot?"

Porkchop shot to his feet. "Yes! Let's go already." he said, rushing over to the wide stone steps that were carved into the side of the cavern.

"Hey! Wait up! And be careful on those stairs, if you slip you're toast." Kaius said, rushing after his friend.

…

The walk down to the mushroom fields had been treacherous. While the stairs were wide and had more than enough space for both of them to walk abreast, they were glassy smooth. Without a railing to protect them from going over the edge, a single misstep would have been enough to do them in. Every time Kaius looked to the left over the yawning drop to the floor below his head swam. He'd never exactly been bad with heights, but walking next to an open drop that steep was enough to set anyone's teeth on edge.

Porkchop had it worse, his weight distribution getting the best of him. Fur covered paws got little traction on the polished stone, and every step threatened to send him tumbling to his death. Every long-stride was taken at a snail's pace, slowing their descent to a crawl.

As they walked every now and then Kaius would intensify Eagle Eye a little, scanning for the mounted goblin champion. It roamed around the mushroom fields, and a little headache and vertigo was more than worth keeping track of its movements.

Eventually though, they reached the bottom. As soon as they hit the loamy soil, Porkchop dived forwards. Burying himself snout deep in the damp earth.

"Ground. Sweet sweet ground." Porkchop all but moaned.

Kaius himself wasn't much better, taking a seat next to his friend.

"I feel you." He muttered, giving Porkchop a scratch. "We should get moving though, the Champion is still relatively close. If we can help it, I would like to avoid fighting our way through a city's worth of farmland."

Huffing in acceptance, Porkchop took the opportunity to get one last roll in the dirt. Kaius shook his head at his friends' antics.

The pair set off, heading in the direction that Kaius had last seen the mounted goblin.

The fungal crops were strange things. Set in neat rows were a dizzying array of mushrooms. Most were a motley collection of standard caps, ranging from ankle height all the way to coming up to his mid thigh. Their colours were just as diverse. Browns, greys, and tans were the most common colours, but others were a stark red, or brilliant blue. A rare few did not fit this mould. Strange clusters of ear-like growth, sending out plumes of glittering dust. Striking knots of twisted tendrils, writhing slowly as they passed.

It was heaven for training Identify. Every third fungus seemed to be something new, pushing his skill to new heights. Unfortunately, eventually his growth tapered off as he ran into less and less unique specimens. Much to Kaius's disappointment, none of the mushrooms were alchemical reagents. If they had, such a wealth of resources could have provided an extremely valuable source of renewable wealth if they were able to map a path back to the biome from the world above. At the very least, he could have used Explorers Toolkit to flesh out their supplies with some much needed poultices. Thankfully, neither were any of them toxic or poisonous.

They were farms in truth, filled with a dizzying array of edible varieties. At the very least, they would be eating well while they cleared out the city.

Despite what it looked like from above, the cavern floor wasn't perfectly flat. As they traversed across the fields in search of the Champion, they walked up and down gentle rises and dips.

It was after summiting one such rise, slightly taller than most, that they spotted their quarry.

Maybe a few hundred strides away, the mounted goblin stalked through the fungal fields. Kaius put his hand up, gesturing for Porkchop to halt. After months of cooperation, his friend complied without hesitation, training his sight to where Kaius was looking.

Kaius ratcheted up Eagle Eye, bringing the Champion into greater focus. The beast the goblin rode looked like it would come up to his chest. While he'd originally told Porkchop that it looked like a wolf, that was only true in the most twisted and nightmarish sense. Its head was blocky and thick, features twisted with a sick malevolence. Bulky muscle covered its thin frame, almost looking to painfully yank at its joints.

The goblin wasn't much better. Sitting high in its saddle, its eyes scythed over the fields. Looking at distant labouring goblins with a cruel sneer on its face. It was garbed in light studded leather and held a long barbed spear. One that looked better designed for maiming than it did striking true killing blows.

He relayed what he saw to Porkchop, his friend growling low in his chest as he squared off against the far off Champion. Kaius felt it too. The familiar heat in his blood. The way his concerns and fears dampened.

It was a rush like nothing else. Knowing that the only thing that stood between him and a gruesome end was his skill, timing, and ability.

He couldn't wait.