Runeblade

Chapter 78 : The Final Layer

Sitting down on the raised platform where he and Porkchop had discovered the stash of potions, Kaius repacked his bag.

With a single tonic each of Solar Revitalisation and Psychopathic Assault, the latest haul had brought them to a total of nine tonics. One more than he could hold in his potion pouch. After moving his coin and empties to a slot in his pack, Kaius had to make the tricky choice of which potion to leave outside of easy reach.

All five of his healing tonics would be staying with him, to do otherwise was stupid. For now he was leaning towards stashing one of the Jack Rabbit tonics. He intended to save both of them for the guardian, but if the situation arose where he had to choose between imbibing a potion and potential death, he was going to make that choice ten out of ten times.

Satisfied with his choice, Kaius pulled his Jurryrigger's Stylus as well as his notepad out from his pack, before setting the bag on the ground. Having already removed his vambraces, he was ready to reinscribe. First though, he wanted to try his hand at modifying his Arcane Bolt hymn.

Like he'd mentioned to Porkchop, he needed something cheaper. Having a spell that could burst a goblins head like a melon available at the flick of his fingers was all well and good, but it was costly. Most of their fights had been slogs, and only having four spells available was hampering him. Plus, the shaman's bone darts had sparked some inspiration.

He probably wouldn't make a spell that fired a spray of them, that would suffer from the same cost problem as Arcane Bolt and would probably be less effective to boot. But if he could scale down the hymn…

He flicked open his notebook, already two thirds full with runic diagrams- carefully neutered so as not to pull in mana, of course.

His current hymn was made up of a few parts. A section of runes to shape the spell, one to contain and direct his mana, and another to harden it into a penetrating projectile. All made up of hundreds of High Lothian words that looped over themselves until they formed a dense, arrow shaped array.

Most of the shaping and containment sections were held in the 'haft' of the arrow, if he could just shrink the overall size of the arcane shard, reducing its mana requirements while increasing its density…

Grabbing his pen, Kaius sketched out a test on his page. It looked like it should work. Everything was in alignment, there were no syntax issues.

The only way to know would be to try.

Snapping his book closed he shoved it back into his bag before snatching up his stylus. Laying his left hand on his knee he bent over and started to draw, wincing slightly as the mana he channelled through his stylus started to burn into him.

He moved quickly. Thanks to his modifications, and the overall shrinking of the runic spell form, he actually managed to finish it quicker than normal. With a final flick of his wrist he completed the last rune on his test a mere five minutes later.

His glyph drank hungrily from his mana pool, flooding his newest spell. A moment later and it clicked into place, sequestering the energy it needed for him to cast the hymn. Kaius let out a sigh of relief. At the very least the spell was stable. Now he just needed to test it.

He pulled up his resources, curious about how much mana the spell had taken from his reserves.

Resources:

Health - 380/380 (2.8/min)

Stamina - 280/280 (2.8/min)

Mana - 273/430 (4.3/min)

Free Mana - 243/400

Reserved Mana - 30

Seeing the cost of his adjusted spell, Kaius grinned. Thirty was low enough that he could inscribe fourteen of the damn things! Quite a step up from a measly four. Though, whether it was actually viable to use in combat had yet to be seen. If everything worked to plan, it should be far denser than his original, but would probably have a little less oomph behind it.

"Heads up. Going to cast something." Kaius said, alerting Porkchop to what he intended. His friend simply grunted in acknowledgement, more interested in meandering around to explore the pavilion.

Turning back to his task, Kaius looked up and pointed towards the ceiling. A flicker of intent and he watched as his latest hymn lit up gold, runes flaking off into burning embers as a deep blue shard of the arcane popped into existence at the dip of his finger. Maybe a fingerlength and a half long, the spell looked like a faceted sapphire that had been cut to a needle tip.

Faster than he could blink, the shard rocketed towards the ceiling as it whistled through the air. It hit the roof with a crash, cracking into the stone and showering him in dust.

Kaius let out a hearty laugh from deep in his belly. That was fantastic! Sure, it had lost a lot of the oomph of Arcane Bolt, but it still looked like it was more than enough to put a depths-born in the ground if he aimed well. He could always inscribe the original if they were going to come up against something that warranted a bit of extra firepower.

Hurriedly, he went back to inscribing more of the spells, not stopping until he had used all of his available mana. Then he had to wait. Pacing back and forth as his pool slowly refilled. Thankfully, on his fourth such break, a welcome ding rang through his mind.

**Ding! Runic Lexicon has reached level 19!**

Kaius grinned, yet another legacy skill brushing up against the cap. Waiting a few more minutes, he threw himself back into inscribing spells as soon as he had the mana required for another. He opted to leave out the fourteenth cast as it would have only left him with a measly ten in the tanks.

Using his stylus had gotten easier with practice, and he'd gotten far better at using less mana as he'd gone along, but even then ten mana was a tight squeeze for an inscription.

Standing up from the dais where he had been seated, Kaius looked at his glyph appreciatively. He'd managed to fill in nearly half of the anchor points with his cheaper spell, one that his status had called Arcane Dart. Nodding to himself, he strapped his vambraces back on and shouldered his pack before heading over to Porkchop.

As he looked out over the square, he could see where one of the roads that left the plaza wound its way deeper towards the centre of the dwarven metropolis. Another towering rise separated the residential district from the next one up, just barely revealing massive structures somehow even more ornate than the manors surrounding them.

He could see the stairs. Identical to the ones they had taken up from the military and workshops below, it was recessed deeply into the wall, carving its way through solid stone. They looked to be an hour's walk at most, further around the donut shaped district.

He hadn't done his best to keep track of their progress as they rotated through, but he was pretty sure it had to be damn near close to the opposite side of the city from their original entrance to the district.

It made sense. Despite the grandiosity, the construction and mountains of mummified dwarven soldiers had made one thing crystal clear, this was as much a fortress as it was a settlement. Having the stairs up to the next district be as staggered as they were would force any and all aggressors to fight through winding streets flanked by houses of solid stone. Kaius could imagine that with enough defenders, the city would be almost impenetrable.

Almost.

Evidently it hadn't been enough. For the umpteenth time, he hoped that the city's defeat was just the creation of the Depths. That it hadn't frozen the destruction of a real city in time, and transported it across the world to be just another biome.

Either way, the stairs were their goal, and they weren't too far. He couldn't wait to see what they would find up there. Decrepit and ravaged by war the city may have been, but it was still delightfully exotic and strange to him. The massive buildings above had set his mind racing. Were they the seat of government? A church?

Kaius had no idea, but he couldn't wait to find out. Plus, there had to be a Champion out there. It would be too weird to have one on every section of the city except the one right before the Guard.

He turned away from the sight, whistling to grab Porkchop's attention.

"You ready to go?"

"Yeah, I got bored of sniffing rocks about an hour ago." Porkchop said glibly.

Kaius rolled his eyes and set off, leading the way as they pushed ever deeper into the fallen dwarven metropolis.

…

Huffing as he hauled his way up yet another step, he forced himself to avoid looking over the sheer drop to his right. While the stairs were wide and easy to climb, there were a bloody lot of them, and evidently dwarves didn't believe in safety railings. There was nothing to stop him falling off the edge and plummeting what felt like hundreds of longstrides to his doom below.

Porkchop was keeping pace with him to his left. At first his friend had been a nonstop stream of grumbling as they ascended the stairs that slowly wrapped their way around the gargantuan pillar of stone that held the next district of the city aloft. As they had climbed, exertion had slowly sapped Porkchops enthusiasm, tapering it off into the odd growl every few minutes.

Ahead Kaius could see the looming city gates that guarded the way ahead. Much like the last two they had encountered, these were twisted and shattered. Gleaming in silver and gold, massive embossed scenes were mangled into shards of base metal and blasted inwards.

Reaching the top, Kaius bent over as his chest heaved. Stamina might have let them maintain their pace, but his legs still burned. With a final gasp, Kaius straightened and wiped at his forehead, surveying the new district.

In comparison to the residential space below, this region of the dwarven city was remarkably open. Massive stately buildings dotted a wide open boulevard, richly engraved stone rising into parapets and peaked roofs.

It was beautiful, even for the dwarven city the stonework was masterful beyond compare. Engravings of stately dwarves so lifelike he could swear they were breathing, scenes of stone carving and smithing that displayed the mastery of their craft, and dozens more. They coated the exterior of every building he could see. It must have taken years, and the expense! Kaius doubted that anyone but the most skilled amongst their number would have had their work imprinted on the very stone of such an opulent region of the city.

He still couldn't tell if it was religious or the centre of the city's statecraft, though at the very least it had clearly been an extremely exclusive space. The only residential buildings he could see looked like palaces in comparison to the manors below.

It also wasn't just dwarven masterpieces that dominated the second highest peak of the city. Kaius could see plenty of goblins too. Scattered around the open pavement, lurking in the shadows and nooks of massive buildings.

They were much less clumped up here, and they looked notably tougher. More heavily armoured, their weapons looking much less like scavenged scrap.

Kaius smiled as he looked out over the sight. He loved a new challenge.

"Ready to go hunting for this Champion?" He asked, eager to get moving.

Porkchop responded with a hungry growl, his eyes boring holes into the distant depths-born.