Runeblade

Chapter 88 : Respite

Kaius pushed his way through another door, quickly scanning the room for threats. They'd been traversing through the laboratory for the better part of a day now, and he had grown used to flesh horrors lurking in pools of the treacle like alchemical fluid that was so pervasive in the biome.

Thankfully, this room was clean. It looked to be some sort of worker dormitory, a narrow room dominated by rows of bunk beds with one end dedicated to a rough kitchen and living area. Roughly hewn wooden tables and chairs arrayed in front of a wall of cabinetry with three enchanted cooking stoves.

"Well, I think we found a rest spot." Kaius said, his grip on his blade relaxing. Though he didn't drop his guard fully. While the Depths had been consistent with providing them with food and water, Kaius had no doubt that the 'safety' of the spaces was only relative. Thankfully, it looked like their entrance was the only way into the room, so it would be relatively easy to block the door with one of the many bunk beds.

"Thank the gods, I was exhausted after the second dozen abominations." Porkchop said with relief.

Kaius grunted in agreement. This biome had been far higher in its density of depths-born than he had come to expect. Three quarters of the rooms they traversed through seemed to have some form of biological horror lying in wait for them. Flayed horrors were the most common, but occasionally they had run across another type of abomination. Twisted teratomas, globular rolling balls of meat that seemed like an amalgamation of every rejected creation of this hellscape.

Exposed muscle, hair, eyes and gnashing teeth, all smushed together into a formless whole. If the flayed horrors had been relatively safe, but annoying to kill, the twisted teratomas took that to an extreme. They posed little threat, individually at least. Their mouths of gnashing teeth were undoubtedly deadly, but with the way they lethargically oozed across the floor, Kaius was pretty sure he would need to be asleep for there to be any real risk.

Unfortunately, their Health and regenerative capacity was even more prodigious than the flayed horrors. It took literally tearing them to shreds to finally overwhelm their healing. Worse, unlike the skinless giants who they had never seen more than three of at once, the teratomas appeared in groups of at least six. It was awful, grinding, and bloody work. Safe work, but it was work. Not a battle.

Kaius sighed, making his way over to a bunk. The monsters of this biome were disgusting, sticky, and unnecessarily annoying to put down. He only hoped that the higher density of this region meant that they would find some Champions faster than they would otherwise.

With a grunt Kaius pushed the closest bunk towards the door, barricading the entrance as the wooden feet of the bed scraped against the rough stone floor. Thankfully, with his enhanced strength the task was easy, even if the noise did scrape uncomfortably at his ears.

"I'm going to check my stats and then have a nap, I'll make some food when I wake up." He said with a yawn. A hard day of travel and back to back fights had taken it out of him.

"Way ahead of you." Porkchop mumbled, clambering into a bottom bunk, the wood groaning as the frame flexed under his bulk. Kaius chuckled as his friend splayed out, asleep in seconds despite the dubious quality of the bedding.

Walking to the bunk next to his friend, Kaius dropped his pack and went through the time consuming process of unbuckling his armour. He slid onto the bed as soon as he was finished, making sure his blade was leaning on the wall next to him. Within drawing reach, of course.

Staring up at the bed slats above him, Kaius pulled up his status. It had been a while since he checked it, and with all the battle he had seen a few gains. Unfortunately, not all that much to his Lesser Regeneration. Some, but not much. While the abominations they had been facing would no doubt do some damage to him if they ever actually hit him, they were too slow. That, and he had long since grown past the point where normal monsters were a true threat. He was quite different from the boy who had almost died clearing out a measly handful of undead from a church, that was for sure.

Thankfully, all that dodging had done wonders for the skills he needed for his last legacy skill.

His status flickered into view, pulling him away from his thoughts

Status:

Name: Kaius

Dynasty: Unterstern

Age: 18

Class Selection: 1 Year, 4 weeks, 5 days

Race: Human (Dynastic) - +1 free stats per level

Layer Reached: 2

Resources:

Health - 380/380 (2.8/min)

Stamina - 280/280 (2.8/min)

Mana - 430/430 (4.3/min)

Free Mana - 30/30

Reserved Mana - 400

Stats:

Endurance - 30 + 8 (38)

Vitality - 20 + 8 (28)

Strength - 20 + 8 (28)

Dexterity - 20 + 8 (28)

Intelligence - 20 + 23 (43)

Willpower: - 20 + 23 (43)

Stat Points: 0

Class Skills (0/10):

N/a

General Skills (10/10):

Rapid Adaptation (Heroic) - 18 > 20

Warforged (Unique) - 20

Explorers Toolkit (Unusual) - 12 > 17

Adamant Body (Unique) - 16 > 18

True Sight (Unique) - 9 > 14

Runic Lexicon (Unusual) - 18 > 20

Mana Manipulation (Unusual) - 20

Lesser Regeneration (Unusual) - 0 > 8

Danger Sense (Unusual) - 0 > 13

Dodge (Common) - 0 > 14

Glyph Bound Hymns:

Explosive Arcane Needle - Charges: 13

Honours:

Born for Slaughter

Sublime Prodigy - Glyph Binding

Bound Artefacts:

A Fathers Gift - Common Growth Longsword

Growth Conditions-

Gain a class (0/1)

Acquire suitable materials (0/3)

Forge a link (0/1)

He was getting close. A Champion fight, maybe two, and he would be ready to merge his last legacy. Hopefully by then some more of his other skills would hit the cap. He could practically taste it now, their upcoming confrontation with the Guardian.

It burned to sit out of the next couple of champion fights, but he knew he must. Porkchop needed those Honours if he was to stand a true chance in their final battle. He wouldn't let simple impatience stand in the way of his friend's survival.

Besides, it was mind boggling that he even could feel like his pace was slow. He was on track to finish his foundation almost a full year ahead of schedule. That was utterly incomprehensible. While he knew of no other people who had a full set of legacy skills, Father had said that in the long history of their dynasty it had always been a struggle to complete the foundation in time.

Apparently not everyone managed it, at least not fully capped.

Kaius couldn't even imagine the shock, the shame, that he would feel if he was in that position. To waste such a precious gift? Unthinkable.

He'd asked Porkchop about his own pace of progression of course, but it was tough to compare. As a greater beast his friend had unlocked his system far earlier than him, and he had already merged and capped all of his skills before they met. Kaius thought that the advantages were just a little unfair, as greater beasts lived for a long time.

Even without the life extension of climbing the tiers, a beast would have plenty of time to work on their skills. There had to be some reason for it, the system rarely played favourites to such an extent.

He sighed, feeling his fatigue tugging at his eyelids. Tomorrow they would explore further, do more exhausting 'battle', and hopefully get a little closer to their next Champion fight. For now though, he needed to rest.

Kaius let his eyelids fall shut. He was out in seconds.

….

After a restful sleep and a hot meal, Kaius led the way out of the rest area. They pushed deeper into the biome, crossing through room after room of laboratories, strange experimentation rooms, and other sights. The worst were the cells. Bleak stone rooms with squat cages small enough that no person would be able to stand or lie comfortably in them. Kaius stared at them uneasily, each and every one contained the withered remains of human skeletons, twisted and huddled in twos and threes.

It was a shocking sight, and not for the first time Kaius had to remind himself it was all a creation of the Depths. That there was no unjust perpetrator behind the cruelty, and that the violated remains and twisted abominations were facsimiles, rather than a real atrocity.

It did little to soothe his discomfort with the biome. The abominations were bad enough, but the history of their creation that lay hidden in their surroundings was a bleak one. Much like undead, abominations of flesh and blood needed a template. An anchor for the mutagenic alchemy and magic to bind itself to. He was under no illusions about what the titular fleshwarper had 'used' as raw material.

The fact that it all might have been based on some real place and time brought him no more comfort. It was horrifying to think the depths of depravity some would sink to to practise their 'art'.

After that encounter, Kaius had been all too eager to throw himself into their next clash with a pair of flesh horrors the next room over. He'd burnt all of his spells blasting off the pairs limbs in one quick salvo, hurrying in to help Porkchop hack at their bodies as he shuddered with rage.

They'd pushed on after that, hacking their way through rooms with a growing fury at the twisted nature of the place, only stopping to rest once they had found another communal restroom.

By the third day he'd grown numb to the twisted evidence of profane alchemy that littered the biome. By the sixth he was totally inured to it. Hacking at creatures of weeping flesh and twisted form had become routine, and the cold clinical depravities of the laboratories became little more than a distasteful background to their goal.

Finally though, early into the seventh day of their exploration, they found what they were looking for.

Kaius had just finished reinscribing the Explosive Arcane Needle that he had expended blowing the leg off of the flayed horror that had occupied the room they had just cleared. He'd settled on it as a favoured tactic. As soon as they lost one of the legs, the horrors invariably fell to the ground and became easy pickings. Finishing his work with a final flourish, Kaius stowed his stylus and readjusted his vambraces.

"Ready for the next one?" He asked, turning towards where Porkchop sat cleaning his claws.

Receiving a nod in return, Kaius stood up from the table he had been using to reinscribe and moved to the door leading out of the room. He rushed through, sword at the ready.

He stopped, rooted in the spot as he saw the massive scale of the area the door opened up to. Well lit by a massive alchemical light in the ceiling, the room was easily hundreds of strides long, and half that wide. It was tall too, taller than some of the soaring foyers and halls that he had seen in the upper layer of the dwarven city. So different from the small condensed utilitarian spaces that they had seen so far.

Oddly enough, the doorway opened up most of the way up the room. A thin stone walkway wrapped around the edges of the space, perhaps only ten or so strides wide. They were on the far left edge, and when Kaius peered over to the right he saw that the centre of the room was dominated by a truly massive pit.

It was an empty thing, a simple open box recessed into the stone. Completely devoid of ornamentation, it was made of the same simple brick that dominated the architecture of the rest of the facility, though a narrow and steep staircase ran down the edge of the drop across from them.

It held only one thing. A truly gargantuan twisted teratoma. Even from a good fifty strides above, Kaius could tell that it was large enough to completely engulf him, maybe even Porkchop. A mound of eyes, stray limbs, and random organs smashed into a haphazard blob, it oozed its way across its stone containment. Moving at the speed of a light jog, it was practically lightning fast in comparison to its lesser brethren. Though they only came up to his mid thigh instead of being what looked to be almost a stride taller than him.

He peered into its status and grinned as he read what was displayed.

Cystic Failure - Level 28:

Champion, Depths-born, Abomination (Flesh)

"What is it?" Porkchop asked, trying to peer around him as he inadvertently blocked the doorway.

"I think we just found your next Champion." Kaius said, stepping aside to reveal the oozing pile of flesh that patrolled the bottom of its enclosure.