Rune Seeker

Chapter 17: What Could Be Worse Than Troblins? Oh…

Hiral looked back as they ran. “How long do you think that will hold it?”

“Not nearly long enough,” Seena said. “Let’s just hope we aren’t worth the trouble to chase.”

“Do monsters usually give chase?” Hiral asked as he looked over at Yanily, who half-limped along with Nivian’s help. Nothing looked broken, but he was obviously hurt.

“They all seem to have territory they won’t go outside,” Seena said, also looking back over her shoulder. “If we can get far enough away, that thing should lose interest.”

“Should?”

“Should,” Seena reaffirmed, though there wasn’t much confidence in her voice.

“We need to stop for a second,” Wule spoke up. “Give me a chance to heal Yanily. We’ll move faster if Nivian isn’t carrying him the entire way.”

“Really think we should keep going,” Vix said. “That thing took us apart in short order.”

“All the more reason to have Yanily in his best shape,” Wule countered.

“Could just leave him as bait. We don’t have to be faster than the monster, just faster than Yan.”

“I’ll remember that,” Yanily said.

“No, you won’t. You don’t even remember what you had for breakfast,” Vix replied.

“Uh… I had…” Yanily started, looking at Nivian for support.

“Seena?” Nivian asked to interrupt the banter, but he hadn’t slowed, and neither had Yanily.

“How bad is it, Yanily?” Seena asked.

“I can keep going,” the man said.

“Could you keep going faster if Wule healed you?”

“Yes,” he said immediately. “I don’t think anything’s broken. I just hit the tree funny.”

“Just hit the tree funny, he says,” Vix deadpanned. “Like it happens every day.”

“One spell,” Seena said, slowing to a stop. “Make it a good one, Wule.”

“I should really take a look and see how bad…” Wule started, but then he looked at Seena’s face. “Right. One spell,” he mumbled, a plant growing out of the palm of his hand. This one was a green so vibrant, it practically glowed, and the flower that bloomed was a deep blood red. With his other hand, Wule reached out and touched Yanily’s shoulder, and energy pulsed from the flower before it turned to dust. “How are you feeling?”

Yanily winced, more like he was expecting pain than actually feeling it, then nodded. “Yeah, much better.”

“Hey, guys,” Vix said, something about the catch in his voice making everybody turn toward him and get ready for a fight. But it wasn’t a crystal monster charging down the path after them—no, he was holding some kind of pouch in his hands.

“What… Where…where did you find that?” Seena asked, rushing over and grabbing the bag out of his hand.

Hiral looked at Nivian and raised an eyebrow.

“It’s her sister’s,” Nivian said. “I think it was a birthday gift or something from Seena.”

“A bit in the woods over here,” Vix said, and started off the path.

Hiral looked back down the path they’d come from and almost asked if they had time for this. But if it was a clue about Seeyela’s location, well, that was exactly the reason they were there in the first place.

But, why did it seem like that monster was interested in me? Because I’m the weakest? Or was it all just my imagination?

“More stuff over here,” Yanily said from a bit deeper in the woods, the rest of the party apparently having spread out to look around while Hiral was lost in thought. “Hey, I know this spear. This is Balyo’s.”

“What is their stuff doing here…?” Nivian asked as Hiral jogged in to meet up with the rest of the group.

All five of the Growers were moving through the random smattering of equipment strewn about the forest floor. More weapons, a couple other packs, and some bloodied bandages, which got a worried look from Wule and Seena both.

“They must be around here somewhere, right?” Seena asked with a lilt in her voice, looking around. She put her hands up her to mouth like she was going to shout, but Hiral clamped his hand onto her wrist.

“Wait,” he said.

“We don’t have time to wait,” Wule snapped.

“I know, but think about it for a second. This stuff, it’s all in one place. Like it’s been dumped here. Your sister and her party wouldn’t do that, right? This obviously isn’t some kind of camp site, which means somebody else threw this stuff here.”

“So? That’s all the more reason we need to find them,” Seena said, pulling on her arm, but Hiral didn’t let go.

“Look, I’m not as familiar with the surface as you—obviously—and I don’t know a lot about the monsters you usually encounter down here. But how many of them are thinkers? That spear looks like it’s decent quality. If this was Troblins or something, wouldn’t they have taken the weapon?” He gently let go of Seena’s wrist.

“Yeah, they would’ve,” Seena said, looking at the spear in Yanily’s hand and calming down a bit from her earlier excitement.

“Would they leave the stuff so they could move faster to get to the jump point?” Hiral asked. The Growers looked at each other, then shook their heads. “So, that means they ran into something strong enough to capture them, and not need their equipment. What lives in these woods that fits that description?”

Again, the Growers looked at each other.

“Nothing,” Seena said finally. “At least, nothing we know of. Like I said, everything around here should be E-Rank. That’s the only reason we’re allowed to come down here. If there were higher-Rank monsters, we would send higher-Rank parties.”

“Other than that crystal thing,” Hiral reminded them, once again glancing back the way they’d come. No sign of it. Maybe it had lost interest, like Seena said it would. “Any chance it could’ve done this?”

“That’s the first time we’ve actually seen one of those things in forever,” Wule said. “We didn’t even know what made the tracks until a few minutes ago. If anybody had seen it, they would’ve shared that information with everybody else right away.”

“If they’d survived the encounter,” Hiral said, only to immediately regret his words when he saw Seena look at the pouch in her hands. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

“No, you’re right, but I also think you’re wrong,” Seena said. “That… thing… we ran into, it didn’t seem keen on capturing us. I think something else did this.”

Yeah, it seemed keen on getting to me… but I’m glad nobody else noticed that.

“Any D- or C-Rank areas nearby?” Hiral asked, instead of dwelling on the strange crystal monster. “Any monsters that could’ve come from there?”

“Hey, guys,” Vix interrupted, “I think there might be a trail here…” He pointed at the ground where, yeah, it looked like several people may’ve walked.

“We’re following it, right?” Yanily asked, dropping the other spear to the ground and putting both hands on his own.

“We’re following it,” Seena confirmed.

“Any other tracks? Like the two-toed-and-made-out-of-crystal kind?” Nivian asked.

“No, at least not that I can see. These all look the same to me,” Vix said.

“So, either their captors didn’t leave tracks, or the tracks are similar enough to our own we don’t notice,” Hiral said. “Right?”

“Sounds about right. Means they’re humanoid,” Seena said. “About our size. Rules out of a lot of things.”

“What’s the worst thing it could be, around here?” Hiral asked.

“Duggers,” Nivian said immediately.

“And they are…?”

“Like Troblins’ big, angry brothers. D-Rank, but usually hundreds of miles back the way we came. Never seen any around here.”

“Individually, they’d be a D-Rank CR of seven or eight. In a group, well, they travel in packs of five or six,” Seena added.

“Not something we can take, then,” Hiral said, and the Growers shook their heads.

“They aren’t real fast, though, or smart,” Seena said. “If we can distract them, get Seeyela and the others away, we can make a run for it.”

“That’s the plan, then,” Nivian said. “We find the Duggers, distract them, rescue Seeyela and her party, then we bolt. Get to the jump point as quick as we can.”

“How fast are they?” Hiral asked.

“Dexterity in the high teens, probably,” Vix said. “Pretty slow.”

“For you, maybe,” Yanily said. “That’d catch the rest of us.”

“Then I guess it’s me and Vix on distraction duty,” Hiral said, the chance at finally being needed shushing the part of his brain screaming this was a bad idea.

“Duggers don’t like stuff, which would explain why my sister’s equipment is still here,” Seena said. “They do like slaves, though. Probably why they took the whole party instead of killing them. But they also have a nasty temper. You’re going to need to piss them off to get them to chase you.”

“I’ll figure something out,” Hiral said.

“We’ll figure something out, you mean,” Vix said as he came over and put his arm over Hiral’s shoulder. “Don’t listen to what Nivian says about you when you’re not looking. You’re not bad for an Islander,” he said in his usual flat tone.

“What does he say about me when I’m not looking?”

“Just told you not to worry about it.”

“Enough,” Seena said. “Hiral, can you find your way back to the path?”

“Yes,” Hiral said without hesitation. “I’ve got a pretty good memory, and an eye for things. I won’t get lost.”

“He figured out the wingsuit pretty quick—I’d believe it,” Yanily piped up.

“Okay, then that’s the plan. Vix and Hiral, piss off the Duggers and get them to chase you. While you lead them away, we’ll get my sister and her party away from there. The path we were on leads right to the jump point, though it’s still a few miles from here. We’ll meet there.”

“Hey, why didn’t you ask if I could find the path again?” Vix asked.

“Focus,” Seena said. “Let’s go.”

With that, the party moved forward, following the trail while Hiral tried to figure out the best way to get these Dugger creatures to chase him. Insulting their mothers probably wouldn’t do anything. Stabbing one in the face? Though, if they were D-Rank like Seena was saying, would he even be able to injure one? Or would his sword just bounce off harmlessly?

Well, he’d have to…

Nivian held up a fist from his lead position of the group, causing everybody to pause and drop into a crouch, then pointed at the side of his head.

What is he…? Oh!

Hiral focused on his hearing and… there… Yes, voices. Somebody was talking.

Do Duggers have conversations?

The party stayed silent, moving up through the underbrush between the wide trees until they came upon a small clearing. There in the middle, in a circle, were what had to be Seeyela and her party, wrists tied behind their backs. Most of them just looked to have mild injuries, but at least one appeared to be unconscious, while another’s arm was definitely not supposed to bend that way.

And there, past the prisoners, were their captors. Seena had been wrong, so very wrong about what the worst thing could’ve been. Hiral found his breath caught in his throat as he looked at the five towering, tattooed Shapers.