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

Kaius perched on a waist-high root, opting to crouch rather than dangle his boots in the thick muck that coated the entire floor of Vainblood forest. The crap was tinted red, and Kaius was damn sure it wasn’t due to something as normal as being rich in clay. With his stats, he would be perfectly comfortable sitting like that all day, even when he was suited up in his armour.

Ianmus sat above him, right next to the trunk where he could lean against it. Porkchop, however, was not so lucky. He also didn’t seem to care about the dubious nature of the mud that existed despite the lack of rain — he just lay down, letting it saturate the fur on his belly.

Kaius raised an eyebrow at his brother. “I’m not helping you rinse that out, you know.”

“Yes you will.”

“No, I won’t.”

“Yes, you will — unless you want it smeared all over the Pegleg’s couch?”

Kaius ignored the chuckle coming from behind him as he groaned. Utter bastard was right — he would. Not that he was going to admit it.

Deciding to ignore the smug flick of Porkchop’s ears at his lack of response, Kaius looked around for another distraction while they waited for Kenva to arrive. Their chosen tree was far from any cutting briars, or any of the virulent blightballs, but there was plenty else that lived in Vainblood. Now that they were still and silent, birds drew closer. Some were the same blue-throated swallows that had baited that hawk into the predatory vines that littered the zone. Others were new — an owl was the main standout. Bone-white with pink flecks, it glided silently through the trees only a few hundred strides away. The thing was massive, its wingspan easily matching Kaius’s own. It was, however, only a Steel — and utterly uninterested in them.

Once it was out of eyeshot, Kaius’s focus drifted, until a sudden flash of deep red caught his attention.

He looked left, spotting what looked to be a bucketful of congealed blood oozing down a treetrunk. He ogled it, entirely unsure of what he was looking at — a slimemould, maybe? Whatever it was, it was mobile. Tracking it down the trunk, Kaius watched it creep through the muck, rolling along the base of a root.

Blinking, he realised it was following an ant trail — the tiny insects vanishing as it rolled over them. Before long, it reached a hive, and tendrils squeezed outwards from its main body, worming their way in. Bit by bit, the main blob got smaller — until it vanished entirely into the nest.

Weird, but he couldn’t deny it was interesting to watch. Vainblood’s entire ecosystem was just so…odd. Definitely violent, but also striking and captivating in its own way.

Before he could ponder it any more, he caught sight of Kenva approaching them as she jumped from branch to branch in the canopy above. She reached them quickly, leaping from the next tree over to land lightly on the root next to him.

“I’m back!” she said with a grin, panting slightly from the exertion of her run.

A teasing smile slid across Ianmus’s face as he arched his brow at the ranger. “So you are — having fun being back in the muck like the vagrant you are?”

Kenva snorted at the taunt. She jumped straight over Kaius, landing right next to Ianmus.

“Shut up, mageboy,” she said, booting him in the back before he could react.

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Ianmus yelped, his arms flailing as he was launched off the root. He splashed knees first into the mud below, his robes soaked through in an instant.

“My robes!” Ianmus yelled.

“So nice of you to join me, my friend! It’s quite warm, as long as you don’t move too much.”

Kaius just laughed, offering Kenva a high five.

“So, Porkchop said you found something?” Kaius asked as the ranger slapped his palm.

A ferocious glint entered Kenva’s eye as her smile widened. “I did indeed. A Gold beast, and one that seems like a decent match up too.”

“How far is it?” Ianmus asked as he summoned a water skin from his ring and started to rinse off the mud that had drenched him to the mid-thigh. Once he finished, he hoped back onto the root next to them — shaking his boots to rid himself of the caked-on grime.

Kaius didn’t see why — they were water proof, and he’d be ankle deep in the stuff in a handful of minutes anyway.

“Not too far,” Kenva replied. “Maybe a league, league and a half. The actual walk will be a little bit further, though. There’s a massive clearing between here and there, and it’s filled to the bursting with blightballs. Spirits living there too — looks like clouds of living spores. They’re not strong enough to bother with, and frankly it looks like they’d be a massive chore to fight given where they are. Thought we could just skip them.”

The image of that fox dissolving in a cloud of death as its innards oozed into the ground filled Kaius’s mind. Nope — he was more than happy to listen to Kenva’s suggestion to avoid the place.

Still, he was honestly surprised that she’d found a Gold of all things. They were only a few hours into Vainblood, still solidly on the outskirts. Hells, they’d only just barely hit the zone effect. The records they’d read from the guild had said that Golds were only ever seen in its very deepest reaches, on the border of the Midnight Crater, and even then, only rarely.

Though, those records were well out of date. They’d run into a bloody pack of Silvers in that pass, and that hadn’t been anywhere near a high mana zone. The entire damned world was more dangerous than it used to be. Anywhere there wasn’t a constant presence of hunters or delvers, beasts were growing strong and expanding their ranges. One of the old high mana zones, where there had already been Golds, would be much worse. He shouldn’t have been surprised.

“How good of a fight, do you think?” Porkchop asked, raising his head from his paws to look up at them. His demon-faced helm made it look like he was snarling. “Are we talking a fifty stride tall elemental spirit, or some mushy poisonous bug the size of my paw?”

Kenva shook her head at his descriptions. “A beast, maybe three quarters of your size. Farseer says it’s a serious threat, so nothing we won’t be able to handle. It’s weird though. Looks…sick, or twisted in some way — but just visually. It was sleeping, so I could get close enough to look with my soul sight. It’s all natural, just…weird.”

“Oh?” Kaius asked.

“Yeah, I haven’t seen anything like it,” Kenva replied, nodding. “Some sort of hairless predator, like a squat bear with a barrel chest, if it had the head the shape of a boar’s and a too-big mouth. It’s got these…spurs jutting through its skin. Looks painful. They’re not bone, or chitin, but they are organic. Still makes it bleed, though.”

That did sound weird. Maybe it was some result of the mana?

“It’s not an abomination?” Kaius asked, thinking of the warped flesh creatures he had fought when he was unclassed. Most of those came from escaped alchemical experiments or magical infections in the real world, but some of them could form under natural conditions.

“Nope,” Kenva replied. “It’s a beast — just a weird one.”

“Huh,” Kaius said, hopping off the root he was crouched on to land in the mud below with a splash. “This I’ve got to see.”

“Great!” Kenva said, walking down the edge of the root. She hopped to one on the next tree over, a good fifteen strides away. “Come on! It was still sleeping when I left, so there’s a good chance we can still sneak up on it if we move quickly.”

They set off, hurrying behind Kenva as fast as they could.