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

Rock dust hung heavy in the air, muddying the iron-rich spice of magic that oozed in rivulets of red.

Furor raged through Kaius’s veins, a marrow-deep itch that came hand in hand with well-fought battle. His smile was a wicked thing, unbowed by cost in life and limb. A fucking dragon. Dead in large part by his hands. Father must be smiling down upon him, seeing him claw his way to such legendary heights while he was so young.

He ached to his very soul. It had been a fraught thing — not once had he thought that victory was certain. Magic had torn at his flesh, and weighty blows had shattered his bones. Even his own fury stung, mana channels aching from the throughput of his glyphbinding.

Yet he could only stare at the words hanging in his vision, painted over reality with blackest pitch. Bane of the Dragon-blooded. A prize and a title that no one could take from him. An Honour in truth.

It was an interesting thing. They had received no bonus; they were not the first. More and more he suspected that there were others who had discovered Honours, and kept them to themselves out of fear or lust for power. Guildmaster Guilewind himself suspected as much — but would all of them have died? Surely some must have the mettle to match their ambitions. Perhaps even dragonslayers themselves.

As for other bonuses, Kaius could think of a few they had likely missed. They’d been right at the cusp of the maximum team size allowed, so a bonus for being in a smaller group seemed likely. Same for a closer level difference. He wasn’t disappointed they had missed out — it was already a miracle no one had died.

A groan pulled Kaius away from the notification. Just ahead of him, Kel slowly rose to his feet. They locked eyes, the noble nodding, before his attention turned back to the rest of their allies.

They were a ragged, worn group. Both Ianmus and Porkchop were missing an arm, and Kenva was drenched in dust, blood and sweat. She’d retreated up the cavern at some point, and was setting the legless Kanmost down next to their group. Golden magic still burned, as Ianmus bent over Julian and Adrian, checking their recovery.

It blunted some of his enthusiasm. A grand victory, but not without cost. Only two of the noble retainers remained, huddled near their lords. Six men, gone in a single expedition. Kaius could only count his blessings that none of his own were among their number.

Kaius trudged back up the tunnel in silence, Kel at his side. Both of them rushed to the fallen nobles. Ianmus’s arm was just gone, a ragged lump of smoothed over flesh left in its wake. Streamers of golden magic drifted from his other arm, probing the nobles who sat patiently. Kaius said nothing, not wanting to interrupt his friend’s focus.

Golden light pulled back, and Ianmus sat back with a sigh. “I’ve done what I can, but the two of you will need treatment from a properly trained physician for the numbness in your legs. Preferably quickly — your health will keep you whole, but if any of your organs are similarly malfunctioning, it could cause issues.”

He snapped to his friend sharply. The nobles had permanent injuries? They’d been severed, sure — but inside of Ianmus’s Triage spell! His friend had been on them in an instant, ignoring even the loss of his own arm.

Despite the news, Julian only grunted and pushed himself to his feet. He staggered slightly, before helping Adrian up. The arbalest was worse off, leaning heavily on the wall as one foot dragged slightly behind him.

“I understand,” Julian said. “I’ve seen it before. We have a Spire-trained life mage on retainer, so all will be well.”

“What happened?” Kaius asked.

“My spell,” Ianmus grunted, summoning a ruby-red tonic wrapped in silver wire to hand. Kaius recognised it. One of the Salamander Flesh Regrowth tonics they’d received so long ago in Deadacre. Ianmus downed it in a single quick swig, the bottle vanishing. “Triage saved their life, but it worked a little too well. It started to seal their wounds in the moment before contact between the two halves could be made.”

“A minor, and known, issue,” Adrian grunted, leaning on the nearby cave wall. “Easily dealt with, if done promptly. We have more pressing concerns. Namely, the mountain of platinum lying buried under as much rubble.”

They fell silent as a group, looking down at the bleeding wreck that sealed off the way to the Wellspring. For long moments, none of them moved — lost in the awe of what they had accomplished.

Kanmost broke their silence with a long, low chuckle.

“The mighty Astion tread deep, led on by one of dread station.

Sturdied by steel, his way lit by promised glory, a foulness lurked waiting;

Unshaken valour broke against the doom of nations.

Harried by fang and fire, did Astion bear witness to death;

Through its eyes came remembrance of misplaced youth;

Long forgotten guile and abandoned treachery returned as victorious breath.”

The stanza flowed with an odd, lilting gait. It was entirely unlike the stories he was used to from bardsong. It stuck and hung in odd places, where he was much more used to a flowing cadence driven on by simple rhythm, or the beat of a drum.

“What is that?” Porkchop asked, grunting as he pushed himself up with his remaining forelimb. The flesh of the stump simmered slowly, a visible pulsation. Lesser Physique of the Deathless was already going to work, restoring the limb far faster than his own Skill could ever manage.

“A stanza from The Epic of Valorous Astion. Terrible epic poetry from the depths of the dark age, the author had absolutely no sense of meter or rhythm. But it is surprisingly complete for something of that era, so I am well familiar with it. The passage stuck in my head, seeing such a creature brought low by their own hubris. It’s something of a common theme with tales of dragon slayers.”

Porkchop snorted in amusement. “A universal one, it seems. Most of my people’s encounters with wyverns end with blatant taunts to draw them into caverns and tunnels full of waiting meles. Those hunts are usually less costly, though. No one is foolish enough to face a dragon on anything approaching even footing.”

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

That was the gods-honest truth. Even in the guild records, the rare dragon slaying that did occur was with massively superior numbers of fighters who drastically out levelled the creature in question. Even then, people still died in their droves. Kaius had no doubt that they would have suffered the same if Katarex had been any more experienced in true battle. He suspected that this had been the only time the dragon had fought where it wasn’t a singularly one-sided slaughter.

“Whatever the means, the truth remains. A dragon lies dead at your hands, and a Place of Power lies in wait,” Kanmost said. “The cost of my legs is steep, but I must say this might reach my top three most eventful expeditions!”

Ianmus made a choking sound, whipping towards his old teacher with an aggrieved expression on his face. It wasn’t hard to see that the old historian had been hiding adventurous depths unknown to the mage.

“It was certainly the single most costly I have ever experienced,” Julian grunted, limping forward. A retainer rushed forward, offering the lord a shoulder only to be pushed back. Adrian, at least, relented, his leg too deadened to support himself easily.

Kaius moved to join the man, taking the time to throw Kanmost onto his back — Kenva still looked a bit pale, and the rest of his team were injured. Exhausted and battered or not, they had work to do.

Reaching the heaping pile of rubble that barred their passage forward and held the wyrm’s carcass, they got to work. Most of the stones had shattered into manageable chunks that the more able-bodied of their number could haul. Others were the size of wagons, forcing them to rely on Porkchop to crack them open with heavy blows of his claws. They stored what they could in their artefacts, speeding up the process massively — but they still carried stone by hand as they filled up.

It was arduous, dangerous, and lengthy work. Between their explosion and the wyrm’s raging, a massive chunk of the ceiling had been destabilised. Every stone carried the risk of shifting the greater mass, or worse, causing another collapse. They had to move slowly. Such caution burned. Every wasted minute was another that the vital essence of their enemy would fade.

Dragon flesh was not the most potent of treasures they had gained, that prize lay with the blood. The stories said that it would empower those who bathed in it, but the magic was fleeting enough it could only be used fresh. It would still hold immense value as a potent reagent, but as a Natural Treasure in truth? They were on a time limit.

As Kaius wrapped his hands around another small boulder, Kenva stepped between him and Julian and started searching for a suitable stone.

“Was it worth it?” she asked, turning to the lord.

“Sorry?”

“The cost — you lost a lot of lives, and spent a fortune on this.”

Jullian heaved up a hunk of rock half the size of his torso, staggering a little on his deadened legs. Removing the stone revealed a patch of blood-streaked blue scales. They were making progress, slowly, but steadily.

“Of course,” he said, his brow furrowed in a tight frown. “The Wellspring is a priceless boon for my duchy on its own. Depending on its properties, it could well be the foundation that could secure us through these turbulent times. The wyrm…it’s death is exactly what Baanswell needs. It will live in death as a beacon of capability and a totem of my House’s strength.”

Julian staggered away, carrying his burden to the neat piles of stone they had been making down the length of the tunnel. Kaius pondered the man’s words as he followed. In many ways, the noble had far more weighing on his shoulders, to look at the corpse of a dragon and think of such distant things. Sure, he and his team had their own worries. They had assumed the responsibility of seeing the integration through — but that was almost too vast. It didn’t hang in his mind like the prosperity of his duchy hung in Julian’s.

The man had his faults: he was the benefactor and supporter of a system that can and did crush people in the name of hierarchy. But he did care. Time would tell if it was in the way that mattered.

Bit by bit, they uncovered the carcass of Katarex. First, the wreckage of the creature’s head — one eye replaced with a ruined crater that revealed a glistening empty cavern of bone. Then, more. A great slab had fallen from the ceiling, crushing the wyrm’s back just a handful of strides from the base of its skull. Nothing had ruptured, but the chest of the creature bulged out like a sack of wine. The slab must have shattered the wyrm’s spine.

Porkchop cracked the slab with a slamming blow of his claws, and they moved on. Magic hung in the air, a burning scent that filled Kaius with every breath. It felt volatile, a taste of predatory supremacy and violent majesty that sat cloying on his tongue. Every stone was slickened with precious blood now.

“Quickly!” Kel growled, redoubling his efforts. “Who knows how long the potency will hold!”

In a final burst of activity, they cleared a path through the mountain of rubble, revealing one flank of the Wyrm. Katarex’s body was brutalised. Its entire top half was a blackened mess of torn scale and cracked bone from the potency of their explosive trap, and great, gaping holes littered its side from their early battle. Worse, a massive streak of red ran from the creature, painting the floor of the tunnel as it ran in rivulets down the incline.

Rubble still covered the far side of the wyrm, but for now, they had a path to its tail — and access to its carcass.

“We’re going to need to dig a trench!” Kaius said. They had no true way to collect the blood that would allow them to bathe in it.

“Best dig it just by the end of its tail,” Kenva said, moving stronger now that she’d had some time to recover from overdrawing on her stamina and mana. “If we sever the arteries there, the slope will help us drain the carcass.”

“I’ll get to it,” Porkchop grunted, moving with an odd hopping gait due to his missing forelimb.

“Only dig large enough for yourself and maybe one or two more!” Julian called as he and the other nobles moved to the rear of the carcass. They moved quickly, starting to clear away the rock that had encased its rear. “We have bathtubs.”

Kaius paused halfway through setting Kanmost down on a nearby stone. “What?”

“Bathtubs,” Julian replied, as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

A gleaming enameled-white tub popped into existence with a rush of displaced air. A wreath of flowers had been painted onto its exterior, and four snarling lions held it aloft. Kaius stared at the abject frivolity of it.

Three more followed in quick succession. Some were coloured in solid reds or blues, but Adrian’s was covered in a raised silver filigree layered over the top of black.

“I figure we can squeeze two to a tub,” Julian continued, barely noticing the way Kaius and his team stared. “Though Porkchop won’t fit, and I figured our member of the gentler sex might prefer his company over the men.”

“Bathtubs,” Kaius replied, still staring. Even Porkchop was amused at the absurdity of it. The sheer amount of space they would take up in a storage artefact was astonishing. Acquiring one that would fit a tub in the first place would have been an eyewatering expense, even for him!

Ianmus just sighed in defeat.

“Come now, this shouldn’t surprise you,” Kanmost chuckled, patting his old student on the leg.

By now, the nobles had stopped, noticing their surprise.

“One could question the wisdom of the owner of a landyacht turning his nose up at a simple tub,” Julian grumbled, drawing a bark of laughter from Adrian.

“A petty luxury, in comparison,” Kel agreed with a nod.

Kaius gave up — and he didn’t particularly want to think about the smoking ruin of his vessel that lay inside the Wellspring’s chambers.

“Porkchop, you start digging. I’m going to pick my way through the rubble on the far side of the carcass. If there’s a severed artery we’ve missed, we might need to dig a channel to collect anything leaking free.

He set off, the sound of cracking stone filling the tunnel as his brother got to work.