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

As soon as Kaius accepted the challenge, a raucous cheer filled the room. Even Helena’s stoic teammates, Nemtep and Persellia, cracked a smile. His enthusiastic acceptance had done something to win the delvers over. That, above anything, solidified that the challenge was good-natured at heart.

“Well, I wasn’t quite expecting this, but it should be fun,” Porkchop chuckled.

Raw sound ripped through the cheers as Guilewind flicked a finger and shattered the air.

“Order!”

The room grew quiet, and Kaius took his seat as the rest of the room did the same. A buzzing rush still buoyed him, but he did feel a little sheepish for the display. Across the table, the Gold delver Gars gave him two thumbs up.

“Before I release you to act like the animals you are, we have one last thing to cover. The guild is offering a reward for anyone who brings word of a new gate, so if you hear of one, tell me. Otherwise, I will be posting notices as more are discovered.”

A small thread of mana touched the podium, and the projection beside Guilwind vanished. Moments later, the blackened glass grew clear, and the sun shone on their faces once more.

“We’re done.”

In seconds, the delvers were on their feet like loosed hounds. Raucous conversation filled the room, dozens of people flowing between the tables to mingle with other teams. Kaius stayed seated — he had accepted a challenge, but he still didn’t quite know how this was supposed to go.

Helena turned to him with a smile. “Well then, you certainly seemed happy to fight.”

Kenva snorted. “He’d be dead a dozen times over if he didn’t bloody breathe bloodsong, I’m more surprised he didn’t dive across the room right then and there.”

“Hey!”

He wasn’t that bad!

“Oh man, you’re going to love the Pit then,” Gars said, chuckling.

Persellia sighed. “It’s been a while, I suppose.”

“What’s the Pit?” Porkchop asked.

“It’s a reinforced fighting ring beneath the Guild. Only Silvers and higher are allowed in — half of these all-hands meetings end up in there when people want to blow off some steam,” Helena explained.

That sounded interesting. And relieving. Kaius had been worried this entire thing would turn into some guild-wide spectacle, but if it was just limited to the people in the room, that was much more manageable.

Even if it was unavoidable that those ‘in the know’ might be aware of their exploits, all Kaius really wanted to avoid was the everyman on the street knowing his name by sight. Well, that and keeping his and Porkchop’s origins a secret. As long as the Onyx didn’t figure out he was Kaius Unterstern, he could figure it out.

Around the table, Nemtep crossed his arms and grunted at them. “Fair warning, once the first fight is over, the rest of you should expect your own challenges.”

Ianmus and Kenva nodded as if they had expected that, but Porkchop let out a low, hungry growl.

“Good, I was worried I was going to get left out.”

“Oh, the four of you are going to do just fine,” Helena said.

“Is this…normal?” Ianmus asked. “I haven’t heard of anything like this before.”

“It is, and you wouldn’t,” Persellia explained. “Everyone else in this room has been at this for decades, and making it to Silver and beyond is a strong indication you’re going to cross paths with others in this room again and again over your career.”

“It’s isolating,” Helena added. “Most people see you as a walking bard’s tale or force of nature at best. Makes it a bit more worthwhile to stay on good terms with others in the same position, especially when you never know when you might end up running into each other on jobs. This whole challenge thing is part of that — it’s a chance to show off what you can do, and the guts and iron to do what needs to be done. We’ve all been through it. Although…normally someone would pull you aside and explain before the challenge happened, and feel out if you’re the sort for a fight, an exhibition, or a test of skill.”

Kaius raised an eyebrow. “Not us, though?”

“Are you kidding?!” Gars barked out a laugh. “As soon as the stories from Deadacre started spreading, and we connected the dots with the new kids in town, you were already gone again! Doesn’t take a genius to figure out that we’ve got, what, six months at most before you hit Gold? You’ve already got a damned team name! No way anyone here is letting you get a Goldname without someone putting you through your paces.”

“So, it’s the Tidebreakers then?”

“Yeah,” Gars said, grinning at them. “‘Cause when the tide of beasts came, it broke on your backs.”

“I like it. A strong name.”

“You’d bloody hope so after we faced down an army and killed the first Tyrant!” Kenva said.

“It’s certainly not a story that people will forget any time soon,” Persellia agreed. “Arc’theros himself has said that the city would have been lost without the four of you, and that man does not lie.”

Kaius ran a hand through his hair. The Tidebreakers. It had a ring to it, he could admit that — but he hadn’t expected the stories to spread quite so quickly. They’d have to grow quickly, just to be safe. Not that they hadn’t planned on that anyway. Refinement was the main hold up, but Kaius felt confident that the high-essence zones in the Shardworld would be exactly what they needed to push that onwards.

This text was taken from NovelPhoenix. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“That’s all well and good,” he said. “But what about this ‘coming to ask me if I wanted to fight or just show off’? Seems that fell to bits.”

“Well…” Helena said, trailing off.

“You have reputations,” Nemtep said.

“We do?” Ianmus blinked.

“Bloody ones,” Persellia agreed.

“Something not helped by the fact you were in Baanswell for all of a few weeks before you ran off and killed a dragon, untouched despite the fact that the young Lord Flowers returned missing half his retinue. I think I heard ‘suicidally reckless’ bandied about a handful of times. We all just kind of assumed you’d want to fight it out,” Gars said, raising his brow at them.

Kaius just sighed. He could exactly say that they were wrong, but it did feel a little strange. He wasn’t a maniac — he just liked to fight!

A warm breeze brushed against the back of his neck, bringing with it a soft voice.

“Kaius, you’ve got about three minutes before you’re carried out of here. I’d like at least two of them.”

Kaius pushed himself to his feet. “Duty calls.”

He made his way to the guildmaster. Guilewind had left the podium to wait by the windows at the rear of the room. Peering out over the trees, he stared deep into the city.

“I’m glad you came back alive,” the guildmaster said. “I was worried for a moment, when my sources gave word the young Lord Flowers had left before my note was set to arrive at his estate.”

“It is what it is,” Kaius replied, shrugging. “We came to an accord.”

Guilewind glanced up at him, his stark red eyes searching Kaius’s expression. “Was that before, or after he lost half his men?”

“Before. He ambushed us as we were crossing the pass. We took the man hostage and talked it out.”

The guildmaster dragged his hand over his face. “Gods save me.”

“It went fine! He suspected a traitor in his party, and enlisted our help. It was Adrian, working with an Onyx operative — Julian suspected they might have been involved with Franlen in some way. That battle accounted for four of the losses, the rest were from the dragon and other monsters.”

A low, reptilian hiss rumbled in the back of the guildmasters throat. “That…is complicated. Thank you for telling me — this will lead to some messy politics. Did you manage to save the Archivist? And what about the Place of Power?”

“We did, though Kanmost lost his legs. He’s with Julian still. I can’t say much about the place of power, we’re oath bound — but you shouldn’t be surprised if the Duke or Julian reach out to discuss it with you.”

Guilewind’s brow shot up his face. “Interesting.”

“Anything else?” Kaius could hear the cheers and boisterous conversations building behind him — it seemed the guildmaster was right when he said there wouldn’t be much time.

“No, go have fun.”

“To the Pit!” someone screamed.

Moments later, a firm grip clasped over his shoulder. Kaius laughed, and let himself be pulled away.

….

Kaius took a deep breath and opened his eyes. He was in a small, stone box of a room some four hundred strides beneath the guildhall. Other than a few wardlights, a couple wooden benches, and two doors, there wasn’t much else he could say about the place. It had that damp, yet somehow still dusty smell of a poorly ventilated basement, but that was about it.

To his left, a massive door led out to a sand floored arena that he’d seen only ten minutes before. Despite being an easy two hundred strides across, and warded heavily enough to survive dragonfire, there were only two rows of seating above its twenty stride walls. It was still too much — even with damn near fifty high-tier delvers, it was still half empty. A good turn out, or so he’d heard.

Tuning out the wry amusement that flowed from his bond, Kaius focused on the comforting solidity of his wyrm-headed pommel. Strange, that the first time he’d use it would be here, for what amounted to theatre.

A small smile quirked at his lips. Gods, even if it was theatre, there was something about the low rumble of voices and cheers through the stone that got his heart pounding. This would be fun.

He was going to crush the gold that faced him. He’d make damn sure of that. Though, maybe he’d lay off the war magic — Starfall wasn’t exactly safe in an underground room, and Spear of Nectus was more than a hair too lethal for this sort of fight. Still, the limitations were part of the thrill. Up until now, the only person he’d had a good, friendly brawl with had been Porkchop — and it wasn’t the same when you could literally feel your opponents every intention. It made feints damn near impossible!

Hopefully he’d be called soon.

The door creaked open, and in walked the Gold who’d challenged him. Dressed for battle, he had a helm wrought into the visage of a snarling wild cat tucked under one arm.

“Hey there, Tidebreaker,” the delver said, an eager grin on his face.

Kaius raised an eyebrow. “Aren’t you supposed to be in the other room?”

“Nah,” the Gold said, sliding onto the bench across from him. “That’s for fights when you want to tear someone’s eyeballs out their arse. This is just a bit of fun.”

Kaius gave a heavy breath through his nose. “That happen often?”

“Sometimes. Serious feuds are rare, but every now and then you get sick of someone being lippy after a decade or two and start thinking about what they’d look like picking up their teeth. Places like this keep it civilised — far better than a delve where two teams enter and only one leaves.”

“So, how do we do this?”

The Gold shrugged.

“Up to you, really. I’m not normally the one to do this, you know. Got a bit of a reputation; feel it a bit too strongly in here.” The Gold thumped his chest, before his eyes bore deep into Kaius’s. They were the same frigid grey of the mountain peaks Kaius had lived under as a boy, yet they burned all the same. “That glorious Song. Then again, so do you, don’t you?”

A spark of screaming fire bolted down Kaius’s veins. He smiled. So did his opponent. Both were things with too much teeth.

“Maybe.”

“Ah, so modest. You don’t get where you are so young without being a maniac. So, what’ll it be?”

“Forefeit?”

“Dangerous… What’s lethal for you? I heard you heal like a hydra.”

Kaius snorted. “Nah, that’s Porkchop — but I do alright. Steer clear of the head and the heart, and don’t cut me in half.”

“And you’re the fucking skirmisher. Ridiculous,” the Gold said, sighing.

“What about you?”

“Just the head,” the Gold replied, shrugging.

“Just the head?”

“Just the head. Well, maybe don’t blow a head-sized hole in the middle of my chest, but otherwise there’s plenty of healers about, including your own, so I’ll survive long enough to get patched up.”

Kaius blinked. “Okay. I wasn’t intending on using my second-tier offensive spells anyway.”

“Ahh, the magic. I’ve been looking forward to seeing it. Damn paperpushers across the Plaza wont stop yammering about it. Regardless, should we get out there?”

The Gold got to his feet, offering Kaius a hand. He took it, and jumped up. Gods, he was feeling the heat now — this was going to be fun. What kind of answer was ‘just the head’!

Right as he grabbed the handle to the arena door, the Gold paused, looking back. “By the way, I never introduced myself. Name’s Ivar the Bleeding.”

Kaius stilled for just a moment, before he burst out laughing. He knew that name, this was going to be great!