Runeblade-Chapter 201B2 : Infiltration, pt. 1

Shifting a little closer to his cover to keep the sun out of his eyes, Kaius crouched next to a prominent boulder jutting up from the ridge line. True Sight did much to improve his vision, including preventing the glare from blinding him, but that didn’t mean he would deal with the discomfort if he didn’t have to.

Barely a few strides ahead of him, the ridge rose to a precipice before sharply falling away. It gave way a steep curve of scree that gradually transitioned to hardy shrubs and grasses—one edge of a large valley that split half a dozen clustered hills in twain, starting from two-thirds of the way up the tallest one.

There was a spring there. More of a waterfall now, after so many aeons of eroding the soil and rock. It fed a stream, winding its way through the valley like a snake with gleaming sapphire scales. That same placid water had carved its way clean through a fault in the valley's opposite side at some point in the past, time and wind doing the rest. Now, it had left behind an exposed cliff—one with a large cave at its base.

It was a surprisingly lush environment. Watered by the spring, and sheltered from the harsh winds that blew off the grasslands, a riot of small trees and brush coated the base of the valley, interspersed with dozens of gametrails. Past evidence of life, though he found little of it present currently.

Unfortunately, natural beauty was not what he came here for.

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Explorer’s Toolkit tugged him in a dozen different directions, building on his lifetime spent tracking game to reveal the tale that lay hidden in plain sight.

Right below him, at the base of the scree. The rain washed remnants of a fire, tucked beside a rocky overhang formed by a lucky collision of falling boulders. A shattered femur—deer by the looks—striped clean.

Gnawed on, judging by the scrapes, but the tell tale colour and scorching of a cooking fire was missing.

Further down the valley, lying on the pebbly shore of the small river—a broken haft. Standing out from the detritus of the valley due to its unnatural straightness, no matter how crudely it had been shaped.

Closer to the far side of the valley, by the cave, A series of rhythmic gouges scarred the trunk of a lone tree, the closest to the opening. Too even, too closely spaced to be a bear or cat. Not every marking was the same. Some looked only a few days old, others months—even years. The passing evidence of something hiding. Watching. Thankfully, not there right now—from his high vantage point, he could see clean through the loose canopy, already starting to shift colours with the changing of the seasons.

It was the cave that was the biggest give away. Flakes from handworked stone and broken arrow and spear points littered the ground. A refuse pile, just off to the left—little more than stripped bones half-heartedly hidden in the earth. The faintest trace of soot staining the highest reaches of the cave, curling over its edge.

Boggarts. He was sure of it.

Unfortunately, he was less sure they were still here. He’d no idea if this was their den, or an occasionally used rest stop as they ranged across the hills in search of food.

They’d been on their trail for a week now, ever since they had entered the dense hills that would eventually turn back into the same mountains that sealed off Mystral and cut the Arboreal Sea in twain.

It hadn’t been hard to track them, not in the slightest. A blind child could have found the signs. Messy hunts and battles, crudely dug sleeping pits, discarded tools, refuse, uncooked bone, and heavy tracks with clawed feet. The same signs he could see in the valley.

Unfortunately, half the issue was that there were so many tracks. They crisscrossed the region, with no clear direction or oversight. It had taken him a day to get enough examples to put a picture together. They all seemed to be heading away from a central location—a few too many tracks pointing directly in the direction of this valley.

At the very least, they’d made good time to their target. An additional two weeks, on top of the one they had spent tracking the boggarts.

They’d done their scut work on the way over, taking a meandering route across the plains to clear the other threats that Ro had tasked them with. Easy, boring work—but necessary. This far out from Deadacre, most delvers didn’t bother. Not when there was so much to do closer to home.

Only the higher ranks could make it here with any haste, and they had far more important problems to be dealing with.

That left the few well defended villages in the region without much support.

So, even if it was busy work better suited to a normal team of their level, they had done their duty. Taking out a few bothersome beasts that had proven they had the potential to grow into a real threat to the nearby communities.

All for a handful of skill levels and a single class level. Still, he did have to admit that there were some fun moments. It was nice to be out and about, and the variety of beasts that had come with the phase change gave him something to look forward to about the encounters.

The first had been relatively straightforward. A wolf pack, headed by a mated pair who’d gained some sort of dire-beast type. The call had come in because they’d been oddly focused on a nearby walled settlement. More than one hunter had gone missing, and more than one watcher had seen the pack lurking in the tree line. Waiting for people to come out unprepared and alone.

They’d been nasty business, not so much because of their strength, but because of the unnatural cohesion they bestowed upon their pack. Porkchop had had his work cut out for him defending Ianmus, while he’d focused on thinning the herd with judicious use of Stormlash.

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A few days to the east, they’d had their second mission. Another village, this one having food issues. While it was a common complaint in these days, a large helping of the blame could be laid on a level fifty-five vine-blooded panther. Allegedly, it was well on its way to eating—or driving off—anything that was even remotely safe to hunt in the region.

Kaius was pretty sure it had been doing it for the sport of it. When they’d been tracking it down, he’d seen far too many dead prey animals with only a bite or two taken from their flesh for it to be a coincidence.

Worse, the locals had a good reason to believe—at least based on what the mission had said—that their wooden walls would do little to keep it out. For one, it was a cat that was very happy scaling vertical tree trunks. Secondly, it had a nature aspect, and Kaius had gotten a first hand experience on how it manipulated plant-matter to bind and confuse opponents when it pounced.

Unfortunately for the panther, it had seen Porkchop as the biggest threat, and had only had a few seconds to realise its mistake before his brother had pinned it, and he’d planted his blade in its skull.

Their last stop had been the most entertaining by far. A new beast, rather than something that had always existed. A rock-scaled biter, according to what one village scout had reported.

The report had been fantastical, some lizard-beast, tall enough to come up to his chest. Thankfully, it hadn’t taken any victims. Territorial and loud, it had stayed just outside of the outlying regions of the village—but had ruthlessly attacked anything that got too close.

In normal cases, it would have been left well enough alone—most villagers would just steer clear of a territorial beast unless its domain encroached on their own. Unfortunately, it was an unknown entity, and there was too much risk that the situation could escalate if it was left in peace.

They’d found it nesting—though there’d been no eggs—and it had done its description justice. Heavy set and strong, its head looked big enough to bite him in half. Not only that, its name wasn’t just for show. Sporting an earth affinity, and natural armour of toughened stone-like scales, it had been a tough beast to put down.

Or at least, it would have been if they weren’t so much stronger than it.

Overall, a good run in his opinion. Kaius wasn’t even that annoyed that the exercise hadn’t granted them much in the way of levels. Closing in on fifty as they were, he was well and truly starting to feel the burden of increasing experience requirements. Thankfully, it should be mostly ameliorated by the extreme difference in level between them and their true opponents.

Plus, it wasn’t like they’d had to do much fighting outside of their missions. While most beasts had a drive to hunt for experience—not just growth—they weren’t unthinking or mad, just aggressively territorial. Something to do with the rising mana, Ianmus had theorised—given that Porkchop had confirmed even the meekest of beasts was far more ornery in the deep Sea, it was enough for him to take it as fact.

Still, even with that being the case, most beasts had some instinctive measure of strength. As long as they didn’t seem easy targets, and didn’t linger in any territories, they were mostly left alone to travel in peace.

At first he’d hoped that with how manageable of a journey it had been, and with how they were almost halfway through the rise in mana levels, he’d been hopeful that people would be able to get a grip on things soon. Once they adapted to the rising danger, that is. The mana would stabilise at a new normal, the beasts would stop growing stronger, and people would catch up. Simple, right?

Unfortunately, both Ianmus and Porkchop had disabused him of his misconceptions.

They weren’t even close to the level of threats that were seen in the Deep Sea yet, and that was only middling in terms of mana density compared to some of the true danger zones of the continent. Some of which, Ianmus said, had already been populated solely by integrated monsters—the mana potent enough that natural animals would spontaneously awaken, or die.

It seemed that even if mana had kept rising at a steady pace, whatever means through which it affected the levels of monsters wasn’t happening at the same rate. They’d be dealing with monsters evolving and growing in levels for years, at least.

Nor were beasts the only issue. He’d spotted more than one spirit, and other, stranger, creatures in their travels. Their strength seemed to be more closely tied to the mana, and so did their frequency.

They hadn’t stuck around to visit the villages and inform them of the completion of the tasks. The guild would be able to do that when they returned, they’d been in far too much of a rush to do otherwise.

Boggarts were, afterall, a plague. No need to let it brew for longer than was necessary to secure their cover story.

Crouched in his cover, Kaius had his thoughts interrupted as he caught movement to the far left end of the valley. Focusing his eyes, distance was peeled away before him, the far off trees and grasses coming into stark relief.

**Ding! Truesight has reached level 41!**

His patience was rewarded as soon as he did so. A gibbering troop of boggarts was pushing their way through the grass, nearly a dozen strong.

They were much like he remembered them. There’d been a couple of times that he and Father had stumbled across a small band of them searching for a hunting ground—not an uncommon story, when you lived on the frontier. Diminutive figures, gnarled and twisted—with hunched backs and a ratty fur and stringy long hair matted with grease. Large eyes were set deep into misshapen heads, while too-long arms jutted out from openings in their rough hide clothing.

As much as he wished it were not so, there were also differences. Everything he’d seen and heard of said a tall boggart would come up to his waist. Half the band that tracked through the valley were tall enough to come up to his chest, and were more muscular than their smaller brethren.

Far more muscular.

If the normal boggarts looked twisted and sickly, these looked…fearsome. Their legs had lengthened, giving them a swift adroitness that the others lacked. Their backs, still hunched, had broadened, allowing them to move with a sure predatory grace. Even the tools they held were more finely wrought.

It seemed beasts weren’t the only ones who’d been changed by the phase shift.

Bugbear- Level 58:

Lower Race, Vanguard

Frowning at the description of the strange boggart relatives, Kaius tracked the troop with his gaze. They went straight to the cave, loitering outside before the biggest bugbear of the lot gave a deep bellowing call.

It echoed through the stone chasm, petering off to a fading note. A few moments passed, the troop shifting from foot to foot as they waited.

Now that they were no longer obscured by the grass, Kaius realised that the size wasn’t the only issue with the bugbears. Their hide clothing—it had runes. Crude simplistic, yes—but they were still runes. After all, simple art didn’t glow with a sickening inner-light, Truesight revealing their real nature.

They had a shaman.