The Runic Artist

Nate looked around wildly but no matter which way he turned all he saw was darkness. The demon’s attack had carved across his eyes and even now, he could feel the lingering effects as it slowly ate away at what remained of them. It was excruciating and the only thing keeping him sane was Spatial Awareness. He could still feel the space around him for roughly two and a half metres. The sensory load, as he sensed the tiles beneath his feet, the trap hidden to his left and dust as it drifted on air currents, slowly brought him back from the brink of oblivion, from giving in to the panic of suddenly being blind.

The demon, Xalvoloth he remembered it had called itself, wasn’t within his sphere of awareness and he tilted his head as he continued to get control of his panic, trying to hear where the creature was. The sounds in the background were of ongoing battle, metal on metal and the hissing language of the kobolds. It dawned on him that Kiri was now on her own against three Challenges. Well, she still had Frick.

“Frick, how’s it going? The demon’s here and it’s blinded me. Do we need to try and flee?” he sent to his Familiar frantically, still trying to control his fear.

“She just finished the Trapper and is in melee with the Chosen. I’m still harassing the Rogue but she’s got a Tether on him so should be fine. But Boss, I don’t think we can run in this state. We’d be running straight through traps again and we know how that goes. I can leave the Rogue and come help you?” Frick ventured, the Spirit's voice uncertain.

Thoughts flashed through his mind quickly one after another. Could he fight Xalvoloth like this? Could Kiri handle the Rogue and the Chosen on her own? What was the right decision? He couldn’t risk Kiri, he decided. He’d held out once before and he’d grown since then. He could do it again.

He felt when the demon stepped inside his sphere and without thinking his head snapped in that direction. The demon instantly vanished, stepping back outside of his sphere and then he felt it step in again. This time he tried to conceal the twitch that he was aware of the demon. He was unsuccessful. The demon vanished, stepping outside of his sphere once again and a deep laugh came from behind him, quieting again a moment later.

“So that is your range. Your facial expressions were delicious,” came the voice of the demon, now from his left. “I had intended to make this quick. To complete my task and be rewarded. But you’ve just been so frustrating to hunt that now I am going to make you suffer for wasting my time. I am going to devour you slowly. Very slowly.”

The voice went silent and a moment later Nate screamed in pain as a lance of light passed through the meat of his right leg. Stumbling he landed on a knee on the tile as he felt it eating away at him, the devouring concept within the beam of light consuming his flesh slowly. He’d felt the blade of light enter his sphere of awareness but at two and half a metres, it was too fast for him to react. Carefully he focused on his Runic Creation, Empowered Runic Artistry and Imbue Intent as he combined the three, recreating his barrier as a Shadow Barrier imbued with the Subconcept of Preservation.

“You think that will be enough?” cooed Xalvoloth, the voice now coming from behind him. “Wrap the meal up all you want. I’ll still eat the sweet centre.”

Another beam of light flashed through his sphere of awareness, coming from his right. The beam impacted his barrier and slowly ate away at it. Reaching into his spatial storage he took out a mana gem as he started using it to refuel the barrier. This had become a war of attrition.

Xalvoloth clearly agreed as the beams of light started coming at him, needle thin and from every direction. Some would burrow through the shadow barrier just enough to leave lingering puncture wounds that would ache as the devouring concept continued to eat at his flesh. It was death by a thousand bites. It felt like some eldritch being was taking tiny little nibbles from him. Breaking him down piece by piece.

He racked his mind for a way to respond. His initial plan had been a trap for the demon but he couldn’t use it in his current state. His lack of sight meant he couldn't properly place the carved runes while being certain the demon would be inside of the array. Maybe if he had Frick with him but that would leave Kiri vulnerable and she’d already be burning through her soul energy reserves. He could just try and hold out. Weather the storm of light needles until one of the others could assist, but that felt like the cowards way out. This was his challenge. His punishment for interfering with a Class Core. What had the System said? Prove you deserve a second chance. He’d always hated the saying, but it was time to nut up or shut up. He steeled his resolve.

What was his problem? It was being blind. If he could see, or at least feel or sense, where the demon was and his environs, he could enact the plan that he’d spent so long preparing for this very situation. His eyes weren’t coming back. Not in this fight anyway. Aisling could probably fix him but that didn’t help him now. No, what he needed was to increase the range of his sphere of awareness. Two and a half metres wasn’t enough to react to beams of light and he needed the demon in his sphere so he could make sure he caught him in the trap.

The beams continued to pepper him as he swapped mana gems, having emptied the first one. He was wasting mana because he couldn’t focus on the spots the beams would hit, instead being forced to cover the entirety of his body. But he could last longer than this. He had mana gems left and the pinprick puncture wounds, while painful and leaving ongoing damage, weren’t life threatening. The demon was truly set on making him suffer.

Ignoring the pain he let his mind think through the problem. How could he expand his sphere of awareness? Levelling the skill was out of the question. That would add ten centimetres. Nothing in the grand scheme of things. No, what he needed to do was alter the Skill somehow. He forced more mana to flow into Spatial Awareness and for the first time, cast the skill inward, using his sphere of awareness on his own body. The Class Core was not a physical thing, or at least, it wasn’t a physical object till it was disconnected from his soul energy. If he had his Eyes of the Runic Artist he could perhaps have looked at his own Class Core and coupled it with his sphere of awareness to try and understand what the Class Core was doing and how it did it.

A tight smile formed on his face, forced through the pain.

“Starting to enjoy it are you, mortal? Well you wouldn’t be the first. Let it happen. Let the pain take you away. Let it free you. It’ll only hurt for a moment,” came the whispers of the demon as it misinterpreted his smile. The beams of light never let up for a second but he didn’t care now. He had an idea. A way forward. If he succeeded, he’d be the last one smiling anyway.

Taking out three more partially filled mana gems he began activating Eyes of the Runic Artist and Spatial Awareness, flooding the skills with mana. He couldn’t see right now, but he could feel, and with enough mana gathering inside of his own body he could sense the locations of the two skills on his Class Core. He didn’t need his eyes, his sphere of awareness would be enough. Finally satisfied, he activated Imbue Intent as he tried to throw his desire at the two skills, trying to force them into the same location on his Class Core. He had no idea if he was right. If those times he’d seen the smooth surface of a fresh Class Core become rough as a skill was what…engraved…imbued…whatever onto it. But this was his best idea, his best hope. Combine his two sensory Skills and hope the ensuing result gave him the awareness he needed.

He continued to throw his intent at the Skills and he couldn’t be sure but it felt like they were slowly edging towards each other. The drain on his mana gems was prodigious and he cycled the three out for another three as his skin began to prickle and then burn as he forced more mana into his body than it could handle. Still, he didn’t let up. He was already suffering. Already in pain. What was a little more? He could push himself that much couldn’t he? Finally, after what felt like an eternity but had in truth been less than a minute, the skills began to overlap in his senses. He felt something in his gut explode and his robe rip, the sound of blood impacting the tiles ringing in his ears. He’d pushed the mana till it became too much for his flesh but the notification that appeared before him, visible even in his blind and agonising state made his heart sing.

Skill Synergy discovered between your Spatial Awareness (Epic) Skill and your Eyes of the Runic Artist (Mythic) Skill. Combine these Skills to gain Awareness of the Runic Artist (Mythic) Skill.

Proceed?

Walk your Path. Reach your Goal. Become One with Mana.

He chose yes without thinking.

Awareness of the Runic Artist (Mythic)

The Awareness of the Runic Artist reveals the truth of reality. An evolved version of the signature skill of the Wandering Runic Artist, this Skill lets them peer into the underpinnings of the world we live in, be it runes, sigils, spellforms, concepts or the nature of space. While active the user will receive advanced information about anything within their sphere of awareness that they focus on, parting the veil and revealing the truth. Information revealed grows with Skill Level, Perception & Intellect. Enhances Perception by 10%. Increases by 2% per Skill Level. Distance for Sphere of Awareness is Skill Level * fifty centimetres. Increases Creativity by 18%.

Awareness of the Runic Artist 1 > 26

He’d lost the ability to detect spatial fluctuations at a longer distance, but even with this version, the distance would grow. But that didn’t matter to him right now as the range of his sphere grew from two and a half metres to thirteen metres. Finally, even blind, he could see. The information flow took a moment for his mind to start sorting through but that moment was enough to tell him two things. He was in far worse shape than he thought. His body was riddled with small holes, all growing over time and he’d ruptured something vital in his stomach with his little stunt. It was interesting to him that he’d gotten no System messages about messing with the Class Core. Did forcibly modifying one’s skills not count or something?

Focusing back on his immediate problems, his smile turned slightly vicious. He was generally, he thought, relatively kind. That wasn’t to say he was perfect, maybe not even good. But he tried to be nice to people, so long as they were at least polite to him. But this demon, this asshole, had taken it a step beyond doing its job. Carrying out its task - he could have accepted that. No, instead it was relishing inflicting suffering on him. He could see it in the way its chest heaved in enjoyment as it conjured more needles of light, launching them at him. Hear it in the words it whispered to him.

Its steps stuttered when the points where the needles would have impacted grew denser with shadow. The needles failed to penetrate and Nate took the moment to swap to a few fresh mana gems. Wanderer above knew how much mana he’d burned through in this one fight. Arikanvil had been right. You always needed more mana gems.

Xalvoloth tried to sneak silently back the other direction but Nate followed the demon with his head, burned-out eyes moving in sync with the footsteps of the creature. It stepped back, and then back again, before it tried to move to the side. Its face contorted in rage when Nate continued to follow it, Nate feeling the muscles in the creature's face contract as it reacted.

“So, you’ve regained sight,” came the harsh voice. “It won’t matter. All falls before the Devouring Light. The suffering is done. Now, there is only death.”

Nate nodded along as the creature spoke, “You’re right. Time to die, demon.”

Reaching into his spatial storage he extracted four black Razorlash scales. Each one drew shadow to them the moment they touched the air. Two vanished immediately as he teleported them behind him with From Me, To You. Then he started walking toward Xalvoloth, closing the distance. It wasn’t because he wanted to melee the creature. That would’ve been the height of foolishness. But it was hard to teleport things with the devouring aura the creature gave off, which seemed to devour the amount of space his Skills could cover.

Getting within two metres of the creature, he teleported the third and fourth blacker-than-night scales as he activated Imbue Intent. There was no need to spend mana on the four runes as the Legendary materials were already fully charged. He just needed to guide the runic array. As it activated, he smiled. Originally he had intended for his Eyes of the Runic Artist to be what allowed him to see, but now, that didn’t matter. He didn’t need to see. He was simply…aware.

“I made this, specifically for you. I had a name for it, but as my best friend keeps telling me, I am kind of shit at coming up with good names. She named it though. It’s called Shadow Prison. Welcome back to hell, demon,” he said as the runic array bloomed around them. It had taken him weeks but he’d crafted four Legendary Razorlash scales, imbued with the Concept of Shadow at the molecular level thanks to his Conceptual Material. Now, coupled with Imbue Intent and Empowered Runic Artistry the subconcept of Preservation was added to the mix as they were encased in a cube of shadow. No light escaped and Nate even felt the devouring in his flesh recede.

The lack of light was bothering the demon as he felt it try and fail again and again to activate its Skills. But it was no match for the Legendary runes and the sheer volume of mana empowering them. He could feel it trying to push through one of the walls and escape but the only way to escape was to break the runic array and that wasn’t happening. For him, it was all as clear as day. Every speck of dust and every mote of mana flowing within the space. Controlling the Shadow Prison runic array, he used Imbue Intent to collapse it down until the only thing encased in it was the demon. Even though no screams of rage could escape the space, he could still sense Xalvoloth’s mouth open wide and throat vibrate as the demon screeched in fury. With one last flex of Imbue Intent he shredded the insides of the prison, shadow taking on a physical aspect as it sliced the demon into pieces no bigger than a grape.

The rush of processed mana told him the creature was dead before the notification flashed in his vision. He collapsed to the floor and smiled, even as he felt that he was dying. The gut wound had been the breaking point. His body had another few minutes, he thought. He’d considered a Life Drain rune but even though the Shadow Prison had suppressed the outward abilities of the demon, he’d still been able to sense the devouring Concept within the demon. It would’ve failed, like it had before. That made him snort. What a truly overpowered Concept Devouring was. To suppress your enemies Skills while also suppressing anything that acted against you. Then again, he’d proven Aisling right again. And Luc, he supposed. When he had time to prepare, he was unbeatable. Even when ambushed.

He’d had a good run though. Guess they were right after all. System Challenges did kill most of those subjected to them. He was about to try and roll over, to see if there were any other options for survival in range when he felt a physical body enter his sphere, followed a moment later by Frick as the Spirit flew up next to him, dumping the unconscious form of the Rogue next to him.

“Don’t worry, Boss. I gotcha,” said the Familiar and a moment later he felt a tug on his mana, followed by the sweet feeling of life and healing flowing back into him. He lay back on the floor and stared at the stoney roof. Fuck you, System. This round goes to me.