Runeblade

B2 Chapter 135: The Return pt. 5

As soon as Kaius mentioned that he had become Observed by the system for consuming a Natural Treasure, the table erupted.

Each and every one started talking over each other, their responses ranging drastically. Sandor merely scoffed, rolling his eyes, while Eillish, Hurrin and Yanmi jumped to their feet, hammering him with questions. Illendra sat quietly, her jaw slack as she stared at him in shock.

Jekkar, on the other hand, howled with laughter, swinging back on his chair as he belted out his shock and mirth. After a few moments he rocked back forwards, the front legs of his chair smacking back to the floor with a loud crack.

“Quiet!” he boomed, cutting through the commotion. The other elders paused, looking at him. “Now I den know about ye, but I’ve never known young Kaius to be a liar, have ye?” he said in his thick frontier drawl, levelling his gaze at his colleagues.

“Thought not. Look, I’ve analysed the lad. He has a damned class, and we all ken he’s not yet hit his second decade. If anything, him bein a bloody myth makes more sense, not less. Let’s hear the lad out, he’s earnt that much trust at least.” Jekkar said.

Kaius breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you, Jekkar.”

“It wasn’t long after that that I met Porkchop. I was still in a large cavern just off the entrance room, undergoing a circumnavigation when I stumbled across him having fallen through the same portal I had. The same bandits had tried to chase him down, though lost him when he threw himself in the river. From what Porkchop saw, there were far fewer of them than had chased me.” he continued with his story.

His audience hissed, galled and mortified that even the lowest of society would dare to hunt a greater meles. Saldar especially looked apoplectic, his jaw flapping as he tried to get words out.

Eilish beat him to the punch. “Those bloody bastards. If everything else they’ve done wasn’t enough.”

The head of the artisans grit her teeth, but nodded.

“What then lad? A few extra stats shouldn’t have been enough for you to escape, not against a Guardian.” Hurrin asked.

Kaius nodded, taking another drink to wet his throat. “It wouldn’t have been. That was only part of it. After meeting Porkchop, I learnt that the meles have oral histories of the Observed, that their power came from rewards granted by the system for performing great feats. We tore our way through our biome, and moved onto the next. It was there that I discovered what that was.”

He paused, allowing the moment to hang in the air. The elders leaned in.n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

“After I killed my third Champion solo, I received something called an Honour. It came with bonus stats, and a small passive boost with no scaling, though both were improved due to being the first to perform that particular feat as an unclassed. Not long after I got one for being the first to ‘discover’ glyph-binding. Let me show you.” Kaius took a moment to undo one of his vambraces, the elders watching him in shocked silence.

Letting the scale armour fall to the table with a clank, he presented his hand, showing off his Drakthar glyph, and the attached runic hymns. His audience leaned in in interest.

“Lad, is this how you could cast without needing to channel? I thought I saw that when you took down that deer.” Jekkar said with interest as his eyes traced the runic symbols burnt into his flesh.

“It is, though this one is from my class. It’s something Father had worked on, using his knowledge to come up with a prototype. According to my class guide, it was pretty jank compared to this, but being the first was enough to get me some great options.”

“And you got another one of these Honours for discovering this?” Yanmi asked.

Kaius nodded. “I only share because you mentioned that my class identifier is Spellsword. I think that is more to do with - well - my focus on both sword and casting. It’s going to be a lot harder to hide than I expected. I was hoping I would just get Sorcerer or Skirmisher, but such is life.. We chased Honours after that, and got Porkchop his share too. After a year it was just barely enough for us to take on the Guardian.”

Illendra’s jaw finally snapped shut at that. “You fought a Guardian? Do you have a death wish?” she accused, her voice growing shrill with concerned anger.

Kaius smiled sadly. “I wasn’t going to wait another year to find out what happened to Father, Illendra.”

His words took the winds out of her sails, and she paled. “Of…of course.”

Giving her a small nod, he returned to his explanation. “It is what happened from there that causes me to share a secret like Honours. It is my killing of the Guardian that set off the second phase.”

He was met with shocked silence, but he pushed on either way.

“I learned from the system itself that this is just the beginning. Someone will either achieve the requirements for more phases to progress, or we will inevitably be overwhelmed and perish.” Kaius finished, waiting for a reaction.

Yanmi collected herself, and focused on him intensely. “You are sure.”

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“I am.” he nodded solemnly.

“What of the Tyrants? The Crucibles? The Aspects?” Yanmi followed up with.

“I don’t know. Though, the aspects are why I have shared about Honours. It was suggested to me that I hold off from crossing into the third tier before I complete them. It is my bet that I will garner more Honours for doing so.” Kaius explained.

He leaned forwards and fixed the elders of Three Fields with a potent stare, his expression deadly serious. “I would not see somewhere I consider home destroyed, and my people slain due to the consequences of my own actions. The new phases will come with opportunities for Honours and power. Everyone here is in the first stage, and you all have aspects for it. I need you to seize the day, things will only get worse from here. I plan on completing my Aspects, and when I do I will send word of how. You must persevere.”

Hurrin let out an explosive breath, leaning back to stare at the ceiling. “Fuck.” He returned forwards, slapping his palm on the table. “Lad. You intend to pursue these phases? Yer barely in your first tier!”

Beside him, Porkchop sat up, looming over the table. “Kaius was the first Observed in millennia, and the pioneer of a new art. I am the second, and a greater meles. If not us, then who?”

“I don’t bloody know, but yer gonna get yerself killed!” Hurrin yelled.

Kaius frowned. He needed them to understand. If they didn’t pushthey would all perish. It might take years, but he trusted the words of a god. If they couldn’t progress the integration, they were all doomed.

“Hurrin, I must. The wheel is in motion, it can’t be stopped. You need to bandy for support from the other villages. Unite and share resources, something that I assume Holt is already working on. If there are more Honours available, there will be some that I am able to share, eventually. Those will bolster you, and the more people searching for them, and the more we can share information, the better all of our chances will be. Please.”

Saldar spoke up. “How, Kaius? You’ve lived training since you were a lad. Our best are hunters and guards, not consummate warriors. If Honours require the kind of feats you mentioned, we’ll die trying to pursue them.”

Kaius looked over to Porkchop, who nodded at him reassuringly. “Do it. I know it feels wrong, but this perverse obsession with secrets is the only thing that makes sense for why we stagnated for so long. I can understand for strangers, for when it could be used against you, but not for them.”

Kaius grit his teeth and nodded. They’d discussed it for days on their journey through the Sea. It went against every bone in his body. It felt like betrayal, for all he was meant to be, for all he had been raised for. No matter how much it made sense.

Thinking of Three Fields overrun with beasts, blood in the streets and familiar faces staring at him with glassy eyes, was enough for him to know he must. Above all, the secrecy sickened him. Without the perverse desire to hoard knowledge, without a culture that killed for secrets, everyone would be better off. He and his father would have never been separated.

He couldn’t change that. Not yet, and not alone. But he could make a start. Some small difference. A little shove, that might one day be nurtured into a landslide.

Porkchop leaned, giving him access to the bag that hit their Merchant’s Saddlebag. A little mana was enough. Pulling free a sheet of paper, he gripped it so tightly he was afraid it would tear.

Leaning back into his seat, he stared at the words on the page, before he looked up at the elders solemnly.

“I give you this out of trust, and the hope that you will use this to empower our people as best you can. While I now wish I could spread this far, for now it cannot leave Three Fields. Use it to bring the other villages under your banner, not as tyrants, but uniters. Use it to survive.” he said, his voice lowering into a bare whisper by the end.

Placing the page on the table, he stared at the words. Explorer’s Toolkit, Ironbodied, Mana Manipulation, Lesser Regeneration, Natural Celerity, Identify. Two of his own, two of Porkchop’s, and two ‘known’ legacy skills. None were those that would immediately identify him, and none were those that could be used against him. He just hoped it would be enough.

He pushed it forwards.

Yanmi picked it up, frowning in confusion. Kaius watched her realise what he had just passed over, her eyebrows raising, before her jaw dropped in shock and her eyes opened wide. Her colleagues leaned in, each reacting the same.

“Kaius. Lad. We can’t. This is…” Jekkar trailed off.

“Enough to found a Dynasty, I know.” He replied.

“I misjudged you boy.” Saldar said, looking up from the page to fix him with a calculating look.

“This…this might change things. You said you want us to unite the villages? Would you have us join your dynasty?”

“No,” Kaius shook his head. “We must remain separate. The name of my dynasty has the attention of an unknown party. No, I would have you nurse successors and defenders. Spread the skills to all who can be trusted to not spread them to outsiders, until you are strong enough to be beyond reproach. Use it to unite the villages into a single city state, to leverage into Delvers, and to seize Honours. A single bastion is far more likely to survive the coming tide than seven isolated villages with a smattering of hunters and guards.”

“But why?” EIlish asked. “With what you have told us, we could do all that anyway. This is… too much, Kaius.”

“Because I want you to fucking live! I want to know, while I pursue the pinnacle, while I throw myself at death, while I search for vengeance, and while I try to push through these gods’ cursed phases, that I have done what I can to ensure I have somewhere to return to! That I have done what I can to preserve the lives of those few who I actually know and care for!” Kaius yelled, slamming his fist on the table.

“So what? Yer gonna go hunting down Tyrants? Searching for cold blooded killers? What's next? Ye gonna Delve ten layers above yer level? Yer gonna fuckin get yerself killed!” Hurrin yelled, his face twisting with anguished worry. “I can’t bloody lose you too!”

“Pa!” Illendra yelled, smacking his thick shoulder as she stared at him aghast.

The small seed of dread in his stomach exploded with growth, blooming into familiar grief.

Kaius sighed, leaning back as he stared towards the ceiling and closed his eyes. Porkchop let out a comforting murmur, pressing into him. He’d been expecting it, what else would they all dance around so delicately?

“So he’s dead then.”