Rune Seeker
Chapter 13: Of Course It’s An Ambush

Hiral dropped the first monkey on each side with a pair of trigger pulls. A lucky critical hit to the face even killed one outright. “Incoming!” he shouted at the same time, though he needn’t have bothered; the frenzied pack was impossible to miss.

“Left, support Seeyela and Right,” Seena quickly commanded, reaching down with her hand like she was grabbing something and then ripping it up back up. A wall of Spearing Rootsburst from the ground to follow the motion. The new wall blocked the direct approach of the monkeys, forcing them to circle out wide, and bought her time to bark out more orders. “Nivian, you’re with me and Yanily. Hiral…”

“I’m sorry I didn’t see them,” he apologized, pull, pull, pulling his triggers as fast as the cooldown would allow. None of his blasts scored killing blows, but he did slow down and seriously wound everything he hit, and he started forward to help.

“Not worried about it now,” Seena snapped. “Back up whoever needs it from where you are.”

“Got it,” he said, stopping and noting he already had a few stacks of Killing Spree.

Seena was right. He could worry about his mistake later, but for now he had to focus on supporting the others. And, by telling him to stay in the back, Seena made sure he could benefit from some of his most powerful passive buffs.

And that’s why she’s the leader.

From where he stood, it was obvious the monkeys wanted to get to the NPCs in the center of the party, and Seena’s wall of Spearing Roots—along with Nivian—drastically slowed their approach from that side. Which meant…

Hiral turned to the left, both weapons up, and watched the evolution of the fight. Right was a terror amidst the horde, his high physical stats and the close quarters making each of his Meridian-enhanced punches devastating. Pillar after pillar of purple flame shot into the air, engulfing his target and any around it, while Left weaved a deadly dance in front of Seeyela. Dagger of Sath left a flowing trail as he moved. Then, bursting forward to catch up to Left’s strikes with explosive force, the double bought Seeyela the time she needed to activate her ability.

Two Gravity Wells formed within the mass of enemies, instantly annihilating the monkeys previously occupying that space, and then the hydras began spitting death. Even with that, though, there were still too many openings for the monkeys to slip through. The Gravity Wells didn’t block as much space as Seena’s wall did, and the monkeys gladly took hits from the hydras to make a run for the defenseless NPCs.

Which was where Hiral came in. His Atn read the flow of battle like a stream between the rocks. The absolute barriers, the paths of least resistance, the ebbs and rapids—it all snapped together before his eyes. His hands moved without conscious thought. One shot, and a blown-out leg dropped a monkey in front of its friends, slowing the flow there, while another felled a leaping monkey from the air.

A monster on the far end made it past Right while the double’s back was turned, but Hiral left it alone—a globe of ice flew from within the group of NPCs to smack it in the face—and insteadtook out a monkey trying to sneak behind Left. Hiral took a step to the side, changing his angle of attack, and took the ankles out from a pair of monkeys rushing by the Gravity Wells. With their forward momentum stolen, they vanished within the black holes.

Another step and two more pulls of his trigger again clogged a major artery the monkeys tried to exploit, but something from the other side tickled his senses. A glance in that direction after another shot, and he found a large group of the monsters huddled behind Seena’s wall of Spearing Roots, preparing to rush en masse. The woman’s two totems spit fiery streams nonstop, but there was no way they’d be able to stop the whole group.

Hiral dropped one more monkey on his left side, tossed that RHC straight up, then hauled the Emperor’s Greatsword off his back. Left hand still firing his other RHC into the horde, he turned his body, fed solar energy into the sword, and hurled it with all his strength into the gathering group behind the wall.

Bodies fell into parts as the blade struck, and Seena seemed to catch on to what was happening, as a burst of solar energy flooded out of her body. All at once, the entire wall of roots erupted in a pyre of infernal flame, instantly incinerating any monsters unfortunate enough to be next to it.

With that side back under control, Hiral caught his falling RHC in hand, swiveled back to the other side, and pulled his triggers. The monkey took both shots in the gut, doubling over from the pain, and then Left swept in with his dagger. The liquid blade came down on the back of the monkey’s neck, the trailing stream rushing forward all at once to catch up to the blade, and then exploded out the other side.

As the monkey’s severed head hit the ground, the battleground suddenly grew very still, though Hiral kept his eyes on the shadows on both sides of the road.

“Is that all of them?” Nivian asked.

“Too bad—numbers like that should be good experience,” Yanily said from the side of the NPCs, his spear swinging almost lazily around from hand to hand, monkey bodies piled in front of him.

“They weren’t very strong, either,” Right said. “Quantity over quality.”

“Anybody hurt?” Seena asked.

“Few scratches,” Nivian said. “Nothing serious.”

“One caught my arm pretty good,” Seeyela said. “It can wait if it needs to.”

“Wule, take care of it while we’re moving,” Seena said. “Nivian, move us forward. Hiral, what happened?”

“It was like The Mire,” Hiral said. “They weren’t actually in the building. They came out of the shadows.”

“Explains why they were so weak,” Left said. “Those Lizardmen were barely Elites. I suspect the same could be said for these monkeys.”

“Okay, keep an eye out for that again, Hiral,” Seena said. “But, just when we figured The Mire out, the dungeon changed things up. Expect something different next time.”

“Right,” they all said as a pulse of solar energy reached out from Wule to engulf Seeyela.

“Thanks,” she said. “That’ll do until we’re done with this.”

“No problem,” Wule said. “Seven minutes.”

“Keep moving,” Seena instructed, and the party got going again.

A thread of solar energy brought the Emperor’s Greatsword back to Hiral’s hand after he sheathed his RHC, and he slung the sword on his back, giving the ring a quick look at the same time. Hrm. Looks like it’s three-quarters full now. I definitely reached the same twenty-five stack of Killing Spree, and then some, but it looks like it didn’t get as much solar energy that time.

Shaking his head—he still didn’t know what the damn thing did—he redrew his RHC and followed after the group. The timer had ticked down to five minutes by the time they reached the building with the red roots, and as soon as they turned the corner, Hiral spotted their next challenge.

A group of six larger monkeys loitered in the center of the street like some kind of punk gang, one of them even going so far as to spit on the ground when they spotted the party. A hoot from the apparent leader, and five other primate heads swiveled around to look. Then the group sauntered into a line, blocking the path ahead.

Hiral focused on the leader first, his View pulling up a name and health bar above the monkey’s head.

(Elite) Bladed Frenzy Monkey Alpha – Mid-D-Rank

Alpha? But still just Elite?

Hiral quickly checked one of the other monkeys behind the leader, a different name popping up.

(Elite) Bladed Frenzy Monkey Groupie – Low-D-Rank

“That thing is Mid-D-Rank,” Yanily said. “This is going to be tough.”

“Not a Mid-Boss, though, so keep your eyes open,” Seena said. “Hiral, anything behind us?”

Hiral took a quick look down the street behind them. “There’s another pack,” he said, focusing on the group as it slowly stood and began casually walking in their direction. “Another Alpha, and five more groupies, from the looks of things.”

“They going to surround us?” Nivian asked, not taking his eyes off the monkeys in front of him.

“Not unless they speed up a lot, or this fight takes a long time,” Hiral said. “They don’t look like they’re in any hurry.”

“Let’s not give them the chance for any of that,” Seena said. “Nivian, keep the Alpha busy, and anything else you can handle. Left, Right, and Yanily, get any other groupies’ attention while Seeyela, Hiral, and I work on picking them off first. When the additional monkeys—let’s call them adds for short—are dead, we’ll work over the Alpha. Go.”

Nivian’s form blurred and stretched, his movement ability getting him right up to the Alpha in a heartbeat, while the monkey simply cocked its head to the side as if to say, You dare approach me? Then Nivian backhanded the sneering face with his shield and lashed out with his whip to the right, each of the three thorny, biting whips tearing gashes in a monkey on that side. Four sets of furious eyes immediately settled on the tank, and a Gravity Well formed on the left, right in front of the other two groupies.

Hiral kept an eye on the pack behind them while he shifted wide to get a clear shot past the group of NPCs, and the melee damage dealers rushed in to join the fray.

Despite the quick initiative of the party, the monkey pack wasn’t just going to sit and take the punishment. The Alpha pounded on its own chest while waves of solar energy washed over the groupies beside it. The thick, black hair on the monkeys visibly hardened, while a shimmer of energy coated the edges of the blades on their forearms.

“Some kind of buffs,” Hiral said into the Party Interface, and the two monkeys on the left charged past Nivian and the Gravity Wells towards the group of NPCs.

That took them straight into Left and Right, and even though Right connected with a solid punch—purple fire and all—the monkey didn’t fall. It barely even slowed, its eyes smoldering red, and swept its arm out.

Long and fast, the arm snapped around like Nivian’s whip—except with a foot-long blade on it—and Right narrowly dodged the attack by diving backwards.

Two of Hiral’s searing bolts slammed into the side of the monkey before it could whip around its other arm, staggering the beast back, but the other continued its forward charge. Trusting in Left to slow it down, Hiral kept his aim on the first, pullinghis triggers as soon as the weapons were off cooldown. No sooner had the fourth shot landed—It’s tougher than the others—than Right was back in the fray.

His right fist collided with the monkey’s jaw in a flare of purple light, then his left came around with a Rune of Impact to slam into the monster’s gut, lifting it from the ground. Hiral shot it twice more while it practically hung in the air, then took a quick glance at how the others were doing.

In the few seconds he’d focused on the one enemy, a wall of Spearing Roots had appeared between Nivian and two of the groupies, though the Alpha and third groupie pounded on the tank’s shield hard enough to send out impact waves with every strike. Yanily danced around the melee, those monkey arms constantly whipping through the air in wide arcs, and thrust in with his Reed Spear Style. For all the hits he scored, the buffed monkeys didn’t seem to be taking much damage from the attacks, their health bars barely moving.

Left, meanwhile, was narrowly staying ahead of the one monkey he was dealing with, a long gash leaking solar energy down and across his chest. He could see the monkey’s movements, but his body just couldn’t keep up with it. That was Hiral’s next target. He shifted his aim, a pull of his trigger intercepting one of the monster’s windmilling arms.

Deflected by the Impact portion of the bolt, the arm sailed out wide, the monkey’s eyes darting in Hiral’s direction for a heartbeat, and Left dashed in. The monster’s other arm cracked in the air like a whip as it brought that blade around to intercept the double, but Left didn’t try to dodge. Back went his dagger, preparing to strike, and it was all a question of which weapon would reach first.

As the blade came down like a headsman’s axe, another perfectly aimed searing bolt struck the swinging arm, knocking it just enough to pass beside Left’s shoulder, and then the double was inside the monkey’s guard. Both hands on the hilt of the Dagger of Sath, Left drove the blade straight into the monster’s gut, though the thick, buffed hair seemed to blunt the worst of it.

That was, until the long stream of water Left had created rushed forward and caught up to the knife. In his constant bout of dodging, he’d left a veritable curtain of water in the street, and it crashed into the monkey like a tidal wave forced through a straw, the cutting force blowing a chunk out of the beast’s back.

The monkey hooted in pain, then lifted its arms above its head as if it meant to pound Left straight into the ground like a nail.

Hiral’s first shot struck it in the center of its chest, knocking it back a step, while the second scored a critical hit to its face, dropping its health bar to barely a sliver of red. His dagger still embedded in the monkey’s abdomen, Left stepped to the side and yanked, ripping the dagger free and taking the last of the monster’s health with it.

A blinking in the corner of Hiral’s attention told him he had a new notification waiting—Odd it didn’t just pop up in front of me—but he didn’t have time to worry about it now. A quick look back showed the other gang of monkeys moving at the same steady pace. No concern there. Yet. Right, on the other hand, had finished off his opponent and was moving to help Nivian and Yanily.

Of the four monkeys engaged with the tank, one of the groupies had less than half health left, while the other two were still above two-thirds, and the Alpha wasn’t even down to seventy-five percent. Seeyela’s Gravity Well hydras spat fire and lighting at them, but they seemed to just shrug off the elements, while Yanily constantly had to dodge back to avoid the whirling arm-blades that were as long as his spear.

Nivian, for his part, was doing everything he could do keep the monsters’ attention, shield bashes and lashing whips constantly turning the glowing red eyes on him. He was paying for it, though— his bark armor was broken and leaking blood in a dozen places. Wave after wave of solar energy came from Wule to keep the tank on his feet, but even the quick look told Hiral the healer was falling behind.

Why? Why are those groupies so much stronger?

Hiral pulled his triggers, his bolts striking the monkey with the lowest health, but the thing barely shifted from the impacts, and its health bar hardly moved. That didn’t make sense. The other two Right and Left had dealt with had taken far more damage from the same hits—and that was before Hiral had a couple stacks of Killing Spree.

Holding his next shots, Hiral instead looked hard at the monkeys. There had to be… Their eyes. The eyes were outright glowing, while the ones they’d killed already didn’t have eyes nearly as bright.

“Yanily, fall back ten feet,” Hiral instructed through the Party Interface. “Fifteen if you can. Nivian, let him take that low-health monkey with him.”

“Got a plan?” the spearman asked, and, at a nod from Nivian, jabbed his spear once, twice, three times into the back of the monkey. As soon as the monkey’s eyes turned on him, Yanily danced away, the monkey quick to give chase, arms a whirling blur.

“Keep going,” Hiral said, still holding his shots and… Yes! “The glow in the eyes is fading.” sᴇaʀᴄh thᴇ NøvᴇlFirᴇ(.)nᴇt website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of nøvels early and in the highest quality.

“The glow…?” Yanily asked, bringing his spear up to block one of the swinging arms, then quickly spinning it around to deflect the other. “Huh, it’s slower.” His counterattack drove the spearpoint deep into the monkey’s chest and cut its health bar in half.

“They’re stronger closer to the Alpha,” Hiral said, no longer holding his shots. His two blasts left the monster with barely any life, and Yanily moved in for the kill. “We need to get those other two further away. Right, Left, that’s you.”

The doubles were already moving, a wing of flaming blue bursting out of Left’s shoulder and trailing small ice crystals behind it as he activated the Wing of Anella to keep up with Right. Within seconds they covered the distance, slamming into the pair of monkeys with a flurry of attacks. Except, Nivian had done his job too well—the monsters practically ignored the pummeling they took in their mad fury to kill the tank.

“They’re not moving,” Left pointed out.

“Let me try something,” Seeyela said.

“Is now the time for tests?” Seena asked.

“Not like I’m doing any good here anyway,” Seeyela snapped, lifting her hands in front of herself.

The air bent just off to the side of the melee, a sheet of darkness rolling vertically down the air to hang like an oddly black curtain. Further to the right, maybe thirty feet, a second sheet fell, and then Seeyela started pulling her hands towards each other. Her muscles strained as though she was trying to pull two massively heavy weights together, and the space between the two hanging curtains of darkness visibly warped.

“Whatever you’re doing… do it faster,” Wule said, slight panic in his voice as the three monkeys pounded mercilessly on his brother.

“Not… as… easy… as it… looks,” Seeyela said, her voiced strained, but then there was a loud SNAP, and the black curtains drew taught. “Done! Throw the monkey into that!”

“Throw the…?” Right started to ask, but then shook his head and charged the closest groupie.

The monkeys had almost entirely ignored the doubles as they attacked, and Right slipped behind the whipping arms and grabbed the monkey by the waist. With his over 40 Str—along with a grunt of effort—he hoisted the monkey into the air and hurled it at the black void.

The monkey vanished within the large curtain… only to go flying out ofthe second curtain thirty feet away.

She created a portal!

“Seena!” Seeyela shouted. “Hit it hard.”

“Finally,” Seena said, one, two, three, four balls of fire appearing over her hand as Right grabbed the second monkey and also tossed it through the portal. As soon as it appeared beside its confused comrade, Seena let loose with her ability.

The onslaught of fireballs completely enveloped the monkeys, even blowing a column of flame out the other side of the connecting portal. Nothing was left of the two primates but ash.

With that done, only the Alpha remained, its eyes glowing a furious red.

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