Runeblade

Soaked to the bone in the blood of beasts, Kaius trudged down the stairs of Deadacre’s wall.

Arc’theros was leading the way, somehow even more drenched than the rest of them. The man was a living maul — his every movement had pulped the creatures that had the dire misfortune of being in his path.

Their escape had been swift after that — the Tyrant’s forces had retreated the second they’d come in range of the city's archers. Bloody unnatural, the way they had raced back to the bulk of the approaching army.

Kaius did his best to ignore the men and women who were staring at them from atop the walls. City guard, militia, it didn’t matter. They were all watching them with awe.

It felt wrong.

He knew, logically, that they’d done well. More than fifty souls still breathed that would have otherwise suffered brutal, bloody deaths.

A man had still died.

If he’d just been a little quicker — noticed the pikenose just a little earlier… Kaius scrunched his eyes shut, trying to banish the sight of the impaled hunter from his mind. It only grew more vivid.

It didn’t seem right. Not only had he and his team never been in any real danger, they’d benefited. He and Porkchop had broken through their final skill to the second tier, and all of them were able to evolve their second class skill. Hells, he and Porkchop had managed a level beyond that.

“This one has some small wisdoms if you would hear them.” Arc said, still facing dead ahead as he strode down the stairs with his back tall.

“Huh? Sure,” Kaius replied, looking up.

Arc didn’t reply immediately, silence stretching long over their descending group.

“This one is familiar with the sting of lost life — all who seek to stand tall as paragons are. You know this, have likely known for some time. Very recently, you learned that this does little to lighten the weight of a life, even when it is a stranger.”

Kaius grunted, “I suppose you will say it gets easier in time? Less burdensome?”

“No, though it does. What this one would say is that it is important that you find a way to deal with the burden. Those who try to bury it rarely last long.”

And how was he supposed to do that?

Behind him, Porkchop let out a low rumble, “In the dens, we would hunt and brawl in honour of the fallen… But no one was a stranger there. Feels less appropriate.”

To Kaius’s surprise, Arc chuckled, “This one thinks you would be surprised. Some vent frustration, some use failure as fuel to grow, and some simply share stories and commiserate. This one thinks that there is no wrong answer under the eyes of the myriad gods — so long as you do not let it crush you, yes?”

Kaius nodded, and silence fell over their group once more.

Focusing on those he had saved helped, though not completely. It was a hard thing to focus on, when he knew that everything they had faced today was only a prelude.

War was on the horizon, and death followed as its shadow.

….

Hot water was good. Cleansing.

The blood ran off him in rivulets, washing away and taking some of the sting with it. Arc had given him much to think about. He could admit that the man was right.

Trying to stifle… whatever he was feeling, was the wrong move. It wasn’t quite grief. He didn’t know the man well enough for it to be that.

Guilt? Maybe. Certainly at least a little.

Inadequacy?

Definitely. As ridiculous as it was, with all that he’d achieved, it was hard to avoid the certainty that the man would have lived if they were a little stronger.

Their walk through the city had been… strange. The fugue of their sudden arrival to safety was only just starting to wear off. It’d left him, not quite dazed, but perhaps a little less alert than he normally was.

Rieker and Ro had come to check on them of course — but both had just shared a glance with Arc before they’d told him to get cleaned up and rest. Bastards. There was a bloody siege about to start at any moment, and they still found the time to accommodate his precious feelings.

It was a small mercy, but at least that meant that they’d been left well enough alone on their journey back to the Stables. The streets had been packed, but everyone was so focused on moving to the underground shelters that very few had eyes to spare for a team of delvers — bloodsoaked or no.

Reaching over, Kaius swiped the bottle he’d snagged from behind Hensch’s bar. Angel that he was, the man had waited long enough to give them a key to the inn before he’d sheltered in the ruins. All of his current guests had one now.

The liquor burned as it went down, but it didn’t seep into his belly like it would have when he was unclassed. He’d far too much Vitality and poison resistance for that. It was bottom shelf, of course — even though he could afford every drop of spirits that Hensch owned a hundred times over, it would have been a waste to grab something nice.

He swallowed another mouthful.

A bit of a performative act, but fuck it — he’d just watched a man die.

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Kaius quickly set the bottle back on the shelf before he accidentally shattered the glass by gripping it too hard.

“You alright?” Porkchop asked, lying wet and bedraggled at the other end of the wash room.

“Not really, but I will be — it’s just another reason to get stronger.”

“True.”

Kaius let the water run over his face as he kept thinking. “It doesn’t really change anything, does it? We always knew the integration was killing people — it's a big bloody reason we want to finish it.”

“Yeah, but there’s a big difference between knowing it hurts to get stabbed and having a sword planted halfway in your belly — and knowing it will heal doesn’t make it hurt less either.”

Kaius snorted. “True. Don’t know why I’m the most affected though. Ianmus and Kenva seem fine…ish. ”

Rising to his feet, Porkchop walked over to him and prodded him in the chest with a single claw. “Don’t be an idiot. You looked him in the eyes. We didn’t. That’s no small thing.”

Kaius just sighed and started to lather his hair, working out the crud that had accumulated. Odd not-guilt aside, he could feel a seed of defiant frustration building. That Tyrant needed to pay, and he planned to use its death as a stepping stone for his own growth.

He was no fool. Even if he was the strongest being in existence, he couldn’t prevent every tragedy — but he could prevent more. That was enough for him.

For every death that was surely to come, he would repay in kind.

“There we go, that’s the spirit. Want to check out how Brotherhood of Ichor and Animus changed before we meet up with the others to discuss our Skill options?” Porkchop asked, taking a seat next to him on the tiled floor.

Rinsing off the last of his soap, Kaius nodded before he deactivated the enchantment that fueled the hot water spraying from the spigot above him. Grabbing their towels, he wadded one up and threw it full force at Porkchop’s nose.

“Hey!”

Kaius just grinned and pulled up the changed description of his skill.

Brotherhood of Ichor and Animus:

General Skill - Tier II

Affinity: Soul, Primal

Type: Bond, Body Enhancement

Level 202

Heroic

Blood calls to blood, soul shines to soul. A bond is forged, and strength and wisdom is shared.

Tier I:

Skill that creates a bond of equals, linking your body and soul to a willing greater beast. Allows perfect mental communication, proprioception, and a sense of their location within a certain distance. Experience, achievements, and feats are shared equally between both parties. When favourable, both parties are treated as a single entity in the eyes of the system.

Bolstered by the blood and marrow of the greater meles, your body is continually reforged and reinforced.

Tier II:

Drawing on the natural vigour and ferocity of greater beasts, this skill empowers other Body Enhancement skills.

The transfiguration of your deepest marrow is completed, and change sweeps through your bones.

Grants the Racial Trait ‘Greater Beastblooded’

Each level significantly increases the distance at which you can sense and communicate with your bonded companion.

Each level slightly increases the efficacy of other body enhancement skills.

In the first tier, each level minutely increases the potency of your body's baseline, empowering you physically and mentally. This change is permanent.

In the second tier, each level slightly reinforces your baseline skeleton, granting you the stalwart endurance of your bonded.

“Huh,” Kaius said, slipping on clean clothes. “Pretty straightforward buff to body enhancement skills — not quite what I expected it to progress to. Still a nice bonus — I've got quite a few of those, and it’ll stack up a lot given enough time.”

Any ability that improved others was a good one. They were a good parallel to Honours — something that let you leverage more strength than would otherwise be available to you, and scaled continuously as you grew.

He was surprised at the change to how the skill affected his body. It was, in some senses, a loss — the benefits did apply before stats, so losing that substantial scaling to his capabilities was rough. That said, he would not complain about stronger bones. Crush injuries were nightmarish to recover from, and considering that his largest weaknesses were his brain and his heart, extra defense for the two of them was no small thing.

Plus, he suspected that the increased toughness would scale with the earlier changes he had already undergone.

He raised his brow at Porkchop after sharing the extra change. “You said you got something similar right?”

“Yeah, actually. It’s done with making my soul more malleable to insight, now it's making it a bit easier for me to manipulate Essence and my resources. I imagine it’ll come in handy for later in refinement. As for the skill bonus, it's for Armament skills. Says I'm grasping the ‘ingenuity of the higher races’. Total drivel.”

Kaius snorted, “Sure it is.”

Porkchop paused for a moment — their bond made it blatantly obvious to Kaius that he had a question on his mind.

“What’s up?”

“You nearly hit the first stage of refinement. Are you still there? Will you break through if you cycle?”

He understood why Porkchop had been a little nervous to bring it up. While he had no idea how, it was impossible to forget that it was their team's essence that had drawn the beasts to a new height of coordination. Perhaps they had drawn the Tyrant's attention, and it had commanded its forces directly, or it was just some inbuilt effect of its influence.

Kaius sighed, running his hand through his hair. It was impossible to know if there would have still been a death without their essence making things more complicated. However, it was certain that everyone would have died without their assistance.

Smarter men might have been willing to waste time on the question of culpability, he didn’t have the patience for that. He just had to do better next time.

“No,” he finally answered. “I was close, but it feels like some sort of threshold. I need the right push to cross the barrier, essence alone won't do it.”

“A shame, but I am sure we will all be done with the first stage soon enough.”

That they would — there would be plenty of battle to hone themselves in. The Tyrant especially. It would learn it had made a mistake targeting Deadacre. It thought them prey; he would crush it for its erring judgement.

“Come on, let's go join the others. We have skills to pick.”

Filing out of the wash room, they found their friends already waiting for them by the fireplace — all of their collective gear was already drying out in the warmth. Cleaning that had been the first thing any of them had done.

No one wanted to strap on armour caked in coagulated blood.

Ianmus perked up when he caught sight of them. “Skill time?”

“Skill time,” Kaius replied with a grin.

Sliding into an open seat, he pulled up his waiting options.

**Ding! Class skill ready for evolution!**