Runeblade: You shall not pass, Wanderer!

After dealing with the swarm of dead howlers, Kaius and Porkchop pushed further into the maze, more than happy to get away from the rotten blood and viscera they had left behind. They stopped, sitting down on the dark stone pathway to lick their wounds and rest.

“You got the skill?” Porkchop asked.

“Yeah,” Kaius nodded, chewing on a piece of jerky. “I’m gonna check it out in a second. Next is Mental Visualisation, Then Appraise and Inspect. I should be able to pick those up quickly on the move. The rest will probably have to wait until we get some down time.”

“Go on then,” Porkchop snorted. “Check it. Maybe then you’ll stop fidgeting.”

Kaius raised an eyebrow at his friend. He had not been fidgeting.

“I just didn’t want to distract myself in case we got jumped by another swarm. My skill doesn’t reach far enough to see up there. Not yet at least.”

Chagrin flowed over his connection to Porkchop.

“It was my mistake. A stupid one. I can see the canopy, just didn’t expect to get ambushed from there so I wasn’t paying attention. I’ll be more careful now.”

“Hey now,” Kaius said, his eyes softening. “I didn’t expect it either.”

“Check,” Porkchop replied, bumping him with his nose. “I’ll watch.”

Kaius nodded, pulling up his latest skill.

Low Light Vision:

Level 1

Uncommon

Pierce the shadows with radiant clarity. Unlock the secrets cloaked in the warm embrace of darkness.

Skill that enables perfect sight in low light levels. Ineffective against pitch-blackness and magical darkness.

Each level slightly increases the range at which you can see in low light.

A situationally useful skill, but one he had need of right now. It was often like that with new skills. The system seemed to use some arcane method of weighting practice, effort, and necessity. This skill wasn’t exactly one you could practise, so his sheer effort and need to pierce the gloom had aided him massively in its acquisition. Refined into something more potent, it would be a fantastic addition to his upcoming legacy skill..

The next component he needed to acquire was the first part of his plans for his class selection. With his ideas for runes, Mental Visualisation was going to be vital for holding their complex shapes firmly in his mind. Luckily, he had already been practising without the skill for years - much like he had with runes. Hastur had insisted.

If this was the path he was going to go down, he was going to do it right. That meant having a firm grasp of the fundamentals before he acquired the needed skills and started experimenting with imprinting runic spell formations directly onto his flesh.

Whenever his skill slots were full, Father had changed up their night time routines. With no risk of the system offering a skill prematurely, it was the perfect time. Alternating between lectures on runes, mental exercises, and practise in directing his mana throughout his body.

With enough practice and effort, the need for necessity decreased. He figured if he tried to build a visual map of the maze in his mind as they explored, he would unlock the skill quickly. After that, the rest of the skills for his next merge would require him to start using his Mana actively.

His father had made him spend hours practising moving the resource through his body. How to reach down into his centre to wrap the nebulous cloud of blue in a mental grip.

It was similar to how he directed threads of soulfire during a skill merge. Except he had to direct the resource out of his centre, visualising the energy flowing through channels as he directed it through his body. His first few attempts had been slow. It was all he could do to stop it from dissipating the second it left the nexus of his control, with how difficult it was to hold the required image in mind.

Now, he was competent. Not a master by any means, but he could direct mana through his body with a little effort. Appraise, and all that came after would require him to suffuse his eyes with the magical force. It would be the first time he had actively used it in skill acquisition. Tough, but also something he looked forward to. Finally starting his journey into magic. Even if he would only be dipping his toes in for now.

Kaius bubbled with the anticipation of taking another step towards his class. Towards the power necessary to defeat the Guardian. It was something he could control. Could change with his own power. After getting separated from his father and being at the mercy of the fates, he finally felt like he was forging his own path.

Though, thinking of his future, the notification he had received after eating the Natural Treasure still scratched at him. What did it mean to be Observed? Truly? Even when he escaped he would only be able to ask Father. If he was alive. Anyone else and he risked being branded as a mad man. Or worse, snatched up by someone too powerful to resist to be plumbed for what he knew.

Even if he ignored the risk to his own safety, he didn't want the news to get out. If people started shoving unclassed into the Depths in an attempt to find Natural Treasures… Hundreds would die, at best.

No, better if he went to one of the larger cities and looked through their libraries on his own terms. Maybe Mystral? It was the home of the academies. If anyone had recorded anything concrete it would be there. Something to think about when he had escaped and found out Father’s fate.

Although…

His eyes flicked over to Porkchop. The meles were knowledgeable. Far more than he had expected for beasts. Their Matriarchs were something else. He might know something.

On the other hand, he knew so little of what it meant. What if Porkchop thought it was something dangerous? Made him dangerous? He’d only known him for a few months. Maybe he should keep it to himself. At least, for now.

Porkchop opened his eyes, noticing Kaius’s gaze.

“Yes?”

“Nothing. Just thinking.”

The two returned to silence, waiting for their resources to recover before they set off further into the maze once more.

…

As the pair descended deeper into the maze, Kaius relied heavily on his new Low Light Vision. It made identifying the thin snaking roots that triggered the grasping brambles far less painstaking. No longer required to slow down to a crawl just to ensure he didn’t miss a hint in the darkness, their pace picked up.

Though that didn’t mean they rushed.

Not all of the trigger roots were so easy to catch, some barely shifted the flagstones on the path at all, forcing him to lean on the warning pings of Explorer’s Toolkit as they moved. More than once he had to stop fast, his foot hovering mid step thanks to a blared scream of warning in his mind. A closer look would often reveal a root buried deep in the earth. The only sight of its presence a line of almost invisible hairs poking a finger length out from the stone.

The pressure did wonders for his skill growth though.

**Ding! Low Light Vision has reached level 2!**

**Ding! Low Light Vision has reached level 3!**

**Ding! Explorers Toolkit has reached level 7!**

**Ding! Low Light Vision has reached level 4!**

The bubble of monochromatic sight pushed further out with each level, adding a dozen or so strides to the range of his vision. With every increase identifying further traps became just that little bit easier as he was able to survey more and more of the path they took.

Thanks to Explorers Toolkit absorbing Orienteering, Kaius never lost their sense of direction. No matter how many times they were forced to double back and take a new route, he could feel that they were getting closer. Slowly closing the distance to the far off structure that Porkchop had spotted before they entered the maze.

He could also tell that they were spiralling inwards, gradually but inevitably. It seemed that wherever they were heading, the maze surrounded it as a thick wall of bramble.

The entire time, Kaius made the effort to start creating a visualised map of the path they had taken. It was ruinously complex. Every few minutes it felt like he hit a wall in how many details he could keep track of, not the least because he had to split his attention with the far more important task of identifying the traps that laced the maze.

Every time the image collapsed in his mind, when he forgot if a path turned left or right, or he couldn’t remember the exact placement of a trap, he would start again. Tracing a new route through the brambles in his mind.

Inevitably the system rewarded his effort. Though, at first, not in the way Kaius wanted.

**Ding! General Skill Available! Would you like to learn: Split Focus (Unusual)?**

He declined the skill in an instant.

“Hey, Porkchop,” Kaius said as he nodded appreciatively at the skill's rarity. “I just got offered an Unusual skill!”

“One you needed?”

“Nah. It’s just the first skill I’ve been offered that high. It’s pretty rare, might be able to sell the method.”

“Sell? Humans are weird.”

“Not that weird,” Kaius shrugged. “It’s pretty similar to what you said your Matriarchs do. Just trading for things other than different skills and better hunting grounds.”

“Still weird,” Porkchop sent across their connection with a sense that it was as true as a fresh rabbit was tasty. “Should just share all the ways to unlock basic skills. Much easier to find merges that way. They are much more fun to trade.”

Kaius smiled at Porkchop’s persistence, before thinking more on the possibility of selling the unlock.

Though, as he thought about it more, it was probably pretty unlikely. Its requirements seemed like the type to be pretty easy to stumble across - especially if it simply required enough of a push when multitasking with two complex tasks. Hell, any would-be mage would probably stumble across it if they had any open slots if they practised channelling while staying focused and mobile during battle. Which, he assumed, was all of them. Especially if they were at all serious about joining dangerous professions like soldiering or delving.

“It’s probably not worth anything anyway,” Kaius shrugged. “The chances that it hasn’t already been sold off to a broker already are probably nil.”

It was still a nice find, and he would definitely be silly not to try. But he wasn’t going to hold his hopes up.

Luckily, after another fifteen minutes or so, and another close brush with a trap that threatened to make the image he held in his mind collapse, he got the skill he was looking for.

**Ding! General Skill Available! Would you like to learn: Mental Visualisation (Uncommon)?**

Kaius called for them to halt, grinning at his success. Porkchop padded over to him, bumping him as a tentative question flowed across their connection.

“I assume you got the right one this time?”

“Yeah,” Kaius nodded. “I’ll just check it quickly and then we can keep moving. I’ll probably be able to speed up some more now that the skill will be doing some of the heavy lifting.”

As the skill settled into his centre he felt the most recent map he had been building of the maze settle deeper into his mind. It no longer took all of his focus just to remember the most recent turns, and when he looked at the image he could almost see the individual flagstones themselves in his imagination. It became almost second nature to keep adding details.

He pulled up the skill.

Mental Visualisation:

Level 1

Uncommon

The mind makes the master.

Skill that aids in holding complex mental images in the mind.

Each level slightly improves memory, attention to detail, and complexity of mental visualisations.

Reading the notification Kaius decided he may as well keep up his attempts at tracking their passage. It was an easy way for him to level the skill as they walked. Even if he was likely to cap the skill when he made the necessary runic formation for Sense Illusion, he wasn’t about to turn down some easy training.

It wasn’t his way.

Pondering his plan for his next skills, Kaius gestured to Porkchop that they should continue. The skills had to wait. Inspect would be easiest to acquire against a hostile depths-born, and until he had that he couldn’t move on to Appraise. He made a goal to acquire both before they left the centre of the glade. If they found a Champion like he suspected they would, the rewards they received would be perfect for working towards the second skill.

They continued on, pace measured as they split the task of looking for more traps and swarms.

…

**Ding! Mental Visualisation has reached level 2!**

**Ding! Mental Visualisation has reached level 3!**

…

The end of the maze was close, he could feel it. As they’d grown closer to the centre the bramble hedges had grown taller. Even standing on Porkchop’s shoulders he doubted he would be able to see over them. Still, Explorers Toolkit said they were near. He doubted there were more than a dozen lines of hedges between them and their goal.

After walking for a couple of hours they had to be close.

“Kaius…” Porkchop let out a low, warning rumble from behind him. “Another swarm.”

Turning back to his ally with a start, Kaius pulled his blade free of its sheath. Porkchop was growling up into the tree boroughs far above them. Outside the range of his Low Light Vision, the canopy was completely drenched in heavy shadow. Far too dark for him to make out the small figures of Dead Howlers.

He just barely made out indistinct shapes dropping from the branches, falling to land on the path to their front. He readied his guard. They’d only been an issue last time because he couldn’t see. It was time for payback.

He dashed forwards, Porkchop hot on his heels.

A mass of the monkeys appeared at the edge of his bubble of sight, mangey skin and patchy fur making the undead beasts look closer to half drowned plague rats than anything else.

He hit them like a wall of steel, sword flashing in wide arcs that severed limbs. Warforged and his enchanted blade were putting in work, the rotting flesh of the monsters barely slowing his vicious meatgrinder of an assault.

**Ding! level 7 Dead Howler slain**

**Ding! level 7 Dead Howler slain**

**Ding! level 7 Dead Howler slain**

Porkchop waded into the fray. heavy swatting strikes smashed multiple swarmlings flat with every blow. A few of the Howlers clambered onto the meles back, capitalising on its lack of reach to rip at fur and sink their teeth in deep.

Kaius cut them down moments later.

**Ding! level 7 Dead Howler slain**

**Ding! level 7 Dead Howler slain**

Before he could even work up the heat of the Bloodsong, the confrontation was done. Mashed and bisected Howlers still twitched, dragging themselves forward with undead perseverance.

Porkchop still rumbled with fury, walking up to them one by one, crushing their skulls with a single well placed claw.

One howler, severed from clavicle to opposing hip, was little more than a head and an arm. A shattered rib cage weighed it down, putrescent organs spilling behind it in a sickening trail. Porkchop moved to end it.

“Wait. I need this one.”