Runeblade: You shall not pass, Wanderer!

Kaius stared at the dead howler that was pulling itself along the ground towards him. It gnashed its teeth, jaw clacking with each snap. A wretched thing, just a single arm, half a ribcage, and a head. No Health burned in an attempt to seal its injuries.

Undead didn’t have any. They also didn’t need it. They just kept going until you destroyed whatever was the locus of their animating magics. In most cases, the head.

It reached out with its arm, clawing itself just a little bit closer. Kaius cut it off.

The howler switched to digging its fangs into the stone path, trying to haul itself forwards on the strength of its neck alone. It wasn’t getting anywhere fast.

“Feels a little distasteful.” Porkchop said, scrunching his nose at the creature.

“Yeah, but it works.” He replied. While he might not be the kind of person to take joy in leaving and enemy crippled, it was far safer than attempting to get Inspect in active combat. Besides, it was an undead depths-born, he doubted it felt anything.

Kaius took a couple of steps back, locking his eyes on the writhing form of the howler. Taking in its details. The way clumpy blood dripped free of desiccated veins. Its greasy grey fur. Everything.

He reached for his mana.

The hazy energy was slippery, resistant to his manipulations. He clamped down on it with a will of iron, teasing out a thread. Compared to weaving soulfire during a skill merge, this was easy.

Mana trickled free, spooling into his body. As it left his centre it tried to disperse, to vanish into his surrounding tissues and dissipate slowly to join the ambient power in the air around him.

He refused.

Guiding the mana to his eyes, he slackened his grip on the power that entered the organ. Letting it suffuse the orb, but no further. His eyes started to weep. The build up of magical charge stinging delicate flesh. Vision blurring, he gazed deep into the howlers form. Dissecting it. Analysing.

A headache started to form, the mental toll of holding the volatile energy in stasis taking its due. This was nothing. He would have to endure far far more once he started working true magic.

**Ding! Intelligence has reached level 13!*

Refusing to let the distraction break his focus, Kaius funnelled more mana into his eyes. Saturating his vision. His control was a little finer, a little more deft, than it had been just moments before.

He felt his grip pushed back, his eyes refusing to absorb more of the mystic energy. They were saturated. With a sigh of relief he dropped his hold on the thread of Mana that left his centre, the thin stream quickly dissipating. The power in his eyes he held steady.

Seconds ticked over into minutes, Kaius observing the writing form of the Darkhowler.

Something flickered in his vision.

**Ding! General Skill Available! Would you like to learn: Inspect (Rare)?**

“Yes.” He thought, slumping as he released his grip on the infused mana in his eyes. He rubbed them, the organs irritated from an infusion of the raw power.

Dark Howler - Level 7:

Depths-born, Undead Beast, Swarmling

“Kill it.” He grumbled, trying to blink away the blurring tears that sprung from his eyes.

He heard a grunt, then a squish.

“Gross.”

Kaius opened his eyes to see Porkchop trying to scrape foul smelling mush from his paws.

“Gross indeed, let’s get out of here,” he suggested, suppressing a gag. He thought he’d had a strong stomach, but rotting corpses was a bit much, even for him.

The pair set off. Kaius still thought they were getting close to the end of the maze, Explorer’s Toolkit had started to nudge at him something fierce. While they walked, Kaius pulled up the description of his latest skill, not wanting to take the moment of relative calm for granted. He doubted it would last any further than the exit.

There was no way the Depths would put a nice little picnic spot at the centre of somewhere so blatantly ominous.

Inspect:

Level 1

Rare

The eyes are the window to the soul. The soul is a window to something much greater.

Skill that enables slight insight into the status of system integrated entities. Level disparity and skills can block this insight.

Each level slightly increases the skills ability to overcome level disparity and insight blocking effects.

Kaius nodded in satisfaction as he read the skill. Inspect was probably among the most famous known skills there were. As a pair with Appraise, it was one half of the most widely known Legacy skill in existence - Identify. Not every delver had Identify, but any team that didn’t have at least one dedicated scout with the skill, or at the very least Inspect, was considered to be reckless at best. Suicidally idiotic at worst.

It was just that valuable. Being able to evaluate threats before you engaged them could mean the difference between life and death. Especially in the world above, where beasts and other monsters did not follow the staggered progression of the Depths. It was actually Appraise that eked out the win down below. Insight into the exact functions of the various treasures that could be found in its halls meant quick decisions on what should be stored, used, kept or tossed.

The very best teams had people with inspect type skills of a higher rarity, or occasionally a merged ocular skill. The kind that revealed greater information than the bare bones insight that Identify and Inspect gave you.

Unfortunately, his upcoming ocular skill - True Sight - was not one of the skills that gave greater insight. It didn’t bother him, the other benefits it would confer would be more than enough to satisfy him.

“Kaius,” Porkchop interrupted. “I see it. The end.”

Sharpening his eyes, Kaius tried to peer into the shadowy depths that hovered just outside the sphere of his Low Light Vision. The gloom was intense, almost impenetrable. Vague shifting shapes danced in the black, making it impossible for him to make anything out.

“I can’t. Too far for my skill. What do you see?” He whispered, laying a hand on the comforting hilt of his sword.

Porkchop huffed, standing stock still as he stared into the blackness with ease, locking his steely gaze on figures unseen.

“Twice as far since the last bend, there's an opening in the hedge. Then lots and lots and lots of graves. Some small buildings. Lots of undead, some heavily armoured.” Porkchop relayed what he saw.

Kaius bit his cheek. That didn’t sound great. No matter how much he tried, Porkchop was still getting comfortable with numbers. For him to not even try suggested a significant force. As it stood, he would only be able to see them if they got within forty or so paces of him. Enough he wouldn’t be surrounded, but not great for creating a strategy to take them down methodically.

He had to trust Porkchop.

“Can we do it?” His voice was firm.

Porkchop looked at him, blatantly offended. “Of course! We are strong.”

A grin split his face. The Bloodsong started to glimmer deep in his chest. It was risky, but this is what he had intended to do. Push himself. It was the best way to grow. To get strong enough to explore where no one had before, like he’d always wanted to. He’d promised himself he was going to hunt down Champions, so he would.

He had Rapid Adaptation, to resist and reduce all afflictions, Adamant Body to withstand physical assault, Warforged aiding him to be a master of the blade, his strikes rending flesh with ease, and Explorer’s Toolkit to find where to cut.

If he didn’t take the leap now, he didn’t deserve the honour of being the final scion of Unterstern.

“Let’s go then.”

….

They entered a massive cemetery. Neat rows of stone graves sprawled across the gloom in structured grids. The way the grave-caps and headstones disappeared into the dark at the edge of his vision gave him the sense of an endless place. A void of walking death, and ordered stones. The silence was broken only by furious battle whenever they encountered one of the space's rabid denizens.

Kaius let out a yell, parrying a heavy sword swing. A heavily armoured undead in laminate armour simply brought its greatsword around in another wide swing. Off to his right, Kaius could hear Porkchop engaging the undead's companions, the crash of struck steel and roaring bellows echoing out across the darkened field.

He thrust at the undead that was pressuring him, his sword grating across thin steel plates with a groan. They buckled slightly under the weight of his stab. The undead stumbled back.

Kaius took a moment to fire off an Inspect. Now that he had the system supported skill, it didn’t require active control of his Mana.

Gravebound Sentinel - Level ?:

???, ???, ???

**Ding! Inspect has reached level 2!**

The sentinel rushed him again, a looping slash of its blade racing towards his waist. Kaius backstepped. A dash brought him inside the undeads guard. Bashing the creature over the helmet with his pommel, Kaius shoved the depths-born to the ground. The creature might have had brute strength on its side, but it was clumsy.

He finished off his opponent with a quick stab.

**Ding! level 17 Gravebound Sentinel slain**

Kaius rushed over to assist Porkchop, his ally struggling against the duo. While he was a ball of fury in battle, he was a large target, and unarmored. Thin cuts marred his flesh, and every time he tried to dive in to deliver a fatal swipe of his paws he was warded off at swordpoint.

Closing the distance quickly with his sword levelled, Kaius shot off two more Inspect’s.

Gravebound Sentinel - Level ?:

???, ???, ???

Gravebound Sentinel - Level ?:

???, ???, ???

He caught the first undead unawares, the force of his charge enough for his enhanced blade to punch clean through its armour, taking it through the ribs. His sword slid deeper into rotten flesh. Kaius hit the side of the sentinel hard, knocking him back even as it went stumbling.

Porkchop took advantage of the distraction. Batting the other undead's blade away, he launched forwards to crush it downwards with a heavy overhand blow.

With his own opponent reeling, Kaius was able to make short work of it. Slipping inside its hurried guard to plant his sword in its face.

**Ding! level 18 Gravebound Sentinel slain**

**Ding! Low Light Vision has reached level 5!**

His vision extended a few more paces into the dark, revealing nothing more than graves and the odd squat stone mausoleum. Try as he might, he still couldn’t see anything other than vague shapes beyond the inky border of his skill. Not far enough for him to see their destination.

“How much farther.” Kaius said, ripping his sword free of the slain undead with a grunt.

“Not much more. Few more undead between us.”

Kaius grunted. Supposedly the centre of the graves was dominated by a large stone tomb, if they were going to find a Champion, it would be there.

“Do we clear out the graves first? They haven’t been too difficult with both of us working together.”

So far the darkness had been working in their favour. The lack of light hampered the undead's already questionable senses. Porkchop had been guiding them into picking them off in small groups, never quite too much for them to handle.

“It wouldn’t take us too long,” Porkchop assented. “And it would stop them clawing our backs like weasels.”

Kaius nodded. He had thought the same thing. He assumed there was a Champion waiting for them in the centre. If it somehow pulled the depths-born in from the graves and they were surrounded, it would be the end of them.

…

The pair prowled through the darkened headstones, mowing their way through isolated groups of undead. He knew that alone and without Low Light Vision, even a single one of the sentinels would have pushed him to the brink, let alone the groups of two to four they wandered in. Yet with his skill and Porkchop by his side they disrupted their formations before they could raise an effective defence, surprise and initiative on their sides.

As they fought, Kaius’s skills slowly improved. Low Light Vision progressively expanded as he continually fought in darkness, lithe footwork and glancing light wounds worked to stress Adamant Body, continual usage grew Inspect, and a constant search for openings pushed Explorers Toolkit.

**Ding! Low Light Vision has reached level 6!**

**Ding! Low Light Vision has reached level 7!**

**Ding! Adamant Body has reached level 4!**

**Ding! Explorer’s Toolkit has reached level 8!**

**Ding! Inspect has reached level 3!**

…

**Ding! Inspect has reached level 5!**

…

They arrived at the tomb. Dark stone filled with dense inscription shot upwards into the shadows above him, vanishing like a spectre. The engravings were black things. Scenes of slaughter and sacrifice, of cruel effigies made for uncaring gods.

A yawning gate opened in the face of the tomb, unlit stairs leading the way deeper into its gullet. Stakes were driven into the ground leading up to the entrance, impaled skeletons wearing shattered armour adorning the cruel spikes. A fatal procession. A warning.

Evil air drifted out from the tomb, causing Explorer’s Toolkit to flare. Whatever lay in its foul depths would not be cowed easily.

Kaius snorted at the grisly sight. Any fear he might have felt at the defiled bodies and ill omens was muted by the fact that he knew they were a creation of the Depths. The Champion would be dangerous. The others had been too. Even if it nearly killed him, he would use the monster as fuel for his ascension.

“Come,” Kaius slapped Porkchop on the shoulder “Let us show them our mettle.”