Runic magic was, in Skrakch’s very important opinion, bloody awful. The whole basis of its strength came from the idea that each spell you learned could help influence the next tier of spells, this functioning as a sort of building block towards the Mage’s future.
The flipside was that the strongest of Rune Mages had a massive base of spells to build on, each one of them individually suited to a specific situation. Sure, if you had learned a hundred basic spells like Feather Fall or Magic Missile, you could simply combine those hundreds of spells together in any way you cared to. That way, you’d be able to achieve truly powerful and impressive effects.
And there was the rub. The trick to Runic Magic would be living long enough to be able to build up that large a base. Rune Mages were one of the rarest types of Casters and it was a total crapshoot if a fledgling Mage could find someone to guide them along their journey.
The greatest of Rune Mages, the ones written about in the epic tomes that Skrakch had once poured over in the Library, were unstoppable juggernauts of arcane might. Practically Gods on Earth that were capable of wielding dozens of spells from vastly, often conflicting, schools of magic.
Any up and coming Runic Mage in Dray’Mel though? They were doomed to languish in mediocrity. With nobody to train or nurture their talent, due to most simply not understanding its intricacies, they were reduced to using a spell of two as a party trick to entertain at the bar. It took years just to track down a spellbook that even referred to Runes, much less one that instructed how to learn the spell from scratch.
Then, of course, there was the natural lifespan of a brown Iskrin. Adding those two factors together and you got a pretty depressing recipe for dismal failure. Skrakch had spent years pestering Blazock for new Runes to learn and what did he have to show for all that hard work on his part?
Four. Measly. Fucking. Spells.
Skrakch well and truly despised Runic Magic but, that had been the cards he’d been dealt. It was all that he knew. As a young servant, his Master Jace had let him read his spellbook and the only magic that had ever worked for the young Ratling had been Feather Fall.
It was shortly after escaping the burning Logan estate, his first true home, that he’d stumbled into the Goblin Patriarch’s attention. But then, even with a dedicated master demonstrating the Runes to him, Skrakch had only been able to wrangle three more Runes. He was certain that this was a tactical move on Blazock’s part. The old Goblin was clearly threatened by someone who could overthrow him and therefore tried to keep a tight leash on Skrakch’s learning.
Feather Fall… Gravity… Slow… Each of those Runes had a common thread, manipulating space to achieve their desired effects. Skrakch had long struggled to think of how clever applications of those three Runes may work and hadn’t come up with barely anything worth trying, not that he’d ever admit it to anyone,
Each Rune affected the weight of the world itself. Feather Fall lightened his target’s mass and had certainly come in handy the first time he’d needed to escape from Rodyr’s mansion. Gravity inverted his target’s natural gravity and Slow worked by greatly increasing the target’s weight, acting like chains to bind them down.
“So what?” Skrakch muttered to himself, making sure that Meek wasn’t listening. His mind churned wildly and he needed to talk this out, even if that was only with himself. “I could combine Feather Fall and Gravity… extra light… launch them into the sky? Or maybe…hmm, Gravity and Slow? To launch them… slowly?”
Hundreds of thoughts and ideas collided with each other, looping around the Iskrin’s mind as he idly stroked his furred chin, trying to solve an issue that he’d already spent so long pondering. The issue of casting his second tier Rune was, of course, a much more pleasant distraction than focusing on his current predicament.
When the time came for Skrakch to gallantly risk his own future to save his lessers, he imagined it would be a similar situation to the Dungeon they’d encountered before. He would be forced to rummage through his memories, piecing things together bit by bit until he awoke with a glorious new Rune to save the day.
This though…
Well, this was very much not that.
Instead, he’d shattered his Core like glass. His entire world had gone black outside of the twinkling shars that were suspended in the air all around him. It didn’t take some kind of magical genius to realize that he needed to get the bloody things and mash them back together somehow but…
“How in the Hells am I expected to move in this fucking abyss?” Skrakch asked out loud. He knew he was speaking, his mouth was certainly moving, but his voice didn’t reach his own ears.
The nearest shard was only a few feet from his line of sight and yet, no matter what he tried, he couldn’t seem to get his feet underneath him to move. Without footing of any kind, he was left suspended in place.
What made matters all the more confusing for the Iskrin, was that he also had the oddest sense that he wasn’t actually stuck. No, he could feel his fur rustling as if a stiff breeze was blowing past him, and the shards of his Core were tumbling downwards around him…
At first, he hadn’t quite managed to place the situation but he swiftly realized the issue. Wherever he was, whenever he was, he was currently falling. Much like the shards around him, he was falling down into some kind of void and, he was quickly realizing, that there seemed to be nothing that he could do about it.
What would happen when he finally arrived at the bottom of wherever the Hells he was? A small part of him couldn’t help but wonder if that was indeed his destination, the Ratling having dropped dead and was on his way to his eternal damnation. Or some kind of messed up purgatory and this was it. He’d be destined to fall forever into the dark void.
With that lovely sobering thought ringing in his mind, Skrakch had tossed himself into finding a solution, any solution.
His first attempt involved more wild flailing than he’d like to admit, Skrakch just desperately waving his limbs to and fro.
Once he’d gotten that out of his system, he’d turned to the more logical approach, trying to use his Runes to escape. Which lead into his current quandary, how does one use their Mana when their Core is shattered into a hundred pieces?
Looking inwards, Skrakch could envision where his Core usually resided in his chest. It was situated where a heart lay in most mortals, overlapping with the physical organ to spit out Mana throughout his body.
Instead, all that was left was a ruinous cavern, no sign of his Core nor his Mana. Just looking at the emptiness felt abhorrent, a sense of dread overtaking Skrakch. It was somehow -wrong- for his body to be without a Core and he couldn’t help the rising panic building inside him.
Which led to his third plan for solving this mess, once more panickedly flailing his legs, but this time alternating it with flapping his arms like a demented bird and desperately attempting to swim in great heaving strokes.
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Desperation was never a good look, but the Ratling was more than willing to do whatever it took to get this show on the road. Still, it was clear that nothing he did physically would have an effect.
As odd as this endless Abyss was, in theory he should still be in his Core. “So maybe I need to treat this as a test of my mind?” Skrakch mused, settling down as much as his beating heart would allow him.
Calming breaths helped the Ratling centre himself, allowing him to take stock of his options. In truth, his body was still standing near Meekknuckle, who hopefully was still keeping the both of them amongst the living.
The only thing actually here in the void was Skrakch’s consciousness. And, he supposed, the shards of his Core. No longer blinded by his panic, Skrakch settled in to inspect the nearest shard to him.
Twirling in place, the shard looked almost like molten silver. It had a gleaming quality to it, but Skrakch quickly realized the shard was actually slowly leaking Mana, giving it an otherworldly sheen.
The sight was intimately familiar to him, in fact. It didn’t take the Ratling long to place the Mana, because of course it was his.
With his Core shattered, what Mana he had inside it was clearly seeping outwards. What threw Skrakch initially was the fact that the Mana was… off.
Rather than his usual Arcane Mana, the seeping Mana from the Shard was tinted, slightly different from normal. It was almost as if the Mana was already cast into existence, the Shard leaking the source of one of the Ratling’s Runes.
Casting his gaze outwards, Skrakch realized that each Shard was emitting its own version of his Mana. Most were slowly leaking the Rune of Feather Fall, the Mana tinged with a light purple energy.
The Shards leaking Gravity had a darker purple energy to it, almost seeming heavier than the others. Only a few seemed to have the Aspect of Slow, but… it was his Enkindle Rune that had the clearly lowest of Shards.
Focusing on the closest Shard, Skrakch tried to envision the energy of the Shard moving towards him but the Mana wouldn’t respond to his call.
“But it’s my own damned Mana. Why the fuck can’t I control it?” Even as Skrakch struggled to control the Shard, he began to feel a weight blanketing his mind. It felt similar to Mana exhaustion, antipathy running through his thoughts.
Still, Skrakch kept running ideas through his mind, testing each one to no results. Until finally he had the idea to use the Mana in a Shard, not on him, but a similar Shard to itself.
Reaching out to the nearest Shard, Skrakch tried to get his Mana to respond to his call, attempting to tether the Shard to one a dozen feet away. Surprisingly, the Mana followed suit, both Shards slowly moving towards each other.
Emboldened by his success, Skrakch began weaving all the nearby Shards together. As each Feather Fall tinged Shard moved together, he felt his understanding of the Rune advance.
He’d known Feather Fall was just lifting his own mass, but how was that any different then reversing a target’s mass? Really, Gravity was basically the same Rune, simply used in a different way.
That errant thought was all it took Skrakch to start threading the Gravity Shards together, each aspected Shard moving together in a breath-taking swirl that nearly overwhelmed Skrakch’s senses.
Breathing heavily, Skrakch felt as if he was casting each spell dozens of times over, but the Ratling refused to back down. Reaching out mentally to the Slow Shards, it was just another application of the same Rune, the knowledge seared into his mind.
Before long, the majority of each Shards were assembled in three separate clusters, each revolving together at break-neck speeds.
A few Shards were still tumbling in the void as they leaked a red-tinged aspect, but try as Skrakch might, he could barely keep the Shards he already had moving, much less reach out to the Enkindle Shards.
Reaching out clawed hands Skrakch slowly closed his fists, and mentally attempted to crush each Shard cluster against themselves. He could feel his body failing, his mouth dry and his eyes burning in their sockets but as each Cluster of Shards merged, he was left with three separate Cores.
Each was much smaller than his original and with nothing tethering them together, he knew backing out of this state would spell his death. None of his attempts to reach between the Cores yielded fruit, even though he -knew- that the Runes were basically the same, he couldn’t get Feather Fall to connect meaningfully with Gravity or Slow.
He needed something new. Something more. Each Rune dealt with controlling the mass of his targets, controlling the individual targets sense of gravity. Lightening the target. Reversing the gravity to pull the targets inwards. Binding the targets attempts to break free.
In the real world, Meekknuckle was down on his knees, blood beginning to pour down his cheeks as the Goblin burned his own life force to keep steady on his feet. As Meek inched closer and closer to using up every drop of his Mana, his body began to crumble to dust like a dried up prune.
The only reason he was even still conscious was his own healing abilities, draining even more Mana as he kept himself standing.
Meek was only able to see Skrakch’s catatonic state from the corner of his eyes, but the Goblin was sure his companion wasn’t going to be able to help. The only solution was to keep the Barrier up and pray Ornn or Winifred saved them.
Skrakch’s body had despondently slumped downwards as Meekknuckle sensed the Ratling’s Core begin to fluctuate and then finally burst. In truth, the Ratling seemed as good as dead, but Meekknuckle didn’t have any time to spare for his companion.
So the Goblin was beyond surprised as he felt Skrakch’s Mana suddenly stir to life behind him. It was sluggish and slow, but with each moment it seemed to build back up. In fact the churlish Mana began to overwhelm Meek’s own spell, the Barrier breaking apart at the seams.
Instantly, blindly grasping Ghoul arms began reaching through the gap of the golden shell, clawed hands ripping through Meekknuckle’s back. Finally collapsing, Meekknuckle closed his eyes and braced himself for his final moments as the Barrier fully collapsed.
But outside of the throbbing pain of his wounds, Meekknuckle felt no further assault. Peeking out from his closed eyes, the Goblin could see Skrakch’s raised arm as a swell of Mana rippled out of him.
Struggling to his feet amidst the blood and carnage, Skrakch felt the last of his Mana pull itself out of his body as he completed his newest Rune.
A look downwards let him see his Core in all its new glory, three jagged spheres haphazardly smashed together. Each individual piece of his Core was smaller than before, and his total capacity had dropped precariously, but the combined might of his new Core had the Ratling smirking in pride.
“Fuck the second tier of Runes,” Skrakch’s voice slurred out as he dazedly stared upwards. “I definitely knew I could do it. Zero doubts at all.” He finished smugly, before collapsing backwards in a heap as he watched his Rune as it activated above him.
As the two Rogues lay near comatose on the Arena floor, a single mote of Darkness lazily spun in the air in the centre of the Arena.
Each of its gentle spins slowly spread rippled Mana outwards that attached to near everything in the room. All of the Ghouls that had come streaming into the Arena, the Chosen Shade’s host body, even the still struggling Minotaur Ghoul, each of them slowly began to be wrapped up in the increasing pressure that dragged them upwards.
Held aloft as Meek’s Barrier shattered, the Ghouls still mindlessly swiped towards Meekknuckle and Skrakch, barely realizing as they began to move increasingly quickly upwards. The Minotaur Ghoul, formerly known as Rodyr, began to lose the force behind its blows, barely able to scratch Ornn’s form as it too was dragged off its feet.
Survix, and the Chosen Shade puppeting her body, were also affected by Skrakch’s spell, forced to tether itself down with more of its snapping tendrils to negate the pull. Which only let Winifred’s unrelenting assault continue with unabated ferocity, the fighter’s instinct instantly urging her forward to take advantage of the opportunity.
Above the two Chosen, Skrakch’s Rune forcibly pulled its targets inwards, bones crushing and flesh pulping as the hundreds of Ghouls that had charged into the room were pulled together under unrelenting pressure.
Sickeningly slowly, the mass of Undead compressed until they fit perfectly inside the spinning pinprick of darkness. As the Rune finally dispersed, and the hardened bead of his foes remains dropped to the floor, Skrakch weakly laughed out the name of his newest Rune.
“Black Hole.”