Runeblade
B3 Chapter 310: Roots, pt. 1

B3 Chapter 310: Roots, pt. 1

They needed to move.

The other Kolnirs would catch up soon. Even if they were moderately separated by a barred wall of supernaturally tough roots, he didn’t want to test the beasts — they’d proven their persistence enough.

Kaius nodded to his team.

“Porkchop — you’re first. I’ll take the rear.”

In a tunnel like this, the safest place for Ianmus and Kenva to be was between them, and Porkchop couldn’t defend their backs. As large as he was, his brother had almost no room to manoeuvre in the tight confines. He could walk at a sort of half-hunch, but turning was out of the question. If something approached from behind, Porkchop wouldn’t be able to defend himself.

His brother nodded, “I assume we’re pushing below ground?”

Kaius caught Ianmus wincing at his brother’s question. It was a fair response — they’d found plenty of passageways lining the roots of the previous tree that ran far beneath the earth. They’d left those well enough alone — the chances that such tunnels would be empty of threats wasn’t even worth mentioning, he’d bet his father’s honour on it.

It was their only option.

The surface passages might have been well defended by walls of woven roots, but they were still largely exposed. Any focused kolnir would spot them moving through, and with how many there were after them, they needed to vanish.

“We are — though just deep enough to hide and wait out the heat. Now let's hurry! We can talk more on the way.”

Porkchop flicked his ears, pushing his acknowledgement along their bond. Crouched low, he shuffled forwards, Ianmus and Kenva pressing themselves tight to the main root that made up one wall of the tunnel. Jade heavy-plate dissolved into mana — too bulky to be used in such tight quarters.

Kaius followed behind, guarding their rear. He adjusted his grip on his sword, not willing to slacken his focus for even a moment as they left behind a kolnir carcass wedged into the matted curtain of roots on his left.

As they moved, Kaius kept one eye on the wall of visible undergrowth just a hundred longstrides away as enraged cries carried from far distant canopies.

The view vanished as Porkchop led them deeper below the earth, shadow swallowing them. Rather than having his vision dominated by the greyscale of the darkvision granted by his Truesight, Kaius found a soft golden glow emanating from a root that wove through the earth to shift around the edges of the cave. It twinkled with softly moving lights.

Worried it might be another threat, Kaius peered closer. They were grubs, thousands of them meandering over the root. Occasionally one would stop and latch on. He assumed that they were draining what they needed from the nutrients it carried within.

“Well, at least they seem harmless.” Kaius muttered to himself.

“How’s everyone holding up?”

He raised his voice — only slightly — to check on his team. While he didn’t think they were safe yet, their battle and flight had been a tense affair. They hadn’t had the time or safety to do much more than coordinate strategy.

“Tired, and low on mana, but otherwise alright. The jungle’s pretty, at least.” Ianmus replied.

Kenva snorted. “Yeah, if you ignore the thousands of beasts who want to rip us limb from limb.”

“We survived, that’s enough for me — the whole troop coming down on our heads wasn’t what I would call ideal

, but individually we managed them just fine. I expect after increasing our level another dozen or two more times, and working on our skills, we’ll be in a far less tenuous position.”

Kenva shook her head, running her hand through her hair, “I still find it utterly mad that we are actually seriously planning on hitting the second tier in less than a month. We should be dead. Should have never even made it past the first damned ruinbringer! Yet, here I am, ten levels higher than I was an hour ago, with the skulls of two more beasts in the middle of the second tier to my name. It’s lunacy!”

Kaius grinned, concern leaving him. If they could squabble and joke, then they were holding up just fine. Still, he could understand Kenva taking some time to adjust. He and Porkchop had a full year to slowly grow their capabilities, while Ianmus had months between guild missions to grow used to their feats.

The ranger hadn’t gotten that — she’d been hurled directly into their greatest challenge with no time to adapt to the full extent of what their strength actually meant. Even if she’d accrued some honours on her own, that was not quite the same as tackling a high powered delve with frontliners like him and Porkchop.

“You get used to it,” he replied. “Just wait until we hit the second tier ourselves — I expect that is when we’ll really start to notice the difference between us and the average delver. I bet you won't even recognise yourself.”

It had been on his mind for a while. Their honours were one thing, but the stat advantage they had from their classes would only grow as they ascended. It was only a matter of time until they outstripped everyone else — excluding those who took the same risks and pursued Honours like they had, at least.

“What do you mean?” Kenva asked.

A hearty chuckle came from the front of the line.

“You haven’t thought about it, have you?You have an Unusual class right, how much of an advantage do you think that gave you over the average delver?”

Kaius watched the ranger tilt her head at the question.

“I…a fair bit, I suppose. Most only have Uncommons, so between the skill and stat advantage, maybe twice as effective? Which would compound every tier, especially if we keep gaining honours.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Kaius knew then that the ranger had never stopped to consider what Honours actually meant. Nor what they would get completing this delve. It was an understandable blind spot. Before he’d seen his own selections, he’d been utterly convinced that everything he had done might just earn him a Unique class — common wisdom was that Unusual was the absolute peak of what was possible for tier one. That same glass ceiling applied to the second tier.

“Kenva, you’re likely to be offered a Heroic class when we reach the next tier, and a Unique is all but guaranteed.”

She stumbled, before whipping around to stare at him in shock.

“What?! That's insane — how could you possibly be confident in such a thing?”

Kaius raised a brow.

“I’ve seen the requirements remember? All of this?” he gestured generally around them. “With our growing pile of Honours, and fully ignited aspects? I’d say it's likely. Then this becomes the new normal, and we need to find bigger and more deadly challenges to match our new strength.”

Ianmus nodded along to his words. “I figured it out a while ago — it’s a loop where you either climb faster, die, or stall. The later you start, the harder it is to compound your gains and push as hard. If we manage to keep that momentum, soon almost nothing will be able to keep up.”

Kenva fell silent, seemingly pondering their words. They all did — it was a large pill to swallow. Grappling with the reality of becoming untouchable was a little tough when you’d spent the last month — or longer, in Kenva’s case — locked up by Silvers.

“It makes you think though, doesn’t it?” Ianmus said softly, staring at the cave around them. “When’s all this going to change?”

Kaius frowned. “What do you mean?”

“The Depths. It’s become pretty clear that what we're doing is something the system is actively prioritising and encouraging. This place is so…rigid — an easy source of experience, fights and a structured ramp in difficulty? I’d eat my boot if delves weren’t designed as some sort of proving grounds for people to distinguish themselves as we are.”

Kaius could agree with that, at least. It was a common enough belief that the place existed to nurture delvers to greater heights — to push them to their limits so that they reached their potential. With everything he had experienced, it wasn’t that far of a leap to realise that it was likely that it was more focused on weeding out the few who would push past the point of reason — why else would the system stage its integration the way it did?

But what on earth did he mean about change?

Porkchop, at least, seemed to grasp it, “Oh. We’re going to outgrow it.”

“Indeed. Ten levels a layer? Depthsborn that roughly match a Common or Uncommon classed delver, and — outside of Guardians and optional Champions — utterly lack in the same breadth of dangerous abilities that normal monsters have? We’ll quickly end up delving so deep that even reaching an appropriate threat will become a challenge in its own right.”

Ianmus made a shockingly good point. While they weren’t quite thriving yet, they’d arrived on this layer when its average was almost double their own. If their growth kept accelerating as they’d been talking about, how deep would they have to go at the end of the third tier? Or the fourth?

Deep layer entrances were rare. Even if they were strong enough to waltz straight to the Guardian, delving through fifty, or a hundred layers would take years — not to mention they would be unable to avoid gaining levels from all the mindless slaughter before they reached something actually challenging.

Kaius frowned. Something would

need to change.

“If it does happen, do you think it would come with the next phase change?” his voice was hesitant. He knew that Ekum had said that the integration would be deadly…but the world needed the Depths. Now more than ever, it was nearly the only place people could grow in some resemblance of safety.

If it changed to match their capabilities, it would be a slaughter — already there were few beasts in the wild that could be safely hunted for a newly classed.

Surely the system wouldn’t do such a thing? If it really was trying to encourage the development of people like them, cutting off new challengers at the knee would completely ruin that.

Ianmus hesitated, “There’s a decent chance that it already changes — the third tier is enigmatic, and nothing about it is common knowledge. It could be that past a certain point the difficulty of the depths scales to include more than just the depthsborn growing more life-like. “

Breathing a sigh of relief, Kaius could only nod. As much as he knew they needed to progress the integration to survive, he really hoped that they could avoid sweeping changes that would prove fatal to those weaker than them. The awakening of the beasts was bad enough on its own without more catastrophes.

With much to think about, silence fell over them, and the tunnel they walked through plunged deeper into the earth. The sounds of the jungle had long since fallen out of earshot, and he was halfway confident that nothing else was trying to follow them into the tunnels.

After a few minutes, it levelled out — expanding as it did. Freed from being forced to crouch, Porkchop quickly rose to his full height and shook himself.

“Oh, that’s so much better.”

Kaius laughed, making his way to the front. With space enough for both of them, it made much more sense to be there to assist if anything attacked them from deeper within.

Not long after, the ceiling shot away from them, roots writhing in and out of the earth like a swarm of vipers. A cavern in its own right — somewhat of a crossroads, judging by two openings he could see on the far side that mirrored their own tunnel.

Slowing, Kaius took a tentative step forwards. Something new bloomed in his mind — a sense of safety and protection. A…respite — and close.

Glee surged through him — that was perfect! A safe zone was exactly what they needed! A place where they could wait out the fury of the kolnirs above, and still close enough to the surface that there wasn’t too much risk of stumbling into another battle inside of the tight confines of the root system.

He didn’t know where it was exactly, but with only two other tunnels to choose from, it couldn’t be hard to find — only two-hundred longstrides at most, according to the description of his Honour.

Turning back, he gave Porkchop a wide grin. His brother gave him a questioning look, taking a step forwards.

A pale tendril shot from the floor, striking like lightning. A worm, a grub, or something slammed straight through the leather under-armour on Porkchop’s leg, a needle like beak digging into his flesh.

“Shattered axles!” Kenva cursed.

Yelping at the sudden shock of pain, Porkchop leapt back — only to stumble as the worm was pulled from his flesh. It was long — a five stride long cream fleshy tube that undulated through the air, searching blindly for something else to strike as it stayed anchored in place.

Blood dripped from its beak. Porkchop stumbled, his chest rising and falling erratically.

“Venom!”