Runeblade

**Ding! Sense Illusion has reached level 20!*

Kaius gasped in relief, rubbing his eyes. He'd been staring at floating illusions for hours. Long enough that Porkchop had woken from his nap and was now watching him curiously from the church. His friend had seemed fascinated with the process of scrawling runes and the resulting effects they produced.

At least, he had the first few times. Kaius sent a contemptuous scowl to the charred pile of boards that had been collecting behind him.

At first it had been enough to simply make more arrays to generate floating orbs. Eventually that stopped pressuring his skill, and he had to take far more time on the array. Making it, and by extension the illusion, as perfect as possible. On rough wood. With a stick of charcoal.

It was enough to make him tear his hair out.

If that wasn't enough, eventually even a perfect floating orb wasn't enough. Too simplistic. Too flat. He'd had to start adding complexity to the shaping arrays. Giving the orb variation in colour and texture. Making it respond superficially to touch and movement. Adding better light scattering.

Tasks that Gretchen's Standard was not well suited for. By the end he'd had to reinscribe his final array four times. Four! Times!

Rising from his comfortable seat, Kaius lunged into a deep stretch, working out the kinks he had developed after sitting over hunched for so long. Walking over to Porkchop, he grabbed one of his water skins and slumped down. Leaning heavily into the warm softness of his friend's side.

"Going well?" Porkchop asked, chest rising in a series of quick chuffs. Bastard was laughing at him.

He let out an unintelligible grumble.

"The sooner I never have to think about that stupid script again the better. My hands hurt, my ears hurt, and my brain feels like it is melting out of my ears. So yes, it's going well." Kaius ranted, before slipping out a grin. "I capped the skill."

Porkchop simply rumbled, amusement still flowing across their link.

"I should get back to it," Kaius sighed. "I've only got Sense Mana now. The inscriptions for that should be a lot simpler."

Pulling himself up to his feet, Kaius wandered back to his waiting pile of wooden planks. He pulled one free, letting it fall to the ground with a clatter.

Taking a seat in front of it he began tracing the lines of his next array. He'd told the truth when he'd mentioned to Porkchop that the array he needed was much simpler. It was also firmly in the wheelhouse of the simplistic arrays that Gretchen's Standard was designed for.

Flowing lines, geometric shapes, and whorling passages of runic hymns materialised in his mind's eye. He held the image, searching for mistakes and imperfections. It was about half the size of the array he had used for Sense Illusion. He'd been able to completely rip out the shaping array, and most of the binding ones too - just the central sigil and some tertiary directing runes remained.

Stripped down, it was really just a gathering array, a few conduits, an emitter, and the binding.

**Ding! Mental Visualisation has reached level 18!**

"Good," Kaius thought to himself. He should be able to finish the skill before he was done as well.

He sharpened his charcoal with his hunting knife, placing the rudimentary writing implement down onto the wood and began to inscribe his array. Ten minutes, and a handful of corrections, later and he watched the array activate, sinking deep into the wood.

Focus dived inwards, forcing mana to flood into his eyes.

He reached saturation just as the formation activated. It was far quicker than his earlier illusion array. Only needing to condense the mana, rather than transform it into a different form.

Thick hazy air rose up from the array, the mana dense enough to cause physical deformations. Ignoring his rising headache he peered at intently. Trying to reveal its secrets. To see the hidden world of magic that suffused and radiated through all of existence.

Something sparked. A flash of colour?

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

Letting out a woop, Kaius relaxed his hold on the mana in his eyes and accepted the skill.

Instantly the world was awash in a riot of colours.

**Ding! Sense Mana has reached level 2!**

A geyser of spiritual energies roared out of his array.

**Ding! Sense Mana has reached level 3!**

Blues, reds, and every other colour morphing and changing in a violent current that surged upwards, splashing out and down from the cavern ceiling.

**Ding! Sense Mana has reached level 4!**

So bright it was almost blinding. A primal force of nature.

**Ding! Sense Mana has reached level 5!**

His array vacuumed at the surrounding energies, syphoning great clouds.

**Ding! Sense Mana has reached level 6!**

The mana seemed to scream in rage at their confinement, elemental aspects fighting to diffuse themselves. To separate from their opposites.

**Ding! Sense Mana has reached level 7!**

Forced into close proximity.

**Ding! Sense Mana has reached level 8!**

The array started to whine.

**Ding! Sense Mana has reached level 9!**

**Ding! Sense Mana has reached level 10!**

**Ding! Sense Mana has reached level 11!**

Kaius screamed at his body to move. He couldn't. Suck staring blankly at the sheer presence of the mana.

**Ding! Sense Mana has reached level 12!**

**Ding! Sense Mana has reached level 13!**

There shouldn't be so much of it. Should there? Mana was diffuse. Thin. Even if he was in the Depths, he was only on the second layer.

**Ding! Sense Mana has reached level 14!**

**Ding! Sense Mana has reached level 15!**

The board rattled.

**Ding! Sense Mana has reached level 16!**

**Ding! Sense Mana has reached level 17!**

Something closed over his shoulder. Hard. Digging into his flesh.

**Ding! Sense Mana has reached level 19!**

He was yanked backwards. His head lolled to the side. The mana was everywhere. So bright. Even looking away from the syphon, it suffused everything. Too much. He couldn't see.

Shapes blurred past him, indistinct in the all consuming radiance of a natural force revealed to him in all its primal glory. He scraped along the ground, whatever was dragging him moving faster and faster.

The array detonated. Noise cut through his fugue like a clap of unexpected thunder. He looked back. An impenetrable wall of mana flooded towards him.

They weren't going to make it.

The shockwave hit.

His eyes. It was burning his eyes.

**Ding! Sense Mana has reached level 20!**

Kaius came too with a splitting headache. Something heavy was laying on top of him. Something soft, warm, and grumbling in concern. Porkchop.

"Get off me you big lug!" Kaius said, spitting out his friend's fur and pushing ineffectively at his massive bulk.

Porkchop rose quickly, bending down to stare at him with concern. Kaius blinked, trying to see where they were. Mana still suffused everything, eddy currents of the mystical force drifting from the wind. It seemed to concentrate around living things, hugging trees and lichen alike with familiarity.

A headache started to set in. Kaius groaned, rubbing his eyes. When he opened them again the light of the mana was still there. It was visible, but also not. A bizarre double vision. He could see the soft blue light, the dark reds and blacks of Porkchop's coat, and the browns of the tree trunks around him. Yet he could also see vacuous streamers of green clinging to plants, browns rising from the earth, grey flitting through the glades soft breeze, and a dozen dozen other colours besides.

It was like being stuck in a thick fogbank, barely able to see more than a few long-strides in any direction.

"Idiot!" Porkchop bopped him on the head with his paw.

"Hey!" Kaius rubbed his head. "What was that for?"

"Blew up church!"

"I…what?" Kaius asked, confused. His eyes widened, memories of what had happened with his array coming rushing back to him.

"Shit!" He said.

Looking around, Kaius saw they were somewhere in the glade proper. It seemed Porkchop had pulled him to safety.

He racked his brain, trying to figure out what the hells had happened. The formation shouldn't have detonated like that. Even if there was a truly absurd amount of mana in the depths. even if he had made a mistake, at worst the board he had inscribed should have just caught on fire. There was no way it could have handled that much throughput!

Wait. He'd blown up the church?

"Porkchop. What happened to the church?" He asked frantically, trying to ignore a ghostly double of mana that seemed superimposed on Porkchop's figure. Most of their gear and supplies had been inside.

"It fell over!" Porkchop yelled, frustration and concern shining across their link.

"What do you mean it fell over! How bloody big was that explosion!"

"You tell me! You did it!"

"I don't know! That absolutely shouldn't have happened! Fuck, we have to check it out. Most of my gear is still there." He groaned, pushing himself to his feet. Porkchop grumbled, spinning off to walk in what was presumably the directors of the remnants of their base.

Kaius followed, stumbling as he struggled with his new found sight.

As they walked through the trees Kaius pulled up the notification for his new skill.

Sense Mana:

Level 20

Rare

Trace the hidden paths of magic, and reveal the unseen truths of the arcane.

Skill that reveals the hidden mystic realm. High mana levels can prove blinding.

Each level slightly increases acuity and tolerance to ambient mana.

Blinding indeed. He did his best to get a handle on the new skill. Slowly, ever so slowly, the mana withdrew from prominence in his vision.

Oh, it was still there, but far more muted. Only returning to blanket his sight in colour when he focused his attention on the new sense. Something that caused problems, as it was all too easy to catch a flash of mana out of the corner of his eye and focus his mind on the unexpected detail. Enough to bring the overwhelming wall of mystic fog back in full force.

By the time they arrived at the church he had mostly gotten a handle on it, but he knew he still needed practice. It could prove fatal if it overwhelmed his sight in the middle of a battle.

He had not expected the skill to be so impactful. Hell, his father had warned him that at early levels atmospheric mana was barely perceptible. Was the magic of the depths really that dense? It had to be, if it had so completely overwhelmed an array designed for a novice. There was no way he had made a mistake, not with bloody Gretchen's Standard of all scripts.

The pair exited the trees, the low wall that surrounded the church and graveyard coming into view. Looking past it Kaius was treated to a sight of total devastation. Where he had been working on his inscriptions, there was now a crater easily three strides deep and thrice as wide. Headstones close to the blast had been shattered, sending fist sized fragments of stone sailing clean across the yard. Those further away had been knocked flat, only those closest to the wall still standing strong.

The church had gotten the worst of it. He'd only been a few long-strides from it after all. The blast had caved in the closest wall, large masonry stones kicked inwards with concussive force. Dust and gravel coated everything. To make matters worse, the already dilapidated roof had totally collapsed.

Kaius let out a groan. That was a lot of digging they were going to have to do. He just hoped his new armour was alright. He'd left it on top of his pack.

Thankfully, he had his sword on him. Even with how close he was to Porkchop, in the center of their claimed camp, he felt naked without it. It was the Depths after all. Who knew what could happen.

Hells, you never knew when a runic array could explode your house.

He scowled.

"Gods dammit." He stalked forwards. "My bad Porkchop, we better get digging."

"Idiot," Porkchop grunted. "Not forgetting this."

Kaius grunted, pushing with his legs as he helped Porkchop roll away the last discarded piece of masonry that they needed to move to get access to their supplies. In all honesty, they'd gotten pretty lucky. The blast had utterly annihilated the dire boar they had been roasting over the fire, sending meat mush and hot coals throughout the building. It made for an interesting time picking their way through the building. Half his steps had sizzled the leather of his boots, and the others had squelched uncomfortably.

Thankfully, when he had been preparing materials for his inscriptions, he had already carted the vast majority of the wooden furniture out of the building. Nothing had caught fire.

His pack, his armour, and their emergency supplies of jerky had escaped intact. Mostly. One of his water skins had been ruptured. Shredded as a high speed stone shard tore straight through it. Thank god for his fathers insistence on backups.

"Where next?" Porkchop asked as Kaius tightened the last of the buckles on his scalemail.

"Leave the glade I guess. I don't fancy camping without solid walls, too much risk of roaming beasts. We could try the hunters lodge, but there are a lot of undead bodies there. It smells foul."

"Don't blow up the house next time then." Porkchop teased him.

"Yeah yeah. I think I've got an idea of where we should go though. One of the tunnels out of here looked pretty different. Some sort of mineshaft."

"Good as any. Hopefully there will be more Champions. The Tomblord was fun." Porkchop said, shaking his body in excitement of a prospective fight.

Kaius agreed, he'd spent enough time in this glade. As magical as it was, he'd taken out all of the Champions that could be found in it. It was time to go. He was tantalisingly close to unlocking his next legacy skill, and he had yet to find anything that was as good at helping him level his skills than a good fight. Plus, the powerful loot they offered was an edge too useful to ignore.

And maybe, maybe, if he kept pushing himself he might be able to learn more about what it meant to be Observed.