Runeblade-Chapter 206B2 : Infiltration, pt. 6

Kaius reacted instantly to Porkchop’s warning of movement coming their way.

He spun, holding a finger to his lips as he grabbed Ianmus by the shoulder. Jumping at his sudden movement, the mage froze. Shaking the man to get his attention, Kaius took off with a low, loping, jog—waving at his companions to follow.

There’d been a room a little ways back, one large enough that they could hide within.

Every step felt like someone banging on his nerves like a mallet, every muffled footfall causing his blood to throb audibly in his ears.

Soon, he heard the approaching monster. Heavy plodding footfalls, a wide gait with feet that slapped loudly on the rough stone. Too large, too heavy to be a boggart.

A bugbear, on patrol.

Thankfully the tunnel had a slow gentle curve to the left, they had a while yet before the bugbear would be in sight of them.

Reaching the thin opening in the stone, Kaius dived in. Ianmus stumbled in next, Kaius pulled him through, pushing him towards a corner of the room that was out of view of the hall.

Porkchop was last. Thanks to his large stone claws, he had to shift his weight onto the back of his feet in order to keep their points from clattering on the stone. An awkward position—plenty quiet, but it slowed him down.

Urging his brother to take his place in front of Ianmus, Kaius pressed himself close to the wall, blade in hand as he kept watch for the approaching bugbear.

Step by step it drew closer. Every single one making his heart only pound louder in their chest. Thank the gods it was only one—they had a good chance of taking it out silently.

If they could take it by surprise.

The muffled sound of its approach grew clearer. It must have rounded the bend, the sound no longer morphed by bouncing off the cave walls.

Moments later he got his first glimpse. A long and distended shadow—backlit from a brazier. It was close, the nearest light source was only twenty long-strides away.

A glow lit the exterior hall as the bugbear stepped into the shadowy stretch that held their hiding spot—illumination from a torch, it had to be.

Then he saw it. Tall enough that its head would touch his chin, wrapped in inscribed hides and bulging with muscle.

It looked…bored as it trudged its way along, not even bothering to sweep its gaze across the many excavations that lined the walls. Just a routine patrol, or something similar.

Kaius suppressed a sigh of relief.

He would have loved to analyse the monster, but he was wary. Lower races were strange things—with some half-equivalent to classes that empowered them. For all he knew, their shaman could have been teaching its elites how to Mask, and he wasn’t going to risk immediate discovery if he didn’t have to—even if it was unlikely.

Eyes drilling into the back of its skull, Kaius adjusted his grip on his sword. Well textured and tacky, his handle-wrap had still become slick with the pooling sweat of his nerves.

Three more steps.

That’s all the time he gave it. As soon as it had its back towards them, he stepped out into the hall.

Slipping into an aggressive high-guard, he took one steady step after steady step—closing the gap as the bugbear continued—oblivious to the approaching cloak of death.

Finally, he could bear the tension no longer, the monster close enough he could have reached out and touched it.

Twisting through his hips and rolling his shoulders through the motion, Kaius brought his blade down in a blurring streak of grey.

A soft snick filled the air, the honed edge of his blade backed by enough empowered strength to crush straight through the back of the bugbear’s skull—carrying through to cleave it half in twain with a wet crunch.

**Ding! level 64 Bugbear - Crude Warrior slain - Experience Gained! Bonus Experience for slaying a foe of Significant Strength!**

Death throes took over, the monster stiffening for an eyeblink before it fell limp. The burning torch in its hand slipped free, falling to the ground with a gut-wrenching clatter that was nearly enough for Kaius to scrunch his eyes shut.

Moving quickly, he ripped his blade free, rushing forward just in time to catch the collapsing body in his arms.

It was a stout thing—short it may have been, but it was in no way light. Packed with dense muscle, it felt like it had the mass of a man twice its size. Thankfully, with two-eighty-eight strength, he was over five times as strong as he was at baseline, and that had been improved considerably between the metamorphosis of his beast-blood and the effects of his bond with Porkchop.

Kaius moved quickly, hauling the body back to their hiding spot, as Ianmus rushed out to grab the torch.

He dumped the corps unceremoniously in the corner, Ianmus leaving its doused lightsource on top of it.

A slow breath was enough to clear much of the nervous tension he had felt at the risk of discovery—giving his heart a moment to slow.

It had gone flawlessly, proof that they could do this with enough time and care. At least, that is what he hoped.

“Let’s move.”

Kaius led the way back into the hall, their slow assault of the warren continuing.

….

A flickering light was up ahead, revealed as they pushed around a slow bend in the main passage. Coming from a side room this time, rather than the infrequent flames that kept the tunnel just barely darker than a moonlit night.

Kaius raised a hand, calling for them to slow their pace.

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He looked to Porkchop, who was already perking his ears in the direction of the room. A moment later his brother nodded.

“Boggarts, or maybe bugbears. Not making much noise though—they could be asleep. Or just sitting quietly, hard to tell.”

He nodded. At least he could be grateful that they weren’t active. Still, he would need to check it out to be sure—he was the only one who had a Skill that would aid in going undetected.

He waved them back, retreating to the last empty room they had passed. Once his teammates had sequestered themselves safely in the darkness of the stone enclosure, he pushed on—falling into a low and easy crouch with his blade held at the ready.

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His spells were ready and waiting—while he didn’t want to spend any so early, he was prepared to use them if he had to. He might, if the room was full of alert bugbears.

Creeping step by creeping step, he drew close to the revealing light of the crude doorway. His breaths were shallow, cutoff quickly to minimise any noise he might make. The strides seemed to dissolve with the agonising pace of the final winter's snow—his senses receiving the full attention of himself and his Glass Mind.

He stopped at the precipice, heart pounding so loud that he swore it could rouse the sleeping dead. Staying hidden, he stayed in the pooling shadows—demarcated by a razor-like line of light that swept across the floor.

Ready to burst in at the slightest hint of being discovered, he surveyed the room.

The tension released, his shoulders slumping as he saw what it contained.

Boggarts, and sleeping.

Unlike the rooms before, this one had been made into some…meagre semblance of a comfortable living space. Ratty hides—most too fallen to wear and tear to be used for anything useful—had been laid across the floor, surrounding a circle of clean stone that held a low smoking fire.

Half a dozen of the monsters were laying around it, hides strewn over them for additional warmth. Their chests rose and fell with comfortable regularity, the slow breathing of nighttime stupor.

To his surprise, the hides and fire weren’t the only signs of habitation. Some were disturbingly familiar—almost like what one would expect from a primitive enlightened, a member of the higher races.

Art.

Crude figures sketched in ochre and charcoal were scrawled on the walls in great numbers.

It would have been fascinating, if the depictions weren’t as perverse as the boggarts were.

Boggarts, tearing prey limb from limb. A crude showing of violence and dominance, Kaius saw half a dozen recognisable shapes. A wolf, its throat being torn out. A deer, disembowelled. Another boggart, beheaded.

A man, legs and arms broken.

The sight of the last drawing chilled him to the bone, driving all shreds of empathy he might have felt clear from his mind.

The plague, they’d already killed.

Kaius stepped into the room, silent as a ghost. Hand tightening into a fist, he approached the closest boggart, staring down at it silently.

The monster slept soundly, blissfully ignorant of his presence as soft murmurs escaped it with every breath.

It looked…safe, and at peace. Killing it in such a state felt unsporting. Dishonourable.

Was he the kind of man who could sneak in the dead of night and kill someone in their most vulnerable? The kind who could violate the most basal decrees of the sanctity of hearth and home? Would he still have honour if he did what he must do?

This was no mad beast, but a thinking being, even if it was a cruel one. The boggart at his feet breathed, and thought, and wanted—judging by the way the small group were nestled together, it even loved. Was it right to take that from them, without even giving them the basic respect to look at death and know its face?

Kaius desperately searched within himself for guilt, for contrition. For a simple sign of a common basal law of honour that he would abide by. Even a simple discomfort.

He found himself left wanting.

There was only a willingness to do what must be done, and a dozen memories reinforcing that it was the right and proper course to chart.

If he did not, they would kill.

If he did not, it could get them killed.

His Glass Mind was even more callous. It brought forth a memory—one that crept through his heart like cold ice. Hurrin’s words. That his father had died because he brought his sword to Deadacre.

That he had died because of sentimentality, and careless overconfidence.

He would not let anyone else die for something as wantonly luxurious as honour. He would savour it where he could, but today was not that day.

The ice broke, leaving only the cold of hatred.

Kaius’s eyes went flat, his face still and impassive. A little shove was all it took. Just a bit of controlled bodyweight, really.

The point of his blade punched through the boggarts eye with a soft splash of clear goo and red blood. He levered his blade in a circle, macerating the soft meat within. The boggart stiffened for a moment, a quiet gasp leaving its throat as it breathed its last.

**Ding! level 57 Boggart - Primitive Fighter slain - Experience Gained! Bonus Experience for slaying a foe of Significant Strength!**

Dripping with the evidence of his deed, A Father’s Gift came free just as easily—silent and smooth.

He didn’t even have to move to reach the next, not with how closely they had nestled themselves together.

It died just as easily, and just as quietly.

**Ding! level 53 Boggart - Slinger slain - Experience Gained!**

**Ding! Runeblade Initiate has reached class level 50!**

**+3 End, Str, & Int, +2 Dex, Wil, +1 Vit, Free - from Class & Racial Traits!**

Step by step, he circled the room, leaving only slowly cooling corpses in his wake.

Pulling his blade free of the last boggart, Kaius looked at the blood of the defenceless he had spilled, and felt…nothing. Not even contempt. Just the knowledge that he had done his duty, and secured the lives of those the monsters would have slain in the future.

It wasn’t something to be proud of, but it had to be done all the same.

He swept the room, throwing hides over the bodies of his victims. Without close inspection, they would simply look like they were sleeping. Even better, he’d found a crude bucket of stale water in one of the rooms' back corners.

He doused the low burning flames, leaving the room blanketed in darkness, before he left. Returning to his team.

“You okay? I got a level up while you were in there.” Porkchop asked as soon as he entered the room they were hidden inside. It was a private message, one pushed along their bond so that it was for his ears alone.

He knew what his brother really meant. With the closeness of the connection between their souls, Porkchop would have been able to feel his strange crisis—and his cold anger afterwards.

“I’m fine—just a few sleeping boggarts. They’ve been taken care of.” he replied, taking the lead as they filed back into the hall.

The night was short, and they had much to do.

He doubted it would be the last time a boggart would die in its sleep.

….

Drorome leant against the cave wall with her arms crossed, melting into the shadows as she watched the sight in front of her.

Close enough that she could reach out and touch him, Kaius left the boggart’s sleeping chambers—his eyes flat and hard.

Perhaps they weren’t entirely hopeless—a whittling down of their numbers was a smart play, even if it would have been better prepared with sabotage and a more concrete plan of attack.

They might even manage to get to the main chamber of the warren without being discovered—if they were lucky, that is.

Still, she wondered what they would do once they saw what waited for them.

How would they react, when they realised they had no chance?