The Runesmith

“Hey wait up… Hey! Is that thing really following us? and if it is, where are you taking us, what is this place?”

“I’ll explain later, you’ll have to trust me.”

“Trust you?”

Lobelia wanted to roll her eyes as she sprinted after the man dressed in full-body armor. To the side, she could see a ruby dire wolf running behind him and behind her were the other four party members she came with. All of them were in a daze after almost dying from the fall into the chasm. For a moment they thought they were safe but Wayland who they discovered here wasn’t of the same mind.

“Hey, are you sure that we can trust him?”

Jasmine appeared next to Lobelia and quickly used a hidden skill for forwarding information. It was called project sound, thanks to it the user could project sounds to any desired location. It was mostly used by thieves or scout classes to sneak around and confuse sentries.

However, it could also be used differently, by targeting someone's ear and turning down the sound volume a person could communicate from a distance. Attacking it by shattering someone's eardrums was also possible but only with a high enough skill level. Usually, there was not enough sound output for that, and pinpointing the right spot to his wasn’t easy either.

“My sister trusts him, so I’ll trust him too, do you think he would have saved us if he meant us harm?”

The archer nodded but Lobelia wasn’t sure if that was enough to drop the suspicion. In reality, she already had a theory of what had happened there and it was only confirmed after they arrived at a clearing. What they saw there was truly astonishing, all of them opened up their eyes to take in the view.

“What is this? Precious gems and metals? Hah, I knew you were hiding something!”

Armand shouted out while looking at the spider golems that were moving. The group was filled with adventurers so they somewhat knew that this place was akin to a goldmine. Dungeons always restored their mineral pockets with time. To them, it wasn’t that strange that Wayland had decided to keep this place to himself to keep the riches. If they were capable of doing the same they would probably do the same.

“By Felmjir’s beard, is that crimson mythril? And that’s… but this is…”

The only dwarf from the party stopped in his tracks while forgetting that they were being chased. To him, that was brought up around miners and blacksmiths, something like this was a true treasure trove. While he did not specialize in it as a dwarf he knew the true worth of a place like this. “... Brother Dunan was right, ye wur hiding something!”

“Brother?”

Roland gave out an order to the spider golems to stop mining the moment he ran into the range of his skill. As he was planning he implemented a relay system into his bots that would forward the order to all of them automatically. Thanks to this he didn’t have to go through all ten of the golems one by one.

Some of the golems retreated towards the hidden exit while four others moved in the direction of the tunnel they ran out. Thanks to the signal enhancer he left in the chasm he could somewhat measure where the Lich was. At its current speed, it wouldn’t take it long to arrive here so he needed to have his golems block it from approaching them.

While his plan was in motion he could see all of the adventurers being astonished by this mining area. Probably all of them with perhaps the half-orc excluded knew about its worth. This area was already exposed so it would probably be impossible to keep it a secret, this was even less likely after he heard the dwarven adventurer shout at him.

“Aye, he told me about ye, greedy bastard, what do ye think ye wur doin' 'ere?”

“This is not the time for arguing, we need to leave but if you want to stay here and contend with that lich by yourself, then be my guest.”

Wedamir wasn’t amused and Roland had a suspicion as to why. First of all, he did mention one of the union leaders by name. Dwarven adventurers treated their craftsmen a lot differently than their human counterparts. To them, the creation of weapons and armor that kept them safe was something to be praised.

The dwarves in this world also had a delusion that for some reason all mining areas should belong to them. They would buy out each and everyone that they could get their hands on. The union in particular had contracts in place that would force nobles to prioritize them over others if they so desired. Thus from Wedamir’s standpoint, Roland’s attempt at hiding this mining area could have been akin to denying the dwarves their birthright.

This was certainly problematic, the dwarf would probably go running to the union bastards that disliked him. They on the other hand would see this as a chance of getting back at him. They would probably try to spin it as withholding information from the guild or the nobles that the mine really belonged to by law. Luckily they didn’t really have proof of him being here for long so he could always deny that he was mining the place for many months.

“Wedamir is thick headed but I don’t think even he wants to contend with a tier 3 Lich but isn’t this a dead end? I don’t see any exit, Wayland?”

“Give me a moment.”

Without giving an explanation he quickly ran up to the wall with the hidden runic symbols. While the way they operated wasn’t difficult, the way they were hidden was peculiar. Without his debugging skill guiding him through the process, it would take a higher-tier runesmith to even notice that there was a locking mechanism there.

“There really was an exit…”

Lobelia cheered out as she saw a bunch of runes lighting up when Roland touched the space above the door. Following the activation a large door that was big enough to fit his large mule golem appeared. With it now being open he ordered it to walk right back in through it. Luckily he had not even begun unpacking so it wasn’t hard to just retreat.

“So that’s how you’ve been able to do it…”

Not everyone here connected the dots when it came to this place. Lobelia on the other hand had realized that this had been discovered during the time the nobles visited this dungeon. This did bring up some questions though, was this actually discovered later by Roland or did he have some kind of deal with the nobles?

During that time no reports were made by them and the safe zone was supposed to have been destroyed when they were evacuating. This was not the time to ask about such things, they were still being chased by the monstrous Lich. Roland confirmed this fact as he had been constantly monitoring the pathway leading to the chasm.

“It’s here… move now!”

He pointed to the opening while taking out a few more items from his satchel. Even though he had gone down here without expecting any problems there was still a contingency plan for if anything went wrong. First of all, four of the ten drones that he had moved inside of the tunnel.

These four specific ones had the best equipment suited for this job. It was a new model that integrated the new turret technology that he had been experimenting with. They had a technical name that Roland gave to each new iteration but in short, he called them, Sentry Golems.

Their bodies were slightly larger and their mechanical limbs were also bulkier. On top, they had a large turret that could move in a wide area. It was not omnidirectional due to the bulkier form but while aiming down limited spaces like that tunnel it was the perfect monster killer.

The robotic golems dug their spider-like limbs into the hard rocks as they waited. Two were down on the ground while the other duo was above them on the ceiling. Thanks to Roland’s map they could see the enemy getting into range and when the Lich ducked out of the corner they would activate.

To supplement their escape Roland had also laid out a few traps. While they were running away he had been attaching explosives to the walls, almost all of the ones that he had were now stuck to them and would detonate the moment someone passed by them. At least that was the plan but his map was telling him otherwise.

The view was quite limited but he could see the dot that represented the Lich start to move through the pathway. The mines that were placed there and that were supposed to react to his presence didn’t activate for some reason. Perhaps the Lich had some kind of skill to detect or disable the runic bombs that he placed there?

They were still only simple runic devices that would activate when someone moved in range or stepped on them. If the monster was able to evade his traps he would need to place more elaborate ones instead. His new improved bombs could be thrown from a distance just like the signal magnifying device before.

The disk shape allowed for a better throw and the flat surface could easily stick to rocks. One of these bombs made its way towards the entrance to this mining area. As it connected with the wall it started to glow, this glow caused more rocks to appear around it for camouflage purposes. It was in short a self-hiding bomb, the earth magic runes that were there could imitate almost any terrain.

While he was preparing the second line of defense and the adventurers were going through the exit his golems finally picked up the enemy. Their golemic eyes could see the skeleton surrounded by some kind of flame barrier. Through them Roland could tell that this was indeed a Lich from that dungeon. It was also probably the one that jumped into his cannon beam.

A barrage of blue energy blasts shot out from the sentry golems. They were all enhanced mana arrows that used a similar spiral motion to drill themselves through armored opponents. Before they collided with the Lich they started to decrease in size. With the decreased magical output they were then unable to contend with the magical barrier the monster surrounded itself.

‘What is that? a mana canceling barrier? No… it should have something like that.’

Instead of canceling mana, it was doing something else. The monster was a tier 3 being and someone that had high control of magic. It was probably exerting its control over the mana being shot towards it and weakening it in the process. It was a similar effect but not as strong and had more weaknesses than outright canceling the mana particles.

The golems that he created would be great against non-magically inclined opponents. When two spell casters contended with each other most of the time the one with more mana or control over it came out victorious. The toughest part was getting through their shields that protected them from harm. Even Roland would be able to an extend disperse enemy mana with his own abilities and also had some runic contingencies in place for such an ocassion.

“It’s here, get in!”

“Shit are you sure about this? Can’t we just make our stand here, there are six of us and that thing is alone!”

“It won’t be alone for long, now get in.”

Armand was the last one in line of getting in. While they had the number advantage it wouldn’t be for long. Roland wasn’t sure how the blazing skeletons were getting down from that cliff but he was picking it up on the radar, they were making their way down here. Even if they could take out this monster together if the swarm of tier 2 skeletons arrived they would be done for.

There were too many variables and he could see that his magic attacks weren’t as effective. Roland didn’t have much experience against other spell casters. Usually, the spells overpowered his opponents as they weren’t very experienced with them either. He had never faced off against a mage on his own level and this Lich outranked him by a tier and also level.

The better way would be to make a tactical retreat for now and bring some tier 3 backup later. No adventurer guild would let such a strange monster roam the dungeon. They just needed to evacuate to the higher levels and wait for help. The monster would probably remain to roam this level, for the time being, at least that was what he was hoping for.

This monster was quite impatient, after the barrage coming from the golems, it charged forward as if it was maddened by something. The turrets continued to fire but they could not pierce through that magical barrier. Soon the monster was upon them and without even bothering to properly attack the mechanical beings they just began to melt.

The monster’s dark flames filled the entire area quickly corroding through the golem’s system and disabling them in the process. This monster didn’t stop and continued to speed up as if he was after something. That something was just around the corner and already shoving Armand into the tunnel that everyone was escaping into.

Right as the angry glowing skeleton was charging through the entrance Roland detonated the charges there. The explosion rocked the entire area and caused the rock from the ceiling to fall down. This measure was supposed to at least stall this angry-looking monster but this Lich had other plans.

“What the…”

Roland backed away as he saw a massive surge of green energy wash all over the place. It was as if some fluorescent water was being churned out from within this monster. Instead of water, it was just really thick magical energy that was used to stop the mine entrance from caving in. The blasts that he detonated didn’t even manage to halt the monster's approach and now it was time for his trump card.

A beam of condensed energy traveled from a gem inside of his chest almost instantly. This was the weapon that served him well during his gold rank exam and his current stats had been enhanced further. Yet to his dismay when the beam collided with that green barrier it just couldn’t go through. This creature was well equipped in defending itself against magical attacks and with everything that he threw at it, the monster swatted it back.

“Shit…”

Roland quickly ducked into the secret passage as it was closing. His last line of defense were the mining golems that tossed themselves on the monster. They had a self-detonating option and while some started shooting mana bolts the others attempted to grapple the monster’s skeletal limbs.

After getting a good grip they would overload their runic battery and produce a large explosion. At least that was what they were supposed to do but instead, they found themselves being pushed back by more green energy that took on a more flame-like consistency.

Luckily even though all of his creations were shoved to the side, they still bought him enough time. The monster’s empty eye sockets burst forth with angry flames as it charged at him. This was the last he saw of it as the wall slammed shut before the being could make it inside.

There he started backing away while frantically opening up the mule golem. Inside he found the improved mana cannon. Realistically speaking this was the only thing that could save him now, if the monster made it inside he would need to shoot it.

However, as he was trying to connect the cables to his own armor he noticed something. The monster had stopped in its tracks and the thumping on the wall began to decrease. This whole area was surrounded by thick rock that was somewhat resistant to magic. Even Rolland needed many hours of drilling to get anywhere within this dungeon.

This wasn’t all, he felt that the moment the Lich started attacking this wall some kind of safety spell was initiated. It seemed that he wouldn’t need to use this cannon, the monster couldn’t get towards this side, or at least, not before they were long gone. Thus after quickly getting up from the ground, he turned to the party of five.

“We need to go.”