The Runesmith

“Whose idea was it to not place traps in the tunnels?”

“Uh… guild master you said that we should focus on making them sturdy enough first…”

“...”

An uncomfortable silence filled the room as a bunch of tier 2 thieves were looking at the cloaked figure shrouded in mystery. The person they were looking at was the thieves guild master that didn’t really show up around this place that much. Now that there were skeletal monsters going through the underground tunnels there was a problem.

The room contained most of the thief guild leaders in this city and the person leading them. This woman who no one knew the true identity of was sitting at the end of the table where these ruffians gathered. On the sides of this table were the people she was supposed to be responsible for and now she might even be forced to act.

No one in this room knew that the guild master was part of the red light district. That persona to them was just one of the Brothel owners. There were several other madams like her out there and no one expected this one to be an actual tier 3 class holder.

To the right side, a large bald man that looked somewhat similar to the adventurer guild master was sitting. His whole body was covered in various beast tattoos with not much space being left for his actual pale skin. This man was responsible for the muscle portion of the city underground and also for the protection of their guild-led establishments.

On the other side, a man of a feeble stature and boney fingers was sitting. His face was covered by a mask that looked like a snake with small slits through which his yellowy eyes were barely seen. In one of his hands, he had a short dagger that he continuously flipped around with quite skillful movements. His body was covered with a dark green robe under which no one was really sure what was hidden.

Two chairs to his left was a rather voluptuous lady whose face was covered up with ample amounts of makeup. Behind her stood two large men wearing tailor-made suits that made them look quite professional. Right opposite them was a man wearing a long coat with a large cigar in his mouth. What made him stick out was a large horizontal scar running all the way from his upper cheek to the other one while going through the middle part of his nose.

“Wasn’t this supposed to be a meeting with the inner members only? Who let those two bozo’s in here?”

“Mr. Ivor, I’m just a defenseless woman, I need my boys to protect me.”

“I wasn’t asking you, who…”

The man with the large scar leaned back while scoffing at the woman. She in contrast to the others possessed no real combat class worth mentioning. Without the guards behind her, it wouldn’t be hard for any one of these thief guild members to kill her in one swift move. Before he could finish the sentence though the lanky man with the mask flung the short blade in his direction. It embedded itself in the table right next to where Ivor was resting his hand.

“Show the Madam some respect, it’s thanks to her girls that your gambling dens even earn us any money.”

The two men on one side of the table started to get up from their chairs. However, all of them stopped in their tracks before even being able to fully stand up. Everyone felt as if there was a hungry beast looking at them. They turned towards their guild master that was just sitting there without saying anything. They didn’t need to vocalize their dissatisfaction as the group of killers here instantly knew that if they continued like this, their life could be over.

“...”

A silence fell upon the room as the four inner guild members held their tongues. They could not risk offending the guild master that they didn’t even know the face of. Information was the key to any assassination and they lacked it. While their leader could easily reach their homes at any point in time they would not be able to retaliate. Their identity was unknown to them and the armor they were wearing could fit any gender.

“Viper, tell me what we can do to remedy this situation.”

The man with the snake mask quickly jolted his head toward the guild master. He was responsible for everything revolving around information in this city. After the skeletons made their way inside it was up to the scouts and assassins from his side-faction to produce all the info about this incident.

“Of course, guild master, we are looking at infiltration from multiple entrance points.”

“Can’t you just close the tunnels?”

Asked the guild master in a menacing voice that didn’t seem to belong to a human. Everyone was sure that they were using some kind of voice masking device at this point but were unable to comment on it.

“Regretfully the tunnels were still fresh and the contractors didn’t have enough time to prepare…”

The thieves guild in this city was still somewhat new. These tunnels needed to be first cleared out and reinforced so they wouldn’t collapse on their clients and guild members. The funds required for this were fleeting and in this case needed to be siphoned into different projects first. This left some of the tunnels without proper mechanisms that would collapse them onto anyone that dared to enter.

“Hmm…”

The guild leader didn’t answer as they murmured to themselves. Most of the initial funds went into digging up the underground and working with the black market merchants. Then another load needed to be injected into the city officials. Bribing them allowed the guild to function without getting in trouble with the law and also left them drained.

Usually, proper large-scale guilds would have various ways of taking care of situations like this. They on the other hand didn’t have any stop gaps nor could they blow up the tunnels from a distance. At most they could quickly gather some explosives in the hopes that it would be enough.

“They are still only skeletons, what’s the problem is the guild only made of useless good-for-nothings?”

“The quality of our men is indeed not great…”

The man with the snake mask looked towards the large bald man that quickly got annoyed. He slammed his fist down on the table which almost broke under the pressure.

“My men aren’t the problem, it’s that damn tier 3 skeleton, guild master you must…”

The man looked at their leader with furrowed brows but quickly turned his head away. To him the only way of contending with the monsters was through pitting a tier 3 class holder against another one. Here only their leader was at this tier and if the skeletons continued to push toward their inner sanctum a lot of money would be lost. Restoring the entire underground hideout along with their black market would be quite costly. Not something this guild could afford and the guild master knew it.

“We can’t let this affect our bottom line…fine then, tell them to retreat if they don’t want to die, you have ten minutes.”

The figure cloaked in black answered briefly before standing up from their spot. Soon they faded into the shadows of the back room without making a sound. Only after half a minute had passed did the four thieves here decide to speak up.

“My my, the guild master will make a move themselves? Such a shame that we won’t be able to see it.”

The madam stood up from her chair while her guards surrounded her. Everyone here was interested in the capabilities of their guild master. The tier 3 monster that was in the tunnels was the perfect opportunity to see what their leader was capable of. In a situation like this, it would however be somewhat difficult. Then there was also the fear of them being instantly killed if their leader discovered them peeking.

This hidden leader was well aware of all of this as she hid away from their notice. She had never actually left the room but just dropped her presence with the help of one of her skills to such an extent that they couldn’t tell that she was still there. There were two feeding factions in this city with her in the middle trying to not allow one to get ahead of the other. If she didn’t act too many people would die which would weaken one of these sides. A sense of equilibrium needed to continue for this underground business to continue working and for that she needed to act.

“Why is everyone so useless around here…”

After the room was cleared out she was finally able to speak out. The persona that she built up here was meant to act as a protective shield. It was certainly working as no one dared to go against her orders or voiced their grievances concerning the way she led this guild. For this to continue though she needed to put herself through situations like this one.

“Would be nice to have some competent attendants.”

Her biggest issue with this remote region was the lack of workers. The low-ranked dungeon in this region wouldn’t allow her to interest any potential employees. She needed someone to take care of situations like this for her as each time she acted there was a chance that her secret could be revealed. Her situation was complicated so the way she really looked needed to remain hidden otherwise running would have been the only thing that was left to her.

The ten minutes she gave the thieves should be enough for them to clear out, if not then regretfully some of them might have to perish. This kind of risk was something that she was willing to take as more than keeping this place afloat she had to keep her real identity hidden. For that reason she could not allow anyone to be left alive that witnessed her true form, which was a requirement to clear out the passageways.

…

‘Lobelia should be safe at the orphanage but I’m not sure about those two idiots…’

Just as Agni appeared before him Roland recalled the message he sent to Elodia’s home. He knew that the Lich had discovered the hidden tunnels and after seeing some of the skeletons moving to one that he was familiar with it was confirmed. Roland was more worried about the two people that hung around Lobelia, they were actually quite low on the totem pole and may have been ordered to watch over some of the tunnels.

‘I can’t worry about others now, it’s here.”

“Woof!”

“Agni, get inside.”

Now that the Lich was this close there was no reason for Agni to conserve his mana. While the skeletal mage was around the same speed when going all out he was faster. The armored red figure of the wolf covered in rubies became a blur as he accelerated to reach his master at an alarming pace. Behind him a series of explosions caused the monster to not be able to continue with its chase just as before.

“You did well, now get back I’ll take care of the rest.”

“Awooo…”

Agni’s muzzle was open wide as he continued to pant. He had really given his all during the game of tag around the forest. He wanted to do more but was also aware of his shortcomings, remaining at the side of his master would only slow him down. The plan was not over yet so the only thing Agni could do was replenish his stamina and wait for Roland to give him an order.

‘Let’s assume manual control first.’

The walls to his home were high but this monster here knew the levitation spell. It would be useless to assume a defensive position behind them. Instead, his first attempt would be through conventional means using superior firepower. Four turrets and another four spider drones looked toward the emerging skeletal lord. Its body was shrouded in a strange layer of energy which was a superior version of a mana shield.

‘A tier 3 spell, probably a mystical mantle spell.’

Roland could tell that the Lich learned a thing or two after their first confrontation. In the dungeon when it tried to dive at him, the monster wasn’t even trying to protect its body. Now it was using a superior shielding spell that allowed a lot of free movement to the caster. Other shielding spells usually formed a circular shield in front. This usually forced the magician to at least keep one of their hands toward the direction of the shielding and didn’t allow them to cast that many support spells.

This version on the other hand didn’t need anything like that, after the initial activation it would surround the body of the caster with a thick layer of mana. The shield would counter a lot of effects depending on the type and this one was probably focused on mana. Roland of course expected this to happen and had worked without much sleep through the week.

‘Lock on and fire.’

He didn’t get much practice before but in this situation, he had no other way. Controlling the turrets along with the golems took a lot of his brain power. The upgraded parallel thinking skill was just what he needed to make all the calculations in his mind. All the turrets and the spider drones with a large cannon attachment took aim at the charging monster.

A massive aura of mana radiated from the entire Wayland compound that he created. The drones weren’t just using their battery packs to pelt the Lich with low level mana arrows. Instead, they had large cables connected to their abdomens that overloaded their systems to the absolute maximum. With his main battery fully charged and locked away in the underground workshop, coupled with the wind turbines that were constantly spinning he had a reason to believe that taking the Lich down was possible.

The salvo of blue lights flew toward the approaching target. This time however the Lich didn’t just charge like a maddened bull when seeing red. Instead, it stopped in place right after it was out of the forest. There it reacted with haste by slamming the back end of its staff into the ground to produce strange oculus symbols on it.

Soon after, right at the moment, the torrent of magical energy could hit a mass of bones that erupted from underneath the earth. Instead of hitting the skeletal mage, Roland’s artillery collided with this thick layer of white bones. The immense energy wave started producing sparks and melting through this defensive layer and soon produced an explosion that sent white chunks of bones flying everywhere.

He didn’t stop the barrage as the explosion wasn’t a good indicator of the enemy being down. The usual message that the disembodied voice of this world didn’t resound in his head thus it meant that the Lich was not down yet. Following the explosion, a large dust cloud made of various chunks of earth, trees, and shrubs was produced as the mass of energy beams continued to fire on the target.

‘They are starting to overheat…’

Roland would love to continue with this attack until hearing the death message but he wasn’t even sure if he was hitting anything at this point. Conserving his firepower wasn’t on his agenda now but he couldn’t let the turrets and spider golems explode just yet. Thus after a hefty hail of mana bolts and arrows, he initiated the shutting-off procedure. Both the turrets and golems remained on high alert, ready to shoot at anything that moved.

This whole area was his home ground, here he could use the various monitoring sensors to get an idea of what was happening. Even though all the magical energy in the air was slightly interfering with the signal he could still see the green dot that represented the Lich still being there.

“... Are you kidding me, not even a scratch?”

To his surprise, even this amount of magical energy wasn’t enough to leave a dent in his enemy. While he expected this to some extent it was more shocking to see it from close range. Roland didn’t see himself being able to withstand something like this but the Lich managed to shrug it off.

‘No wait, the mantle became thinner… it must have used up a lot of mana to take that.’

The dust cloud cleared and behind a broken wall of bones stood a rather angry-looking Lich. It just looked towards Roland who was standing in front of the entrance gate to his home. The moment of silence was interrupted by the clattering of the monster’s lower jaw. He wasn’t sure what it was trying to tell him but for some reason, it looked as if the monster was smiling.

‘I guess it’s time to move on with the plan…’