The Runesmith Chronicles Ch. 12

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*****

Rain pelted Kal and Ikuno as they made their way carefully along the thin mountain trail. They had left Ikuno's home earlier that morning to return to Aradelle's forest and crossed over the first mountain without incident. However, as they descended into the valley between that and the second peak, dark clouds had rolled in and a smattering of rain dogged them on the next ascent. As they approached the apex of the trail the weather became even fouler turning into a full-blown downpour with screaming winds and lightning illuminating the sky every few seconds.

Ikuno!" Kal yelled above the howling wind, "Do you know of any caves nearby that we can wait this out!"

"If there are, they aren't on this trail!" she called back from just ahead of him.

"What about if you made us one the way you made your pool!" he yelled.

"I can't!" she answered partly turning to look at him, "Using magic during a... Kal!" she shouted as she saw him slip on a particularly smooth rock slickened further by the rain, falling too quickly to catch himself she watched as his head bounced off the stone below. Groaning as he tried to get his eyes to work again he rolled over onto his back and instinctively pushed magic into the healing rune. Ikuno had only taken a step back down the path to check on him when she saw the rune light up.

"Kal! No!" she screamed.

Lightning arced down from the sky striking just up the mountainside, like a shining serpent the column of electricity slithered back and forth as it made its way down the slope, drawn towards the magical energy from Kal's healing rune. A boulder just up from Kal caught the bolt and held it, the slightly higher elevation overcoming its attraction to the magic. Raw electricity pouring through the boulder instantaneously heated up the gasses and moisture trapped within the rock itself.

The stone detonated.

The concussion picked Ikuno up and threw her to the ground further up the trail, she could only watch as Kal's body was thrown off the path, bouncing limply down the rocky slope before sliding over a ledge and out of sight. She screamed his name again in panic but couldn't hear her own voice, only a high-pitched ringing. Ignoring the intense pain all over her body she picked herself up and quickly made her way back down the trail. Stepping onto the slope, her claws left deep gouges in the rock as she used them to slow her descent towards the ledge Kal had fallen over, holding her breath she peered into the blackness below.

A flash of lightning illuminated Kal's body lying on a rain-soaked ledge a little more than ten paces down. Breathing a sigh of relief, she swung her legs over and hung by her claws for a moment before dropping to the ground next to the unconscious man.

Kneeling down, she checked Kal over in between lightning flashes, the constantly changing light making her night vision almost useless on the shadowed ledge. Ikuno could tell that he was in very bad shape, in multiple places he was bleeding where shrapnel from the boulder had struck him and both of his legs appeared to be broken from the fall, but thankfully he was still breathing. However, even as she watched his breathing was becoming shallower and shallower.

"No, no, no, no, no!" she said in alarm though she still couldn't hear. She knew she would have to work fast, it was going to be difficult to save him with the lightning storm still raging above them. Though the outcropping she had dropped from was a bit of an overhang and offered some protection, she would only have a couple of moments to heal him before the energy from the lightning sought out the energy in her magic. She had to be absolutely certain she canceled her spell before it reached her. Moving quickly, she set the bones of his legs in place so the magic would have less to do, she then waited for a particularly long string of flashes hoping it would drain some of the energy from the clouds.

Magic circles appeared in front of both hands as her healing spells went to work, for a moment she was envious of Kal's ability to pump more and more magic into a spell. Two seconds went by, Kal's legs lined up and the bones joined. Another ticked by, shrapnel began pushing its way out of his body as the bones in his legs just barely began to mend, a portion of his chest seemed to inflate and he breathed deeper. Above her lightning struck the mountainside once again and began to make a jagged path towards the source of magic. Another second passed, Kal's entire body straightened and Ikuno realized he had likely broken his back. If the lightning could hold off just a second longer.

Ikuno knew she had waited too long when, as if in slow motion, a tiny dimly glowing feeler of electricity split in two over her hands and connected with both of healing spells. The spells shattered as the full power of the lightning bolt slammed into them flaring as bright as the sun, followed by a peal of thunder that threw Ikuno back along the ledge and nearly off into the abyss below. As she flew through the air she could only watch in anguish as the blast bent her fingers back stripping some of them down to the bone.

Noise assaulted Ikuno's senses as the thunder bounced among the mountain cliffs, sitting up she peered about in surprise that she could see anything at all after the tremendous flash. Looking down at her mangled hands her surprise turned into astonishment as flesh grew and bones mended before her eyes. Light coming from where she had been standing caught her attention and she saw her healing spells surging with power, still floating where they had been touched by the lightning. A moment later the magic circles faded, Ikuno hissed in pain from her fingers as the spells winked out before she had fully healed.

Cradling her injured hands, Ikuno stood and made her way back to Kal, his legs and back were now straight, his chest no longer dented in on one side and rising and falling normally, small pieces of shrapnel from the boulder still stuck out of him in places but nearly all the rest had been pushed out and healed over. Using her feet, she slid Kal further up the ledge getting him out of the worst of the rain. Sitting down, she leaned back against the rock face next to his unconscious form.

Ikuno looked from Kal to her unresponsive and severely aching fingers and said, "Worth it."

---

Hours later Kal was still laying on the ledge unconscious, Ikuno had wrapped him up as well as she could, but his clothing was soaked through and the weather was turning much colder now that the warm air from the storm had passed on. Rain turned into flurries then into a steady snowfall that was common for these elevations, but the dropping temperatures now had Ikuno worried that if they didn't get off of this ledge he may end up freezing to death. To make matters worse, the sun was going down.

Earlier Ikuno had taken off Kal's vambrace with the healing rune and attempted to fix her fingers only to find that something in the lightning had completely drained her. She wasn't surprised, other magic-users who had lived through a lightning strike, some who weren't even using magic at the time, reported being completely drained along with any crystals on their person.

She tried waking Kal up for a quickie, not only to keep him warm but also the subsequent increase in her magic regeneration, however, he steadfastly refused to stir. With things getting colder she knew that her natural resistance to hot and cold weather was eating up a good portion of what magic she regained, after a few hours she tried again and still hadn't stored enough to activate the healing rune, though it did glow for a fraction of a second. Worse yet she discovered another of Kal's abilities to cause her mild annoyance. Without Kal's control over how magic flowed into the runes, both healing and the shield rune lit up on the bracer when she tried to heal herself, wasting precious magic trying to create the unneeded shield. Frustrated with their predicament she sat back down next to Kal, leaning her head back and closing her eyes.

With no answers coming to her she looked down at Kal, wrapped as tightly in his cloak as she could get him without the use of her hands she had positioned him so he was laying facing the wall hoping that his body heat would get trapped between the rock and his cloak. For the hundredth time, she cursed herself for leaving their bedrolls in the shack thinking they would be back the next day without any trouble. Ikuno had managed to carefully remove his travel pack with her feet, a process that took a fair amount of patience since she had to be careful not to cut him with the claws on her toes. She was currently using it to keep him propped up on his side.

Ikuno's eyes widened and she groaned in irritation at her own forgetfulness. Kal usually kept a charged crystal in his pack and he hadn't gotten directly hit by the lightning that made the boulder explode.

"Sorry Kal," she mumbled as she hooked a damaged hand through the strap and dragged it away letting Kal roll onto his back, "With luck, we'll be out of here soon."

As she began carefully undoing the leather laces with her teeth movement from Kal made her stop and look at him. Kal was shivering. Ikuno bit through the laces, her sharp teeth slicing through the leather with ease. A fleeting thought applauded Kal's courage to put his penis anywhere near her mouth. With her back to the drop off Ikuno carefully dumped out the pack not wanting to take a chance on the crystal bouncing out and possibly falling off the ledge.

She whipped her head to the side to stare at the rock face on the other side of her from where Kal was laying, she could have sworn she saw something move out of the corner of her eye. Worried that the stress of the situation might be making her see things, she continued to cautiously shake out the pack's contents. As Kal's spare crystal bounced out and up against the rock face her eyes were again drawn to the stone wall off to the side. Ikuno carefully picked up the crystal using her wrists then brought it up and held it between her lips, getting Kal's vambrace she adjusted it so the shield would activate in a safe direction. Pulling power from the crystal she took a moment to overcome the strong resistance before both runes on the piece of leather lit up and her fingers resumed healing.

As her hands finished mending she kept looking at the rock face off to the side, something wasn't right about it. There was a small section that jutted out a bit and was slightly different color from the rest of the wall, she was certain it had not been there earlier. She pushed it out of her mind as she flexed her fingers and quit powering the runes on the vambrace. With access to her magic again and a power source it was time to get Kal back on his feet and get out of there. Ikuno took the crystal out of her mouth and knelt next to Kal's shivering form, the magic circle of her healing spell appeared in front of her hand as she continued repairing the damage to his body.

A rocky hand closed on the arm holding the crystal and pulled Ikuno away from Kal swinging her out over the drop-off, for a terrifying moment she thought her assailant was going to fling her out to land on the jagged rocks far below, it was almost a relief when she was swung back in to slam sideways into the rock face behind the ledge before falling on her side. Quickly getting her bearings Ikuno looked over to see a rock golem, an earth elemental monster who looked like a woman with various body parts made of stone, standing over Kal's body. Dropping the crystal Ikuno dug her claws into the ledge and launched herself at the golem. Surprised at how quickly the oni recovered the rock girl dropped down over Kal's body and sank into the ledge, taking Kal with her.

Ikuno came to a skidding halt, digging claws on both and hands and feet into the stone to keep herself from flying off the end of the ledge. Standing she looked at the place Kal and the rock golem disappeared.

Ikuno swore under her breath, she could feel through their connection that Kal was alive, but he was traveling down and away from her very quickly. She stuffed the contents of Kal's travel pack back inside and picked up the crystal, looking up at the overhang above she cast a strength spell on herself, with crystal and Kal's pack in one hand she leapt upward, the claws on her other hand sinking into the ledge Kal had fallen over earlier that day. Pulling herself up using only the one arm she made her way back up the snowy slope to the trail.

"Sorry 'Dell," she said looking sadly in the direction of Aradelle's forest, she turned away and began making her way back to her cave, trying to formulate a plan to rescue her lover.

---

Pleasant feelings from his groin coaxed Kal from his slumber, along with it came a painful throbbing in his head, back, and legs.

"Ikuno stop," Kal groaned without opening his eyes, "I feel like I was just trampled by an ox."

Memories slowly filtered in and Kal remembered watching the column of lightning stop just up the slope a sit came to rest on a boulder, everything after that was darkness. He just assumed that something bad had happened and Ikuno had brought him back to her cavern judging by how his voice had echoed. The pleasant feelings continued which was uncharacteristic of Ikuno, not that he had asked her to stop very often, those times were only because he had been in the mood for something else at that moment. Regardless, before now she had always quit whatever she was doing immediately, with one exception, but that was a special circumstance.

"Ikuno, stop!" he said more forcefully and waved a hand over his groin to shoo her away, after the incident with her getting drunk on magic Kal felt it was safer for his manhood to never push her away when he was in her mouth. The back of his hand smacked against a piece of rock... that was moving... over his dick... like he was getting a blowjob from a boulder.

Kal's eyes snapped open and he sat up, ignoring the screaming pain in his head he fought through the dizziness and looked down his body to see... he was getting a blowjob from a boulder.

Jerking his hips to the side he pulled out of the creature's mouth and the strength rune came to life as he tried to push the thing in front of him away, instead, he sent himself sliding backwards on whatever the soft material was he had been laying upon. Looking about he saw that he was in a small cavern that was dimly lit by glowing mushrooms and lichens, he had slid backwards on what appeared to be some type of moss bed that covered this small section of the cavern floor. The air was damp and warm, and he could hear the sound of a trickle of water coming from somewhere, though he couldn't tell where in the dim light.

He scrambled to his feet with painful protests from his legs and back along with another wave of dizziness, the creature in front of him was also getting to its feet. Not wanting to deal with this thing while injured he pushed magic towards the healing rune, and nothing happened. It took him a moment to realize the bracer with his healing rune and shield was gone. The creature stomped forward attempting to pin him to the wall but Kal easily avoided it's slow movements, making his way to the other side of the cavern her drew two runes in the air. one was the drawn version of the light spell that Ikuno had made him learn instead of replacing his glowing rock.

The rune for the light spell spun around a few times before turning into a ball of light and floating to the middle of the cavern ceiling, giving him a good look at his opponent. The woman seemed to be half-rock half-human with the upper left quarter of her head starting at the side of her nose was made entirely of rock that protruded out from the human side by about a finger's width. A deep recess mirroring the placement of her human eye held a glittering red gemstone that shifted as she looked about. Her right arm looked like she wore a giant stone gauntlet that covered her entire forearm, with a large spike extending from the elbow and both of her feet were covered in similar stone 'boots', only these boots had toes and moved like a normal foot as she walked towards him. The rest of her body was relatively normal for a human woman, her breasts sagged just a bit but had a tantalizing sway as she walked, her belly, hips, and thighs were thick, not heavy but certainly not athletic either. Kal remembered a man in Telsin describing a townswoman with this type of body as, "built for comfort, not speed." The rock that made up part of her body was a deep gray with tiny white flecks that occasionally caught the light just right and shimmered with her human eye being a lighter shade of the same gray, long black hair with gray streaks that Kal was fairly certain wasn't from age covered the half of her scalp that wasn't rock.

The second was the drawn healing spell that Ikuno had also been insistent he learn 'just in case,' he was regretting acting like an ass back then and putting up a fight about learning it because of its difficulty. Kal grabbed the healing rune out of the air and held it in his hand like a medallion as he moved about avoiding his attacker. The dizziness went away as did the pain in his back and legs, though much slower than if he had used the healing rune on his bracers. As he healed, his movements as he avoided the creature began getting quicker and more fluid.

Kal dodged to the side once more and darted back to the other side of the cavern putting as much distance as possible between him and the rock girl, she didn't look very 'comfortable' at the moment with all the stone body parts and speed certainly wasn't her forte. Over the next few minutes, they continued the chase. Kal managed to pick up his pants and boots and even put them on as she made her slow but unfaltering way across the cavern towards him over and over, her impassive face not telling Kal if she was enjoying the game or getting sick of it. Kal began to get the feeling this was a losing battle at this rate, though he was in good shape he was starting to get a little winded from all the running back and forth, even so, he had to eat and sleep sometime.

"What do you want?" he asked as she walked towards him. She opened her mouth but a sound like grinding together two handfuls of gravel came out instead of words, so much for communicating.

Though he didn't want to resort to violence he felt he had no choice, unless he did something she would just wear him down until he collapsed or gave in. The next time she came close instead of running away he slipped around behind her and with his strength rune glowing bright pushed her up against the wall of the cavern, and straight into it. Kal took a couple of steps back in confusion only to see her walk back out of the wall and continue coming after him. Kal backpedaled to the middle of the room dropping into a fighting stance. When the rock girl got closer she held out her arms as if to embrace him, having already gotten an idea for how strong she was Kal didn't think that would be good for his newly regained health.

Kal's mind raced as he tried to figure out what to do, having seen her phase into the rock he took a closer look around and his fears were quickly confirmed. There were no exits to the cavern, she had somehow brought him here and at the moment she was his only means of getting out. He had to figure out some way to communicate with her.

"No!" he shouted when she was only an arm's length away. She hesitated then took another step forward.

Stepping back he shouted again, "No!" he pointed at her chest then at his groin, "If you want this, then you take me back to the surface," he continued patting his chest then pointed up and to the side, he felt a strange pull in that direction that he assumed was his bond with Ikuno.