The Runesmith

“Awright, kin someone dae something aboot that dog?”

“Ah wonder how tis doggie tastes…”

“It’s not a dog, it’s a Dire Ruby Wolf but usually their mana-controlling instrument isn’t this advanced, it must have gone through an interesting diet and you can certainly not eat it.”

A handsome sun elf shrugged at the two dwarves from his party as they were looking in the direction of a ruby-encrusted monster. It belonged to the runesmith that lived here and at the moment he had delved into the destroyed home to fetch something.

“Calm down boys, that Runesmith fellow will probably show up soon and then we can leave.”

“Why don’t we just go in, what if he tries to run?”

A woman that was wearing quite the large hat that made her look like a wizard conversed with a large burly man. The man didn’t seem to be okay with the man making them wait. They came to take care of the Lich but were apparently too late to the party. What they were waiting for was confirmation that the monster was actually dead as they couldn’t leave otherwise.

“Why do we even need to confirm the kill, the reanimated skeletons are all dead, doesn’t that mean that the Lich should too?”

“You’re not wrong to assume that Braum but Liches are smart creatures, there were incidents where a Lich played dead to save their life and then massacred the adventurer party that didn’t notice.”

The magician replied in a leisured tone while looking around the somewhat destroyed scenery. Her gaze was drawn away from the large member of her party to a strange spinning object in the distance. Several strange towers that seemingly were windmills stood there. Some of them had been destroyed by some magical spell but a few lasted through. Even now she could feel mana particles forming around them in a strange way.

“Shouldn’t we follow him then Myrtle, what if it just played dead?”

“That won’t be needed, that incident was a peculiar one. For some reason, the party forgot about the world's words. They should have been able to identify that the Lich was faking it but rumors say that they were already tired.”

The lady smiled while looking at Roland’s windmills. This case was a failure, one the party included and the full story was now muddled. It wasn’t strange to forget about the words from their world that people had different ways to interpret. Sometimes the disembodied voice could not be heard if a person was injured or if it was loud. The game-like screens would also be hard to envision in a dark environment which could have led to that predicament happening.

“Hm…”

“Woof!”

She took one step towards those interesting contraptions but was instantly stopped by an angry wolf. While the monster didn’t really pose a threat to her or her party members, they couldn’t just shove it to the side while the owner of this place was away. The knight that belonged to the Valerian household was still there. Even though he was weak and a non-issue if something happened to him, they would probably be blamed now after the Lich was dead.

“Can’t wait for five minutes?”

A voice resounded from the crumbling home that belonged to its owner. Soon a large man dressed in magical armor emerged with a large monster skull in his left hand. Without a doubt, it belonged to an undead magician as it had lingering tier 3 mana around it. With this, the mission of this party had kind of been ruined as they had been tasked with taking out the monster themselves. They would only be getting part of their commission due to this, which made the whole trip here a big waste of time.

…

“This should be enough to confirm the kill, I hope you don’t expect me to return the monster’s remains, it died in one of my traps and by law, it belongs to me.”

“It does seem that it’s the Lich and don’t worry Mr. Wayland was it? We would not do such a thing.”

“One of your party members wanted to eat my tamed wolf, you’ll have to excuse me for being wary.”

The old woman laughed at Roland’s comment. In reality, he would probably not be able to do anything else than trigger the explosives around the entire compound and make a run for it if they decided to attack him. The woman looked to be in her mid-thirties but Roland had the suspicion that she was somehow altering her appearance. It wasn’t strange for magicians to have access to some life-prolonging magic or elixirs. Considering that she had the highest level of the whole group here it wouldn’t be strange if she was a lot older than she led people to believe.

“Myrtle, this wasn’t what we agreed on!”

“What do you want me to do, revive the Lich so we can kill it again? I’m not that sort of mage.”

Roland peeked at the party of five and while they were arguing he decided to go through their levels and classes. Luckily the group wasn’t wearing any protective trinkets to protect them from an identification attempt. To him this was strange but not everyone had things to hide like a certain runaway noble.

The woman had put a lot of faith into just one element of choosing. A Cryomancer class was able to produce quite the array of ice spells. It wasn’t strange for someone like her to appear at a mission involving a fire dungeon but her ice magic wouldn’t be that effective against a Lich.

The sun elf was clearly a one-trick pony as well. He had stuck to marksmanship-related classes and was even focusing on one weapon with the Bowmaster tier 3 class. It was a class that was specifically good at handling bows and anything related to them. It also furthered most of the tracking skills a hunter and a ranger would have brought to the table.

The two dwarves named Hermond and Delmond had very similar class composition and weren’t worthwhile to investigate. One was a Shield Master and the other one was a Polearm Master, not very prestigious classes that only focused on one particular piece of equipment. Then there was the last member of the party that had a more unique setup.

He was a Druid and the name implied that he could change into some type of beast. He was already the size of the adventurer guild master but perhaps he could even bulk up more. The man looked like a beastman from a bear tribe but it could have actually just been part of his class skill of shifting his body.

The Beast shifter class would allow an individual to alter parts of their body. For instance, they could enhance their limbs by growing sharp talons or powerful jaws with a bunch of teeth. However, a tier 3 variant of the Beastial Druid allowed them to change their form entirely. A person could even shift between more than one form. Instead of just turning into a large wolf they could become something between the two, a werewolf. It was a class that allowed them to become monsters that kept their intelligence and could even use weapons or armor.

‘That’s probably why he isn’t covering his chest much, the increase in size would destroy it anyway…’

Roland went through the classes and also the high levels and came to a conclusion. He would probably not be able to handle any of these people alone. At least not while they were so close and he was still injured from the last fight. However, he needed to continue the charade as these people could probably not see his true level. If they thought that he was capable of defeating a Lich by himself, then they would think before attempting anything drastic.

Myrtle was approached by the blond sun elf that looked a bit maddened by the lack of monsters to kill. The group didn’t really do anything so they wouldn’t even have the right to the reanimated skeletal bones outside. As a platinum adventurer party they would be given a downpayment that would cover their travel expenses and a few other things. This didn’t mean that they wouldn’t be bleeding money.

The expenses a platinum-rank adventurer party went through to manage their magical instruments was high. They needed to continue making money, if one of their weapons broke during a monster subjugation it would take an astronomical sum of gold to replace it. While in a sense they weren’t losing anything by coming here, they were not gaining much in return either.

They needed the full bounty together with the Lich’s remains to be ahead but now that was impossible. When adding the time to get back to a place that could earn them a good sum of money, they could be set back by several weeks or even a whole month. This of course was not his problem, thanks to Arthur’s soldiers and knight being here the monster remains would probably remain here.

It wouldn’t be strange for him to be forced to relinquish it in any other circumstance. Now that he had officially become Arthur’s Runesmith, it wouldn’t be easy to bully him by anyone that wasn’t a noble themselves. A regular citizen had no hopes of going against a powerful adventurer party like this. Even if someone died, without any connections and money there would not be much of an investigation.

Things would usually go in favor of the adventurers as they were an important asset to the kingdom they resided in. Monsters were always a problem and it wasn’t strange for retired adventurers to be hired by nobles. They would become knight captains or direct bodyguards, even teachers to noble children if they had some particularly good skills.

Luckily for him, these people could not bully him to give up the loot he had earned. Considering how his whole home was destroyed in the process, this Lich’s bones were the least he could get. The rare monster core drop on the other hand would go for a lot more than the body. It was an item that could be used for various magical items and probably even elixirs. If he auctioned it off at the auction house then the whole incident would put him ahead.

‘I’ll hold onto it, for now, maybe when I get my next class I’ll be able to gain something from it.’

Roland was also a magical researcher and was interested in what he could discover in an undead monster's core. It wasn’t that damaged and if it possessed all the information that the Lich had, he might even be able to get to the bottom of those spells it used. While necromancy was frowned upon, it didn’t mean that spells that could produce skeletons were outright forbidden.

Understanding all the various elemental wavelengths was something he was in the middle of doing and undead magic was part of it. He was already trying to produce a divine healing spell by way of runic circuits so something on the other end could work too.

“I think we should go back to the city, Lord Arthur needs to hear this.”

“I agree but I can’t just leave this place with those thieves running unchecked.”

The Knight leader of the city guards wanted to take him away to the city. Roland wasn’t against filling in Arthur about what transpired here but he also didn’t want to get robbed blind either. The corpses of the thieves were visible to everyone and they were still fresh.

“I understand but the Lord requires your presence, Runesmith, and as I recall you are now also contractually obligated.”

“I see that you did your homework but there are other ways to have meetings, so we can have one here while the soldiers keep unwanted ears away.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean this, you’ve probably seen something similar to it.”

Roland didn’t spend five minutes grabbing the skull of the Lich. He had already taken the monster's remains and placed them inside his workshop before the adventurers even arrived here. What he did for most of that time was to search for a crystal ball that wasn’t damaged in the scuffle. Most of them had been destroyed by the Lich and the explosions inside his underground workshop, all besides a prototype he was working on beforehand.

“Is that a crystal ball, why is it in that glass box?”

“Oh, that’s quite an interesting magical instrument, did you make it?”

“Yes…”

While he was talking with the knight the Cryomancer walked forward. They were probably also in need of new orders from the lord. In reality, he wanted to bring this group of five up to the Lord as they had failed their current job but it didn’t mean that they couldn’t do something else. Considering that they needed to move to the dungeon to make a sweep of potential threats, this party of five would be the perfect group of bodyguards for the next stage of the plan.

What was in his hand was a one-meter-wide square box with a crystal ball in the middle. It wasn’t floating but had a bunch of metallic wires wrapped around it. The final product wasn’t meant to show the insides of this magical device. He had just used it like an open PC case so he could easily see what was happening inside. It was a lot easier to monitor if everything was working and if he didn’t need to change some of the circuitry.

He could already see the people gathered here looking at this ugly contraption with confusion. The only one that was truly intrigued, was the fellow mage that could probably feel the strange mana fluctuations that it was giving off. While caster classes couldn’t create items like this they could distinguish between ones that were worth their while. With their high intelligence stat, their analyzing skill was usually quite advanced.

“I don’t think we have the time…”

“We don’t? Did you expect to be back by dinner time when you set out to kill a Lich or something?”

The knight was left speechless as Roland shot him down. The man was probably a lesser noble or some kind of bastard son of one. This was probably not something he expected to hear from a commoner. Every time Arthur’s name was mentioned it was to push Roland into obeying but it certainly didn’t work. At least it was clear that this knight didn’t know that he was a noble in hiding himself, otherwise, he would probably not be this pushy.

“If not then just give me a minute, I’ll have Arthur … I mean Lord Arthur here in a moment.”

While the knight was not his match the other five adventurers were. He did not know if those five would move if the knight barked out a few orders. Considering that he was a magical craftsman of worth, he wasn’t that scared. Arthur’s investment into him was probably known to everyone now and destroying such a costly investment wouldn’t be taken lightly.

“Oh my, I have never seen a crystal ball operate like that…”

“Is that Lord Arthur in person?”

“Wayland?... Sir Morien, is that you?”

Within a few minutes, he had placed the magical device down on the ground and rigged it to one of the exposed power cables with his crafting skills. Even though he could power it himself it would be better to use the main workshop battery that he didn’t need to blow up. With its help, the magical projector that used the crystal ball as a medium could produce a larger image of Arthur from the waist up.

“Yes My Lord, we have confirmed the death of the Lich and were about to return to the city.”

“That is reassuring and I see that Mr. Wayland is also fine, did you defeat it yourself?”

“I’m not sure if defeating is the right word but yes, it did die after stepping into one of my traps.”

Roland peeked at the magician getting closer to the magical projection. She seemed interested in it but it probably wasn’t the best idea to get between him and a noble talking. Morien that was there was already looking at her in a funny way but her aid would be required soon.

Roland just needed to steer the conversation in a way that he could have Arthur push the adventurers into the dungeon, with their help he would be able to instantly continue his dungeon dealings. The only problem was their loyalty, if they ran over to the other Valerian house members then it would become troublesome…