Runesmith: A Science Fantasy Action Quest

Runic Theory and Runes themselves are a subject as complicated as it is broad, and yet, for all the myriad runic 'languages', properties, and interactions out there, the most basic principles of the subject can be boiled down into a single sentence.

A Rune is a symbol that takes in energy from around it and then makes use of that energy in order to accomplish a specific effect.

'Energy' is broad enough as it is. A rune set in a streambed can take power from the rush of the water overtop of it. A rune in a field can absorb sunlight, or the movement of the wind, though neither are particularly efficient. A rune carved into or held by a human can be charged through -for lack of a better term- the vitality of it's 'wielder'. All of those are examples of how early runic sages made use of their power, and while science has since refined the practice, the core principles remain the same, the only truly important change has been the ability to transfer energy from one rune into another.

The 'Effect' on the other hand is -in a single word- 'complicated'. A rune of flame will create fire, but the nature of that fire can be altered by any number of factors without even beginning to touch on the existences of Runic Matrices, cluster of runes that work together as a single unit, all activating at once. If a rune of flame were activated and then moved while it worked, the created fire could be 'thrown' by the motion. Or It might change depending on what material it had been carved into. A rune of flame carved into wood will -in most cases- cause the wood itself to burst into flame, whereas carved in Stone it would produce the flame above the centre of the rune, and carved into a ruby that flame would become a stream of fire he direct the rune was facing, or a direction specified by the rune itself.

So yes... Complicated is putting it lightly.

[X] Hijack the Major Plate's propulsion interface runes to send a message to the bridge.

You swallowed thickly. You could fix this, and with time to spare before you hit the main body of the Current to boot, but was that really what was important? Did you really want the ship going interplanetary with whoever did this still aboard?

For all you know they could have taken a lifeboat once the communications were cut, but you can't be sure...

No. You need to move faster. Fixing this wouldn't be slow, but it wouldn't be fast either.

You reached for your tools and got to work. The plate was dead, devoid of power, but its outbound channels were still connected. Only the energy reception points had been cut off by the failsafe. It would be a one way message, but you could at least make sure that it was sent, and hope that they understood it.

First, to isolate the controls. You cut quickly, crude work, sloppy, but then, it didn't need to be neat. You took the runes that connected to the bridge to manage the activation and deactivation of the attitude thrust and severed them from the rest of the matrix. It would be much harder to repair the whole thing now, but it was this or failure. You had Crystal Batteries on you in order to energize dead runeplates but they wouldn't be enough to fully activate a Major plate, let alone to keep it running for any length of time. You could supplement with your own body's life energy but that probably wouldn't last much longer. The sheer difference in scale was just too great.

So if you couldn't activate the whole plate, you just had to isolate the part you needed and activate only that. Hence the mutilation of the beautiful design.

The sacrifices you made in the name of safety, sanity, and survival...

With the right section isolated, you pulled out the Crystals. Little glass gems with Runes shaped inside of them, meant to hold energy in place until it was needed. Carefully you pressed them to the plate, watching as the runes you'd isolated began to glow with the power trickling into them.

Carefully you added a second crystal, then a third, the last thing you needed was for this to be interrupted.

On... Off... On... On... Off...

You waited as the flashed out the message. A Crude old code, back from the days before you breached the first currents and spread across the stars, but one that everyone know. Dot and Dash, sequences of letters, spelling out the message.

SABOTAGED PLATES. VOICECASTERS DOWN. DANGER. ABORT APPROACH AND DIVERT COURSE.

Now you just had to hope that they understood...

You repeated the message... The first battery starting to go black, and the second starting to flicker as the minutes ticked away. Repeat again...

The third battery was almost out when you felt it, a subtle shift in the vibrations underfoot. A little change in the Princess cant.

If it had been anyone else, they probably wouldn't have noticed, but you breathed out, a long slow sigh. They'd heard you, or at the very least they'd heard someone...

But that left the more pressing problem. Who did this? And Why?

Footsteps sounded at the edge of hearing, rapidly approaching, you turned to peer out through the nearby hatch.

[] "Hello..?"
[] Hide and Ambush
[] Run for it.