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Summoner - Chapter 8 - SomeoneYouWontRemember - Parahumans Series

Chapter 8: Chapter 8 - rune info stuff

Summary:

This chapter is mostly explanations about rune things to anyone curious but unwilling to check wiki articles. It can be skipped without making any difference to the story. Fair warning, it's mostly an infodump.

Notes:

edit cuz ppl keep pointing this out: this chapter is not great, and feels pretty game-y. I wont rewrite this cuz that time can be better spent elsewhere, but if you know LoL runes, feel free to skip. This is just theory crafting, pretty much.

She had to waste an entire perfectly good day on her bed, beset by a mind-crushing migraine.

That presented a problem called "I have nothing to do but think right now", and thinking just made the headache worse, and the damn headache carried over between herself and her legends so it was obviously not a normal headache she could get rid of with painkillers.

Thus, she resigned herself to an entire day of sitting in bed and thinking while in quiet pain. Because exercise would get her blood pumping and would make the headache even worse, but she couldn't just not do anything.

The first thing she did was mentally try to sort her resources.

One of the problems of having nigh-infinite versatility and a ridiculous amount of tools at her disposal was that she could very easily get lost in all of it and just forget important shit she could do.

She began by scanning her Runes again, to make sure there were no effects she missed, some synergies she might not have considered.

There were five of them, each like a tree of minor powers, of sorts.

The Rune of Precision, yellow-gold colored and focused on extended fights, growth, and well, precision. Gave her super-sight and perfect accuracy, or as perfect as physics would reasonably allow.

The Rune of Domination, an aggressive red colored Rune focused on physical domination, quick devastating fights, and a whole lot of killing.

She didn't use that one at all so far because upgrading herself from a Brute 0 to a Brute 3 or so felt great but it also did not give her any actual benefit outside of combat. It didn't even make her tougher, it just made her stronger and faster when equipped.

The Rune of Sorcery, an indigo-blue Rune focused on destruction and spells, resource management and recovery. Picking that one made her mana pool inflate a bit, and let her feel and manipulate mana better, so it was great for practice right now.

The Rune of Resolve, a jade-green Rune focused on mental willpower, general defence, and physical resilience. Equipping it made her less indecisive, more determined, and turned her into a Brute 3 or so she guessed, only on the toughness scale.

And finally, the most finicky and somewhat broken one, The Rune of Inspiration. It was mostly responsible for giving her ideas at the moment as picking it gave her a constant stream of mild inspiration that she could definitely use right now.

Now, for the effects.

Rune of Precision had four main effects she could pick from. One that stacked attack speed infinitely but only while in combat and faded afterwards, called 'Lethal Tempo', one that stacked how hard her strikes and spells hit until it hit a certain number of stacks and began healing her for every strike landed, called 'Conqueror'. The next was one that charged and expended that charge when she hit something to give her a quick powerful speed boost and heal her, named 'Fleet Footwork', and the last one, which made her third strike on a target hit as hard as her first two combined on top of its own damage, called 'Press The Attack'.

Sub-effects were in descending order, 'Overheal', which gave her a barrier if she healed herself while technically at peak physical health.

That could have a huge synergy with 'Fleet Footwork', she realized. Run around a block, punching walls as she jogged along, and letting the barrier stack up in strength, before jumping into a fight. That sounded good if she knew she was heading into a bloodbath.

Then, 'Triumph', which healed her a bit for every kill she made, great for fighting big groups of squishy enemies like hordes, and being a life-vampire of sorts, but an effect which also synergized with Overheal, assuming she kept getting kills while healthy. And if she had a barrier blocking all the damage, she always would be, and the barrier would just keep stacking and stacking, quickly turning her into an untouchable whirlwind of death.

Then, 'Presence of Mind' which just refilled a good chunk of her mana, or her legend's mana, whenever she got a kill.

Considering how some of her legends had entire mountains of mana and this recovery seemed to be more relative than a set amount, a small kill could probably give her legends enough mana to cast another dozen spells before they ran out and she had to swap.

Immensely useful for horde fighting with spellcasters. Literally endless mana.

Next effects were infinitely stacking attack speed, resistance to foreign effects on her person, and life-leeching, all stacking permanently whenever she got a kill, depending on how strong it was.

The last effect of that tree was 'Last Stand' which made her hit a lot harder when she or her legend was close to death.

The Rune of Domination was next, and it was rather barren compared to the first Rune.

It had four main effects.

'Electrocute' which, after three hits on an enemy, would activate, shocking them with red lightning from the center of their mass outwards, from the inside out.

'Predator', which she had to manually activate after designating a person she had met face to face or seen before as 'prey', or multiple people if she wished. Then, the effect would grant her a ridiculous speed boost, but only when rushing towards the designated prey, and her first hit against her prey would hit much harder, consuming the speed buff.

'Dark Harvest', which was an effect that essentially tore out a large chunk of a target's soul if they had one, dealing damage to them, and each piece of soul that it ripped out would only add to the damage the effect could do, infinitely. The only catch was softening the target's physical shell enough for the body to be weak enough for one of her strikes to reach the soul. She could see when that occurred, as the rune would show her the target's soul and target it with a red haze, but it still sounded rather tedious to stack, honestly.

And finally, 'Hail of Blades', which, following the odd rule of three these runes seemed to follow, would make her first three strikes against her target strike something like twice as quickly, but not twice as hard, however that worked.

The sub-effects were fewer and simpler. 'Cheap Shot', which would make any hit she made from stealth or as a backstab feel much less resistance when faced against barriers and armors, 'Taste of Blood', which would heal her for a little bit the first time she drew someone's blood, so long as she was actually hurt, 'Relentless Hunter', which would give her an infinitely stacking speed boost as long as she was not in active combat, stacked depending on how many people she killed, of course, and 'Ultimate Hunter', which would give her the ability to have a giant compass in her head that pointed directly to everyone whose blood she tasted.

Like, physically. It was being very literal in her head.

A perfect tracking weapon, pretty much, even if it was a bit gross to taste people's blood to be able to track them.

She liked this rune, it was just a tad too damn vicious and hunter-themed for her to find use for it at the moment.

The next rune, the Rune of Sorcery.

Four main effects.

'Summon Aery', which would apparently summon some kind of arcane familiar attuned to her soul that would attack whoever she told it to before teleporting back to her side when it was finished, or she could direct it to move to allies and help them by connecting to their souls and giving them low-strength barriers. Barely enough to block something like a bullet and not much else, but better than nothing.

'Arcane Comet', which was singlehandedly the most ridiculous fucking rune effect of all of them, as it did exactly what it said it did. Basically, she would have this fist-sized floating piece of magical space rock orbiting her chest, glowing indigo blue.

Then, if she hit someone with a spell, it would fly up into the sky like some kind of strike missile, grow to the size of a person's torso, and plunge down to the earth like a literal comet, with all the acceleration and force one could expect from that. Well, not all, but a lot of it.

They could always dodge, but if she did something like stun them with one of Twisted Fate's golden cards, they wouldn't have a chance to do so. It activated really fast.

One card, and she could kill almost every single parahuman that came to mind, barring the Triumvirate and maybe Lung. Or Crawler and the Siberian.

Last but not least, 'Phase Rush'. Very simple. Hit someone three times, gain a long and powerful speed boost.

The sub-effects were also among the best for boosting her regular self.

'Nullifying Orb.' It was like a… magical purple-blue sphere she could summon that nullified anything reality-breaking within a six foot radius. It was unfortunately breakable.

She really, really, really hoped that included powers.

The next was 'Manaflow Band', an effect that would infinitely add to her mana pool every time she hit a spell on someone, with each charge having a cooldown of twenty seconds.

She was practically foaming at the mouth for this one. Infinite mana increase, without having to manually practise and mentally torture herself with forming and reforming spells without actually firing them? Divine.

The next effect was the only one which seemed to function specifically around the Summoner Spells the old man had given her, giving her a short but fast speed boost when using any of them, called 'Nimbus Cloak'.

'Celerity' gave her a simple, static speed boost.

'Absolute Focus' was a wonderful minor effect she could toggle on or off, and it did exactly what it said. The best way she could describe it was being 'in the zone', but permanently.

Of course, it was mentally fucking exhausting, but being in 'the zone' permanently during a fight? Or when trying to craft something, or just in a tough social interaction? It was amazing.

The next two effects were simple, but not as much as 'Celerity'.

'Waterwalking' allowed her to walk on water if she wished, and gave her a speed boost when she was doing so, or was wet in general. Fighting in the rain with this would be awesome.

'Gathering Storm' just passively made her mana more efficient, infinitely. Like some kind of refinement engine without an upper limit. Rather than spending half her mana on a spell to hit hard enough to crack a wall, with time, it would let her spend a fraction of that to do the same.

Mana did not have an 'efficiency' limit. One could make a cataclysmic spell with just a fistful of the energy that it was, the problem was that that required thousands of years of dedicated practice.

Or, a bullshit-powerful Sorcery Rune, in her case. And a lot of time.

The next Rune was the one that she felt was more immediately needed for her continued survival.

The Rune of Resolve.

Unfortunately, it was also the uncontested most useful Rune for her base self, and her legends- no, Legends, capital L, felt better- so she would be saving it for last.

So on to the most mangled Rune.

The Rune of Inspiration.

This one was almost barren compared to the rest. It was like huge chunks were just missing, and most of it was patchwork at best. It was still powerful, and its own Thinker power at the least, but it wasn't as powerful as any of the rest.

It was also just fucking weird, the more she looked at it.

It had only one main effect for example, and it had to do with her Summoner Spells. 'Unsealed Spellbook'. Its effect was that it gave her a second stack of her Summoner Spells. So she could… theoretically, use the 'Smite' spell twice. Or once every two and a half days while each stack separately ran its cooldown.

Her earlier thoughts of this rune being weak were somewhat alleviated by the thought of casting something like the Smite spell twice in a row.

The sub-effects were few and odd.

The first was 'Perfect Timing', which would give her access to a magical stopwatch that she could press the button on top of to briefly turn invincible, but also unable to move, cast in a golden glow. Its cooldown was about fifteen minutes.

'Minion Dematerializer' was another bizarre thing. As long as something was not alive, and was in some capacity controlled by something else, she could just make it pop out of existence with a thought and a short charge-up time.

She wasn't sure what on earth she could use this on besides maybe Tinker drones and such, but it was… meh.

The last effect was 'Cosmic Insight', which would give her some insight into whatever and whoever she was looking at, more of a vague sense or their character or a sense of its history if it was an inanimate thing.

And now for the best Rune of all, in her opinion.

The Rune of Resolve was essentially a Rune that dealt most closely with the lifeforce that some select people in Ionia could refine into 'Qi', which they would then use to make themselves literal demigods with years of practice.

The problem with her trying to do the same, with the collective knowledge of half a dozen masters of Qi, which would theoretically make her able to turn herself into a legend with a couple months or years?

Lifeforce did not exactly exist in Earth Bet. Well, it did in some way, as things that were alive had a distinction from nonliving things, even with powers, but outside of herself and other people? Nothing.

Runeterra was stuffed full of the fucking thing by comparison. It was in the air, the sky, the clouds, the trees and rivers, everywhere. To varying extents, but still.

Here, all she had available to work with was her own lifeforce, so doing Qi training like this was like trying to practise brewing wine while having access to a single grape. And it wasn't like she could do the exercises to absorb the lifeforce from her environment or the wind and do her exercises like that.

That's why the Rune of Resolve was so important to her.

The Rune of Resolve could massively increase her lifeforce just by equipping it, giving her just enough to start trying to make a Qi core, but it also had several other effects.

Three main effects, but the first one was the one she was most interested in.

'Grasp of The Undying'. Every three seconds in active combat, it would wreathe her hands in jade-green, ghostly energy, or whatever appendages slash weapons she had in whatever form she was occupying, and then when she hit someone, she could rip a decent chunk of lifeforce out of them, but most importantly, the rune would immediately transfer that energy and use it to make her… lifeforce vessel, of sorts, bigger, both healing her a little and permanently increasing the ceiling of how much lifeforce her body could hold and regenerate.

Normally, this would just have the side effect of making her be tougher and living longer and dying harder.

But with her absurdly varied knowledge of Qi, she could take that lifeforce and refine it into a Qi core and get to doing actual practise.

The process was simple in theory. Take in lifeforce from the environment or use your own at great risk, and through convoluted mental processes and practise, make a Qi core. This would make Qi. Qi didn't do anything until one made it do something, so she would be expending all the Qi it generated to make herself a demigod, of sorts, if she could. The problem was that the stronger one's body and abstract concepts that formed who they were, the more Qi would one need to even slightly affect them further. Qi masters didn't have much to complain about there, because they could draw in lifeforce from the world around them, stuff it into their body, convert it to Qi, and have a nigh-infinite amount of Qi to work with and make themselves absurdly powerful.

She did not have that luxury. So her only means of generating enough Qi for steady progress was to find someone really fucking strong or powerful, like Crawler or Lung, and use them as a permanent punching bag by tearing giant chunks of lifeforce out of them and carefully using her own lifeforce to make excess Qi beyond what her own core could make. Or to make her core bigger.

The whole thing was a bit complicated and she had multiple avenues of approaching it. It was a bit daunting.

Theoretically, she could use those guys to grow faster than any Qi master in her arsenal, the problem was… well, obvious. Enthralling either Crawler or Lung without getting splattered would be tough enough, and the added logistics of how and when and how she could keep any of it a secret, those were more than a little frustrating.

But it was a great idea.

Despite that, the Rune had other effects, and neglecting them just because 'Grasp of the Undying' was better rankled her.

The second main effect was 'Aftershock'. After a particularly large impact or strike, the energy of that strike would flow into her as a green-tinted kinetic force, and defend her for a few seconds, before flowing out of her as a radial green explosion.

The third main effect was 'Guardian', which would essentially let her designate allies. If she was within twenty feet of her allies and vice versa, when she or they were about to take a strong hit, it would shield both of them, and give them a short speedboost.

Underwhelming, but useful if she had to babysit someone valuable for a bit.

The sub-effects were all great too, and actually had great synergy with her goals of Qi training.

The first one didn't.

'Demolish' was essentially a… minor, strange, weak Shaker power. She could target a structure with her mind, and the longer she stood near it, the more damage she would do when she finally attacked it, but only once, and only the first time.

Good if she wanted to level a building in one hit for… whatever fucking reason?

Next row in the tree.

'Bone Plating'. It was amazing. It basically covered her from head to toe in massive, phantom green plates of bone that would only show up when someone would strike them, and after they took a single hit regardless of strength, the bone plates would vanish. Great for tanking big strikes, but even getting a pebble thrown at her hand enough would probably make a plate disappear, as they were only there to take one hit, no more. They were also not impervious to damage or just outright breaking from the impact, so it wasn't like she could tank one of Alexandria's punches.

Next, 'Second Wind'. Very simple. Get hit by anything, gain a low level regeneration power for a few seconds. Good for closing or clotting up cut wounds and not much else, in her opinion, but useful.

'Conditioning' was next and it was a bit… odd. It gave her passive resistance to physical and magical attacks, stacking up the longer the rune was active on her, also infinitely. The synergy with Qi was probably great, even if half of it was wasted due to magic being an 'only me' situation.

The next also had amazing synergy.

'Overgrowth' stole some of the life force of the things dying around her, and added it to her in a huge, wide aura. Infinitely stacking as well.

The other two were barely notable.

'Revitalize', an effect that made all healing actions a bit stronger in general and quite stronger when she was unhealthy or injured, and 'Unflinching', which added resistance to foreign, unwanted effects on her, which was a bit redundant considering she had 'Legend: Tenacity' in her arsenal on the Rune of Precision.

And that was… it.

That was everything to do with the runes.

She sighed, and rubbed at her temples with a grimace.

Thinking about all this wasn't helping, but she only needed like three to four hours of sleep these days, she didn't have anything else to do without going crazy or making her headache significantly worse.

She glanced at her Summoner Spells, just to get them out of the way, maybe work out some synergy she hadn't noticed.

'Heal' which did exactly what it said, targeted at either herself or an ally within twenty feet. It healed by a… decent chunk of one's health, but she wasn't sure how much. Enough to save someone on the brink of death, but not make them healthy enough to fight or anything.

'Ghost', which gave her ten seconds of being a car on legs, and the ability to phase through anything organic or solid but thinner than she was tall, which was an odd restriction, but a useful one, she supposed. Falling into the core of the earth by accident because she fell into the floor and got disoriented sounded unpleasant.

'Barrier', which gave her a barrier that lasted about two seconds before it faded.

'Exhaust', which was a bunch of brown-yellow energy that encased someone and utterly exhausted them for a few seconds.

'Clarity', which filled up a flat half of her or her current Legend's mana pool.

'Flash', which flashed her forward as far as ten feet if she wished, with a very loud sound, and was nigh-instantaneous. The five minute cooldown did not make it spammable, unfortunately. But she knew that if she flashed into a solid box of concrete for example, the range could extend to throw her out on the closest place with open air. If a wall was nineteen feet thick, and she teleported into it at max range of ten feet, it would throw her on the other side of the wall, because from the destination point, it was only nine feet from open air, whereas throwing her back to where she teleported from would be ten feet from it.

A bit finicky, but immensely useful.

'Teleport' which sort of froze her in place, and after four seconds of charging up, teleported her to a waypoint.

'Smite', which was… man, she did not want to use that thing if she didn't have to.

'Cleanse' which would cleanse her body from all poisons, effects, and mental effects. This was a complete godsend. The ability to just snap herself out of a Master's influence made the subtle paranoia in her gut utterly purr in delight.

The final, and most horrific one, was simple called 'Ignite'.

She could target someone or something, and so long as it was alive, it would suddenly burst into flames. And not just any flames, 'true flames', whatever the fuck that meant. It was essentially something that could bypass fire immunity and directly burn your body and soul, as well as utterly cripple any regeneration power. 

It only did so for a set duration, so durable enemies would probably survive it.

This whole spell was basically the "counter Lung button" in her head. It was perfect.

And that was it.

She idly started to think of other legends and combinations.

For several hours.

But at some point, the headache got too much, so she forced herself to begin practising something she'd be doing a decent bit of during her starting career of 'Qi master', which was meditation.

It… kind of helped. Not with the pain, but with ignoring it.

And she still had to go to the fucking trainyard dumps tomorrow, figure out how the fuck she was going to save the psychic girl from Lung's psychotic ass, build a gym in her bunker, expand the bunker, build stuff, build more stuff, enchant stuff, build enchanted stuff, do power combinations testing-

Is this how adults working nine to five with children felt like? Like they had a literal mountain of endless activities and duties and tasks to go through?

It fucking sucked.

No wonder people went to gangs instead…

----- (Chapter Ends here, below are things to help people who might feel a bit overwhelmed with the (necessary) info-dump I put in this chap, or lack the LoL knowledge needed to not be a little confused with all this.)

Hey, just to give you guys a visual of what works and what doesn't, here is a link to LoL wiki that has all the runes in one nice, easy to read table.

Beyond that, because I've made adjustments and changed some of said tables, here are a few images for both the ppl who don't wanna bother reading a short wiki article for some random ass fanfic (understandable lmao), as well as give you visualizations on what kinda powerset and themes we're working with if you're feeling a bit lost but don't feel like chasing external links for this. If nothing more, I hope the images will help yall remember and not get confused on what's happening and from where. I really want this fic to be enjoyable by people who have no fucking idea what League even is, but man it's a struggle because its a lot of information for outsiders, so, here ya go, stuff to help. I hope?

Rune Of Precision:

Rune of Domination:

Rune of Sorcery:

Rune of Resolve:

Rune of Inspiration:

Summoner Spells:

And that should be all. Next chap has ACTION, FINALLY ACTION, IM FROTHING AT THE MOUTH FOR THE DOMINOES TO START FALLING INTO PLACE FUCKKK-