Shownotes
In a growing storm, a lone cryptographer discovers a site of ancient ruins holds a mysterious secret from untold ages past. Something has reawakened.
Today’s story is the first of two parts of “Rune Weaver” by Aelius, who can be found at FurAffinity under the same username, with both stories and artwork in his gallery. He has also been published twice, in Inhuman Acts and ROAR 8 by FurPlanet.
Read by Solomon Harries, Cuddly Badger Dad.
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https://thevoice.dog/episode/rune-weaver-by-aelius-part-1-of-2
Transcripts
You’re listening to The Voice of Dog.
Speaker:This is Rob MacWolf, your fellow traveler,
Speaker:and Today’s story is the first of two parts of
Speaker:“Rune Weaver” by Aelius,
Speaker:who can be found at FurAffinity under the same username,
Speaker:with both stories and artwork in his gallery.
Speaker:He has also been published twice,
Speaker:in Inhuman Acts and ROAR 8
Speaker:by FurPlanet. Read by Solomon Harries,
Speaker:Cuddly Badger Dad
Speaker:Please enjoy “Rune Weaver”
Speaker:by Aelius, Part 1
Speaker:of 2 Incoming storms were a viable reason to postpone a research expedition in the Spirit Wilds,
Speaker:where help was often a week away at best if something went awry.
Speaker:Something always went awry.
Speaker:However, this time the storm was the sole reason Maple’s expedition was going out there in the first place.
Speaker:The potential discoveries were worth the danger.
Speaker:A thick, leafy canopy shrouded the sky as a lone figure walked through the forest
Speaker:—humanoid, deer-like,
Speaker:following a set of coordinates from a holographic readout on her wrist cuff.
Speaker:Hooved feet trod the soft ground amidst thick foliage.
Speaker:Tall ears swiveled and panned to catalog the sounds of wildlife,
Speaker:catching distant thunder beyond the leaves above.
Speaker:Bright, hopeful eyes peered through dense greenery to detect any hints of the expedition team she would be joining soon.
Speaker:According to her coordinates on the flickering holographic display, base camp was close.
Speaker:In good time, too.
Speaker:Rain had gradually begun to fall.
Speaker:A slight flutter of drops breached the thick leaves overhead,
Speaker:enough for Maple to feel against her ruddy-brown fur.
Speaker:The doe did not really mind rain.
Speaker:Even with minimal clothing and a slender body,
Speaker:her fur provided enough comfort against nature’s elements.
Speaker:The intricate patterns painted on her also offered protection.
Speaker:Where scarce garments left her fur exposed, the runes softly glowed,
Speaker:ensuring that even in the wilds, Maple could confidently and safely explore.
Speaker:The path opened into a clearing to reveal taller, bare trees.
Speaker:Unusual as this was the middle of summer.
Speaker:As the rain strengthened, Maple noticed stone formations further on.
Speaker:The deer glanced around.
Speaker:There was no sign that anybody had been here recently.
Speaker:Her ears panned about but only caught the sound of rain.
Speaker:No scents lingered beyond the disappearing familiarity of the wilderness behind her.
Speaker:Even the grass seemed to have stopped growing up ahead.
Speaker:The expedition crew was supposed to be here already.
Speaker:She looked down at her wrist cuff,
Speaker:but the hologram flickered before going out completely.
Speaker:She tapped the panel, but nothing happened.
Speaker:She pulled a small datapad from the holster on her bicep,
Speaker:but aside from a brief flashing,
Speaker:nothing appeared on its screen.
Speaker:Thunder rumbled overhead.
Speaker:Maple stowed her datapad and continued onward,
Speaker:reaching out with her presence as she approached the bare tree trunks.
Speaker:The runes pulsed in steady glows,
Speaker:unphased by the downpour soaking her fur.
Speaker:There was a peculiar emptiness about this place.
Speaker:No greenery present, no sounds nor signs of wildlife,
Speaker:only the steady patter of rain on the withered branches overhead.
Speaker:It was as if life had disappeared behind her.
Speaker:Lightning flashed, startling her briefly,
Speaker:and thunder came soon after.
Speaker:Maple stepped up her pace through the dense rain.
Speaker:“Maybe they set up camp near the stone formations as a shield from the storm…”
Speaker:she muttered. A sudden gust nearly yanked her drenched cloak off her neck, throwing her off balance.
Speaker:She finally reached the stone structures and paused to catch her breath under a rocky overhang.
Speaker:With a hand on the solid stonework, a painted rune suddenly lit up on the back of her hand.
Speaker:Maple watched as faint lines on the stone wall lit up under her palm,
Speaker:spreading outward in rigid, angled patterns before fading from view.
Speaker:Maple’s ears flicked at the sight of the spectacle.
Speaker:She moved her hand along the stonework as she walked.
Speaker:The rune on her hand continued to glow,
Speaker:but nothing else appeared on the stone.
Speaker:She paused and tapped the stone with a finger.
Speaker:The black hoof-like material on its tip elicited no response on the damp, rocky surface.
Speaker:She pulled her data pad back out and tried to activate its scanner,
Speaker:but the screen remained blank and inactive.
Speaker:Maple snorted in frustration.
Speaker:Of all the times for her equipment to stop working, it had to be at the research site itself.
Speaker:Or was something interfering with it?
Speaker:Luckily, she had other natural talents.
Speaker:The deer lifted her nose and tried to catch any familiar scents,
Speaker:hopefully those of her companions setting up camp,
Speaker:but once again detected nothing.
Speaker:She rounded a corner.
Speaker:The next area was vacant, save for numerous stone columns.
Speaker:She expected to see grasses and weeds growing in the cracks of the stonework at her feet.
Speaker:But even in the heavy downpour she saw no evidence that any sort of life had been here in quite some time,
Speaker:whether plant or animal.
Speaker:More than that, the pervasive emptiness and lack of scents or sounds amidst the rain confirmed her suspicions.
Speaker:She was alone. Maple glanced up at the rocky overhang above,
Speaker:then peered out to see what appeared to be crumbled walls further on,
Speaker:gradually shrouded by dense rain.
Speaker:Lightning briefly lit up the landscape,
Speaker:followed by rumbling thunder.
Speaker:The storm was upon her already.
Speaker:Strange, however, that she saw no other light sources amidst the ruins.
Speaker:The scouting reports mentioned unexplained glows in the presence of storms, which was why she had been summoned to investigate this place.
Speaker:She recalled that ten years ago, an expedition team had gone into this specific region only to disappear within days.
Speaker:The next group that went in to investigate the disappearance also never returned.
Speaker:The area had since been deemed off-limits to further exploration until a few months ago,
Speaker:when many strange glows had been reported lighting up the forest.
Speaker:However, the glows only appeared during rainstorms.
Speaker:Recent scout teams claimed the glows had been appearing closer and closer to areas deemed safe,
Speaker:though nobody had investigated further for safety concerns.
Speaker:And now, years since the first disappearances,
Speaker:there was neither evidence of light nor any sign that the expedition team she was to meet had ever reached the site.
Speaker:Another lightning flash, another rumble of thunder.
Speaker:Maple took a breath to center herself.
Speaker:She still had a mission here.
Speaker:She was a Rune Weaver,
Speaker:a combination of cryptographer,
Speaker:historian, and artist all in one.
Speaker:Her unique skills had been called upon by the research councils to hopefully figure out what was so special about this place.
Speaker:Mysterious glowing was but one element to investigate.
Speaker:She reached out and placed her hand back on the stone wall.
Speaker:She breathed out and closed her eyes to focus.
Speaker:She did not need to open them to know the runes on her body were glowing.
Speaker:She felt them as they outwardly channeled her presence, her essence of self, into her surroundings.
Speaker:This skill was unique to her generation of wilderness researchers,
Speaker:allowing others like her to feel, intimately,
Speaker:the world around them
Speaker:unlike any who had come before.
Speaker:A skill vital to those exploring regions where their predecessors had once disappeared without a trace.
Speaker:Maple opened her eyes,
Speaker:seeing faint lines lighting up in the rough textures of the stone,
Speaker:appearing almost as if they were glowing from beneath the otherwise-opaque surface.
Speaker:The lines seemed to make a pattern,
Speaker:though of what Maple could not figure out just yet,
Speaker:before flickering out and disappearing completely.
Speaker:Undoubtedly, this region had been touched by the long-forgotten knowledge of the Old World.
Speaker:Yet, the purpose still remained to be seen.
Speaker:The doe smiled as she took her hand off the stone and looked back into the ruins.
Speaker:The possibility of answers beckoned her further,
Speaker:and her insatiable curiosity about the Old World begged that she continue.
Speaker:Thunder rumbled again,
Speaker:echoing throughout the ruins.
Speaker:Maple adjusted her cloak, tightened the belts holding collection vials around her waist,
Speaker:and clutched the satchel at her hip.
Speaker:She quickly glanced down at her body to confirm her runes still had not washed away in the rain,
Speaker:then carefully strode out into the downpour.
Speaker:Her runes lit up once again as she extended her presence.
Speaker:Faint lines flickered in the wet stonework at her hooves
Speaker:but faded just as quickly without offering any guidance.
Speaker:Maple continued onward as the sky darkened, a process interrupted by flashes of lightning.
Speaker:Her keen eyes noted glimmers in the distance.
Speaker:With every flash of lightning, something far off in the ruins reflected the light.
Speaker:Was it metallic? Amidst all this crumbling stonework?
Speaker:She then noticed faint light in the rain’s haze near the glimmers.
Speaker:Glowing. Maple trotted onward, keeping close to the overhangs near the walls.
Speaker:As she walked, her ears flicked and panned at what seemed like crumbling sounds all around her,
Speaker:though as she looked around, the walls and columns appeared to be steady.
Speaker:However, that still did not put her at ease.
Speaker:The ruins were still here after thousands of years,
Speaker:but what of the last scout teams?
Speaker:Thunder rumbled overhead.
Speaker:Maple turned her attention to the stonework itself.
Speaker:So much of it was cracked and featureless. Every so often she caught a flash of faded color,
Speaker:barely visible even through her natural ability to see ultraviolet light.
Speaker:She stopped, head tilting as she focused on a much clearer patch.
Speaker:There was evidence of markings in the stonework here.
Speaker:A pattern. Maple lifted a hand and brushed her fingers along the etchings.
Speaker:Though nothing lit up,
Speaker:the designs seemed similar to the portions that lit up earlier.
Speaker:Were they a continuation?
Speaker:Maple unholstered her datapad,
Speaker:but it remained unresponsive.
Speaker:Was something here interfering with its electronics?
Speaker:As thunder rumbled again, an ear splayed out.
Speaker:Maple’s sensitive hearing caught the slightest drone of barely audible noise,
Speaker:disrupted by the storm’s reverberations in the air.
Speaker:Lacking any means of analyzing the noise or scanning the patterns,
Speaker:Maple stowed her datapad and reached into her satchel,
Speaker:pulling out a weatherproof logbook and stylus.
Speaker:Out of the rain under the overhang, she hastily sketched out the patterns etched into stone,
Speaker:then tried to recall some of those she had seen earlier when the ruins lit up.
Speaker:Lightning flashed above, and as thunder followed,
Speaker:she listened for the droning noise again.
Speaker:This time, however, she noticed it being accompanied by slight vibrations under her hooves.
Speaker:It wasn’t just thunder shaking the ruins. Something else was moving with every lightning strike.
Speaker:Maple kneeled and placed a hand on the wall, focusing her presence again.
Speaker:As her runes glowed, faint lines flickered outward from her hand across the stones before disappearing again.
Speaker:A tiny smile crept onto Maple’s face.
Speaker:The storm may somehow be influencing a substructure of sorts…
Speaker:Prior scouting reports hypothesized that some Old World ruins had potentially been built on top of structures believed to be even more ancient.
Speaker:Evidence was sketchy at best, however, as the very few approved excavation attempts yielded nothing beyond age-old circuitry lined into stone
Speaker:and little else. As Maple sketched out the patterns, she realized they, in fact, appeared to be shaped like circuits.
Speaker:These matched theories that the Old World had fused its mysterious technology with the environment.
Speaker:That did not explain why this region seemed inactive outside of storms, however.
Speaker:Nor did they hint as to why nothing alive seemed to have been here all this time.
Speaker:Maple paused to study the patterns on her logbook.
Speaker:She was one of the best cryptographers in New Atlantis,
Speaker:but even she could not figure out what all of this meant.
Speaker:The patterns she recalled from the outer edges of the ruins did not match up with the ones she saw here,
Speaker:despite tiny similarities in the circuit lines.
Speaker:Her tail flicked behind her as she attempted to puzzle out the differences,
Speaker:but she could only sigh and stow the logbook. She needed more to go on.
Speaker:Looking out at the downpour, she pulled her cloak tight around her once again and continued onward.
Speaker:Glancing all around, it appeared that the entire area was becoming more dilapidated the further inward she went.
Speaker:Mounds of rubble sat where walls and columns had once been.
Speaker:Despite the open crevices and cracks, there was still no sign of vegetation
Speaker:that would otherwise have taken root in the thousands of years since the place had been abandoned.
Speaker:She jolted as lightning flashed and thunder roared,
Speaker:feeling brief resonations throughout the surrounding air.
Speaker:Then, at her feet,
Speaker:more patterns flickered to life before fading a second later.
Speaker:Maple tried to commit it to memory as the rain pounded against her.
Speaker:She kneeled and placed a hand against the rocky ground,
Speaker:trying to focus as she tugged her cloak over her head.
Speaker:Though the patterns appeared when lightning flashed,
Speaker:they only appeared
Speaker:where she stood. What was the connection?
Speaker:The runes along her body
Speaker:lit up as her presence spread outward,
Speaker:but the patterns on the stonework merely flickered once again.
Speaker:Maple huffed in frustration.
Speaker:Spirit magic, as the scouts called it,
Speaker:could apparently only do so much when used in a place so old and worn down.
Speaker:She whipped out her logbook and,
Speaker:using her body to shield it from the rain, scribbled out what patterns she could remember
Speaker:before stowing it again and hurrying on.
Speaker:Maple shuddered at the thought that this place may be falling apart.
Speaker:She still heard faint crumbling sounds everywhere,
Speaker:and felt the strange reverberations beneath her after another rumble of thunder.
Speaker:Circuit lines briefly lit up again under her hooves,
Speaker:but they were disjointed.
Speaker:The further she went, even the site’s internal circuitry seemed to be coming apart.
Speaker:Rounding a half-broken corner, her suspicions seemed confirmed.
Speaker:Spanning out from pieces of cracked stone,
Speaker:bare metal jutted into the open air.
Speaker:It was not rusted,
Speaker:though even with rain trailing down it, she could make out a dull surface as if it had been exposed to the air for a long while.
Speaker:Maple approached.
Speaker:She noticed faint patterns etched into the metal.
Speaker:At first glance, they seemed to be the same type of circuitry she had encountered before,
Speaker:but her keen eyes noticed something was off.
Speaker:The pattern was slightly different.
Speaker:Maple neared what remained of a wall and hunched over her logbook as she scribbled out the lines.
Speaker:These were not circuits.
Speaker:They were too fragmented.
Speaker:Her ears flicked as her eyes widened.
Speaker:It was a language.
Speaker:This opened up new possibilities.
Speaker:What if the Old World’s language was based upon the circuits they infused into their environment?
Speaker:If so, the entirety of the Spirit Wilds could be speaking full messages,
Speaker:stories, through every living being in its Fused wilderness.
Speaker:But this was yet again another hypothesis. Maple needed more to go on.
Speaker:Lightning flashed.
Speaker:Thunder rumbled. More reverberations below as circuit-like patterns flickered into view on the nearby stones.
Speaker:The designs on the metal remained dormant.
Speaker:The stonework was in shattered pieces all around the metal,
Speaker:which looked more like a support strut than something decorative as she neared.
Speaker:She followed the strut to where it reached over a nearby crumbled wall. Making her way around the wall,
Speaker:she felt the reverberations more intensely,
Speaker:resonating through her hooves and up her body like a small quake.
Speaker:She even heard them now, shifting from a grumble to a roar the further she went.
Speaker:With it came a strange nausea,
Speaker:but it did not hinder her.
Speaker:She moved past the wall and then froze.
Speaker:Her eyes widened, and her ears folded as she took in the sight in front of her.
Speaker:The floor before her had collapsed entirely away.
Speaker:Beyond it was nothing but open air.
Speaker:Maple carefully approached the broken ledge and beheld a massive pit.
Speaker:It was large enough to enclose a small village,
Speaker:and she could not even see across to its other side in the rain’s haze.
Speaker:The reverberations had now become a shrill,
Speaker:agonizing shriek tearing at her skull.
Speaker:Maple swayed, trying to maintain balance as she dared to look far below.
Speaker:She saw the site’s ruins had become only dust and mud,
Speaker:as if corrosion had devoured everything and left nothing behind.
Speaker:The pit’s deep center glowed in violent, yellow-green pulses as sludge churned in the rain,
Speaker:leaving caustic steam hovering just above it.
Speaker:The very sight of the glow felt like it was burning her eyes,
Speaker:forcing her to look away before she could figure out what exactly the oozy sludge at the bottom was composed of.
Speaker:She glanced up to the support strut she had followed and noticed it connected to an enormous, ring-like structure
Speaker:held aloft far above the pit.
Speaker:The pit’s sickening, wavering glow reflected off the ring before the structure disappeared into the rain-thick haze further on.
Speaker:Maple tilted her head,
Speaker:noticing the metalwork was a completely different design motif
Speaker:than that prevalent throughout the rest of the ruins.
Speaker:The stones suddenly gave way under her
Speaker:and the deer plummeted,
Speaker:shrieking as she fell.
Speaker:This was the first of two parts of
Speaker:“Rune Weaver” by Aelius,
Speaker:read for you by Solomon Harries,
Speaker:Cuddly Badger Dad.
Speaker:Tune in next time to find out how Maple tries to figure out this mysterious threat
Speaker:before it can consume her,
Speaker:and her home, completely.
Speaker:As always, you can find more stories on the web at thevoice.dog,
Speaker:or find the show wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker:Thank you for listening
Speaker:to The Voice of Dog.