Runi

“Give me your pickle,” Brumgren Alehammer said.

The scavo technomancer, Lash Stagmuck, eyed the rune crafter warily.

Brumgren rolled his eyes and stalked across the dirt floor to the far corner of the workshop, where Lash sat at a squat table. In one hand, the scavo held a spoon poised over a wooden bowl of something steaming. In the other, he held a large pickle.

The dwarf snatched the pickle out of Lash's hand.

“Oy!” Lash said, scowling.

Brumgren started to turn, but then stopped and turned back. In the technomancer''s bowl, bits of squash bobbed in an orange gruel.

“Your soup, too,” Brumgren said.

“Seriously?”

Brumgren scooped up the bowl and hurried back to his workbench.

“Keen to eat that, I was,” Lash said with a grumble that came out more like a squeak.

The dwarf placed the pickle and the soup on the countertop alongside the two items the junker had brought earlier: the massive eyeball of a hill giant and what was left of the dented armor of a hero who was a hero no more (now, he was just a corpse rotting in some hole in the ground).

“If we dunnae get this thing animated 'fore the Legion gets here,” Brumgren said, “it would've been the last thing you ate.”

Sunlight filtered through a burlap sheet covering the workshop's only window. It wasn't enough light for the intricate detail required of rune crafting. The dwarf muttered a cantrip, and a candle upon the workbench sputtered and flared to life.

“Exactly.” Lash's chair scraped across the ground as he stood and made his way around the table and toward Brumgren. “Now, the last thing I eat, it's that rubbish Tornivek cooked up yestereve.” He wrinkled his rat-like nose. “That foul flavor, it'll follow me into the afterlife, it will.”

“Not if I have anything to say about it.”

Brumgren reached across the workbench and slid a wrap of canvas in front of him. It clinked as he unrolled it, revealing a bundle of stylographs of various sorts and sizes. He plucked one up and bent over the hero's chestpiece. His lips pressed together into a slash as he began to inscribe runes upon the dented plate.

Lash leaned against the workbench. He produced a metallic orb from the pocket of his robe and began to bounce it from hand to hand.

Brumgren glared at him. “Would you stop that? You're jiggling the table.”

Lash pushed off the workbench with a sigh and paced about the room.

The rune crafter's stylograph blurred into motion once again. He set it aside and chose another. When he finished with the chestpiece, he took off his cloak and wrapped it around the squelchy flesh of the eyeball. He inscribed another series of runes onto the cloak, then the pickle.

A series of shouts sounded from outside.

“Chaos Legion's here,” Lash said.

“Almost done,” Brumgren said through gritted teeth.

“Almost or not at all. Amounts to the same, doesn't it?”

Brumgren didn't respond. He spun the bowl of squash, hastily inscribing runes across its wooden surface. When he finished, he took a step back and wiped the sweat from his brow. “There.”

“Done?”

“Done. Now work your techno-magic.”

The dwarf stepped aside, and Lash took his place. The scavo touched a finger to each rune and intoned a spell. As he did, the runes glowed with a soft, blue light. The components began to vibrate on the table.

More shouts from outside. They were closer now. The clang and clatter of steel on steel echoed from somewhere nearby. Battles raged around the workshop.

Lash spread his arms, closed his eyes, and said, “Surjite, cretal mantra runicon. Surjite set serval. Maldon vois en nominati riftanimas dentus. Surjite, set vindit sor en!”

The runes flared, faded, and disappeared. One by one, the components rose into the air. The armored chestpiece floated a few feet above the workbench. The cloak-wrapped eyeball drifted up and took its place above the chestpiece, and the bowl of squash soup floated into the cavity at the center of the armor. It glowed an ethereal orange.

The eye blinked. It glanced down at the table, and the runi picked up the pickle and held it in its gauntleted fist. The eye shifted to peer at Lash.

“Outside, now.” The scavo pointed at the workshop's door. “Protect the Riftwatchers.”

The runi didn't hesitate. It didn't ask questions. It soared toward the door, lowered its shoulder, and burst through it. A moment later, a shout went up. A cry of pain followed.

Brumgren grinned and clapped the scavo's shoulder. “We did it, my friend.”

“You owe me a squash soup,” Lash said. “And a pickle.” For generations upon generations, the Riftwatchers have pursued the Chaos Legion across realms and seen them drained of magic by the dark god, Uul. They collected the cast-off dregs of war, repurposing what they could salvage into weapons, gathering their strength and building an arsenal for the day when they would face off against their enemy.

One such weapon is the runicore, or “runi” as it is also known.

The runi is a collection of spare parts gathered by the Riftwatchers' junkers: armor, clothing, corpses, and anything else that can serve as a body; weapons that range from axes, swords, and polearms to fish, sweets, and rabbits; anything–literally anything–a technomancer might be able to repurpose into a power core and infuse the runi with life; and, sometimes, a warhelm or jaunty headgear to give the runi a personal touch.

The Riftwatchers are not without a sense of humor, and there's nothing quite as satisfying as thumbing one's nose at the legions of Chaos by sending a relentless magical construct with a pert foolscap atop its head against them.

The junker brings their spare parts to the rune crafters, who inscribe the parts with runic symbols. Technomancers infuse these runes with techno-magic, binding the parts together and instilling the runi with life. With that done, all that's left is to point the implacable little construct at the enemy and tell it to kill.

And kill it does.