The Runner

### Characters

Achillean Kyber, Andy Vivid, Danny Herrera, Lucan, Mara Moran, Miles Kyber, Nico Spruce, Ron Spruce, Sam Vivid, Reagan Teech

## Timeline Guide

### Next

The Skyliner

The Runner is a short story created by Alejandro Pineda about Achillean Kyber, a skilled combatant living in a divided dystopia, where he runs towards danger for the survival of his faction.

## Plot

The story opens with Achillean Kyber, a young man who fights alone against enemy factions for his and his friends’ survival, receiving a message from a large hostile group of mercenaries known as the Hunters. Instead of heading their warning to remain distant, he threatens them, and promises to destroy their organization for what it has done. He then raids one of their vaults and kills three of their soldiers, prompting their leader, Raegan Teech, to send the most skilled fighter they have: Danny Herrera. Danny later encounters Achillean in a village, where he planned to attack the Hunters again, and the two engage. After his sword breaks, Achillean lures Herrera into a trap and escapes, but abandons the run to the supply camp. The two meet again days later, and Danny is once again surprised as the fact that the Runner wasn’t wearing armor, using only an iron axe and a shield to defend himself. Achillean gains the upper hand by digging underground and leading Danny away from the outpost, which he burned and robbed, succeeding in his mission. Frustrated with his lack of results, the Hunters send their next candidate to aid Herrera: a highly skilled tracker and archer named Andy Vivid. Meanwhile, Mara Moran, the leader of the Valley, attempts to convince Achillean to let them help, but is turned down. On his next run following the decimation of West Ward’s village, the Runner encounters the two Hunters, who manage to trick him into a lava trap, which he escapes. They then overwhelm and chase him through the desert to a ravine, with Achillean buulding a tower to remain out of reach. Even so, he is knocked off, but manages to grab an ender pearl with his fishing rod and fakes his death. Still confused, Herrera and Vivid are unable to prepare as the Runner returns and attacks them, using pearls to disorient Andy’s perception. He then finishes a bombing system in the bunker housing the faction’s riches, his target, and blows it up once the rest of the Hunters are tricked inside. After breaking through the vault and escaping with the contents, he runs to the stables and steals a horse, but is chased by Danny, and the two have a standoff. Achillean wins, but leaves on foot when his horse is injured, escaping through the Nether on a strider. The final time the two Hunters encounter him, Achillean gives them a chance to surrender, and when Vivid, Herrera, and the other seven soldiers refuse, he destroys the bunker they were guarding and begins attacking from the trees, killing all but four of them. He then attacks himself, leaving only Andy and Danny left to fight. As they engage him together, they quickly realize that he is far too skilled, and after attempting to stab him fatally, Andy loses his sword and is beaten unconscious by the latter’s **Destructive Sprint** technique. Angered, Danny chases him into the Nether, where the two have a final duel. Using several tricks to gain an advantage, Achillean fails to hold Herrera down for long enough, and uses a potion of Regeneration to gain an advantage, but in doing so increases his connection to his surroundings and to himself, allowing him to temporarily increase his skill exponentially, allowing him to overwhelm and defeat the Hunter. As he did however, Danny begga Achillean to kill him, and he decods that Herrera was always trying to die, sympathizing and offering to take him in. Later at the Valley, Mara reluctantly lets the two of them in, and they spend the next week recovering while they dealt with the Hunters. Learning of Andy’s questionable connection to the Hunters, Achillean makes a plan to recruit him as well. Fully recovered, the three of them set out to target the factions with ties to the Hunters, prompting them to seek out assistance. One day, when Danny comes out of the hotel to witness an intense sparring match between Achillean and Mara over his stay, in which both of them break each other’s blades and decide not to continue. Not a moment later, they receive word of an alliance formed by Raegan with the River Runners, House of Thieves, and Eastworks. Achillean and Danny then infiltrate the Eastworks fortress and located the Stronghd underneath it, aiming to enter the End. Danny then meets the leader, Korva Strong to remain undercover while Achillean finds the portal room, where he faces five of the Hunter’s strongest, including Vivid. Despite being outnumbered, he swiftly cuts through four of them and disarms Andy, then once again offered to help him, this time to find his captured family. He then enters the End, where the forces in Eastworks followed. As he prepares to fight them, Andy arrives and took out the end crystals healing the dragon, allowing Achillean a chance to kill it. He manages to do so, and Vivid resurrects it just as they fall through the portal, temporarily trapping the army. After the three of them meet up, they continue their plan. Achillean then goes through the Nether and proceeds to run directly through enemy lines by himself, shocking Raegan. With almost the entire alliance chasing him, he buys Danny enough time to travel between the factions via the same dimension and rig them all with explosives.

## Characters

Achillean Kyber

Andy Vivid

Danny Herrera

Mara Moran

Miles Kyber

Reagan Teech

Lucan

Sam Vivid

Andy's father

Nico Spruce

Ron Spruce