Return of the Runebound Professor

Noah stared at Brayden. There wasn’t a single speck of the former amusement in the man’s voice. He was deadly serious, but it didn’t sound like he was making a threat either. It was more like a statement of fact and surprise, as if Vermil logically should have known and agreed that he was in the wrong for still being alive.

Gears whirred in Noah’s mind as he tried to figure out what was going on. Brayden seemed to think that he was putting on some sort of act with the amnesia. That could work in his favor – but it didn’t answer any of the questions it brought up. Above the dozens that churned, one rose above all.

Just who was Vermil?

“You going to say anything? I’m here to help, you know,” Brayden crossed his arms. He glanced at the grimoire on Noah’s desk and walked past him, picking it up and leafing through it before Noah could raise a hand.

“I’ve been working.”

“Evidently. But doing the wrong thing. Father wants to know what the delay is, Vermil. We’ve got a schedule to keep. Everything was lined up, you know. You were so confident everything would work, so he said that we could trust you. Are you really letting him down?”

“I’m afraid I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about. I have important things to do, you know.” Noah waggled his eyebrows in the direction of the door.

I have no idea what we’re talking about, but speaking in vague, bullshit phrases that sound creepy will probably line up with Vermil, at least for a little.

Brayden groaned. He snapped the book shut and set it back down on the desk. “Hells, man. Please, enough of that. I don’t care how dedicated you are to the cause. It’s creepy. Why can’t you trust me? The Shield is good.”

Noah crossed his arms. Brayden massaged his forehead.

“I need answers, Vermil. There’s nobody watching us. We’re safe.”

Silence was all that greeted Brayden. Noah simply raised an eyebrow and walked past Brayden, plucking the book from the desk and sliding it into his holster. The less the man got to look at it, the better.

“Fine,” Brayden snapped. “If you’re so convinced that Arbitage is dangerous, I won’t make you talk. How about I talk, and you just listen? That way you can have plausible deniability.”

“I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Sure, sure,” Brayden said, waving a hand. He opened his mouth, then grimaced. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to ask you any questions if you won’t answer them. That’s kind of the whole point of this, you know.”

“That doesn’t seem like my problem.”

“It will be,” Brayden growled. “Damn it. Okay, fine. Can you at least tell me if everything is going correctly? I need something. Father really splurged to make sure you were the one chosen for this, Vermil. All those damn runes you needed.”

When in doubt, tell people what they want to hear.

“Everything is going well for me,” Noah said.

The tension drained out of Brayden’s shoulders and he let out a relieved sigh. “Good. I was worried that something may had happened when I heard you were still alive. I mean, the Hellreaver getting killed made sense – that’s why I came back, after all. But when I heard you were still strolling around and were actually one of the suspects for killing it, I damn near blew my cover.”

“Right,” Noah said with a knowing nod, despite knowing absolutely nothing at all. Brayden opened his mouth to ask something else when a dull thud echoed from Noah’s door. He’d never been more thankful to hear someone knocking.

Brayden’s eyes narrowed. “Who’s that?”

“Could be a lot of people. We should probably.…” Noah gestured vaguely to the purple Shield covering his room. Brayden grimaced and nodded. He flicked his fingers and the Shield peeled away, shooting back into his body and fading from view.

Brayden shifted to the side knocking into Noah’s chair to make room for him to step by. Noah walked over to the door.

“Who is it?” Noah asked, more to put on airs for Brayden than to actually find out.

And if it is someone that actually knows what I did, I need to be ready.

“Who do you think, idiot?” Moxie’s voice came from the other side of the door. “Let me in. This isn’t the time to screw around.”

Brayden’s eyes widened and he mouthed her words to himself, a frown crossing his features.

“I literally just said that,” Brayden muttered under his breath. “Who’s at the door, Vermil?”

Noah ignored him and pulled the door open. Moxie stepped past him immediately, then froze as she locked eyes with Brayden. The large man shifted instantly, his gaze going cold and a purple blade forming in his hand.

Moxie dropped into a fighting stance and vines whipped out around her feet as a green shimmer from her Shield covered her.

“Whoa!” Noah exclaimed, stepping in between them. “What’s going on?”

“He was about to attack me,” Moxie said.

“She’s a Torrin,” Brayden said flatly. “What the hell is a Torrin doing at your room? She’s clearly trying to interfere.”

“Interfere with what?” Moxie questioned, tilting her head to the side. “Are you trying to do something? Why shouldn’t I know?”

Brayden ground his teeth together. Even if he could have passed his previous words off as unimportant before, that opportunity was now gone.

I can see why you weren’t chosen to do whatever it is that Vermil was supposed to. You would have blown your cover in a solid five minutes.

“How about we all calm down,” Noah suggested. “Brayden was just leaving. He wanted to visit to talk about things at home, but we got the big stuff out of the way.”

The purple blade faded away and Brayden lowered his hands, giving a curt nod to Moxie. “Quite. I have to get going. Only so long I’ve got for a familial visit. They brought me here as one of the investigators to see what happened to the Hellreaver, after all. We’ll be in touch soon.”

Brayden lumbered forward, pushing past Moxie and ducking out the door. He turned down the hallway, the heavy thuds of his steps fading into the distance. Moxie and Noah watched him leave silently.

Slowly, Moxie turned back to Noah and arched an eyebrow. “What did you get yourself wrapped up in?”

Noah scowled. “More than I should have. A lot more.”

With a shake of her head, Moxie closed the door and commandeered Noah’s chair. “Lee found me and said I needed to get back. I haven’t been outside aside from going to class today – what happened, and why is someone researching what happened to the Hellreaver Ape?”

Noah cleared his throat. It was time to decide exactly how much he trusted Moxie. This wasn’t his biggest secret, but if it got out anywhere, it could be disastrous. Over the past days, Moxie had helped him more than she had any reason to.

She’d extended the olive branch, even though Noah hadn’t actually confirmed that Vermil was truly dead. He studied her for a few moments, then let out a slow sigh. It wasn’t just about him. He needed something more to ground him. The previous day’s events had already shown that, and he had to start somewhere.

"Would you be willing to swear a Rune Oath?"

Moxie's eyes narrowed. "About what? That’s a very big ask, especially from someone who might get killed soon."

"If I told you, that would be defeating the purpose. Trust me, this is something you want to know."

Moxie crossed her arms. "Tell me the terms, if not the content."

Noah considered her offer for a few moments. "Swear under the Rune Oath that you will honestly tell me if you plan to report anything I say to anyone."

Moxie ran through the words in her head, then slowly nodded. She pressed her lips together and drew in a sharp breath. "Fine. On my Runes, I swear that I will honestly tell you if I plan to report anything about or related to something you tell me during the next five minutes. Is that sufficient?"

"Yes."

Moxie exhaled. "There. Now tell me what you're hiding."

“The Hellreaver Ape died yesterday.”

Moxie’s eyes widened. “Oh, shit. There was an attack on Arbitage? That’s really bad. There hasn’t been a war between the Bastions in years. Or was it an outside force? And how did you get involved? Did you see something happen?”

“See? Something like that,” Noah said with a frown. His gaze wandered over to the table, where the three Catchpapers bearing Lesser Wind Runes laid. Beside them was the burnt out paper that had once held the Greater Wind Rune that he’d learned.

Moxie followed his eyes. She stood and walked over to them, then shook her head. “I did say you’d probably get a lot of Lesser Wind Runes, but what were you even doing in the Scorched Acres? I mean, you must have been there if you’re a suspect. There aren’t any Wind Runes there. Why did–”

Her voice trailed off as she spotted the burnt paper. Moxie tilted her head to the side and Noah reddened.

“You found a Greater Rune?”

“Yeah.”

“Learned it? Well, I suppose I can’t blame you. I would have done the same. But I still don’t see how that has anything to do with the Scorched Acres,” Moxie said, picking the paper up and thumbing at the burnt lines running along it. “And I don’t see the other Catchpapers here. I wasn’t going to let you have them for free if you didn’t get me a Greater Rune, you know.”

“Yeah, I was still looking for one.” Noah scratched the back of his head.

“In the Scorched Acres?” Moxie’s eyes narrowed. “Wait. No, you were looking for a different Rune there. That’s how you got caught up in this?”

“That’s not inaccurate.”

“Why lie? But what Rune could you have even wanted in the Scorched Acres? None of the monkeys have any recorded runes worth taking other than…”

Moxie trailed off, her eyes widening in disbelief. She slowly set the papers down and turned to look back at Noah. “You tried to kill the Hellreaver?”

“I didn’t exactly think things through,” Noah admitted. “It wasn’t my smartest move. Not by a very wide margin.”

“No shit.” Moxie scoffed. “You really are insane. A Rank 1 trying to defeat a monster using a Master Rune is laughable. You’re lucky that someone attacked when they did, Vermil. Them killing the Hellreaver before you got to it probably saved your life. I–”

“Moxie.” Noah cut Moxie off.

“What?”

Noah stepped past Moxie and peered out the keyhole of the door to see if anyone was standing outside. He couldn’t see anyone, but that didn’t set his nerves any less on ease. Noah straightened back up and stepped close to Moxie, leaning in to whisper as quietly as he could into her ear.

“I killed the Hellreaver.”

Moxie choked. “What?”

Noah stepped back. “You heard me.”

She stared at him in disbelief. “You can’t be serious. How?”

“Sheer dumb perseverance and a little bit of cheating.”

Moxie rubbed her forehead. “I – wow. Okay. I did not expect that. Arbitage is going to be looking for whoever did that, but the Hellreaver was provided to the school by the Linwick family. They’re one of the school’s biggest sponsors. That guy in your room was one of the investigators. Does he know?”

“Nope.”

A quick, nervous laugh slipped out of Moxie’s lips. “That’s terrifyingly hilarious. You can’t tell anyone else. You know that, right? And don’t worry about people listening in. Lee is making sure we’re alone.”

Noah let out a relieved sigh. “Yeah. I know.”

“You need to make absolutely sure you stay on the investigator’s good side, then,” Moxie warned. “It looked like he was friendly with you and didn’t suspect anything. If that’s the case, this might blow over. Did you leave anything identifiable behind? Nobody is going to believe a Rank 1 took out the Hellreaver without help.”

“The running theory seems to be that a group worked together,” Noah said, pursing his lips.

Moxie raised an eyebrow. “Did a group work together?”

Considering Lee helped me, the answer is technically yes.

“I won’t say a group didn’t,” Noah hedged.

Moxie’s nose scrunched in annoyance, but she nodded her understanding. “Good. The less anyone knows, the better. I won’t even ask why you did something like this. The look on your face tells me you’re wondering the same thing yourself.”

If only the Hellreaver was the only thing I was confused about. What in the world is up with my family and Vermil? I need to figure out what was supposed to be going on over there before someone other than Moxie catches onto me.

“I have. That pretty much sums up everything I can share at the moment. Complete the Oath."

Moxie shook her head. "I won't be sharing anything you just said, nor do I have plans to try to get you in a difficult situation. I'd like to think I'm better than that, and you aren't the person I knew."

She put more emphasis on the last sentence than she needed to. Noah just nodded.

"Thank you.”

“No problem,” Moxie replied. She turned back to the table and plucked the three Lesser Rune bearing Catchpapers from it. Turning back to Noah, she pulled out a fresh piece of Catchpaper.

“For me to go hunt for another Greater Rune?” Noah guessed.

“No. You’re going to Imbue this. You might get killed or taken away during this whole debacle with the Hellreaver. Then where will I be? I need my Rune. And I’m taking the Lesser Runes as payment for giving you the Catchpaper. I’ll split the profit I make from selling them with you if you survive this.”

“That’s fair enough,” Noah admitted. “But I – uh…”

“Don’t know how to Imbue,” Moxie said dryly. “Figures. Imbuing a Rune isn’t too difficult if you aren’t trying to actually make it do something. It’s much easier with Catchpaper, as it naturally absorbs Rune energy. Just call on the Rune and let its form appear at your hand. Then press it into whatever you’re Imbuing and imagine cutting some of the Rune’s energy away, using it to tie it to the surface. Don’t use too little, or you risk wasting the energy and doing nothing.”

“I do remember you mentioning that at one point.”

Noah took the paper from Moxie and held it out before him. He’d been so obsessed with killing the Hellreaver to stop the visions that he hadn’t fulfilled his promise to her, and Moxie had a very good point. Things could go south very quickly now, and then she’d be left with less than what she started with.

He gathered energy from his Greater Wind Rune and let it manifest in his hand. The flowing lines shimmered through the air between his fingertips, and Noah pressed it onto the Catchpaper.

It was easier to think about separating energy away from the Rune than it was to actually do it. The Rune didn’t want to let go of its power. It was like trying to scoop water with a slotted spoon.

But, eventually, Noah managed to catch a portion of it. Pressing his lips together, he willed the energy away from his Rune, severing it. He instantly felt the well of overall capacity in the Rune reduce, draining away in to the Imbuement.

The paper sizzled as a Greater Wind Rune burned itself in, a perfect replica of the one in his mind. Moxie plucked the paper from Noah’s hands and studied it before giving him an approving nod.

“You used more energy than you needed to, but that’s no loss for me. And get that look off your face, the Rune isn’t permanently weakened. You just need to kill a few monsters to fill it back up.”

“Glad to be of help,” Noah said, shaking his head. “Now that I’ve done that, I’m afraid I still need your help – urgently. Do you have that book on the Linwicks?” Noah asked. “I’m starting to think I might be wrapped up in a little more than I initially thought.”