Return of the Runebound Professor

Just about ten minutes later, the deed was done. It took Lee and Noah a few minutes to decide on which of the Runes they actually wanted to transfer over. Part of Noah wanted to try to take the strongest Rank 4 Rune he could find, but he didn’t actually know how Sundering such a powerful Rune would work.

There was a possibility the Rune would split into all its Rank 1 components, but was more likely it would just split into seven Rank 3 Runes instead. If that happened, Noah wasn’t sure if he’d be able to Sunder the Runes again before they dissipated. It would have been one thing if the Rune was in his mental space – but it wasn’t. It was going to be on a piece of paper. And, unfortunately, he didn’t have a way to get the Rank 4 Rune into his mental space safely. It would probably be quite a while before he was strong enough to handle one.

As such, they ended up choosing a Rank 3 Rune that caught Noah’s eye by the name of Bleak Howling Maelstrom. He was pretty sure it wasn’t the strongest of the ones in the set, but it was the one that looked like it would be of the most use to him in the near future.

“This Rune feels... a little weak,” Lee said after she’d transported it onto Evergreen’s Catchpaper. “Not very well made. It must have a lot of Lesser Runes in it or was just poorly combined. Are you sure you want this one?”

Noah nodded. “Honestly, I already suspected it was on the weaker side. I initially thought that Rank 2 Runes have two words in their name on average, Rank 3 Runes have 3, etcetera. But now, I think that was just more coincidence than correlation. I think that powerful Runes just have fewer words in their name. It’s just really difficult to condense a Rune down into a single word when you start getting higher up in the ladder, so they end up with longer names.”

Lee gave the Runes a thoughtful look. “That’s an interesting observation. It makes sense to me. I honestly never really spent that much time researching Runes. Didn’t have the option to. I just took what I could get. I guess that means my Cursed Concealing Shadow Runes aren’t really that good.”

I could probably fix them. Is it safe to tell Lee about that, though? Even though I don’t think she’d betray me, we’re basically in enemy territory right now. It’s the worst possible time to go about doing this. But I need to make sure Lee doesn’t combine the Runes again. If this messes up her foundation, it’ll weaken her in the future.

“There are fixes for everything,” Noah said. “Don’t worry. We’ll figure something out. Are you close to reaching Rank 4?”

Lee waggled a hand in the air. “Not really. I’m on my way there, but Rank 3 Runes take a really long time to fill up when you aren’t hunting powerful monsters or meditating in an area that really, really fits the kind of energy you need. Why?”

Lee shook her head. “Not the Rank 3 ones. They’re all too flashy. They don’t fit the way I fight. Some of the Rank 4s are a little bit better, but they’re pretty much all lightning or wind based. I can’t use them yet anyway, though.”

Noah rolled both Dayton’s grimoire and Evergreen’s scrolls back up. The green Catchpaper was luckily small enough that he could slide the roll into his bag, but Dayton’s grimoire was still much too large. He settled for just propping the roll up against his bed.

“That’s unfortunate. A lot of these are going to be great for Moxie, though. I wonder if she’s got all seven of her Rune slots filled.”

Lee glanced at Noah out of the corners of her eyes. “The ones in Evergreen’s scroll?”

“Yeah.”

“The same Evergreen that’s part of the Torrin family? That Moxie is part of?”

Noah pursed his lips. “I don’t think Moxie would tell her.”

“She might not have a choice,” Lee pointed out.

“Then we’ll just pull the Runes off before handing them to her,” Noah said. “Maybe Moxie will be able to tell us how to hide the fact that they’re from Evergreen. That’ll be good to know for Todd, since he still… you know.”

Still technically has an illicit Rune.

Lee yawned. “Too much work today. Are you going to try the drink Father sent you? I want to taste it.”

“No,” Noah replied with a shake of his head. “I don’t know what it is yet. No reason to take risks. You can try some after I’ve tested it myself.”

“Bah. Boring. I’m going to bed, then.”

“I’ll probably do that myself,” Noah said. “Thanks for the help.”

Lee nodded in farewell, then headed out to wander over to her room. Without any monsters to kill and stave the sleep off, Noah was feeling his bed’s call as well. He stripped out of his clothes and slipped under the covers, his mind still on his Runes, even as he fell asleep.

***

The following morning, Noah was pleasantly surprised to find that he was woken by rays of sun breaking through his large window rather than someone knocking on the door or any other form of problematic occurrence.

I honestly thought something would have happened because of the grimoire. Well, I’m certainly not complaining.

Noah headed out to meet Lee and his students. Janice had swung by that morning, dropping off a platter of breakfast sandwiches with Lee – and apparently, she’d done it over an hour before the sun had actually risen.

Luckily, she’d covered the plate with a metal bowl that must have been Imbued with a heat Rune, as everything was still warm when they all convened at the table to eat.

“This is great,” Todd said through a mouthful of food. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “We basically have a private chef. It’s been so damn long since I last got to eat like this.”

Isabel grunted. “Don’t get used to it. It’ll make it harder when we leave again – and don’t look at me like that. If you think I can cook like this, then you’re sorely mistaken.”

“Hey, I didn’t say anything about that,” Todd said with a grin. It faded and he glanced at the remains of the sandwich in his hand. “It brings back memories, though.”

“You had a personal chef before?” Lee asked while copying Brayden’s strategy of smushing several sandwiches into one mildly unsettling ball and taking a huge bite of it. “And you should try eating the sandwiches like this. Kind of like the orange. Very mushy.”

“They’re mushy because you squished them,” Isabel pointed out. She paused for a moment, conflict passing over her features before she let out a slow sigh. “And yes, Todd and I both used to have a really good chef. I still sometimes miss his cooking.”

Noah remained silent. If Isabel was actually going to talk about her past, then he wasn’t going to interrupt with any questions. It would be best to just let her –

“What happened?” Lee asked bluntly.

“We got blacklisted,” Todd said, setting the remains of his sandwich down. “Our entire families.”

“My father was a researcher,” Isabel said softly. “A soldier, technically. Todd’s dad was his Imbuer.”

“Our families are very closely allied,” Todd added with a small sigh. “Were, I guess. They were pretty small noble houses. Nothing that interesting or powerful.”

“Not until my father got his hands on a Master Rune. A really rare one that didn’t resemble anything the noble houses had seen yet.” Isabel’s words were bitter. “Then, all of a sudden, all the big noble houses were knocking at our door, demanding we hand it over. It wasn’t anyone all that high up in the Houses – Rank 3 and 4s, mostly. People that they could claim were acting on their own rather than at the whims of the House Heads. They wanted to force my dad to give it to them.”

“Something tells me your dad didn’t do that,” Noah said, giving up on his resolution to avoid saying anything.

Isabel snorted. “No. He didn’t. He hunted the Great Monster down himself. It wasn’t even one that anyone else even knew about. The monster was way out in the Wilderwoods, out of the territory of all the noble houses at the edge of the Arbalest Empire.”

“He was a badass,” Todd said, his eyes sparkling with admiration.

“He got himself killed,” Isabel snapped. “They tried to bribe him and become his friends, but he saw through that. He didn’t want to give the stupid Master Rune over. Then they tried threats, but he was convinced the Rune would pave the path to a better life for our entire house, and he ignored them too. After all, he was also a Rank 4. He thought he could defend himself until he got stronger. He was expecting a fight, but instead they poisoned him by putting something into the sheets of his bed.”

Noah’s lips pressed thin. He could see just why Isabel hated the nobles so much.

“So that’s that,” Isabel said with a shrug. “My mom ended up dying as well, since she was a Rank 3 and couldn’t resist the poison either. The nobles showed up to claim the Master Rune, but it was gone.”

“They blamed my dad for it,” Todd put in, his usual cheer gone and his eyes crestfallen. “Before anyone could even try to talk to them, they killed my parents and just about everyone in my house.”

“What happened to the Rune?” Lee asked.

Isabel shrugged. “Nobody ever found it. One of the piece of shit nobles probably stole it for themselves, then used our families as a coverup.”

“How’d the two of you survive, then?” Noah asked. “Are they still hunting you?”

“No. Not everyone got killed,” Isabel said. “The other noble houses eventually stepped in to pretend like they were keeping order. They sided with the bigger houses, of course. All of the survivors from our families were blacklisted because they claimed my dad stole what was rightfully his, and they wanted to make an example out of us. Now what’s left of our families don’t even have surnames anymore. Speaking the surname of a blacklisted family is punishable by death. The end.”

Isabel’s hands were clenched so tightly that her knuckles had gone white. Todd put a hand on her leg and nudged her gently with his shoulder. She forced out a slow breath and shook her head.

“I’m sorry. It still gets me very worked up and it shouldn’t. That was years ago. I should have gotten over it by now.”

“There’s nothing to apologize for,” Noah said. “Your anger is completely justifiable. Just don’t let it consume you. Let it drive you instead.”

Isabel gave him a weak smile. “I’ve been working on it. I just miss my dad. He was so convinced that he had to do things the proper way. He thought the other nobles had honor. If he’d just never reported finding that Rune, none of this ever would have happened. My family – Todd’s family would still be alive.”

“Sounds like he was a good man,” Noah said. He searched for words for a moment. Most of what he had to say about death was probably just about as far from comforting as it could possibly get.

What am I supposed to say? Hopefully his line wasn’t too long and he didn’t get blasted to soul-bits by a terrifying spear wielding demon? I guess Renewal did say that she was a single goddess of reincarnation rather than the only one, so he probably wasn’t even in that line.

“Dayton was one of the people who was after your dad?” Lee asked.

“Yeah. One of the most entitled ones. He kept challenging dad to fights, but because Dayton was just a Rank 3 at the time, dad never accepted. If any of the Rank 4 nobles had challenged him directly, he would have fought. But of course, they never did. They had to resort to poison.”

“Scumbags,” Noah muttered. “Scumbags and cowards.”

Isabel pushed back from the table and rose to her feet. “Let’s go train. I want to hit something.”

She quickly strode out of the dining room, heading out the door that led to the yard. Todd followed after her, shooting an apologetic glance at Noah and Lee as he passed.

“She tries to be really cool and collected, but Isabel cared a lot about her family. Cares. She still does. It’s very hard for her to keep her walls up when it comes to our parents. Try not to hold it against her.”

“We’d never do something like that,” Noah said. “Let’s go get that training in, then. I think I might have some good for you when it’s over.”

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