Return of the Runebound Professor

“Well,” Noah said, taking a long pause before speaking again. “I just got better.”

“What?” Emily glared at him, scrunching her nose in annoyance. “That’s not an answer! She did give you something, didn’t she? Did you break a Torrin rule, Moxie?”

“Time does a lot too. I was out for three weeks after all. Moxie did help a lot, though.”

“How? I want to know!”

I think she cares a whole lot less about following her family rules than hearing a cool story about how Moxie saved my ass.

“When you’re older,” Moxie said with all the experience of either a teacher or an older sister – and maybe something in between the two. “What matters is that he’s no longer hogging my bed.”

Emily’s eyes widened. “He was sleeping here?”

“Where else did you think he’d be?” Todd asked, shifting to look at Emily with a frown.

“I thought she put him back at night! You can’t have a man over in your room,” Emily stammered. “That’s family rules! I–”

“Not by that much!”

“I can have a man in my room,” Isabel said, waggling her eyebrows in Emily’s direction. “Maybe families are a little overrated.”

“You only say that because you’ve only seen the Linwicks, and they probably tried to kill Magus Vermil,” Emily said, crossing her arms. “Next time you should visit my family. They’re way better.”

Noah caught the flicker of emotion that passed through Moxie’s eyes, but she banished it before anyone else could see. Moxie sent him a warning glance, but Noah didn’t need it. It wasn’t his place to tell Emily the truth about the situation that Moxie was in. Moxie would tell her when she was ready.

“Maybe enough about me,” Noah said gently. “I’ve been worried about all of you as well, you know. We can talk more about me later. I haven’t been able to do much from my bed other than think, and I want to know how the practice for the survival exam is going.”

Isabel’s stomach rumbled. Loudly. All of them paused and turned to look at her, and Isabel’s cheeks and ears lit up a bright red. She looked like a Christmas ornament.

“I’m sorry. I haven’t eaten recently.”

“That’s because Lee can’t cook to save her life,” Todd said with a snicker.

“What? My food is perfectly fine!” Lee exclaimed. “What’s wrong with it?”

“I’m with them. I saw you chewing on a tree branch yesterday,” Emily said.

“Have you ever tried one?”

“Of course I haven’t.”

“Then you don’t know if it tastes good,” Lee proclaimed. “Investigation is the essence of learning.”

She paused, then glanced at Noah. “How was that? It sounded very inspirational in my head.”

“Considerably more inspirational before you asked me how inspirational it was,” Noah said with a roll of his eyes. “I’ll be honest, I’m getting a little hungry myself. Moxie, is there somewhere good to get food on campus?”

Moxie nodded. “I’ll pay for everyone today. I think you’ve all earned it. There’s a nice restaurant near the center of campus called Randiddlen’s. The name is stupid, but they’ve got some pretty good food. I went there when I reached Rank 3. I think you’ll all like it.”

***

“Whoa,” Todd breathed, trying and failing to not look like a fish out of water as he craned his neck. Noah felt like he was in the exact same boat.

When Moxie had mentioned a restaurant, he’d been expecting a small place with a little patio and a few tables set up outside it. Instead, what they’d arrived at was a towering, four story building.

A waiter in an uncomfortably expensive suit greeted them, taking a moment to verify Moxie’s identity before allowing them inside and leading them over to a white table at the corner of an enormous, gold tiled floor.

Huge chandeliers hung from the ceiling, their diamondlike glass scattering the light within them and making it dance across the floor. Silent chatter rose from the other tables covering the floor.

It was beautiful, and Noah had never felt more out of place. Isabel and Todd looked equally uncomfortable, but Emily had sat down without a care in the world and was eagerly flipping through a paper menu.

She tapped something on it and a dull light flickered on above the menu, taking the shape of a large bowl full of an admittedly delicious looking stew packed high with meat, vegetables, and what looked to be two pieces of cheesy bread.

They imbued the damn menus?

Noah flipped through his own menu. Each item on it had a small circle on the paper beside it. He touched one at random, pulling up a faint image of a steak. Noah tapped another circle and the steak vanished, replaced by another cut of meat that didn’t resemble anything he’d ever eaten before.

It was roughly cube shaped and covered with an incredibly concerning bright pink sauce. He quickly tapped away from it.

“You look like a kid with a new toy,” Moxie said, her tone barely hiding the amusement behind her words. “Try not to look too impressed.”

“It’s so convenient,” Noah said. “Haven’t you ever ordered something and found out it looked nothing like what you wanted? This is incredible. Whoever invented this is a genius.”

Todd and Isabel were equally engrossed in the menus, but had managed to restrain themselves a little more than Noah had. Emily lowered her menu slightly, catching Noah’s eye over the top of it.

Then, when Moxie wasn’t watching, she quickly cycled through several dishes and sent him a knowing look before raising the paper once more. Noah nearly burst into laughter but managed to contain himself. He didn’t want to get them kicked out.

At least Lee isn’t –

Lee raised the menu to her mouth. Noah snagged it from her hands and set it back on the table, sending her a glare.

“I wanted to test if the Imbuement had taste as well,” Lee protested.

“An experiment that can be saved for later,” Noah suggested. “Maybe we should get back to the original topic?”

“Menus?” Isabel asked.

“No. The survival training.”

“Oh, right,” Todd said. He exchanged a look with Isabel and Emily. “Well… we trained.”

“Trained what?” Noah pressed, setting his menu down. “You can’t be that intentionally vague and expect me not to ask more. What did you do?”

“Killed things. A lot of things,” Emily said with a huge grin. “It was amazing. I got so much energy in my Runes.”

“Lee!” Moxie hissed. “I thought you said you were going to do real survival training! It’s not safe to just go hunting a bunch of monsters, especially with the Hellreaver dead.”

“This was real training,” Lee replied with a confused look. “And I was there. I’m way faster than Vermil is. Nothing to worry about.”

Moxie opened her mouth, then let it close. “Where did you go to train?”

“I put a lot of thought into where to go,” Lee said, leaning back in her chair. She sent a glance down at her menu, then pulled her eyes away. “There were a lot of places that could have been good. There were still Slashers and the like in the Scorched Acres, but I think Todd and Isabel had enough practice against them already, so it would have been wasted. So I looked through a bunch of other places with Tim and we settled on the best one.”

Moxie gestured for Lee to continue.

“The Windscorned Plateaus,” Lee proclaimed.

There? Why?

“Why there?” Moxie asked, mirroring Noah’s thoughts exactly.

“Because the Flower Sappers looked really tasty looking,” Lee said with a knowing grin. She tapped her finger on the table, as if that perfectly explained everything. “Survival means getting the most important things for survival.”

Very eloquent.

“Food and power,” Isabel explained. “That’s what you need to survive.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s food, water, and shelter,” Noah said.

“Killing monsters gives two of those things already,” Lee said. “But food is good for feeling good. And you can’t fight well if you don’t feel good. And who needs shelter?”

“What if it rains?” Moxie asked.

Lee stared at her. “Then it rains? It happens. Just pretend you aren’t wet.”

Oh boy. I think I can see exactly how their training went.

“What exactly did all of you do?” Noah asked carefully, trying to keep a grin from forming on his face.

“Killed a whole lot of Flower Sappers,” Isabel said.

“Then Isabel made us stone tents and we camped out,” Todd added. “It was fun. A nice change of pace. The flowers are poisonous, by the way. In case you were wondering.”

“I tested them,” Lee proclaimed. “To make sure they wouldn’t get poisoned.”

“Right,” Noah said. He picked his menu back up and skimmed over it. “That’s good. Did you happen to train any other survival skills?”

“Lee pretended to be a monster and chased us around for a bit,” Emily said. “At random hours of the night, so we were ready to fight wherever and whenever.”

Isabel and Todd both stared at her.

“What?” Todd asked.

Emily frowned. “Why do you look so confused? She said she did it to each of us individually so we’d be ready in case we got separated.”

Lee quickly picked up her menu and buried her nose in it. “What are you going to order, Vermil? Moxie’s paying, right?”

Emily glowered at Lee while Isabel and Todd both struggled to contain their snickers. Moxie just shook her head and let out an amused snort.

“You’re all idiots,” Moxie decided. “But it sounds like it was effective, at least.”

And probably really good for keeping their mind off things. Especially if Isabel and Todd were worried about me. I’m starting to think Lee might be a genius at this kind of thing.

With that, they all fell silent for a few moments as they scanned through the menus. Noah tapped on a few more options to check out what they were, but that first steak he’d seen still had his attention.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a good steak. His dinners on earth had consisted of instant noodles, frozen vegetables, and stale bread from the half-price store. Then, after his death, there just hadn’t been much draw in food.

At least, he hadn’t thought there was. The steak was staring him straight in the eye and calling his name. There wasn’t a price on the menu, which made his instincts scream that it was time to stand up and leave the restaurant, but Moxie had said she’d pay. Since he didn’t know how much anything cost…

It’s now or never. I’m getting the steak.

The others soon came to their own decisions as well, lowering the menus. Eventually, they’d all set them down. Lee continued to stare down the bridge of her nose at the menu as if threatening it to form another image, but it was wise enough to keep itself inert.

The silence was broken by Emily.

“Training with Lee was really fun, but are you going to train us now that Vermil isn’t in your bed anymore?” Emily asked hopefully.

And, of course, it was at that exact moment that the waiter decided to walk up to their table.

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