Return of the Runebound Professor

Noah got a grand total of ten minutes to himself before his tremorsense picked up movement in the camp. He raised his head from Dayton’s grimoire, rolling it back up as he turned.

Todd ducked out of his tent, then froze when he saw Noah staring straight at him. Noah raised an eyebrow and Todd sighed, walking over and turning a palm up. His bracelet sparked and a small ball of fire flickered to life above his palm.

“Does anyone in this camp actually use the night to sleep?” Noah asked.

A smile flickered across Todd’s face. “I guess not. I thought I’d be able to slip past you like the others.”

“I just took watch. Blame Moxie for that, not me. If you’re here though, you might as well sit. I don’t think you’ve got any plans of sleeping anytime soon.”

Todd sat down next to Noah, keeping his ball of flame close for warmth. For some reason, he wasn’t using his Body Imbuements to heat himself. “Can you blame us? Any time we aren’t practicing is time that we’re losing.”

“I’m not sure I’d look at it exactly like that. You need rest to properly function.”

“I’m pretty sure you’ve told us that exact thing in slightly different words.”

Noah grunted. “Not everything you’ve heard me say, especially a lot of what I said at first, is entirely accurate. I’m not a genius, Todd. I’m far from it. My worldviews are just as fallible as everyone else’s. Always use your own head, even for instructions that I give you.”

“So you mean all that talk about death not mattering wasn’t actually something I should have listened to?” Todd raised an eyebrow, then laughed as Noah grimaced.

“I wasn’t in the best state of mind. I can confirm that if I were you, I would very much do everything I could to avoid dying.”

“I didn’t have any plans of just letting myself die.” Todd rubbed the side of his neck, then let out a sigh. “Didn’t think I could. I mean, sure, it’s a possibility while training – especially in the way we were doing it – but you were so confident. Isabel was too. So was I, really. Never really considered I might actually die.”

Noah looked over to Todd. “Inquisitor changed your mind?”

“Not changed my mind so much as reminded me,” Todd replied. “Woke me up. It didn’t change Isabel, though. That’s the difference between me and her, you know? She already accepted that we might get killed. She’s always been training as if that’s the case.”

Noah tilted his head but remained silent. Todd clearly just needed to get the words off his chest, and it wasn’t time for Noah to put in his own thoughts yet.

“I was going to try to focus in more, but…” Todd shook his head and shrugged. The motion made him wince as he aggravated his injured neck, but he quickly shook it off. “I’m just falling farther and farther behind. I’m holding Isabel back.”

Noah pulled his bag open and slipped Dayton’s scroll into it. He shifted his position to be able to look at Todd better.

“Doesn’t seem that way to me. You were pretty damn useful in the fight against the lightning gorilla. Emily wouldn’t have been able to charge her Rune up enough to do any real damage to it if you hadn’t helped.”

Todd pursed his lips. “Yeah, I guess. But… I don’t know. That just wasn’t really – it didn’t feel impactful. Sure, I ran around with her. But she could have replaced that with a bunch of other things. Back in the Linwick Estate, I was able to spar with you and I was actually doing about as well as Isabel. But, now, I bet I’ve regressed so far that she’s completely eclipsed me.”

“Because of your neck?”

Todd nodded. “I can’t move as fast as I used to. Every time I make a sharp change in stance, I feel it. It’s not something you can ignore either. It’s like a spasm that runs down my entire body. How am I supposed to keep up with Isabel if I can’t even dodge an attack?”

Noah didn’t reply for several moments. If he had a good answer for Todd, then he would have said it already. The one thing he refused to do was offer up pointless condolences or assurances. They’d do absolutely nothing but provide false hope that would only break Todd’s spirit even further if he couldn’t pull through.

If I’d been stronger, then this wouldn’t have happened. This is about Todd, though. Not me. Apologizing to him doesn’t help him. It just makes things about me.

“I don’t know,” Noah admitted. “Moxie and I are looking into solutions. There’s a way to fix it, but it’s expensive. We will get it, but I don’t know when.”

“And the longer it takes, the farther I’ll fall behind.” Todd’s words weren’t angry, though there was an understandable note of bitterness to them. “Even if we do get it fixed, Isabel might be so far ahead of me that it won’t even matter. I’d just be holding her back.”

Noah drummed his fingers on his knee. “You’re more to Isabel than just someone that can help her fight, you know.”

“What, is this love advice?” Todd snorted. “I don’t need that from you, Prof. I know that. But if I can’t help Isabel and I can’t even help myself, then what am I supposed to do?”

What would I do if I were in his position?

The first answer that comes to mind is kill myself to reset my body. Right. I think my views might be a bit too warped for this. Come on. There’s got to be something else that I know how to do other than throw myself against a problem until it fixes itself.

A minute passed. Noah’s eye twitched.

Nope. That’s pretty much it.

“Well,” Noah finally said, breaking the silence and running a hand through his hair. “Shit. I was really hoping I could find something deep or insightful that could turn things around for you, but it turns out I’m useless. All I can do is repeatedly do things over and over again until they work out.”

Todd chuckled. “Yeah, I gathered that much. At least you aren’t trying to bullshit me. Isabel was insistent that you’d figure a way out to solve everything magically, but that’s not how life works.”

“Me?” Noah blinked.

“I think you remind her of her dad,” Todd said. “You can’t ever let on that I told you that, though. She hasn’t believed in anyone in years. Didn’t have a reason to, until…”

Todd trailed off, then shrugged. “Just don’t let her down.”

They were silent for several more moments.

“And what about you?” Noah asked, trying to keep his face flat. “Even if we don’t know exactly how to fix the solution, if you’ve determined that what we’re doing right now isn’t working, what do you need to change?”

“Isn’t that something you’re supposed to be telling me?”

“The only one that knows you perfectly is you. No two people are the same,” Noah replied. He shifted his position, stretching his arms out behind him. “If there’s a problem with our current approach, then we need to change things.”

“How?” Todd asked. “You can’t fight without moving around. It’s not something that you can just ignore. Dodging was basically the first thing you taught us. If I can’t do that, then I’m just a liability. Emily has better ranged attacks than I do and Isabel is more versatile, not to mention how hard she is to take down.”

“Then it sounds like you haven’t figured out your niche,” Noah said. “Being a well rounded fighter is important, but in a team, everyone fills in their own role. You’re in this for the long haul with Isabel, right?”

“Of course.”

“Then you need to figure out exactly what your role is.”

“I was the ranged one before–”

“Forget the past.” Noah crossed his arms in front of his chest and shook his head. “You’ve already established that you can’t keep going as you did. If that door is closed, then you need to open another one.”

Todd’s brow furrowed, but he didn’t respond immediately. He mulled over Noah’s words for a minute, then gave him a small nod.

“That might be a good point. I don’t know what else I’d do, though.”

“If it was easy, you’d have done it already. Figuring out there’s a problem is half the battle, though. I’ll try to think on it as well. We’ve got a lot of time left to train before the survival exam.”

“Right,” Todd said, his features setting. “Yeah. You’re right. There’s got to be another way I’m just not considering. I’ll work until I figure out what it is.”

“Well, maybe get a little sleep first,” Noah suggested. “You need your wits about you if you’re going to be trying to figure out a new fighting style.”

Todd grimaced and gave Noah a small nod. He pushed himself back to his feet and wiped the dirt off the back of his pants. “Can’t argue with that, I guess. Thanks, Teacherman.”

“No problem,” Noah replied. “I don’t think I’ve really done all that much yet, but I’m glad it was helpful.”

Todd turned back toward his tent when a thought struck Noah and he cleared his throat. Todd glanced back at him, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah?”

“I’ve actually got an off topic question. You know a lot more about Imbuements than you’ve let on, right?”

Todd’s stance shifted and he gave a slight shrug. “I know some about them, yeah. Why?”

“Have you ever heard of something called a Formation?” Noah kept his voice low just in case Revin was still standing around close enough to listen in to them. He didn’t know just how good the strange man’s stealth abilities were, but he didn’t want to press his luck. “I was thinking it might be similar to Imbuements.”

Todd blinked, then smirked. “Yeah, I know about them. Are you trying to get into architecture or something?”

“Elaborate.”

“Formations are really complicated ways to string Runes together,” Todd said, rubbing the side of his neck and laughing. “They’re occasionally used for really, really complicated Imbuements. An individual Imbuement can only do so much, right? So a Formation is basically a circle that connects a bunch of Runes or Imbuements together, controlling them for a specific task.”

“That seems pretty damn useful. Why did you laugh?”

“Because they’re way more effort than they’re worth. Almost nobody uses them anymore. You need to spend a ton of work making a Formation – every single one is different – and it only works for a specific purpose. And, even if you manage to get a good formation, they take a while to activate. On top of all that, the moment you go up a Rank, the Formation becomes useless.”

Noah scrunched his nose. “I see. But they allow you to actually use multiple Runes at once?”

“Yeah, and you can give more specific instructions. Some of the really high level Imbuers use them,” Todd admitted. “That’s how you get the really powerful artifacts with intelligence. But at our level, it’s just a massive time sink. My dad never got around to learning Formations beyond a cursory glance and he was one of the best Imbuers in the kingdom. Thus, most of the usage for Formations is just copying the steps to make a generic house. Saves a lot of time. I know they’ve got some uses in combat applications, but I really don’t know those.”

“That makes a lot of sense,” Noah said with a nod. “Thank you. That gives me a lot to think about.”

Todd gave him a slight nod, then headed back into his tent. Noah tapped his finger on his knee, then turned back to face away from camp.

Revin didn’t strike me as the type of guy to enjoy architecture. He definitely looked like a battle junkie. So why would he be messing with Formations if that’s all they can do? I’ll have to ask Moxie tomorrow to get more information.

Luckily, there isn’t a library anywhere near us. I don’t even have to think up an excuse as to why I’m not visiting it. If Moxie can’t help me figure it out, though, I suppose I’ll actually have to swing by and do some reading.

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