Return of the Runebound Professor

Noah found his sword after a few minutes of irritated searching. Without any further delay, he hopped onto it and flew off in the direction he’d come. Noah let his eyes roam over the landscape beneath him as he flew, searching to see if he could spot any more monsters.

He caught several flickers of black buried in the sand, marking Stingers beneath the dune’s surface, but the rest of the night seemed fairly empty. It looked like the majority of the monsters in the Red Barrens were ambush predators – or they were asleep.

But they can’t all be ambush predators. Something has to actually get ambushed. If literally everything just waits around and hides for something unlucky enough to walk near it, then none of them will ever get to eat.

I suppose the Rays are technically exposed when they’re flying, but they’re so hard to find that I can’t imagine they’re the basis of the whole food chain. There’s got to be something else I’m missing.

Noah’s mind remained in his thoughts as he flew, only keeping enough attention on his surroundings to make sure he didn’t get ambushed by a Ray.

But, as the wind whipped through his hair and stung his squinted eyes, a distant flicker of light caught Noah’s attention. He barely even realized he’d spotted it until after his head turned in its direction.

Noah’s brow furrowed. A dull orange glow came from between two dunes, just barely bright enough to be spotted in the night. At the speed his sword was going, Noah didn’t have a lot of time to make a decision – but he didn’t need much.

He quickly shifted his weight, turning in a sharp circle and zipping off toward the source of the light. Instead of flying straight over it, Noah descended and hopped down on a nearby dune, rolling to a stop and rising to his feet in a smooth motion.

It took him an extra few moments to relocate his sword, which had sailed past his landing position and impaled the dune in front of him all the way up to its hilt. Noah tugged the sword out and crept up the dune, moving as silently as possible as he approached the glow.

Noah activated his tremorsense as he moved, feeling to see if anything was in the area. He picked up on a blobby form on the other side of the dune, near where the glow was coming from, but it wasn’t moving enough for him to get a good understanding of what it was.

It certainly didn’t resemble any of the monsters he’d seen so far, though. Noah’s brow furrowed as he crested the dune, keeping Howling Maelstrom at the ready in case he needed to dodge quickly.

Noah suppressed a surprised breath. At the base of the dune was a massive brown tarantula. It laid on its back, its legs curled up in the air before it. The spider was at least six feet tall, even scrunched up into a little ball. Lines of molten energy ran along its body like rivers of lava, their glow dimming even as Noah watched.

A deep furrow had been carved through the center of the tarantula, and grayish ichor spilled out from its body, staining the red sand around it. Noah froze, feeling with his tremor sense, but all he could pick up was the sand shifting around the dead spider. There weren’t any traces of anything else in the area.

What the hell is that? It certainly wasn’t in the list of monsters for the area – and judging by the wound on its body, neither was whatever killed this thing. The fire looks like its part of the spider’s body, which means it had some Fire Runes in it. Probably pretty strong judging by its size as well.

Nothing I fought could have killed it. I suppose it could have been the Sandray, but that thing is supposed to be massive, and this wound is comparatively normal. That dossier isn’t accurate.

It didn’t have the panther from the Vibrant Woods in it either. It’s really looking like there are standard monsters in an area, then some others that are either undiscovered or just show up. Maybe it’s got something to do with how their Runes combine? Lee mentioned that monsters are much more physically tied to their Runes. I wonder if a Stinger could have mutated into this spider thing if it combined a specific combination of Runes.

Noah spent a few more minutes examining the monster. His eyes landed on the fangs jutting out of its mouth. They had faint lines of red chitin running through them. After a moment of thought, Noah slid down the dune.

He formed a blade of water at his fingertips, and carved the spider’s fangs off, stuffing them into a pocket.

No point wasting free materials.

Not wanting to push his luck any further, Noah hopped back onto his flying sword and shot away, leaving the dimming corpse of the tarantula in the sand behind him. It had died recently, and Noah didn’t want to be around when whatever killed it came back – not until he knew a little more about what they were dealing with, at least.

The rest of Noah’s trip back to the camp went without issue. He spotted another Ray flying in the distance and caught a glimpse of a pack of Frills, but nothing spotted him in return. Noah arrived a short while later, landing in a run on the grass a short distance from the stone tents. After collecting his sword and tucking it back into his belt, Noah walked into camp.

Several tall vines swayed in the air around the camp like seaweed beneath the ocean, swaying gently in an invisible breeze. Noah squinted up at them, and they twitched as he passed.

Moxie leaned against her stone tent, her arms crossed in front of her chest, as she watched Noah approach.

“What’s up with those?” Noah asked in a low voice, nodding back to the vines.

“Stuck some vines underground to detect if anything entered the camp perimeter. They like growing tall.” Moxie shrugged. “What did you find?”

“Mostly good. All the monsters in the area seem like they’re influenced by the Sandray, so we shouldn’t have too much trouble training against them, but I also ran into something else. There was a spider monster that wasn’t on the dossier. A bit bigger than the Stingers, but with a pretty clear Fire Rune basis of some sort. It was covered with glowing red lines.” Noah dug the fangs he’d taken from the spider out and showed them to Moxie. “Something had killed it by the time I showed up, and the wound didn’t look like it was from one of the monsters in the dossier.”

“Interesting,” Moxie said, studying the fangs closely. “I have to admit that I really haven’t spent a ton of time actually training outside of controlled environments. I’ve read about other areas. I know it’s possible for monsters to mutate and differ from the standard, especially in farther locations that are less supervised by any of the Bastions. I… don’t actually know much more about it, though. The jaguar was the first time I saw a mutated monster like that. I didn’t think they’d be this common.”

Her face reddened slightly, and Noah realized that Moxie was actually embarrassed about her lack of knowledge. The Torrins had likely trained her in fairly secluded or very controlled locations, as their focus had been to get her strong enough to defend Emily, not give her a well rounded education on monster ecosystems and evolutionary patterns. Noah suspected Moxie probably hadn’t been permitted much time to research things that interested her and were unrelated to Emily.

“It’s fine,” Noah said. “You don’t need to feel bad about it. I’ve basically been asking you every single question I had about the world. It would have been ludicrous if you could actually answer everything.”

Moxie scrunched her nose in annoyance. “Yeah. I guess. I just don’t like not knowing an answer.”

“Lee did say that the physical attributes of monsters changed with their Runes,” Noah said. “I think that might be what happened here. We can ask her in the morning. I don’t want to interrupt her rest.”

Moxie nodded in agreement. “Lee’s definitely exhausted. She put on a strong face, but I think that soul damage is taking more out of her than she wants to admit. If you can do anything to heal her, the sooner the better.”

“I’m working on it.” Noah chewed his lower lip. “But, to be honest, I’m pretty sure the only way I even get a chance to do that is if I can hit Rank 3. I could probably force my way to it very quickly if I wanted to, but it would come at a pretty big cost. If Lee isn’t in significant danger, I think it’s better to avoid drastic measures.”

“How in the world would you do that?” Moxie asked, blinking. “You hit Rank 2 pretty recently. Have you been spending every single night hunting or something?”

Noah shook his head. “Don’t forget we have a stalker. Now isn’t the place for me to be sharing my secrets, but it would be in the exact same way that I said I could help with both your and Lee’s Rune issues.”

I could just Sunder a bunch of Rank 3 Runes from Dayton’s grimoire to get full Rank 2 Runes and kludge them into a Rank 3 Rune. I’d probably only be able to get a few Rank 2 Runes out of each Rank 3, though. I’d be wasting a lot to make what would almost certainly be an imperfect Rank 3 combination, and I need to keep every single Rune I can for the future – and for helping fix Lee and Moxie’s combinations.

No, what I need to do is hit Rank 3 properly with my Natural Disaster plan. That should give me a good Rank 3 Rune without wasting anything. After that, I’ll try to form that weird healing Rune again and hopefully cure Lee’s soul damage with it.

Moxie’s eyes widened with understanding and she nodded. “Understood. What do you need, then? I assume you’ve got a plan of some sort.”

Noah grinned. He held a finger up and headed to his tent, creeping inside to avoid waking Lee up and grabbing his belongings. He walked back to Moxie and patted the travel bag. “Can we go into your stone tent? I don’t want anyone overhearing.”

Moxie nodded. “The vines will keep watch. Figuratively.”

They both ducked into the stone coverings. Noah sat down at the wall and Moxie dropped beside him. He pulled Dayton’s grimoire out of his bag and unfurled it. Moxie couldn’t sense the scroll because she was still a Rank 3, but her eyes widened as she looked over it.

“Shit,” Moxie breathed. “You have another one? I see what you meant. Do you have any idea how much this is worth?”

“I have no plans to sell it,” Noah replied. “But I do need your help. While I don’t want to waste a ton of Runes accelerating my growth, I don’t want to spend a ton of time sitting around while Lee is in pain. A few shortcuts are in order – but I need your help.”

Moxie tilted her head to the side in confusion. “Me? How?”

“I need one of these Runes moved off the Catchpaper.” Noah pointed to one of the Rank 3 Runes by the name of Coursing Black Lightning. “I can’t work with it while it’s still on the Catchpaper, but I can’t move it myself.”

Moxie blinked, then nodded. “I see. You want me to move it for you. I’m going to need something to Imbue it onto, though. I’m not a good enough Imbuer to just slap this onto a rock or something, I’ll end up losing the majority of its energy.”

Noah pulled open his own grimoire and flipped to one of the empty pages at the back. “This won’t be able to hold the Rune for long, but it should be enough for my purposes. Can you do it?”

“Yeah, I can do it. I’ll have to shift a few things around, but as long as I don’t need to hold onto it for too long, I can do it.”

Noah’s grin stretched wider. “Perfect. Shall we?”

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