Return of the Runebound Professor

They all stared at Todd. He blinked, his smile flickering. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“We haven’t seen you for three days, and you want to spar?” Emily asked. “Shouldn’t you get some rest or eat or something?”

“Forget that,” Todd said irritably. “I had food in my bags. I want to train.”

“I’m not–” Isabel started, clearly concerned for his health, but Noah raised a hand to stop her.

I know how he feels. Waiting is the worst feeling. He’s felt like he can’t do anything for a while, and watching the gap grow between him and the girls was probably agony. Todd can rest once he gets his catharsis. But… what did he do?

“It’s fine,” Noah said. “Do you guys have enough energy to spar with Todd?”

“I can do it!” Lee volunteered. She’d been getting less sleepy over the recent days, but she’d yet to return to her former strength.

“Absolutely not,” Moxie said. “I think we all know how that would go. If Todd wants practice, then it should be against another student before jumping up to us.”

“Yeah,” Isabel said, sending Todd a worried glance. “If you’re sure about this, Todd, then I’ve got enough.”

Todd grinned and nodded. They all walked to the edge of the camp. Todd and Isabel headed out a little farther, stopping several paces away from each other. Isabel rolled her shoulders and lowered into a fighting stance.

“Are you ready?”

“Actually, if you could give me a moment. It takes a bit,” Todd admitted sheepishly.

“That’s fine. Don’t push yourself.” Isabel lowered her arms, straightening. She joined the rest of them in watching Todd curiously as he drew long, deep breaths, closing his eyes in concentration.

As Todd exhaled, a fine white mist billowed from his mouth. He shifted his stance, stiffening as frost crept over his arms. Stone slithered up Todd’s legs like snakes, wrapping up his torso and forming casts around his arms.

He must have gotten an Ice Rune from Emily. The Stone is from Isabel. But… how is that going to deal with his neck?

Todd let out another puff of frozen mist from between his lips. He gave Isabel a curt nod. “Okay. It takes a while, but I’m ready. I can’t do this for long, so let’s go.”

Isabel’s armor rose up her body, encasing her within a few seconds. Her shield formed at her arm and cracks of blue light arced throughout it, glowing with bright energy. Compared to Todd, her armor looked a dozen times more effective and imposing.

“Are you sure?” Isabel asked as she drew a sword from her chest.

Todd lunged, driving one of his encased fists for Isabel’s shield. She shifted her stance, knocking the blow away. Todd stumbled and Noah winced, expecting the sharp movement to trigger his neck.

Instead, Todd spun with the blow and thrust his other hand for Isabel. The ground shifted and she dodged backward, avoiding the blow. Noah’s eyes widened as Todd bounded after her, moving so quickly that he blurred.

Isabel stomped the ground and a large stone wall erupted before her, cutting Todd’s path off. Before, Noah suspected that Todd would have tried to turn to avoid the wall, which would have likely caused his neck to flare up.

This time, Todd did neither. He reared back and drove his fist into the wall, shattering it with a loud crash. Isabel raised her shield as Todd slammed his other fist into her shield with the force of a freight train, driving her several feet back through the dirt.

“What happened? How’s he doing that?” Emily asked in disbelief. “He’s moving normally!”

Isabel had clearly gathered the same realization. She brought her sword down for Todd, starting to fight back properly. Todd twisted his body, slamming the side of an encased hand against the blade and knocking it to the side.

The weapon flickered, vanishing from Isabel’s hand. It reformed and she brought the flat of it down toward Todd’s head.

It should have been a proper finishing blow that would have marked her win in the duel.

Instead, Todd’s fist exploded. Fire and shrapnel rolled out as a massive crack split the air. Isabel stumbled back, missing Todd and flailing to keep her balance in the heavy armor. A pillar of rock shot up, catching her on the back and pushing her upright.

Smoke rose up from her shield, which had a massive dent in it. Shards of stone from Todd’s fist were embedded within it. Todd wasn’t done, though. He spun, bringing his other hand down onto her shield.

A second blast split the air. Isabel’s shield shattered and she leapt back to avoid the explosion. Isabel dismissed her sword and pulled her spear from her chest, watching Todd warily through her armor.

Flame sputtered on Todd’s now-exposed fists. Stone rose up from the ground, encasing them once again. Todd rolled his shoulders, letting out another puff of frozen air, then charged. The ground cracked beneath his feet as he bounded, launching himself at Isabel like a human missile.

Isabel stomped the ground, and several walls of rock shot out of the ground before her, all interconnected. Todd punched through the first, but he slammed into the second and staggered back, stumbling.

Where he normally would have fallen in pain, Todd instead dodged to the side as a rock cylinder shot out from Isabel’s foot, smashing through the stones and nearly catching him in the stomach. He rolled, shooting back to his feet.

“Todd, this is incredible!” Isabel exclaimed, spinning her spear and sprinting at him. She thrust the blunt end of it at him and Todd slapped it away, thrusting his fist for her armored chest. Isabel rotated out of the way and hooked her leg around his, yanking Todd off his feet.

He rolled as he hit the ground, shooting back to his feet and driving his fist into her back. Another explosion rocked the night and Isabel staggered forward, flame coiling off her armor’s back. The blast hadn’t been quite as strong as the first one, but it had been loud.

Todd lowered his stance, ducking under an overhead spear swipe, and reared back as if to throw another punch.

Then, he stumbled. Isabel dismissed her spear an instant before it struck him on the shoulder and Todd dropped to his knees, breathing heavily. His stone-encased arms thunked to the ground heavily and Todd flopped into his back, his face screwed up in agony.

“Todd!” Isabel’s armor peeled away and she dove out of it, kneeling by his side. “What happened? I thought you fixed it!”

Todd let a slew of curses out through clenched teeth, keeping his eyes shut as tight as he could. They all ran up to his side, looking down at him in worry.

“It’s fine,” Todd growled. “It’s fine. Just – get the stone off my hands.”

Isabel touched Todd’s arms and the stone melted away, sinking into the earth.

Todd remained there for another few minutes, grinding his teeth and breathing slowly. Finally, he opened his eyes and let out a pained breath. “Okay. It’s done.”

“What in the Damned Plains happened?” Emily asked. “You were doing it! I thought you’d somehow cured yourself.”

Todd let out a dark chuckle. “Cure? No. I just found a way to fight through it. Chews through my energy at an insane rate, though. I’ve drained every single one of my Runes.”

“Already? Doing what?” Isabel asked, her eyes wide. “We only fought for a few seconds!”

“But it’s a start, isn’t it?” Todd grinned. “I had you on the backfoot. I can keep up again.”

“What exactly did you do?” Noah asked, his brow furrowed. “I didn’t think you could just ignore your neck. Did you find a way to press through the pain temporarily?”

“No,” Todd admitted. “It’s not something I can control, unfortunately. I tried that for quite a while – but then I realized it’s just one nerve that’s screwed up. The rest of my body is fine. So I froze it.”

“What?” Emily frowned. “How is that even possible? I know what my Ice Runes can do. There’s no way you could get that level of control out of them.”

“Not actively,” Todd agreed. “It’s an Imbuement.”

“Are you crazy?” Isabel asked, digging into her bag. “You can’t freeze your body like that! You’ll cause yourself serious damage. What about frostbite? You need to drink a healing potion right now.”

“No, I don’t,” Todd said, putting a hand on Isabel’s shoulder. She stared at him in confusion.

“Why?”

“Because the nerve is fine.”

“It’s the rest of your body I’m concerned about, Todd.”

“There rest of his body wasn’t frozen,” Noah said as he finally realized part of what Todd’s strategy had been. It wasn’t all that different from what he’d done with Pyroclastic Resonance and Combustion. “You Imbued your goddamn nerve?”

“Yeah,” Todd said with a grin. “The smallest Body Imbuement I’ve ever done.”

“That’s impossible,” Emily said, crossing her arms. “Nobody can Imbue things that small.”

“My dad could. So I worked at it until I could as well.”

“In the span of a few days?” Emily demanded. “How?”

“Well, I’ve been working on it for years,” Todd admitted. “But the idea came right after you gave me the Ice Rune in the Red Barrens, so I started working even harder on it. I made some progress recently and locked myself up for a few days to make sure I could do it perfectly. Small Imbuements like this are really, really hard.”

“I think small is an understatement,” Moxie murmured, shaking her head in disbelief. “That might be the most impressive Imbuement I’ve ever heard of, and it was done by a Rank 1.”

“My dad knew what he was doing.” There was more than a little passion in Todd’s voice, but it was mixed with loss and anger – not at Moxie, but at the people that had taken his father from him. “And I Imbued the muscles around the nerve with a heat rune. That way, I can keep it cold enough to suppress the pain but avoid freezing it or the surrounding areas off. As long as I’ve got energy, I can maintain a balance.”

“So you had two Body Imbuements running at once,” Lee concluded, but Todd shook his head.

“No. Four. I also had to chill my body separately from my nerve. That’s how I can withstand the heat coming from the explosions my gauntlets make when I hit something.”

“Steam?” Moxie guessed, her eyes lighting up. “Your fourth Imbuement was something that draws water out into your hands?”

“The back of my hands,” Todd said with a small nod. “I got the idea from Vermil when he blew up the Root Fiend. Lots of pressure inside an enclosed space makes it go boom.”

“But how do you manage the other kinds of magic?” Emily asked. “You were using stone and fire simultaneously.”

“Actually, I just formed my gauntlets from stone and then left them there,” Todd said. “I wasn’t actually using any Stone magic unless I was reforming the gauntlets. The only magic I was actually actively using was Fire to mix with the water.”

Isabel shook her head, awe sparkling in her eyes. “That’s incredible. No wonder your Runes ran out so quickly. Those Imbuements had to be draining a lot of energy.”

“You’ve got no idea. Imbuements this specific are really inefficient,” Todd agreed. “I had so many more ideas of what I wanted to do, but this turned out to actually be the easiest due to how passive everything was. Building up the pressure doesn’t take attention, just time.”

Emily looked like she wanted to compliment Todd, but she couldn’t seem to find the proper words. She settled for giving him a nod. “That’s not bad.”

You’ll get there one day, Emily.

“I think that’s an understatement,” Noah said with a slow whistle. “This is innovation.”

“It’s not permanent,” Todd admitted, his gaze falling. “I wanted to find a way to fight better at range to back up Isabel, but all the ideas took up too much energy. Even with just the Imbuements for my neck running, I’ll use up most of my power within thirty seconds. It’ll be better when I hit Rank 2, but even then I’ll only have three or four minutes, and that doesn’t even address the fact that I’m now a melee fighter, and we’ve already got one of those.”

“I think you’ve done more than enough to be proud of yourself right now,” Moxie said gently. “Don’t belittle yourself when you’re improving. If you figured out a way to solve your most important problem, then I’m sure you can fix the relatively minor issue of a new set of magic to work with.”

“Yeah,” Todd said. Isabel reached down and helped him to his feet carefully. He yawned, and Lee mirrored him.

“Bedtime,” Lee declared. “We can spar tomorrow and see just what you can do, Todd.”

Todd cleared his throat. “I’d rather live, thanks.”

They all laughed and turned back to the camp, heading to get some rest with renewed energy in their steps. Even though the survival exam was rapidly approaching, with Todd’s new Imbuements, the light was shining at the end of the tunnel.

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