Return of the Runebound Professor

“What is Revin doing here?” Moxie asked. “Get rid of him!”

“I don’t know if that’s going to work,” Noah replied. “He’s… persistent, if you haven’t noticed.”

A shadow started to poke out the bottom of the door. Noah batted at it with his shoe, but it continued to push into the room. His foot just went straight through it.

“Hello?” Revin’s voice called from within the shadow. “It’s not cool to ignore people, you know.”

“We were busy,” Noah snapped. “Don’t–”

Revin rose up from the ground, his tattered cloak swirling around him as he flourished. “I have arrived!”

“Come in,” Noah finished.

“Whoops,” Revin said. He turned, then raised his eyebrows as he spotted Evergreen in the corner of the room. “Whewh. Didn’t see that coming. Old people are kinky. Definitely didn’t need to see that, though. I’m not forgetting it anytime soon.”

Noah wasn’t sure if he should reach for his Runes and try to fight Revin or just cry in despair. The man was practically a force of nature.

“My All-Seeing Eye told me that you were in need of a genius,” Revin replied, slicking his hair back and giving them what he likely thought was a badass grin. “As such, I have arrived. I have to say, though – not interested in whatever it is that you’re doing to the old lady. Not my style. I’m young, wild, and free. No bindings.”

“Please. Stop talking,” Noah begged. “You are actively making this worse for all of us. And Evergreen isn’t–”

Actually, this monumental dumbass might actually think that Evergreen is actually into this and isn’t restrained against her will. Maybe I shouldn’t go about changing that. If we had to fight Revin, I’m not so sure we’d actually win.

Noah locked eyes with Moxie. A mutual feeling of shame passed between them, followed by a synchronized defeated sigh.

“Don’t tell anybody about Evergreen’s weird habits, please,” Moxie said. “It would go very poorly for the Torrin family if people found out – and no matter how strong you think you are, you aren’t going to survive the whole family coming down on your head.”

“No problems there,” Revin promised, giving them a thumbs up. “I might judge, but I won’t share. That wouldn’t be cool. I really hope the reason you needed me wasn’t because she’s into voyeurism, though. That’s a step too far.”

Noah took a moment to steady himself. Revin had a miraculous talent for making the situation worse with every single sentence that came out of his mouth. It was starting to go beyond the level of bad and into the one of impressive.

“That’s not what our problem is,” Noah said. “Actually, if you could ignore her, that would be best for everybody involved.”

“You should have said that earlier,” Revin said. “Done. She’s ignored.”

“Fantastic. Maybe we could catch up another time?” Moxie suggested, sending a pointed look at the door. “I don’t think Evergreen would want an audience larger than the existing one.”

“Who?”

“Ever– oh, Damned Plains,” Moxie muttered.

“The only people in this room are you, Vermil, and Lee,” Revin said. He gave them a painfully exaggerated wink. “See? Nothing to be worried about.”

Lee leaned over to whisper into Noah’s ear. “I can’t tell if he’s so stupid that it’s weaponized or if he’s just screwing with us. Should we try to attack?”

Noah shook his head slightly. “Don’t think we’d win.”

Revin watched them, his grin not flickering for an instant. “So, what did you need?”

“We were just talking,” Moxie said. “We don’t really need anything. Maybe your eye was wrong?”

“It’s never wrong,” Revin said, crossing his arms. He turned, then paused as he spotted Evergreen’s staff on the far end of the room. His eyes lit up. “Aha! Would you look at that? Fascinating. Who would leave such a powerful artifact lying around?”

“Don’t touch that,” Moxie snapped, turning to grab the staff – only to find that it had vanished. She spun back toward Revin as a shadow deposited it in his hands. He let out a slow whistle.

“This thing’s real nasty. This must be why you called me.”

“We didn’t call you,” Noah said, but he was almost past the point of caring. There was no stopping Revin without getting into an all out fight with him, and Noah wasn’t willing to do that until he knew exactly how strong Revin was. At least, for the time being, Revin seemed to be on their side.

“Sure you did,” Revin replied. He tapped the staff. “This is going to take me a while to decipher, though. It’s not an easy request.”

“We’ve got snacks,” Lee said, pulling a cake out of the cabinet.

“I don’t need anything like that.” Revin didn’t miss a beat as he reached out, taking the cake from Lee and sliding it into a shadow, where it vanished. “I’d never take payment for people that have gone out of their way to give my beloved godson a little help.”

He cleared his throat and sent a pointed glance at the cabinet. Lee dutifully reached in and pulled out a second cake. Revin liberated it from her grip, sliding it into another shadow before giving them a curt nod. “I will do this out of the kindness of my heart. Give me three days.”

Revin sank into the ground, vanishing without a trace. Several seconds of silence passed. Moxie pressed a hand to her forehead and groaned. Lee took another cake from the cabinet and stuck her hand into it, pulling out a large fistful and sticking it into her mouth.

“He’s terrifying,” Noah declared.

Lee and Moxie nodded in agreement.

“You think it’s a bad idea to let him hang onto Evergreen’s staff?” Lee asked. “It’s a weapon that’s meant to simulate powers of a Rank 6. I feel like that’s going to get abused in the wrong hands.”

“Don’t make me think about it, please,” Moxie begged. “Maybe we can just blame everything on him if things go poorly. I bet people would actually believe us.”

Noah burst into laughter. “There’s a thought. If things come to it, then maybe Revin will have saved us by sticking his nose so far into the crime scene that he ends up becoming the primary suspect.”

“Nothing we can do about it now,” Lee said with a shrug. She set the cake down on the table and held two squished handfuls of it out to Noah and Moxie. Moxie sent a vine out, pulling the cake from Lee’s hand and tossing it into her mouth.

Might as well.

Noah took the cake from Lee as well, trying not to laugh. She’d mushed it into a ball, but cake wasn’t exactly the most cohesive food in the first place, so it could have been worse. It still tasted good when he ate it, but he couldn’t shake Azel’s words as he chewed.

What emotion does Lee need?

***

The next two days passed quietly, though Noah suspected he gained five pounds from all the sweets they ate. He wasn’t a huge fan of sweet food, but Lee kept handing it to them and neither he nor Moxie had the heart to refuse. Besides, it belonged to Evergreen, and Noah took more than a small measure of petty satisfaction in spending her money.

For better or for worse, Revin had not returned since the first day of his arrival. There hadn’t been much to do but watch the survival exam and eat. As with the first day, the students were doing great.

Several more waves of monsters had attacked their growing fortress, but none of them had managed to get through. James, true to his promise, had found a way to blend seamlessly in with the others. All of them were doing fantastic – but there was a problem that became more apparent with every passing day.

“They haven’t gotten a single token,” Noah said with a deep frown.

“And look how many monsters have gone after them,” Moxie added, her tone troubled. “That isn’t normal. They’re getting targeted, and someone’s making sure that monsters that have tokens don’t go anywhere near them. Someone is cheating.”

“Figures,” Noah growled, pushing up from his chair and pacing around the room in irritation. “I guess we should have expected that. But what can we do about it? Would complaining even solve anything?”

“No.” Moxie shook her head and clenched her fists at her sides. “The complaint for Emily would go through Evergreen, who I suspect is probably involved in this whole thing. And unfortunately, I don’t think Isabel or Todd are going to be heard out. James might have a little pull, but knowing what we know of Revin…”

“Yeah. Probably not,” Noah agreed. He sat back in his chair and leaned back, furiously tapping his fingers on his knee. “Damn. This is ridiculous. If it keeps up, there’s no way they’ll be able to leave their fort. It’s a great strategy, but it doesn’t account for having to find a useless McGuffin. Isn’t anyone going to point out how shameless this shit is? Arbitage can’t be that corrupt.”

“I think the problem this time might be Emily,” Moxie said with a sad sigh. “Or rather, Evergreen. She’ll just claim she was pushing her protegee to work harder to prove she deserves her spot as eventual head of the Torrin family. Everyone will think that’s very honorable of her.”

“Would she really go that far just to make Eline win the bet?” Lee tilted her head to the side and stuffed another handful of cake into her mouth. Despite having eaten the most out of all of them, she didn’t look even slightly different – nor had she slowed down in her war against all confectionary.

“No,” Moxie said. “That’s what’s confusing me. There’s no way Evergreen would intentionally screw Emily over this hard. It’s one thing to prove that I’ve failed in my duty, but this is going too far. Something else is going on.”

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