Return of the Runebound Professor

It was only after Noah lifted the bow away from his violin that he remembered that playing music wasn’t the wisest thing to do when someone could hear him. He froze for a few seconds, listening intently to see if he could pick anything up.

Noah activated the Imbuement on his ears, filtering out the loudest noises and scrunching his nose in concentration as he tried to pick up any words. Unfortunately, the Imbuement still wasn’t accurate enough. There was just too much noise interfering – but, as the time ticked by, it didn’t seem like anyone was coming for him.

Sounds like the room was muted enough and I wasn’t playing that loud. Good. That would have been really awkward. If I only got to play one song before some asshole showed up and tried to take my violin, I’d be so pissed.

Noah looked down at the violin, and a small smile flitted across his face. He couldn’t wait to spend more time practicing with it, but it really was a bloody stupid idea to keep pushing his luck here.

Even still, the idea of setting the violin back into its box felt… distasteful. He didn’t want to let go of it. After a moment, Noah realized that the hesitation wasn’t coming from him – it was coming from the violin.

“I can’t just carry you around in public,” Noah told the instrument.

The violin shimmered in his hands. A black, thorny appendage snaked out from within it at a lightning-fast speed, shooting out before Noah could react. It wound around his wrist, digging into his flesh and drawing blood.

Noah cursed in pain, but it was done before he could react. The violin shimmered, then vanished. The bow disappeared from his other hand, and a faint burning sensation enveloped Noah’s arm.

He yanked his sleeve back, revealing a black tattoo on the inside of his forearm depicting the violin and its bow in perfect detail. Noah could still feel faint energy coming off the tattoo, but it was muted.

“Would you look at that,” Noah muttered. “And Moxie said that the bow wasn’t magical. Not so sure about that. Damn convenient, though.”

Noah let his sleeve fall back. He took the box’s cover off the bed and slid it back on before regarding the whole box. It wasn’t going to be serving much more purpose anymore, but it was still a nice box.

“You’ll be useful for something,” Noah declared.

Maybe I could use it for a return gift to Moxie? That could be good. I’ve still got those pelts from the snow ferret thing. I could make her a dress from those.

Even as the thought passed through his head, Noah grimaced.

Who am I kidding? Moxie doesn’t want a dress. Well, maybe she does. But I want to give her something she can actually use, not something pretty. Something Imbued. That’s going to be expensive, though. It’ll cost money, and probably a lot of it.

I’m not sure I can justify spending even more of the coin we earn from our jobs on a gift after Moxie just spent so much on my own gift, so I should probably earn it myself.

Maybe I should try to hunt a few more monsters or something?

Noah rubbed his chin. He walked over to the window and peered down at the shaded city below. As he took the city in, a flicker of purplish-red energy caught his eye in the alleys between two buildings.

A familiar looking cat sat, glittering red spines running across its back and twin antlers sprouting from its head. For an instant, the two of them locked eyes. Then it stood, licking a paw before turning and padding into the darkness.

Ah, shit. That’s probably not good.

***

“Moxie?” Lee stuffed the remains of the meat pie that Moxie had bought her into her mouth, then wiped her lips with the back of a sleeve.

“Yes?”

“Why do you smell like Noah?”

Moxie choked, nearly spitting up part of her pie. She coughed into her fist, her cheeks reddening before she shook her head and cleared her throat. “What do you mean? We’ve been traveling together a while, so maybe–”

“You never smelled like that much like him before,” Lee said, sending Moxie a suspicious look. She reached out and prodded Moxie in the side. Moxie yelped and hopped back.

“What was that for?”

“I was checking if Noah figured out how to shapeshift.”

“By poking me?”

“Yes.”

“Would that really even reveal a shapeshifter?”

“Depends if they were good at it or not,” Lee replied. Her eyes flicked to the half-eaten pie in Moxie’s hands. “Are you going to eat that?”

“Yes,” Moxie replied, stuffing the rest of the pie into her mouth. She sent a smug look down at Lee, but was then forced to chew for a few moments before swallowing. Unlike the demon, Moxie couldn’t inhale food in a second.

“So?”

“So what?”

“Are you going to say why you smell like Noah?”

Moxie’s cheeks reddened even further. “We were just sitting close together. It isn’t that relevant. You don’t have to worry about it.”

“Avoiding the answer just makes me even more curious.”

Mercifully, Moxie spotted her target before she had to answer Lee’s line of questions any further. They came to a stop at the open door of a large, five story building made of polished white stone.

A small flow of battle-scarred men and women went in and out of the building. Most people in Dawnforge looked like they could hold their own, but the people here were a step above the others.

“We’re here,” Moxie said quickly. “Let’s go.”

“You’re avoiding the question,” Lee complained, jogging to keep up with Moxie as she darted into the building.

The room they entered had a small bar and a smattering of wooden tables, more than a few of which had patrons sitting around. Some of them spoke in loud, boastful tones. Others sat silently, their hoods pulled low over their faces.

Moxie made a beeline toward the back of the room, where a large cork board sported several dozen papers, each pinned in place by a thin stiletto dagger.

“Here. Jobs that we can take to earn some coin,” Moxie said. “Why don’t you take a look and see if any of them look interesting?”

Lee turned her gaze away from Moxie and to the board. She stared at it for all of two seconds, then immediately lost interest and let out a huff. “Lame. I can’t read any of it. Which one is worth the most?”

Moxie scanned over the board. There were a lot of jobs, but she wasn’t particularly keen to let Lee get back to her previous line of questioning. She didn’t mind teaching Lee a few things about people, but this was one that she very much preferred to avoid.

“Here.” Moxie pulled a paper down from the wall and scanned over its contents. “We could do this job. Four hundred gold just for hunting down a few Molsters and getting their claws. I guess the person that posted this job was some form of alchemist.”

“Molesters?”

“Molsters.” Moxie sent Lee an exasperated look. “Mole monsters. It’s got a picture of them, see?”

Moxie turned the paper around so Lee could get a look at the sketch of the large, rodent-like creature that someone had drawn on it. They strongly resembled large, flat faced rats, which wouldn’t have been all that intimidating if their claws weren’t each the length of a sword.

“We already fought other mole-monsters, though. Why are there a bunch of different kinds?”

Moxie shrugged. “I didn’t make them up. Don’t ask me.”

“Well, it looks fun,” Lee said. “Can we do more than one job at once? What if we just took all of them?”

“I don’t think there’s a rule against that, but it would probably be pretty bad form. We should leave some for other people to do.”

“What if we finish that one?”

“Then we can come back and get more.”

“So wouldn’t it be more efficient if we just took all of them and did them all?”

Moxie sighed. “Why don’t we just take two? Anything more than that and it would be rude.”

Lee looked over the board, then seemingly grabbed a paper at random. She held it out to Moxie. “What about this one?”

The job depicted on it was fairly straightforward. A mage wanted someone to gather gemstones from a group of rock monsters a short trip away from Dawnforge. It paid fairly well, and it probably wasn’t too far off from where they’d find the molsters. The pay was pretty good as well, coming in at eight hundred gold.

“That’s a good choice,” Moxie said, taking the paper from Lee. “We can take these two. We should also keep an eye out for any monsters with Runes that might be useful for you. Buying Runes is a good last resort, but it’ll be a lot cheaper if we can just find them ourselves.”

“Okay! Can we go now?”

“Didn’t you want to get baking supplies and see if we could use an oven somewhere?”

“I was thinking about it, but then I realized something.”

Moxie raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“I can just get a bunch of money and buy an oven.”

“You realize that ovens are giant stone bricks, right?”

“Yep.”

“And you realize you’d have to carry a huge oven around everywhere you went until we got back to Arbitage? I don’t think they’re really meant to be portable.”

“That’s fine. I’m sure I’ll find somewhere to put it.”

Moxie was fairly sure that Lee would do nothing of the sort – but fairly sure wasn’t anywhere near the level of confidence that she needed to say that Lee wouldn’t do something. If there was even the slightest, most miniscule possibility that it could happen, then there was always a chance that Lee would do it.

“Right,” Moxie said slowly. “So you want to go look at that stuff later?”

“Yeah. Let’s just go back and hang out with Noah. Sitting around here and getting stared at isn’t any fun.”

Moxie started to nod, then froze. She turned, sending a casual glance over the room as if she were just considering what job she was going to take. Moxie lowered her voice. “Getting stared at? By whom? I don’t see anyone watching us. Point them out, but don’t be–”

“The shadowy guy in the corner,” Lee proclaimed, thrusting a finger out and not making even the slightest effort to hide it.

“Overt about it,” Moxie finished through a sigh.

The deed was already done. Moxie’s eyes landed on a thin figure sitting in the back of the tavern, hunched over a mug of ale. They were still mid-flinch from getting pointed out by Lee, and a few people at other tables followed Lee’s gesture as well.

Well, that’s one way to let someone know we’re aware of them, I guess. Not the way I would have chosen to do it, though.

“I’m sure they were just looking at the quest board,” Moxie said diplomatically.

Lee sent Moxie a look that told her exactly what Lee thought of that excuse.

“Let’s ignore them for now. We don’t want to get into trouble in the middle of the adventurer’s inn,” Moxie said, lowering her tone and putting a hand on Lee’s shoulder to push her toward the door.

“Why?” Lee asked. “Are we going to get banned or something if we fight?”

“What? No. They wouldn’t ban us for defending ourselves if someone tried something. It would just be a hassle dealing with all the other crap around it,” Moxie said once they’d slipped out the door and back into the streets. “I’d rather not draw extra attention. If anyone tries something, I’d rather they do it in a dark alley where it’s easier to get rid of their body.”

“Oooh,” Lee said, her eyes lighting up in understanding. “Makes sense. I wonder why they were looking at us, though.”

“Who knows,” Moxie replied with a shrug. “Maybe he recognized that I was a Torrin. It doesn’t matter. Let’s just group back up with Noah. I’m feeling a bit jittery, and nothing will take care of that like killing a few monsters.”

“What if he follows us out of the city and brings a group of friends?”

“I’d say you might have a slightly overactive imagination. But, if he did that, then that just makes things easier for us, doesn’t it? Nobody that hides like that is going to be that strong, so if a bunch of them show up – well, we get a whole bunch of loot and you get some food. Win-win, right?”

“Good point. I hope they try to kill us,” Lee said, glancing over her shoulder. “Do you think I should go taunt him?”

“Let’s just stick to getting back to Noah,” Moxie suggested. “If they’re stupid enough to try something like that, then they won’t need any help from you. And, if not, no reason to kill someone innocent. Maybe he was just looking at us.”

Lee scrunched her nose. “Maybe it’s because you smell like Noah.”

Moxie let out a long-suffering sigh.

Here we go again.

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