Return of the Runebound Professor

Ezwad skidded to a stop as he watched the flying sword take off, taking his target with it. His eye twitched. Xael strode up beside him.

“You damn idiot,” Ezwad said, slapping Xael on the back of his bald head. “How did they slip past you?”

“They slipped past you, not me. I needed some rest so I took a nap, you bumbling asshole. You was the one ‘supposed to be watching.”

“I was asleep! I’d been watching for the past few hours. I told you I was taking a break.” Ezwad thrust a finger into Xael’s chest. “You can’t just take a nap and not tell me!”

“I did tell you.”

Ezwad’s eyes narrowed. “Did you wake me up before you told me?”

Xael crossed his arms and glared at the other assassin. “No. Why would I bother doing something like that? You’re the one meant to have eyes on the back of his head. Ready for any scenario. Prepared for every opponent. Master of the shadows, bringer of death. That’s what you told the boss, isn’t it?”

Ezwad smacked Xael again. “Moron. I was just trying to get into his good graces so I could get closer to his daughter. Everyone talks themselves up a bit.”

“That’s more than a bit! I knew you didn’t have eyes on the back of your head. I’ve never seen them.”

“That way,” Xael replied, pointing into the distance. “I’ve still got her tracked, but she’s moving awful fast. Do you have a flying sword?”

“Of course I don’t. I don’t have wind magic, moron. Do you think I just magically got it since our last job a week ago?”

“You’re the moron, moron.”

The assassins glared at each other. Ezwad spat on the ground and jerked his thumb over his shoulder in the direction that Xael had indicated.

“Let’s get on with it, then. We know what jobs they picked up, so all we have to do is catch them while they’re distracted. Stop talking and get your ass in gear, Xael.”

“You’re talking too,” Xael pointed out.

Ezwad slapped him over the back of the head again.

***

Wind howled through Noah’s hair and nipped at his squinted eyes. Olive had been right – the new flying sword was indeed of good make. It was perfectly responsive, and lacked all the imperfections that his old, rusted one had.

For anyone else, that would have made it perfect. Unfortunately for Noah, he’d gotten rather used to the aggressive, sharp moves that the previous flying sword had required. As a result, his flight pattern had somehow gotten even more erratic.

“Stop over adjusting so much!” Moxie yelled. She was pressed against his back, her arms wrapped tightly around his chest. It would have been considerably more romantic if it wasn’t so likely that she would go flying off at any moment – and if they didn’t have a massive, double bladed axe pinned between them.

“I’m trying!” Noah yelled back. “It’s too responsive! I need a shittier sword!”

“You’ll get used to it! Just figure it out before you fly us into the ground!”

Lee, who had taken the form of a small crow, poked her head out of Noah’s travel bag and let out a caw that the wind stole away. At least one of them seemed to be enjoying herself.

Look at you two. Locked in a tight embrace. Absolutely riveting. You should have her stand in front of you next time. Can you get rid of the damn axe, though? It’s getting in the way of the fun.

Okay. Two of us are enjoying ourselves, if you can count Azel as someone that I actually consider a living being.

I take offense to that.

I don’t care. Shut up or I’ll tell Moxie how much you like this and she won’t so much as look at me for a month. I waited thousands of years in a line, Azel. I can wait a little while longer to be a petty piece of shit to a leech stuck in my mind. Moxie and I both have a lot of work we need to do. It’s entirely reasonable for us to focus on our work for a while longer.

You wouldn’t. After all the time it took you to make progress, you’d suddenly stop?

Try me.

Azel shut up.

Mercifully, the rest of the trip actually passed without any major incident. Noah slowly got control over the new sword, and their flight went from a careening drunkard to a mildly tipsy one.

By the time Moxie yelled at Noah to land, he’d almost entirely adapted to the new sword. It was a lot easier to learn how to control it when it actually acted the same way no matter what he did instead of randomly deciding to buck beneath his feet.

Landings, however, were still something that he hadn’t had any practice doing the proper way. So, in typical fashion, Noah reached around and grabbed Moxie by the waist, jumping from the sword and letting it bury itself into the rocky hillside. Moxie grabbed onto the axe as they fell, holding it to her side to keep it from flying off without them.

He summoned energy from Natural Disaster and shot out a thick stream of air before them opposite to their momentum, slowing them down enough to land safely in a spray of pebbles.

Noah released Moxie, who dropped the axe on the ground with a loud thunk. Lee fluttered out of his bag. Noah only had a moment to toss her clothes out to her and turn around before she transformed back into her normal form. He walked over to his sword, tugging it out of the rocks with a grunt.

“That was fun!” Lee exclaimed once she’d changed. “Did the sword survive?”

“Entirely unscratched,” Noah proclaimed. He slid it back into its spot on his belt.

“I’m just glad we survived as well,” Moxie said dryly. “It got better at the end there, though. Half decent.”

“Thanks,” Noah said. “I do my best.”

Lee picked her axe off the ground and slung it back over her shoulder. She turned in a circle, then frowned. “Where are the things we’re supposed to kill?”

Noah had the same question, although he suspected he knew the answer. They’d arrived at a rocky hillside, not too dissimilar from the one that they’d been fighting monsters in the previous day. The biggest difference was that the hills in this area were considerably larger, and there were bunches of glittering grey crystals jutting up all over the ground. Some of them rose almost ten feet into the air.

I can’t imagine these are very expensive because of how many and how large they are, but they sure look pretty. Kind of like grey ice, but with more swirlies trapped in the middle. I wonder if I can break a piece off and use it as a desk weight.

Either way, the monsters are definitely –

“Beneath us,” Moxie said. “Molesters are blind, so they use their other senses to hunt. They usually lurk beneath the ground until something gets their attention.”

“You said Molesters,” Lee said. “I thought they were Molsters.”

“Shit,” Moxie groaned. “It got stuck in my head and I said the wrong word.”

“Should have named them something else,” Lee said. “Molester is a dumb name.”

“Molster,” Noah corrected, throwing his own hat into the ring.

Both Lee and Moxie glared at him. Noah held his hands up, repressing a laugh.

Lee kicked at the ground, then scrunched her nose. “So we just wait around until they show up?”

“We could probably root them out by making enough noise,” Moxie said. A vine slithered out of one of her pant legs and slipped wound into the ground, pushing through rock and soil. “I’ll see if I can find anything and bring them back up.”

“Do you know how strong they are on average?” Noah asked.

Moxie gave him a one-shouldered shrug. “Not anything that should pose us any significant threat. They dwell fairly close to the surface of the stone and are a frequent pest. They’re more annoying than anything else. The stronger stuff is much deeper, and we’d have to use a ton of energy to get the attention of anything like that.”

“How much, exactly?”

“If you blew through the entirety of Natural Disaster’s reserves in a single spell, that might catch their attention. Aside from that, there’s nothing to worry about.”

“What about… well, you know. My other Runes.”

That gave Moxie a moment of pause. “Maybe avoid using them for now.”

Noah nodded. “That’s what I was thinking as well. And there’s no limit as to how many of these things we can kill, right?”

“I’d imagine there’s a limit to how much we’ll get paid, but nothing beyond that. The job is four hundred gold for getting ten of them, and I don’t know if the person who placed it will pay more for extras. We could always sell the parts on our own, then.”

“In that case, how about we race?”

“Race to what?” Lee asked, her attention immediately caught.

“We can only bring so much back, and there’s no point massacring them beyond getting some energy. Let’s go until we’ve killed a total of thirty of them. Whoever kills the most of that thirty wins.”

“What do they win?” Lee eyed the ground and adjusted her grip on her axe.

“Winner gets to choose where we get dinner, so long as the price is reasonable,” Moxie suggested, a grin passing over her features.

“Deal!” Lee exclaimed. She swung in a circle, then waved her axe over her head. “Bring out the Molesters.”

“Mol- oh, forget it,” Moxie grumbled. The ground beneath their feet trembled faintly. “I’m working on it. Give me a second and get ready to fight. They’ll probably come out in a small group.”

Noah activated the Body Imbuements on his feet, sending his senses deep into the earth. A wave of information slammed into him, and he spent a moment adjusting the sensitivity of the Imbuement.

A huge smile split Noah’s lips as his senses picked up on four forms clawing their way through the ground beneath them, about thirty feet down. The modified Imbuements were working perfectly.

They’ll probably have the same issues that the wind-based ones in my ears do when we’re in the city because of all the things that would cause tremors, but out here in the wild, this is perfect. My range even got bigger.

“Four Molesters, coming in hot,” Noah said. “Two are going for Moxie. One is going for Lee, and the other one is already latched onto–”

Moxie yanked her hand back, ripping the vine out of the ground in a spray of earth. It flew into the air, carrying a large, furry creature with it. The monster was the size of a large dog, with long, flat teeth and massively oversized claws.

It only had a moment to let out a furious squeal before Moxie’s vine whipped out, carving through it’s neck in a clean blow. The dead monster splatted to the ground and the vine wound around Moxie, curling behind her like a snake, poised to strike.

“One to me,” Moxie said, sending a smirk at Noah. “And just so you know, if I win, you’re cooking dinner.”

“Wait, what? That’s not fair.”

Moxie’s grin just grew wider. Two more Molsters burst from the ground beside Moxie. Her vine shot out for them, killing one. As it went for the other, a bolt of thunder leapt from Noah’s hands with a loud roar. It slammed into the monster, sending it hurling across the ground. It slammed into a rock and fell still, charred and smoking.

Energy slipped into Noah and he returned Moxie’s grin.

“Your lead is closing.”

“Doesn’t matter so long as I’m still in the lead. I’ll have to figure out what I’m going to make you cook.”

“Keep dreaming. You should figure out what you’re cooking instead,” Noah said.

While they spoke, Lee swung her axe down. The Molster that had been going for her didn’t even get a chance to burst free of the earth. Her axe bit through stone like butter, killing the monster instantly.

Noah’s Tremorsense picked up on several more of the monsters burrowing toward the three of them. He drew on Natural disaster and sent a pulse into the ground at his feet. Immediately, two of the Molsters changed direction and made for him.

“To thirty,” Noah called, calling more of Natural Disaster’s power to his fingertips. He could always just kill the monsters underground, but that might end up damaging their parts. It would be much easier to take them out once they were in open air.

More Molsters burst free of the ground. Noah could feel even more of them swimming through the earth beneath them.

The competition was on in full swing, and none of them planned to lose.

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