Return of the Runebound Professor

A torrent of energy raced up Noah’s arms. Almost instantly, he felt his Runes shudder in response. He yanked his hand back, slamming the book shut. The feeling vanished, though his fingers continued to tingle.

“What happened?” Moxie asked.

“It was trying to use my Runes,” Noah replied, shaking his hand off and frowning. His Runes hadn’t been damaged, so the book had only managed to drain some of their current energy, not their total capacity. Still, he didn’t like the idea of anything taking his power without consent.

I guess the artifact is probably old enough that it hasn’t gotten power in a long time, though. If I want to figure out what it does, I’m going to have to give it something. The Records of the Deceased had a brief description of it, but that just amounted to ‘stores runes, but badly’. Not particularly useful.

Noah sighed. “I’m going to try again.”

He opened the book once more. Energy immediately started to flow out of his Runes indiscriminately, pouring into the book’s pages. He readied himself to pull his hand back in case it started to draw more energy than he had to give.

But, as Noah sat there with his hand on the artifact, a foreign presence pressed against his mind. It wasn’t exactly intelligent – at least, he didn’t think it was. It was more like a gnawing hunger, one that he could just barely tell wasn’t his own.

The hunger wasn’t for food, nor was it for drink. It was for Runes. Strangely, the draw of energy leaving Noah lessened, giving him conflicting messages.

Does it want more energy or not?

Another impression of the hunger greeted him, this one stronger than the last. The book flipped a page back and forth, as if beckoning Noah to act. He looked at the page, then realized what it was asking.

It wants me to Imbue a Rune.

“Moxie, could I have my grimoire?” Noah asked.

Moxie tossed him the book and he snagged it from the air with his free hand, keeping the other one on the artifact. It wasn’t particularly easy considering he was also holding the ledger against his hip like a large, unwieldy baby, but he managed it. Noah lowered his hand, flipping through the pages to find a Rune he didn’t mind giving up.

In the instant that Noah loosened his grip slightly on the book to turn the page with his hand, the artifact lurched. A tongue of paper shot out from its center, snaking around Noah’s grimoire and yanking it out of his hands.

“Hey!” Noah grabbed for the grimoire, but it was too late. The book snapped shut around it with a loud thud. He tugged at the artifact’s cover, but it remained firmly shut. “Let go of my damn book, you piece of shit.”

Noah pulled even harder on the artifact cover. It popped open, revealing a bunch of empty pages – and no grimoire. Noah’s eye twitched while Lee snickered behind him.

“You’re kidding me,” Noah said. He flipped the artifact’s pages, but there was nothing on them. And, of his grimoire, there was no sign. It had been completely consumed. The artifact fluttered as if pleased with itself.

Faint golden lines wound along the leather cover, burning away buildup from years of collecting dust and grime. Noah yanked his hand as he felt the artifact shift beneath his touch. A moment later, it snapped closed. The leather shimmered and turned a light brown, and an eye traced itself onto the book’s front cover.

The leather rippled and warped around the eye, turning from a flat drawing into a bulging protrusion – and then it snapped open. A glowing yellow orb materialized within the leather, darting as it looked around the room.

And, once again, a sense of gnawing hunger pressed against Noah’s mind.

“No.” Noah glared. “Give me my grimoire back. You just ate like fifty Rank One Runes.”

The eye snapped over to him. It had no features to express emotion with, but Noah could swear the book was glaring at him. With a creak, the book opened itself – revealing a glimmering Vibration Rune – the very same one that he’d had in his grimoire.

“Ah! You do have them.” Noah gestured impatiently. “Give ‘em back. I was going to give you some of my Runes, not all of them.

The book closed itself. Noah’s eye twitched as the artifact met his gaze, then sent another feeling of hunger at his mind.

“I’m not feeding you the rest of my Runes.”

Another sensation of hunger prodded Noah’s mind. The artifact clearly wasn’t interested in bantering with him – and that left Noah in a pretty bad spot. He’d already lost an entire grimoire to the artifact, and he had no idea if he could recover any of the Runes.

Am I really willing to give up even more? I mean… I can probably get some of the Runes back, considering the artifact still had a Vibration Rune left over, but I don’t know for sure.

“What do you think?” Noah asked. “Do I give it more?”

“You’ve come this far,” Moxie said. “And you’ve already lost half your Runes. Might as well go all in.”

“That is sunk cost fallacy,” Noah grumbled. “Not very convincing.”

“Do it,” Lee said. “It’ll be funny.”

Noah sighed and collected the two Runes he’d gotten from the Frost Wight that still sat in his mind. He pressed his hand to the book and Imbued them into its pages. A shudder ran down the book’s spine, but the hunger remained.

Noah’s eye twitched. He held his hand out. Moxie, who still had his bag, pulled out Dayton’s scroll and handed it to him. He sent the scroll a distraught look. If the artifact took this and left him with nothing, he’d have absolutely no Runes left.

He looked back to the book, whose eye was transfixed on the scroll. Pressing his lips together, Noah held it out. The artifact snapped open, paper tongue darting out and yanking the scroll from Noah’s hands.

It vanished into the depths of the artifact’s pages a moment before it slammed shut. A dull, crackling noise emerged from the large book. Another shimmer of energy passed through its cover, brightening the golden lines.

Then the lines faded away, disappearing into the cover and turning to plain leather. The eye at the books center remained, turning to match Noah’s gaze.

“Well?” Noah asked. “What do I get in response for feeding you basically everything I have of worth? Can you even understand me? Or is this whole thing just a joke where you’ve got infinite Catchpaper because you eat all the damn magic you get given?”

The glowing eye narrowed and the book flipped itself open to a blank page. Noah stared at it, confused. The page twitched irritably when he didn’t do anything.

“What do you want?” Noah asked. “I’m out of Runes to give you. You aren’t getting the ones in my soul.”

“Maybe say one of the Runes you lost?” Moxie suggested.

“Err… Greater Shadow,” Noah said, recalling one of the Runes that had been left over on Dayton’s scroll.

There was a moment of delay. Then the book flipped itself closed again. This time, Noah swore that the eye looked slightly embarrassed. Then the book flipped itself open again and twitched its pages.

“I think it ate that Rune,” Moxie said.”

“There were two of them.”

“I think it ate both.”

Noah sighed. “Of course. Reflective Water?”

This time, the pages turned. On the new page before him was a Reflective Water Rune. The Rank 2 Rune sat in the center of the page, untouched as far as he could tell. Noah rubbed his chin.

“Gentle Snow?”

The book closed again. This time, he was certain. The eye did look sheepish.

“You ate the majority of my Runes.” Noah crossed his arms. The book thumped its pages in response. It wasn’t giving him any more mental responses – evidently, that was reserved for when it was hungry.

Noah held a staring contest with the book for nearly a minute. Then he rubbed the bridge of his nose and shook his head.

“Are you going to do that with all my Runes? If so, what use are you?”

The feeling of hunger pressed against his mind again, but gentler this time. Instead of asking for food, it felt like the artifact was trying to communicate. That wasn’t very easy when the only emotion it could get across was hunger, but Noah had spent enough time around Lee to have at least a little experience in that department.

“If I keep you fed with Runes, you won’t?”

The pages fluttered in what Noah hoped was an affirmative motion.

“And how often do you need energy?” Noah crossed his arms. “If you’re eating the majority of the stuff I get, this isn’t going to work at all. Forget infinite Catchpaper – I don’t have infinite Runes.”

He received another mental nudge of hunger, this one far fainter than the earlier ones.

I’m going to really hope that means the book doesn’t get hungry too often and it’s sated for the time being. If it does… well, that’s not the worst price to pay for what is functionally infinite storage.

“Fine,” Noah said wearily. “I’ll keep you fed as long as you warn me when you’re going to eat something. I don’t want to lose important Runes because you got hungry. Deal?”

That drew an affirmative flutter from the artifact. Noah wasn’t sure if he wanted to laugh or cry. For the price he’d just paid for this book, he hoped it was worthwhile.

“Great. You’re my grimoire from here on out, then. Looking forward to… feeding you, I guess.”

Noah carefully reached out to pick the book up. It felt heavier than it had before, but it was still remarkably light. As unwieldy as it was, he was still able to lift it with one hand. Just holding it in front of him blocked his view, so he thought better of it and leaned the book against the bed.

“Well,” Noah said, brushing his hand off against his shirt and straightening back up. “That’s handled.”

“How’d you lift it so easily?” Moxie walked over to his new grimoire. “It looks so heavy.”

“It’s light, actually. I don’t know how. Magic, I guess.”

Moxie tugged at the grimoire, but it didn’t even budge. Its eye flicked over to Moxie, curling up at the edges as if it were smirking.

“Well. That’s convenient,” Noah said.

Moxie pulled at the cover, but it remained firmly shut. “Quite. A book that only you can open or move. Not bad at all.”

Noah nodded in agreement. “Now all we need to do is figure out what to do with the damn book of death. I don’t think I can walk around with it forever.”

“Maybe find a hiding place?” Lee suggested, trying her own hand at lifting the grimoire to no luck. “We could get an Imbuement that could block out its signal if we find an Imbuer that can study it.”

“Not a bad idea.” Noah chewed his lower lip. “Maybe we could–”

A tongue of paper whipped out from Noah’s grimoire, snagging the entire bundle and yanking it from his grip. It whistled through the air, its shrill scream kicking up for less than half a second before it vanished into the grimoire’s pages with a thump.

The screaming cut off abruptly.

All three of them stared at the artifact. Noah looked from his empty hands to the book, which opened up to reveal that it was once again empty. A line of text scrawled across the page.

Vermil Linwick. Deceased.

“Huh,” Noah said, a grin pulling across his lips. The grimoire wasn’t limited to eating Runes. It could eat books too – and it kept the information within them in its own pages. “Now that – that is interesting.”

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