Return of the Runebound Professor

Moxie filled Noah in on what had happened when he got back to the room. There wasn’t much he could say – it wasn’t like Will had actually managed to pull anything off – so all they could do was sit down and enjoy their dinner together.

But, even though there wasn’t anything he planned to do yet, a small frown fixed itself on his lips. The advanced track was testing them. He couldn’t say he was surprised, of course, but it rubbed him the wrong way.

If the teachers in the advanced track hadn’t been sure about the quality of their abilities, then they should have thought things through more before sending the invites. Still, it wasn’t entirely unreasonable to ensure that the people they were inviting were actually competent.

At least, that was Noah’s view on it for right up until the end of the students’ next class the day after the next. As everyone dispersed and he made to head back to his room with Moxie, Alexandra caught his eye. She was standing by her desk, making no move to leave.

“One moment,” Noah said, stepping away from Moxie and Lee to walk over to her. Moxie and Lee both nodded and continued on, leaving Noah and Alexandra alone in the classroom. “Is something bothering you, Alexandra? You’ve been doing great with your patterns, if that was your question.”

“That’s one of them, but no.” Alexandra shook her head, then glanced around the classroom one more time to make sure nobody else was there. “I just wanted to talk to you about something.”

“Well, I’m here. Hit me with it.”

“I got approached by a faculty member claiming to be part of the advanced track,” Alexandra said. Noah’s smile fell away and his eyes narrowed.

“Who? What did they want?”

“His name was Gero, and he said he was there to test me and determine if I was strong enough to enter the advanced track.”

“He attacked you?” Noah asked.

“He gave me a choice between leaving the advanced track and fighting him,” Alexandra said. She chewed her lip in thought. “I passed, I think, but it didn’t make sense. I don’t know why I passed, but he certainly wasn’t going easy on me.”

This is going too far. If you want to test me, that’s fine. Then they tested Moxie when they thought she was crippled by sending someone who was meant to beat the shit out of her. That’s one check against you. But if you want to test my students as well, you need to do it through me, not jump them on the roadside. It seems the advanced track might have overinflated egos if they’re just going around throwing their weight like this.

“I see,” Noah said, keeping his voice even. “How difficult was the fight? Was he just pressing to see your abilities?”

“It was hard to tell,” Alexandra admitted. “He said he was going to try to seriously hurt me and that it would be dangerous, or something like that. I can’t remember his exact words.”

“I assume you’re asking to find out if everyone else has been tested?” Noah asked.

“Yeah. I don’t know if the others would have been able to pass,” Alexandra said with a worried frown. “I only made it because I’m a Rank 3 and had Body Runes that let me keep up with him. I mean, Gero was obviously holding back because he’s a Rank 4, but he wasn’t holding back completely.”

“Understood,” Noah said. “I don’t think any of the other students have gotten tested, but rest assured that it won’t happen again. Not in any unofficial manner, at least.”

“It won’t?” Alexandra blinked. “I was going to ask if you’d be willing to give us more combat training incorporating patterns so we could get ready for it. I figured this was how things were going to be now.”

Noah snorted and shook his head. “We can definitely do that, but this is not how things are going to be. Class is time for learning and practice. You need rest, and that time is when you’re off class. If those idiots are going around attacking you after you’ve already been to class, you’ll be worried about saving your strength for them. Trust me, I’ll handle things.”

“Okay. Thanks,” Alexandra said with a small nod of appreciation. “I’ll be off, then. I need to practice my pattern more today. I think I’m really starting to get a hold of it.”

“So I can tell. You’re still the farthest along out of the entire class,” Noah said. He flashed her a grin and raised a hand in farewell. Alexandra returned the gesture, then headed out of the class.

As soon as she was gone, Noah’s smile fell away and anger crossed his features in its place. He stormed out of the G building and set a course straight for Moxie’s room. His mind spun in thought – if the advanced track wanted to play games with him, then he was more than willing to play back. He just needed a few things. Fortunately, Moxie and Lee were already there when he got back.

Moxie took one look at his face and her own eyes narrowed. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

“Those advanced track pricks attacked Alexandra,” Noah said. “Their egos are the size of clouds if they think they can just go around terrorizing my students. I was already on the edge with what they were planning to do to you, but this is two times now. I’m not giving them a third.”

“Should we withdraw?” Moxie asked.

“Hell no,” Noah replied. “From what I can tell, the advanced track is a bunch of professors that argue over shit. Ulya – the lady that tested me – didn’t even seem like she wanted to be doing it. Out of all of them, she seemed decent enough. But now I’m pissed off.”

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

“That sounds like it’s going to be fun,” Lee said, a small grin slipping across her face. “Do I get to help? It can be just like the Dayton thing again. And, if you have anyone you need to get rid of, I’m hungry.”

“Yeah, I think I just might need your help,” Noah said, more pieces of a plan sliding into place.

“I hope you aren’t planning on killing anyone too important,” Moxie said. “We don’t want to go overboard.”

“No plans of killing anyone,” Noah said with a shake of his head. “Not yet, at least. Moxie, could you watch over my gourd? You never know what will happen.”

Moxie nodded and Noah took his belongings off his waist, pulling a change of clothes out of the bag before handing it and the gourd over to Moxie. He then leaned his grimoire against the wall and turned to Lee.

“Here. You’re going to need these.”

“I’m going to be you?” Lee’s eyes lit up and she pulled her clothes off, her body shifting even as she moved. Her skin bulged and changed shades, hair shifting to match Noah’s as she grew larger.

By the time she’d finished changing, she’d already started to pull Noah’s clothes on. She stuck her hands through the jacket, then turned to Moxie. “How do I look?”

Moxie reached out and ruffled her hair, messing it up so that some strands hung in front of her face. “There. What are you planning though, Noah?”

“Just a little demonstration,” Noah replied. He sent Moxie a quick smile to show her that he wasn’t going to do anything too stupid. “Lee, do you think you can sniff out the idiot that came after Moxie?”

“Easily.”

“Good. We need to make another stop first, but I’ll need something different to wear. Moxie, can I borrow a cloak from your closet? I kind of only have one outfit.”

Moxie snorted and turned to ruffle through her closet. She found a green traveling robe after a few minutes of searching and threw it around Noah’s shoulders, tightening the clasp at his neck.

She pulled the hood up over Noah’s head, then took a step back and tilted her head to the side.

“It hides your face, but not perfectly. Aside from that, it fits.”

“That’s fine,” Noah said. He pulled his badge off and handed it to Lee, who fixed it on her chest. “I won’t be long. No more than a few hours.”

Moxie nodded. “Just make sure that, if you die, you don’t leave anything behind.”

“Will do,” Noah promised. He pulled the door open, keeping the hood low over his face. “Let’s go, Lee.”

They left Moxie’s room and swept out of the T building, moving at a brisk pace. It was already well into the evening, and there weren’t too many other people walking around to bother them. It didn’t take them long to reach the dormitories, and Noah led Lee up to Todd and Isabel’s room, rapping on the door when they drew up to it.

It opened a few moments later to reveal Todd, a confused look on his face. He looked over Noah’s shoulder at the fake Noah.

“Professor! What’s going on? Are we doing an exercise?”

“Nothing like that,” Noah said. Todd jumped at his voice and Noah took the opportunity to step inside, pulling the hood back. Todd stared at him, then turned his eyes to Lee.

“What the – wait. You’re doing something.”

“Very apt,” Noah said dryly. “And I’d like your help. By the way, where’s Isabel?”

“Out for dinner with Alexandra.” Todd broke into a grin. “You should have started with needing help. What can I do for you?”

“Hopefully nothing too difficult. I need something Imbued, and I couldn’t think of anyone better to go to.”

“Imbued?” Todd blinked. “Yeah, I could probably help with that. What do you need?”

Noah smiled.

***

A little over an hour later, Noah and Lee left the room. A stone mask rested on Noah’s face, obscuring it. He hadn’t needed anything particularly fancy, but Natural Disaster wasn’t suited to creation – only destruction.

Todd had only needed a short while to form a mask out of the stone of his room’s walls and shape it into a snarling visage, carving out holes for Noah’s eyes and Imbuing it so that it would hold its shape. The mask had stone loops to hold it in place that probably should have been incredibly uncomfortable, but Todd somehow Imbued them to be just soft enough to not be a nuisance.

Todd had warned him that the Mask wasn’t a permanent Imbuement and would only hold for about three hours before it fell apart and he ran out of energy, but three hours was more than enough time for Noah to work with.

Lee took the lead as they left the dormitories, and Noah kept his hood pulled low over his face to conceal the mask that was now covering it. They stuck to the side streets, staying out of attention in case anyone happened to see them passing by.

Some time later, the two of them arrived at the edge of a dark alleyway. Across from them was a fairly nice house in a quiet neighborhood. It was stone and marble, with just enough quality to make it apparent that its owner was wealthy. Lee nodded to the house.

“He’s in there.”

“Perfect,” Noah said, his smile concealed by the cool stone against his face. “Thank you, Lee. That’s all for this part. Can you go back to the T building and make sure to take a long trip through the market?”

Lee beamed at him with his own face, which was admittedly a strange experience that he still had yet to get used to. “Okay! Have fun! He’s in the room with the big window above head height.”

She slipped back into the darkness, vanishing just a step away from Noah. A small shiver ran down his back. Lee was getting really good at slipping through the shadows. He didn’t even know if she was there anymore.

Noah wiped those thoughts away. Lee was on his side, and now wasn’t the time to be thinking about her. He pulled his cloak lower and strode up to the side of the house, flexing his fingers as he considered the best way to do this.

If I was Lee, I’d stealth in. That would be pretty scary – but I’m not Lee. Oh well. We’ll be doing this the fun way, then.

Noah drew up to the house, letting Natural Disaster’s power pulse through his veins as he lifted a hand and pressed it against the wall. A violent tremor ripped through the stone. There was a deafening crack followed by an explosion as the wall shattered.

A scream rang out from within the room and Noah stepped through the cloud of dust and falling rubble. On the other side of the room stood a blonde man, his eyes wide with terror and shock.

“What in the Damned Plains? Who are you?” Will demanded as Noah strode toward him. Noah’s lips creased in a smile as he saw the man try to reach for his magic to no avail. He’d already closed the distance between them, and Will was within Noah’s domain with no way to resist it.

“You tell me,” Noah said, letting his voice drop into a lower octave. He drew on his meeting with Jalen, channeling the man’s dangerous aura as best as he could into his words. “You’ve been the one fucking with the people I’ve been teaching, Will. You and the advanced track – did you really think I’d just sit around while you interfered with my work?”

Will took a step back, his eyes darting around the room. Moxie had certainly been right about one thing – the little prick wasn’t actually blind.

“You’re Vermil?” Will asked, aghast.

Noah let out a raspy laugh. “No, Will. Did you really think he’d just figured everything out on his own? Even the most talented students need some guidance. No. I’m not Vermil. I’m the one who taught him everything he knows. Congratulations. You got my attention. I hope you’re going to do something worthwhile with it, because the only thing I hatemore than having my time wasted is being disappointed.”

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