Return of the Runebound Professor

When the following morning came, Lee was waiting for Noah and Moxie on top of their bed. She’d somehow managed to sneak in without waking any of them up. The sun was already well on its daily journey through the sky, so they quickly headed out to meet their students at the base of the transport cannon for class. Even though they weren’t going to be using it to head anywhere, it had been their gathering point for long enough that it felt odd to go elsewhere.

That may have been a rather odd sentiment since both Noah and Moxie both had literal classrooms they could use, but those weren’t all that useful for practicing fighting.

Once everyone had gathered at the transport cannon, the group set off to the arena. They soon found an unused area and set about raising stone walls to obscure a small location off for themselves.

“How’s everyone feeling today?” Noah asked once the walls had been erected and they had their relative privacy. Lee sat on top of one of the walls, looking out to make sure nobody grew too close to them.

“About the same as I do most days,” Todd said. His eyes narrowed and he studied Noah. “Why do you ask? That’s a suspicious question.”

“How is it suspicious? It’s just polite.”

“So we’re not doing something special today?”

Noah coughed into a fist. “I didn’t say that either. You’ve all been putting a lot of work in these last few days. I know it hasn’t been easy. Everything from classes to meetings with the advanced track… that’s a lot to handle. Moxie and I have decided it’s about time to get one thing off your plates.”

“You’re going to decide who gets the master rune?” Isabel asked, catching on immediately.

“Like Isabel is? Or all of us?” Todd asked, not even bothering to hide his grin.

“You are ruining my dramatic reveal,” Noah said. “All of you. It would kind of defeat the purpose if Isabel was just deciding who got the damn thing on her own. The scores are so close that today will basically decide everything. We’ll be going by the same rules as always. Sparring sessions, and I want to see who’s managed to improve the most. It’s not just about winning. It’s about control and progress. And, needless to say, no using magic in your patterns. Not against each other.”

The students all nodded.

“Perfect,” Noah said. “Let’s get to it, then. Isabel, Alexandra, how would you two like to start? Everyone will get a chance against everyone, so it doesn’t really matter who opens things.”

The girls exchanged a nod, then drew their weapons in unison. Neither of them bothered exchanging words. At this point, they knew each other well enough that words weren’t going to change anything. All the talking they needed to do would be handled with their swords.

They’d, as usual, both managed to improve since the last time that Noah had seen them fighting. Alexandra and her sword almost felt like a single entity. She’d completely wrapped herself in her pattern and flowed from one move to the next without so much as a flicker of hesitation.

Isabel matched her well. Even though Alexandra was better with the sword than she was, Isabel limited her disadvantage by using her ramping strikes to force the other girl to play on the defensive. She also had her stone armor that absorbed a large amount of Alexandra’s attacks, letting Isabel buy her pattern time to ramp up.

Even though Alexandra’s pattern was considerably faster, Isabel’s pattern hit a lot harder once it got moving. Isabel could afford to ignore many of the small strikes, allowing them to connect with her armor.

Alexandra was likely to win a war of attrition, but if Isabel managed to land one of the strikes at the end of her pattern on the other girl, then she shifted the theoretical tides in her favor. Of course, in a real fight, Alexandra would just automatically win. Noah was pretty sure that Isabel’s sword wouldn’t even be able to cut her skin — but this was a training exercise about skill, not just victory.

Lee hopped down from the stones and landed beside him. “Noah?”

“Yeah?” Noah asked, still watching the fight. It didn’t look like there would be any need for him to interfere. Both Alexandra and Isabel hadn’t so much as drawn a flicker of magic into their patterns.

“Brayden is here. I think he’s looking for you.”

“Oh, shoot. I forgot he was dropping by class today,” Noah said. “Can you and Moxie keep an eye on things?”

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Lee nodded. “Yeah. I don’t know if we’ll have to do much, though. I think everyone’s gotten a pretty good grasp of their patterns.”

“Does that include you?” Noah asked, calling on Natural Disaster to jump up with a blast of wind but pausing before he did. “I haven’t followed up on your pattern recently.”

“It’s okay,” Lee said noncommittally. “I’ve been a little distracted, but I’m making progress. I think I need to figure a little more out on my own and then I’ll show you what I’ve got. I’ve been doing a whole lot of practice, though.”

“Wasn’t your pattern hunger?”

“Yup.”

“So when you say practice… you’re just eating.”

“Correct.” Lee flashed him a toothy grin. “Brayden is waiting.”

Noah shook his head with a laugh. He released the blast of wind and launched into the air, flying up above the stone walls they’d made and scanning the area for Brayden. The large man stood in the arena just a few feet away, looking up at Noah with a bemused expression.

“Did you build a castle in the middle of the arena?” Brayden asked.

“It’s just a privacy screen. We’d normally head somewhere off campus to practice, but with the transport cannon being in the state that it is, that isn’t really an option right now. So… care to come into our castle?” Noah landed on the top of the stone walls and pinwheeled his arms for a second to keep his balance.

Brayden snorted. A shimmer of purple passed over him and he stepped into a thin portal, reforming beside Noah. He looked down at Isabel and Alexandra, who were still locked in their fight, then let out an impressed grunt.

“They’re good. That your fault?”

“Nah. They did all the work. I just gave them a few pointers,” Noah said with a small shrug. “They are good, though.”

“That seems like it may be false humility,” Brayden observed. He studied the fight for several seconds, then shook his head. “People don’t learn to fight like that on their own. Why do their movements feel so much like… gah. I don’t know how to describe it. A dance?”

“A pattern,” Noah corrected. He sat down on the top of the wall and Brayden did the same.

“Curious,” Brayden said. He shook his head to gather his thoughts. “It’s been some time since we’ve sat down like this, hasn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

“A lot has changed,” Brayden said. He let out a slow sigh. “Father is really worried about Wizen. He hasn’t given me any orders other than doing everything I can to get in his way. Even if he doesn’t attack Arbitage, he’s going to be a threat.”

“I hope you’re not going to try to recruit me to go hunt for the bugger. I don’t like him any more than you do, but I’ve got a duty.” Noah nodded down to Isabel and Alexandra, who were still somehow locked in the same fight. Both of them were pushing their abilities to the absolute limits, and neither was willing to give in until they’d drawn every last scrap of skill they had. “I’m not leaving them.”

“Oh, I know. I wouldn’t ask you to. But, when Wizen does get found — and he will — I want to know if I can count on you.”

“I’m just a Rank 4, you know.”

Brayden pierced Noah with a flat stare. “I think we both know that there is nothing ‘just’ about you. I know it seems like the Enforcers should have this covered, but I can’t shake the feeling that we’re up against more than what we think. Father wouldn’t be reacting like this to a minor threat.”

Isabel and Alexandra’s fight finally ended. Neither of them had actually managed to overwhelm the other. They’d both just stopped fighting at the exact same time. The girls exchanged a grin, then walked over to sit down while Todd hopped to his feet and dragged Emily up along with him to start the next round of sparring.

“I know,” Noah said. “I’ll back you up. Not because I particularly care about the Enforcers, but because I don’t want Wizen getting strong enough to do whatever it is he’s aiming for. I won’t waste a ton of time helping you find him, but once you figure out where he is, I’ll help take him out. As much as I can, that is.”

“Thanks.”

They fell silent for a few seconds, doing nothing but watch Todd and Emily spar. Brayden then cleared his throat.

“Did you have any luck with your Space Rune endeavors?”

“A fair bit of it, actually,” Noah said. “I’ve got… something. But when you said that Space Runes were power hungry, you weren’t kidding. I used up nearly the entire thing just activating it. Is that normal?”

Brayden nodded sagely. “Early stage Space Runes are almost useless. I don’t know why it’s so hard to use them, but that ridiculous power draw is normal. It’s like that, even for me. I just deal with it by having quite a number of them and trying to make them the highest quality I can manage.”

Damn. I was really hoping he’d have some kind of trick or pointer that would let me optimize Crumbling Space, but I guess that’s asking too much. The rune is more than powerful enough to justify its ridiculous power draw.

“So, is there a reason your students are pushing themselves so hard right now? They can’t treat every lesson like this, can they?” Brayden asked.

Noah looked back down just in time to catch Todd and Emily walking back to take their seats on the sand while Alexandra and James stood for the next match. It looked like Moxie was keeping tabs on everything and leaving things open for him to speak with Brayden.

“I’d say they do. They’re all very motivated,” Noah said. “Both for this particular lesson and in general.”

“What’s special about this lesson?”

“Whoever demonstrates the most improvement from when we started a training exercise a few classes ago is given a rune,” Noah said.

Brayden nodded his understanding. “Ah. A reward. That’s clever. Good way to get them to push, and it’s good timing. That first exam is coming up on us pretty soon. There will be a lot of eyes on their performance.”

“What do you think of their chances of winning the whole thing?”

“It’s hard to say. This is an impressive performance, but there are a lot of very talented students in the Advanced Track,” Brayden said slowly. “I’m very curious to see how it plays out. By the way, how did you motivate all of them with a single Rune? Do they all have one in common?”

“Oh, no. The reward is just a Master Rune.”

Brayden nearly fell off the wall as he spun to Noah surprise. “It’s a what?”

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