Return of the Runebound Professor

Yoku was far too experienced to let the disbelief show in her features, even if a mask was covering them. She’d lived too many years to give information away through a slip up as obvious as body language — but she’d never come closer to it than this.

There had only been a single other time when she’d seen a future as absolute as this, and that had been when she’d tested her chances of winning a direct fight against Belkus many years ago when she’d still been a Rank 6.

Yoku pulled her hand back, keeping the potion out of Spider’s grasp. Under no circumstances could she allow him to drink the potion or discover the poison within it.

The probabilities of the future she had crafted changed as Spider failed to pick up the vial. Black smoke receded and moonlight broke through the clouds, pouring down on Yoku’s back and easing the invisible tension in her shoulders.

She allowed herself to relax internally. The futures she crafted were mere probability, and they had not come to pass. The change had shifted the weights, and a path once again illuminated the dark.

“Oh, were we supposed to share?” Spider asked as he let his hand drop and cleared his throat in embarrassment. “Sorry. I got excited.”

And just like that, the weights of the future changed once more. New probabilities unfurled like blooming black flowers of smoke. A future where the young demon beside Spider drank from the bottle first arose.

A distant rumble echoed through Yoku’s mind. The brief flicker of moonlight she had earned by averting the disastrous mistake vanished under a crashing tsunami of shadow. Smoke roared past her face flooded through the balcony.

The mental force slammed against her with enough intensity that it almost carried over into the real world and made her topple over. Icy bands wrapped around Yoku’s neck and constricted her chest once more, and even tighter than they had before.

The smoke was so thick that it threatened to pour down her throat and suffocate her. A bead of sweat formed between the mask and Yoku’s face. Another fixed, unchanging probability. This one was even worse than the first. The exact timing of her death was impossible to read, but it came sooner than when Spider himself ingested the poison.

How is this possible? The boy has no weight of his own. Nothing to the level. It all comes from Spider, but he would get no chance to use the strength of the poison if someone else were to drink the potion.

Who is Spider? Is his strength somehow concealed? Or does he have connections to a demon so powerful the probability of my survival in the future drops to zero if I make them an enemy?

It was impossible to tell — but Yoku’s fear was only matched by her curiosity. The futures she crafted were nothing but possibilities. The most likely outcomes of a certain situation. Nothing was real. Not yet.

She needed more information. The current scenario just wasn’t enough. Absolute death was a useful warning but worthless in gaining any leverage. There had to be some scenario that could be turned to her advantage.

For an instant, Yoku’s attention flicked to the woman beside Spider. The plants hidden within her clothes and hair were a subtle display of wealth and power. Spider seemed closer to her than the others did.

She let the future shift once more as she considered extending the poisoned vial to the woman to gauge her weight.

Twisting whorls of black smoke exploded like a supernova.

They crashed down upon her. A complete and utter pitch black painted across the sky. Not a single scrap of light remained in the world. All sound vanished, snuffed out like a candle.

Every single one of Yoku’s senses faltered in the face of the nothingness. The smoke became absolute. It was impossible to tell the smoke from a solid, unbroken blanket. A starless night, devoid of the moon.

Yoku’s heart thumped in her chest. Despite all her training, her lips parted slightly. There had never been a future so completely and utterly bleak.

A future in which the moon had been ripped from the sky.

The hair on the back of her neck stood on end as a deep sense of unease twisted in Yoku’s stomach. Her heart thumped once more. Fingers of ice caressed her throat and ran down her back, leaving a trail of goosebumps in their wake.

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A dull purple line appeared in the sky far above her. The prickling covering her body grew stronger. This was her domain. A world that had not yet taken shape. A mere possibility of a future that, no matter how dire, was nothing but a possibility under her control.

The purple line intensified, spreading to split the sky and growing brighter by the second. Her pale, empty eyes dilated. The energy did not belong to her. Something had infiltrated the sanctum of her own mind, carving straight down toward her like the blade of an executioner’s axe.

She ripped herself from the future she had crafted, yanking the potion back before anyone could so much as brush a finger across it. Her heart bucked, twisted, as if attempting to escape its mortal cage.

Yoku slammed the mental doors shut on her runes and ripped the power from them. The endless night sky disappeared as if it had never been. She had absolutely no idea what would have happened if she’d allowed that future to play out.

Perhaps the line had been a warning. A manifestation of her powers that she had simply never seen before. A way to show how truly dire the future that laid before her would be if she allowed the probabilities she had set up to play out.

She did not care to find out. That was a future that she refused to ever allow play out again. It would never come to be. Never had she witnessed a future that she could not measure, and she had absolutely no plans of witnessing it again.

Not a single demon at this table could be allowed to drink the potion.

She drove the vial back into her bag. The others sent confused looks in her direction.

“Did we do something wrong?” the boy asked.

“It is uncustomary to drink before a victory,” Yoku replied, her perfectly measured voice doing nothing to betray her racing heart. The boy was a Knowledge Demon. She was more than capable of concealing herself from his powers, but he would know that she was stopping him from reading her. It was far easier to just speak carefully chosen truths. “It struck me that it would be unfortunate if we drank before the auction. I misstepped.”

I would sooner dash this potion against the rocks than allow anyone at this table to drink it. My first vision now makes far more sense. I had thought my victory over Belkus leveraged the scales Spider tipped when he took the gangs out from under his control.

I was wrong. It is not the gangs that matter, but Spider himself. There exists a future in which his power and mine align. No matter what the cost, that will be the future I ensure. I must have him as an ally.

The boy nodded slightly to Spider, indicating that Yoku hadn’t lied.

“Ah. Good catch, then,” Spider said cheerfully. “We still need to have a successful run at the auction. We can just drink after. Don’t want to eat my chickens before they hatch, after all.”

“Eat?” the woman asked. “I think you’ve been spending too much time with Lee.”

“Whoops,” Spider said. He rubbed the back of his neck, then shrugged. “Eh. What else were we going to do with them?”

“Perhaps we can return to my dwellings and have a more proper celebration there,” Yoku suggested, drawing on a fragment of power to weigh the futures once more. Trepidation brushed across her as she checked for the purple line, but it was nowhere to be seen.

“We’re a bit busy for that,” Spider said with a small shake of his head. “I don’t mind doing it here.”

Absolutely not. I already know the outcome of that. I need to learn more about Spider, but I cannot offer him anything here. I have already witnessed that future.

What does he desire from this auction? The light of the rising moon will reveal it to me.

Questions flitted through Yoku’s mind. Smoke swirled around her, probabilities ebbing and flowing like the tide with every attempt.

Spider was attending an auction, but to her disbelief, it was not power that he sought. His reactions were more suspicious than interested in the futures where she offered him runes or magic.

Promised favors and riches were met with similar failure. Yoku twisted probabilities and threw them to the side with practiced efficiency. Spider was a deeply suspicious demon, but everyone had something they desired — and she always found out what it was.

And, after nearly a hundred different attempts and several long seconds, the moonlight revealed to her the answer… and it made absolutely no sense.

Yoku had never doubted her powers before, but today seemed to be a day for first times.

“I did not come here without purpose, as I am certain you are aware. Perhaps this will change your mind,” Yoku said, not entirely sure this was the path she sought, but unwilling to allow the opportunity to slip between her fingers. She hesitated for a second longer before continuing. “I would like to pet your cat.”

That caught Spider’s attention. His gaze sharpened on her. “You know Mascot?”

She was spared from having to search through the futures that would give her a satisfactory answer to that question. The roar of the crowd all around them finally sputtered out as a demon on the stage below cleared his throat, his voice rolling through the entire building effortlessly.

"I hope everyone is prepared,” the demon called, two black wings jutting from his back stretching out to cast an imposing shadow before him. “The auction will be starting. If you plan to kill anyone from here on out, ensure you do it outside, lest you incur cleaning fees. Am I understood?”

The crowd roared in response. Spider looked from Yoku down to the stage, then back ot her.

“We’ll talk,” Spider said.

Yoku inclined her head. “I look forward to it.”

“Then let’s get this auction started!” the demon roared, clapping his hands together. “Bring on the offers!”

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