Return of the Runebound Professor

“You know what’s wrong with Lee’s runes?” Moxie exclaimed, her voice raising from her hushed whisper in surprise.

“Don’t get too excited yet.” Noah raised a hand to keep either Moxie or Lee from saying anything else. He’d found a hint that could lead him toward fixing Lee, but he was still far from actually solving the issue — and the last thing they needed to do was broadcast any of what he’d discovered.

There was almost certainly a reason why it wasn’t common knowledge in the Damned Plains yet. That may have been because nobody had ever met the terrifying the demon who the basic Demon Rune had come from. It may have been because someone had figured it out and gone through great lengths to ensure nobody else would.

Noah wasn’t sure which — if either — of the reasons it was, but he wasn’t about to take any chances. Not when he had perfectly good Mind Meld potions to work with.

“This isn’t the place to talk out loud,” Noah said. “We don’t need anyone overhearing us. Even accidentally. The rest of this conversation is going to have to be held in one of our minds.”

“Can three people even use a Mind Meld?” Lee asked with a frown. She shifted from foot to foot in anticipation. Even though she was doing a good job of keeping her emotions in check, Noah could see the desire in her eyes.

He couldn’t blame her. Lee had been living with a blade hanging so close to her that she’d probably been able to feel its tip against her neck. Her Runes were a ticking time bomb. A bomb that promised an end resulting in becoming a monster or dying. Any path that let her free of those fates wasn’t one she could afford to pass by.

“No,” Noah said with a shake of his head. “Not as far as I’m aware, at least. I’ve been avoiding anything to do with Mind Runes, but I’m starting to think that getting one would be a clever investment. They’re fucking disgusting, but if it’s for the purposes of finding a way to just communicate telepathically, it would be worth it.”

“One problem at a time,” Moxie said. She reached into her bag and pulled out a Mind Meld potion, pressing it into Noah’s palm. “I’ve got more of these. Maybe you should tell Lee first. I’ll keep watch to make sure nobody bothers us.”

Noah nodded. She’d always been capable, but after what she’d done in Igris’ estate, he had absolutely no doubt that they’d be safe until they woke back up. There weren’t going to be many demons capable of dealing with her powers and it would take time for anyone to figure out exactly who had offed Igris. If anyone even truly cared about his death, they’d probably do their legwork to figure out how a Rank 5 had fallen so easily before launching an assault of their own.

“Thanks, Moxie.” Noah pulled the top of the Mind Meld potion off and held the glistening pink liquid out to Lee. He still hadn’t gotten used to the strange color of the potion in the Damned Plains, but it seemed to work all the same. “Here. You first, Lee. My soul isn’t particularly hospitable.”

Lee took the potion from Noah. Her hand shook slightly with nervousness and excitement as she lifted it to her lips and tilted the potion back, draining half of it. She handed it back to him and sat down.

He popped the second stopper off the potion and drained the rest of the shimmering liquid before sitting beside Lee. Moxie slipped a hand into a pocket and pulled out a small handful of seeds. She inclined her head to Noah.

“I’ve got another one of those, by the way. I’ll contain myself for now, but make sure you’re ready to repeat your explanation. I’ll be waiting.”

“It won’t be long,” Noah promised. A familiar buzz rolled over his senses and a wave of darkness followed after it. He closed his eyes and let the sensation ferry his soul free of his body and into Lee’s mind.

***

Inky black pooled beneath Noah’s feet. It had been some time since he’d last been in Lee’s soul, but her soul was exactly as he last remembered it — a stickier version of his own. Faint waves of pressure lapped against him from her odd conglomeration of runes. It was nothing in comparison to the energy that Sunder and the Fragment of Renewal put off, not to mention the rest of his runes.

He squinted at the mass of incomprehensible patterns for a second. A small part of him had hoped that he’d suddenly be able to decipher exactly what had happened now that he had the Fragment of Self, but there was no such luck.

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Lee’s runes were just as confusing now as they had been the last time he’d seen them. He blew out a small breath and turned, ribbons of toffeelike darkness squelching as they clung to the bottoms of his feet.

Lee stood with her back to him and her runes. She wrung her hands behind herself. It seemed she still couldn’t look at her runes without risking their release. That didn’t fit in with anything he’d discovered yet, but it would come in due time. It had to.

“Lee?” Noah asked as he drew up beside her.

“It’s not safe for me to turn around. If I look at my rune, I could—”

“I know,” Noah said. He stepped around so Lee could see him. “We’ve only got 30 minutes, so I don’t want to waste any of it. To be blunt, I haven’t solved your problem yet. I don’t know exactly how to fix whatever the fuck is going on with your runes, but I know the first piece of the puzzle. You aren’t unique in this problem. The issue isn’t anything you did or anything you are. It’s a flaw in every single demon.”

Lee’s features furrowed in confusion. “A flaw? You mean the connection between our body and our soul?”

“That’s not your flaw,” Noah said. He glanced around for a moment in search of something to sit on. A bubble of shadow roiled beneath him and a chair rose up from within it. He sat down with an appreciative nod, and Lee lowered herself into a chair of her own across from him. Noah braced his hands on his knees and leaned forward. “The unification of body and soul is what makes you strong, Lee. But that’s also magnifying your issue. Demons are affected really heavily by their runes. More than humans are.”

“So what’s the issue?” Lee asked.

“Your actual runes,” Noah replied. “Or, more specifically, your Demon Runes. The foundation of everything every single demon relies on is a complete lie. Your Rank 1 Demon Runes — they’re not Demon Runes at all. They’re poor imitations of someone else’s rune.”

Lee stared at Noah in complete befuddlement. “What do you mean? A Demon Rune is a Demon Rune.”

“No, it isn’t.” Noah shook his head. “That’s what I found out when I was… examining Igris. The basic Demon Rune, the building block for everything else, is something called a Miniscule Fragment of Decras.”

“You can read Demon Runes now?”

“Kind of.” Noah waggled a hand in the air. “I can’t actually read Demon Runes, but I was able to decipher the Rank 1 Demon Rune because of how close its energy matched someone else I know.”

“Decras,” Lee said. It was more of a statement than a question, but her head tilted to the side in confusion nonetheless. “Who is that? And how is a Fragment of him in every demon? Isn’t a Fragment the same thing as your Master Rune?”

“The one I stole from a goddess on accident,” Noah confirmed with a grim nod. “And it’s not exactly the same. You’ve got something called a Miniscule Fragment of Decras, not a whole Fragment.”

Lee’s eyebrows knit. She pulled her legs up to her chest and drummed her fingers against her knees. “Who is Decras?”

“A god,” Noah replied after a moment of hesitation. “At least, I think he is. Maybe he’s something worse. I only just learned his name, but Decras is the one who I got Sunder from. He attacked the afterlife. Technically, the only reason I was able to keep my memories and arrive in this world is because of him.”

“And he’s got parts of himself in every demon?” Lee asked. She let her legs drop back to the ground and slid back in her chair, her features scrunching. “Why? How?”

Noah just shook his head. That was the very question he was stuck on. He didn’t know just how far the powers of gods actually extended. They clearly weren’t omniscient — if they were, Renewal probably would have blasted him with a bolt of lightning or the like by now.

Could Decras have done something to every demon? Are they his descendants? Did he curse them, or is it something else entirely? Maybe someone stole magic from him and used it to poison the demon bloodline… or something.

There were too many options and too few avenues to find answers. If discovering the truth behind how demons had ended up with pieces of a ruthless god, then Noah suspected it would have been quite some time before he’d be able to do much of anything.

Fortunately, that wasn’t the case. He might not have known what put the runes in the demons in the first place — but the way they worked seemed quite straightforward. Noah didn’t know how to diagnose the problem, but he did have an idea to circumvent it.

“I found more than just your connection to Decras,” Noah said. “I think I have a way for you to make something that will replace the Demon Runes — at least, temporarily. It might not be a permanent solution. It might not even work, but…”

“What is it?” Lee asked, leaping from her chair. Shadows rippled around her feet as they hit the ground and she grabbed Noah by the wrists. “If you’ve got anything that has a chance of working, I’ll do it.”

“I figured as much,” Noah said. He rose from his chair and Lee released his arms.

“So what do I do?”

“When I was making my Warped Matter rune, I accidentally made an extra one. A Rune called the Fragment of Self. It’s still in my soul, and it doesn’t act the way any of my other runes does. I think it’s a representation of my body and soul.”

“The same name as the Fragment of Decras,” Lee muttered. Realization washed through her features. “You mean—”

“You need to make a rune from scratch,” Noah replied with a nod. “A replacement to the rune that you’re currently using as a crutch. I’d give you one of mine, but it wouldn’t do you any better than what you’ve got right now. I’m certain of it. You can’t build a foundation when everything relies on somebody else. This has to be you, Lee. You have to make your own Fragment of Self.”

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