Return of the Runebound Professor

“Don’t get so worried,” Noah said, raising his hands defensively and laughing. “It’s not a great Master Rune. Well, it’s pretty good, but it really doesn’t fit the direction I’m trying to progress in. If I wanted an Earth-based Master Rune, I’d look for a different one. Moxie didn’t want it either, so there was no reason for us to keep it.”

“There go my chances of hoping I’d misheard you,” Brayden said, rubbing the bridge of his nose and letting out a slow sigh. He looked down on the students, then back to Noah. “For a moment, I thought you were giving away the Combustion Rune you spent so much effort stealing.”

“Oh, no. I’ve still got that one. Haven’t had a chance to use it much recently, but I’ve got it. This is a new one.”

“When did you get a new Master Rune?”

“Moxie and I just grabbed it while we were out screwing around near Dawnforge,” Noah replied with a shrug.

“And you’re just… giving it away?” Brayden asked, disbelief etched into his features. “Did you charge your students a ludicrous amount to learn from you?”

“No, of course not. It’s the reward for their training.”

“You’re giving away hundreds of thousands of gold in exchange as a reward?” Brayden grabbed Noah by the shoulders and squinted into his eyes. “You weren’t dropped on your head, were you?”

“I can just get another one if I need to. Rune prices are inflated,” Noah waved Brayden’s hands away. “Let’s be real, Brayden. They’re not actually that difficult to get. Sure, the monsters are strong, but everything in regard to rune prices is fake. The nobles pumped the price up. Those kids don’t have a way to get the really strong runes, but nobles do. How is me giving them a Master Rune any different than some spoiled brat’s dad buying him all his runes?”

Brayden let out a sigh and scooted back. He turned his gaze back to the students and was silent for several seconds. Then a sad smile pulled across his face and he shook his head. “The way you put that makes it seem so logical. You aren’t wrong… but that changes nothing. You’re giving away a ridiculous amount of power and gold for no reason. I’m jealous.”

“What, of the kids? You could totally kill a Great Monster and get yourself a Master Rune if you wanted to.”

“Not of the kids,” Brayden said. “Of you.”

It was Noah’s turn to blink in surprise. “Me? Why?”

“You view things in such sharp shades of black and white. Either you want to do it or you don’t, and you don’t care in the slightest about anything else. I suppose some could frame that as sheer dumb stupidity.”

“Thanks,” Noah said dryly. “Better be careful. I’ve been told my brand of stupid is contagious.”

“That said,” Brayden continued, “It feels like you live the way you want to. No fear. No overthinking about if your choices are the right ones. You just do them. Even if rune prices are inflated, what idiot would throw away hundreds of thousands of gold? Your logic is sound, but it requires literally not giving a shit about anything other than what you want.”

Noah shrugged. “That really isn’t all that hard to do.”

A few thousand years waiting around in the afterlife will do wonders in reworking your views of what’s important. Money is just a way to get runes. If they need the rune and I don’t need anything at the moment, I don’t see why I wouldn’t just give it to them. If there was ever a rune I really needed to buy, I’d just go try to get funding from Otto. No point sitting on a crapton of money — or a useless rune — and letting it rot.

“Harder for some than you might think,” Brayden said. He chuckled and pushed himself up to his feet to stand at the top of the wall. “It’s rather funny. If I hadn’t known that you’d killed Vermil and taken his body, this conversation would have revealed it.”

“He could have just become very altruistic.” Noah craned his neck back to look up at Brayden. “Taking on students has a way of teaching the teacher.”

“Perhaps, but no self-respecting Linwick would ever be caught dead with that view. Our family came to power by clawing for strength with every scrap we had to give. Giving so much … nobody who grew up in our family would be so foolish.”

“Bah. You’re a good man. You’d have done something similar if people were relying on you.”

“No,” Brayden said softly. His eyes drifted up to the sky, lost in thought. “I don’t think I would have.”

“I notice you using past tense there,” Noah pointed out. “That means you’re thinking about it. Just you watch. In a short while, you’ll be just as much of an idiot as I am. Maybe you need to take on some students.”

Brayden let out a bark of laugher. “Perhaps. It was nice speaking with you again. I’d stay longer, but I have work to handle. Just one more thing — this wasn’t just a social visit.”

“It wasn’t?”

“Well, it mostly was,” Brayden admitted. “But I did also promise to deliver a message. Jalen says that Tim has been sitting around in his house, bored out of his mind. Apparently you’re somehow able to help with that?”

I do need to find Tim and finish what I started with his —

“Wait,” Noah said, speaking before his thoughts could even finish forming. “Jalen? What the hell does he have to do with Tim?”

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“Don’t ask me,” Brayden replied with a shrug. “Jalen just showed up out of nowhere and told me to get you. I don’t know why he didn’t do it himself. Probably because he was lazy. Crazy old bloke. Crazy, but terrifyingly powerful.”

“I see,” Noah said, shaking his head to clear away the confusion. Tim and Jalen were both old, but that was like comparing an ant to a dragon. Jalen’s version of old was ancient, while Tim couldn’t have been all that old due to his limited runes. “Well, where’s Tim’s house? I’ll find him.”

Brayden wordleslly handed Noah a slip of paper. It was strikingly familiar to the one that Father had given him some time ago to get his attention, but it only took one look to tell that it was different.

The scrap of power Imbued into the paper was considerably more powerful than Father’s. It was definitely a Space Rune, but Noah couldn’t even begin to figure out what it actually represented.

“This is Jalen’s,” Noah said.

“Very astute.” Brayden chuckled. “Use that and Jalen will come knocking. He said to use it soon.”

“That’s because he’s impatient.”

“I wouldn’t tell him that to his face. Jalen is a madman. I’m not sure how you got wrapped up with him but be careful. I nearly choked on my own heart when he showed up at my door. The rumors surrounding him can’t all be wrong, and none of them are good. He’s a monster, through and through.”

We play darts on the weekends.

“I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks for the warning,” Noah said. “You’re headed off, then?”

Brayden nodded. “Too much to deal with and too little time. Give Moxie my best wishes. I’ll be around, so if anything progresses, come find me. And let me know if you need help with those Space Runes of yours.”

“I will. I need to fill it up a bit, but after that, I’ll definitely seek you out,” Noah said with a smile. He rose to his feet and held a hand out. Brayden took it and they shook. A ripple of purple passed over the larger man’s body and he vanished on the spot, sending a small wave of faint, tingling energy over Noah’s hand.

Okay, that’s a pretty sick way to leave. I’m stealing that.

Noah glanced down from the wall. Brayden had reformed just a short distance from the base of the wall and was heading out of the arena, keeping to the shadows. Noah held back a laugh.

Right. Long range teleports are hugely draining. That was entirely just to look cool. I respect it.

He turned back and hopped down to the inside of their mini-arena, using a small gust of wind to slow his fall before he landed. Every single one of the students looked completely winded. They all sprawled across the ground at Moxie and Lee’s feet, battling desperately for breath.

“Looks like you’ve all been busy. I couldn’t have been up talking for that long,” Noah said.

“You made me work,” James said through a groan, pushing himself up just enough to look at Noah. “I hate working.”

“Nobody’s making you do anything,” Emily said between breaths. “You could just give up.”

Noah smiled and leaned in to whisper into Moxie’s ear. “So who’s winning? Any changes?”

“You’re the one that understands patterns the most. In terms of actual effort, every single one of them has been putting in everything they have. Alexandra is still the strongest, but that makes sense.”

Noah nodded. That matched up to what he’d seen from up on the wall beside Brayden. This was exactly what he’d hoped for when they’d decided to give the Master Rune away. Everyone was throwing themselves completely into their training. The rune was just a bonus. It wasn’t even the real reward. Noah almost laughed at that thought.

If Brayden heard that the Master Rune wasn’t actually the important bit of this whole thing, his ears would probably start bleeding.

“I’m proud of every single one of you,” Noah said. “We’re all well on our way to using patterns to their fullest extent, and Formations aren’t long beyond that. I think it’s just about time to decide who gets the Master Rune.”

That ripped everyone out of their stupor. The students all shot upright, though none of them actually stood up.

“There’s just one thing,” Noah said.

“There was never a Master Rune, and this was all just a clever ploy to get us to work?” Todd guessed.

“No, there’s a Master Rune. I’m not that much of an asshole,” Noah said. “But I—”

James raised a hand. Noah paused, then nodded to him.

“I’d like to withdraw from the running. I don’t think I won, but just in case, please don’t consider me,” James said. “I have no use for an earth-based Master Rune.”

“What?” Emily twisted to look at James. “Why in the Damned Plains were you trying so hard if you didn’t want it? We spent so much time training!”

“I was trying because you were.”

Emily’s cheeks went bright red and her mouth snapped shut. A second passed. Then she gave Noah a sheepish smile. “Please remove me too. I need to be mobile when I fight, so the Master Rune would be wasted on me if I got it.”

Noah smiled. “I can do that. Turning down something that you don’t need but could still use is very respectable.”

And not bad, James. Much better than pretending to be incompetent.

That only left 3 students. Neither Isabel nor Todd were going to give up — they’d already promised each other that they’d go all out to win. Alexandra was unlikely to step down as well, as she was desperate to grow stronger due to her body runes.

Between the three… I think Isabel has probably advanced the most from where we started. It’s a bit hard to judge exactly how much Todd has improved with patterns, but he developed what may be the most powerful ability in the long run. And Alexandra has probably taken to patterns the best out of everyone, which means she’s probably the one that spent the most time practicing. Bah. There’s a really good argument for each of them winning.

Noah turned to Moxie to ask where the points sat. But, before he could say anything, Todd and Isabel both raised their hands in unison.

“We’re out,” Todd said with a grin.

Noah was taken aback. He hadn’t been expecting that. And, judging by the shocked expression on Alexandra’s face, she hadn’t been either.

“Both of you?” Noah asked.

“Yeah,” Isabel said. “I think it would have been pretty useful on us… but Alexandra was practicing every single day, with basically every moment of free time she had. On some days I heard her coming back when I woke up.”

Alexandra’s mouth worked, trying and failing to find words as Todd nodded in agreement.

“I trained with her a good bit, and it was clear she’s really been throwing everything she’s got into this. She was going to win this regardless of if we withdrew or not, but Isabel and I decided that we’ve already gotten everything we wanted. We’ll get our own Master Runes later.”

“Cocky, much?” Isabel asked, bumping her shoulder into Todd’s with a smirk. “But he’s right. You earned this, Alexandra.”

Alexandra swallowed. “I—”

“Won,” Noah finished Alexandra’s sentence for her. This was the best-case scenario, and it meant nobody had hard feelings over losing. It couldn’t have gone better. “Did I say how proud of all of you I am?”

“As am I,” Moxie said. “And I think this calls for something.”

They all looked to her.

“What is it?” Lee asked. “Celebratory stretching?”

“No,” Moxie said with a grin. “It’s time for a pizza party.”

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