Return of the Runebound Professor

Jalen crossed his arms in front of his chest. He cast his gaze out over the sloping, red-grassed fields stretching around him. The wind slicing through the air around him made the tall grass dance like an open flame.

In the distance, looming over the fields, silhouetted against the setting sun on the horizon, was the shadow of an enormous city. Towering spires loomed in the air to slice through the clouds that dared to pass by. The roofs of oddly shaped houses poked up from behind a wall ringing the city and plumes of multicolored smoke twisted into the air above it to form an oily haze.

“Well then. This is quite something, isn’t it?” Jalen tapped a foot against the ground and stood still for a moment, enjoying the feeling of wind as it rustled through his hair. It was almost as nice as the feeling of having no responsibilities.

Unfortunately, he didn’t know that feeling particularly well.

A groan rose up from the ground behind Jalen. He pulled his gaze away from the city and turned as a demon sat up, rubbing her eyes. “Ugh. My head. Wha— where am I?”

“Ah. You woke up,” Jalen said. “I was wondering when you would do that. I was starting to get bored.”

“Bored?” The demon’s eyes widened as they finally registered the scene around her. She scrambled to her feet. She studied at Jalen with wary, cautious eyes. “What’s going on? This isn’t the tower. Where are the others? Where am I?”

“Mortal Plane,” Jalen replied. “Just a slightly different area of it. I didn’t want to have to come here alone, you know. It would have been terribly boring. There was barely even time for me to get my go-bag. Horrible, really.”

The demon stared at him for several long seconds. “You don’t have a—”

She turned. Sitting in the grass behind her was a large tarp bag. It bulged at the sides where the edges of something large and circular pressed up within the bag, stretching it dangerously taut.

The metal point of something small and sharp poked out from where it had pushed through the stitching of the bag, gleaming dangerously in the afternoon light washing down over them.

“See?” Jalen asked. “Bag. Speaking of which, could you hand it to me? I’ve been standing here waiting for you to wake up so long that my legs have locked and I think I might fall over if I move. Old age really does get us all. Oh, be careful. It’s got some sharp bits in it. They’re a bit bendy, so they might get damaged if you stab yourself. That would be bad.”

“I’m so confused,” the demoness muttered, slowly reaching out to the bag and hoisting it into the air. The bag was surprisingly light — it clearly hadn’t been filled all that much. She slowly passed it to Jalen. “Could you tell me what’s going on? Please? The last thing I remember, I was sleeping in the tower with the other demons. Why are you here? Why am I here?”

“Oh, now you’re just making me feel like an asshole. I was getting there. I may have gotten booted out of the Empire. I didn’t want to go alone, so I may have kidnapped you. To be fair, it wasn’t like you actually lived in the tower. So I’ve just relocated you from one part of the Mortal Plane to the other.”

“You — wait. Someone was strong enough to kick you out of the Empire?” The demoness paled. “What kind of monster was that?”

“A pretty one. Unfortunately, a taken one,” Jalen said, pinching the bridge of his nose and letting out a sigh. He slung his bag over his shoulder. “Anyway. Time’s a-wasting. We’ve got a whole new world to explore. You could at least pretend to be excited. I’ve done you a favor. Why swim in the fishbowl when you could be in the ocean instead?”

“Are there predators in the fishbowl?”

Jalen tilted his head to the side. Then he let out a sharp laugh. “That’s a good point. You may have me there — but bygones must be bygones. You can’t tell me you aren’t at least a little excited to be here. Well, you probably could. But we don’t have time for that. We have a job to do, after all.”

“A… job?” the demon stared at him, still clearly trying to get her bearings and figure out what was happening.

“Oh, yes. A rather big one.” Jalen rubbed his chin and sent a glance back to the city looming in the distance. “We have to scout the place out. I don’t imagine it’ll be long before Spider makes his way over here, and I need to make sure I’ve got a good darts setup by the time he arrives. He’s going to owe me so many games.”

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“I think there might be something slightly wrong with your head.”

“Oh, most likely.” Jalen grinned. “Now then, Linestra. Shall we get going?”

***

As it turned out, nobody had seen Linestra for quite some time. That was mildly concerning. Noah didn’t much love the idea of a potentially dangerous demon roaming around Arbitage — but he was pretty sure she was smart enough not to draw attention to herself.

This area was already crawling with Inquisitor attention and Noah had made himself more than clear as to what would happen if anyone ever put the safety of his students at risk. There was a good chance she’d just taken the opportunity to run and go explore.

Noah wasn’t actually too bothered about it. She had given him pretty much everything she knew about Orlen. That hadn’t been much at all, but she’d served the purpose he needed from her.

Tillian asked a few questions about Linestra, ones largely meant to see if she was liable to suddenly start a killing spree, but the answers he got seemed to placate him. The Inquisitor then moved to the side of the group and sat down to wait until class was over. He definitely wasn’t a normal Inquisitor.

Revin and Eline joined him. Tillian didn’t seem too pleased about that. For that matter, Eline didn’t either. The only one that actually looked happy about the whole situation was Revin himself.

The rest of the class, at least, went fairly normally. Alexandra immediately shifted to speaking in more general terms to avoid revealing anything to their new visitors. Noah hadn’t even had to warn her about it — and, fortunately, they’d already covered enough ground that the other students could pretty much just start practicing and working on their patterns without much more instruction.

Once things had just about wrapped up, around an hour before the Transport Cannon called them back to Arbitage, Noah and Moxie made their way over to Revin’s group. Lee had already joined them and had begun liberating Tillian of any sweets that he’d been misfortunate enough to bring along with him.

“Doesn’t this bring back old memories?” Revin asked. “Good times we had. I see you took my advice to heart about Formations. It seems you’ve gotten quite the grasp over their basics. I knew you had potential.”

“You told me you were a Rank 3,” Noah said flatly, cutting through the small talk like a blade. “You aren’t.”

“A part of me is,” Revin replied with a chuckle. “Do you stop being something when you become more? Or do you no longer have access to the forms of energy that your weaker runes possessed now that you have advanced in rank?”

“That’s hardly the same,” Moxie said. “You didn’t come here just to mess around.”

“Was that a question or a statement?” Revin scratched the side of his neck. “And I’ll have you know that everything I do is of vital importance. I’m a very important man.”

“He laid in bed for a week straight about a month ago,” Eline provided. “He didn’t stand up once. He just laid there. I thought he was dead, but he locked all the escapes down so I couldn’t leave.”

“I was meditating,” Revin said. “It’s good for your health.”

“We’re not doing this today, Revin,” Noah said, his voice dangerous. “You know the Apostles. I need to know how — and I need to know why you’re here. There’s no way you came all this way just to bring Tillian.”

“That would be quite stupid, wouldn’t it?” Revin asked. “But I do have a student here, you know. Can’t a teacher visit his pupil?”

“He’s not your pupil.” Noah turned as Emily entered his domain, her eyes cold. He blinked. For the briefest moment, even though their physical appearances were nowhere alike, he could have sworn she looked just like Moxie. Emily thrust a finger at Revin. “And you better not be here to try to take him back.”

Is her hearing really that good? There’s no way. We weren’t speaking that loud. How did Emily overhear our conversation?

Revin raised an eyebrow. “I remember you. Emily, wasn’t it? The former Torrin heir. You’re… different.”

“Stay away from James,” Emily said. “He’s only told me a little bit about you, but that’s more than enough.”

“And if I didn’t?” Revin’s head tilted to the side. A flicker of uncharacteristic seriousness entered his tone. “Would you stop me? I taught the boy everything he knows. More than he’s shown you, I can promise you of that. And you haven’t seen half of what he’s capable of. The boy has to be continuously pushed to reach his full potential. My methods are effective. What can you do?”

“Emily is right,” Moxie said. “You don’t get to just abandon students and then show back up planning to take them back. James is with our class now. Tugging your students around like puppets isn’t what a teacher does.”

“Our methods differ. The difference is that you care about the process, and I care about the results. Take this Torrin, for example.” Revin nodded to Emily. Eline suddenly stiffened. Magic raced into Noah’s fingertips, readied in an instant if Revin took even the slightest move in Emily’s direction. “Has your babying prepared her to—”

Revin abruptly stopped speaking. He went as still as a statue for an instant. Then a small smile tugged at his lips. “Well. Isn’t that interesting?”

“What are you on about?” Moxie asked. Noah could feel the power from her runes against his domain. she was ready to attack as well.

“Never mind me,” Revin said with a shake of his head. “Leave, Torrin. I am not here for James.”

Emily blinked. Eline started to edge away — and Revin’s hand clamped down on her shoulder.

“Damn it,” Eline said.

“Not you. You are not ready,” Revin said. He turned to Noah as Eline dejectedly returned to her former spot. Revin beckoned to him impatiently. “Well, then. You want to cut to the chase? I’ll oblige.”

“Then tell me how you know the Apostles.”

“Oh, that’s an easy one.” Revin gave Noah a wide, sharp-toothed grin. “We have a little bad blood between us… which is probably why I feel one of them heading in this direction right now. I hope you’re ready for company.”