Return of the Runebound Professor

When Moxie’s consciousness slipped from her Mindspace and returned to her room in the real world, she didn’t immediately tell Noah about what had transpired. Her thoughts were still too much of a scrambled mess.

She just immediately grabbed her journal and started to jot notes down within it.

There was still too much she had to learn about her Master Rune — and herself. She didn’t want to go barging ahead bragging about chickens that had yet to hatch from their eggs. It wasn’t like her pattern was anywhere near solid enough to go forming a Fragment of Self by accident.

She had time. And if Moxie was completely honest with herself, she didn’t want to reveal her progress yet. It wasn’t significant enough. Noah had dropped ridiculous revelations on her head so many times that she wanted a chance to do the same to him.

I can already imagine the look on his face when I tell him I’ve figured out my Pattern and gained control of my Master Rune… but I’d much rather see the real thing instead of imagining it.

For something like that, I can be patient.

Moxie wasn’t sure how much time passed as she wrote down everything she’d observed from her visit to her Mindspace. She kept her focus entirely on her journal to make sure no detail slipped through the cracks in her memory.

Everything she managed to save today could be immensely useful in the future. She didn’t know what she’d need when the time came, so it was better to simply have everything.

Night had fallen by the time she finally let her quill rest on the desk. Her hands were splattered with ink smudges and her fingers ached something fierce. She leaned back in her chair, shaking her arm off as a small sigh slipped from between her lips.

Lee wanted to do some training for her pattern. We headed out. Probably going to the Scorched Acres for a few hours if Tim is awake. Will be back soon. Gourd and book are in the bathroom. Just in case things go wrong.

Love you,

N.

Moxie’s lips pulled up into a small smile. She carefully folded the note up, making sure not to accidentally get any ink from her hand onto it, then slipped it into a pocket.

She rose from her chair, grimacing as her muscles twinged in protest after having been stuck in place for gods knew how long, then headed into the bathroom. Noah’s belongings sat in a small pile near the bath, just as he’d said they would.

Moxie washed her hands off before drying them thoroughly and plucking the gourd up. She carried it out of the bathroom and over to her closet before nestling it amongst a pile of clothes.

“Gods,” Moxie muttered as she straightened back up and shook her head. “Couldn’t he have chosen somewhere safer to leave his stuff?”

She returned to the bathroom and squinted at the grimoire. The huge book sat there innocently. Moxie arched an eyebrow.

“Are you going to let me pick you up? Or are you going to do the thing where you decide to get several thousand times heavier for absolutely no reason?”

The book remained silent. Moxie nudged it with a foot.

It didn’t budge.

“I,” Moxie crossed her arms in front of her chest, “am going to take a bath. And you are not going to be here for it.”

She poked the book again. It didn’t move.

“I care about you a whole lot less than I care about Noah’s other stuff,” Moxie warned. “I’m not beyond tossing you out a window. It’s not like anyone would be able to move you from wherever you landed.”

The book did not respond. Books tended to do that, but Moxie was more than aware that this particular one was more than capable of gracing her with an answer if it wished to. She’d seen the eye on its cover move more than a few times.

“One warning,” Moxie said. “Stop being heavy. I’ll put you on a nice, comfy bed of vines. If not, I’m ripping a hole open in the ground and making you someone else’s problem. I’ll just seal it shut with vines. Won’t be my problem, and Noah won’t have any trouble retrieving you from a neighbor’s room.”

The eye on the front of the book snapped open. It swiveled around to look right at Moxie.

She had one grand, fleeting second of smug satisfaction before something prickled against the edges of her domain.

The book hadn’t woken up because of her.

There was someone at the window — and she didn’t recognize them.

The grimoire’s strap flicked into the air and Moxie grabbed onto it, slinging the huge book over her back as she strode free from the bathroom. Her runes shuddered within her as she drew on them, letting magic flow through her veins.

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She arrived in the main room right as her window swung open. A man wearing dark wrappings dropped in through it, followed by a woman in the same clothing. It concealed their features completely, but not nearly enough to stop Moxie from noticing the tail hanging behind the woman and the pointed claws her companion sported.

Demons.

Not ones she knew, either. Moxie didn’t recognize the feeling of their magic against her domain as belonging to any of the horde that Noah had been inadvertently been building.

Both of the demons were breathing heavily. The man had several wounds along his body that were soaking into his clothes, and the woman heavily favored one leg. They’d both tracked blood over the plants ringing around her window. Bits of plant matter protruded from their clothes.

They got attacked by the plants I have guarding the window. They definitely didn’t try knocking. Not friendly, then.

“You know I’ve got a perfectly functional door right over there,” Moxie said, keeping her magic at the ready. “Did you really have to come through the window? Is there a welcome sign on it somewhere?”

She knew firsthand just how fast demons could be. Without a Fragment of Self, she couldn’t match their speed — which meant she had to be ready to defend herself before they even tried to attack.

“Spider?” the male demon asked.

“Seriously? I’m taking offense to that,” Moxie said. “Do I look like Spider to you? Did he grow tits when nobody was watching?”

“Where is he?” the female demon demanded. “We need to speak with him, not his harlot.”

Lovely. Demons, always so polite with their requests.

The grimoire twitched on Moxie’s back. She could feel its pages rippling. Something told her the book didn’t think much of their surprise visitors.

“And who do you think you are to be ordering me around?” Moxie asked. “Don’t you think Spider has better things to be doing than dealing with two idiots trying to find him in the middle of the night? Who sent you?”

Both of the demons flinched. They seemed to be somewhere around Rank 4, but strength was difficult to tell when one was dealing with demons.

“How did you know we were sent?” the male one asked. His claws flexed. Moxie nearly attacked him on the spot, but she held back. Her shield was prepared and her magic was at the ready — attacking could end up wasting a chance to get valuable information.

If someone was sending people after Noah, Moxie had to find out which of his ever-growing list of enemies it was. That list had gotten long enough that it was impossible to take guesses as to who he’d pissed off this time.

“Because anyone strong enough to try to garner his attention wouldn’t have gotten torn to shreds by the plants I’ve got guarding the windows,” Moxie said flatly. “And you’re too weak to have opinions of your own. So who sent you?”

And they’ve got no way to know if I’m bluffing. That’s the one big weakness every demon has. No domain. At least, not for a long time. And if they’ve got no domain, they don’t have the faintest clue as to how strong I am unless they’ve got some ridiculous sniff-technique like Lee.

“It’s none of your concern. We speak to Spider and Spider alone,” the female demon said. Her tail thrashed at her side. “Take us to him. Now. We have a message.”

“Hold on,” the male demon said. “Maybe we don’t have to speak to him. We just have to pass a message.”

“What, you want to write a letter?” Moxie arched her eyebrow until it threatened to vanish into her hairline. “You definitely just could have slipped that under a door. Either you or your employer have a gap in your mental faculties.”

“I never said anything about a letter,” the demon replied, lowering his stance.

His companion let out a hissing laugh. “That’s true. Good thinking. That saves us time. Killing the harlot should send the—”

There was a soft squelch. The demoness froze. She grabbed at her side, letting out a hiss of pain. The hiss transformed into an agonized scream within instants.

“Sala?” the demon spun to her. “What’s wrong?”

The demoness’ mouth lolled open.

A vine coiled out from within it, blood dripping from the razor-sharp thorns lining it. Her skin rippled, then split apart at the seams as plants tore through her body from the inside out. The demoness wasn’t granted so much as another breath. Within instants, her entire body had been devoured until she was nothing more than an oddly placed tangle of blood-speckled foliage.

The demon blurred toward Moxie — and jerked to a halt after no more than a foot. He pitched forward and slammed into the ground with a loud thud.

A vine extended from a wound in his leg, buried deep into the tissue around it. It had wound around his other leg, binding them together in a thorned knot.

More vines exploded out from the demon’s body, ripping up from beneath his own skin to wrap around his body like a cocoon until everything but his face was covered.

“Well,” Moxie said. “That was unwise.”

“What is this?” The demon snarled. “What did—”

A vine snapped around his mouth, turning the rest of his sentence to a muffled snarl.

“No,” Moxie said. “You had your chance to talk things out normally. That’s blown. Now you’re going to answer my questions. Now — who sent you?”

The vine released the demon’s mouth.

“Release us,” the demon said, his tone significantly placated. “We… misunderstood the situation. You do not want to make an enemy of our order.”

“Too late for that,” Moxie said.

“We do not have to be—”

“Oh, not that part,” Moxie said. She crouched beside the fallen demon. “I meant the releasing request. Your companion is dead. She’s just fertilizer. You fucked up. I really don’t take kindly to people bursting into my room planning to kill me so they can send some sort of threat message to Spider. Can’t change the past, though. Now answer my question. Who sent you?”

“You’ll get nothing from me. The false herald will bend knee or be torn to shreds,” the demon snarled. He lurched up, but a vine yanked him back down to the ground before he could even get close. “We are the true! Your filth will never—”

A vine coiled back around his mouth, muffling the demon once more.

“You really shouldn’t have threatened him.” Moxie’s eyes were as cold as two glaciers as she curled her fingers into a fist. “Now I’ve got a time limit. You’re forcing my hand. As unlikely as it is that incompetent idiots like you can hurt him… I won’t take that risk. I really don’t want to sully my hands like this, though. Last chance to speak.”

The demon glared up at her.

Moxie sighed.

“Your choice. I’d say some shit about how this hurts me a whole lot more than it hurts you, but that would be a lie.” The vines covering the demon twitched. Thin feelers sprouted from within them, stretching out to brush across the demon’s face. Moxie’s eyes darkened. “It’s going to hurt you more. A whole lot more.”