Return of the Runebound Professor

The smell of blood hung thick in the air. Noah braced his hands against his knees, breathing heavily. He’d lost count of how many monsters he’d fought. The more he killed, the more had come.

At least, that was how it had been. Nothing else had arrived after he’d dispatched the last group had come, and he was grateful for it. Even though his Runes had been getting replenished from all the monsters he’d killed, he was still spending more energy than he was getting back.

Natural Disaster had grown significantly. Even though he’d been focused on getting Runes from the monsters he killed, there were so many of them that he’d only been able to Sunder a small portion of them.

If it hadn’t been for his greedy grimoire grabbing all the runes in sight, he was pretty sure he barely would have gotten a fraction of the number that he had — though he still wasn’t sure as to exactly what that number was.

Noah drew in a deep breath and let it out in a huff, pushing his hands off his knees and shaking his head. Mounds of corpses stretched out around him. They were burnt, cut, and ripped to pieces, the macabre canvas of a crazed artist.

Bird was right about not drawing too much attention. I think I might have gone a little overboard here, but they only gave me an hour. I had to optimize my time.

He adjusted his coat. His finger caught on a small tear in it. Most of the monsters hadn’t managed to get close to him, but it had been impossible to avoid everything. It wasn’t a big deal. None of his wounds were significant enough to be concerned about.

Where’d all the damn monsters go, though? I’m pretty sure I’ve got a bit of time left. I can wring a few more runes out of this place.

Noah extended his senses, searching to see if he could pick up on where the monsters had run to. They hadn’t struck him as very intelligent. It seemed unlikely that they’d call off the attack just because of how many of them he’d killed.

He wasn’t so sure he had time for that. It just felt like a shame to stop when he still had energy and more time to claim some runes.

Then again, I suppose I shouldn’t go too far away from my gourd. It’s probably better not to push my luck. I’ve already gotten a really good harvest. At least, I think I have. I really need to sit down with my grimoire when I get out of here.

Noah stepped past the piles of dead monsters and headed over to the area he’d arrived in. His gourd still rested where he’d left it. He’d been keeping an eye on it through the fight, but it was still nice to confirm.

“I wonder if I should try to do something about all these bodies,” Noah mused to himself. “I don’t know how often they use this place, and it’s going to look really suspicious if there’s just a giant mountain of corpses lying here.”

He drummed his fingers against his leg as he thought, then knelt and pressed his hand against the cold ground. Noah pulled energy from Natural Disaster, drinking as deeply as he could manage. Power pulsed through his veins and his other runes activated, pushing back against it.

Once he could hold no more power, Noah unleashed it into the ground. A rumble shook the dirt as it split apart like the mouth of the earth yawning open. Bodies tumbled into the hole, vanishing into its depths.

Noah used a few powerful gusts of wind to shove more corpses into the pit. Once he’d gotten the majority of them handled, he drank from Natural Disaster once more and slammed the pit closed.

A few corpses still sat scattered about on the ground, but far less than there had been before. He could still see traces of the line where he’d pulled the ground apart. It wasn’t a perfect job, but it would have to do.

Noah nodded to himself and turned back to his gourd. There wasn’t much time left before he was pulled back. Resting for a bit so he didn’t show up panting for air probably couldn’t hurt.

He managed a grand total of one step before a trill raced down his spine and his senses picked up on a shift in vibrations behind him. A very, very large shift in vibrations.

Noah spun, bringing his magic to bear, as a massive beast stepped out from a rippling pinkish-purple disk. It had a stout nose and stood around six times as high as he did. There may have been some vague resemblance to a bear in its form, but bears didn’t have the antlers of a deer or molten red eyes. He stared up at the ridiculously massive creature, his mouth parting in disbelief.

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“Uh… mind waiting around for a second?” Noah asked. “I’d like to schedule our fight for about ten minutes from now.”

The bear roared with such intensity that Noah staggered, ears ringing. The bear didn’t wait around for him to recover. It swiped at him with a massive paw, casting a massive shadow over him.

Noah launched himself into the air with a blast of wind, his mind racing as he summoned his violin and bow back to his hands.

What the hell is this thing? It isn’t a great monster. A variant monster, then? It’s bloody enormous. I’m not so sure my magic is going to do literally anything to it.

As if to punctuate his words, the bolt of lightning and blade of wind that leapt from his violin struck the bear and did nothing more than singe its heavy gray fur. The monster was just too damn big.

It roared — and then vanished.

Noah’s eyes went wide and he set off the most powerful blast of wind he could gather behind himself. He launched off like a rocket as the enormous bear reformed where he’d been moments before, its paw swiping just past him.

That is not fair. Nothing that big should be able to teleport like that. I thought Space Runes were really difficult to use and inefficient! There’s no way something like that should be able to prance around in space so effortlessly.

It seemed that nobody had told the massive bear that. It disappeared once more and Noah launched himself straight up. The bear snapped into being beneath him, its jaws slamming shut on a house-sized area and once again just missing him.

I don’t think I could gather enough smoke to stuff into this thing in ten minutes, much less the few I’ve still got to fight. Do I just keep running until I get pulled back to the transport cannon? If I was somehow able to get inside that thing, I might be able to use Sunder. If I’m close enough to its heart, that might be enough to kill it.

That was far easier said than done. Even if he was able to get inside the bear — which wasn’t exactly a thought he enjoyed having pass through his mind — it was so massive that he was pretty sure he’d been absolutely nowhere near its heart.

“You are not a Rank 4,” Noah informed the massive beast. Its response was to roar and vanish once more. Noah launched himself straight down with a blast of wind, moving with such speed that his cheeks flapped in the wind.

He caught himself with another powerful gust of wind, slowing his fall just enough to hit the ground in a roll. Noah scrambled to his feet and glanced over his shoulder just in time to see what may have been the most terrifying thing he’d ever laid eyes on.

The massive bear was plummeting down toward him. All — well, however many tons the enormous creature was — of muscle and claw were headed straight for Noah, casting a shadow and blocking out the entire sky.

That was a bit of a problem. No matter how much wind magic Noah had, there was absolutely no way for him to move out of the way fast enough to avoid getting squished. He just wasn’t fast enough and the bear was just too damn big.

Even if he’d brought his flying sword with him, he was pretty sure he didn’t have time to get it out under him before the bear landed on top of him. There were only moments to act. Noah dismissed his violin and ripped the grimoire from his back.

He ripped every ounce of power he could gather from Natural Disaster and hurled the book, pouring all the magic he could into a blast of wind to carry it toward where he’d left his gourd.

The book shot off like a bullet. Noah only had a brief instant to watch it fly off before the rushing wind of plummeting bear took his attention away. He directed his attention to the heavens, which were now nothing but bear.

“Goddamn it,” Noah said.

The bear crashed down and the world went black.

Noah’s soul ripped itself free of his body. He flew through considerably more bear than he ever would have enjoyed moving through and emerged in the air above the massive beast, his eyes narrowed in annoyance.

The monster was rooting around his body, likely trying to find out why it hadn’t gotten all the power it had sensed within him.

“I’m going to come back for you,” Noah informed the enormous creature. “And next time, you’re the one who’s getting squished.”

He wasn’t sure how he’d follow up on that particular threat, but the good part of threatening things that couldn’t hear you was that they had no idea what you were promising to do.

A band of black tightened around Noah’s throat and he welcomed the familiar sensation. It had been quite some time since he’d last died — but not nearly long enough. His soul hurtled through the air and slammed into the body his gourd created for him.

His eyes snapped open and he jerked upright with a pained hiss. Noah scrambled to his feet, squinting through the headache and scooping his gourd and travel bag off the ground. His eyes landed on his grimoire sticking out of the ground just a few dozen feet away and he let out a sigh of relief.

At least my aim was good.

He ran over to the grimoire and grabbed it. Then he reached into his bag, rooting around for a spare change of clothes. The bear still hadn’t noticed him yet, and he wanted to —

A familiar tingle ran across Noah’s skin. His eyes went wide. He yanked the pants out of his bag and jammed one leg into them, moving as fast as he possibly could.

It wasn’t fast enough. The energy intensified and a blue glow enveloped him even as he stuffed his second leg into his pants and tried to tug them up. He vanished in a beam of light, his string of curses fading into the ether along with him.

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