Return of the Runebound Professor

“Let me get this straight,” Moxie said, squinting at Noah once he’d gotten through his slightly scuffed retelling of Aladdin. “You want to… start a marching band?”

“That’s one way to put it. We need to convince everyone that I — as well as you and Lee — aren’t just random demons. Demons place a lot of importance on actual power, and we aren’t going to be able to hold our own publicly if a Rank 5 or 6 comes after us. We need invisible power.”

“Invisible power?” Lee tilted her head to the side. “What is that?”

“Basically a threat that keeps most people from trying to fight us in the first place,” Noah explained. “Let’s say a Rank 6 demon thinks we’re alone and don’t have any powerful backing. Even if we tell them we’re powerful, the demon might be tempted to check. They might try to attack us or orchestrate something to test our abilities. But if we convince them that we’re actually backed by an enormous city of demons or some great power, they’d be a lot more apprehensive about trying to challenge us. They might even fall in line — and that means our own power goes up even higher.”

Lee’s eyes lit up. “It’s like pretending to be a waiter so a restaurant lets you eat all the food in their store rooms because you work there.”

“I — no, not really, but I figure you’ve got it close enough,” Noah said with a chuckle. “Do you know if music is as dangerous in the Damned Plains as it is in the mortal realm?”

Lee thought for a moment, then gave him a small shrug. “Not sure. Never really had the time to think about it. If it was, you’d probably just get killed before we managed to get a following.”

“That’s assuming we actually get caught,” Noah said. Pieces of a plan were knitting themselves together in his mind faster than he could pull them apart. The plan was a bit hairbrained, but he was pretty sure it had potential. “If we just burst out into the middle of the city and start doing things in the open, we’ll never get a chance to start. We need to be covert. Build up momentum slowly. A movement isn’t born in a day.”

“A movement makes it sound like we’re radicalizing the demons,” Moxie said. Her brow furrowed in thought. “That does seem like it has potential, but what are we even promoting? Playing music is going to catch their attention, but we need something to keep it if we want them to believe and follow us.:

“I’m sure we can find something that the demons in the city want that we can back up. It’s basically running for office, but with much less lying than normal.”

Moxie snorted and crossed her arms in front of her chest. “Let’s say we do. Wouldn’t the city know that we were playing inside its walls? We can’t pass those demons off as an honor guard.”

“Not most of them,” Noah agreed. “But no city knows every single person within it. We don’t pretend like everyone was with us from the start. If we can get some people on our side, we can get a few of them to pretend to be honor guard or something like that. As for the rest… we just have to go around and build up momentum, then do what we did in the first advanced track meeting. We can then claim that we’ve got a mixture of our own supporters in with the new ones and it’ll be impossible to verify as long as we don’t get pinned down. The more mysterious we can get, the more people will speculate. They’ll do all the heavy lifting for us as long as we can lay the pieces for them to put together.”

Moxie and Lee exchanged a glance, but he could see that his words were getting to them. They both started to nod.

“Okay. Assume we somehow manage to pull that off,” Moxie said slowly. “What then? Bring a horde to try and find Wizen and take him down?”

“I doubt he’ll be strolling around in the open. We need the power to figure out what the hell he’s up to,” Noah said, chewing his lower lip. “If we could convince the city to lend us some aid, we could use their connections to put out feelers about Wizen or a way back to Arbitage. The Damned Plains are so huge that I can’t see any other timely way we can get information.”

Moxie’s fingers drummed against her thigh. She pushed away from the wall of the alley and started pacing back and forth. “Just how big are the Damned Plains, Lee? Before we throw caution and logic to the wind, is there any way we’d be able to get what we need from some sort of information broker or a library?”

Lee chewed on the end of her thumb. Then she shook her head. “Maybe? But we’d need to prove we were strong enough to get the information from them. We could just get attacked when we ask for something like that. Ways to the surface are the most valuable information in the entirety of the Damned Plains. We won’t be able to get it as we are.”

“Libraries?” Moxie tried.

“Also incredibly restricted. We could try breaking in… but I don’t think we’re faster than Rank 6 demons.”

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Moxie thought for a few more seconds, then shrugged. “Okay. I’m out of alternative ideas. I think operation bullshit is the way to go. But… how do we even start something like that? We skipped over it before, but it’s the most important part of the whole thing. If we can’t get people to gather around whatever our cause is, then it’s dead in the water.”

That was definitely the question of the hour. And, unfortunately, Noah didn’t have an answer to that quite yet. It didn’t look like Lee or Moxie did either, so they all fell silent for a minute as they thought.

“Food is always good,” Lee said.

That’s a Lee suggestion if I’ve ever heard one.

He started to smile, but then his mind actually finished processing what Lee had said. “Food is a scarce resource in the Damned Plains?”

“You have to hunt or trade for it. It’s not easy to get if you aren’t strong.”

“We’re not trying to recruit weak demons,” Moxie pointed out. “If our platform is just feeding the masses, we’re not going to get any momentum with the strong demons that we actually need on our side.”

“It’s a start, though.” Noah nodded to himself. A flicker of excitement started to build in his chest. “We could begin with the demons that don’t have anywhere to turn. There have to be some that are hiding in the city, right?”

“Yeah,” Lee said. “If you stay out of the way, the city can be good shelter. It’s not safe, though. The weakest demons will be in the Wastes. Anyone in the city would be strong enough to provide a Sacrifice to get themselves in.”

“But there would be demons that just scraped their way in and are using the city to hide, eating scraps to survive?” Noah confirmed.

“Definitely.”

“Then we have a plan. All we need is something to cover our faces and some food. .Then we put on a show.”

“I know where we can get all of that,” Lee said. “I smell the markets.”

A smile crossed Moxie’s face, unbidden. “Well, it can’t hurt to try. I have to say I’m at least a little bit curious to see how this will go. It’s worth a shot at the very least. Lead the way, Lee.”

***

Aylin had long since learned to recognize the sounds of Treadon. The clatter-thud of a guard’s footsteps. The jingle-rustle of wealth hidden within the flowing robes of a demon waiting to part with its wealth. The sandsong of the wind before a storm.

There wasn’t a single sound he didn’t know like the back of his scarred hand. The whisper of the streets was often the only warning one got. Being able to speak its language was the pathway to survival when the entire city waited to take their lives.

Fortunately, the streets rarely changed. The sounds were always the same. The guards always arrived in the same manner, the merchants always tossed their scraps to the same spots. It was a necessary sacrifice, but it was easier than having to fight to protect their goods every day. Scraps of food were still food, and scraps kept the weak from becoming desperate.

There were just never quite enough. Aylin had gone hungry today. The sounds had warned him of guards. For what reason they arrived, Aylin didn’t know. He didn’t care. He had listened. Others had not.

He had lived. Others had not.

The reward of life did nothing to satisfy the burning knot in his stomach that threatened to rise and swallow his mind. It was a reminder of life, but not one he cared to have.

Aylin kept to the darkened corners of the alleys as he made his way, empty-handed, back to shelter. Sleep would be long in the making, but it would delay the hunger’s gnaw until the next day. He wasn’t desperate enough to return to the markets.

Not yet.

And then something reached his ears. A sound — and not one that belonged. A river of bumps raced down Aylin’s red skin and prickled at the base of his neck. It was a beautiful sound, like the song of a siren whispering down the streets of Treadon, just barely loud enough to pick up.

Curiosity was rarely a wise trait, but his head was light from lack of sustenance and his feet were moving before his mind had caught up to them.

Aylin crept down the streets, approaching the strange sound. He grew more enraptured with every step, his pace starting to accelerate. He kept what little of his wits remained about him and ensured he moved as silently as he did fast.

Such a sound could not be a bearer of good news, but it was news nonetheless. If something had changed in the streets, he had to find out. He had to warn the others. That was why he investigated. Not mere curiosity, but duty.

At least, that was what he told himself.

Aylin turned a corner — and froze.

A man sat in the center of a large alleyway, a strange object braced against his body and a stick in the other, his face wrapped in a scarf used to protect from the storms. The beautiful noise filling the alleys floated from him, curling into Aylin’s ears like a worm.

And, scattered across the ground before him like so much trash, were several pieces of meat and bread. A trap. There was no doubt about it. As to what purpose, Aylin didn’t know, but it had to be a trap.

The gnawing pain in his stomach grew stronger.

Desperation.

Aylin’s hands clenched. He took a step forward. Fresh food. Not old, dry scraps. He took another step, keeping to the darkness of the alley in hopes that —

The man’s gaze turned to him, and still the tantalizing song played. In a smooth motion, the man flicked his stick, striking a loaf of bread and sending it sailing through the air without missing a single note.

Aylin lunged to catch the loaf. His fingers wrapped around his prize and he hit the ground in a roll before diving for the alley behind him. Only once he’d gotten back to his feet did he realize that the strange sound’s fading notes had vanished from his ears.

He glanced over his shoulder.

The man was gone, but the food remained. The back of Aylin’s neck prickled violently. Not a word had been spoken, but the message had been passed on all the same.

The covered man was far faster than Aylin. He had acknowledged Aylin’s presence — and done nothing. A trap it may have been, but Aylin could resist the urge no longer.

He took a greedy bite of the bread, barely even stopping to swallow as he scurried back over to the other food and stuffed it into his shirt. It was a gift, but there was no doubt in his mind that it came with strings.

Aylin took another huge bite out of the bread. Then, glancing around the street one last time, he took off running back to his shelter. The others needed to eat — and be warned. A shiver of dread traveled down his spine. Nothing came for free in the Damned Plains. The only question was what price he had paid.

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