Chapter 5: A plan
A sharp rap on the door broke Noah from his research. He dropped his book and dove to the ground in preparation for a crazed monkey to come swinging at him. It took him several moments to realize that he wasn’t in the forest anymore.
“Hello?” Noah asked, slowly standing back up and grabbing his book on the way up.
“Vermil! I heard you were back,” a deep male voice called. “What happened out there?”
“I took a pretty bad hit,” Noah replied. “Sorry. I’ve got a little memory loss. I’m not feeling too well right now, but I’m sure I’ll be good again soon.”
“Idiot,” the man on the other side of the door said with a chuckle. “Can’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“I wouldn’t know. I don’t remember.”
“Just how bad is that memory loss, Vermil? You’ve got a class in a few hours. If it’s serious enough that you can’t teach it, we’re going to need to find someone to take over.”
“That sounds like a gr–”
“And we’ll send for a mage who can really take a look at what happened and see if we can get that damage repaired. The Linwicks are going to be furious if they find out you got seriously injured and didn’t get proper treatment. I'm heading back to report later today and will be gone for a few months, so I can't cover for you.”
Noah paled. He wasn’t sure who the Linwicks were, but the absolute last thing he needed was a mage taking a closer look at him and finding out that he wasn’t Vermil at all.
“I actually don’t think there’s any need for that,” Noah said, trying to force a casual tone into his voice. “I can handle myself. It’s just a little bit of memory loss. Details and the like, but I’ve still got the important stuff. When’s my class again?”
“Gods, has it been that long since you actually taught? Building G, room 100. You’ve got an hour until it starts.”
“Right. Thanks. I’ll be there.”
“Make sure,” the man rumbled.
A few hours. Okay. It’s been so long since time mattered to me in the slightest, but that’s not too long. Not too short either, though.
The man’s heavy footsteps echoed away and Noah let out a sigh of relief. He leaned against the wall and ran a hand through his long hair, bunching his hands up in it as he slid down into a seated position.
Okay. I’ve just got to convince people that I’m actually Vermil, just with some memory loss. From the way Richard treated me, I don’t think Vermil had too many friends. That should make things easier.
Noah pulled his hands out from his hair. He blinked, then rubbed his fingers together. Grimacing, he stood and headed back to the restroom. “But first, I’m going to need a shower. I feel disgusting.”
The knobs on the sink looked fairly similar to the ones back on earth, and a quick twist proved they worked the same way as well. Water poured out of the curved faucet and Noah dunked his head into it, scrubbing at his hair as hard as he could.
He finished a few minutes later, grabbing a towel from a hook on the wall and furiously drying his head off. Noah found a spare set of Vermil’s clothes in the closet and changed into them before heading back into the main room and sitting down on the bed.
Noah picked the leatherbound book up and flipped through the pages again. His time reading had lent him far more information than he’d hoped for, but far less than he suspected he needed. It was like trying to learn math by starting at derivatives instead of addition.
Despite that, Noah had managed to pick up a few key facts. He walked over to the desk and plucked a mostly blank page from the piles next to it. Using a quill that Vermil had kindly left sitting in a pool of ink that Noah had cleaned, he started to write what he’d put together.
Runes let you cast magic. Already knew that.
People can have more than one Rune, since Vermil had a whole bunch of them in his book. I am unsure as to if there is a limit to how many you can have.
There are probably variations in the Runes. I’m unsure as to how this actually changes their function, if it does at all. Vermil placed more importance on the complicated looking Runes, though. That probably means they’re better somehow.
Noah stared at the paper, tapping the quill impatiently against his thumb as he tried to think of something to put down for the fourth point. Nothing came to mind. Sure, the book was stuffed full of research on Runes and where they’d come from, but none of that actually told Noah how they worked.
Luckily, I think I’ve got the perfect strategy to figure out some more without actually giving anything too important away and I can help make a cover story at the same time. Two birds with one stone, as it were.
His plan decided, Noah smoothed out his wrinkled robes and approached the door, grabbing the key from his desk on his way. He rested his hand against the knob, fingers wrapping around cold metal as he paused. He touched the gourd hanging from his waist.
On the off chance that something happened, people would see what happened if he revived. Then again, leaving it in his room hardly felt safe. Noah let his hand drop, leaving it at his waist.
The door clicked open, and Noah stepped into a narrow stone corridor. He glanced down both ends of the corridor, but they looked the same. Greyish-black stone made up the floor and walls, coming to an arch just above his head.
Doors lined the walls to the right, while open windows ran along the left. Noah approached one of the windows and his eyes widened in awe. A beautiful garden stretched out before him, winding brick paths weaving through the exotic foliage.
Horse-sized flowers dotted vines the width of Noah’s waist, their petals a rainbow of colors. They glistened with liquid pollen that dripped like rain, falling to large clusters of pink and bright yellow bushes below them.
Trees warped and twisted in ways that Noah had never seen. Leaves of gold and silver shimmered like a sea of riches within their branches, rustling in the faint wind. Everywhere Noah looked, the majesty of completely foreign nature sprawled out.
Beyond the gardens, spires pierced the clouds. Tall towers rose between them, and stone bridges linked everything together. Noah could just barely make out the forms of other people walking along the bridges, but a large wall at the edge of the garden kept him from seeing the bases of the buildings.
He shook his head, pulling back from the window.
I’ll have time to admire the world later. I need to focus on not getting killed again.
“I wish I had a coin to flip,” Noah muttered.
He chose a direction at random and strode off through the halls. To his delight, after turning down several corridors, he came across a small metal board hanging from the wall. It had a miniature map of the building he was in, including a small gemstone that presumably marked where he currently was. Above the map, printed in what Noah was starting to suspect to be the common language of this world, was the letter T.
There were a dozen other buildings, all labeled with letters. A small key at the bottom of the map identified the meaning of each one and, the more Noah read, the less it sounded like a school and the more it seemed like a fortress.
Distributed throughout the multitude of normal school buildings was an Armory, a Transport Cannon, Drill Fields, and a multitude of other locations that he didn’t recognize.
I wonder if every letter has an equivalent to English, or if I’m just somehow translating everything to the closest thing to it. I bet it’s the latter, since human brains are fantastic at making things up to adapt to new visual information.
After memorizing the map, Noah set off once more. Even with the path in mind, the building was surprisingly difficult to navigate. He’d never considered himself to have either a good or a bad directional sense, but whoever had built this building clearly hadn’t been a fan of straight paths.
He finally reached an exit after several minutes of walking and more than a few mistaken turns that ended in dead ends. Noah stepped through it and into the beautiful garden, letting out a relieved sigh.
His nose twitched as a myriad of sugary, warm scents entered his nostrils. It was like a bakery that had been mashed with the essence of every fruit in the world and condensed down into a single smell.
He ran his tongue along his lips.
Food. I want to eat something.
He took a step toward the garden, then paused. Food could wait. He was pretty sure his hour was going to run out fairly soon – or had that already happened? Noah pursed his lips, then shrugged. He was probably fine.
Noah started down the path, keeping close to the building’s wall to avoid getting lost in the thick garden. Especially from ground level, some parts of it were so thick that they might as well have been a forest.
Through no small amount of luck, the path he’d chosen led straight up to a large stone circle in the ground. At its center was an obsidian pillar, bearing yet another map. It depicted an eagle’s eye view of dozens of buildings, along with another small red gemstone just above a building marked T.
His eyes darted around the map before landing on his target – the G building. It was just two buildings behind him, opposite the garden. Noah studied the path for a few more moments to make sure he wouldn’t get lost, then set off.
Just around twenty minutes later, he found himself standing in front of a stout stone building. Heavy vines wound around it like the embrace of a kraken and the wooden entry doors were worn and weathered by years of exposure to the elements. One of them hung slightly askew, and the other was heavily rotted. In the stone just above them protruded the letter G. The top half of the letter was chipped away, but he could just barely make out the pale area where it had once been.
“Looks like they had just as big of a budget as I did,” Noah grumbled, tugging on the door. It ground open, scraping across the ground. Once it was large enough for him to fit through, he squeezed inside.
A sharp rap on the door broke Noah from his research. He dropped his book and dove to the ground in preparation for a crazed monkey to come swinging at him. It took him several moments to realize that he wasn’t in the forest anymore.
“Hello?” Noah asked, slowly standing back up and grabbing his book on the way up.
“Vermil! I heard you were back,” a deep male voice called. “What happened out there?”
“I took a pretty bad hit,” Noah replied. “Sorry. I’ve got a little memory loss. I’m not feeling too well right now, but I’m sure I’ll be good again soon.”
“Idiot,” the man on the other side of the door said with a chuckle. “Can’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“I wouldn’t know. I don’t remember.”
“Just how bad is that memory loss, Vermil? You’ve got a class in a few hours. If it’s serious enough that you can’t teach it, we’re going to need to find someone to take over.”
“That sounds like a gr–”
“And we’ll send for a mage who can really take a look at what happened and see if we can get that damage repaired. The Linwicks are going to be furious if they find out you got seriously injured and didn’t get proper treatment. I'm heading back to report later today and will be gone for a few months, so I can't cover for you.”
Noah paled. He wasn’t sure who the Linwicks were, but the absolute last thing he needed was a mage taking a closer look at him and finding out that he wasn’t Vermil at all.
“I actually don’t think there’s any need for that,” Noah said, trying to force a casual tone into his voice. “I can handle myself. It’s just a little bit of memory loss. Details and the like, but I’ve still got the important stuff. When’s my class again?”
“Gods, has it been that long since you actually taught? Building G, room 100. You’ve got an hour until it starts.”
“Right. Thanks. I’ll be there.”
“Make sure,” the man rumbled.
A few hours. Okay. It’s been so long since time mattered to me in the slightest, but that’s not too long. Not too short either, though.
The man’s heavy footsteps echoed away and Noah let out a sigh of relief. He leaned against the wall and ran a hand through his long hair, bunching his hands up in it as he slid down into a seated position.
Okay. I’ve just got to convince people that I’m actually Vermil, just with some memory loss. From the way Richard treated me, I don’t think Vermil had too many friends. That should make things easier.
Noah pulled his hands out from his hair. He blinked, then rubbed his fingers together. Grimacing, he stood and headed back to the restroom. “But first, I’m going to need a shower. I feel disgusting.”
The knobs on the sink looked fairly similar to the ones back on earth, and a quick twist proved they worked the same way as well. Water poured out of the curved faucet and Noah dunked his head into it, scrubbing at his hair as hard as he could.
He finished a few minutes later, grabbing a towel from a hook on the wall and furiously drying his head off. Noah found a spare set of Vermil’s clothes in the closet and changed into them before heading back into the main room and sitting down on the bed.
Noah picked the leatherbound book up and flipped through the pages again. His time reading had lent him far more information than he’d hoped for, but far less than he suspected he needed. It was like trying to learn math by starting at derivatives instead of addition.
Despite that, Noah had managed to pick up a few key facts. He walked over to the desk and plucked a mostly blank page from the piles next to it. Using a quill that Vermil had kindly left sitting in a pool of ink that Noah had cleaned, he started to write what he’d put together.
Runes let you cast magic. Already knew that.
People can have more than one Rune, since Vermil had a whole bunch of them in his book. I am unsure as to if there is a limit to how many you can have.
There are probably variations in the Runes. I’m unsure as to how this actually changes their function, if it does at all. Vermil placed more importance on the complicated looking Runes, though. That probably means they’re better somehow.
Noah stared at the paper, tapping the quill impatiently against his thumb as he tried to think of something to put down for the fourth point. Nothing came to mind. Sure, the book was stuffed full of research on Runes and where they’d come from, but none of that actually told Noah how they worked.
Luckily, I think I’ve got the perfect strategy to figure out some more without actually giving anything too important away and I can help make a cover story at the same time. Two birds with one stone, as it were.
His plan decided, Noah smoothed out his wrinkled robes and approached the door, grabbing the key from his desk on his way. He rested his hand against the knob, fingers wrapping around cold metal as he paused. He touched the gourd hanging from his waist.
On the off chance that something happened, people would see what happened if he revived. Then again, leaving it in his room hardly felt safe. Noah let his hand drop, leaving it at his waist.
The door clicked open, and Noah stepped into a narrow stone corridor. He glanced down both ends of the corridor, but they looked the same. Greyish-black stone made up the floor and walls, coming to an arch just above his head.
Doors lined the walls to the right, while open windows ran along the left. Noah approached one of the windows and his eyes widened in awe. A beautiful garden stretched out before him, winding brick paths weaving through the exotic foliage.
Horse-sized flowers dotted vines the width of Noah’s waist, their petals a rainbow of colors. They glistened with liquid pollen that dripped like rain, falling to large clusters of pink and bright yellow bushes below them.
Trees warped and twisted in ways that Noah had never seen. Leaves of gold and silver shimmered like a sea of riches within their branches, rustling in the faint wind. Everywhere Noah looked, the majesty of completely foreign nature sprawled out.
Beyond the gardens, spires pierced the clouds. Tall towers rose between them, and stone bridges linked everything together. Noah could just barely make out the forms of other people walking along the bridges, but a large wall at the edge of the garden kept him from seeing the bases of the buildings.
He shook his head, pulling back from the window.
I’ll have time to admire the world later. I need to focus on not getting killed again.
“I wish I had a coin to flip,” Noah muttered.
He chose a direction at random and strode off through the halls. To his delight, after turning down several corridors, he came across a small metal board hanging from the wall. It had a miniature map of the building he was in, including a small gemstone that presumably marked where he currently was. Above the map, printed in what Noah was starting to suspect to be the common language of this world, was the letter T.
There were a dozen other buildings, all labeled with letters. A small key at the bottom of the map identified the meaning of each one and, the more Noah read, the less it sounded like a school and the more it seemed like a fortress.
Distributed throughout the multitude of normal school buildings was an Armory, a Transport Cannon, Drill Fields, and a multitude of other locations that he didn’t recognize.
I wonder if every letter has an equivalent to English, or if I’m just somehow translating everything to the closest thing to it. I bet it’s the latter, since human brains are fantastic at making things up to adapt to new visual information.
After memorizing the map, Noah set off once more. Even with the path in mind, the building was surprisingly difficult to navigate. He’d never considered himself to have either a good or a bad directional sense, but whoever had built this building clearly hadn’t been a fan of straight paths.
He finally reached an exit after several minutes of walking and more than a few mistaken turns that ended in dead ends. Noah stepped through it and into the beautiful garden, letting out a relieved sigh.
His nose twitched as a myriad of sugary, warm scents entered his nostrils. It was like a bakery that had been mashed with the essence of every fruit in the world and condensed down into a single smell.
He ran his tongue along his lips.
Food. I want to eat something.
He took a step toward the garden, then paused. Food could wait. He was pretty sure his hour was going to run out fairly soon – or had that already happened? Noah pursed his lips, then shrugged. He was probably fine.
Noah started down the path, keeping close to the building’s wall to avoid getting lost in the thick garden. Especially from ground level, some parts of it were so thick that they might as well have been a forest.
Through no small amount of luck, the path he’d chosen led straight up to a large stone circle in the ground. At its center was an obsidian pillar, bearing yet another map. It depicted an eagle’s eye view of dozens of buildings, along with another small red gemstone just above a building marked T.
His eyes darted around the map before landing on his target – the G building. It was just two buildings behind him, opposite the garden. Noah studied the path for a few more moments to make sure he wouldn’t get lost, then set off.
Just around twenty minutes later, he found himself standing in front of a stout stone building. Heavy vines wound around it like the embrace of a kraken and the wooden entry doors were worn and weathered by years of exposure to the elements. One of them hung slightly askew, and the other was heavily rotted. In the stone just above them protruded the letter G. The top half of the letter was chipped away, but he could just barely make out the pale area where it had once been.
“Looks like they had just as big of a budget as I did,” Noah grumbled, tugging on the door. It ground open, scraping across the ground. Once it was large enough for him to fit through, he squeezed inside.
Chapter 6: A lesson
Building G was dark. The only light came through dirty windows that sporadically lined its walls. Thick layers of dust sat on the windowsills. Noah rubbed his nose with the back of a sleeve and headed down the hall.
Fortunately, the designer of this building didn’t seem to have had a vendetta against the world. There was only a single path, and it wound in a square spiral, slowly winding toward the center.
Less fortunately, but somewhat predictably, the room numbering started at 1. By the time that Noah had made it to the nineties, there was absolutely no light left to go by. He walked in the complete darkness, using the wall to guide him. Whenever his fingertips brushed over wood rather than stone, he mentally counted up by one.
There were spots where torches had once sat, but every single one of them was unlit. Noah was contemplating turning back and trying to find a light source when his outstretched left hand hit stone.
He felt around, blindly reaching for the wall. They brushed against brittle wood. He was at a dead end, directly across from a door.
“One hundred.” Noah pushed on the door, and it creaked open. A tiny sliver of light descended from the ceiling in the center of the class, where a hole in the ceiling let the sun slip through.
There was just enough light for him to make out the shadowed classroom. Old wooden chairs littered the ground, most of them either damaged or completely unusable. A chalkboard hung from the end of the room behind a rotted podium, badly askew.
Several long desks sat in the center of the room, covered with a heavy layer of dust. Noah ran a finger across one of the desks, then sighed. He made his way up to the podium, nearly tripping over discarded wood several times, and turned to face his empty classroom.
“Something tells me my attendance isn’t very high,” Noah said to himself. He drummed his fingers on the podium, then ducked and searched around for chalk. Beyond broken wood and metal, the ground was unhelpful. Noah sighed. “Well, at least I’ve got a room. I’ve worked with worse before.”
Noah scooted a desk over to the thin streamer of light entering the room. He sat down and pulled his book out, flipping through the pages and trying to make sense of the scribbles.
And so, he waited.
And waited.
A foot scuffed against stone. Warm orange light spilled through the doorway a few seconds before a young woman walked into the room. Her hair was the clearest shade of blue that Noah had ever seen, and her eyes matched. A small ball of flame floated above her hand, lighting the way.
She froze, locking eyes with him.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“I believe I am here to teach class,” Noah replied, his eyes locked on the flickering orb of fire.
The girl squinted at him. “Vermil?”
“No, I – oh. Yeah. That’s me.”
“Who are you talking to, Isabel?” A muscular blonde boy nudged her out of the way and stepped through the doorway. He froze as well, his eyes going wide as he spotted Noah. “Whoa.”
“What?” Noah demanded, looking down at his clothes. “Do I have dirt on my lapel or something?”
“I never seen him show up for class,” Isabel muttered.
You can’t be serious. These are my students? I was expecting children! They’re practically my age.
“Technically, he didn’t,” the boy said. “Class was supposed to start forty minutes ago.”
Noah paled. “Ah. Better late than never, eh?”
“You seem… different,” Isabel said with a small frown. “What are you trying to play at?”
“Nothing!” Noah exclaimed. “I’m just here to teach. You’ll have to excuse any strangeness. I took a blow to the head while out… killing monkeys. I’ve had some minor memory loss.”
“Right,” the boy drawled. “Sure. Well, we’ll just be going then.”
“Nope,” Noah said, rising from his seat and sliding his book into its holster. “I’ve got to teach.”
And you’re going to answer all my questions for me.
“You showed up late,” Isabel reminded him.
“But show up I did. And you did too. That means I’ve got to teach for – how long does this class go for?”
“Two hours,” the boy said, narrowing his eyes.
“An hour and twenty more minutes, then.”
“You didn’t even remember how long the class is,” the boy pointed out.
“While we’re at it, I’ve forgotten your name as well.”
“Todd.”
“Great. Isabel and Todd. Tell me, where’s the rest of class?”
“There is no rest of the class, man,” Todd said, rolling his eyes. “Why’d you even bother coming?”
“To teach,” Noah said, patting the desk. “Well, two is better than none. Please, sit down.”
Todd stared at him. “You can’t be serious. You’re actually going to teach?”
“I mean, that’s my job, is it not?”
“Hasn’t stopped you before,” Isabel said. “I do not want to be taught by you.”
“That’s harsh,” Noah said. “And why not?”
“You’re Rank 1,” Isabel said, as if that were the most obvious thing in the world. “And we are also Rank 1s.”
“I see,” Noah said, not seeing at all.
“You’re literally no more skilled than we are,” Todd said. He squinted at Noah. “The only reason you’re even employed is because you’re part of the Linwick family, man. Look, we had a good thing going. Just keep not wasting our time and we won’t complain about how useless you are. Kay?”
Noah pursed his lips.
Linwick again. I’ll need to figure out what my association with them is, because they’re clearly powerful. It would be bad if they found out I stole Vermil’s body.
“I’m afraid not,” Noah said. “As untalented as I may be, have you ever considered that I might have some experience that you may not?”
“Not really,” Isabel said, crossing her arms in front of her chest. “What’s gotten into you? Come on, Todd. Let’s get out of here.”
They turned.
“Sit down,” Noah barked, calling on a voice that he’d often had to fall back on whenever his classes got too rowdy back on earth. Isabel and Todd spun back toward him, their eyes going wide.
“What?” Todd asked.
“I have your time for the next hour and twenty minutes,” Noah said. “Sit. Down. You’re welcome to leave anyway, but then I’ll be reporting your absence to the school.”
They both paled and, glaring in his direction, they pulled out two of the dusty desks and sat down.
Good. I was hoping the school would probably have some sort of punishment for students skipping out class. These two aren’t going anywhere until I figure out exactly how magic works.
“Go on,” Todd said, resting his chin in his palm. “I’ve never seen you so motivated before. What are you going to teach us about? That time you seduced a girl five years younger than you?”
Noah cleared his throat. “No.”
“She was one of your students, wasn’t she?” Isabel asked with a smirk. “That’s bold, really. I can’t believe the school didn’t can you for that.”
“I,” Noah said, raising his voice just enough to keep them from interrupting him again, “will be talking about Runes.”
“Bold,” Todd said. “That’s new.”
Noah paced over to the chalkboard and tapped his finger against it. He turned back to face his students. “What is a Rune?”
Both Todd and Isabel burst into laughter.
“You can’t be serious,” Isabel said, tearing up from how hard she was laughing.
Noah just cocked an eyebrow. He waited a few seconds to let them get it out of their systems, then tapped the board again. “If it’s so simple, then answer the question.”
“What, are we children now? A Rune allows us to gather energy and use magic.”
Good to know.
“And you, Isabel?”
“What do you want? Todd already told you what it is.”
“I see.”
“He’s lost it,” Todd muttered.
“I see that neither of you have any idea what you’re doing,” Noah continued. He rapped hard on the chalkboard and it fell from its hinges, crashing to the ground behind him. Both students flinched. Noah did his best not to look surprised.
He glanced over his shoulder, his eyes lighting up as he spotted a piece of chalk that had escaped his attention. Noah grabbed the chalk and put the board back up. “You have just given me the most worthless definition possible. I did not ask you what a Rune does. I asked you what it is.”
Chapter 7: Fun
Isabel opened her mouth, then closed it again. She exchanged a confused glance with Todd.
“What do you mean?” Isabel asked, a tiny amount of the defiance in her voice draining away.
“You know what a Rune does,” Noah said. “I gather everyone can tell me the definition that you just gave. But what is a Rune? We cannot truly utilize a tool until we understand exactly how it works.”
Take that. I might not know what the hell a Rune actually is, but I sure as hell do know that nearly nobody actually understands how things work at their basic level.
“I… don’t really know,” Todd admitted reluctantly.
“Neither do I,” Isabel said. “Does that matter?”
Noah grinned. “A good question, Isabel. Let’s talk about magic as a whole for a moment. What can magic do?”
“Anything,” Isabel replied.
Noah cocked an eyebrow. “Anything? There isn’t a single limit to it?”
Seriously?
“You can only use one Rune at a time,” Isabel put in after a moment. “If you have a Fire Rune and an Ice Rune, you have to let go of the energy from the Fire one in order to call on the Ice.”
“It also can’t bring back dead people,” Todd said. “At least, I’ve always heard that.”
“Fantastic,” Noah said, nodding. “So it cannot do anything. It has limits.”
It most certainly can bring back dead people, but noted.
“I guess,” Isabel said. “So what?”
“Well, if something has a single limit, would you not think it has more?”
“Even if it does, how does that matter?”
“Because if you don’t know what you can’t do, then you don’t truly know what you can do,” Noah said. He tapped his chalk on the board to emphasize his point. “And the beginning of understanding stems from knowing the most basic building blocks of what you are working with. So, answer your own question – why does knowing what a Rune is matter?”
“So we know what we’re capable of,” Todd said slowly. “But nobody knows what Runes really are. You can’t be implying that you do.”
Good to know. Runes are still subjects of research.
“Anyone who says they know exactly how something works is either a liar or delusional. There is always something more to learn,” Noah said. He flipped his book open and picked a page at random, sketching the Rune from it onto the chalkboard.
When he turned back to his students, they were both leaning forward in their chairs, their eyes as wide as saucers.
“I – is that your Rune?” Isabel stammered. “You just… drew it?”
“It is a Rune,” Noah allowed carefully, trying to figure out what exactly he had just done. “And it was in my book.”
“You’re just letting us look at it? For free?” Todd asked, his mouth hanging askew.
“The job of a teacher is to inform his students, is it not?”
“Someone must have hit him on the head,” Isabel whispered, but the room was so quiet that Noah still heard her perfectly fine.
“No whispering in my class,” Noah said instinctively. He had no idea how long it had been since he’d last taught, but evidently some things had stuck around. “And yes, I was hit on the head.”
Isabel jerked back to her seat. “Sorry.”
There’s a little respect. That’s more like it.
“Now,” Noah said, tapping his Rune. “What is this?”
“A Lesser Rank 1 Fire Rune,” Todd said, still staring at it in awe.
Runes have ranks too? Noted.
“Ah, I see. So I can cast magic with this right now?”
“Of course you can’t,” Isabel said. “You just sketched it. You didn’t Imbue it.”
“But you just told me it was a fire Rune, and a Rune is simply the ability to cast magic. If this cannot cast magic, then how is it a Rune?”
“You’re just nitpicking,” Todd said, shaking his head. “If you’d Imbued it into the board, then you’d be binding it to yourself. That’s casting magic.”
“So Runes exist to Imbue things.”
“That’s obviously not true. You can also cast magic through them,” Todd said, but some of the confidence in his voice had drained away.
“Ah. Imbuing and casting magic are different, then.”
“Well, yeah,” Todd said.
“Then you have already proven that Runes are more than just tools to channel magic, have you not?”
“Okay, fine. I’ll change my answer,” Todd said. “Runes allow you to Imbue objects or channel magic. Happy?”
“That may be what a Rune does, but you still haven’t told me what it is.”
Todd pursed his lips. Both he and Isabel fell silent as they tried to make sense of Noah’s words. He was quite happy with that. In the end, his questions were more for himself than they were for them.
Runes are a conduit to use magic. They can be used to either cast magic directly, like I did in the forest, or to somehow connect to an object. Interesting. I wonder if that’s really all they can do, though.
“I… don’t know,” Todd said, breaking the silence. “What is a Rune?”
“I don’t know,” Noah replied with a wry smile. “But not understanding is the first step to rectifying the problem, isn’t it?”
Todd blinked, then gave him a slow nod.
Noah pointed at the Rune on the board again. “Let’s take a look at this one. A fire Rune, right?”
Todd nodded again.
Noah flipped his book to another page and drew a second Rune on the board, ignoring the surprised breaths that both of his students took. This one was a good bit more complex than the previous Rune had been, but he’d chosen it for a reason. It took several minutes, but the room was completely silent aside from the scratch of his chalk on the board.
“Now, what’s this?” Noah asked, finishing his work and stepping back.
“A Rank 1 Greater Fire Rune,” he breathed.
Lesser, Greater. So there’s a worse version of every kind of rune?
“You seem a good bit more interested in this one than the other,” Noah observed. “Why? It’s just a Rune, isn’t it? And the same one at that.”
“It’s not the same!” Isabel exclaimed. “How could you say a Lesser quality Rune is equally as good as a Greater one?”
“I’m just going off your own definitions,” Noah replied with a shrug. “Why would quality matter?”
“Higher quality Runes mean you can draw more magic and have better control over it. They also store more energy, though they take longer to refill.”
“They’re also a lot harder to draw,” Noah observed. “Wouldn’t I be better off just drawing a bunch of slightly worse Runes?”
“Of course not,” Todd said, as if it were the dumbest question in the world. His eyes darkened. “You only get seven spots for Runes in your soul. Seven usable ones, at least. Having a bunch of terrible Runes will result in your abilities being seriously crippled when you combine them.”
Aha. There we go. Seven Runes to fill every Rank, and I’m Rank 1 right now. I guess the rank of the Rune correlates with the rank of the person. So if I can combine my Rank 1 Runes into a single Rank 2 Rune, I can get to Rank 2. Then I combine the Rank 2s to get to Rank 3 and so on. Simple enough.
“It seems to me that Runes are a lot more than just magical conduits,” Noah said, raising an eyebrow. “Don’t you think?”
Todd and Isabel both slowly nodded. Their earlier annoyance was still there, but a nice portion of it had been replaced by genuine confusion. Perhaps it wasn’t quite interest yet, but that could come in time.
“Runes are… a foundation, I guess?” Todd said. “The better Runes you get every rank, the better Runes you can combine them into at the next level. They also gather the energy. Once you combine your runes, you’re stuck with them, though. That’s why it’s so important to make sure you know what you’re doing before you commit to moving to the next rank. I think.”
“You don’t sound very certain.” A grin traced across Noah’s face. “You’re learning.”
“Well, you haven’t been much of a teacher before,” Todd muttered.
“Better late than never,” Noah said with a wry smile. “Why don’t you think on this for a little? Bring me an answer next class. Until then, let’s move on. Keeping in the same vein – how do you access your Runes?”
And this is the only question that really matters right now. How many Runes did Vermil actually have access to? He had way more than seven in his book, which means there’s some form of selection process.
“You just imagine sinking inside yourself,” Isabel said after a few moments. She paused, then frowned. “I think. Maybe there’s more to it.”
Todd didn’t even bother answering. He looked lost in thought, trying to figure out what angle Noah was trying to get at.
Sorry. I don’t have any deep lessons here. Only ulterior motives. I guess that’s a lesson, if you think about it. Just not one I’m about to tell them about.
“Perhaps we should take some time to look again. Gaze with the eyes of an inquisitive child who has no idea what they look upon,” Noah said, interlacing his fingers and leaning against the wall. “Go on. Seek out your Runes and tell me what happens when you finish. I will do the same.”
Both Todd and Isabel closed their eyes. Their breathing stilled and their heads lowered, as if in deep meditation. Noah sat down at a desk, chewing his lower lip. It was one thing to talk, but it was another to just… feel magic.
He closed his eyes.
Right. Magic. Runes. Where would those be?
Noah’s brow creased slightly in concentration. He pictured the Runes he’d drawn on the board, but nothing happened. Pursing his lips, he dug deeper inside of himself, trying to see if something felt magical.
Some part deep inside himself didn’t expect to find anything. After all, he’d tried to meditate more than a few times in his life. Sure, there was no doubt in his mind that magic existed. But even if he was in someone else’s body in another world, it was another thing to actually do said magic himself.
There should have been nothing to find. Just his own company and silence. Instead, there was more. A tiny marble, deep in the core of his consciousness. It felt like a slightly sore thumb, completely unnoticeable until he was focused on it. But, now that he was, it was impossible to ignore.
Energy bloomed in the darkness. Even though Noah’s eyes were closed, he could see. In the endless black of his mind, glowing sigils carved themselves through the air. One by one, they slammed into him like a punch to the gut, forcibly announcing their presence.
The first five of them were Wind Runes. They were formed of swirling white and blue energy that cut through the shadows like sun on a cloudy day. The Runes were exactly the same as the Rune that had materialized before him in the monkey forest. All of them were Lesser, according to what Vermil’s book had said.
The next two Runes were considerably more complex. Instead of white and blue, they glowed a dull grey. Noah recognized these from the book as well – Ash Runes.
So I’ve got five Wind and two Ash. The Wind Runes aren’t very good, but the Ash ones seem to be. I wonder if I can upgrade or change the Wind Runes. God, there’s just so many things I need to find out. What if –
Noah staggered as a wave of force slammed into his chest and constricted around his heart. Primal fear welled up in his throat and his hands shot up to his throat as an invisible force tightened around it.
In the air above him, black lines infused with faint purple light slithered across the sky. They formed into one final Rune, hundreds of times larger than the other seven. The sheer force of its presence threatened to crush Noah beneath its weight, but he gritted his teeth and refused to let himself fall.
The Rune finished drawing itself, and its meaning slipped into Noah’s mind as he instinctively translated it.
Sunder.
A tremor ran down Noah’s spine, almost as if the Rune was glad that he’d recognized it. The overwhelming force pulled back, but the enormous Rune remained in the air above him. More than anything else, it reminded him of the monster that had attacked the Waters of Life and Renewal.
I wonder if that’s the reason I keep getting new bodies when I die.
Noah swallowed. He peeled his eyes away from the massive Rune above him. A few tiny specks of light at the edges of the darkness around him caught his eye. Noah mentally willed himself toward them.
Small portions of what he assumed to be his mind had chipped and broken away, revealing an empty white void. A faint buzzing noise filled Noah’s mind as he grew closer. He stopped, squinting at the strange scene. They filled him with a sense of wrongness, like something that should have been there was missing.
As he watched, a single speck of darkness reappeared at the edge of one of the white chips, sealing over a miniscule portion of it. He let out a faint sigh. Whatever the damage was, it was healing – just very, very slowly.
Noah peeled his eyes away. He wasn’t sure how much time had passed, and it would be awkward if he was zoned out through the rest of class. The darkness faded, and he opened his eyes to find himself standing in the classroom once again. His students both stared at him with rapt attention.
“Ah, I’m sorry. I got caught up,” Noah said, gathering himself and straightening his lapel. “How did your experiences go?”
“It just felt like looking at my Runes,” Isabel said, glancing at Todd. He nodded.
“Yeah. But you – ah, never mind,” Todd muttered.
“That’s quite all right. Please continue to ponder on your Runes in your free time before next class,” Noah said, slipping back into his teacher voice. “Now, one last question for today. While we’re on the topic of Runes, let’s discuss why having good ones is so important. We can only have seven per level, yes?”
Both students nodded.
“So, what happens when we go up to the next Rank?” Noah asked, watching their expressions carefully to make sure he’d read the situation correctly. When neither of them looked overly confused, he gave himself a mental pat on the back.
“You combine all seven of your Runes into a single one,” Todd said slowly, choosing each word with care. “Or you try to, I guess. If you succeed, you get to become the next Rank and can start making Runes of that Rank from scratch. That’s how you go from general Runes like Fire or Wind to specialized ones like Mist.”
“But if the combination doesn’t work, your Runes can shatter,” Isabel added. “Then you’ll be permanently crippled until you can fix them, which can take years. It’s why combinations that actually work are guarded so closely.”
I see.
“So, let’s summarize what we know,” Noah said. “Runes are kind of like buckets. The energy we fill them with is like water. Lesser Runes are smaller buckets than Great ones. When we get all seven buckets full, we can merge them into one better bucket. Sound about right?”
Isabel and Todd both nodded slowly.
“So,” Noah asked. “Is that everything runes are?”
Both Isabel and Todd narrowed their eyes and didn’t respond.
“Good,” Noah said with a grin. He raised a finger. “We don’t need to answer that yet. We’ve had a great discussion so far, and I don’t want to overload anybody. Let’s call class here for today. When we reconvene, we’ll resume our discussion.”
Todd and Isabel both blinked. Isabel squinted at Noah like he’d grown an ear from his forehead.
“Okay,” she said, drawing the word out. “Just how hard did you get injured? You’re nothing like what you were.”
Noah cleared his throat. “That’s hardly relevant. I think I quite like myself right now.”
“Yeah, me too,” Todd said under his breath. “You almost seem respectable.”
Noah shot him a sharp glare, and Todd just shrugged in response. Todd and Isabel rose from their desks and headed toward the door.
“Oh, one last thing,” Noah said before they left. They both turned back to him. “When’s our next class? I can’t remember.”
Isabel let out a snort of laughter. “Are you sure you aren’t a Skinwalker that killed Vermil and stole his body?”
Noah cleared his throat. “I got checked by Richard when I got back to campus. You can speak with him if you’re worried.”
“As if a Skinwalker would spend time teaching class. They can barely string a sentence together,” Todd said, rolling his eyes.
“Class is in 2 days, at the same time as today,” Isabel said with a shake of her head. “And I think I will be doing that.”
“Right. Thanks,” Noah said. “See you then. On time. Don’t be late. I won’t be either.”
She studied Noah for a moment, then gave him a small nod. She and Todd left the room. Noah waited for several seconds, then leaned on the podium and ran a hand through his hair as he mentally reviewed everything he’d learned.
There’s so much to consider. So many options. I need to know more.
A grin stretched across Noah’s lips and he rubbed his hands together despite himself.
Oh man, I’m excited. Magic, huh? This is going to be fun.