Return of the Runebound Professor

Noah didn’t sleep that night. He just walked, trying to move in a straight line as much as possible. It was as good a direction as any, and the last thing he wanted to do was wander in circles.

The crunch of dead and burnt foliage beneath his feet was the only noise in the still night. Windy gusts slithered through the trees, but despite their stark chill, they were nearly soulless. The trees had no leaves with which to rustle.

Noah came to an abrupt halt as he stepped around a tight group of scorched trees and found himself face to face with a monkey. His breath caught in his throat and a tiny yelp slipped out of mouth before he managed to silence it. The monster’s eyes were closed in sleep. It hung upside down from a blackened branch with its hind legs.

He swallowed heavily, taking a slow step backward. This monkey was roughly the size of the ones that had been lying dead in the clearing when he’d arrived in this world, but that didn’t make its claws and teeth any less deadly.

A branch cracked beneath Noah’s heel. The monkey’s eyes snapped open, instantly catching onto him. It hooted, dropping from the tree and landing on all fours. Noah cursed, scrambling backward and thrusting a hand toward it.

Wind whipped from his fingertips, and a thin blade of white magic carved into the monkey’s chest. It screeched in pain and blood splattered across the ground from a deep wound. The monster threw itself at Noah and he threw himself to the ground.

It flew over his head, slamming into a tree behind him with enough force to crack the wood. He bolted upright and sprinted in the opposite direction of the monster as fast as he could. Loud whooping yells followed Noah, growing closer at an alarming rate.

Noah spun, raising his hands to fire another arc of wind into the monster. He had a pretty good head start on it, so he was pretty sure that there should have still been enough room to –

Its face was an inch away from his. Noah screamed, his bolt of magic cutting across the monster’s shoulder an instant before its claws dug into his throat, ripping it out. Agony seared through the wound and he choked, gasping for air that wouldn’t come.

The monkey screeched in victory. It didn’t last long. A final arc of wind leapt from Noah’s numbing fingertips and caught it in the throat, severing the monster’s head from its body. A weak grin flickered across Noah’s lips, even as blood bubbled up behind them.

“Serves you right,” he muttered.

A strange feeling of warmth flooded into his body. For an instant, he felt greater than he had before – but Noah didn’t get time to appreciate it.

Death took him for the second time that day. Noah’s soul slipped out from his body. He hovered above his corpse for an instant, but a familiar force started to pull him away within seconds.

Noah narrowed his eyes, memorizing his surroundings as best as he could. The pull grew stronger, and then he was hurtling through the forest. Noah focused, keeping track of the trees that whistled past him and taking note of anything that could be used as a marker to orient himself.

A few seconds later, reality slammed into him. Cold, wet dirt pressed into his bare back and his eyes snapped open. Heavy fog hung in his mind. His lips felt gummy and dry. Noah grimaced, pushing himself to his feet.

He was naked. Again.

The clearing was empty, at least. Noah shivered in the cold night wind. The empty gourd rested just by his feet, in the same place he’d left it. A small frown flickered across his lips as a thought pushed its way out of his muddled mind.

“Why do I keep coming back to this clearing?”

He turned in a slow circle, trying to see if there was anything that might be causing him to reform here rather than anywhere else in the world. Aside from the dead monkeys and the empty gourd on the ground by his feet, there was nothing.

The gourd.

Noah’s eyes narrowed. He picked the gourd up carefully. It sloshed faintly, a little liquid still left within it. He studied it for a moment. The gourd certainly didn’t look like anything special.

He scanned the ground until he spotted the wax seal. He picked it up and carefully pushed it back into place. Noah would have loved to have a pair of pants to hang the gourd from right about now.

“Right. You’re coming with me,” Noah muttered. He looked up at the sky, then located the direction he’d come from. Then he set off once more. There was a pair of pants waiting for him.

His second trip through the forest went quicker than the first. He hadn’t managed to memorize everything perfectly, but he’d gotten enough of his bearings to retrace his steps. It was several hours, but he spotted his body lying on the ground across from an equally dead monkey.

Noah grinned despite the bitter cold. He jogged up to his corpse and stripped it, pulling his pants back on and tucking the gourd into a loop on his belt. Whole once more, he turned in a slow circle. The fog in his mind finally peeled back, letting him think properly again.

Unfortunately, the dead forest stretched in every direction for as far as he could see. Rows on rows of scorched, dry trees stood in silent parade arrest for a general that would never come.

What the hell was this Vermil guy doing here in the first place? Did he have a death wish? He had to have some way to get out. And then there’s that feeling I got when I killed the monkey thing. What was that?

No answers came. Noah pursed his lips, then shrugged. Standing still was making the chill even worse, so he set off once more.