Return of the Runebound Professor

“Whenever you’re ready,” Noah said.

Isabel pressed a hand to her chest, drawing a slender blue sword of energy out from within her heart. She flicked the blade, lowering into a fighting stance as she approached the bush and nudged it with her foot.

Lee tilted her head to the side, a pensive frown on her face. Noah didn’t have any time to ask her what the source of the confusion was, though. A Snuffler rushed out from the ground, spraying dirt into the air with the force of its arrival.

Its snout instantly moved to point at Isabel as she dashed in its direction, not even waiting for the monster to finish clambering out of the dirt to attack. Isabel was fast, but it didn’t look like she’d managed to get any Body Imbuements working yet – which made the Snuffler faster.

Isabel dodged to the side as the Snuffler lashed out with its mouth, trying to bite down on her. She’d moved a little earlier than Noah would have. While that made the dodge safer, it also gave her less time to counterattack before her feet hit the ground again and alerted the Snuffler of where she’d landed.

Twisting her body, Isabel brought her sword down toward the Snuffler’s neck. The blade bit deep into its flesh and it thrashed instantly, lunging for her. She let the blade dissolve instantly, jumping back to avoid the initial attack and buying herself enough time to reform the sword.

The Snuffler charged after Isabel. It snapped at her heels, growing closer with every dodge she made. Noah watched every move, his back tense and hands clenched at his sides. Isabel was playing it a lot closer than he’d like.

Yeah, I know I’m being hypocritical. But we had much more practice against the monkeys before she started fighting this dangerously. This is her first snuffler. Damn. I’m a terrible influence.

Isabel vaulted backward in an impressive display of acrobatics, narrowly avoiding getting chomped on the arm. As soon as she landed on the ground, she burst forward. The Snuffler, which had expected Isabel to be standing in the spot she’d landed, didn’t even realize she’d moved toward it instead of away from it until Isabel’s sword was buried in its head.

She wrenched herself upward, using the sword like a lever to fling herself into the air and over the monster. As soon as she was above its head, Isabel spun and dissolved the sword, forming a new one and plunging it into the top of the monster's neck

The Snuffler crashed to the ground, skidding a foot before coming to a stop. Isabel hopped down, allowing her blue sword to fade away, and let out a slow breath.

“What?” Isabel asked, noticing the looks they were giving her.

“That was a bit… risky,” Todd hedged, in the style of someone who had tried and failed to convince her of something before. “Clean kill, though.”

“Aside from the first move,” Emily said. “Also, you fight like you have a death wish.”

“Borderline suicidal,” Moxie agreed. “Effective, though. You’re going to be a menace once you get those Body Imbuements working properly.”

Noah noted that Lee still looked confused at Isabel’s performance. He would have understood both impressed or worried – but not confused. Nothing about it had been particularly confusing.

Odd.

The ground thudded behind Noah. He spun, half expecting a Snuffler, but found Brayden instead. Noah lowered his hands and shook his head.

“You are too big. Has anyone told you that? I thought there was a monster coming up on me.”

Brayden smirked. “And that’s just how I like it. Time to get moving. We’re going to be wasting daylight soon.”

Noah nodded. “We’ll do this again tomorrow. Good job, everyone. Think on how you did and what you can improve while we’re on the road. When we make camp for the night, we’ll all discuss and see where we can all improve.”

And, with that, they set back off. Isabel took down the stone tents she’d made for everyone and then the group left the campsite behind, returning to the road.

The day went quickly, with nothing of any real importance happening. Brayden seemed to know exactly where he was going, and Noah wasn’t going to complain about that. Edward and Allen continued to bring up the back of their small line, refusing to interact with anyone else.

About an hour before the sun could completely set behind the clouds covering the horizon, they drew up to another campsite. It was evident that this road wasn’t all that uncommon to travel.

Noah and Moxie went over everyone’s performance in their first fights with the Snufflers, discussing what the students had done best and what they could do better. Once they’d finished that, Isabel erected the stone tents once again.

As she worked, Noah spent some time to seriously consider his Body Imbuements. He’d yet to properly start any of them – largely because he wasn’t sure what Rune he’d actually want to Imbue.

He only had a Rank 1 Wind Rune, so that wasn’t particularly inviting. Pyroclastic Resonance was stronger, but he didn’t like the idea of putting ash inside his body until he knew exactly what he wanted it to do. Intent was important when combining Runes, and there was no doubt in his mind that it was equally as important when doing Body Imbuement. Sticking a bunch of ash inside himself without actually having a plan of what it would do was probably a horrible idea.

That left him with his Master Runes. Sunder was off the table before the dinner even started – that was just asking to chop something important off. And so, all that remained was Combustion.

That could work, actually. I don’t know exactly how combustion engines worked on earth, but I’m pretty sure it was pretty much just using a spark to light gas, causing expansion that pushed a piston that pumped the engine. Could I just do that to my muscles? Doesn’t sound very pleasant, but seems… viable. Maybe.

Noah shelved the topic for the night – the combustion engine idea seemed promising, but he wanted to test it out on something physical before he used his own body and found out that the Imbuements stuck around between deaths.

While Noah had been lost in thought, the rest of the group decided to follow the same watch system that they had the previous night. Noah took the first few hours to get some rest for himself, then crept out of the camp as soon as Moxie and Brayden swapped watches.

Unbeknownst to him, Isabel and Lee did the exact same thing.

The next morning dawned on them as it always did, and after another set of practice hunts on the Snufflers, they were off once more.

Unfortunately, their day didn’t go nearly as quietly as the previous one had. It started off just about the same – struggling to keep up with Brayden as he strode along the dirt path. The sun beat down on them, but a nice cover of clouds occasionally obscured it, keeping the day from getting too oppressive.

A gentle breeze rustled the grass and shrubbery around them. More than a few times, Noah wondered just how many Snufflers there were in the area. It seemed like nearly every single bush had one – at least, the ones that weren’t directly along the path did.

Is there like some underground city of Snufflers? Or are they more solitary and just sit around, protecting their bush? I presume they’re getting energy from it similar to the Fluffants in the Windscorned Plateau, but at least I could see what was happening there. Damn. I’m curious.

While Noah – and, judging by the blank looks on their faces, just about everyone else – was lost in thought, the horizon shifted. Even Brayden didn’t seem to notice it at first. A hill, which were generally known to stay in one place, twitched.

The movement was followed by a series of popping, crunchy tears. This time, nobody missed it. They all snapped awake, jerking their heads toward the source of the noise. The top half of a hill rose into the air, an expansive network of roots popping free of the ground and tearing as they failed to contain the hill’s ascent.

Massive, gnarled limbs made of woody, rootlike material unfurled from beneath the hill. They dug into the grass, ripping large chunks of it away in clods and throwing them to the ground.

“Gods above. What in the Damned Plains is that?” Emily asked, taking a step back in horror.

“Speak like a noble, Emily,” Moxie said, speaking more on instinct than thought as she stared at the enormous monster in awe. It was easily two stories tall, and each of its fingers was probably a few times taller than she was.

“Root Fiend,” Brayden muttered, resting his hand on the hilt of his sword. “Damn big one. Something woke it up.”

“We’re nowhere near it!” Edward exclaimed from the back of the group. “How could we have possibly woken that big creature up? Can you defeat it?”

“Yes, but I can’t protect you at the same time,” Brayden replied. “That’s got to be a Rank 3. Biggest Root Fiend I’ve ever seen.”

“Moxie and I can cover the kids,” Noah offered. Brayden shook his head.

“No, you can’t. It attacks through the ground just as easily as above it. Unless you’re a Rank 4 or already have experience fighting one of these, you’re not going to be able to hold all of its attacks back. They’re fairly stupid monsters, though. As long as we don’t move, it shouldn’t come for us.”

“I thought you said something got its attention,” Edward said tersely. “Doesn’t that mean it’s already coming for us?”

“Something. Not us,” Brayden corrected. “Just don’t move.”

A bassy roar ripped out from the Root Fiend. It ripped another huge portion of the hill away, revealing a jagged, wooden face with two glowing red eyes and teeth made of sharpened bark. Each tooth was several times bigger than Brayden, and they were so large that they forced the monster’s maw into a permanently open position.

Something shot up from the ground, flying at the monster’s face. It hurtled through the sky with incredible speed, glowing with brilliant energy that could have only been Runes. Another roar split the clear day. The Root Fiend swung its arm in a huge, sweeping arc.

The glowing dot flitted to the side, avoiding the strike effortlessly. It slammed to a halt, revealing the form of a heavily armored man floating in the air, his hands outstretched before him and swirling energy gathering at the head of a huge hammer in his hands.

He reared back, growing so bright that he was nearly a miniature star – and the Root Fiend batted him out of the sky like an annoying pest. Noah’s eyes widened. The man had been shot straight toward them.

Noah reached for his magic, wanting to send a powerful gust of wind into the man before he could collide with the ground. Moxie and Brayden both stepped forward, calling on their own magic.

None of them were fast enough.

The man spun midair. He slammed feet-first into the ground like a human meteor. Wisps of white and gold smoke rose off his heavily battered armor as the man rose, brushing his arm off like he’d taken a slight tumble rather than been sent hurtling into the ground from several stories up.

“My apologies. I did not expect to see travelers here,” the man said. He gave them a sharp salute. Behind him, the Root Fiend roared in rage. It took a step toward them, shaking the ground with its enormous weight.

A beam of red light shot up from somewhere behind the hills, catching the monster in the side. It screamed in pain and twisted its huge body, searching for the source. The man before them didn’t seem to even notice.

“I hope I haven’t inconvenienced your trip too much,” he continued. “Please remain here for a few minutes until we have this handled. We’re rooting out Root Fiends in the area if you’ll pardon my pun. My partner and I didn’t quite do our due diligence to make sure there wasn’t anyone in the immediate zone before starting the fight with this one.”

“You intentionally attacked that thing?” Edward asked, aghast. The Root Fiend let out another pained roar as a second beam of red light caught it in the side, scorching its wooden body. The monster reared back and drove its hand into the hillside with a brilliant crash, shaking the ground beneath all their feet.

The monster straightened, turning its gaze straight toward them. Its red eyes burned with malicious fury.

“Of course I did,” the man said, turning back to look at the huge monster. “It’s my duty. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Gavin, Soldier of the Arbalest Empire. Now, please excuse me. My partner needs a little assistance.”