Return of the Runebound Professor

Chapter 147: Aflame

While Moxie was busy beating the shit out of his students, Noah was wrapped up in some of his own work. He’d retreated to the top of a nearby tree to avoid getting bothered too much, and had been hard at work for the past few hours.

Even though he’d recently gotten several new Runes courtesy of Evergreen and the Torrin’s failed plan to use Dayton against Father, he still hadn’t properly had the time to get about using them.

There were a variety of things he still needed to practice and improve on with Focal Quake and Howling Maelstrom, and that wasn’t even getting to all the work he’d have to do to fix the Broken Gale Rune.

But, before he got around to any of that, there was one thing that he still wanted to do. When Noah had gotten his hands on a Vibration Rune for the first time, he’d tried to see if he could sense vibrations to detect people or monsters in the area.

That had gone poorly, as he’d had no idea about how magic worked. There wasn’t a way for him to actively achieve any sort of feedback effect like that until he had a domain, as that would likely allow him to sense vibrations when they were within its range.

However, a domain wasn’t the only way to go about picking up information. Todd’s strategy of using a Body Imbuement on his eyes to detect heat was exactly the kind of thing that Noah had been trying to do – he just hadn’t known how to go about it.

He couldn’t go about it the same way that Todd had, though. Imbuing his eyes wouldn’t do him all that much good. He had two Runes with Vibration in them – Pyroclastic Resonance and Focal Quake. Between the two of them, the latter definitely lent itself more toward Noah’s purpose than the former.

And so, that was exactly how Noah found himself dozens of feet in the air, perched upon a tree with his shoes on the ground far below him and the wind blowing across his bare feet. He’d been there for the better part of the day, and the sun was already starting to set.

Instead of spending several weeks to imbue them, he’d just condensed everything into the day. But, even though he’d done the work fairly quickly, he’d taken care to make sure that every thin inscription of the Focal Quake Rune was perfect.

Noah wiggled his toes. His feet tingled, but the Imbuements within them felt solid. He grinned to himself as he hopped down from the tree, catching himself with a powerful burst of wind before he hit the ground and gently alighting on the grass.

It felt… odd to walk with bare feet again, but given the amount of clothes he went through, any article that he could do away with while fighting would probably save him a significant amount of money in the long run.

Noah drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. He turned his focus inward. When he’d made the Body Imbuements, he’d made sure not to pour too much power into them. They had less than five percent of the energy he’d already had within Focal Quake, but he was pretty sure that would be more than enough for his purposes.

The Runes on his feet activated. Almost instantly, a myriad of information slammed into Noah in the form of a million sudden, incredibly uncomfortable vibrations. He stiffened, letting out a curse and hopping from one foot to the other.

“Way too much power,” Noah muttered, releasing and toning down his magic. “I want to pick up on larger vibrations, not every single time an ant farts.”

He let power flow through his feet once more. This time, it was much more manageable – though he still wasn’t exactly sure what was happening. It initially felt like the ground was just trembling beneath him, and for a moment, Noah feared that his Imbuement had been a complete waste.

But, as he stood there, absorbing the information, his mind started to differentiate between the vibrations. It was difficult for him to conceptualize exactly what exactly the feeling reminded him of, but it was like an entirely new sense that he’d finally discovered after years of going without.

Even though the vibrations he was picking up were running through his feet, Noah almost felt as if he could see them in the air, just barely beyond the visible spectrum.

That must be how my brain deals with trying to conceptualize what is essentially a sixth sense. Fascinating. But… I wonder if I can actually get any useful information out of this.

Noah stood still, content to simply feel. He focused on separating the tremors tickling the bottoms of his feet, trying to figure out where each one came from.

And, slowly, he started to succeed. As he quickly came to recall, everything in the world vibrated, at least to some degree. But, by filtering out the smallest vibrations and focusing on the larger ones, he started to become aware of his immediate surroundings.

The wind rustling the leaves of the trees. Small animals, just barely large enough for his toned-down senses to pick up, crawling across the forest floor. The radius that Noah’s senses extended to seemed to be roughly twenty feet. When he tried to feel anything further, the vibrations were just too muddled and mixed up.

Increasing the sensitivity of his Runes resulted in a cacophony of completely useless information, and he quickly gave that angle up. For the time being, with just a little effort, he could begin to make out everything that was connected to the ground within twenty feet of himself as long as he was concentrating.

Of course, that did mean that anything in the air was almost entirely foreign to him if it wasn’t somehow touching the earth.

I guess that means birds are my greatest enemies. Maybe monkeys have to take a step back.

Nah. I’m still going to punt every single Slasher I see in the face for the rest of my life, the buggers.

Noah opened his eyes for the first time in a while, and he came to an abrupt realization. Time had passed. Quite a bit of it. There was no more trace of the sun, and the forest was completely cast in the robes of night.

“Shit,” Noah muttered under his breath. “I lost track of time again.”

He went to pull back on the Body Imbuements, but paused. It would take a long time until he really got used to using them, Now was as good a time to start practicing with them as any.

Noah scooped his shoes off the ground and trotted off in the direction of camp, doing his best to identify the vibrational footprints of everything that crossed his path along the way. He reached the camp a few minutes later, then paused at the edge of the clearing to see if he could locate anyone.

A vague presence made itself known in front of a tree to Noah’s left. It was difficult to tell exactly what it was, as it appeared in his mind as a blobby, bipedal form. However, Noah had a pretty good guess as to who it might have been.

He turned straight toward the tree, a grin stretching across his lips. “Hello, Lee.”

The shadows rippled and Lee appeared before the tree, her eyes going wide. “You saw me? How?”

“I didn’t see you,” Noah replied, tapping his forehead. “I felt you.”

“Right,” Lee said. Her eyes flicked down to his feet. “Why are your shoes off?”

“To feel.”

Lee scrunched her nose. “That’s kind of weird.”

“You’re calling me weird?” Noah crossed his arms. “You’re the one that eats corpses.”

“That’s called the cycle of life. It’s different.”

“Right,” Noah said dryly. He sent a glance into camp. A campfire crackled in its center, sending small embers rising up into the night sky. Aside from that, it was peaceful. There was no sign of Moxie or any of the students. “Where’s everyone else? Asleep?”

“Yeah,” Lee said with a nod. “I took the watch because Moxie wore them down so much that they were dozing off while standing. There was no way they’d be able to pull off an effective watch in that state.”

“I can imagine.” Noah chuckled. He paused, a frown flitting across his face as he suddenly became of a tree as it creaked in a particularly large gust of wind. The information from his new Body Imbuements was a bit overwhelming, especially during a conversation. He cut the power flowing to it and shook his head to clear it. “What did they end up doing?”

“After Moxie chased them around and beat them up, they all worked on Body Imbuements for a while.”

“Like teacher, like student. That’s cute.”

Lee scrunched her nose. “I don’t know how well that ended up going for them, but Moxie only gave them an hour or two before she put them through a bunch of training exercises and scenarios. She’s got a really diverse range of magic, you know. It’s really fun to watch.”

“Oh?” Noah blinked. “What do you mean by that?”

“Like one of her training scenarios was a horde of small, weak monsters that are dangerous because of their number.” Lee held her hands out to show just how many monsters there had been in the scenario. “So she made a bunch of vines all move individually and attack like a horde. It was really fun to watch.”

“Huh. Sounds like I missed out.”

“You did. Todd did the best. Fire works really well against vines, but they go right through stones. Emily did pretty good too.”

“They worked together?”

“The rest of the exercises today were individual, but they’re talking.”

“Good,” Noah said with a smile. “Then all is going to plan. That’s very good to hear. How much time is left in your watch?”

“A few hours. I’m going to wake Moxie up halfway through the night to take over.”

“Just get me instead,” Noah said. “I’ve been sitting around doing nothing all day while she worked. She needs the rest for tomorrow.”

Lee shrugged. “Sure.”

Noah nodded to her, then headed over to one of the stone tents and ducked inside. He lowered himself to the ground, slightly increasing his draw on his Combustion rune to make himself warmer against the chill of the night, and laid down to get some rest, crossing his arms behind his head and looking up at the ceiling.

It was peaceful. Even with all the threats on the horizon, he felt comfortable. His students were learning and growing stronger. Moxie and Lee were getting along. Everything would work out, one way or another.

The gentle rustle of leaves in the wind lulled him to a peaceful sleep.

But, just a few hours deeper into the Vibrant Woods and within a large clearing not all that dissimilar from the one Noah currently slept in, that sense of peace couldn’t have possibly been any farther from achievable.

For, unlike Noah’s clearing, this one was currently aflame.