Return of the Runebound Professor-Chapter 851: That’s not quite right.

Noah’s foot landed on familiar wooden ground. Pulsating veins of sunlit gold throbbed at the edges of his vision and a shower of fragmented slivers of light skittered out beneath his feet.

A thick miasma of energy slithered out from his lungs as he exhaled. He could have sworn coils of golden thread were peeling away from his skin to dissipate into the atmosphere. But, the moment he blinked, it was all gone.

He was back in the tavern room that he and Lee had rented. Lee sat upright in her bed, her eyes wide as her gaze bore into him. A shimmer of golden light bouncing off her eyes like the sunlight reflecting off a crystal.

The presence lurking within Noah yanked itself back as if stung. It receded back into him, his thoughts slithering back to their proper places as the last of the Line faded away from him.

The hell just happened?

It wasn’t that he’d forgotten anything. His memories were entirely intact. Every single action had been one he’d taken. And yet, despite that, he didn’t have the faintest idea as to how he’d done any of it.

Even though he’d used the Line to reposition himself before, he’d never done it like this. He hadn’t even known where it was he’d come from, much less where the tavern room actually sat in comparison to where he’d been kidnapped to.

A teleportation like that should have been impossible. It was much, much farther than any distance he’d ever tried to cover before… and strangest still was the fact that his runes barely even felt drained.

There was no doubt that he’d used them for something. But the amount of magical energy it should have taken to do something like this didn’t match up at all with the amount he’d spent. Absolutely no part of what had happened made much sense at all.

“Noah?” Lee asked. “What’s going on?”

He shook his head. There would be time to figure out what in the world was going on later. At this point, Noah had gotten used to not being entirely sure what the hell was happening or how his magic worked. Sometimes it just did shit. Perhaps this was a combination of the Line and the Beyond. Perhaps his Spider persona had gotten pissed off. Or perhaps he’d just had it to his goddamn limit with annoying ass people trying to control him — even if this one had been a fair bit more polite than the other offenders.

But for the time being, there was something a little more pressing to deal with.

“Badges’ haunted,” Noah replied, grabbing the black badge from his pocket and flicking it onto the bed with a grimace. He grabbed a corner of the bedsheet and tore it off, wrapping it around the cursed object and ensuring no part of it was still visible.

“What?” Lee asked.

“Badges’ haunted,” Noah replied. He took a step back and examined the badge for a moment longer. A frown pulled at the corners of his lips.

I don’t think a bedsheet is going to stop the magic from working. It went right through my clothes no problem. Well, shit. I probably should have thought about that before I wrapped it up. I’ll need to get it imbued or something.

“What do you mean?” Lee asked. Her nose twitched. “And why do you smell like bugs?”

“I got temporarily kidnapped,” Noah replied. “What do you mean by bugs?”

“Like… dust. Dust and dead bugs,” Lee replied. “I think. I can barely tell. The smell must be really, really strong for me to be able to make it out in Aqua Terra. How did you get kidnapped?”

“The badge,” Noah replied. “There was some kind of imbuement on it that let the person who made it summon me over to them. You don’t have your badge yet, right?”

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“Not yet,” Lee said.

“Good,” Noah said. “I don’t know if she’s got control of all of them or something, but we’ll have to be careful. We need to get some kind of protective cover for these things. There’s no way I’m tapping out of the tournament before it even starts, but I don’t want to get kidnapped in the middle of the night again.”

“But if you got kidnapped, how did you even get back?” Lee asked. She sniffed the air again, her brow furrowing. Annoyance creased her features. “I can’t pick up on anything at all. This is so frustrating.”

“To be totally honest, I’m not entirely sure myself,” Noah said. He shook his head. “It really doesn’t matter right now. I got out. I think I somehow managed to use the Line to escape what was meant to be some impenetrably imbued prison or something. Dunno. Honestly, don’t really care. I’ve got bigger things to worry about. It didn’t seem like they were even looking for me in particular. Someone was offing a bunch of their people and they were trying to figure out who it was.”

“Huh,” Lee said.

Noah hesitated. His head tilted to the side. “That wasn’t you, was it?”

“Nah,” Lee said. “I haven’t killed anyone since we got here. I’ve felt too ill.”

“Then whoever kidnapped me will figure out soon enough that I’ve got nothing to do with the killings,” Noah said with a one-shouldered shrug. “I figure that should get them off our shoulders. No need to worry about it too much. The lady in charge felt very polite.”

“Can a kidnapper be polite?”

“At this point? It’s happened enough times for me to say yes, they very much can,” Noah said. “I’d probably have been willing to chat if it had come at any time other than the middle of the goddamn night, when I am trying to sleep. God. What is it with bullshit and the middle of the night?”

“Dunno,” Lee said. She rubbed her nose. “So… are we going back to sleep?”

Noah glanced at the badge. He grabbed his sheets by the edges and gave them a snap, launching the wrapped badge off the bed and onto the floor, where it landed with a soft thump. Then he flopped back into bed.

“Yes,” Noah replied. “Yes, we are.”

***

The Mistress stared at the spot where the strange, ragged man had been standing just a few short moments ago. She wasn’t quite sure her eyes were working right. But her domain told her the same information that every one of her other senses was confirming.

He was gone.

But that couldn’t have been possible. The Imbuements were untouched. Nobody had bulldozed through them. And even if the man had somehow managed to slip through her web, it still would have left some marking.

Her confusion did nothing to change reality. There was no change at all. The Imbuements were untouched. There was no trace of anyone’s passing at all. It was as if nobody at all had ever been there.

By the time she extended her senses to the badge in question, the Mistress was unsurprised to find it was no longer in contact with its owner. She doubted there would be another good chance to call him… and she wasn’t even sure if attempting to re-summon him would be wise.

A deep frown crossed her shadowed features.

Whoever that was… no Rank 6 would have been powerful enough to slip free of this place so easily. Not even most Rank 7s I know of could have pulled that off.

And then there was the matter of the strange man himself. The way he had carried himself wasn’t right at all. There had been no fear in any aspect of his voice or posture. The most significant emotion he’d displayed at being summoned before her had been annoyance.

That isn’t how any random Rank 6 or 7 would react. There was no pointless posturing or attempted displays of strength. He was just… annoyed.

“Mistress?” a man’s voice came from the shadows, but the Mistress didn’t even glance in his direction. He paused for a moment, then continued, “would you like me to seek out the one that—”

“No,” the Mistress said. “Don’t bother. It would go poorly for you, and I do not have any desire to waste resources.”

“You think he was telling the truth?”

It was several seconds before the Mistress responded.

“I don’t know,” she replied. “But against such entities, a direct approach is rarely the wisest one. And in the time that we have spent talking, four more have died. He may be responsible for their deaths… but it wasn’t his hand that took their life. Not a single one of the people we brought here knew anything about the kills. That does not mean he was not responsible for their deaths. There could be another involved. One who hasn’t taken a single badge at all.”

“Why?”

“I do not yet know,” the Mistress admitted. “But I believe caution may be our wisest route. Too much is clouded. Now more than ever. I do not know what it is we deal with.”

The man swallowed. “You? Cautious? Mistress, are you implying—”

“Yes,” the Mistress said, the now-distant strands moonlight filtering in through the cloud-covered window breaking over her shoulders as she shifted. “There’s a new powerhouse in Aqua Terra. One that the Prophet didn’t account for. It will be necessary to adjust our plans accordingly. It seems we may have a new Rank 8 on our hands.”