Return of the Runebound Professor

Renewal and Decras sat in a room as silent as death. The two of them stared at the shimmering image before them. Their eyes were transfixed on Noah, floating in the darkness of his mindspace.

They were fixed on the single Rank 5 Rune that shimmered before him.

The Cumulo beneath Renewal had swallowed about seventy percent of her body. Decras wasn’t faring any better. His body had nearly vanished entirely into the cloudy chair. Neither of them could so much as move. They could barely even breathe. All they could do was stare.

“Decras,” Renwal whispered, forcing herself to speak.

“You’re letting the Cumulo eat you,” Decras said. The dry, jesting tone he attempted to inject his words with didn’t hit the mark. He was just as stunned as Renewal.

“So are you,” Renewal said. She sank an inch deeper and automatically released a burst of power, blowing the chair back so she could rise to her feet. Not for an instant did her eyes leave the scene before her. It had frozen in place, locked on a single scene. She swallowed. “Turn it back on. Why did you pause it?”

“I didn’t,” Decras said. “I used up what connection we had. There’s nothing left. I won’t be able to access it again right now unless I brute force my way in. That’s too great of an intrusion, even for us.”

“Shit.” Renewal’s fists tightened at her sides and she took a step toward the scene as if to step right into it. She swallowed heavily. “What the fuck is that, Decras? I need to see more of it.”

Decras rose from his own seat. Like Renewal, his full attention was locked entirely on the image before him.

Ironic was the word that Renewal would have used as well. A mortal who had passed through the cleansing of the afterlife with their memories in-tact wasn’t even forbidden by the Order. The mere idea of it was purely ludicrous.

I suppose, even in the history of the universe, nobody ever thought a mortal would manage to not only drink god blood on their way out of the afterlife, but also get power from a god that would let them repeatedly die for long enough to come to grips with their own mortality without going completely insane.

“What would Judgement do if she saw this?” Renewal breathed.

“Purge the world, most likely,” Decras said.

“Purge?” Renewal’s eyes widened. “Surely not. Our purpose is to ensure the natural order and protect the…”

She trailed off, her words dying before they could finish their journey from her lips. Decras just arched an eyebrow at her.

“You can’t truly still believe that.”

“I don’t know what to believe anymore,” Renewal said. “I thought I was doing what had to be done. What’s the truth, then?”

“Who knows?” Decras let out a derisive snort and shook his head. “You’re one of the most creative fighters I’ve met, Renewal. Use some of that creativity to think for yourself instead of looking for an answer from others. There’s a reason I enjoyed fighting you so much. It wasn’t exclusively because of your good looks and shimmering personality.”

“That’s a lot easier said than done. I thought I understood the Universe, and now you’re telling me that I don’t have the slightest clue as to how any of it works — and I believe you. What do I — wait. What did you just say about my personality?”

“The Order is all rules. The true universe is none. Existence is simply existence,” Decras said. He pointedly did not answer Renewal’s second question. “Make of it what you will. Why do you think you haven’t advanced your rank in so long? It’s not because you haven’t been training. Your comprehension is just stifled.”

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Renewal’s mind did its best to pull her in three different directions at once. She pressed a hand to her skull, forcefully stilling the voices rattling around within it.

I am a goddess. Not a little mortal girl with no self-control. There are priorities. I cannot allow myself to be distracted by obvious ribbing. I must remain focused.

“I believe you might have mentioned my looks as well,” Renewal said, her mouth promptly ignoring every single thought that had just passed through her head.

Decras let out a bark of laughter. “It seems the Order was able to squash you into line, but they couldn’t break your will. But my answer remains the same as it always will be. True learning is done through experience. If you want tutelage, then seek out one of the Fallen that actually comprehend more of what they are doing. And until then, I would be considerably more concerned about this.”

He pointed at the rune in the center of the screen. Renewal’s brain pulsed with another faint prong of pain. It wasn’t that it actually posed her a threat. She was a goddess, and the rune was a Rank 5.

It wasn’t a threat — but it was wrong.

“You’re right,” Renewal said softly. “Judgement would destroy the entire planet if she discovered that Rune existed.”

“The existence of a Rune like this, especially at such a low rank, is the antithesis of everything that the Order stands for. Judgement would do everything in her power to ensure that Noah can never reach godhood. Even I am uneasy. Comprehending a sliver of the universe, no matter how minuscule, at this rank — imagine what he will be capable of when he ascends.”

“I think you should be more than just a bit uneasy,” Renewal said. “Unless I’m alone in lacking comprehension?”

“No,” Decras said grimly. “You are not.”

A finger of ice brushed down Renewal’s back.n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

Decras’ confirmation only put her even more on edge.

Renewal had seen many runes in her lifetime. More than most existences could even begin to comprehend. Decras was no different. He had seen so many different variations of runes. He’d even made a race — flawed as they had been.

And, in spite of all that experience, the rune immortalized in the image before the two gods was completely foreign.

Neither of them could read it.

***

Noah’s skull pounded. He couldn’t tell if it was from pain or excitement. His mindspace swam all around him as he fought to keep his balance, squinting through throbbing eyes at the results of his effort.

What the fuck did I make?

The Rune before him felt like it squirmed beneath his gaze. Jagged lines turned straight; straight lines twisted and undulated like trapped snakes. The moment his gaze landed on a section of the rune, it changed, desperately doing everything in its power to keep him from reading it.

Even its color couldn’t seem to settle down. At times, it was a sanguine red. Then it was black and gray and a sickly green. The colors changed like a flitting butterfly, zipping away whenever his eyes tried to get comfortable.

Is this some sort of uncertainty principle bullshit, where by perceiving the rune I end up changing it? Is that even the uncertainty principle? I really wish I remembered more of physics class.

Noah gritted his teeth and squinted at the rune. It wriggled free from him. A flicker of frustration lit in his stomach, but he smothered it. No matter how strange the rune was, it was definitely a Rank 5.

He could feel energy rolling off it in waves. Noah was certain it wasn’t a perfect rune, much less a flawless one, but it was powerful. He was confident the rune was significantly stronger than the sum of its parts.

Noah took several steps away from the rune so he could get a better look at the entire thing at once. He squinted at it. A wave of queasiness drove into his stomach, but he didn’t let his eyes peel away.

This was his rune.

I made you. I know everything that went into you. I might not know some of the components like the back of my hand, but they’re all built off things I have at least a general understanding over.

This rune is built from the knowledge and experience that make me who I am. I’ll be damned if I can’t fucking read my own goddamn handwriting.

Noah’s jaw clenched. His eyes watered. A burning sensation built in his upper chest like he’d gotten a bad case of heartburn. He didn’t let it distract him. Noah drove his focus forward like a blade.

His Master Runes shuddered as he drew deeply on everything he had at his newly made Rank 5. Power thrummed through his soul.

“Come on,” Noah whispered. His teeth throbbed from the intensity of his bite. Pain pricked his palms where his nails bit into it, but his gaze didn’t waver. It remained locked on the rune, demanding the twisting shapes and designs to grind to a halt.

And they did.

For the briefest instant, the rune gave in. It surrendered the fight and fell still as it acknowledged its creator.

And, in that moment, he finally knew his rune’s name.

Unstable Pandemonium — Rank 5