Return of the Runebound Professor - Chapter 775 (Patreon)

Four Months Ago. Isabel flew back across the rubble-strewn ground of the dim cave that had been her home for the past month. Her armored bac

Four Months Ago.

Isabel flew back across the rubble-strewn ground of the dim cave that had been her home for the past month. Her armored back met the wall with a loud crash. The air exploded from her lungs in a pained grunt as she dropped to the ground, landing on one knee.

Her entire body — with the exception of her head — throbbed in agony. Her limbs felt like lumps of lead at her sides and her heart slammed desperately in her chest as it tried and failed to pump enough blood to keep her moving.

Blood trickled from more wounds than she could count, staining her dirty clothes beneath the cracked stone covering her. The buzz of her runes in the back of her mind was a distant reminder that her reserves were dwindling, but it was already taking just about everything she had to keep her pattern active.

“Sitting down? In the middle of a fight?” Alice’s cold, cruel voice cut through the room like a blade. “Are you a girl or a woman? Stand up. If you die, die with your feet beneath you and your ass off the ground. It’ll be the last thing you’ll ever do. Better make damn sure you do it right.”

Isabel gritted her teeth. She pressed her back to the wall.  Stone ground against stone as she forced herself upright. A wave of dizziness washed over her, threatening to pull her under the crashing waves of unconsciousness beating against the edges of her mind, but she forced it down.

She’d been fighting against Alice for the better part of an hour. Just like she had ever day for the past month. Just like Todd had every day for the past month — and, presumably, just like everyone else had.

Isabel didn’t know for certain. After Alice had functionally kidnapped them, the only other person Isabel had seen was Todd. The rest of them had been separated, broken off into different rooms of the cave network they were stuck in.

But there was no way to know for sure where the others were or how they were doing. The caves were magically imbued with something Isabel had never seen before. It was like they were trapped in an invisible bubble. No matter how hard she and Todd had fought to break free, the invisible power caging them in was impenetrable.

“Fuck you,” Isabel hissed, spitting blood onto the floor. Just the effort of forcing the words between her lips was nearly too much.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Todd trying to push himself up. He wasn’t having much luck. His armor had already broken apart, devoid of energy to sustain it any longer. He was completely drained.

Alice just smirked. The woman didn’t have so much as a single scratch on her uniform. It sat, as clean and perfect as it had been at the start of the fight. Despite Isabel and Todd’s best efforts, they hadn’t even managed to put so much as a single speck of dirt upon her white hair.

“Your mouth is buying fights your body can’t pay for,” Alice said, advancing toward Isabel like a cougar stalking exhausted prey. “You’ve got nothing left. Again.”

“Does beating people half your rank make you feel strong?” Todd rasped from the ground. “Maybe I should find a rabbit for you to kick while you’re at it?”

“I got bored with rabbits a long time ago,” Alice replied without even glancing back in Todd’s direction. She came to a stop before Isabel. Isabel spat blood at the other woman, but it splattered against an invisible wall inches away from Alice’s face, sliding down the barrier harmlessly.

“Is that all?” Alice asked. Her head cocked to the side. “Or do you plan to defeat all your opponents by spitting on them? Best be careful. I know a few too many that might be into it. You’re going to need more than—”

Todd snapped his fingers.

Isabel drove her hand forward with every last scrap of energy that she had left. Blue carved out from her palm, a thin dagger of crystalline cyan energy materializing within her grasp. The blade pierced through the invisible barrier surrounding Alice like it was made out of paper.

There was a thump as the blade slammed to a halt.

Isabel’s eyes flicked down to it. Her hand had stopped an inch away from Alice’s chest, the tip of her glowing weapon just barely touching the uniform above the other woman’s heart. Pain burned her wrist where Alice had caught it in an iron grip just moments before it could strike true.

Alice followed Isabel’s gaze to the dagger.

“Shit,” Isabel said. The final dregs of her magic sputtered out. Her pattern faded, her focus no longer able to sustain the avalanche of blows that she had been visualizing.

“You broke past my defenses,” Alice said. Her voice was inscrutable, and her features held no more insight into her true thoughts than her words. The woman’s cold face was completely unreadable. “How?”

Isabel looked up at Alice.

Then she spat onto the woman’s face.

This time, there was no magic to stop it. The blood splattered against Alice’s pale cheek, marring it like some dead creature upon a field of fresh snow.

Alice didn’t even react. Her gaze traveled down to the floor. To the scarred ground beneath her feet, riddled with debris and scorched from flame and explosions from previous fights. Then her eyes went wide. She spun to look back in Todd’s direction, finally noticing the newest of the cracks riddling the stone.

“There’s a pattern,” Alice muttered. “It wasn’t here before. You created an Imbuement while we were fighting? Is this… the pattern from a Mage Ripper? Modified to impede runic pressure instead of Imbuements?”

“No. It’s random scratches on the ground that just happened to make a pretty pattern,” Todd said. “You’re imagining things.”

Alice’s attention flicked back to Isabel. “You managed to lead me all the way here, specifically so I would step into the pattern just so you could get a chance to try and kill me with an ability you haven’t used once in the month I’ve kept you here?”

“Give me a second,” Isabel said. “My mouth is dry. I’m trying to gather up some more spit to answer your question.”

“If I was even a little weaker or even the slightest bit distracted, that would have actually killed me.” Alice said. “You’re that determined to kill someone who just saved your asses from getting trapped in a cell and picked apart for the rest of your lives?”

“What did you do with everyone else?” Isabel growled. “You’re just trying to leverage us against Noah. That isn’t going to happen. We aren’t tools.”

“And you’ll kill for that. Pair of natural born killers, you are.”

“Not born,” Todd said. He staggered to his feet, then wiped blood from the side of his face. “Made. And not by you. For as long as you keep us here, we won’t stop. We’ll land a lucky blow. We’ll find a way out of here.”

Alice was silent for a moment. Then, to Isabel’s confusion, she smiled.

“Well done. No hesitation at all. I was beginning to worry that you weren’t at the level I hoped, but it looks like I genuinely underestimated you. I never would have thought you’d have the patience to wait so long just to try and work out what I’m capable of so you could try to find a way to finish me off in one blow. You might be one of the best yet.”

Alice flicked Isabel’s hand to the side, sending the blue dagger spinning from her grip. The weapon vanished the moment it left her fingertips. Isabel didn’t have the energy left to summon it back. She could do nothing but watch her hand fall back to her side as Alice took a step back.

 “Where are the others?” Isabel asked through gritted teeth. “What did you do to them?”

“I freed them, of course.”

Anger welled in Isabel. “You—”

“I mean that in the literal sense,” Alice said. “I didn’t kill them. A number of your friends are no longer in this cave system. They’re wandering around all the corners of Obsidia, doing as their heart desires.”

Isabel stared at Alice. “What?”

“Half the reason I separated you lot is to keep anyone from tracking you down from the stench of your souls,” Alice said flatly. “Keeping half of you cooped up in a tiny area was never a long term solution. I had to spread you out.”

“You’re telling me you kept us trapped in a cage and just… what, released everyone else? And you expect us to believe that?” Todd demanded.

“No,” Alice said. “I kept everyone. I take good care of my investments. The rest of them were just ready far earlier. You took longer to actually make a good shot at trying to kill me than just about everyone else.”

“You were… waiting for us to try to kill you?” Isabel asked, still trying to catch her breath and gather what magic she could.

“Obviously,” Alice said. “We’re not in Arbalest. I couldn’t go releasing a bunch of river fish in the sea. You’d get eaten alive. I had to make sure you had what it took, and a month was about all I could dedicate to that.”

“You really want me to believe this was just some training exercise?” Isabel asked, her lip curling. “That’s a load of shit. But even if I believed it… what if we hadn’t tried to kill you? You’d have just kept us here forever?”

“Yes,” Alice said with a shrug. “Or outfit you both in maid uniforms and stick you in my mansion. Lots of dust in there. I don’t get much time to relax, so you’d have a lot of cleaning ahead of you. Fortunately for you, you did pass. The last out of your entire group, I may add. Moxie tried to kill me a few days in, when it was clear Noah wasn’t coming back. She’s also the one that got the closest to it.”

“You expect us to believe Moxie just walked out while you were keeping everyone prisoner here?” Isabel let out a bark of tired laughter. “She’d never do that.”

“Of course not,” Alice said. “I had to practically punt her through a portal to keep her from ripping my neck open. Fortunately, Obsidia is a big place. Far larger than Arbalest… and she has no damn idea where we are.”

Isabel’s jaw clenched. “All to keep us from being detectable? We aren’t stupid. There’s obviously more to it than that. You could have said all this if you were really just trying to help us avoid detection.”

“When did I say I’m only trying to help you?” Alice let out a cold laugh. “But it doesn’t matter what you think. I have my purposes… and you have yours. Now, town or nature?”

“What?” Todd asked.

  “Town or nature?” Alice repeated. “I’ll give you that option. You get to choose where I send you. And don’t ask where I sent the others. You won’t be seeing them again. Not for a while. There’s no way you’ll stumble into them on accident. I’m putting you far enough away from each other to make that entirely impossible before schedule.”

Isabel’s hands tightened into angry fists at her side. “You—”

“What do you mean, schedule?” Todd asked abruptly. He leaned against the wall for balance, his eyes focusing on Alice as thoughts visibly flicked through them. “Noah—”

“Noah is dead. He isn’t coming back. It’s been a month. Plans have changed. If you want to live, the only one you can think about is yourself,” Alice said flatly.  “And your lack of answer means I will decide for you. Nature it is.”

Alice snapped her fingers and a disk of angry red magic tore open by the ground at her feet. Then she pointed at Todd with her free hand. He cursed as he was suddenly yanked off his feet by an invisible force. It shoved him across the ground, barely even giving him a chance to realize what was happening.

Isabel lurched forward. She wasn’t fast enough. Todd tumbled into the portal, vanishing into the angry red disc with a crackling pop.

Any thought of a response vanished from Isabel’s mind. Alice could rot. There was no way she was letting herself get separated from Todd. She lunged for the spinning red disk — but Alice’s hand slammed down on the back of her collar and jerked her to a stop.

“Let me go!” Isabel yelled.

“Six months,” Alice said. “The Tournament of Heaven’s Gate. I’ve taken the liberty of signing you and Todd up for it. You — and all of the others I’m keeping an eye on. If you want to meet them again, I suggest making sure you show up on time. They don’t take late arrivals. And do and try to survive until then. It would be a shame if something killed you.”

And Alice she shoved Isabel into the portal, and the world was swallowed by the angry hiss of red magic.