Return of the Runebound Professor

Chapter 905: Reunions

Brayden scanned the crowd for the largest man in the area whose name wasn’t Erek. Then he strode right over to him.

“Hey,” Brayden said.

The man eyed him from behind his mask. “What do you want?”

Brayden met the man’s gaze.

“You seem pretty strong,” Brayden said. “Care to prove it?”

“What? You stupid? I’m not going to start a fight in the middle of the banquet hall,” the man said with a scoff.

“I never said anything about a fight,” Brayden said. He jerked his chin toward Erek. “I want you to let my friend over there launch you across the room.”

The man let out a bark of laughter. “No. Why would I ever—”

“50 crystals,” Brayden said.

The man’s mouth closed.

“What?”

“50 Crystals!” Brayden called, raising his voice. “50 crystals to anyone who lets my good friend give them a flight! Fast pass to the other side of the room! Get a good look at your rivals from above, so long as you’re strong enough to survive the landing!”

Brayden had been busy these last few months in Obsidia. As it turned out, while he wasn’t the strongest mage in the history of the lands, he was damn good at making money. And there was no point in having a lot of money if you didn’t swing it around.

Several gazes snapped toward him.

Spending 50 crystals like this was a step beyond ludicrous. One could even argue that he was doing people a favor. Letting them get into the air to get an arial view of the party was actually a pretty useful boon. Sure, the descent was going to be considerably less fun — but he hadn’t promised anything about getting them back down safely.

“So,” Brayden drawled. “Any takers?”

Several hands shot up.

Brayden smiled.

***

Emily heaved a sigh.

The whole party had been one thing after the other. Squeezing through the masses of mages trying to get enough room to breath was already hard enough. There were so damn many of them. The mere idea of trying to find anyone else in this mess felt practically hopeless.

A part of her had wanted to try and look for James. But she’d taken that part and drop-kicked it into the next dimension. She’d find him soon enough when the masquerade ended and they got sent back to their room. Trying to track down James, of all people, in the middle of a party this busy was completely impossible.

He’d probably just fallen asleep in a corner somewhere.

But she’d had some vague success at finding the others. At least, she was hoping she did. A lot of rumors had been flying around. She’d picked up on a few of them as she’d wound through the party. Not all were going to be useful leads.

There were discussions of a mage who had teleported every opponent that he came against right out of the arena during the melees. That could have been Tim or Brayden — but it just as easily could have been any other space mage.

She’d heard discussions of more than a few different demons. Talks of Formation Masters and people with seemingly infinite appetites. Musicians and warriors and geniuses and everything in between.

Emily couldn’t separate the actually useful information from all the stuff she couldn’t have cared less about. The musician that had apparently leapt up onto a table to start playing a powerful Formation very well might have been Noah… or it could have been any number of other people trying to make a name for themselves.

If she’d seen him firsthand, it would be a different story. But the rumors had all already warped so badly that she wasn’t even sure how useful any of them were anymore. People spoke of massive fights that had apparently broken out somewhere within the huge banquet hall. They discussed mages more powerful than any Emily had ever heard of.

Filtering that information down to Isabel and Todd and everyone else… it was impossible. Even still, every single rumor still mattered. One or two pieces of information wouldn’t get her anywhere. It wouldn’t be enough. But when she had enough… when she pooled what she’d discovered with James, that would be when they could actually piece something together.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

That would be when they could filter through the rumors to see what was real. And from the ones that were real would come their hints for finding everyone else.

There was really only thing that Emily knew for fact.

Whether the rumors filling the masquerade were about her friends or not didn’t matter. They were here. All of them. And perhaps it might have been misplaced optimism, but counted Noah amongst that number. Even though nobody had seen him for months and he was — according to the Apostles’ Disciples — dead.

He isn’t. I know he isn’t. He’s here, somewhere. He could be any one of the musicians that popped up today. He could be the guy teleporting people out. Or maybe he’s doing something else to find us. I don’t know. But I know he’s here. Moxie too. And Brayden as well. Everyone.

I just have to do my own part. I need to help them find me. And that means performing well enough in the tournament to—

A scream cut through the air.

Emily blinked. A shadow passed over her, but by the time she’d looked up, it was long since gone. The masked mages around her looked up in confusion as well.

“What was that?” one of them muttered.

“Did somebody try to fly and trigger an enchantment or something?” another asked. “Is flying banned?”

“Nobody said anything about that,” the first said. He scratched the back of his head. “You don’t think there’s a giant brawl somewhere, do you?”

“You think there’s a brawl in which people are getting flung?” a third mage asked in disbelief. “That’s ridiculous. The Prophet wouldn’t allow for that.”

“Then how do you explain what we just saw?” the first asked. “Don’t tell me I hallucinated it. Someone just flew through the air.”

“Maybe it was a show or something?” another mage guessed. “Some kind of entertainment? Or—”

Another scream sliced the air. And, this time, Emily was looking in the right direction.

Her eyes widened as she watched what appeared to be a fully grown man hurtle through the air. He moved so fast that the sound almost seemed to follow behind in a fading trail. The man vanished overhead, shooting toward the far end of the room. Emily wasn’t sure if he’d make it or not.

Oddly enough, the man’s scream hadn’t exactly sounded fully terrified. There was a very definite note of thrill within the fear. That wasn’t the kind of noise that someone who had just been involuntarily launched would be making. And the fact that multiple people had already been thrown and nothing had stopped the thrower meant that, for whatever reason, the Prophet wasn’t interfering.

Why is she just letting somebody fling people? Or has she just not gotten a chance to interfere yet?

Emily struggled to believe the latter possibility was even an option. A Rank 8 should have been able to do literally anything they wanted. Someone disrupting their party in a destructive manner wasn’t going to be headed for a good time. Then again, they’d have to be a complete idiot to start a fight here.

Another person sailed through the sky.

A furrow creased Emily’s brow. That was three, now.

Nobody was stoping the thrower. Which meant there was no way this was a fight. With all the Aqua Terra affiliated mages scattered through the hall, an interruption like this would have been dealt with if it was a threat… which meant this was either an attraction or it was someone who wasn’t technically breaking the rules.

Her head tilted to the side. Either way, somebody wanted attention.

Emily hesitated for a second. Then she darted off in the direction that the people had come from, slipping between mages as she made her way toward the source. It was only a small chance that it was somebody she knew, but it wasn’t one that she could pass up.

***

James yawned.

He stretched his arms over his head, and his back let out a satisfying pop. Then he rose from his chair and shook himself off. Despite what he was certain Emily feared, James was not sleeping.

He was manifesting.

That did happen to occur while he was in a certain relaxed state in which his eyes were closed and his brain was within a cycle that some would refer to as sleep, but that was entirely beside the point. There was a very key difference between sleeping and manifesting.

One was fun, and the other was applying his pattern, using magical energy, and spending a whole bunch of energy all so that he could get an effect considerably less relaxing than sleeping.

But there were a few benefits that did come with using his pattern. Most notably, when he used it in the best possible way, things tended to go his way ever so slightly more often than normal.

It made sense, in a way.

His pattern wasn’t just doing nothing.

It was doing Nothing.

James had figured that bit out over the past few months. His pattern wasn’t just limited to just slipping past people’s notice. If you weren’t doing something, then the world didn’t know exactly what to do with you. Everyone had to be doing something. A being that existed could not lack existence.

And when there was a being that existed but wasn’t doing anything at all… the world fixed it. Generally, that was done by finding the most likely thing that the being would have been doing and having them do that. It was the safe bet.

At least, that was how James saw it. He figured he was probably wrong. Someone more research-inclined would have cared.

He did not.

And so, as James stopped doing Nothing, he found himself rising from his chair and bumping head-first into a rather tall man’s chest. There was a clank. He’d been wearing armor.

“Oof,” James said, stumbling back and rubbing his skull. The mask hadn’t blocked the impact at all. “Who wears armor to a masquerade?”

“Who doesn’t? You never know when you’ll need it,” the man replied, his voice elderly. Then the man’s head tilted to the side. He drew in a sharp breath. “Wait. Say something else?”

“Ugh,” James said. “You know, I was really hoping for someone else.”

“You snarky little shit.” The man reached up to the bear mask on his face and pulled it away, revealing a sharply trimmed silver beard. Two sharp eyes twinkled on the man’s slightly wrinkled face. “I’d recognize that voice of yours anywhere, James. Imagine the odds. Is Yoru behind this?”

“How would I know?”

The old man blew out a sigh and flicked James in the shoulder. “Greet your teacher properly. I know I taught you enough manners that you can at least pretend to sound excited to see me.”

The corner of James’ lip twitched.

“I suppose it’s good to see you again, Professor Silvertide.”