Return of the Runebound Professor

“This is… nice,” Renewal said from what looked — and felt — to be a fluffy black cloud. It sponged all around her, somehow supporting her body perfectly whilst remaining impossibly soft.

She’d never sat in a chair nearly quite this comfortable, and she would never be admitting such to Decras.

The other god sat across from her in a matching chair. His legs were kicked up; feet rested on a pillar of the same cloudy material. He sported a grin so smug that it could have killed a lesser being.

“Is it?” Decras asked, studying his fingernails as if the thought had never occurred to him. “That’s kind of you. I’m glad to hear you like my humble abode. Of course, it’s nothing compared to what the Order has.”

“Oh, get off me,” Renewal said with a huff. She ran her hand along the fur of the black cat coiled in her lap. “I’ve already defected from everything I spent the vast majority of my life working toward. Isn’t that enough for you?”

Decras’ laughter echoed through the void around them. There were no real edges to the room they sat in. It simply… ceased to exist after a certain point. Renewal couldn’t quite tell where, and she didn’t try to.

The room had been made by a god considerably stronger than either her or Decras. That thought sent a chill down Renewal’s spine. The Fallen had been the subject of a great many stories and a greater number of warnings from Judgement and the other gods in the Order.

They were, if Judgement was to be believed, the reason that the universe failed to achieve perfection. A black stain on a white sheet. A mar upon existence itself.

The Fallen were a relentless force of evil and chaos that stopped at nothing to tear down the perfect structure that the Order represented. Their mere existence spat in the face of life itself. Judgement had more than a few less-than-kind words to say about the Fallen.

But now… she wasn’t so sure.

I always thought the Order was just… life. We’re the good guys, they’re the bad guys. That’s how it was. But Decras… he’s a prick, but he hasn’t done anything evil. I can’t say the same for Judgement. She was about to fucking kill me, the crazy bitch.

“Is something wrong?” Some of the amusement fell away from Decras’ tone. There was genuine worry within it. “Is the room not to your liking?”

Renewal held a hand to a mouth to cover a smile. “No. Everything’s perfectly fine.”

“What’s that? Are you snickering at me?” Decras’ eyes narrowed. “Why?”

“Nothing. I was just thinking that we don’t have rooms anything like this back home.”

Decras let out a derisive snort. “You’re lucky the Order gave you anything better than a wooden rod to sit your godly ass on. Bunch of stuck up bastards who think they can wrest the universe to do their bidding.”

“That wasn’t our purpose,” Renewal said defensively.

The other god arched an eyebrow at her. “Right. So you’re just forcing souls to march through the cycles of reincarnation because you enjoy doing it.”

“What do you mean?” Renewal tried to shift her position in the cloud, but it just swallowed her arms and left her bundled up in an annoyingly comfortable cocoon. “We don’t do it for fun! It’s our duty!”

“Duty. What Duty? What makes you think that you have any more right to determine where a soul ends up than the soul themselves? It is not our purpose to determine fates. You play judge, jury, and executioner, but you were nothing more than a bored clerk.”

“Now that’s just rude,” Renewal said crossly. “I… generally did my best. Most of the time.”

“It’s not about your best.” Decras rose from his cloud and crossed the room to stand before Renewal. He reached into the cloud and found her hand, pulling her free of its depths with a sharp tug. “And don’t let yourself relax so much. The Cumulo will try to consume your energy.”

“It’ll what now?”

“It’s a tamed monster,” Decras said, walking back over to his cloud and flopping into it. “A very comfortable one. And before you ask — it’s not intelligent. It’s about as smart as a patch of moss. A very comfy patch of moss.”

“One that’ll eat me if I’m not paying attention.”

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“Correct. Welcome to the real universe, Renewal. Not the fake sham that the Order has tried to squeeze it into. Life is power. It cannot be reigned.”

“But it can, apparently, be sat on.”

“Most things can be sat on. You just might not survive a few of the experiences.”

Renewal laughed. She couldn’t help herself. Shaking her head, she sat back onto the fluffy cloud, though she made certain not to let herself get too comfortable.

“What do you mean by this not being about my best, then? You can’t possibly think the afterlife is meaningless. It’s what everyone passes through. It keeps the universe going.”

“No, it doesn’t.” Decras shook his head. “What do you think happens to all the souls that don’t make it? The ones that fall off the lines? The ones that don’t even get there in the first place?”Nôv(el)B\\jnn

Renewal frowned. That thought had never really come across her mind. Every soul passed through the afterlife.

It’s just how things work. That’s what Judgement… told… fuck.

“It’s fake?” Renewal asked, swallowing heavily. A knot built in her stomach and worked into her throat. “The afterlife is fake? But I’ve seen—”

“It’s not fake. Just unnecessary,” Decras said with a shake of his head. “I’ll show you sometime. But there are so many souls that never make it to you. That simply enter the cycle of reincarnation on their own. After all, it’s not that difficult when the waters of life aren’t all horded in the same spot.”

Renewal’s gaze bore into Decras. Her chest felt like it was constricting. There was absolutely no reason for Decras to lie about any of this now. He could have told it to her earlier, when she was still in Judgement’s domain, if he’d been trying to sway her.

But he hadn’t. He’d waited until she’d already turned coat.

Until he had absolutely nothing to gain by revealing the information.

“The Waters of Life don’t originate in the wellsprings?” Renewal asked, barely daring to utter the words. They would have been blasphemy if she’d spoken them before any of the other gods in the Order.

“Those gaudy things? Of course not. They were built by the Order. That energy should permeate the universe, cleansing the souls of the dead and preventing the powerful from passing beyond their means. The Order is just fucking with the natural way of life to build their palaces and so-called ‘structure’. It’s all fake, Renewal. Life isn’t that cut and dry.”

“Why would you tell me this now? Why not before?”

“Because then I would have had a motive,” Decras replied simply. “And I didn’t have one. I’ve just enjoyed our time together. There was no grand plan to steal you over or turn you against the Order.”

“I thought the Fallen are fighting the Order. You can’t tell me that isn’t the case.”

“It is. But we don’t recruit soldiers. Soldiers come to us,” Decras said. “We — unlike the Order — do not steal the possibility of choice. Those who seek will find. If you are willing to blind yourself, we will not force you to see.”

Renewal stared at Decras.

The Cumulo started to eat her.

She sent a pulse of magic out, forcing the creature to release her as she rose to her feet.

“Show me. Please. I need to see it.”

“Another day,” Decras said. “It’s not often that we get opportunities to celebrate like this, Renewal. Your blindfold is gone, so I thought we’d get up to a bit of your favorite pastime.”

“What are you talking about?” Renewal asked with a frown. “This is more important than any—”

Decras snapped his fingers. “Voyeurism.”

Colors bloomed in the air, twisting together to form into an ocean of black. A lone man floated within the darkness, surrounded by beautiful, swirling runes.

Renewal’s eyes went wide. She recognized the darkness. She’d been there only once before, when her presence had been quite literally summoned.

“Is that Noah? But isn’t this his—”

“His Mindspace,” Decras said with a satisfied smile. “He draws upon my power to great degrees — and that draw creates a minor connection between us. Almost like that of master and student.”

Renewal’s eyes narrowed. “Decras…”

“Relax. I’ve had enough connection stored up to do this for weeks, Renewal. Most of it will be spent within minutes. I have no desire to interfere with the mortal, but don’t tell me you don’t want to watch.”

“You’re making me sound like a creep.”

Decras pointed at Noah. The mortal swept his hand through the air and his Crumbling Space rune split apart, severed perfectly down the center. He slammed his hands together before it could even begin dissipating, reforming the Rune in a split instant.

His features turned down in displeasure and he carved it apart a second time before repeating the process.

This time, he smiled.

Renewal’s eyes went wide.

“He remade a rune twice? That quickly?”

“And look at the Rune,” Decras said, more than a little respect in his voice. “Flawless, as he calls it. A true perfect rune. In seconds. No fractures or missed notes. Just sheer damn determination.”

Renewal flopped back into her cloud. She leaned forward, staring with rapt attention as Noah split apart a second Rune and slammed it back together with the same speed as the previous one.

“Have you ever made a Rune that quickly? One at this quality for your current level?” Renewal asked in awe.

“A single Rune? Once or twice,” Decras said. “But this many? Never. I wonder if he’s going to manage to pull it off. Brute forcing your way through half of a Rank isn’t just difficult. It’s ridiculous.”

“Half a rank?” Renewal’s eyes went wide. “You can’t be serious. How do you know this?”

“You aren’t the only one keeping an eye on him. I just never took mine off,” Decras said. He pointed at the screen, where Noah had started to draw Runes into his soul. “Now watch. I’ve only got a few minutes, so you better enjoy them.”

Noah formed and shattered the runes one after the other. Magic danced through the air as his hands flitted like those of a conductor, painting the darkness with streaks of burning energy.

It was beautiful.

And, somewhere deep down within Renewal, she admitted that it was terrifying.

If this is what he can do now… what will he be capable of when he becomes a god?