Return of the Runebound Professor-Chapter 687: The Instruments

Noah stared in surprise for a moment longer than he would have liked. It was said that one could never properly expect the Inquisition. That was, generally, the point. Nothing was going to be very inquisitive if you knew it was coming.

But at no point had he thought that Fuyin would actually straight up kill her own men before they’d even tried anything. That was beyond cold. Then again, cold seemed to be her specialty.

“Huh,” Noah said as he finally found his voice. “That doesn’t seem like it was in the plan.”

“Do not make light of their death,” Fuyin said. Her cold gaze met Noah’s. “They forced my hand. I take no pleasure in killing my men.”

Do you take pleasure in anything?

“Well, if it’s any comfort, they were dead the moment they went for their magic,” Noah said as he fully recovered his verbal footing. Power could not be met with weakness, and he wasn’t about to give Fuyin any leverage against him — especially when he couldn’t use his magic right now. “You just brought their deaths to them faster and more painlessly than I would have.”

“Their blood taints the feet of the fools that brainwashed them. There is corruption within the Inquisition, and I believe it stems from the highest order. That is why I am here.” The frost rolling out from Fuyin pulled in to coil at her shoulders like a cape. She advanced toward Noah, her eyes unblinking. Despite all the demons surrounding him, there wasn’t so much as a flicker of fear in her features. “Spider knows something. He implied that he had no quarrel with the Inquisition and only wanted to preserve his… new order of demons. An order he claims to not be a threat to humans. I want him to put his money where his mouth is. Now.”

“And how do you want that, exactly?” Noah asked, keeping his own features even. He might have said Fuyin had a better poker face than he did… but he was pretty sure that this was just how she normally acted. “Spider isn’t someone to be commanded. I’m sure he would be willing to hear you out, but do you really think he’s just sitting around and waiting for you to show up?”

Fuyin hesitated. “I thought you had access to him. Is he not here?”

“There is a powerful artifact loose in the kingdom in the hands of powerful traitors,” Noah said flatly. He crossed his arms in front of his chest. “Do you really think Spider would just be sitting around when something like that is out there? He’s trying to do something about it.”

Actually, that’s what Garina and Revin are supposedly doing… but they aren’t exactly here to stop me from taking credit for their work. Sorry, guys. Revin owes me a few favors for all the bullshit he’s pulled. And Garina… well, she killed me. A bunch. Turnabout is fair play.

“Oh,” Fuyin said. The wind looked to have been taken right out of her sales. The woman didn’t speak for a second. That second stretched into two, and two into five. She just… stared. It didn’t seem like she had the slightest discomfort with the silence, but Noah didn’t think he could ever recall a more awkward moment in his life.

Now I know what people meant when they said you can use silence to get answers. I want to say something just to say something. Why the hell is she just staring at me? Did she really not think there was even the slightest chance that Spider wouldn’t literally be sitting around waiting for her to show up?

“Oh,” Fuyin said again.

Noah’s eye twitched.

How is this so surprising?

“I could arrange a meeting?” Noah offered, resisting the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose.

“Yes, that would be good,” Fuyin said absently. She glanced back at the dead Inquisitors. “This feels considerably worse if I’m going to just go back empty-handed. I was planning on meeting Spider today. Can you not take me to him?”

“Do you really think I know where a powerful demon is at all times?” Noah asked. He gestured to the class around him. “I’ve got enough of them to keep track of here. Spider shows up when he wants to.”

None of that is even technically a lie. Aylin better be proud.

Fuyin examined Noah for a moment longer. “Three days. Arrange for a meeting before then. I do not believe that you have no good way to contact him, Vermil.”

“I can do that,” Noah said. Anything longer than ‘within the next few hours’ was perfect for him. He just had to make sure Vermil and Spider weren’t expected to show up anywhere at the same time. Karina’s acting skills weren’t exactly up to the point where she could face off against an Inquisitor… and three days would buy him enough time to repair Violet and Vrith’s runes to make sure they didn’t have any glaring weaknesses against the Inquisitors in future confrontations.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“Good. I will come to your housing in Arbitage in 3 days,” Fuyin said. “Tell Spider to be ready for a fight. I do not enjoy the idea of spilling this information to a demon… but the Inquisition no longer stands for what it once did. I believe we have been infiltrated by an external force. Whatever manner of demon Spider believes himself to be, the Inquisition exists to fight his kind. Its upper echelons possess weapons the likes of which he has never seen. Taking them lightly will end very poorly.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Noah said. Fuyin’s tone made it clear she was serious. Unfortunately, her tone was identical to how it always seemed to sound. She probably wouldn’t know a joke if it hit her in the chin. “Three days. Spider will be there.”

That gives me some time to dig for a little information as well. Tillian should still be with Tim, and he’s an Inquisitor as well. Maybe he’ll be able to tell me a bit about their upper echelons and what those weapons might be.

“Until then,” Fuyin said. She went to turn, then paused as she made eye contact with one of the frozen corpses she’d just made. “The Inquisition will come for these. Blood tracking—”

“I’ll deal with it,” Lee said. She made her way over to the corpses and started shoveling them into her mouth. Fuyin watched, expression entirely indiscernible.

“Don’t worry about them,” Noah said. “Lee’s an expert on garbage disposal. She’s got it covered — and my class is still running. Not that I have issue with people murdering each other during my teaching time. It happens far more often than I’d like, but such is life. I’d just like to get on schedule. You may not have noticed, but my students have a fair number of enemies.”

Fuyin tore her gaze away from Lee and gave Noah a single nod. “Yes. There are rumors. Isabel has a Master Rune. One that a great many noble houses want. We have received a number of requests to purge her on suspicion of association with demons.”

Wait, what?

Noah’s eyes widened. The nobles had already confirmed that Isabel was in possession of the Soul Master Rune. He’d known it was inevitable after he’d killed Verrud and Jakob, but this was far faster than he’d been hoping for. And if the nobles were going to the Inquisition to try and have them do their dirty work…

“The request came from multiple noble families?” Noah asked, keeping his expression controlled to avoid overplaying his hand.

“Not together,” Fuyin said. “And it did not make it far. We have already determined that Isabel does not possess any demonic influence. The Inquisition is not an instrument of the noble houses. Their requests will not be obeyed.”

So they aren’t working together. Individual requests from different nobles. Good. This isn’t not the worst-case scenario, then. All of them are too scared to make a move directly now that the so called Spider is backing Isabel’s teacher… so they’re trying to get the Inquisition to handle their problems for them so they can sweep up the reward at the end.

The less-good part of this is that the nobles are getting bolder. It won’t be long at all before they start trying to make moves themselves again. We’ll have to be ready by then.

“Thank you for the information,” Noah said simply. “And it’s good to see that the Inquisition isn’t completely corrupt.”

“Yet,” Fuyin said grimly. She turned on her heel and strode toward the forest. “Three days.”

Then she vanished through the trees.

“That isn’t ominous at all,” Moxie said.

Lee wandered back over, having eaten all the Inquisitors, and leaned in close to Noah to whisper into his ear. “She’s still there.”

“What?” Noah asked in the same hushed tone. “Spying on us?”

“Don’t think so. She’s about ten feet away in the trees. I smell her,” Lee whispered back. “She’s just… sitting there.”

Noah exchanged a glance with Lee and Moxie.

“Should we say something?” Moxie asked.

“We can’t just start the class again while she’s so close,” Noah muttered back. “I can’t risk revealing more than we want to.”

“That’s true,” Moxie allowed. “I guess we don’t have much choice. Might as well figure out what she’s doing. Fuyin doesn’t really feel like the kind to engage in subterfurge. Doesn’t seem to be her style.”

That’s probably because she probably couldn’t lie to save her life. She’s the most straightforward Inquisitor I’ve ever met… though that really isn’t saying much.

“Uh…” Noah called, raising his voice. “Are you just going to sit there?”

There was a moment of silence. Then the leaves rustled. Fuyin re-emerged from the trees.

“I forgot that my contact with the Inquisition was not going to attempt to summon me back for another three hours,” Fuyin said. There was a frozen leaf stuck in her hair from where it had likely been pressed up against a tree. She didn’t seem to notice it.

“Right,” Noah said slowly. “Were you just going to sit there the whole time?”

“Yes,” Fuyin said.

That’s kind of sad. It feels even sadder if I tell her to go sit farther away. What is this, a schoolyard playground?

“Do… you just want to sit over here?” Noah asked wearily as he nodded to the circle around him.

“Yes,” Fuyin said, moving to sit down without so much as a hint of embarrassment. She was certainly the type of person that took literally everything at face value. As odd as it was, Noah couldn’t deny that it was actually rather refreshing.

Well, it looks like nothing else important is going to be happening during the class today. I’m not about to go giving her any of our secrets.

That was probably for the best. They all had a whole lot of new information to think through. Noah didn’t know the full extent of the powers soul shaping would unlock, but Garina wouldn’t have taught it to them for no reason… and he’d already gotten a taste of just how effective her tutelage could be.

I’d say we’ve had more than enough excitement for the day. I just need to wait out the clock until my magic comes back.

And after that, I’ve got three days to improve my strength as much as possible. The Inquisitors are bound to have gathered some good information about demons in the time they’ve been hunting them. Know thy enemy type things. That kind of information is incredibly valuable, especially since I’ve technically got a demon rune myself in Sunder. That’s my real goal when I follow Fuyin over to the Inquisitors as Spider. And when I find that information…

I’m going to be taking it.