Return of the Runebound Professor - 503 (Patreon)

Of everyone in the auction house that could have placed a counterbid, Noah hadn’t expected the person to do it to be in his own balcony. He stared at Yoru, his face wrappings doing nothing to conceal the surprise in his eyes.

It had been obvious that Yoru had an agenda she was aiming to accomplish. Noah hadn’t expected it to include trying to take a relatively unimpressive Rank 4 Rune from him. His eyes narrowed as he studied her, trying to figure out what the demon’s motive was.

Is she trying to test my reaction? But what would the point of that even be? Annoying me isn’t going to accomplish anything meaningful. Maybe she’s trying to see if I’ll back down when a higher ranked demon tries to screw with me?

That didn’t feel like it made sense either. Noah had no idea what rank Yoru actually was. She was a high Rank 5 at the bare minimum, but there was a good chance she was even stronger than that given how Pirren treated her.

There wasn’t much time to make a decision. He hadn’t answered in several seconds and no other demons had tried placing a bid. It wasn’t like Noah didn’t have the funds to spare. With all the money he’d just taken from the other demons in addition to what he and Moxie had, he had something around 2000 gold.

But raising my bid any higher basically guarantees that I can’t get any more runes in this auction. Everything from here on out is definitely going to be near 1000 gold. I’d like to get at least one Rank 5 Rune if I can… damn it. A Rank 5 rune is more important than this one. There’s just no point getting into a bidding war here.

Noah remained silent. Entering a bidding war here would only waste his time and money — and more importantly, he had no idea what Yoru was aiming for. Everyone at the auction was playing their own game. The only way he could come out on top was when the only game he let himself make moves in was his own.

“The Unstable Mass Rune is sold,” the announcer proclaimed. A few disappointed murmurs ran through the demons in the crowd when they realized that Noah wasn’t about to give them even more free entertainment, but it didn’t take long before the winged demon got started introducing the next rune and everything else was forgotten.

Yoru’s masked face turned toward Noah as he watched her out of the corners of his eyes. She tilted her head to the side.

“What?”

“That’s an odd question to ask,” Moxie said. “Why’d you bid on that Rune? Do you really need it?”

Perfect. Thanks, Moxie. I need to keep putting on my Spider shtick, but you can say everything I actually want to. I’ve already looked lost enough by not knowing where or what the Black Reaches were.

“Me? No.” Yoru’s head righted and tilted in the other direction. “Why would I need a Rank 4 Rune?”

“If you didn’t need it, why’d you bid on it?” Moxie asked with a confused frown. “That seems like a waste of money.”

“Money is of little concern to me. There are precious few things that I need that gold could purchase.”

“I’m not sure I’m following your thought process here. You bought the rune because… what, you wanted to waste money?” Moxie’s brow furrowed as she tried to make sense of Yoru’s actions.

“No. I do not waste. Even the most unimportant resources have value. Discarding resources is the act of an arrogant fool.”

“Now I’m equally confused,” Noah said, giving up on any plans to remain separated from the situation and tossing his own hat into the ring. “So you bought a rune you don’t need with money that you don’t care about — but don’t want to waste — for… what reason, exactly?”

“You wanted it,” Yoku said, as if that explained everything. “And it was 1000 gold.”

Right. Well, that explains absolutely nothing. Is she saying she bought it to keep me from getting it? I don’t see how the price matters here either.

“If Spider wanted it, why did you buy it?” Moxie asked, not even bothering to mince her words. She’d never been one for trying to take the subtle path. Pirren shrunk into her seat, her eyes flicking between Yoru and Moxie as she tensed in preparation for a looming fight.

There was a second of silence before Yoru responded.

“To… give it to him.” A note of confusion entered the small demon’s tone. It almost seemed like she’d surprised herself with her own words. “It is a gift?”

She couldn’t have sounded less certain about it if she’d tried. Noah and Moxie exchanged a quick glance.

“Er… thank you,” Noah said hesitantly. Somehow, getting an answer to his question had only managed to make him even more confused. He couldn’t think of a single reason why Yoru would want to give him a gift, but he certainly wasn’t going to say no to anything that saved him a thousand gold.

Maybe it’s just some aspect of demon culture I just don’t understand yet? Maybe giving a gift is a way to assert dominance or something. Like a display of wealth or power. Hey, I’m not going to complain. Free shit is free shit.

Yoru didn’t say anything more. Noah shrugged to himself and turned his attention back to the auctioneer. The auction was still going strong, and he now had a whole lot more gold left over to play with.  

***

  A droplet of sweat rolled down Yoku’s face behind her mask. She was confused. More confused than she’d been in hundreds of years. There was something seriously wrong with her Runes. That was the only possible answer. The probable futures she weighed were making absolutely no sense. Something about Spider was breaking everything.

Actions that should have been mundane resulted in bleak nothingness. Trapped deals that she’d relied upon dozens of times before to best demons far smarter than she resulted in the same.

Her powers had always been heavily limited the more complicated and the farther away the futures she weighed were, but probabilities were probabilities. Even when the future grew less set in stone, she could still view its potential.

At least, she normally could. When it came to Spider, Yoku felt truly blind for the first time since she’d lost her eyes. Every other step she took sent her plummeting into a black abyss with no escape. There was no rhyme or reason to his actions.

Yoku could deal with a more powerful foe. She could deal with an enemy who was smarter or faster than her. Everything could be dealt with when she knew what her opponents were doing before they themselves had decided on it.

Even Belkus was a manageable threat. He was the strongest demon that Yoku had ever set herself against, but so long as the future played out in the manner that she’d weighed it, victory was inevitable.

But Spider… he didn’t act like a demon. He didn’t react like a demon. He didn’t even think like a demon, and that terrified Yoku. There was only one lifeline in the sea of tumultuous black smoke. A single pathway that she could find that didn’t end up setting him against her.

It was so shrouded in darkness that Yoku could only take a single tiny step at a time. The endlessly branching possibilities of the future had been so clouded that even she wasn’t entirely sure what she was doing.

Yoku hadn’t had any idea why buying a rune that Spider wanted was going to get him on her good side. If anything, it should have annoyed him. She hadn’t even considered she was buying the rune for him.

The mere idea of that was enough to make her sightless eyes twitch. Rivers of blood made a pathway up the mountain of corpses she’d left in her wake to reach the power she now commanded.

Dozens of Rank 6 demons would have prostrated themselves at her feet with nothing more than a single word from her lips. They would have given her the clothes from their back and made themselves into stepping stones for her to cross a shallow creek if she requested it.

Yoku did not give gifts. They were the tools of the weak who sought to appease the strong. She had no need of such crutches. And yet, for some reason, that was the only path that accomplished all of her goals.

Spider had accepted the gift with the grace of a demon who had received many such offers before. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that, but the probabilities had changed once more.

And, as Yoku peered through the twisting smoke and weighed the probabilities to determine what exactly it was that she had just accomplished, moonlight illuminated the next step on the pathway to the future she desired.

How will I take control of his power? How can I turn him against Belkus? Something about Spider, be it him or something he is connected to that I am unable to witness, is too powerful to let slip through my fingers.

I will do anything I must in order to —

Yoku’s sightless eyes blinked. Then they blinked again. Her ears picked up on the auctioneer’s chatter as if it came from a thousand miles away, but none of it actually processed. She stared at the probable future that laid before her in abject disbelief.  

That can’t be right.

Never before had she doubted her powers to this degree. Yoku drew on more magic and poured it forth, weighing the probabilities once more. They remained unchanged. Every single pathway she took but this one ended in the pitch black sea.

There was only a single way to fully get Spider on her side. She couldn’t see what would happen after, or how it would even affect the other plans she had set in motion. All she knew was the next step along the path that she had to take — and it was one that made even less sense than every other impossible oddity that had happened today.

“Is something on my face?” Spider asked, his voice cutting through her futures like a blade.

“Yes. Storm wrappings.” Yoku’s words were flat, but her heart pounded in her chest. The uncertainty was awful. It had been so long since she hadn’t known something that the mere sensation made her want to retch like a battle-eager child witnessing death for the first time.

Spider let out a snort and turned back to the auction, but Moxie’s gaze remained on her. Yoku didn’t even consider trying to weigh the futures with her again. She already had the pathway before her, and the next step would be after the auction.

Yoku just wasn’t sure if she had the strength to take it.