Actus
patreon
Return of the Runebound Professor - Chapter 803
🕑 Added 2025-09-04 16:00:20 +0000 UTCLorne drew in the hissing breath of a man torn abruptly from a deep, deep sleep. His eyes snapped open and his back went as straight as a rod. A dozen thoughts slithered through his head in a flurried rush. One or two of them might have even been coherent. That level of consciousness was considerably above average.
It was considerably more conscious than he had any desire to be. In Lorne’s professional opinion, it was more conscious than any organism in pursuit of a good life had any right to be. It was practically an unjust punishment.
To think was to create suffering. Very few good things had ever come from applications of the mortal mind. After all, everything good had already been created at some point long ago — or perhaps it had been finished in a few years from today.
Lorne could never quite remember. It depended on whether today came after tomorrow, and such considerations often bordered just a little bit too close to conscious thought for him to have any desire to ponder.
Minds were meant to frolic. To wander off and drift through the weave of being, unburdened by such bothersome things such as thoughts and troubles. They did not deserve to be burdened with what would come or what had already happened. Such material states of being were inevitable. Invariable.
Something would always happen. That was the manner of the universe. Perhaps an empire would rise. Perhaps it would fall. Perhaps it would persist through eternity or — more likely — perhaps it would not.
But something would.
And if something would happen, there really wasn’t any need to go worrying about what. The purpose of existence was to be free. The greatest achievement a human could ever achieve was to liberate themselves entirely of humanity. To simply exist and nothing more.
That was the code Lorne lived by on the days that he remembered he lived by a code. Unfortunately, the universe seemed to disagree with him. It insisted upon itself in a manner which was most displeasing to him.
The existence of existence itself was an insufferable inevitability. No matter how far he scattered his thoughts and mind, no matter how many shreds his consciousness tore itself into, it always demanded that he come back.
He was usually pretty good at ignoring that order. He’d gotten a lot of practice at it. Taken special care to ensure that he only had to waste his efforts on worthless things such as coherent thought as rarely and infrequently as possible.
To his great disappointment, that meant there were rare occasions in which he had to take action.
Times when his scrambled egg was unscrambled. And that itself was a deeply disgusting thought. Nobody unscrambled an egg. Only an evil man would wish to eat his egg whole and boiled. To selfishly consume it as a smooth orb of failed dreams. To deny its innate scrambled potential, to keep the marvelous textures and colors from mixing and becoming a work of art.
Such was the law of this vile, wretched universe. The twisted law that would haunt him for as long as he could remember — or perhaps it was the one that haunted him until he forgot. It was one of the two.
The universe demanded that his egg be unscrambled. And, until he tore it apart and built it anew, he would occasionally have to abide.
Lorne let out the breath he’d drawn in in a rattling sigh. Old weights settled in on his shoulders, hunching his back and grinding against his mind. Weariness wrapped itself in a familiar cloak around him.
Deep within Lorne, the fragmented pieces of his soul shifted. Memories bubbled. Thoughts straightened like bent pins being forced back into their old shapes.
He reached up to his face. Ran his hand along his rough features, across the wrinkled skin and the thick beard that had taken root within it. He felt the runes within his soul, felt the power rushing back in as the pieces of himself knit themselves back together.
The air around Lorne warped in a thick haze. Power crackled through his eyes with a hiss of regal crimson. He covered his eyes with his palm, squeezing them shut as pain warped his features into a grimace.
A hum filled the air. The guards in the room all around him took a step back, fear filling their gazes as the entire cave started to tremble. Stones clattered against the ground and dust rained from the ceiling as the earth itself shuddered awake.
And then Lorne’s hand fell. The heaving earth slammed to a halt and the pounding in his soul went still. Every single man in the room fell to their knees — though it was impossible to tell if that had been caused by respect or the immense pressure exploding out from within him.
And then, for a single wretched moment, there was nothing but silence.
Lorne’s breathing stilled.
The final pieces of his soul clicked into place, finally squeezed into their original form for no more than a few horrible breaths.
His eyes opened.
But it wasn’t Lorne who awoke.
“Rise,” Orlen commanded, his voice cutting through the room in a whisper that bore the presence of a god. “The Herald has arrived.”
***
Moxie pressed her palms together. Her features were an unreadable mask as she drew every breath with slow, measured intention. Even though she had pulled her domain into herself, she could still feel the forest all around her.
She could sense the same power coursing through every single plant around her. It flowed just as truly as the blood did in her own veins. The power within existence was immense — but life was only half of it.
Life was potential energy. The first half of the equation, the precursor to what would inevitably come after, the rising hand on the eternal clock that would always swing down and then up once again.
Life begat death and from death would come life.
That was law.
Moxie pulled her hands apart.
The vines curled around her withered. They shrunk in on themselves, the vibrant flowers crumpling. Petals fluttered through the air, turning to dried husks well before they could hit the ground. Vibrant green paled and turned gray as a wave of death spread out from where she sat.
It came to a stop five feet away from her in every direction. Power coursed through Moxie’s being, racing to flow from her toes up through her heart and into her fingers before flowing back in the direction it had come.
The ring of gray rippled. New feelers sprouted from the ashen remains of the old ones, specks of green that quickly turned into an ocean. They rose up around her until not a single trace of the destruction she had wrought remained.
Moxie let out a slow breath and released her grasp on Eternal Cycle. The rune shuddered within her soul as its influence waned. She rose to her feet slowly, deliberately. Her grasp over its power had grown significantly over the past few months. Even though it wasn’t active, she could still feel the life around her.
She blew out a small breath as she adjusted the strap of the massive grimoire slung over her shoulder. Even though the huge book was impossibly light, it was still painfully unwieldy. She certainly wasn’t going to be winning any fashion contests with it over her shoulder.
But there was only one contest she had even the slightest amount of interest in right now, and there was only around a month or so left until it was upon her. At least… she was pretty sure there was around a month.
Keeping track of the time while traveling through a forest without any signs of civilization was a bit difficult. Moxie shook her head. All she could do was keep plugging along. According to the last directions she’d gotten, she wasn’t far. The next city was only a few days away.
She took a step.
Then she paused.
Her brow knit for a moment. Then she spun to the side, her hand flying up before herself. A form blurred from the forest. Sleek and coated with glossy black fur that made it nearly invisible in the darkness, it was upon her in a flash—
Moxie’s magic churned.
The monster spun past her, flipping once through the air before crashing into a tree trunk with a crunch. It dropped down without a sound. The monster had been some form of catlike creature, but now it was nothing at all. Coils of gray magic slithered up from its body. They flowed through the air to slither into Moxie’s palm. She clenched her fist around the magic and it vanished, absorbed, and it joined a sea of gray magic that lurked deep within her soul.
Another river of power flowed into her. This one was pure magical energy — the power from the now-dead monster’s soul.
“I took no pleasure in that,” Moxie told the corpse. It hadn’t been particularly powerful. A Rank 4, by her best guess. Nothing nearly worth her time… but one never knew how much strength they would need.
Father had shown her that she was nowhere near as strong as she’d hoped. And, in Obsidia, there were others as powerful as Father had been. Some were even stronger. Those at the tournament might be no different.
She couldn’t afford to be caught unprepared again.
Moxie flicked her hand. Vines twisted up from the ground, binding the corpse in a tight cocoon. The monster would feed the forest. Life would come from the death she had caused.
“Equilibrium,” Moxie said, inclining her head slightly. “Your life wasn’t wasted. It was just… spent.”
The grimoire on her back trembled.
Moxie blinked. It had been a while since Grim had done much of anything. Despite her best efforts to communicate with him recently, the book had clammed up.
“Grim?” Moxie asked. She lowered her stance, her eyes going narrow as she scanned her surroundings for a monster. “What is it? Is something wrong?”
A raspy laugh rolled out from the book’s pages.
“It’s time to march, Lover-girl. My patience has been rewarded,” Grim whispered. The shadows at Moxie’s feet darkened. “The Heralds have returned.”
“What?” Moxie asked. Something in her chest fluttered. A tiny spark of hope. One that she couldn’t afford to feed. Not yet. She couldn’t afford distractions right now. Not when her students were counting on her. Such thoughts were only useful if they were confirmed. “What are you talking about?”
“You already know, Moxie. I feel the whisper of the world — and you could too if you listened closer. But, just this once, I’ll spell it out for you,” Grim replied. Delight coiled through his voice like a snake coiling to strike. “Noah is back.”
Comments
Kitti Lumpo
fooled this long by a palindrome, smh
Ryan
Son of a…
Jeremy M
Bruh. Just realized Lorne is Orlen with the letters shuffled around. How fitting that the egg got unscrambled. Well played!
Richard Davis ll
Might actually explain why they’re both Herald’s they are Herald’s of Chaos
Chris Welsh
What is Orlen’s pattern? Could it be “chaos”? Whereas Noah is improving on their shared pattern and making it his own.
Ben Bass
TYFTC! Very interesting, "HeraldS" have returned. We know about Noah, and we are finding out about Orlen, is he the failed Herald Grim mentioned earlier? This is definitely going to be interesting, as who knows what rank Orlen is, probably 8+ as it is implied he has a divine rune.
Emily Gurnavage
Definitely more than 1 Herald. Going by what a Herald seems to be, its not really a mutually exclusive title/role. There could be more, even, all Heralding conflicting possible future paths Obsidia could take.
kyuk24
Maybe Orlen/Lorne was "the Herald" whom Grim abandoned?
Tom C
I think it’s more that both Noah and Orlen are heralds. Maybe they herald different things? or my personal opinion is it’s because Noah is the true Herald. Didn’t choose the title himself but will fulfil the role. Orlen is false herald, chose the title for himself cos he wants to fulfil the role but eventually the reality will be made clear!
Tom C
Noah? I hardly know er! TFTC!
Ruskin
Also, like whether Karina and Contessa are even alive. Because there was no mention of them after the barrier broke and the group split up. Everyone else was mentioned in passing.
Ruskin
Im actually curious to see what a few of the other side characters are doing and their expressions when Noah pops up and says "Sorry I'm late! Seems I'm slipping back into my old habits" 😅
TheCrazyDuck
Maybe we get to meet Loren later.
Ty
Orlen used Herald, singular. I'm curious if he meant himself and was announcing himself to the guards... or if he meant Noah and he sensed him coming back from The Beyond into Obsidia and he was calling Noah the Herald. And I'm curious if Grim was using the plural to refer to both Orlen & Noah or was the plurality referring to the concrescence of the consciousness fragments of the shattered soul coming back together (Like Noah 1, 2 and 3 and the whole of him (heh... holy) recombining into his full self....... ORRRRR of Orlen's own coming together process. Or perhaps again... both. *shrug* cool shit tho! I love getting into the squiggly bits of anything even close to the hard problem of consciousness and reality and all that. If such degree pathways existed when I was going through college, I would have picked it as a major for sure
Ty
I love how Lorne was just Orlen with the letters scrambled. Genius.
Bob
100% this. Lmao
bananaphone
Teabag
Chris
I think it's more that crazy people can feel each other. Noah's sanity is definitely not grasped tightly by him, Orlen is SUPER insane, and Grim seems to be several insane people stitched together.
Ardalan Amini
Interesting, Orlen being Lorne was pretty expected really, but nice to finally get confirmation. But for the more important part, Orlen said “The Herald has arrived” while Grim said “the Heralds have returned”! For Grim, is he referring to all 3 parts of Noah, or him and the other Herald? And for Orlen, is he referring to Noah, someone else we haven’t heard of, or himself becoming whole again? 🤔
Unidog C
Crazy that people can feel his existence
Steven Thompsen
I agree with ty you did an amazing job setting up this next arc.
MysticallMist
Lorne, Orlen. bruh how did I not figure that out sooner...
Firel Dakuraito
Gotta love how grim felt the Orlen coming together.
Mario Schade
No idea if we really are going to see a tournament arc or if this is just a mega red herring. But showing everyone figting at least 1 time is maybe the best set up. But somehow i cannot grap the next arc. A simple tournament.. could it be so easy?
Ahriman
I think the past tense of beget is begot not begat.
Talespinner Lore
I mean, Grim's been in Noah's head, and was *there* when he broke, so... If a direct soulbond doesn't let you know when somebody is some*bodies*, I don't know what does.
Alexander Dupree
I’m not shivering in excitement YOU ARE!
Ruskin
TFTC! Heralds! Hmm.. interesting that Grim knows of the other Herald as well.
Arnon Parenti
The book spoiled the ending to the anxious girl.
Andrew Denton
I don't like Lorne.
Talespinner Lore
Oh you dick, I thought we'd see Noah again this chapter. Still good tho
Kai
I love the set up for this next arc. Im so excited
Kai
Thank you!
