The Runic Artist

Nate walked towards the combat grounds with Kiri by his side.

“Go tell Britt that you want to try having sex while using a Gravity Rune!” Kiri whispered next to him.

The pressure from her Command the Soul warred against his Soul Barrier Engraving, sapping some of his mana as the rune protected him from the command.

“Cut that out,” he whispered back to her with a small laugh.

Kiri had been practising on him all day. He could understand why. She was attempting to alter the amount of soul energy she put behind the commands while also levelling the Skill. After all it wasn’t like she could practise on anyone else without revealing the Skill. That being said she had gone from basic requests like telling him to touch his nose to more and more outlandish commands, mostly related to Britt. If the cute Defender had been around to hear them her ears would’ve been red from blushing. Nate’s own ears had only flushed at one of the suggestions, when Kiri had thought it would be funny to suggest taking Britt to the Den for a meetup with Florence. It hadn’t helped that Frick had added how proud Luc would be when he found out.

The pair continued their stroll into the arena. It was time for one of the two weekly Combat classes and so far it had been interesting and far more personalised than he had expected. The lecturers often split the participants based on their fighting styles, then challenged them in various ways. In his case he’d been lumped in with the mages while Kiri was put with the close-range melee combatants. They’d even gotten to spar a couple of times when the mages had been focused on defensive methods against close-range fighters while the warriors had been receiving instructions on how to deal with mages. It had turned into a game of cat and mouse as Kiri and he performed the occasional short-range teleportations, leaving large gaps between them to prevent everyone from knowing just how powerful the Skills were.

Ever since being kidnapped and taken to one of the Hells he had begun taking any sort of combat practise very seriously. As such, he already had a barrier up, sculpted to his body like a suit, less than five centimetres above his skin.

Glancing at the field he spotted all the Guildies gathered together as they waited for the lecturers to arrive. Null and Britt waved them over and they joined the crew on the grassy edge of the arena.

Kiri drifted over to Coralie, planting a kiss on the short blondes lips. Flash didn’t even glance away. If Nate was any judge of the man's expression, it was one of resigned acceptance. Maybe the Edgedancer had finally given up on Coralie and moved on. He found himself hoping that was the case, because as much as Flash could be an ass, he was still far better than plenty of the noble brats. As for the children of merchants, it was just like Null had said back in the Tournament. A few had reached out, likely to foster future cooperation with some of their interests; beyond that, the Guildies were ignored. Null was the exception to that. He had sensed more than one of the merchant women leaving Null’s room early in the morning. He was just thankful Null's aura Skill meant he wasn’t also a witness to what went on in his room. The swordsman’s friendly and affable nature, coupled with his good looks and chiselled physique was apparently more than enough to capture the interest of some of the ladies. One of them might have even been a noble.

“Nate, I gotta ask, was it you?” inquired Null as he joined the gathering.

“Was what me?” he replied, intentionally playing dumb. He knew exactly what Null was asking about.

Britt sniggered in response while Karim’s lips quivered as the Earth Mage tried to remain stoic. Only Ameera didn’t seem amused by it all.

“Why would you do it? It will cause problems for all of us!” the martial artist stated vehemently.

“What would Luc say?” he countered.

Ameera’s face went blank for a moment before she sighed, “Fine. We fight. It is what we do. Tell us next time though!”

She was right, on both counts. He could have warned everyone before he implemented his revenge against Fabien Lussier. Instead he’d flown solo, thinking of the attack as a personal one. He supposed he could see how his actions, if they could be traced back to him, could be construed as the Adventurer’s Guild taking a position, rather than a spat between two young men. He was lucky that Ameera held Luc in such high regard, otherwise she might have run to the Prefects. Luc had made good on his comment of offering to help teach Ameera. She was like Null, a hybrid build that combined melee capabilities with magical augmentation. Since she used metal, steel specifically, Luc had begun giving her some private lessons and advice. That seemed to have her on board supporting him, even if she disagreed with what he had done.

Thinking about what he had done, he could see a group of nobles standing around laughing while holding one of his prints. After meeting with Professor Marnier he had the perfect idea for getting back at Fabien. The Copy Sigil offered some very interesting options as it developed to higher Tiers. The Novice version wasn’t going to be very useful for combat, but it was incredibly useful when combined with his Conceptual Intent for copying his own artworks. Then of course his True Teleportation had a range of almost three hundred metres, coupled with an over four hundred metre range on his Farsight of the Runic Artist. It was as simple as breathing, although it cost him a decent amount of mana, to sit in his room making copies of his little print of the second son of the Earl Lussier of Dralogne, then distributing them around the Royal University in the dead of the night. He wasn’t even seen. It was childish. He could see that. But seeing the nobles laughing at their fellow noble made it worth it.

“WHERE IS HE!?!?!” screamed a voice as the object of their laughter stormed onto the combat grounds.

The Guildies all moved to stand between him and Fabien as the red haired hot head marched towards them. Nate shook his head as he pushed through his fellow Guildies to stand in the path of the noble.

“Well, if it isn’t the goblin gobbler himself?” called one of the nobles, to the sound of guffaws from his entourage.

Fabien growled in rage and continued to stomp towards Nate. In response Nate was already subtly improving his barrier— Conceptual Intent used to add the Subconcepts of Reinforcement, Protection and Defense. He was still experimenting with how Subconcepts worked as it seemed to him that two Concepts could be Subconcepts for each other. He wasn’t sure how that worked; whether it was simply the interconnected nature of Concepts or if they were subtly different aspects of the Concepts themselves. Either way, he was also preparing to add an additional rune to the runic array. Fabien had either convinced someone to torch his room, or he had performed the act himself. If he had done it himself, he would use fire. A barrier specifically against fire would be just what the doctor, or in this case, runic artist, ordered.

“How dare you besmirch my good name!” yelled Fabien, red in the face.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” countered Nate.

“You put those vile pictures of me up all over the University!” spat Fabien, spittle flying across the metre that separated them to hit his barrier and slide down it.

“Got any proof of that?” asked Nate, knowing he didn’t. He’d scrubbed the pictures of his mana signature using a mana exclusion rune after placing each one. They wouldn’t contain any of his mana and he’d even had Frick dispose of the paints and paper used.

“I know it was you!” screamed the unhinged Noble even as his fellow nobles continued to laugh at him.

“Sounds like you don’t have any proof. Shame about the pictures though. I guess there are some people you just really shouldn’t offend,” replied Nate calmly, throwing the noble’s own words back at him.

Fabien choked on his anger before growling out, “I challenge you to a duel.”

“Terms?” Nate asked as though he hadn’t a care in the world. He still didn’t like fighting people that much, but he also knew that backing down before bullies just encouraged them. He wasn’t a weak kid anymore. He would defend himself and make it clear in no uncertain terms that he was not to be fucked with.

“To the dea…” began Fabien before finally getting a handle on his anger. “To submission. The loser will quit the University.”

Nate tilted his head as he considered the risk. He was confident he could take Fabien. It might mean revealing a little more of his runes, but he doubted he would need to go overboard. He glanced at Kiri to make sure she agreed and she gave him a small imperceptible nod.

“I accept,” he intoned.

“Witnessed,” answered a deep voice.

Turning he saw an absolute mountain of a man watching from outside of his sphere of awareness. The giant wore expensive black silks and wore a longsword at his hip. His blonde hair and green eyes made him look like he could have been Nate’s older brother, if it wasn’t for the face. Where Nate was frankly, somewhat delicate in appearance, this man looked like his face had been carved from granite.

“Your word, my Prince,” replied Fabien with a formal bow to the man.

Nate mirrored the action when he sensed everyone else do the same.

“Well,” said the Prince. “You wished a duel. So fight. You will be held to the agreed terms.”

Nate wandered onto the field, using Farsight of the Runic Artist to slowly brute force the veiling enchantment that was hiding Fabien’s Class Core. He took his time as he walked to the field, wanting to drain the enchantment of mana rather than simply break it. It took almost thirty seconds of pressure but the enchantment finally gave way to his Skill.

Fabien Lussier

Scorching Flame Bearer (E) (40) / Scorching Flame Mage (R) (11)

With a thought he incorporated his Powerful Fire rune into his Barrier runic array. The man clearly specialised in fire and anything else he used was liable to be weaker. This way he could conserve his mana and decide how he wanted to deal with his opponent.

The prince barely gave them a moment to prepare, calling ‘begin’ in his booming voice. Fabien reacted instantly, spinning up two spells and if Nate was judging it correctly, three Skills. The Skills were hard to interpret but Runic Knowledge - Concepts whispered impressions to him. He wasn’t certain, but he thought that two of the Skills were enhancing Fire Magic. A conversion Skill that was likely converting ambient mana to the fire affinity and one that was empowering Fire Magic. The last Skill he suspected had to do with absorption, probably of the fire affinity mana. A useful skill set for sustained fights.

The two spells were obvious in their implementation. One was internal, using heat to increase the man's speed. The second was a fireball which he launched with precision at Nate. He didn’t even bother to move, letting the resulting explosion wash over his barrier. It was mostly to test how much mana it cost him to defend so he could decide whether it would be better to avoid the attacks with True Teleportation or not. The answer was unequivocally not. Whatever Fabien’s Magic Power was, even with his Fire Magic enhancements, it barely put a dent in Nate’s Mana Reserve.

“Is that it?” he asked casually, trying to make the man angry. If he was angry maybe he’d make enough mistakes that Nate could get away with showing off less of his Skills.

The next spell to hit his shield was a flamethrower but he could sense through Farsight of the Runic Artist that it was costing Fabien more mana to maintain the spell than it was costing him to maintain his barrier. He decided it was finally time to start responding to the attacks, spinning up an Earthen Projectile runic array which he used to start launching blunted spears of earth at high speed at the noble. Fabien’s speed spell showed its worth as he deftly dodged the attacks while keeping up the flamethrower spell bathing Nate’s barrier in red, yellow and orange flames. The noise inside of his barrier imitated what he imagined it must be like to stand next to a jet engine, the dull roar of the flames washing over him. Sighing, he decided that he had had enough of taking it easy and dropped the Earthen Projectile runic array, taking the time to spin up his Gravity Control runic array. The entire time the flames washed over him uselessly, slowly ticking away at his mana reserve at a glacial pace.

Fabien continued to move around. Whether that was because the speed spell required it or because the noble was trying to make himself a difficult target, Nate wasn’t sure. But it didn’t matter as he took control of gravity in the area. The fire affinity mana resisted at first and Nate realised the secondary use of such a Skill. It was to make it harder for others to control or influence the mana around you. In a fight over control of fire affinity mana, Fabien must have been confident that he could win. Nate simply brute forced it using Conceptual Intent to add the two Subconcepts of Crushing and Force to the Gravity Control array. A moment later he flexed a quarter of his mana reserve. Fabien screamed as he was bodily lifted, Gravity pressing down on him from every direction as Nate flung him into the air, flying a metre, then two, then three metres, before Nate launched the contorted noble back at the ground with enough force to leave a Fabien shaped indent in the ground. The feedback from Farsight of the Runic Artist and the speed of his mental calculations had been enough to inform him of roughly how much force Fabien could take without dying. After all, the goal was submission.

Fabien groaned from where he lay, forced into the dirt and grass, Nate’s sphere of awareness informing him that he had at least nine snapped or fractured bones.

“Do you submit?” asked Nate calmly, trying to keep his reservations of inflicting such harm off his face. The man had been asking for it, after all, and it wouldn’t do to show weakness before the other nobles, let alone the Prince.

The only answer he received was another groan, so Nate turned to the Prince to see if the mountainous man would rule.

“The duel is over. Nathaniel Weber of the Adventurer’s Guild is the victor,” intoned the Prince, before glancing at one noble gent specifically. “Take him to the infirmary, then make sure he submits his leave from the University. He is not to return for four years.”

The noble dropped the piece of paper he was holding and rushed to do the Prince’s bidding.

The Prince glanced down at the page as the groaning Fabien was carried away, and Nate joined him in looking at the picture. It had the words ‘If you’ve got a goblin problem, see your local goblin gobbler for a solution!’ pasted across it, with an image that was clearly a caricature of Fabien Lussier fellating a goblin. Childish, but effective.

“Well fought, Adventurer. Don’t make a habit of it,” said the Prince, before stepping on the print with his boot and taking his leave of the grounds.

Nate glanced over at his fellow Guildies. They wore looks that ranged from apprehension to encouragement. A glance over to the Nobles revealed that the group watched him with looks that could only be described as wary, though as he matched their gazes they finally turned back to the retreating form of one of the Princes of Etrua. What had he just gotten himself into, he wondered?