“You’re back sooner than I expected,” Moxie observed as Noah stepped back into their tent. Her hands were cupped around a blooming flower with a head the size of her palm. Every petal on it was its own color, vibrant and bright. A faint sweet scent rose from it and crossed the tent to greet Noah.

“I found Yoru pretty easily. Saved me a lot of work.”

“She adjusting well?” Moxie asked, not taking her eyes off the flower. The tip of her tongue protruded from the side of her mouth in concentration and a ripple passed through the flower’s petals as they grew a few inches.

“No,” Noah replied. He walked over to stand beside Moxie and watched the flower curiously. It felt unerringly… alive. That wasn’t to say that he thought other plants weren’t living organisms — it was just that the way this one was squirming made it feel like it belonged more in a cradle than in the dirt.

“Somehow I’m not surprised.” Moxie pulled her gaze from the flower and it wilted instantly. The petals folded inward and its stem withered, bending under its own weight as it crumpled into a pile of greying sludge. She pulled her hands away and shook them off. “How bad are we talking? You saw how Pirren was treating her. Yoru isn’t just some random kid.”

“Oh, I’m more than aware. She’s almost certainly a higher rank than we are.” Noah scratched the back of his neck. “Rank 6, maybe. It’s hard to tell. I never realized how useful Domains were for figuring out your opponent’s strength until I couldn’t do it anymore. Yoru could be a Rank 9 for all I know.”

“Somehow I doubt that,” Moxie said dryly. “If there was a Rank 9 just sitting around in Treadon, much less in the Damned Plains, I doubt they’d be in need of our help for just about anything. But Yoru is a good reminder. We can’t sit still. Even with all the power we’re building with the demon camps, we’re going to need to be a whole lot stronger ourselves if we want a chance of fighting Wizen.”

Noah rifled through his bag and pulled out the strips of leather bearing all the runes they’d gotten at the auction. He splayed them out on the rough stone table beside Moxie. “More than aware of that. I came back to try and figure out my next rune. I’ve got enough components here to toss something together.”

“Unstable Mass, Unstable Corrupted Mass, both at Rank 4,” Moxie read off, moving some of the pieces to get a better look at the rest of them. “Those two are obviously going to be useful. I’m less certain on Bleeding Blades or whatever this last one is.”

“That’s Falling Shadow, if I remember correctly. It’ll be for Lee,” Noah said with a half-shrug. “I don’t have any Shadow Runes.”

“What about the Broken Master Rune?” Moxie asked, plucking another leather strip from the pile and examining it with a critical eye. Her lips pursed and she returned it to its former place before pushing another Imbued Rune over it. “We better make sure that one isn’t just sitting around. We’ve got enough enemies as it is. Antagonizing some annoying Death Demon is far from the top of my list of things to do.”

“Hey, you’ve got one of those as well?” Noah’s eyes lit up. “I thought I was the only one.”

Moxie rolled her eyes. She swiped the pile of sludge that had been her flower off the table and onto the ground, where it landed with a wet splatter. They both looked down at it.

“Get that expression off your face. That’s what happens when I make flowers from things that aren’t seeds. Not a pretty sight,” Moxie grumbled as she rose from her chair. She hooked a foot around one of its legs and pulled it closer to Noah. “Anyway, I won’t stall you out from getting that rune combination work in. Let me know if you figure out anything useful, yeah?”

Noah sat down and Moxie wrapped her arms around him from behind, leaning down to give him a quick kiss on the forehead. Only when she pulled away did he realize that she’d also wiped the remains of the plant’s sludge off on his shirt sleeve.Stolen novel; please report.

“Hey!” Noah exclaimed. “That’s cheating!”

“No good things come without sacrifice.” Moxie snickered and hoisted herself up onto the table before crossing her legs beneath her and supporting her chin on a palm. “Go on, then. I’ll keep an eye out so nobody sticks something pointy between your ribs.”

Noah blew out an exaggerated sigh and sent a squint in Moxie’s direction before turning his attention to the runes laid out on the table before him. He studied them for several seconds to commit their shapes to memory, then gathered them before himself and slipped into the darkness of his mindspace.

As soon as his runes took form in the pitch black, Noah raised a finger and started to draw. Both Unstable Mass and Unstable Corrupted Mass would be instrumental to making a Matter Rune. The other runes could wait until after he’d had a chance to look at the first two.

Unstable Mass came first. It took him just around 30 seconds to draw the Rank 4 Rune into his soul. Energy arced off his fingertip as he pulled it back, creating it on the first try. A purple-gray rune shimmered to life before him. It was made of what seemed to be a single line, all twisted and knotted like a bowl of shoestrings. Ripples ran through the line and warped portions of it, while others had patterns buried deep within the twisting designs. It let out a dull hum before drifting back to float across from Natural Disaster and Crumbling Space.

Noah repressed a sigh. The Unstable Mass Rune wasn’t even a bad rune. It was a Rank 4, more than what the majority of people ever got — and the magic it enveloped was far from simple. But what would have been the find of a lifetime for most people barely even registered for him. Unstable Mass was so weak in comparison to his flawless runes that he couldn’t even feel his soul grow larger from drawing it in.

He went about drawing Unstable Corrupted Mass. It bore strong resemblance to the other Mass Rune, but the warping effects were considerably worse on it than they were on the other rune.

Noah took a few moments to sit and examine the new runes in his soul. He didn’t want to start cutting anything up too early and just waste his energy. Now that he actually had the building blocks to work with, he needed to figure out exactly what it was he wanted to build.

Matter. Sure. That’s a pretty damn broad rune. Can’t just make myself a Matter Rune if I want it to be even half decent. Not at this rank, at least. I need to focus in… but not too much. I’ll need an inciting energy as well. Something to get things started. But what would that be?

He chewed his lower lip, letting his eyes drift over the new runes in his mindspace. Even the addition of the second one had done nothing to expand his soul. It was just too big. An imaginary Moxie flicked Noah in the head. Complaining about not getting to see himself get stronger when he absorbed some crappy runes was definitely a first world problem.

No matter. I’ll get to see all the soul expansion I want once I actually make a new flawless rune. I can’t get ahead of myself. First things first, I need to figure out what the hell kind of rune I’m trying to make with Matter.

There wasn’t exactly a lack of options. Just about everything in the universe was made up out of matter as far as Noah was aware, though he wasn’t about to put any money on his incredibly rudimentary understanding of physics.

Minutes ticked by as Noah thought. He had more ideas than he knew what to do with, but he carved away everything that he couldn’t intimately relate to. The Line had given him a perspective and understanding of things that no other living mortal could ever claim to manifest until their time among the living came to an end and they found themselves where he had once been.

Therein laid his advantage. He needed to find something Matter-based that related to the Line. It had been pretty easy with Crumbling Space. The Line. The Gods. Everything he’d seen. Everything he’d done and all the times he’d died. There had to be something he could reference to—

Noah paused.

A second ticked by.

He swallowed. An idea lodged itself in his mind like a splinter and a flicker of fear passed through him — not toward what he was about to do, but because he was going to have to explain it to Moxie.

Noah’s eyes drifted back open to find Moxie watching him intently. She didn’t even bother trying to pretend like she’d been doing anything else. Moxie just arched an eyebrow.

“That was fast. Done already? I don’t really feel a difference in you.”

“Not really. I only just started,” Noah hedged. “I just had to prepare things out here first.”

Moxie’s eyes narrowed as she caught the look on his face, even through the wrappings. “Prepare? For what?”

“I think I know what I have to do to make my next Rune.” Noah blew out a breath and gave Moxie a sheepish grin. “I’m going to have to kill myself.”