Silvertide grabbed Tyler by the back of his shirt and yanked the boy to his feet without an ounce of effort.

“I’m sorry,” Noah said, shame tightening around his chest. “I have no idea what got into me. I’ve been killing too many Slashers of late, and – forget it. There’s no excuse. Are you injured?”

“I’m fine.” Tyler swallowed heavily as Silvertide pierced him with a razor sharp look. “But… how’d you do that?”

“Do what?” Noah asked, still struggling to understand what was going on. “I promise it wasn’t intentional. I don’t make a habit of attacking students.”

“This oaf does resemble a Slasher, doesn’t he?” Silvertide asked with a wry smile. “You’ve done no wrong, soldier. Stand down. Nobody can be blamed for reacting defensively to protect themselves, and the boy is unhurt. No harm has been done.”

What is going on? How are they shrugging this off like it’s nothing?

Noah’s mouth worked for a moment as he searched for the right words to say, but none came to him. Silvertide’s gaze flicked down to the pile of clothes on the floor beside Noah, and Noah realized he must have dropped them at some point.

“Those aren’t the clothes of a soldier.”

“I’m actually a teacher,” Noah said, clearing his throat. “I’m No – ah, Professor Vermil.”

Silvertide froze. He peered down the bridge of his nose at Noah, who matched his gaze with a confused frown.

“You’re a professor?” Silvertide asked. “Vermil? You?”

“Yes,” Noah replied, scooping his clothes off the ground. He grabbed his coat and slung it back around his shoulders, tapping the nametag on his chest. “As I said, I vastly overacted.”

“I’ve thought about killing my idiot apprentice more times than you have, I promise.” Silvertide waved his hand dismissively. He opened his mouth, then pursed his lips and thought better of it, shaking his head. “Curious. Professor Vermil. What class do you teach?”

It took Noah a moment to remember his classroom. “G100.”

“I see. Apologize to Vermil, Tyler.”

Tyler immediately dropped into a deep bow, keeping his eyes firmly affixed to the floor as if afraid to meet Noah’s eyes. “I’m very sorry for the trouble, Professor Vermil.”

What kind of backward ass interaction is this? Why am I the one getting apologized to?

“No harm done at all. I’m sorry about your shield.”

“It served its purpose.” Silvertide tapped a finger against his leg, making a hollow, ringing note as his fingernail struck the metal. “Please, don’t allow your day to be interrupted by my fool apprentice. Were you trying to purchase something?”

“I think the seamstress was busy,” Noah said, glancing at the woman. She was watching them, even more terror in her eyes than there had been before. Noah repressed a sigh. Somehow, he was pretty sure he’d made the situation about ten times worse.

“There’s a customer in the store. The project she is working on is not so important that she should ignore you. If it were, she should have closed the store until it was complete.”

The seamstress nodded empathetically.

“Right,” Noah said, not believing Silvertide’s words for an instant. Still, he had no desire to sit around in an endless loop of apologies with Tyler either. He held the bundle of clothes up. “I was just hoping to find out how much these were?”

“One gold each,” the seamstress squeaked. “I’ll emboss your name on the nameplates.”

Great. Now she thinks I’m an unhinged psychopath that’ll snap at any second.

…I’m not sure how far off she is from the mark, though. What the hell was that?

Noah shook his head and dug into the money Moxie had lent him, pulling out four coins and setting them on the table. The seamstress pulled out a small, wooden stamp with a metal base. She held it out to Noah, metal side up, and gave him an expectant look.

There was a small oval carved into the metal, roughly the size of his finger. Noah hedged his bets and pressed his thumb into it. There was a slight prick and the seamstress pulled the stamp back. She pressed it to each of the metal plates on the jackets.

They shimmered, metal writhing as it shifted to form into the familiar Magus Vermil.

“Thanks,” Noah said, collecting his purchases. “Sorry again for the trouble.”

The seamstress nodded so violently that Noah feared her head might go flying off. Silvertide pushed Tyler to the side, clearing the path to the door, and nodded to Noah. He could feel the old man’s eyes boring into his back all the way out onto the street. The feeling didn’t abate until Noah had left the shopping district far behind.

Several times, he could have sworn he saw a Slasher’s claws or a Chucker’s bulbous eyes in the shadows of buildings and at the backs of alleyways. Noah accelerated, forcing himself to focus on the ground instead of anything else.

He didn’t stop walking until he was within the safety of his room once again. Noah locked the door behind him and pressed his back against it, sliding down to the ground and massaging his head.

What is happening to me?

Noah gritted his teeth, not daring to look up in fear of finding a Slasher staring down at him. He threw his attention inward, retreating into the comforting darkness of his mental space. Runes swirled to life around him in the dark void.

He raised his gaze, half expecting to meet the eyes of a Slasher, but was relieved to see that the only things other than him in the endless black were his Runes. The light coming off all of them was considerably brighter than it had been before.

Even the Vibration Rune felt much stronger now, probably around twenty five percent of where his Ash Runes were. The revelation would have been far more enjoyable if Noah hadn’t been worried that his sanity was slipping away.

Mercifully, the strange panic and terror that had been haunting him was nowhere to be found in the darkness. Noah sat there for several minutes, resting his chin on a fist and trying to determine what had happened to him.

At first, it only happened when I was alone. Then it only happened when I wasn’t fighting anything, and now it’s rapidly progressed to the point where I’m worried I’m going to find a troupe of Slashers doing the conga in my room when I open my eyes.

What the hell is this?

Noah shook his head and rose to his feet. He wasn’t going to find the answer sitting beside his Runes. His eyes caught on the fragmented pieces of white along the edges of his consciousness. A frown crossed Noah’s lips.

He approached the fragments. They hadn’t healed much since yesterday. It wasn’t a significant portion of the darkness around him, but Noah wasn’t a huge fan of missing any amount of his soul. Or his mind. Whatever this place was. He still wasn’t sure.

Deep in the white, a flicker of color bloomed. Noah blinked and it was gone. He knelt at the edge of the shadows and leaned forward, squinting into the nothingness. Several seconds passed.

Slowly, color bloomed once more. Reds and blacks slithered across the white like snakes, forming twisting rivers within it. Noah leaned even closer, trying to figure out what the image was. Detail came slowly, washing out like water over canvas. A dot of black formed in the center of the red rivers.

Then it twitched.

It was an eye, and it was looking straight at him.

Noah drew in a startled breath and fell back onto his ass, scrambling away from the void. His heart hammered in his chest and he tripped over himself stumbling back to his feet. He dared another look into the white, but it was blank once more. He pressed a hand to his chest and let out a slow breath.

“What the hell?” Noah muttered. “There is absolutely no way that was supposed to be there. Shit. It was only as big as the cracks, though. That confirms it. The visions are due to the soul damage I’m taking. Either it’s linking me to whatever that thing was, or it’s making it easier to access my mind, or something like that. I need to stop dying for a while until this damage heals up a bit more.”

He gathered himself and, after spending a few more moments to examine his Runes and build his confidence, sent himself back to the real world. Noah’s eyes opened. His room was empty, devoid of any visions to haunt him. Noah trudged over to his bed and fell into it.

I’ll take the rest of the day off and try to relax. Then it’s back to killing monkeys. I’ll need to be more aware these next few days to make sure a Chucker doesn’t get the jump on us again. As long as I see them coming, I’m pretty confident I can avoid getting killed. At the rate of healing I had before, this whole thing should blow over in a few days.

***

The day passed without incident and, before Noah knew it, the sun had set and risen once more. He awoke to the warm sunlight filtering through the window and onto his face, warming it.

Noah rolled out of bed with little complaint, only pausing to scan the room for any signs of illusionary monkeys. For an instant, he could have sworn he spotted the beady black eyes of a small monkey watching him from behind the bathroom door, but it was gone when he blinked. Noah returned to his mindspace to check on the healing process of the wounds in it. The white void had shrunk slightly, but it was still there.

There was nothing to be done about it, so Noah headed out of his room to go find his students. They had monkeys to kill.

And kill they did.

Over the course of the next week, both Todd and Isabel showed remarkable improvements fighting against the small monkeys. No more Chuckers interrupted their training sessions, and Noah handled any Slashers that had the misfortune to stumble into their path.

With every passing day, his students grew more confident and grew in strength. Todd’s fire burned hotter and Isabel’s sword glowed brighter. Their movements adapted to those of the monsters’, and they were soon dispatching them without any fear and with increased speed.

Even with their improvements, neither was at Noah’s level of understanding. There was a stark difference between becoming comfortable enough to consistently defeat the monkeys and knowing their movements so intimately that every move they could make had already passed through Noah’s mind before it had hit theirs.

Whenever Noah wasn’t teaching them in the Scorched Acres, he was there himself, throwing everything he had against any monkey bold enough to step into his path. The scales in his fights against the Chuckers steadily tipped.

Despite his best efforts, he still ended up dying one more time when two Chuckers came at him at once. He managed to take them both down, but took a killing blow in the process. Luckily, he'd healed enough by then that the visions didn't seem to return. By the end of the week, Noah was confident that he’d figured out every single movement they had. And, as far as he could tell, he was right. The last time he had died to them was halfway through the week, and he’d killed dozens of them since then without taking a single blow in return.

On the morning of the seventh day that week, Noah took a break from the constant fighting to check in on his own progress. Floating within his mindspace, Noah was more than satisfied.

The glow coming off both his Ash Runes had intensified significantly since the start of the week. He could instinctively tell that they weren’t full yet, but the pressure coming off them had more than doubled.

He was certain that the rate they’d been getting brighter at had slightly reduced, but that made complete sense to him.

The laws of energy haven’t changed. I’m basically storing magical energy in Runes, which act as a vessel to contain it. So, logically, they act like a balloon of sorts. It’s easy to fill Runes when they’re empty, but the closer they get to being full, the more resistance there is.

His Lesser Wind Runes had long since filled themselves, and the Vibration Rune seemed to be just a bit over a quarter full. Considering he’d been working at it for less than a month, Noah was beyond pleased.

It was time to start the next stage of his plans for both him and his students.