Return of the Runebound Professor

Chapter 196: Stepping around

Despite Revin’s promise, he didn’t return on the third day. Noah and Moxie were both so focused on trying to brainstorm what Evergreen’s plans might have been that they barely even noticed.

Lee spent most of the time eating and occasionally tossing in a suggestion, but the majority of them either involved just trying to kill their way out of the problem or forcing Evergreen to eat food until she gave in and started answering questions.

That was tempting, but Noah wasn’t so sure Evergreen’s construct was going to give in to torture via food. Regardless, he wasn’t really looking to get started down that particular route. If he was going to force information out of somebody, there were a lot less disturbing ways to do it.

Most of the ones that come to mind involve killing myself in one way or another, though. I might really need to do something about that.

“I just don’t get it,” Moxie said, leaning back and running her hands through her hair with a groan. They’d been thinking for the majority of the day, sustained on snacks from Evergreen’s cupboard, and had yet to gather a single possible reason why Evergreen would be sabotaging Emily’s exam – or at least, a reason that made sense.

“We could always try asking the fake Evergreen,” Lee said, pointing at the bound construct with a cinnamon-coated breadstick. “She’s got some of Evergreen’s memories, so she definitely has to know at least something about what’s going on.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” Moxie admitted. “But I don’t know if she’s ever going to speak. If Noah’s pet demon is correct, I don’t think a construct is going to give the slightest amount of care about what we do to it. I’m not even sure it’s got feelings beyond what Evergreen wants it to feel.”

“I’m not sure I’d call Azel my pet. More like a parasite. The construct is clearly running on its own though,” Noah pointed out, pursing his lips and scratching the side of his nose. “Surely Evergreen put in some sort of failsafe to make sure that the construct didn’t give anything too important away though, right?”

“Only one way to find out,” Moxie said grimly. “I’d say we’re well past the point of trying to find a different way to do things. Are we certain the construct doesn’t have some sort of emergency signal that’ll go off if it dies?”

“Like the Hellreaver?” Noah asked, wincing. “I certainly hope not. Maybe we should arrange for a little extra deniability. Lee, do you think you could take on Evergreen’s appearance and walk out of the room, letting some people see you before finding somewhere private to escape?”

“Sure,” Lee said. She stuffed the last of her breadstick into her mouth, swallowing without even chewing once, and wiped her hands off on the bottom of her shirt. A ripple passed over her skin and she shifted, her chape morphing into that of Evergreen’s.

“Convincing,” Moxie said with an approving nod. “You’re not going to have the staff, though. Hopefully nobody notices that, because it’ll be a bit suspicious. Evergreen usually has it on her.”

“I’ll be fast,” Lee said with a grin. It looked rather unsettling coming from Evergreen’s wrinkled, normally disapproving face. “Nobody can pull me aside and ask questions if they don’t get a chance to actually talk to me.”

She slipped out of the room and pulled the door shut behind her. Noah and Moxie watched the door for a moment.

“I don’t think Lee should have much trouble. It’s unlikely that anyone really strong is going to be looking around specifically for Evergreen. Considering how Evergreen had a whole room prepared specifically for this, I’d imagine that other people are probably doing something similar.”

“That’s probably true,” Moxie said with a nod. “I’ll release Evergreen’s construct now, then.”

The vines holding Evergreen’s eyes and mouth shut pulled back. Evergreen was still glaring at them. That was fairly impressive, since it had been at a day since Moxie had last uncovered her. If anything, it just proved their theory that she was a construct even more. No human could just permanently stare, no matter how pissed they were.

“You’ve been stewing there for a while. More willing to speak to us now?” Noah asked, but he didn’t expect Evergreen’s construct would be any more willing to speak to him now than she had been before. If she was a lifeless robot, then it wouldn’t matter how long he kept her tied up. She’d be the same every single time.

“The Torrins will kill both of you,” Evergreen spat. “Once they hear of what has happened here–”

“They won’t,” Noah interceded. “We’ve gone over this already. We don’t have any way to know you are who you say you are. It’s clear you aren’t the real Evergreen. You aren’t human at all. It’s unfortunate, you know. If you had any way to communicate with whoever you’re working for, I’m sure they’d have shown up by now already – unless they already wrote you off.”

“I am Magus Evergreen, idiot. I always have been. Free me this instant.”

Broken record much?

“Too bad you’ll never be able to report all the information you’ve gathered,” Noah said, tapping his chin and tilting his head to the side. “I’d be willing to bet you need your staff for that. Whoever you work for is never going to know what we’ve learned here. Too bad for them. It’s been pretty important.”

Evergreen’s eyes flickered, and Noah kept a grin from touching his lips. If he had wanted to make a construct to gather information, the most important thing he could imagine ordering it to do would be to ensure that it delivered everything it learned, no matter what the cost was. That was its entire purpose, after all.

And, since Evergreen’s construct had learned that there was a Rank 5 demon just sitting in his head, Noah was pretty sure that the construct had learned enough to desperately want to report back to Evergreen. If it had any weaknesses in its logic, then they’d probably lie in her desperation to finish the report.

What he didn’t expect was for Evergreen to give him one last look, then suddenly stop moving as if she’d frozen solid. Her eyes went glassy and her entire body stiffened. Noah poked her. Evergreen’s body didn’t feel any different. She’d just shut down.

“Well, I can’t say I saw that coming. She’s got a possum mode,” Noah said as he rubbed his chin. “Now what?”

“It might be an emergency response to avoid giving out important information,” Moxie said, walking up to stand beside Noah. “I get the feeling we aren’t going to be getting anything else out of her anytime soon. I’d be willing to bet there’s a way we could get some information if we figured out how to use the staff, though.”

“Fifty-fifty chance that Revin either completely deciphers the staff or has somehow managed to irrevocably destroy it.”

“That might be being a little optimistic. I’d say it’s probably going to be a lot closer to thirty-seventy.”

They looked down at Evergreen for a few more moments, hoping that she might wake up or give them anything else they could work with. Unfortunately, nothing changed and she remained unmoving.

A knock on the door nearly scared both Noah and Moxie out of their skin. After cursing under his breath, Noah walked over to the door and pressed his ear to it.

“Who’s there?”

A snake of shadow slithered beneath Noah’s feet. He glanced down at it, turning just as Revin bubbled up from the ground in the middle of the room, spinning his cloak out with a flick of his free hand as he thrust Evergreen’s staff into the air victoriously with the other.

Noah and Moxie stared at him. Revin lowered the staff.

“I have returned.”

“We gathered,” Moxie said. “I suspect I’m going to regret this question, but why do you even bother knocking if you just come under the door anyway?”

“Because whoever goes to get the door spins around in shock when I arrive,” Revin replied, leaning the staff against a chair. “And that adds a lot to the cool-factor. Really gets the ego moving in the right direction, if you know what I mean.”

“I don’t,” Noah said. “Did you have any luck with the staff?”

“Of course I did. Who do you think I am?” Revin strolled up to Evergreen, then raised an eyebrow as he studied her. “Did you kill the construct already?”

“No. She just froze herself in place,” Noah replied, rejoining Revin. He nodded to the staff. “So… how’s it work?”

A tendril of shadow grabbed the staff and moved it over to Revin, who picked it up. Noah couldn’t help but feel like Revin could have just held onto the staff and avoided having to grab it with magic, but he got the suspicion that would have gone directly against how Revin operated.

“It does quite a bit. Part of it is directly related to the construct, but the rest is for fighting and combat. I don’t think this is the original, though. I suspect the real Evergreen has a proper version of this staff somewhere on her person, and this is just a specialized replica.”

“A replica that lets someone pretend to be a Rank 6?” Noah’s eyebrows crept up. “What the hell is the real one, then? That’s terrifying.”

“More importantly, can the replica do anything to help us? You said some of it is related to the construct. Can we destroy and remake it safely?”

“Yes. That was fairly simple to figure out.”

“What about controlling it?” Noah asked as a thought struck him. “Could we make the construct tell us what it knows? Moxie and I are pretty sure that something is off about this survival exam, and Evergreen seems somehow related to it. If we can figure it out from the construct, it could save us a ton of time.”

“The staff wasn’t made to directly control the construct.” Revin shook his head. “It’s meant to be a tool for the construct. However, all links go in two directions. It would be possible to work backward down the line, at least to a short degree.”

“Can you do that, then? Especially if you already know how to destroy and remake Evergreen. It can’t hurt.”

Revin flashed Noah a grin. “Of course I can.”

He made no moves to leave. Everyone was silent for a few moments. Moxie cleared her throat.

“Are you going to…”

“Oh, I already did,” Revin said. “That was the first thing I worked out. I just wanted to wait until you asked if it was possible first. Feels better.”

Noah let out a sigh. “I can’t tell if I hate you or love you. Should I ask why you’re helping us, or am I going to regret it?”

Revin tilted his head to the side. “You’d probably regret it.”

“Great. I’m not going to, then. Want to commit some crimes and plumb through her head to figure out what the real Evergreen was thinking?”

“Trust me when I say that I would nothing more,” Revin replied, flourishing the staff and pointing it at Evergreen’s clone with a maniacal grin. “Behold the efforts of my labor. It might take some time to get her to answer the big questions, though. Give it patience. She’ll likely resist at first, and we may need to try to find ways to word questions to get actual answers.”

The tip of the staff shuddered. Lines of dull green light shot down its length, burning with a faint glow. Evergreen’s body twitched. Matching lines covered her form, crisscrossing over her skin. Her eyes lit the same green and her head snapped toward Revin.

“Go ahead,” Revin whispered. “Ask something. Just don’t be disappointed if the first question gets ignored or skipped.”

“What are Evergreen’s true motives with the survival exam?” Noah asked.

“I am unaware,” the construct replied in a wooden tone.

“Warned you,” Revin said.

“Hold on,” Moxie stepped up beside them. “Emily or her team are being targeted in this exam, aren’t they?”

“Yes.”

“She just said she was unaware.” Noah frowned, but even as he spoke, he realized the flaw in his question. Moxie pointed it out an instant later.

“No, she said she was unaware of Evergreen’s motives.” Moxie turned back to the construct. “Are you working for Magus Evergreen?”

“I am not.”

“Plausible deniability,” Revin said with a knowing nod. “Clever. She can claim she had nothing to do with this.”

“Who are you working for?” Noah tried.

Evergreen stared at him. She didn’t say a word.

“Don’t think that one’s going through. We could go through a list of everybody we know, but I suspect that wouldn’t work either,” Moxie said with a sigh. “What was the purpose of sabotaging Emily and the others?”

“To draw Evergreen’s attention to the events unfolding at Arbitage and distract her.”

The back of Noah’s neck prickled.

I’m starting to think that this construct may not be from the Torrin family at all.

“Distract her from what?”

The construct’s face twitched. It opened its mouth, but something was different. The wooden expression vanished, replaced by a cold, calculating look in its eyes. Moxie noticed it as well, and she flicked her hand. A vine whipped around Evergreen’s head, covering her vision as the construct spoke once more.

“That would be none of your concern. This is most interesting. I wasn’t expecting someone to meddle with this part. Who are you?”

Ah, shit. I think we might have stepped into something we shouldn’t have.