“My Demon Rune… ate my Master Rune?” Lee asked. She glanced over her shoulder in surprise and locked in place. Noah carefully turned Lee so she wasn’t looking at the rune anymore and she shook herself off like a wet dog. “I really hate that. I can’t get hypnotized every single time I look at it.”

“We’ll find a way to deal with it soon enough,” Noah promised. “For now, I’m almost certain that’s what happened. The two patterns are overlayed.”

“What does that mean, though? I didn’t think Master Runes and Demon Runes were the same kind of Rune.”

“I didn’t either,” Noah admitted. “I don’t actually know what this means. I suspect it probably has something to do with the fact that your Master Rune was broken. If it was whole, I don’t think there would have been any way it could get absorbed, though I could obviously be wrong.”

“Why would being broken make anything different?”

“It’s just a guess right now, but generally things want to be whole,” Noah theorized. He didn’t remember all that much of his high school science classes about atoms, but he did remember that the little dots around the ones in the center tended to try to fill the layers and would then become harder to separate or change. “It’s possible that the Broken Master Rune was basically an energy magnet. It was waiting for something to attach to in attempt to fix itself, and your Demon Rune ended up filling that slot.”

“Why wouldn’t it have tried to do something earlier, then?” Lee asked with a frown.

“No idea,” Noah admitted. “Maybe because it was looking for a specific wavelength or amount of energy? Probably the former, because if it was just looking for energy, I’d assume it would have sucked up your normal Runes.”

“Huh,” Lee said. They were silent for several seconds. Lee scratched the side of her head. “Can you fix it?”

“Probably,” Noah said. “But I’m not sure if we want to yet.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s a Master Rune, even if it’s broken,” Noah said. “I don’t know what happens if we use Sunder on that. I mean, it can’t be viewed as a whole because it’s got broken in the name. So, if it gets chopped up, what state does it revert to? It can’t be whole either – that would be making something from nothing.”

“I – oh. Shit,” Lee muttered under her breath. “I could lose it?”

“Or it could do something to your other Runes. I don’t know, but I suspect the best way to go about dealing with something like this would be to preemptively get energy that the Master Rune can absorb again the moment it gets split apart.”

Lee nearly looked over her shoulder again, but she caught herself before she could turn all the way around. She shook her head and let out a huff. “So what about dealing with the problem? It could be dangerous, right?”

“Could be,” Noah allowed. “But more to you than to anyone else, I think. Remember how we had that talk about how demons tend to keep their magic within their bodies and aren’t as good at projecting it externally unless they’re really strong?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I figure this isn’t all that different. I don’t think your rune will hurt anyone at the moment, and Azel’s bindings on it look pretty damn strong. As long as those are holding, I doubt this will be too dangerous. You just need to be careful yourself and avoid pulling too deeply on it until we find a way to get around to fixing everything.”

“So you think I should just keep it for now,” Lee concluded.

“So long as you’re fine with it, yes. I don’t see anything about the rune itself that make me concerned for anyone’s immediate health,” Noah admitted. “I think we should try to salvage the Master Rune and see what we can do in preparing to get you the Rank 4 Rune that you really want – but only so long as you don’t mind keeping this one for now.”

Lee thought in silence for nearly a minute before finally giving Noah a nod. “Okay. If you think it’ll be fine, then I’ll trust you. Maybe you can study it and learn more about Master Runes. I don’t know much about ‘em, but I’ve never heard of anything like this happening before.”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“Yeah, I’m definitely not going to pass up on the opportunity if you keep the Rune,” Noah said. “You’re sure you’re fine with keeping it, then?”

“Yeah,” Lee said, speaking more confidently now. “I don’t have a logical reason to think it’s going to be a problem right now. Not as long as Azel’s bindings are holding, like you said. But, if they start breaking, I think we should remove the rune.”

“I can do that. Just keep me updated, and I’ll get some more Mind Meld potions so we can keep an eye on things as well as try to figure out what’s going on,” Noah said. “Does the whole hypnotization thing only happen when you’re in your mindspace? I didn’t see you acting odd outside.”

“Yeah. Only when I see the rune, though I haven’t tried using it since the fight. I didn’t feel very hypnotized during the fight, for what it matters.”

“Noted,” Noah said. “Well, I’ll keep a close eye on you and we’ll let Moxie know as well so there’s no chance of anything slipping through. Don’t stress too hard though, Lee. We aren’t going to let you lose yourself.”

“Thanks. Did you want to study the rune a little longer before the potion ends? Just in case we missed something?”

Noah gave her a nod. He wasn’t sure if Lee wanted him to research the rune because it was useful or because she was still worried about what effects it would have on her, but spending some more time trying to figure out how it worked certainly wouldn’t be remiss.

He headed back over to the rune and started studying it closer, trying to completely pull the two patterns apart in his mind. They were both incredibly complex, so it was far from simple work. Even all the time Noah had spent studying and memorizing runes in the past months, it was still difficult.

It was one thing just memorizing the pattern of something he was looking at. It was a whole different problem when he was trying to pull the patterns apart, even when he recognized that there were two of them.

Whenever he started getting into a flow, he’d mistakenly start down a line that was part of a different pattern and have to start over. Time slipped by, and he was slowly starting to make progress, but he wasn’t quite able to finish before the familiar buzz of the Mind Meld’s potion started to set in.

“Ah, damn it,” Noah muttered. He took one last look at the rune, committing as much of it as possible to memory. He didn’t even have time to turn back to Lee before the effects wore off and he was yanked away, sent hurtling back to his own body.

Noah’s eyes snapped back open at the base of the bed beside Lee. Moxie had moved to lay on it behind them, a book in the air over her head. She lowered it and rolled over to watch as Noah and Lee shifted.

“Any luck?” Moxie asked.

“Yeah. Things are fine for now,” Noah said, rolling his neck to get some of the stiffness out if it. He’d evidently chosen a bad position to sit in. “It does look like Lee’s Demon Rune somehow absorbed her Master Rune, though.”

Moxie set the book down. “What?”

Noah spent a few minutes describing everything that he’d learned to her. By the end of it, all Moxie could do was shake her head and laugh.

“Ridiculous. I’m glad you’re fine though, Lee.”

“Me too,” Lee said, her stomach punctuating her words with a loud rumble. She cleared her throat. “And I am also hungry.”

Noah snorted. “At least that hasn’t changed. We’ll go get some food, then. There are a few errands I want to run while we’re out anyway.”

“What are they?” Moxie asked, arching an eyebrow. “I didn’t realize you did anything other than practice or blow yourself up.”

Ouch. I don’t think this was her intention, but now that I think about it, I don’t think I’ve taken Moxie on a proper date since we got together. Wizen might still be something we need to deal with, but I should really do something there at some point before we get so busy that I can’t.

“I want to find Tim,” Noah said. “Maybe not today, but I want to fix his runes. He’s done too much for us to just sit around and do nothing in return.”

Moxie and Lee both nodded.

“I think he’s trustworthy,” Moxie said. “Maybe don’t tell him exactly how you do things, but I know you’ve got more than enough runes in that grimoire of yours to share. I have no idea where Tim went, though. He wasn’t in the cannon.”

“Lee said it smelled like he was safe, so I’m thinking we’ll find him back to work tomorrow,” Noah said. “If not, I’ll have to hunt around. But there’s another thing as well. I want to go find Silvertide.”

“Wizen stuff?” Moxie guessed.

“Yeah. I want to bring him up to speed on everything we know. I probably should have done it earlier, but I’m so used to keeping my cards close to chest that I didn’t. Also, do you still have that dagger we took from Gentil?”

Moxie slipped out of bed and walked across the room to her shelf, taking out a small, cloth wrapped bundle after a minute of searching. “Yeah. It’s over here. I’ve had it sitting around because it hasn’t really been a priority, but I was researching it a bit ago to see if it might have anything to do with the clones. I couldn’t find any plant-related magic in it.”

“That’s fine. I want to show Silvertide,” Noah said. “I think it’s better to get more eyes on it. Even if he doesn’t know anything, he can show the Enforcers. Wizen might be too big of a threat for us to try to keep information to ourselves.”

“So long as we’re careful with who we share with,” Moxie warned, handing Noah the bundle. “Wizen already has his eye on us. We don’t need even more of that attention. Right now, he’s up against a whole lot more than just our group. No need to bring his focus in.”

“Agreed,” Noah said. He slid the wrapped dagger into his bag and stood up, stretching his arms over his head and shaking his stiff limbs off. “Right. Shall we go get some food, then? After that, I’m drafting Lee’s nose to help me find Silvertide.”