Emrys sat alone in the library, his table covered in dusty tomes. He had pulled every book that even tangentially related to runes and still managed to learn absolutely nothing about the sketches he’d seen in Sven’s room.

He rubbed his eyes. Nobody in their right mind turned to runic magic, especially if they already had another option at their fingertips. Sven was a life mage. Emrys had given him mana root to unlock his ability, and the mage had honed his craft in the healing tent. That had always been his focus and he’d never expressed a desire to branch out, though unlike Emrys, he would have had to do so via increasingly creative uses of healing magic. Emrys was only able to branch out to different schools thanks to the versatility of the Arcanist class.

That said, it wasn’t as if learning another school of magic would be easier through rune crafting. If anything, the opposite would be true. Runes required painful accuracy in both the way they were drawn and the materials used. It was like a hellish combination of calligraphy and calculus. The composition of materials would determine the durability of the spell, the specific color tint of the pigment used to fill in the rune would determine the elements of the spell, and the shape of the rune itself would indicate its function. Because runes could activate any element, they operated on a gradient of composition to elemental ability. A slight miscalculation could result in a harmless miscast or catastrophic failure. A master of runes could conceivably cast any spell of any strength was only the smallest manage rain, but learning it all was so hellishly difficult that the only people who attempted it were those so desperate for magic that they would accept it in any form, or those who lived so fully in their own minds that they could forsake their entire community for the sake of cerebral pursuits. Not to mention the sheer cost associated with acquiring the specific materials necessary for even the most basic spells.

Sven fit neither stereotype; the discovery of his practice runes didn’t make sense. To compound the mystery, Emrys couldn’t find the slightest hint of what those runes were meant to accomplish. Not that the small town library had much for him to go off of. He had found only one instructional manual and it had been focused entirely on farming. Runes to be carved into a plow to increase the harvest or added to a watering pot to better nourish the plant. None of it pertained to Sven and more importantly none of it matched the sketches.

That had been his best hope. The other eight books were lucky to have even a full chapter on the subject, and when they did it tended to be the same vague introductory description of how pointlessly difficult it all was.

He liked to think he would have noticed if Sven had gone off the deep end of scholarly interest, but then again he had been spending more and more time in the dungeons lately. It was entirely possible he had missed Sven’s shift in focus, blinded as he was by his own pursuits.

Emrys had been feeling for some time that he was close to a major breakthrough in his understanding of magic. With each dungeon he completed, he felt more attuned to his magic. One the first day he had absorbed his mana root, he had felt like learning magic was analogous to making a friend. It was a unique experience in every instance, with different steps and prerequisites in each interaction.

Elder Winter had dispelled him of that notion, claiming instead that each school of magic followed a strict progression known as a skill tree. A fire mage started with Fireball and worked his way up to Firestorm, for example. A life mage started with Healing Touch and worked their way up to Regeneration and Revival.

But the more comfortable Emrys became with his own magic, the more he felt he’d been right in the beginning. Every spell was like a conversation with the universe, a request for change and action. The better they got to know each other, the more the world was willing to bend for him, the more it trusted him and what he was asking.

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And in return, he gave his mana. The interactions had begun as something transactional: mana for magic. But lately Emrys was becoming more certain that it was more than that. Like if there was anyone he could truly count on, it was the universe.

Which was crazy. Obviously.

Nobody else had ever expressed that same understanding of magic, either in his experience or in the books he’d read. The few times he’d been foolish enough to mention it, he’d been shot down and treated like a child.

Magic was strict, everyone knew that. You gave and you took, working mana like a muscle until you could take even more.

Maybe the universe is antisocial, he thought, half-joking. Not everyone gets to be its friend.

“Hello world,” he said, laughing, then buried his face in his palms. “Oh my god, I’m exhausted.” The mage plopped his head down on the book in front of him, wondering if anyone would notice if he took a nap. He’d barely slept, not knowing when Zereh would return and wanting to finish his research before she did.

“Careful. I heard there’s a fine for drooling on the books.”

Emrys jerked up at the sound of Zereh’s voice.

She slid into the seat across from him, a lightly teasing smile on her lips.

“Hey,” he said.

“You look exhausted.” She handed him a stamina potion.

“It’s not good to drink those too often,” he said, fixing his gaze on the yellow bottle.

“We’ll just do the one, then. Or were you planning on several late nights?”

Emrys blinked hard. Was she…flirting with him? He shook his head and took the potion. He really must be losing it.

Zereh paged through one of the books. “Did you find anything?”

Emrys shook his head. “Only dead ends. I couldn’t find anything related to what he was working on, which means I also don’t know how he learned it in the first place.”

“Or why.”

“Or why,” he agreed. The mage leaned back in his chair. “When we find him, we can ask him all about it. But there’s a good chance it’s not related to his disappearance anyway.”

Zereh raised an eyebrow at that but didn’t comment. “Did he check any books out that haven’t been returned?”

“No. He did look through some of these, but if he took anything out with him, the librarians don’t know about it.”

“I guess that’s it, then.” She stood to leave.

Emrys closed the books and started stacking them.

“What are you doing?”

“Putting the books away.”

“The librarians will take care of that,” she scoffed. When he didn’t move, she added, “I thought you were in a hurry?”

Emrys frowned but did as he was told. He’d heard the librarians complain over the years about the laziness of adventurers and hadn’t wanted to add himself to that list, but she was right. Their quest was more important.

He shot an apologetic look at the librarian, but she just waved him off.

“How do runes work, anyway?” Zereh asked, her voice unapologetically loud as they exited the library. “I don’t know anyone who uses them.”

“Runemaster is a crafting-combat class, probably the only one available.” Emrys put up a hand to shade his eyes against the sudden sunlight. “Because it’s a crafting class, anyone can learn it and runes could theoretically be used to cast any spell, so long as you have the right materials, pigment, and shape.”

Zereh whistled. “That sounds powerful.”

“It can be, but it’s not worth it.” He explained the difficulty of the practice, stressing the need for accuracy and the high cost of failure. Before he knew it, they were well on their way to Sonora and his awkwardness around Zereh had begun to fade. She was an excellent listener, asking intelligent questions and looking at him with such curiosity and interest that he was tempted to keep talking just to make that last.

“Hold on a minute.” Zereh stopped in the middle of the dirt road. “We need to make a quick detour.”

Emrys bit back an objection. She’d proven in town that she would do whatever she pleased, regardless of his opinion. Far be it from him to point out the danger of stepping off the protected path.

Zereh strode through the tall grass, heedless of the risks. Emrys hesitated for only a moment before following her. Whatever she was doing, it would be faster and safer with a partner.

She led him up over a hill. To his eyes it looked indistinguishable from the rest of the valley, but she walked with purpose, like she could sense something important on the other side.

He had to admit to himself that despite his impatience to finally be getting on the road, he was also intrigued to know what could have so instantly derailed her. As they crested the ridge, Emrys saw an older gentleman working on what looked to be a shrine. He couldn’t tell what deity it was for, but the sight of it made his blood run cold.