The three of them fell into a rhythm, working hand in hand to create the blueprint. They spent the next hour going over each possible outcome and design change needed for the rune.
"Are you sure you can skip over that part of the technique? Shouldn't it be needed for when you activate it?" Brandon asked, watching Arthur write over the blueprint.
"It should be fine. The channels can support up to Peak Silver, so leaving out the strengthening components won't cause any issues." Arthur said as he skipped over parts of the rune.
"It might hold if the stress levels stay the same, but we don't know how much is going to be affected by us changing it." Helena added, watching.
"Well, it's a risk we're going to have to take. We can just create different versions of it for each level of stress to see what produces the best output." Arthur said, looking up.
"Alright then, I'll get right to it." Helena took up her own spot at the workstation and started writing her own version of the runic structure. A light smile could be seen plastered on her face, radiating.
'It seems she really enjoys this.' Arthur couldn't help but agree with her opinion on runes because what isn't cooler than using your mind to create tools to bridge the gap in ranks?
Smiling, Arthur continued his work on the blueprint.
But then he heard it. That voice.
"Helena my beloved!"
Stepping into Room 207 a figure strode in like he owned the building. Blonde hair swept back, blue eyes gleaming, a smile wide enough to light up a ballroom. The Virtues emblem sat on his chest like a medal of honor, and two figures flanked him at his shoulders, one built like a siege wall, the other thin and sharp as a letter opener.
The room went quiet as the figure strode in, each member watching with their breath held. As if the very act of breathing was forbidden by the man.
He crossed the room in long, confident strides, eyes locked on Helena. Before she could stand or speak, his arm swept around her waist and pulled her in against his side. The motion was smooth and practiced, as if he had done this a hundred times.
"Damien!" Helena squeaked at the touch of the man named Damien. Clear discomfort shone on her face.
"What's wrong, Helena? That's not the face one should make when their fiancé comes to meet them. It's almost like you don't like me." Damien pouted, his face clearly trying to look saddened at her displeasure, but he made no attempt to remedy it.
Instead, his grip on her waist tightened. He turned to face the room, pulling Helena along with him like an accessory on display.
"You know, I was just telling Kael here how lucky I am." His voice carried across every corner of Room 207, pitched for an audience. "How many men in this kingdom can say their future wife is not only the most beautiful woman at the academy but also one of the most gifted minds in her year?"
He paused as if expecting applause, his eyes looming across the room.
"Not only is she brilliant, she also gives back to the needy spending what little free time she has helping lowly commoners and lesser nobles learn the fine, refined art of runes and glyphs. Truly, my Helena is far too kind to waste herself on such filth." Damien's apparent disdain for all those he saw beneath him was clear to everyone. Even if you were of noble lineage, if you didn't have true power behind you, you were nothing to him.
'Seems nothing has changed...' Arthur narrowed his eyes.
Brandon too seemed to scowl at the sight of the man, his jaw clenched while his grip on his pen tightened.
However, regardless of the words the man spoke, no one dared to refute him as those who had paid the price.
Damien's gaze sweeps the room looking around before he lowered his eyes on Arthur. His smile twisted as the showman's charm curdled into something colder as recognition settled across his face
"Even though my wondrous Helena is kind enough to help filth, I truly don't understand why you of all people are here." Damien stared daggers at Arthur, his voice dropping low. "A Webb."
Arthur met his stare.
"I see you haven't changed a bit since we were kids. You're still a rotten bitch to the core, I'm surprised they even let you on campus grounds."
.The words hit the room like a thunderclap.
A collective gasp swept through the members with many with their jaws hanging. Even one of the lackeys that came with Damien blinked like they weren't expecting such hostilely.
Helena's eyes went wide. She looked at Arthur with an expression caught between shock and worry, her lips parting as if to say something.
Brandon eyed Arthur wondering what kind of trouble was he bringing upon himself.
Damien's smile vanished.
He stepped away from Helena. The hand that had been on her waist dropped to his side as he turned his full attention to Arthur, crossing the distance between them in three slow, deliberate steps until he was standing directly over him.
"And I didn't know the academy let filthy whores onto campus." Damien's voice was quiet now. Intimate. The kind of quiet that was worse than shouting. "Though I suppose if you gave the Head Examiner a blowjob, you might have been able to scrape your way in." He tilted his head, looking down at Arthur's emblem. "And just barely, at that since you ended up in House Watchers. Like the whore you are."
"Huh." Arthur scoffs at Damien.
"That's it? That's the best insult you could come up with?" Arthur looked at Damien like a father being disappointed in their child. "I've heard better insults from children half your age. What's got you feeling so tough when you can't even be original?"
"I expect nothing less from a political tool." Arthur shrugs his shoulders as if saying what else did you expect.
Damien mouth curls at his words seemingly not caring much.
"A political tool." He repeated the words like he was tasting them. "Is that what you think I am?"
"It's exactly what you are." Arthur said. "Your family needed a bloodline that could keep people in line without getting their hands dirty. So they bred one, and here you stand. The Blackwell attack dog dressed up in a noble's coat. Useful, Disposable, and too stupid to know the difference."
The smile died and along with it, a new pressure filled the room. Slow and invisible, seeping in like a change in temperature no one could point to. Several members shifted in their seats without knowing why. Brandon's jaw unclenched and went slack. Many people didn't even realize they had stopped clenching their hands until their pens hit the floor. A strange ease flooded through the room, a warmth that made everyone quietly wonder why they had been so tense to begin with.
However, while everyone else felt only relief, Arthur felt the full effect slam into him like a wall.
'There it is.'
'That Damn Diamond bloodline. Making anyone he wishes feel whatever he wants, guess he thinks he can lower my guard and take advantage of me.'
Arthur then channels his own bloodline only this time inward. Drawing it up along the surface of his skin like a second layer, a natural barrier between himself and Damien form. The creeping urge to relax, to let his shoulders drop, to stop caring all of it washed away and left only the cold, familiar quiet of his own mind.
Damien's eyes narrowed.
"Why aren't you—"
"Because it'll never work on me." Arthur scoffed. "You think I didn't prepare something after last time? You're a bigger fool than I thought."
Damien stared.
The anger behind his eyes was loud enough to almost hear. His bloodline was still bleeding into the room, the pressure doubling as Damien willfully poured his full power into it. But still Arthur looked at him, almost bored.
"That's it? I think my maid has a stronger pressure than you." Arthur taunted.
"You think blocking one technique means something?" Damien's voice dropped. The audience-pitched performance was gone, leaving only his raw voice. "You're a Webb. You will crawl out of this academy the same way your father crawled out of his scandal on your hands and knees with nothing. No allies. No future. No name worth saying in company."
"And yet here I stand, on my own two feet. Your greatest power is worthless in front of me." Arthur held out his hand and channeled his bloodline. The tattoo along his chest flooded with a quiet light that pulsed slow and steady, like a heartbeat.
A wave of energy rolled through the room.
It hit every member at once; soft, clean waves shot through them. Cutting the haze Damien had built up forcing it to dissolve.
'Thank you Robin.'
"What happened… I thought I — wait…" Around the room, members blinked. Looked at their hands, some looked at each other. The slack expressions tightened back into something human.
"Damien, you bastard! Using your bloodline against other members is against the rules!" One member shot to their feet, a barrier already forming in front of them, palms outstretched.
Soon enough the whole room turns their aggression to Damien ready to pounce. But like a corner animal Damien lashes out.
"You think you're strong! You think your puny bloodlines are a match against mine! I'll show you just how strong it is!" Walking back Damien walks up to Helena grabbing her and pulling her in.
His hand found her waist and yanked her in none of the practiced elegance from before, just possession. She stumbled slightly at the force of it, one hand coming up instinctively to push against his chest.
He ignored it completely.
"She's mine." His eyes stayed on Arthur over her shoulder. "Educated. Beautiful. Well-bred." His palm slid deliberately down past her hip. "And she cannot say no. Not to my family. Not to me."
Helena's hand was still pressed flat against his chest. Her body tells her to get away but in the end she is forced to accept it as Damien bloodline floods her body changing her emotions.
His fingers dug in harder, gripping the curve of her hip like she was something he'd purchased and was reminding himself of the price. Then his hand moved lower slowly in front of everyone in the room.
He touched her like she was his slave treating her as nothing but a personal plaything. His hands explored her body reaching places no other man had ever been before.
Helena's eyes fixed on a point on the far wall too embarrassed to look at anyone, her face turning red in shame.
"That's what real power looks like, Webb." His voice was satisfied now as he found the one thing that Arthur couldn't take away. His hand was groping Helena, treating her like dough; a cynical smile plastered his face.
Brandon's knuckles had gone white his body twitchy to attack but…
"This is something you never-"
Arthur faster than anyone could react, his wand pointed dead at Damien. Three strokes drawn in the air from muscle memory a glyph forms its power radiating an Early bronze. Weak compared to Damien's Early sliver cultivation but it's all Arthur needs.
Like a magnet the rune snaps taut the instant it finds its anchor.
Helena lurched sideways off Damien's arm.
The force was clean and suddenly with no warning, Helena was pulled. She stumbled the two steps across the space between them and Arthur caught her, his free arm pulling her flush against his side, his hand flat across her shoulder, turning her behind him in one motion.
She froze.
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