Mind Your Step, Draft 1, CH 24

Tibs placed a hand on Heather’s, stopping her from drawing her sword in response to the bow Rachel aimed at them. Lian was the only one on her team who looked unsure of the situation. Darna and Korl had a hand on their sheathed sword. The barkeep held a mace. He was the only one whose name Tibs didn’t know, but suspected he was one of Darna and Lian’s numerous siblings.

“Oh,” Karliak said. “Tibs, this is one of my teams. They’re the best ones too. They haven’t lost a member in seven runs.”

“We’re doing runs,” Heather said, and Tibs wished he could have warned her to stay silent.

“This is our dungeon,” Rachel stated.

“No one owns dungeons,” Tibs replied.

“Tell that to the guild,” she countered.

“Oh, Tibs, tell them how proud I am of how they did the runs. As soon as they beat the boss, I’ll open the second floor to them.”

“Did you tell the guild about this dungeon?” If they had, this would not end well for anyone.

“Didn’t you listen to her?” the barkeep said. “It’s ours. We aren’t sharing it with anyone.”

“Tibs,” Karliak said. “Tell Erik I don’t appreciate the insinuation that they get to decide who can and can’t run my floor.”

At least everyone was safe.

Heather straightened. “I think the dungeon’s able to handle more runners. I didn’t see you here all the days we were.”

“Tibs?” Karliak asked. “Why aren’t you telling them what I told you? I’m siding with you.”

“He doesn’t want them to know he hears you,” Ruppert said mentally.

“Why not?”

“If the dungeon wants to keep us out,” he said, doing his best to ignore the unvoiced conversation, “they can do so. They’d have closed their doors.”

“I don’t care—” Erik’s step forward was stopped by Lian’s arm.

“Rachel, how about we talk this over instead of starting a fight? I’m sure Tyrone can explain himself.”

“Lie some more, you mean?” she said.

He hoped Heather would keep her reactions to herself. “I didn’t know you’d found the dungeon. I wasn’t about to reveal that. Just like you didn’t tell us when you learned Heather needed training.”

“This would have helped her?”

“Dungeons are the best place to train. It’s why the adventurer’s guild controls all of them.”

“Not all of them,” she replied.

“All those they know about.”

“And how did you know about this one?”

“I didn’t until I found them. But I read a lot, and unlike the guild, I don’t assume I know everything about dungeons. There were details that made me think there would be one here.” He stepped away from the entrance. “If you want to do your run, we won’t stop you.”

Erik snorted. “Like you could stop us.”

“I’d be very careful of what you start, Erik,” Tibs warned.

“How do you know my name?”

“I asked around.” He cursed himself for the slip.

“I told him,” Lian said, cutting off Erik’s protest. The lie was smooth enough the others couldn’t know it was. If Tibs hadn’t been the recipient, without seeing the light on the words he wouldn’t have known.

“Why would you do that?” the man protested.

“Because Barkeep isn’t your name. And BK is a horrible moniker.”

“You don’t get to go around telling strangers my name, Lian.”

“Tyrone isn’t a stranger. He helped us.”

“He lied to us,” Rachel said. “Twice.”

“And we lied to him,” Lian countered. “He’s a thief. It’s what we do.”

“Rogue,” Tibs said. “As a runner, you’re a rogue, not a thief.”

“Read that in a book?” Erik mocked.

Tibs shook his head and channeled Water. “Learned it under the foot of the guild.”

They took a step back. Even Lian reached for the short sword at his belt.

“I’m not an enemy,” Tibs said. “In fact, if you’ll let me. I can help you.”

The exchange looks; then Rachel lowered her aim slightly. “How about you start with your name? Your real name?”

“No. You’ll have to be happy with Tyrone. You wouldn’t be able to tell if I lied again, so there’s no point.”

She ground her teeth, and Tibs thought she’d raised the bow again. “How can you help us?”

“How about you do your run? We can talk after that.”

“You might run while we’re in the dungeon,” Darna said.

“If we do, you aren’t any worse of then you are right now. But we won’t. Heather needs the runs.”

“You don’t?” Erik asked in a mocking tone.

“If it’s what I wanted,” Tibs replied, and decided to slip in a hint of what was to come for them. “I could run both the floors by myself.”

“That would break rules,” Karliak said.

“I knew there had to be a second floor,” Lian exclaimed. “I told you that cougar couldn’t be all there was.”

Rachel lowered her bow, but kept her distance as she edged to the entrance. The others followed her, Lian last and giving Tibs a grin before stepping inside.

Tibs cleared the snow by the edge of the trees and sat.

“That was a number of lies,” Heather said. “Just for you to end up saying you’d help.”

“She wasn’t going to back down unless she realized they couldn’t take us on, and once I showed I had an element, it made more sense to offer the help instead of fighting them.”

“Is that safe?”

“I doubt it. But it means you can build a team of your own.”

“I can be your rogue,” Ruppert said.

“Only if Tyrone explains to them what you are,” she said. “Even with a dungeon, they’re not going to accept a talking squirrel is normal.”

Ruppert climbed to Tibs chest and stared him in the eyes. “You are going to tell them. I want to have fun too.”

“I tell them, and someone might decide your core’s worth more than your help,” he countered. “Don’t worry, with Heather having a team, I’ll ask Karliak to let us do our own runs. You can be my rogue.”

“I don’t know if they’re going to want me on their team,” Heather said.

“There are other runners. One of them will be in need of a fighter.” He rested his head against the tree. “I hate this.”

“You’re the one who offered to help,” she said.

“Not that. They already have five to a team. Each table has five chairs, so they worked that part out. Probably from all those bards’ songs.”

“That’s how runner teams are.”

“Five’s a bad number.” He sighed. “People always die at that number.”

She watched him. “Your first runs must have been bad.”

He snorted. “Thrown in without any information. Thick shirts for armor, and expected to die instead of survive. Everyone I got to know died. Even later, I kept losing friends.”

“My dad experienced something like that, but he’d already seen bad stuff before that. He was in a king’s army. One of the bad kings the bards sing about. He was used to losing sword brothers by then.”

“My teams were the closest thing to a family I had. Each time I lost one, it was like losing Mama again. It fucking hurt. I thought about letting the dungeon eat me a few times, just to end the pain.”

“Why didn’t you?”

He looked at his hands, coated them in water, made a sword, added the jagged spikes. “I got my audience before I gave up, then I had a taste of power, and with that, I was going to avenge Mama.”

“Did you?”

He chuckled. “Haven’t figured out where I was taken from yet.” The chuckle died. “At this rate, her killers will be dust before I manage it.”

“How can you not know where you’re from?”

“I’m from the Street. But every city has one. I never left it, so don’t know about anything that makes it different from others. I traveled to a bunch of cities in Pursatia when the dungeon closed its door to add a floor. Never found the one that was home.”

“The guild should have that information.”

Tibs smiled. “The guild leader there didn’t care to know where the kids she was sending to their death came from. Then I made myself their enemy, and I doubt they’d be willing to help.”

“My dad would.”

“Before, or after he handed me over to the guild?”

“He wouldn’t—”

“He didn’t leave, Heather. As much as you saw he hated what he went through, he stayed. That means he’ll do what they want. They want me caught.”

She looked at him defiantly, but didn’t comment, which was the best he figured he’d get.

“Take your amulet,” he instructed. Something to do would let them both calm down. “Sense it. Your essence in it. How it’s like the essence in your reserve.”

She frowned, then nodded. “Do I move my essence in it like I did to prime it?”

Tibs looked and chuckled.

“What?” she said, annoyed.

“The first time I explained this, I got this ‘It can’t be done’ speech. How the amulet wasn’t his reserve, so it he couldn’t just want it there. He was pissed when he finally tried it and it worked. But there’s a bit more. You can take how you pull essence from outside you into your reserve, and—”

“Do that directly into this one,” she replied, smiling in amazement. “That means that if my reserve is full, I don’t have to bother with first moving that. What?” she demanded at his smile.

“It’s nice teaching someone who wasn’t told by those who know everything how things were. You’re fine with how I tell you things are, instead of demanding proof.”

She shrugged and closed her eyes, and Tibs settled in to wait

When Rachel’s team exited the dungeon, they were all injured. Darna was supporting Lian, and Korl, Erik.

“You should have seen them fight,” Karliak exclaimed as Tibs rushed to take Lian’s other side. “I really thought this time they’d defeat the floor boss. Erik almost died. He fought worse than usual. I think he’s angry about something. Can you heal them so they come back soon? Will you be back tomorrow?”

“I don’t think you’re going to let me and Heather do a run, will you, Rachel?”

“Once you’ve explained yourself. We’ll see.”

*

“I’m fine,” Lian complained as he hobbled to the table, Korl at his side. “I’ll heal fine. Zaphy said a few weeks and I’ll be running after everyone in town again.”

Tibs was impressed with the town’s herbalist. Tibs had made sure the Corruption didn’t stay in Lian and Erik’s body, otherwise it might have been too deep by the time they’d returned from the run to have their injuries to be properly looked after. But it also meant she had managed to heal a lot of the other runner’s injuries. Rachel’s team’s injuries would be closer to typical than unusual.

What the town needed was a cleric—each team should have one—but that wasn’t happening. They might not be part of the guild, but they were close enough they’d report the presence of the dungeon.

Erik was bedridden. The herbalist had threatened him with a horrible concoction if he left it before she said he was ready.

He was the four of them, Heather, and him, at the table. Tibs’s eyes had attracted more attention than Heather’s, but again. No one had commented.

“How can you help us?” Rachel demanded.

“How long have you been doing runs?” He couldn’t simply start with the audience without a way to explain how he knew they were ready. Or how he might think they were.

She considered him for a long time. “I found it a month after you left. I’d wandered further than usual chasing a deer,” she said, the words glowing. He expected she’d been searching for the chest where she’d gotten her arrowheads from. “I nearly died in that first room when the floor collapsed out from under me. Pure luck the edge I caught on didn’t also break.”

“Luck’s not a thing,” he and Heather said at the same time, and were stared at.

“I returned each day, figured out how some of the tiles.”

“Pavers,” Tibs said. “Tiles are smaller.”

She narrowed her eyes. “You going to correct me all the time?”

“Sorry.”

“In the beam room,” she paused, looking at Tibs. “I couldn’t think how I’d do that alone, so I brought Korl. He suggested Lian would be able to understand what it was. And he did. But we needed extra hands. So I asked Darna and BK to help.”

“Is that went others started going?” Heather asked.

“What do you mean?” Rachel said cautiously.

Heather looked at Tibs, who raised an eyebrow. He’d figured Rachel had told others in town once her team got the hang of it.

“Five chairs to each table,” Heather said. “Never seen a dining room where chairs weren’t moved around all the time. That tells me, teams. That means runners. It means more people found out, but you weren’t planning on telling anyone.”

Tibs stared at her. “How did you work that out?”

“She waited until she had no choice before bringing anyone else into her team. That tells me she planned on keeping the dungeon her, well, their secret. She made you promise not to tell anyone?”

The other nodded, and Heather smiled.

“I hunt people for a living. Working out how they think is what I do. It’s how I tracked you down, remember?”

“And nearly got yourself killed,” Tibs replied.

“I’m sorry,” Ruppert said, chittering sadly.

Heather rubbed the squirrel’s head. “It’s okay.”

Tibs stared at her.

“What? He sound sad. You aren’t going to comfort him, so I will.”

Ruppert moved to her shoulder with a smug look at Tibs.

“Rachel didn’t consider how weird it would be for neither Darna nor Erik to be behind the bar,” Lian said.

“You didn’t point it out either,” Rachel countered.

“I didn’t care who knew, remember? And I was busy thinking about how we weren’t going to kill ourselves under those beams. But we picked up a few stragglers. There were a lot of people here at the time, if you’ll remember, Ty.”

“Gregg demanded to know what we were up to in there. When we exited. So we brought him the next time.” She became somber. “He was crushed under the beams.”

“An accident?” Heather asked, and was glared at angrily.

“What does that mean?” Rachel demanded.

“You wanted to keep the dungeon—”

“I would never kill someone!”

Tibs placed a hand on Heather’s and shook his head. None of Rachel’s words glowed.

“And it wouldn’t have done any good,” Korl continued. “He wasn’t the only one who knew. It took a few weeks before anyone noticed, but people started going missing.”

“Not missing,” Darna said. “They walked out of town and didn’t return. Most figured they’d had enough of the overcrowding and left for a better place.”

“Except,” Lian continued. “None of them took their things with them. And some returned. Only to leave a few days later with different people.”

“It wasn’t until one of them offered to sell me arrowheads that I worked out where they were going,” Rachel said. “He’d found the hidden compartment in the first room, and decided that if he sacrificed people to the dungeon, it rewarded him with stuff.”

“What did you do with him?” Tibs asked as Heather opened her mouth.

The team looked uncomfortable.

“He murdered them,” Lian finally said. “In a city, that gets you drawn and quartered, according to the songs.”

“What did you do?”

“I fed him to the dungeon,” Korl stated. His words didn’t glow.

“We were going—” Lian started.

“I did it. You hadn’t reached a decision. I didn’t wait. I dragged him there, broke a tile, threw him in and left.”

Karliak had lied to him.

Karliak had protected one of his teams.

Tibs wasn’t sure if he was impressed or annoyed.

He’d still need to have a talk with them about this.

“What would you have done?” Korl demanded.

“I don’t know,” he said once he had his emotions under control.

“You’ve killed killer,” Heather stated.

“They were bandits and thugs. This….” He sighed. “He didn’t know what he was dealing with. That the rewards were there, regardless.”

Heather snorted. “He wouldn’t have cared. The way they said it, he was doing that every day. No hesitation, no wrestling with if he should continue. Were they lying?”

Tibs shook his head. “And it’s done. So nothing will be gained from dwelling on it.” He looked at Rachel.

“After that, we figured we needed to take control. We found people we could trust and took them to the dungeon, explained what we were doing.”

“Maylicia is who told us what we were actually doing,” Darna said. “She was from the city and had heard songs about dungeons and people going in and getting stronger.”

The team exchanged another look. Even if they didn’t give Tibs a timeframe, that would be enough for him to say he thought they were ready. They could feel someone was different about them.

He hadn’t experienced it, because the guild had had him have his audience as soon as he was ready. Heather had probably thought it was from the work she put into chasing him. And the training before that, and it would have been gradual enough she might not have noticed it. But they’d gone from flimsy, barely visible life essence through their bodies to something that stood out among others. Even without an element, that had to do something to them.

“She’s the one who said teams are always five people,” Lian added.

“That’s not actually true,” Tibs said. “It’s just how the guild does it, and since they’re the only ones managing dungeons, no one knows different.”

“But you do?” Rachel asked in disbelief.

“We’ve been doing it just the two of us,” Heather said.

“Mostly you on your own,” Tibs corrected. “I only helped with the beam room because like Rachel said. It’s not something one person can manage.”

“So, we could all go in together and get through the floor?” Korl asked.

“Who gets the rewards then?” Darna asked. “If thirty of us go in, how do we split the little the dungeon gives us?” she looked at Tibs. “Maybe we don’t have to limit the teams to five, but there has to be a reason the adventurer’s guild does it.”

“The classes,” he said. “They divide people into five groups. Fighters, Rogue, Sorcerers, Archers, and Clerics. And they build their times with one of each, unless they can’t get Clerics, then they allow another class to take that place.”

“So, what classes are we?” Korl asked.

“Fighter, fighter, rogue, archer,” Heather said. “I’m a fighter. Tyrone is a rogue.”

“The classes are meaningless,” Tibs said. “They’re an arbitrary thing the guild put in place just so they could get people to do things in one specific way, making it easier for them to run things. About the one place where it had a bit of a bearing, it’s when it comes to identifying better ways to teach essence work to the Runners. Fighters do tend to think the same, so they use essence in similar way. Same with rogues, sorcerers, and archers. But it also limits what they can do. They’re told this is the way things go, so they don’t try to come up with different ways to do it.”

“Someone doesn’t like the adventurer’s guild,” Liam said, smiling.

“Maybe you missed how I described it as being under their foot. They didn’t expect me or the other Omegas to survive and made that clear. Our only role was to feed the dungeon so better Runners could benefit. Every step, they made sure we couldn’t walk away from them, even while promising us we could gain freedom. So, no, I don’t like the guild. If I had the power, I’d—” he stopped himself and forced his breathing to slow.

“Can you tell us why none of us has magic yet?” Rachel asked. “May said it happens with dungeons, but no matter what we’ve done, our eyes are still normal.”

“The runs are only one part of it. It strengthens you. They used an enchanted crystal to know when we were ready, but I can tell you’re probably there by your reactions. You feel that you’re stronger, don’t you?”

Lian grinned. “And anyone I take to bed.”

“So you’re ready to have your audience.”

“What’s an audience?” Darna asked.

“A very dangerous thing,” Tibs replied.