Tibs hit the wall, and the pain that erupted from his shoulder broke his concentration. He stopped pulling in air, channeling earth as he stood so he could—

Tibs was sent off his feet again by the wagon tipping back on its wheels and he suffused himself with earth before he hit another wall and—

Pain exploded from the impact, and his vision blurred.

His essence was still within his reserve.

He stayed on the floor, channeling purity and attempting to suffuse himself, but he couldn’t get it to move past his reserve’s wall. His reserve wasn’t full, it wasn’t even half-full, but that shouldn’t matter. The walls weren’t really walls, just how his mind thought of how the essence remained there, instead of escaping as soon as he pulled it in. All he had to do was will it outside of it and—

Nothing happened.

The sounds outside resolved themselves into fighting as he applied a weave of purity to his head and shoulder. Then he could think clearly enough to be surprised it had worked. The fighting was over quickly, the wagon’s guards easily dealing with the bandits. He was surprised there were some this close to the town. They hadn’t been traveling for that long.

When the door darkened, Tibs channeled water and made a sword of ice, its edges jagged. Attempting to add metal to it only resulted in a thin strand of it from the small reserve, which he moves to the edge. His will was all he needed to make his weapon harder. The darkening took on a purple coloring, and Tibs realized it was corruption eating away at the door.

How had bandits gotten their hands on vials of corrupt—

“Almost there.”

As muffled as the voice was, Tibs thought he knew it.

“The guards are unconscious,” an older man said. Again, it was familiar, even if it sounded as if there was a wall of stone separating them, instead of wood.

“Come on,” a third man said, sounding exasperated. “Why is this taking so abyss long? I thought you were good at this.”

“How about I stop,” the first speaker replied, “and you take over? Let’s see just how quickly you get through the enchantments.”

It was the tone and the banter that placed who they were, and Tibs was still staring in surprise when the door melted away to reveal a grinning Don.

Jackal looked in. “Don’t just stand there. We need to go.”

Tibs launched himself at the fighter, hugging him fiercely. “You’re okay!”

“Of course I am. How could I mount this rescue otherwise?”

“Right,” Don drolled. “Because you’ve been doing this alone.”

“I thought Irdian would throw you in a cell when you left Sto.”

“Why would he?” Jackal asked, grinning. “I was nowhere near the dungeon during all that time.”

“The Commander questioned each of us,” Khumdar said, “but, as we knew nothing of what you had done, he had to let us go.”

“Didn’t he use someone with light?” Tibs asked Jackal, who shrugged.

“It was just him and me, along with the guard who escorted me there when they pulled me out of Kro’s bed.” He grinned. “I don’t think they expected to catch us having as much fun as we were having.”

“So you lied?”

His friend rolled his eyes. “Of course I lied, Tibs.”

“And he believed you?”

“Why wouldn’t he?”

“The guards at the door recognized you.”

“They had to have been mistaken. If I’d been in the dungeon and didn’t make it out before the door closed, I’d be dead. Everyone knows that.”

“Mayhap it is best this conversation be had once we are away,” Khumdar said, cutting off Tibs’s questions and reminding him of the situation. “I do not know how long the guards will remain unconscious. They are adventurers and may be able to—”

“They’re Epsilon,” Tibs said, surprised that there were only two of them, as well as the fact he could sense to the front of the wagon, and around them. His sense didn’t seem affected by what had been done to him. “Not much past their test.”

“Then, while they should remain unconscious for some time, I none the less advise that we leave.” The cleric pointed sunrise-ward “if we hurry we can reach the forest before they awaken.”

“Stop.” Tibs yanked his arm out of Jackal’s grip as the fighter pulled on him. “What are you doing?”

“Breaking you out.” Jackal grinned. “What does this look like?”

“It looks like the three of you are throwing your future away,” Tibs replied. “Where’s Mez?”

They exchanged a look.

“We didn’t tell him,” Jackal said.

“After we were questioned,” Don continued, “Mez laid into me, demanding to know if I knew what you were planning, and how I could let you go through with something so childish. Unlike the Commander, he didn’t believe me when I said I had no idea this was going to happen.”

Jackal shrugged. “I just figured that since he had that girl trying so hard to be special to him, I wasn’t going to—”

“Good.” Tibs didn’t need to hear more. “Who knows you’re here?”

“Well, Kro,” Jackal said in an ‘I’m not an idiot,’ tone.

Don and Khumdar shook their heads when Tibs looked at them.

“Good. Then, so long as you can get back into town without being seen, now one will know you were involved in this.”

“Not happening,” Jackal stated. “If you think I’m leaving you alone after what you had the dungeon do, you can forget it. Out there isn’t like—”

“You are going back to Kroseph,” Tibs told his friend.

Jackal rolled his eyes. “Not happening.”

“I am not going to be responsible for your man losing you.”

“Come on, Tibs. This isn’t that—”

“You promised him you’d stop doing stupid stuff.”

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

“Rescuing you isn’t stupid, Tibs. You’re my brother. Did you think I was going to leave them to do whatever they’re planning on doing to with at that citadel thing?”

“You’ve rescued me,” Tibs stated. “Now you can go back. You coming along is stupid.”

“How can you say that!”

“Because I have this!” Tibs pulled the sleeve up his left wrist and showed the utterly black band on against his light brown skin.

“Just keep it covered, then.”

“That’s not how it works; they can follow it. Bardik told me it leaves something wherever it goes. If you stay with me, they’ll find out and Kroseph is going to lose you. That isn’t happening!” he yelled as Jackal opened his mouth.

Khumdar studied him. “Is this truly what you want?”

“It’s what’s best.”

“No, it isn’t,” Jackal said. “I don’t abandon—”

“You’re going to pick Kroseph over me,” Tibs told him.

“Tibs…” Jackal’s voice cracked.

Tibs breathed his frustration down. “He’s your man,” he said, as gently as he could. “I’m just your brother.”

“You’re not just—”

“He’s more important than I am.”

Jackal tried to speak, then turned to the sorcerer. “Don, how about you help me here?”

Tibs looked at the sorcerer. “Are you going to sacrifice the academy for me?”

“Don, this is Tibs. You can’t seriously—”

“Look, Jackal,” Don cut him off, tone sharp. “Unlike you, I’m not an adventurer. I went along with this because I knew you were going to be stupid and get caught if you tried it alone. But I can’t run from the guild. They aren’t going to let this go. They are never going to stop chasing Tibs and anyone who helped him escape. We’d have to live in the wild and—”

“You’re a Runner,” Jackal said. “How are you scared of any of that?”

“I didn’t want to be a Runner,” Don snapped. “If I’d been given a choice, I’d have done whatever I could to go back to being a scholar once I was finally out of that cell. My future is in books, trying to figure out why things work the way they do.” He caught his breath. “If Tibs had asked us to go with him, I…I don’t know what I would have said, but he doesn’t want us to. So, I’m going back and I’ll do everything I can for whoever who takes over from Tirania to never notice me. As soon as I’m Epsilon, I will never leave the academy.”

“And you are going to spend yours with Kroseph,” Tibs said.

Jackal searched Tibs’s face. “Don’t do this to me, Tibs.”

“I’m doing it for you.”

Jackal looked at the cleric. “You aren’t bound to the guild. You can go with him and make sure he’s safe.”

“I cannot.”

Jackal glared at him.

“While you are correct in that I am not bound to the guild, I am bound to others. You may have forgotten, but I too am not here of my own volition. I have a task to accomplish before I will be allowed to leave.”

Jackal took a breath. “Tibs, you can’t do this alone.”

Tibs squeezed his friend’s arm. “I’ll be okay. I’m a rogue, well I guess it’s thief now, but I’m still the best at not getting caught, and I have tricks they don’t know about.”

“Do you?” Don asked. “I thought the process that puts the band on you stripped away your strength.”

“I’m Upsilon. But I still know everything I learned. All I need to do is train and get stronger. The world’s big, so there’s going to be a lot of big and dangerous animals in it for me to fight and get stronger.”

“But only if they don’t catch you,” the sorcerer said.

Tibs smiled. “I have a couple if things I’m going to try that should help with that.” He shook his head when Don opened his mouth. He wasn’t saying what they were.

“Tibs,” Jackal pleaded. “Don’t do this.”

Tibs hugged him. “It’s how it has to be. You have to be here for your man. Tell him I’ll be okay.”

Jackal hugged him tightly. When Tibs pushed him toward the town, Jackal took a step back, eyes wet, before turning, squaring his shoulders and walking away.

“Tibs,” Don said, then hesitated.

“I did this,” Tibs replied. “I’m the only one who needs to deal with the consequences.”

“You should have told me what you were planning.”

“I know. You’d have told me Marger wasn’t the right person to bring down the guild.”

Don’s laugh was bitter. “I’d have told you that isn’t how the guild works.” He sighed. “Look. Before you try something this stupid again, read up on the guild. Its history, how it’s run. Then you’ll understand just how impossible what you want is.”

“You’re saying I should just let them abuse people like the folks in Kragle Rock? Those like us who just made the mistake of trying to survive, no matter how we had to do it? Of those like you, who the world tried to crush?”

“Tibs, I know you want to help, but it’s impossible.”

He smiled. “When we got here, they said our job was to die. Only we didn’t. They said it’s impossible to have more than one element. That the dungeon’s nothing more than a crafty animal. The guild knows so much stuff that isn’t true that I’m not going to let the fact they think they’re too big to be taken down stop me. Sebastian thought he was unbeatable, too.”

“Be careful.” Don walked away without looking back.

Khumdar studied him. “I wish I could say that I will see you again one day, Tibs. But I suspect this is the last time.”

“You think I’m going to die.”

The cleric looked at the wagon, then ahead on the road. “I…” he shook his head, as if to clear it.

“What are you doing in Kragle Rock?” Tibs asked.

“I am no longer certain.” The man forced a smile that didn’t last. “But I am none the less bound to finish it, if I wish to go on with my life.”

“You don’t have to keep going. We can all change things.”

“I believe you know that is not always possible,” Khumdar said, tone sad. “If you didn’t, you would change this course. You know there are few options as to where it leads.” He pointed sunrise-ward again. “Follow the morning sun for three days and you will find yourself upon a camp. They are bandits, but they are not bad people. Tell them you need shelter from the forces of order and they will help you as best they can.”

He took a step to turn and stopped. The cleric looked at the wagon again, then the road. “I believe there is something you must know, Tibs, although I do not know its meaning. This wagon was wrapped within a secret that unraveled when I incapacitated the drivers. They are not the cause, but they were its instrument, I believe. Be wary, whatever else you are.”

He walked off, leaving Tibs alone with the wagon, two unconscious guards, the horses and the content of the bench, that turned out to be a chest. A chest containing his armor.

Dealing with the guards posed him a quandary. The expedient thing for him to do was drain them and use their essence to strengthen himself the way he’d done accidentally with Bardik. He couldn’t tell if they had enough essence to get his reserve to crack, now that it was so much deeper than with Bardik, but…

Even if it could help. They didn’t deserve that. Maybe if they’d been stronger, Tibs could have convinced himself they were complicit in many of the horrible things the guild did, but how much could they have seen, as newly past their Epsilon test as they were by the feel of their essence.

He used darkness to ensure they’d remain unconscious while he put his armor and bracers on. The reserves in them had been drained, so he refilled them. All the hidden places on his armor were empty. It had been too much to hope they’d missed some coins. But it was in better shape than when he’d last taken it off, so the enchantments were still working.

Feeling like a proper Runner, he looked at the wagon. He needed to do something about it. Something that would remove any doubt he’d gotten himself out of it without help.

First the horses. Tibs didn’t want them injured in this. He weakened the metal rings attaching the harness to the wagon, then coated his arms with earth for extra strength and pulled on the leather until they broke and freed the horses.

Who remained where they were.

Didn’t they realize they were free? Or were they so used to being the guild’s tools they didn’t understand there was an alternative?

He exploded a small fire, and they fled in fear.

He stepped back inside the wagon, absorbing the corruption that had been left behind. The weave was still there, so this would take all he had, just as if he’d done it without help.

He filled the wagon with water, then added more, and more, and more. The walls held, so he made an etching. Something simple, lines of essence crossing over and over again, with a filigree of Ike, spaced with Ool just far enough apart it gave him time to finish before—

“Ouch.” Reflexively, Tibs tried to suffuse himself with purity as he rolled and pushed himself to all fours. He glared at the tree that had ended his flight and caused him pain. He made purity weaves and applied them to all the places that hurt, then he looked at what was left of the wagon.

The only piece he recognized was the seat, many paces ahead of where it had been. The top ripped off, so its content would have spilled. It provided an explanation as to how Tibs would have known about his armor.

The guards, on the side of the road, were a problem again. Unless they were cowards and had jumped, they couldn’t have landed there. He looked at where the seat was. They’d need to be in that area, but he couldn’t simply carry them there. The explosion would have done that.

He hoped this wouldn’t hurt them too much.

He made the etching out of air, under them, and directed toward the wagon’s seat, then let it explode. He winced as they both landed badly, then checked they had survived. Broken bones, but no leaking essence.

Would the guild believe Tibs had let them live?

They’d have to, because he wasn’t killing them.

He studied them. Would they believe this wasn’t a ruse to hide they had helped him escape?

Again, they’d have to believe what they wanted. Hopefully, his friend had been smart enough not to reveal who they were. He should have asked how they had subdued them. But it was too late now.

Tibs looked sunrise-ward and considered Khumdar’s words. There was help in that direction, but all he’d bring to them as thanks would be the guild’s wrath. He turned sunset-ward and started walking, weaving darkness over and within the brand.

Until he was certain this worked, the best he could do was avoid everyone.

And thus ends Breaking Step, as well as Arc 1 in the Dungeon Runner series, Tibs of Kragle Rock.

Tibs’s story will continue in Stepping Wild, the first book in the second arc of the series, Tibs of the Wilds.