Tibs paused as soon as he was through the broken window and extended his sense until it covered the entire house.
It was at the edge of the part of Kragle Rock the townsfolk had started referring to as the poor neighborhood, some called it Broken Place. Whatever others called it, Tibs knew the Street when he looked down on it. What he couldn’t understand was how his town had acquired it.
But that was something to be dealt with later.
Like so many things he needed to handle.
While not within the confines of the Street, the house was still neglected. It made for a good location for one of the guards to want to meet in secret, or for them to set a trap for him.
He only sensed one person, two floors below, on the ground floor, along with three dogs lounging at her feet.
He relaxed slightly and headed for the partially opened door. He thought he could trust Serba, but she was a Wells. Jackal had made a point of reminding Harry that Wells either led or followed. Tibs wasn’t sure if being the head of her pack of dogs made her a leader. Or whose orders she followed if it didn’t.
He moved cautiously along the hall to the stairs, alert for anything odd within his sense, or sounds out of place. He knew enough about essence not to believe darkness was the only element that allowed someone to remain undetected. From what he’d seen, every element could do its version of what any other elements did, if the user was strong and knowledgeable enough.
The guild certainly was both.
Halfway down the stairs to the ground floor, a dog growled and Serba stood. Next time she asked for a secret meeting, Tibs wasn’t trusting to his skills to remain hidden. He had darkness, so he should use it.
Serba had a hand on her sword when Tibs stepped into the lamp’s light. It was well made; he sensed reflexively, better made than what the other guards carried. Keeping alert for blades destined for his back had made him notice the differences in the way the essence aligned in the metal that told of its quality. This was so well aligned that Tibs had to pay close attention to sense it wasn’t the work of active essence, but something of how high its quality was.
“You just can’t help sneaking around, can you?” she said, moving her hand off the pommel.
“I have to be careful when your commander considers me a troublemaker.”
“You saying you aren’t?” she said with a snort, sitting. He joined her at the table, and Thump nuzzled his leg as soon as he sat.
“I’m doing what I have to, so the town’s safe.” He broke the jerky into smaller pieces and dropped them on the floor. A second dog, lean and golden furred, joined Thump, while she kept a hand on the third, the large black one he’d seen her with recently. “Why did you want to meet?”
“I thought you’d want to know where your stuff’s kept. The equipment that was confiscated a few weeks ago,” she added at his frown.
Getting that back would be good. It would let him equip the new teams until his first batch arrived. “Where are they?”
“The floor below the cells.”
He frowned. “I didn’t know there was a floor under them.”
“Neither did I until I was part of the team that raided a supply of Rest Weed a few days ago. We had to bring that there directly instead of to the usual processing team. When you reach the bottom of the stairs leading to the cells, it’s that door on the left before the guards.”
“There isn’t a door on the left,” Tibs stated. “Just a corridor on the right that leads to the room they keep the equipment they take off us for our stay.”
“No, there’s a door there. The stairs are beyond it. At the bottom there’s a clerk who wrote down everything we brought in. It’s also who has the key that opens the door where everything is kept. I can’t tell you where beyond that your stuff will be, but that’s where everything confiscated ends up.”
Tibs narrowed his sense to her, but she had nothing enchanted. He sensed the dogs, since she might not think he’d considered she’d hide it there. Nothing.
“Did they give any of you something before you headed there?”
“No, why?”
“Have you noticed how the dimensions inside the guild building always seem to change?”
“I don’t have reasons to go there often.” She considered something. “But something did feel odd when I did.”
“Irdian said it’s part of the building’s security.”
“How did you get him to tell you that?”
Tibs stared at her. “I asked.”
“And he just told you?” she replied suspiciously.
“He wanted me to understand how hopeless any thought I might have to break in was. Probably so I didn’t try to get my stuff back. Maybe those enchantments do more than make the dimensions different. Maybe they hide part of the building. There was no door on the left anytime they took me to the cells.”
“But there was one for me.” She was thoughtful. “Can they really do that?”
Tibs chuckled. “The dungeon lets us bypass entire floors by walking through a doorway. Someone with light as their element can make shapes and colors out of it, so the guild hiding a door isn’t something I even question.” Although he was curious about how they’d hidden the difference in the weave.
She nodded. “Then it must have been Adjutant Roche who had whatever let us through. He met us at the guild’s entrance and was with us the entire time.”
“Who is he?”
“He’s one of the commander’s subordinate if he’s in charge of something like that.”
“Can you get me more information on him? I’ll need it to get whatever it is that lets him make that door visible.”
She considered it, then stood. “I’ll see what I can find out.”
* * * * *
Again.
He sighed. He was tired of these attempts to kill him. Each one meant he had to waste time dealing with leading the would be assassin somewhere discrete, deal with the attempt and then dispose of the body. None of that took long anymore, but it was still time better spent working toward making his plans happen.
He walked among the crowd, using the large amount of corruption on them to keep track of the assassin tailing him, until an alley he knew was rarely used, between the tannery and dyeing shop, came into view.
He picked up speed as soon as he was in it, making it two building in before the assassin stepped into the alley. He turned and pulled darkness from his bracer to wrap around himself before stepping into the nook of a doorway.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
The woman who hurried by him could be a merchant’s wife. She wore a dress that seemed utilitarian, in spite of the frill to the fabric. He sensed knives and poisons among its folds, and it could contain other things he didn’t know could be used to kill.
That string of metal that he’d ignored would have killed him when that assassin wrapped it around his neck, if metal could hurt him anymore. A garrote, Darran had told him it was when Tibs had showed him the string with the wooden handles at each end.
He stepped behind her and placed his hand on the back of her neck. He absorbed her life essence before she was done turning, reaching for a knife, and her lifeless body dropped at his feet. He considered searching her. She could be the one with a clue on how to end these attempts, but it would be more time he didn’t have, so he softened the ground until she disappeared under it. He let her fall below the building’s foundation to ensure she wouldn’t be accidentally dug up, then hardened the ground until it was as it had been.
Then he continued on his way.
* * * * *
Tibs watched the team step away from the check table after receiving the meager coppers the guild let them keep for walking out of the dungeon whole, if not uninjured. The one in the lead was their archer; lean and angry looking. The sorcerer was a petite girl who might barely be older than Tibs. The rogue was on par with the archer in age, but she looked happier. The two fighters looked the same, reminding him of Duhur and Duran, the twins Don had kept around in the early days.
“Hi,” he greeted, not moving from the shop he leaned against as they approached. The look the archer gave him was filled with mistrust. “I’m—”
“I know who you are, Light Fingers,” he said harshly. “None of them can shut about the heroes in this abyss of a place.” He motioned to the building and tents.
Tibs nodded. “I’d like to make you an offer.”
The archer snorted. “No thanks. I’ve got enough of dealing with the last offer someone from this place made me.”
“Greg,” the sorcerer said, sounding older than she looked. “We should at least hear what he had to offer. It’s not like we have to say yes.”
“And you’re going to believe one word he says?” Greg snapped. “I believed them, when they said that if I went with the guards, they’d take me to a better place, where I wouldn’t have to worry about what people thought of who my family had been. Where I’d be free and the people there would see to it I had a roof over my head, food on my plate and skills to learn. Not one of them mentioned that thing.” He pointed to the dungeon’s entrance.
“The guild lies,” Tibs agreed.
“And you work for them, don’t you? Hero of Cracked Rock?”
“It’s Kragle Rock.”
The archer snorted.
“I don’t work for them. I’m a Runner like you. I protect the town because the guild won’t. They’re just claiming they do and using what we, Runners do, as their own.”
“And you’re letting them?” the rogue asked.
“What can I do to stop them?” Tibs replied with a shrug.
“What are you offering?” one of the fighters asked.
“You seriously want to hear his lies?” the archer asked, and Tibs waited for them to come to an agreement.
“I’m with Ashan,” the fighter said. “We aren’t risking anything by listening to him. Blue means water, right? It’s not like that can do anything to make us think differently.”
“You think magic’s needed to make you believe lies?” the archer asked. “What did they tell you to get you to come here?”
“Nothing,” the other fighter said. “They gathered us out of the camp the prisoners were kept in, and escorted us here. It wasn’t until that guy told us all what this place is about that we found out.”
“And no,” the twin said as the archer opened his mouth, “we aren’t okay with it, but me and my brother plan on surviving. I figure that if one of them’s willing to help, the least I have to do is listen.”
The other nodded, and the archer threw his hand up. “Fine.” He faced Tibs. “What are you offering?”
Tibs was impressed. His team had decided the opposite of what he wanted, and instead of storming away, he went with it. Now to see if he could convince them to accept his offer, because this was one team he had high hopes for.
* * * * *
Tibs pushed the wall, and revealed the corridor on the left, which opened to the room with the chest. He checked it for traps, then opened it and left the others to handle its content.
The exit had closed, like the previous time. On the opposite side, two tiles further in, he put his hands on the wall, but paused. If he was wrong about that part of the pattern, this could lock his friends in.
He pushed. He wasn’t wrong. He listened, and as he expected, there were no echoes of another wall moving.
“That was dangerous,” Don said, standing in the opening to the chest room.
“No. I knew nothing would happen.” He walked to the end of the hall and pushed the wall facing him instead of taking the left turn. It didn’t move.
On the previous run, it had moved four tiles until it stopped, and the right wall had moved two, then revealed the switch with a dragon crest over it. It had opened the entrance again. The only difference between then and now was that wall he’d pushed one tile in.
And that they hadn’t fought the golem people, but this would tell him if that fight was part of the pattern or not. Looking over his shoulder, his team was in the hall.
“Push that wall until it stops.”
Jackal did so, and with the first grumbling, came an echo Tibs couldn’t locate. It moved again, without one this time.
“It’s not moving anymore,” Jackal called. “You want me to push the one on the left, like last time?”
“That triggered another attack,” Mez pointed out as Tibs was about to say yes, since that was part of what he needed to test. Tibs had forgotten about that one.
“Let me get in place.” He could test the wall after the fight.
Tibs stood in the opening and nodded to Jackal and focused on sensing through the miasma. He knew what to expect, what he needed was to be able to—there. He looked up and made out the shimmering on the ceiling as a team of golem people dropped through it, turning in his direction.
With a curse, Tibs stepped back, the fighter and rogue landing closer than he’d expected. Like the previous run, they both had earth as their element. Tibs jumped to the side as the rogue threw the manifested knife. He cursed again as he remembered Don. It meant he couldn’t coat his sword with corruption as a way to get through the protection their element granted them.
Tibs formed a shield and readied himself as the sorcerer stepped into the hallway his friends were in, only to fly out, Jackal trailing behind it. Fire hit the archer, staggering it back. Then Tibs had to focus on his fight, blocking the fighter’s sword while slashing at the rogue.
He jumped back, then ducked to let Khumdar swing his darkness covered staff over him, sending the rogue stumbling aside. Out of the corner of his eyes, lightning jumped from the sorcerer’s hand as he blocked the fighter’s attack with his shield, moving away from the cleric taking on the rogue.
The fighter raised its arm for another attack, and Tibs took advantage of the opening. Stabbing forward and lengthening his sword until it pierced the golem’s chest. Unlike with a real person, all this caused was for it to lose some of the life essence that powered it.
“Tibs,” Don called as he pulled his sword out. “Out of the way.”
He threw himself at the rogue focused on Khumdar, and together, they dispatched it quickly. The fighter was already melting under the corruption and, with an angry cry, Jackal broke the sorcerer in two. His armor was scorched and smoking where the lightning hit it. The archer and other fighter were already broken and absorbed by the dungeon.
“Lightning,” Don said, indicating the crumbling sorcerer. “Earth, earth, wood.” He pointed to where the archer must have been, by the quiver that remained. “And metal. The same as the two fights on our last run. Is it a coincidence?”
“Can it be, if the dungeon makes everything in here?” Jackal asked.
“Only the loot in the chests is random,” Tibs added. “Everything else happens because the dungeon wants it to.” He headed for the end of the hall and pushed the wall. “Anytime something changes, it’s because the dungeon is reacting to us getting too good.” Four tiles, and he pushed the wall on the right. “We must not be there yet.” Twice and the switch was exposed. He pulled it and heard a wall move.
“The exit’s open,” Mez called.
“I know.” Tibs returned to the corridor leading to the chest room and tried the wall on that left. This time, it didn’t move, confirming his suspicion. “If we open the exit, we are locking the room and can’t continue.”
“It makes sense the dungeon is going to limit our options,” Don said.
“So we have to decide if we leave or continue this early in the room?” Jackal asked. “Or do we have to proceed while making sure the lever remained accessible?”
“I…” Don seemed to have trouble with how much Jackal had said, “don’t think so. It seems overly complicated.”
“We do not know if a passage we have opened can then be closed in opening a further one or if those can then be opened again,” Khumdar said.
“Because of that, I expect there are multiple switches,” Don said, “and each one will be a chance for us to pick between leaving and continuing. We’re going to have to test that with the next switch we find.”
Tibs nodded.
“And since you pulled the switch,” Jackal said. “It means this run’s done. At least we got the loot from that chest and a fight out of it.”
“And there are going to be more on the way out,” Mez added.
“The wall couldn’t move until after the chest room was open,” Tibs said.
“That’s what you were checking,” Don said, thoughtfully. “That means we need to build a map of our progress and what the stages are where each wall can be moved.”
“I’m putting you in charge of that,” Jackal said, heading for the exit. “Good job dealing with that fighter.”
“Thank you,” the sorcerer replied uncertainly. “It was simpler, since its attention was on Tibs initially.”
“Maybe we need to do that all the time,” Mez said. “Have Tibs distract them so we can take them from the back.”
“That only works if I tell you an attack is coming,” Tibs replied, following Jackal.
“Keeping that information to yourself is an easy way to end up not having help dealing with it,” Don pointed out.
“Nah,” Mez replied. “Jackal’s always going to be there to rescue him.”
“I thought it was Tibs who kept rescuing him,” Don said.
“We give and take,” Tibs said.
“It is how healthy relationships a built,” Khumdar pointed out.
“I already have a man!” Jackal called. “And Tibs’s basically my brother, so no trying to make him my special guy.”//