Tibs bypassed the guard’s shield, planted the sword in its chest, and pulled up, cutting it and making it lose the last of the essence animating it. It crumbled as it fell back, then all that was left behind were a handful of silver coins.
“Is it just me?” Mez asked, flaming arrow in his bow, searching for more targets. “Or have the numbers of guards we keep running into increased?”
“He’s making up for not using magic,” Tibs said, picking up the coins.
“Or,” Don said. “The city’s authorities have realized criminals are roaming the streets, and are looking to stamp that down.” He looked up from the cut in his arm at the staring archer. “It’s just a thought.”
“And we’re the criminals in those thoughts?” Mez asked unhappily.
“What would you call a gang going around, breaking into every house and stealing anything of value?”
“Who’s paying the protection money?” Jackal asked.
“That’s not how that works,” Mez replied.
The fighter stared at him. “How else do they keep the city from devolving into chaos?”
“Laws,” Mez replied, raising a finger and sounding like he didn’t understand why he had to explain it. “Order, enforcement, and the sentencing of those to don’t obey them.”
“So, Tyranny,” Jackal said flatly.
“No. A fair system with fair laws and corresponding punishment to motivate people not to engage in criminal activities.”
Jackal snorted.
“Tibs, where do you stand on city order versus chaos?” Don asked.
He shrugged. “My street was chaos run by criminals. I never went outside of it to know what the rest of the city was like.”
“Forget other cities,” Mez said in exasperation. “Look at Kragle Rock. The laws are—”
“We’re slaves to the guild,” Jackal cut him off. “Sent in the dungeon to either die or become stronger, so they can use us against whatever gets in their way. I think you’re proving my point.”
“Okay, that’s fair,” the archer admitted. “But for the folks living there, they don’t—”
“The guards don’t bother stopping thieves from breaking into their houses,” Jackal stated.
“But that’s just so they can train,” Mez said. “They don’t take anything.”
“Because I don’t let them,” Tibs said. “And Irdian wants the guards to catch us. We’re just better than they are.”
“Which proves my point even more.” Jackal beamed. “And remember, the nobles have their own guards against the city’s orders. That doesn’t speak to a—”
“Fine!” Mez snapped. “You made your point. There’s nothing that can be done. The world’s a breath away from falling into never ending chaos.”
“That isn’t what Jackal is saying,” Don said in a conciliatory tone.
“It kind of is,” the fighter objected.
“The world isn’t about to fall into chaos,” Don insisted, glaring at the fighter. “But that isn’t because criminals get stamped out. Criminals exist within an ecosystem alongside the rest of society. By their nature, the strongest ones get challenged and either defeat—”
“Kill,” Jackal said.
“Those weaker, or are replaced, increasing the chaos and leading to more people challenging them, keeping that chaos mostly contained. Even when they are able to keep everyone in their place, it’s still a disorganized system, which can easily fall right back into a contained chaos. It leads to a system that isn’t particularly effective as disrupting the rest of a city. Jackals family, who has f—”
“Had,” Jackal interrupted him.
“Had a firm hold over the criminal element, let them be more efficient in affecting the city, but even they were careful not to upset the balance so much that—”
“Fine!” Mez snapped and walked a few paces off.
“Don,” Jackal asked in the stretching silence, “where does a city like this keep its coffers?”
“The banks,” the sorcerer replied dismissively.
“No, the city’s coffers.”
Don pulled his attention from the sulking archer. “The banks should hold some of the city’s money. The rest?” he considered. “Probably spread throughout the offices, with most at the city hall, I guess.”
“Shouldn’t we try to find to boss room instead?” Tibs asked. “There’s going to be more loot there.”
“Yes, but you and Don had been going on about how the dungeon is treating this floor like it’s a real city. I figure that it’s going to put the boss in the most important building, and what’s more important to a city than its coffers?”
“That’s…not an unreasonable assumption,” Don said, sounding surprised.
“I’m going to ignore the disbelief and say thanks,” Jackal replied, grinning. “So, where is it?”
“I don’t know,” the sorcerer replied.
“Don’t ask me,” Tibs said, as Jackal looked at him. “Unless it’s a hall in a city, I don’t know what a city hall is.”
“Wouldn’t that be at the end of the main road?” Mez said from where he stood, sounding annoyed at contributing to the conversation.
“That’s only true when a city’s young,” Don replied. “Like how before Market Place became thing, we could go from the guild building to the dungeon on one road. But Market place broke that. And that becomes more pronounced as a city grows. Which road is the main one will change as more important buildings are established.”
“You read too much,” Mez grumbled.
“And that’s even more true when you remember this is a city created by a dungeon. It might know city hall is a thing from listening to Runners, but I doubt where that building is in a city would come up in those conversations.”
“What you’re saying,” Jackal said dejectedly. “Is that we’re stuck continuing to wander around just hoping we’ll find it?”
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“Hoping we will recognize the building as such,” Don corrected. “It could be a copy of the permit office, or something else. Each city has its own design for any of its building, this won’t be any different.”
“What about the clues the dungeon would leave?” Tibs asked.
“That only leads to the city hall, if that’s the boss room.”
“If they’re all different, how did you know it was the permit building?”
Don shrugged. “The architecture matched drawing of multiple such building I came across when I read a treatise on city architecture. There’s a level of efficiency where similar building methods have to be used, so it leads to similar looking buildings.”
“So the city hall will be just like every other one,” Jackal said, grinning.
“Maybe not,” Don replied. “And even if it does. That doesn’t help work out where it is. So we’ll still have to wander.”
“What do you believe such a structure might be used to hide?” Khumdar asked.
“Hide?” the sorcerer frowned. “City halls aren’t really about hiding things. It’s where those wishing to do business in and with the city go to get those rights. Land leases and purchases. They might deal with some of the building rights, but most of those are handled by permit offices.”
“So back-room deals will be hidden there,” Jackal said. “You know, bribing an official to get a piece of land that was slotted for a competitor. My dad did plenty of business directly with the city, and the people handling his money knew where it came from. Also heard about a city,” he said, as if he’d had a revelation, “that outlawed sorcerers, but remained the place to go for anything magical.”
“Sebastian must have liked it there,” Tibs said
“I think he’s who I heard about it from.” Jackal considered something. “Since you said we can only find it by coming across it, how about we get moving?”
“I may…” Khumdar’s eyes were closed. “Have an idea where to start.”
“I thought there were too many secrets here for you to use them,” Mez said.
“That is indeed the case,” the cleric replied, looking to his left. “But with enough focus, or with secrets that big, it is possible to sense their…flavors. Or, if I have an idea of the secret I am searching for, I can seek to pierce the others in its favor. What you spoke of was irritably vague, but in attempting to discern them, I…smelled, something reminiscent of not belonging. And with a flavor of those hiding that they are breaking the rules.”
“I think he’s smelling you—” Ganny whispered.
“How can he sense anything?” the Them demanded. “Didn’t you cloak this floor as I told you to?”
Tibs missed what Jackal said, trying not to react at how loud they sounded, but the fighter was rubbing his hands eagerly and they were moving.
“You told me to arrange it so he couldn’t sense everything,” Sto replied sharply. “And I told you how much it took to get that arrangement, you forced me to use, to work. If it isn’t keeping the rest of his team from sensing through that, it’s on you. And before you bring it up. No, I couldn’t do the whole floor. I don’t think there’s enough essence anywhere for something this complex on that scale. It’s just around him, but large enough he can’t push through.”
Was Sto telling him that if he focused hard enough, Tibs could sense beyond his reduced range?
* * * * *
The building was well away from the main road, but it was at the end of a road which was large enough it might have been important at one time. And the road ended at its doors instead of early enough to have a yard. Even the permit office had a distance between the road bifurcating around it and the doors.
The building was larger than the library, which made it the largest he’d seen yet. It had two floors and stretched far enough it took time to reach the double doors, and Tibs couldn’t make out where the rest ended. The walls were made of stones in a variety of colors, arranged in what felt like random. The windows that lined the outside were narrow, close together, and had light shining though with an occasional shadow blocking it.
“I told you settling here was a bad idea,” Ganny said.
“You said to pick a place that wasn’t obvious,” Sto replied. “What’s less obvious than some building in a shadowed corner of the city? They’d never have come here if Khumdar hadn’t smelled some secret. The king’s residence is where all the good stuff is hidden.”
Tibs looked up in surprise and almost asked if Sto had said day to help him.
“Yes,” Sto whispered. “That’s for you. They’re gone to check on something, but don’t talk. I have no idea when they’ll be back, or how far they can hear. We don’t want to be deep in conversation when if they manifest back here.”
“You really should get your team to go there instead,” Ganny whispered. “We set what you’ll—”
“I’m sensing them,” Sto hissed, and they fell silent.
“Tibs?” Jackal called again, and he shifted his focus so he wouldn’t give away to the Them he hadn’t been paying attention to his team. “Care to make sure the doors won’t kill us?”
Tibs look at the building as he approached the door, trying to come up with a way to convince Jackal to go elsewhere, but he couldn’t think of one other than telling him Sto had directed them to a better place.
Unless…
He breathed his worry aside and readied himself. He could accomplish two things here. Test how hard it was to push his sense through the fog and then have them go elsewhere. He pushed his sense, but before it went far, he staggered back, trying to make sense of what—
“What’s wrong?” Jackal asked, catching him. “Is the door’s trap that hard?”
“There’s no trap,” Tibs whispered. “It’s…something else.” He struggled to find the right word. “There’s a hole under the building.” That wasn’t even close!
“Should I bother asking how it is he knows about that?” the Them asked, and Tibs barely heard Don’s question.
“You don’t mean something we can use to get in, do you?”
“How should I know?” Sto replied. “You saw just how many elements he has, same as we do. You can’t expect me to know everything he does.”
“Let me think,” Tibs said, raising a hand to silence the other’s question. He needed to hear what they were talking about.
“I’m surprised you never head of someone like him,” Ganny said. “Those like you travel to many dungeons. One of them has to have reported back something like this.”
“No.” The Them didn’t sound happy. “There has been no mention of someone like him, and I didn’t come across one of them in all the dungeons I had to discipline. If I had, I’d know how to crush him.”
“That isn’t what—”
“That is an aberration, Stone Mountain Crevice. It doesn’t represent the runners. You should have destroyed it the instant you understood how dangerous it was.”
“He isn’t dangerous,” Sto protested. “He’s just another runner.”
“A Runner who can pull the essence out of your creations and make his way through you without effort. Do you want to give him the time to work out how to manage that and then drain you completely?”
“He wouldn’t do that.”
“And what do you think he’s thinking about right now? Can’t you send something to stop him? He’s too clever. If you give him time, he’ll—”
“We should go elsewhere,” Tibs said over the rest of the Them’s comment, because to stay silent was inviting trouble.
“But there’s loot here, right?” Jackal asked. He looked at Don. “It is the city hall, right?”
“I don’t know. It could be.”
“And you said the door isn’t trapped,” the fighter said, his expression hopeful.
“But there’s the—”
“It’s under the building, right?”
Tibs tried to think of anything that wouldn’t destroy the hope while getting them away, but the only thing he had would tell the Them he could hear them, maybe even that Sto had talked to him. “We need to stay away from that thing,” he finally said.
“No going down,” Jackal promised.
“Wouldn’t that be where they keep their money?” Mez asked. “The vaults are always under the buildings in the bard’s songs.”
Jackal turned to Khumdar. “Is the secret under the building?”
“I…do not know. Unlike other secrets, this one has become diffused as we approached, rather than gaining definition.”
“Is it better hidden?” Tibs asked, wondering if it was something the Them was hiding.
The cleric closed his eyes. “I do not know. I have never encountered such a secret before. Therefore, I am unable to explain why or how it is countering me.” He looked at Don.
“I’d help if I could, but what you can do wasn’t part of any of the books I’ve read.”
“I can say that the secret is indeed here, somewhere within this building, but that is all I am capable of stating.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t risk it,” Tibs said. “There’s going to be more loot elsewhere.”
“Are you not curious as to what is hidden here?” The cleric asked in dismay.
Tibs hesitated. The Them had been in the city. Was that what Tibs had felt watching him? They seemed to know some things about how he thought. Did they know how curious he usually was?
“What if the secret is where that…thing is? What if it isn’t loot? Maybe what you’re sensing is that hole?” He shuddered at the idea of getting closer to it. “And we’re so far from everything, there can’t be good loot here.”
Jackal placed a hand on his shoulder. “Tibs, if Khumdar’s secret is close to that, or even if that’s where the loot is. We’ll turn around and leave. But we’re right here, and you’re the one who said how crafty the dungeon is. This place has to have great loot, especially because it’s far from everything else.” He grinned. “You’ll see. We’re going to find something great.”
“I thought he was the stupid one in this group,” the Them said.
“This is about loot,” Ganny replied. “He gets kind of stubborn when loot is involved.”
“Then you better be as well hidden as you think you are, Stone Mountain Crevice, because anytime one of their kind has found a dungeon’s core, they have destroyed it.”