“You’ve been given a reprieve not one of you deserves,” Harry said in disgust. He stood on the fourth step, which placed him slightly higher than the platform had the last time. “Consider yourself lucky.” He looked like saying the words angered him.
The crowd of recruits didn’t look impressed; a few even sneered. There had been one and zero groups to arrive in total, everyone in them looking mean, studying their surroundings. Tibs expected at least one person to run, but they hadn’t. They followed instructions with silent glares.
“You’ve already been assigned to your teams, don’t bother bitching. No one here cares.”
Tibs glared at the guard leader as he edged away from everyone, closer to the mountain. No matter how mean they looked, they were Runners now. The other Runners would care.
“They’re going to be replaced as they die, and if I find out, and I will, you had something to do with that death. You’re going to experience this dungeon alone, naked.” He looked the crowd over, a nasty smile forming. “If you don’t know what that means, please test me. You aren’t even worth being dungeon food.”
Tibs wanted to speak with Sto, and with everyone’s attention on Harry, this was the perfect time.
“You might have been taken out of the catacombs you belong in, but this isn’t freedom. Now you’re going to have to earn what you get by surviving the runs we’ll be sending you on.”
“Sto?” Tibs said, keeping his voice low despite the distance. He wasn’t certain where the dungeon’s influence started once away from the steps or the stalls. The previous times he’d been right up against the stone, but now he thought he’d stand out too much there.
“Hi Tibs,” Sto answered, sounding cautious. “I have been more reasonable with rooms.”
Tibs smiled. “I know. You should hear how amazed the teams are when they return without losing anyone.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s…” Tibs couldn’t finish it. It wasn’t okay. It had been unfair and vicious, and it still hurt. He took a breath. But it was done and over with, and now they had to move past it. “Can you see any of the recruits?”
“Some of them, the first few rows. Harry’s really bright. I’d love for him to…” Sto fell silent.
Tibs didn’t think on what that was about and reminded himself that even if he was being more reasonable, Sto was still about testing those who went inside. Of course, if Harry stepped in, it would be Sto that was tested.
“These recruits are going to be tougher than the Omegas you’re used to, I think.”
“I’m not sensing any element from them.”
“It’s more because of their experience. They’re older. Jackal says they weren’t caught for picking pockets, but for bigger stuff.”
“Like what? Robbing houses?”
Jackal had shaken his head when Tibs had asked the same question, and before he could press, they’d been at the field with Harry looking over everyone and it had felt…wrong to speak.
“What do you want me to do?” Sto asked before Tibs could figure out something to say.
Tibs looked the crowd over. What should Sto do? Was it even his place to dictate anything? He wasn’t special, so it shouldn’t be. But this was new for the dungeon. New for Tibs too. His street had had nasty people, but as far as he knew, none of them had ever caught a king’s attention the way Jackal implied those had. What crime did someone have to commit for a king to be involved?
“I trust your judgment,” he finally said, unable to escape the feeling he was giving up.
“I won’t let you down, I promise.”
Tibs nodded and ran a finger along a bracer, looking for a way to ask what he wanted to.
“You’re going to do the next run, right?” Sto asked, sounding fearful.
“I will. They’re putting the schedule up tomorrow.” He looked at the crowd again. Harry was talking about how the Omegas would go in the morning, and any Upsilon got to put up coins to go ahead of the other teams. Tibs had to make sure the new Upsilon teams knew what that was about.
“Sto.” He hesitated, then push ahead. “Can I ask a favor?”
When the dungeon answered, his tone was more cautious than before. “I thought you didn’t want me to treat you differently.”
“I know. And I’ve been trying to come up with a way to do this without asking you, but… I need to have an audience with Light. I can’t figure out how to make it happen out here.”
“Harry would know.”
“And he’d ask why. I can’t lie to him. It’s a thing light does. He calls it shining on lies.”
“And you don’t want him to know everything you can do?”
“If I do, he’s going to tell the guild. And even if I didn’t mind them knowing what I can do, I don’t know how I could explain it without you coming up. Just avoiding mentioning you when you are involved a little would make Harry know something’s off.”
“I understand,” Sto said neutrally.
“If you don’t want to,” Tibs hurried to add, “I understand. I screamed at you for the way you treated me and now, I’m here asking you to treat me special again.”
“I’m going to help you, Tibs.” The tone warmed. “I can make a room and fill it with light. I don’t know how to get the emotion part of it, though.”
“I have that part handled. Thank you. If you need me to do something in return, just say it.”
“If you have a way to bring me light essence, I’d appreciate it. This will use a lot of what I have right now. And no Runners have had light, so I only know basic things to do with it.”
Tibs hesitated. “You want me to get a Runner to choose light so you can…”
“See what they do with it. Tibs, I swear, that’s all. I can learn from watching them use their essence. That’s how I did it before…”
Tibs had no idea how he could do that, or if he even should, but… “I’ll see what I can do. Thank you.”
“It’s what friends do, right?” Sto sounded so uncertain.
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Tibs nodded. “Yeah, it is.”
He headed back to the crowd, just as a man broke from it in his direction. He was fast for his how much muscles he had, and dressed in ripped gray clothes that matched that of the group he’d been in.
Tibs was surprised he was the only one making a run for it in such an open space. Most of them had to think not every guard there could catch them all if they all ran. Tibs thought about stopping the man. At this distance, he could do a lot without anyone noticing, but Harry didn’t want him involved in guard stuff; although he had asked Tibs to stop that thief.
It was the expression on the man running toward him that made Tibs step out of the way so the guards now in pursuit could do their job, not that they were catching up yet. He wasn’t looking in the distance, at his potential escape. His eyes were fixed on Tibs, and he changed direction as Tibs moved.
He was heading for Tibs.
Since he didn’t have a choice, Tibs flung water between him and the man, wetting the ground, then icing it. The ground was so trampled, it barely absorbed any of the water before it was ice. The man fell on his back the moment he had a foot on it, then slide ten paces before he was able to get enough purchase to throw himself off and get back to his feet. Barely a dozen paces separating them.
“They’re going to kill you if you keep running,” Tibs said, coating himself with a thin sheet of water. He didn’t want what he was doing to be obvious.
“Not with you protecting me.” The smile was vicious. There was a time the confidence in the tone would have scared him. Would have promised a beating.
“That’s not going to happen.” He mixed some earth with the water. Since he couldn’t use too much right now, adding the effect would help.
“Then if they really want me, they’re going to have to go through you.” The man lunged for Tibs. He stepped aside, but the man was even faster than Tibs expected, twisting in mid-leap and grabbing his arm, pulling him down with him. They were back to their feet, the man’s arm around his neck before Tibs could harden the water and earth.
“Now, you’re going to have to protect me with your magic,” the man growled in his ear. “Stop!” he yelled at the running guards. They were a mix of silver and black, along with green and black. “If you don’t, I’m going to break his neck!”
“They aren’t going to listen to you,” Tibs said, just as the guards came to a stop. The ones in silver looked at the ones in green.
“You know magic, that’s means you’re important.”
“Not really.” He hardened the water and earth around his neck as the man tightened his grip when two of the guards in silver stepped forward.
“I said not to move, or he’s going to die.”
The guards stopped again, but their expression said this was only a pause. They didn’t know Tibs and didn’t care. He’d be a casualty of them doing what they needed.
Tibs didn’t intend to die, so he pushed corruption essence into the man’s arm. Not the barbed version Don loved to use. He simply let it flow in and mix with the man’s thin essence. Unlike what had happened with Tibs, or when he’d healed his friend while corruption tainted his essence, this didn’t mix with it.
Tibs realized he didn’t know how it had happened. He’d hoped to make the man sick, but that wouldn’t happen. Could he suffocate him? He wondered as more guards approached, many of them in green. How many worked for Sebastian? Did they have orders to hurt him, so that would hurt jackal?
“What?” the man sounded surprised, and Tibs realized he was squeezing his neck harder. Enough Tibs should be choking.
Right, Tibs thought, He didn’t have to rely on air to make someone choke. He formed water at the back of the man’s throat, and immediately he was coughing, letting go of Tibs.
Two of the guards in silver rushed to grab the man. “Thanks, Light Fingers,” one of them said.
“That’s not my name,” Tibs snapped, then stared. The guard had only arrived with the recruits no more than what, an hour ago, and he already knew him by Bardik’s nickname? Was there anyone in the world who didn’t know of it now? “What’s going to happen to him?”
“If I had my way,” the guard said, straightening the man now that he could breathe, “I’d hang him. But my orders are to make sure none of them run. So I’m going to throw him back with the rest and you people can deal with them.”
Tibs grabbed the recruit’s arm before they led him away. “You’re given a chance at life; appreciate that.” He paused as the man looked at him with suspicions. “My name is Tibs.” Maybe everyone knew his nickname now, but maybe he could get one person to call him by his name. “If you need help figuring things out, the inn is where you’ll find me.”
The suspicion turned to confusion, and when Tibs let go the guards dragged him away as he kept looking at Tibs over his shoulder.
* * * * *
“This isn’t good,” Carina said, tapping his name on the schedule. She hadn’t even asked Tibs to find it.
“What’s the problem?” Jackal asked. “Nine days is plenty of time for Tibs to get ready.”
With how many recruits there were, the schedule had been altered more. Now only three teams went in the afternoon. It made the schedule a month-long, and the first seven days only had noble teams.
“That puts our run on the sixth of Marmel,” she replied.
Tibs frowned, trying to remember why the month was important.
“Yes,” Khumdar said, “that will make things difficult.”
“The eighth.” The Dark Night was on the eighth.
“I don’t see how that’s a problem. Tibs’s going to have both—” Jackal stopped and looked around. The crowd was thinner than usual on the first day of the schedule. Fewer teams meant not as much need for rushing here.
“How about we go back to our room so we don’t need to worry?” Carina said.
* * * * *
Jackal dropped onto his bed. “What’s the problem with the run?”
“It’s not the run,” Carina said, taking a chair from the table. “It’s how close the two audiences will be. I should have thought about that. This is one time we should have paid to be earlier.”
“I do not expect we could outbid the noble teams,” Khumdar said. “Therefore, the concern would have remained.”
“You two are agreeing,” Mez said, “so this has to be serious. But I don’t get it either.”
“I’m with them,” Tibs said, trying to understand how he’d ended up with three coppers. Well, when he’d somehow picked pockets for them. None of the streets on the way here were crowded. “I’ll just continue to not eat until the second audience.”
“It’s not that simple,” Carina said. “I haven’t found any books talking about what happens if you go too long without eating, other than dying. But you have to be really close to death after nine days. You can’t go two more days after that.”
“So, Tibs starts so he’s at seven when we do the run,” Jackal said and smiled proudly.
“That still puts him at nine days when he has his audience with Darkness,” she replied, exasperated. “It’s too dangerous. You can do Light after you’ve done Darkness.”
Tibs pocketed the coins. “I’d rather not. Sto’s going to graduate.” He ran a hand over a bracer. “Maybe soon. He sounded like he had more powerful stuff ready for me. Since I’m not taking them, he can use that to finish the floor. I want to use that time to get to the purity dungeon and get my audience there.”
“You can have the audience with Light after that,” she said.
“But it’s going to take time for Sto to rebuild his reserves after he graduates. It’s better if I do it now, then Darkness, and then I can travel while he’s closed.”
“Can Tibs live off his essence?” Mez asked.
“Oh, I hope not,” Tibs said, realizing the implications.
“Why do you think that?” Carina asked.
“He can heal himself,” the archer said. “Isn’t hunger just being damaged because of the lack of food? And why do you hope you can’t do it, Tibs? That would be great.”
“I have to be afraid I’ll die for this to work. If my essence can save me, there’s no way I’ll get the audiences.”
“I do not know how hunger injures the body,” Khumdar said. “But Tibs has already gone hungry while having his essence. If it could stave it off, would it not have done so while he practiced going hungry?”
“Look, that’s all irrelevant. He can’t do this, not like this,” Carina stated.
“I have to,” Tibs said. “With Sebastian here, I have to get whatever it is I’ll get with those four-elements. Maybe I’ll get yet another one, but you heard Jackal, Sebastian is already causing troubles here. I need to have everything I can to stop him, especially since I can’t fucking learn to do the things you’re all able to do already.”
He hated that mindset thing. He could see how they used their essence, so he should just be able to copy it, but his versions never looked the same and while they sometimes did something similar, most of the time they just broke apart.
“You could die, Tibs,” she said softly.
“I can die anytime I go on a run,” he snapped back.
“Stop,” Jackal ordered as Carina stood, with an angry look on her face. “This is what we’re going to do. Tibs gets ready for the audience with Light. Then we clear the floor, beat the boss, and get the loot.” He looked at others and continued when no one commented. “Then you and Khumdar watch him until the Dark Night. If both of you agree that it’s too dangerous for him to risk it, we feed him and figure out when the next one’s going to be, or we ask the dungeon for help again.”
“I’d rather not ask Sto for another favor,” Tibs said.
“And I’d rather you don’t have to do any of this,” Jackal replied. “This, at least, is an alternative to you just dying in the attempt. Are you two okay with it?” he asked Carina and Khumdar.
“It is a valid alternative,” the cleric said.
Carina sighed unhappily. “I guess it is. I still don’t like the way we’re putting Tibs at risk.”
“Risk is an adventurer’s life,” Mez said, sounding as if he was quoting someone.
“And with risks, come rewards,” Jackal added, grinning.
“Yeah, rewards,” she sounded nowhere near as enthusiastic about that as he did.