Stepping Wild (Dungeon Runner 04)

Tibs formed another etching of Purity and applied to yet another of the injuries he'd gained during the run. He so missed the near instant full-body healing suffusing gave him.

"That was stupid," Merka snapped.

"Not the first time I've been told that." The etchings sped things up, but each one only deal with an injury and the surrounding area before 'running out'. Some essence was also spent on parts that didn't need healing; he'd yet to work out the Arcanus arrangement that caused an etching to only focus on the damage. That meant he needed to judge which of his injuries needed to be healed first, and that wasn't always as obvious as what leaked more essence. His essence mixing within his body could lead to damage of its own that would exhaust him if it went on too long. There had been a few close calls where he'd almost fallen unconscious before finding the right one to heal.

"Is the last time going to be because you don't listen and it kills you?"

"Don't you want me dead?" The chuckle broke his concentration, and he had to rebuild the etching.

"I want to be the one to do it! Not some trap you're too injured to notice. You're always on me to think. Were you? When you threw yourself into my fireball?"

"I've been burned worse."

They snorted. "I believe that. I can see that if what's in the chest's good enough, you'll walk through fire until you're ash trying to get it."

He focused on healing himself. He was feeling the strain of so many etchings, but he thought it was only tiredness. He couldn't sense any places inside him the essences might mix.

"You barely made it out." Merka sounded reproachful.

"But I did. It's what counts." Tibs had forgotten Firmen had changed the triggers in that first corridor. He'd moved out of the way in time not to be skewered by the wall of spears, but not fast enough to keep his arm from being be opened up badly enough he'd trailed blood the rest of the way and had had to heal that as soon as he'd stepped out, instead of waiting to reach his camp.

"How did you ever survive your runs?" Merka demanded, disgusted.

"I'm clever." The smartness of the tone immediately vanished. "I had a great team."

"You don't have one now," they snapped. "How about you stop being clever and start being smart?"

"How about you let me focus on my healing so I can sleep?"

"Do a good job. I want you at your best when I kill you."

* * * * *

The stiffness was in his imagination. The healing had taken far longer than he'd anticipated, ruining his plans for another run before returning to the village, but there was no damage left, so he shouldn't feel as he did. He rolled his shoulders under the deer's carcase as the village gate came into view.

Maybe Merka's statement had merit. He needed to be smarter about the runs. Jumping through the fire had seemed like his best play, even knowing how much damage it could do. But had it been? With Merka getting better, he had to put more thought into his strategies.

The guard eyed him warily, and he felt the eyes on him the entire way to the tavern.

"You know I can't do anything with this," the leathersmith said. "Why didn't you at least skin it?"

"Get one of the hunters to do it." He barely kept from snapping. "My hunt didn't go well, and I was lucky to come across this one as I came back. I couldn't take the time, with the harvest almost here."

"The hunter's going to ask for payment, so I won't have much left to make you clothing out of."

He almost told her he didn't care about any clothing. Maybe he was tired enough to justify it, but she might still be suspicious. No one let their work go unpaid. He put the minimum effort into haggling himself a pair of pants made of scrap hides.

* * * * *

Why Mother Natril had ordered him to be present for the harvest, Tibs didn't understand. As far as he could tell, the entire village was in the field.

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This was to punish him, he decided, as he followed Joman's instruction in tying and standing the bundle of wheat for them to be collected once the cutting was done.

It was the work most did, with only a few trusted with the sickles. Even with everyone helping, it was the better part of two weeks before all the farms were harvested, and he fell onto his cot each night exhausted. Other than not having to heal himself when they were done, this took as much out of him as the runs.

* * * * *

Cheers rang out through the tavern, in spite of the rain. Or maybe because of it. They'd stored the wheat in the barns before it hit. They were soaked from the run to the tavern afterwards, but that didn't matter; the wheat was dry. Ale flowed and songs were sung off-key. Harvesting ones, as best as Tibs could tell.

As amusing as this was, Tibs was planning ahead. The wheat grain still had to be separated from the chaff, and there would be more after that, beyond storing it, but he hoped to be back in the forest before that.

The tankard was placed before him. "Good time, isn't it?" the man said, sitting across from Tibs.

He was one of the villager's hunters. One of those who'd kept their distances; always eyed him suspiciously. He was among the older ones. And while they hadn't spoken before, Tibs had gotten the sense, from overheard conversations, that this man held strong resentment against the mysterious creature of the forest.

Tibs shrugged. "Isn't any harvest that goes without problem worth the celebration?" He couldn't remember seeing the man in the fields, but they had been spread far. He considered the tankard. The content was far stronger than ale, but more importantly, accepting it meant he agreed to what had brought the man to his table.

He removed the corruption from it, as well as the Wood elements he could now sense would also cause intoxication. He still sipped it cautiously. There were other essences there he couldn't identify.

"It's not that complicated," the man said casually. "Cut it down, stack it, store it. It's not like hunting. That's skilled work."

Tibs shrugged. If there was tension between the farmers and hunters, he wanted no part of it.

"You seem comfortable in the forest." The man eyes him over his tankard, and Tibs doubt he imagined the suspicion in the look.

"I know what I'm capable of. I stay away from the animals that will kill me and exercise patience in hunting those I'll kill. I find that's enough."

"But you've got to know where they are to avoid them, don't you?" the man smiled. "Know where's safe to hunt." He pulled a rolled hide from out of sight and unrolled it on the table. The village was a rough representation in the center, as were the farms, from Sunrise to Nadir around it. The fields looked too large to be a proper representation of them from what Tibs remembered of working them.

The man's expression turned sly. "Why don't you share that with the rest of us?"

Where were the other hunters, if this was for all of them? If he marked the safe places, those left would be the unsafe ones. The places to look for that creature which had taken some of them.

He was tempted to give the man what he wanted. It wasn't Tibs's responsibility if the man purposely went looking to die. But while not a Runner, a hunter was better equipped than most to survive Firmen's first floor. To return with stories and start the cycle of runs that ended with the guild learning of the dungeon's existence. But if he marked Firmen's location as one of the safe ones, he ran the risk of people going there and… too many would die before the guild found out. Far too many after that.

"You have charcoal?"

The man eagerly handed Tibs a sharpened stick. He marked areas on the map, starting Sunriseward, above the road, and moving Zenith, then Sunset, Nadir, and returning Sunrise. Except for three, they were where he'd sensed and found large predators.

He tapped the one of those where he'd written Bor. "That's for bear." He doubted the man knew his letters, but the Arcanus made for easy to identify symbols. "That for the wild cats." He tapped Kha. "The wolf packs." Maur. "I don't know how large the animals make their territories here." There were symbols, but he figured the man had gotten the point.

The man frowned. "But where is it safe to go?"

Tibs shrugged. "Anywhere that's not close to their territories." He motioned to where there were large gaps between areas. He'd made sure none of those were near Firmen. "I didn't come across signs of large predators in those places. If you want something closer, you can work with the other hunters to remove one of them."

"Those are just animals." The man said under his breath.

"It's what I saw while hunting or exploring for better hunting spots."

He looked at Tibs and kept his voice low. "But where is it?"

"You mean that monster you're all afraid of?" He shrugged. "I didn't see anything I'd think of as a monster."

"Joman saw it," the man snarled. "Then you take him to the forest, and he no longer cares about that."

Tibs sighed. "All I did was tell him what obsession cost me." He hoped he wasn't exchanging this man for no longer having to worry about Joman. "I reminded him he had a woman, friends, and a life here." Although there was a maliciousness in the man's eyes that made Tibs less concerned with what he might be forced to do. "He's the one who decided that was more important."

"Where did you find him?"

He studied the map for the little time it took him to make his decision. He tapped a spot halfway between the village and dungeon, close to one of the bears he'd invented. "Around there, best I can recall."

The man studied the map. "You were gone most of the day." The tone was filled with accusation.

"I'm not the tracker you think I am," he replied defensively. "There's a lot of terrain, and a lot of tracks to work out which ones were his. Even once I had it, I lost it a few times."

There was distrust in the man's eyes, and Tibs didn't care. He might warn Firmen about the man, maybe convince him to make his traps deadlier if he sensed someone else approaching. But he'd wait to see what this hunter did when Tibs headed into the forest next.