Stepping Wild (Dungeon Runner 04)

As soon as Tibs walked far enough in the forest to be out of the guard's sight, he climbed a tree. With the hunter expressing an interest in where he went, he couldn't afford to leave any tracks they could find. Fortunately, that was limited to the ground, whereas Tibs could travel higher. It took a few leaps before he properly gauged the sense of Wood essence in the branches until he knew which supported his weight, but then, running along the tree canopy was close enough to roof running, he found himself laughing.

* * * * *

He studied the tile before testing it. He stepped off as the thunk sounded and avoided the following wall of spears.

"I'm not seeing you use the essence to walk all over the triggers." Merka's smirk was audible. "I thought every essence did what the others could."

He tested the next one. "With proper training." Without a reaction, he put more of his weight on and set about testing the next row. "I'm sure fire can let me pass this test. When it explodes, I've seen it send objects flying. But the only way I've practiced that element is to attack. And fire hurts, so I don't think causing it to explode under me is a good idea, even if it would let me jump over all this." The third tile he tested was safe, and he stepped on it.

"I am so sure you are so clever with it," they replied dismissively.

* * * * *

Tibs smirked as the steam dissipated and revealed three stunned serpent heads staring at him. His fire block hadn't allowed any of the ice spears through.

"How?"

"You said I had to be clever with it."

"You have nowhere near enough essence to pull that off," Merka protested. "Did he cheat?"

"He only used the essence from the reserve," Firmen said.

"But I sent at least twice that much at him."

"It's in the etching." He took a chance, based on Merka's lack of outright animosity this time. "If you're willing to call this fight a draw, I'll explain what I did."

"Why would you do that?" they asked uncertainly.

"A draw doesn't get you what's in the chest," Firmen pointed out.

He shrugged. "My shield's still good, and I'm not doing this for the loot. I want the challenge, and with teaching this, Merka can give me more of that."

"Firmen?"

"You're the one who will benefit," the dungeon replied with an audible shrug. "It's your decision."

Tibs was surprised at the lack of interest on their part. "Don't you use essence?"

"To build and expand. I don't need those etchings when I have what's around me to use as how to make everything."

Firmen's answer told him what essence to use next. "What do you say, Merka?"

"I don't understand you," they said in exasperation. "Runners are all about the loot. It's why I told Firmen to put the best in the chest. It makes them irresistible."

"My best friend would fall for that every time. I can't count the number of times he almost got himself killed going for just one more loot chest."

"How did it survive?"

"Stubbornness, toughness, and a team to pull his ass out when he got in over his head. Or carry him out, when he barely survived his greed." The chuckle was unexpected. "He kept complaining that as the rogue, I should be greedier than him, but it was already more about testing myself back then. And soon enough, I had more coins than I knew what to do with through other means."

"Stealing and cheating." Merka's statement was, surprisingly, without judgment.

"It is the thief's way."

"Fine. The run is a draw. Now tell me how you did that."

"Firmen, can I use other elements? This is easier to show with something less combustible."

"That isn't really how a run works…. But I'll allow it."

He channeled water and built the etching in the air, icing the lines and waves to make them more visible, then adding representations of the Arcanus connecting them. Once he was satisfied, he explained what each part did.

* * * * *

Tibs crouched before the first test, looking over the tiles. It wouldn't be as impressive as if he used his deep reserve, but it should still make his point. He placed a hand before the first row of tiles.

"I'm sorry if this hurts."

He let the corruption flow over and in the cracks. What he was allowed to use only covered four tiles across and deep, but that would change soon enough.

"It is…uncomfortable."

"It's not going to get better until I'm done."

As the essence ate away at the stone and the essences that made out the triggers, it made more of itself that Tibs took control of, and within a couple of heartbeats, he'd double what he could cover, spreading the from wall to wall and moving it forward. A few heartbeats later, the sheet of corruption covered half the tiles, then the entire floor.

Firmen's test depended on how runners couldn't work out which tiles were safe unless they tested them all. But Corruption didn't care about that. It didn't care what elements things were made of. Corruption made things easy.

Firmen tried to take control of the spreading corruption, but they couldn't fully focus on it. They were distracted by what had to be painful by now, so more and more of the floor was eaten away, adding ever more Corruption for Tibs to use.

When he raised it, he made sure it didn't touch the walls. The floor was a desolate landscape of pockmarked valleys and hills.

"This is why you want to pay attention to what I'm teaching Merka. Arcanus isn't just for etchings. They can alter what weaves do, how they interact with the other elements."

"Are you saying that any Runner can do this kind of damage to me?"

Tibs crossed the desolation. "Not at Upsilon. I have years of experience on them. But as they grow, they are going to think of ways to hurt you as part of surviving the runs."

"And you can show me how to make my weaves resistant?"

"No, weaves are still beyond me. I haven't found books with useful information on them. But if you learn what each Arcanus does, how placing them affects what they do, how they interact with the others, it will make it easier for you to figure out how to incorporate that into your weaves."

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He'd refilled the reserve, and thought of another thing he could show the dungeon, so he continues walking until the Woodling stepped out of the tree.

"Also," he said, sending the mass of raw essence he held at it. "Holding more essence than our reserve carries is one of the first thing we work out." There was nothing left of it.

"I see."

"Do you want me to absorb this? It's not really fair for me to have this much essence for the rest of the run. Or if you want, I can drop this somewhere for you to absorb."

"Are you offering to give me back all the essence you took?" they sounded surprised.

"An Upsilon Runner can't hold on to this much. The strain would be too much for them. They also wouldn't have a reserve to take it all in, not without hurting themselves and possibly dying in the process. Ending up with this normally, I'd refill my reserve and let the rest go. Before I knew dungeons were people, I wouldn't have cared how much damage this caused you, but I'd like to avoid that now."

"Then…" the trailing off was filled with uncertainty. "Let it go in the trap room. There's little left for you to damage. And I'm going to have to remake so much of it, a little more isn't going to matter."

Tibs sent the essence back the way he'd come, then let go before moving on.

* * * * *

Tibs barely had the time to look at the hole in the wall where he'd been as Merka cackled maniacally, before one of the other two heads lunged at him.

One day since he'd shown them the first attack he'd learned; just one. And not only had they managed an attack with the precision he hadn't managed until a lot of training, but that hadn't been water.

He leaped over the head, putting a gash into its side with the corruption coated blade.

He had never managed to translate the 'x' attack to another element.

Another leap, but this head ducked out of the blade's way.

The one flaw in Merka's strategy was that they were one person controlling three appendages. It might be easier on them, since they didn't have a body like he did, but there was still a sloppiness to their movement when they worked essence into an etching. Although they weren't trying to kill him at the moment. The attacks were just to keep him distracted while they brought up the next bubble of essence.

Fire, this time, rose through the serpent's throat.

He could already sense the etching forming, the 'x' waiting for the point of fire essence to trigger it.

How had they worked that out?

He landed from leaping over another head and, counting on the etching requiring enough focus to keep them from attacking him, readied himself. He would have to time this carefully.

Teaching them that etching might have been a mistake.

As soon as the mental point of the fire 'knife' touched the center of the etching, he threw himself under the narrow jet of fire, then was up, cutting that head off, and running to keep from getting crushed by the other head slamming down on him.

He grinned.

But this was making the run so much more fun. Jackal would never let him forget he was enjoying a fight this much.

"Oh," Merka snarled. "You think you have this all figured out, don't you? You're so much—"

"Oh, please. Can we keep the bard song villain out of this?"

"What's a bard song?" Firmen asked.

"What's a villain?" Merka asked.

Tibs ran to the head while it was distracted, sword at the ready, only for the other one to hit him and send him into the wall.

Before his vision cleared, he sensed the essence in the serpent's mouth. One he couldn't identify.

He had miscalculated badly. But he wasn't dead…yet.

"If you kill me, I can't tell you what a villain is," he offered. "Draw?"

"Is he serious?" Merka demanded, "this isn't a draw. I'm about to win. And who cares what a villain is." Tibs thought there was a lack of confidence in that statement.

"I am kind of curious," Firmen said hesitatingly. "And what a bard song is. But it's your fight. I leave the decision to you."

The serpent's nose nearly touched Tibs's. "I promise you, if this is you being sneaky, I will blast you with this binding essence."

"It's something real," Tibs said. "Sort of."

The serpent narrowed its eyes. He thought it would be funny; if his life didn't hang in the balance. "Talk."

"Bards are people who go about singing stories. They claim most of them are about thing that happened a long time ago, but it's always far away, so we can't check." The rest came out unintended. "All those about me are lies."

"Why do they sing stories about you?" Firmen asked.

"Focus," Merka said in a tone that matched a villain's in Tibs opinion. "This is about answering me. If I decide you deserve to live, then you can answer Firmen." Definitely a good villain.

"The stories are usually in the form of an adventure. With a hero and a villain. The hero is…" he realized he'd never thought about who the characters were in the stories, other than unbelievable. "The hero is the person the song is about. And the villain is the person getting in their way. They either caused the problem the hero has to overcome, or make it harder for them to reach their destination and fix the problem, or rescue the person needing rescuing."

"So the songs happened?" Firmen asked.

Tibs rolled his eyes, but breathed easier as the serpent moved away. "So they claim."

"And they sing about you? What do they sing about? What did you do?"

"No, they don't." The harshness was unintended, but deserved, he figured.

"But you said they—"

"Lie. I said they lie." He looked at the serpent. "Do I live?"

The smile worried Tibs. "You do. This time."

* * * * *

Tibs quickly moved to the side of the wooden disk. Firmen had nearly gotten him this time. They'd changed where the point of balance was on some of them. This one was more to one side, and he'd barely reacted in time to keep from tipping into the mud.

More worrisome was the lack of commentary.

Neither Firmen nor Merka had said anything since Tibs had started the run, and the little welcoming the dungeon had done had felt… perfunctory.

He leaped to the next disk, then out of the room before it started to tip.

He kept a whip of water ready as he walked through the corridor. "Firmen? Merka?"

Had they realized he'd gotten used to the conversation? Enjoyed them. And turned to silence as a way of straining his nerves?

Were they okay?

Firmen might be busy with the extension, but Merka should be close by and commenting about how Tibs cheated.

He made it to the door without an attack, and that put him more on edge. There wasn't always an attack, he reminded himself. There was a randomness to them, but this time….

The door to the boss room was the same as before, but there was a lack of motion in the essence under the floor, as if the serpents were dead.

They couldn't be. They were essence. The lack of movement in it just meant…. He didn't know what it meant.

He settled his breathing and pulled the door open.

The room was the same. Wooden walls of trunks, tight against each other. Irregular large wooden tiles that would burst open when a serpent's head appeared. The boss chest at the back of the room. Although it was now shaped wood, instead of a stack of logs. Firmen had improved it over time.

Other than the still essence, everything was the same.

But felt utterly different.

He stepped in and waited for a reaction.

He was tempted to call out to Merka. Ask what they were doing.

Another step in.

This was a test of his nerves, he decided. They would stretch this for as long as they—

The door slammed shut behind him and Tibs whirled, and immediately cursed himself for reacting. He was a Runner; he was better than this. He'd been on the run for decades now. A dungeon closing a door shouldn't startle him.

He faced the chest.

The laughter came before he took a step, low and building. He recognized Merka and realized he'd never heard Firmen laugh.

Still no movement in the essence, so he took the step.

The serpent exploded from the floor with barely the warning of shifting essence, but was on the other side of the room, close to the chest.

"You think you can come here and steal from me," Merka demanded in a slightly off tone, "villain?"

He was as surprised by the accusation as by the adornments on the serpents.

"What are you talking about, Merka?" instead of the ordinary, if far too large, serpent's head and neck of the previous fights. These were decorated with golden lines and colorful gems. They looked utterly ridiculous.

"I am calling you out, villain." They cackled. "You came all the way, but you will never reach my most precious chest. You will die at my hands."

"You don't have hands," Tibs pointed out reflexively, then understood what they were doing and was offended. "What are you talking about? I'm not a villain. You're the one standing in my way of what I want. That makes you the villain."

"I am the hero," they stated proudly. "I am defending the property I have been entrusted with from villainous rogues who would take it for themselves and deprive those who can benefit from them."

"Really? That's what you are going with?"

"What? You said the heroes in stories protect those weaker."

"Who's weak in here?"

"I can add small animals around Merka, if that will make it better," Firmen offered.

"You're okay with this?" Tibs asked, surprised.

"If I wasn't, it wouldn't be happening."

His disbelief gave way to amusement.

Alright, if it was what they wanted, Tibs could play along. He looked at his sword. "Firmen, I want your word you won't absorb my sword and shield." He took it off his arm.

"You are going to fight Merka—"

"Protector Merka," they corrected.

"Protector Merka, unarmed?"

Tibs grinned. "Oh no, if the hero of this story is determined to fight a villain, I will arm myself appropriately."

"Okay, then you have my word."

He dropped the shield and sword and remade them out of ice. Firmen had increased the essence the reserve contained with each run to represent an Upsilon Runner's progress, and he now had enough for this and a bit of extra armor as needed.

"Stand fast, Hero," Tibs said, crouching, his sword growing jagged spikes. "Because your treasure is mine."

He ran at the serpents.