Stepping Wild (Dungeon Runner 04)

The stories Tibs heard weren't recent. There hadn't been any incident in four generations, as best as he gathered. But when they spoke of them, the sense he got was that they took place days deep within the forest, not weeks or months. It meant this was the closest village to his potential dungeon.

It meant that his return from the forest would be less noteworthy. He'd already told them he was used to the wilderness, but if they had opinions about scholars, it was that they never ventured far from their books.

It didn't mean there was a dungeon. In fact, four generations of it growing, stretching their influence closer to the edge of the forest should mean more encounters, even if they barely ventured among the trees.

He didn't know what a dungeon's limits were, when it came to stretching its influence, but it grew with them. Sto had gone from barely sensing the bottom of the stairs leading to his door to sensing nearly the entirety of the gathering field by the time he opened his fourth floor, and that had been no more than three years.

Was it possible for the dungeon not to stretch its influence? Could they chose, the way he did with his sense, to pull it in; limit the chances of interactions with people? This would mean that every story told was actually some animal distorted by fear, memory, and retelling.

But why would a dungeon do that?

People were the easiest way for a dungeon to grow in power. And they didn't know what people were. Even with Ganny to educate Sto, he hadn't understood people were similar to him until Tibs had been able to speak with them.

Maybe the tavern keeper's story was closer to truth than she believed. Maybe Ramistal had come, and the monster she'd vanquished was the dungeon. But then, why wouldn't she report the incident to the guild? Because if she had, the guild would be looking away from mountains for dungeons.

Finally, he might be wasting his time. Maybe there was no dungeon, never had been.

It was the most likely answer, but he wouldn't know until he went looking. If he found nothing, at least he'd be able to tell the village folks the forest was safe from monsters. That they could go as far in as they needed.

But if he found the dungeon?

He couldn't keep his excitement down.

A dungeon that was older than four generations meant deeper floors. He'd be able to train, push through, rank up and finally unlock suffusing himself.

* * * * *

That possibility kept him going over the weeks and months of search.

He knew what to pay attention to. The dungeon-made walls, no matter how ordinary they looked, felt different. But as far as his sense stretched, the precision that let him tell ordinary from dungeon made went away well before the halfway point.

With the stories implying days deep, he'd expected to have felt something weeks before. There was only so far in village folks would venture and come back. And he'd been as systematic in his search as he knew how to.

Years before, a scholar he'd spoken with had gone on about being part of a group who had documented a keep older than the adventurer's guild. Tibs's question had only been about it existing before them, but the explanation of kings and kingdoms, of wars over dungeons had come only as part of the details of how they had gone about investigating it.

He had forgotten most of what the scholar had said, and was grateful for it. But he'd pulled enough from his memory to remember they'd made grids and assigned scholars to each. They marked the one already search so the work wouldn't be done a second time.

They'd used ropes to mark the grids.

He could make ropes, but on the scale of the forest, he couldn't make enough of it.

He also couldn't use essence to make those lines. He'd have to will them to remain and one slip to his attention and they would be undone.

He settled on small reshaping of the essence within the trees. With objects, changes he made within them took time to undo. The 'solidity' of the object kept the essence from changing quickly. With small items made of mostly one element, like metal nails, he could even change their shape and it would keep it.

Too many elements, or a too even spread of more than one, meant he couldn't make significant changes to them, since then the interaction between them came in to play.

Objects were very much like weaves the way he understood things. They weren't. He understood that, but to his sense, they still felt so.

Trees were composed of multiple elements, but Wood was the main one and deep at their core, it was almost the only element there, with the others around them. Changing the density of that past, in the form of an arrow pointing in the direction he was moving, stayed.

It would go away in time, but hopefully by then, he'd have found, or confirmed the dungeon didn't exist.

So he walk, sensed, and made changes to the essence in trees to make his 'grid'. He kept them as close to sunrise and sunsetward as he could, walking for three days before turning zenith or nadir for three more days of walking and then another turn, three more days and yet one more turn and walking to close the square.

Then he searched it.

He returned to the village every nine days, for supplies, he told them, but mainly so they wouldn't believe the scholar had died when he was too deep to make his regular returns.

In the end, it took him three weeks to search that first square and had realized this wouldn't be quick.

* * * * *

Tibs swam to the surface of the lake and floated there, the sky darkening.

How did scholars do this? Months without finding anything? How often had he contemplated quitting already?

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He missed the roofs.

His uninterrupted runs. Locked windows. Safe that challenged him.

The loot they contained.

He laughed.

Jackal would never let him forget, if he knew, but Tibs missed the loot he got from cracking a noble's safe.

He swam the length of the lake, then exited and readied himself for sleep. This wasn't the same as running, but swimming tired him. Made him feel like he'd accomplished something, instead of walking around for nothing.

But he'd go back to his search in the morning.

He wasn't ready to give up.

Not yet, anyway.

* * * * *

"Come on," Tibs taunted the large cat. "I'm right here. I'm an easy meal. Just pounce already."

It was his third encounter with the cat. Half his height at the shoulder, sleek under golden fur so short it was rough when Tibs ran his hand on it in the wrong direction. That had almost gotten his hand bitten off. A blast of air had sent the cat away before the teeth sank in.

He could make the cat leave him alone. Hurt it until it understood Tibs wasn't his meal. He could kill it and make it his food for a while.

But the cat was the only one around, and its attempts to kill him were an entertaining distraction.

"Fine." He shrugged and turned his back to it. "I guess you've given—" he spun to face it, mid leap, grinning. He was certain he read surprise and annoyance on its face as he caught it, fell back, and launched it away.

If it could talk, he'd expect a 'not again,' out of it.

It righted itself before landing, then sat and groomed itself.

"Oh, sure. You knew I'd do that. It's how you planned it, isn't it?" He rolled his eyes. "You are so full of it. I tricked you fairly and if you had any honor, you'd admit that."

The cat rose, turned, and with a flick of the tail, walked away.

"That's it? You're just letting me win? Do you like going hungry? Is that it?"

The cat ignored his taunts, this time, and Tibs returned to his search for a he dungeon was ever more certain didn't exist.

* * * * *

Tibs hated himself.

He glared at it.

And the cat.

"You knew it was here this entire time, didn't you? What took you so long leading me here?"

The cat had surprised him in the night.

He'd woken when the weight landed on him and reflexively thrown it off. Then the chase had been on.

He'd run after the cat, the cat ran after him. As per the rules they'd agreed to in the early days, he pulled his sense in and only used essence when the cat forgot this was a game between them. He kept reminding it over and over that biting hurt even if he could heal himself, but it didn't care.

As the sun shed light through the trees, Tibs had sensed something at the edge of his highly diminished sense. And of course, the distraction had been planned, and the cat made use of his inattention. That had led to more chasing, and now, after the cat led him around and around, Tibs stood before a line of dungeon made trees.

The cat sat paces away, looking smug.

"Hello?"

The cat canted its head.

"Not you. I'm trying to get the dungeon's attention. They might be busy elsewhere." He smiled. "What do you think? We go in? They won't be able to ignore two Runners like us, breezing through the traps. First floor mobs are easy to deal with. I've dealt with many of them."

He stepped between the trees, then noticed he was alone.

"Come on," he called back. "Don't be a scardy cat—and don't give me that look. You're a cat, and you're obviously scared. Yes, you had reasons before. An Omega like you can't just mindlessly walk into a dungeon if you expect to survive, but I'm here now. I've run a dungeon with four floors, so you know I can keep you safe on the first one." Some of his enthusiasm went away. "But then the guild took my essence. Don't get mixed up with them. They're all bad people."

The cat remained sitting.

Tibs narrowed his eyes. "I'm warning you, if you're going to pounce me while I'm busy dealing with traps or dungeon creatures, we are going to have a talk about this game of ours. Am I clear?"

The flick of the tail was the definition of dismissive.

He rolled his eyes. "This is going to take a while, so don't wait up."

He remained alert for the cat's treachery, but that was taken away by the sense something was wrong.

He studied what he sense while advancing toward the first room and the ordinary plants he saw there added to the wrongness.

He could envision the dungeon letting them grow naturally as part of the forest theme, but not through the cracks of a broken floor, or around and over the base of dungeon made trees.

The layout reminded him of Sto's boulder room. Runners would have to move around the trees while creatures attacked. This was more complicated because the height of the trees meant archers and sorcerers wouldn't be able to help.

Instead of a corridor, another room waited for him once he exited the first one. A trapped floor, by the wooden assemblies visible where the floor had broken open.

The third room was spacious, but with nothing in it. A fight would take place here. The lack of an exit meant this was the boss room. Defeating the boss creature would reveal the loot chest and open the exit, if the second floor was completed.

He didn't see one, but he sensed the corridors under him.

Instead of a stairwell, he sensed a hole in the floor at the back of the room. He couldn't see a way to uncover it, so he undid the Wood and Earth essence, revealing a ladder.

He couldn't deny what the rest hinted at.

If it was alive, the dungeon would have fought him for control of the essence.

The dungeon had brought the theme of the forest down, but made the trees out of Earth.

And something had happened here.

They were shredded.

Deep gouges in the walls that nagged at him enough, he proceeded with care, sword in hand and shield on his other arm. All he sensed were ordinary animals scurrying about, but those gouges had been made by something big and…

The room of earthy bramble had been destroyed by something crashing through.

The incongruity struck him then.

The first floor had no destruction. Only evidence that time had moved on without the dungeon to maintain it. Whatever had done this had made it down without the dungeon noticing it.

Or it had been allowed down to this floor.

He couldn't sense a third floor.

"What did you do?" he whispered, the understanding of what had caused the damage making him shudder. What could a dungeon, so far from anything, do that would bring one of the Them to enact a punishment?

He found the dungeon's core room by the destroyed wall.

The inside was eerily similar to his memory of the destruction the Them had wrought in Sto's core room. The walls and floors clawed. The cradle in the far wall raked and something ripped out of its center.

He found the remains of the core at its feet.

Dull shards of crystal that looked to have been stomped on.

He remembered how colorful Sto's core had been.

The lack of colors here made him more than sad. It made him sick; angry.

What could have justified this? Had they needed one?

He remembered the Them as hateful; vindictive. They'd been sent to punish Sto because he'd helped Kragle Rock. He'd help people. If something could kill because you'd helped others, did they need a reason at all?

What had happened to the dungeon's helper? Had they been sent back where they came from? Ganny had talked of being taught how to be a helper. That implied a place where it happened.

Had the Them killed them for their part in whatever they felt the dungeon had done to deserve death?

He looked at the shards.

He didn't want what was left of the dungeon to be alone anymore, but to take them meant risking having them fall in other's hands. If he thought he could, he'd take them to Sto. But Kragle Rock wasn't a place he could go to while the guild remained. They'd be on the lookout for him there, more than anywhere else.

Firmen?

Would they know what to do, being so young? Should they see the danger of having the Them visit?

Could the shard burn? He could make his fire so hot he had scarred dungeon made walls while Sto fought to keep them intact.

There would be nothing left here.

Nothing left of the dungeon.

Of someone who'd only lived to test people. To push them to get stronger, smarter, wiser.

He couldn't add to that destruction, even if there was no life left.

He returned to the first floor, covered the hole with earth and grass. He didn't have to do anything else. Nature was already asserting itself.

It would look odd to someone coming across it, but nothing here would make them think there was more.

"No one will bother you anymore," he whispered, and headed out of the dungeon's remains.

The cat looked up from where it was sunning itself.

"You don't have to worry. I'm leaving."

He was confident the expression was 'about time,' then they laid their head back down.

"It was fun," he called as he headed away