Stepping Wild (Dungeon Runner 04)

Tibs sat at a far table, facing the door, enjoying the seared meat and vegetables, and studying the people in the tavern.

He hadn't returned to it on arriving in the village. He'd spent time helping the refugees. Both because they needed help, and so there would be people to support his claim of having spent the day helping, if Darna, or more likely Rachel, asked what he'd been up to.

She knew about Karliak, if not about them being a dungeon. It was where the arrowheads came from. Someone else knew. Karliak had mentioned a time when she hadn't liked finding the arrows in the chest. Since they couldn't tell people apart, they couldn't tell him what to look for to recognize that person.

Darna?

Lian said she spent time in the forest, looking for adventure and muscles. But it had to be when they were younger. Running a tavern didn't leave much time for adventure. But she and Rachel were friends. She could know without having gone to Karliak. Same for Lian, although Tibs had the sense he wouldn't care. Lian's interests were to have fun. Mainly by taking people to bed, but also just by playing around. He was often the one entertaining refugee kids with acts of juggling and acrobatics.

Korl was also tight with that group, although his interest was clearly Lian. They weren't special to each other, but close friends none the less.

And there was the general closeness of the others in the tavern, based on the general dislike of having the refugees in the village. He didn't think it was enough for Rachel to tell them about Karliak. And if she had, would they keep away?

There had been the sense, in how Karliak spoke of the visits, that it was mostly the same person, with an occasional different one, two, three at most, he thought. But he might be settling on that number because of the four close friends.

If the dungeon could move his core room, how would Rachel react to the chest vanishing? What did she think it was? A gift from the elements? From Metal?

Lian dropped into the facing seat. "Why are you hiding yourself away in a corner?" he asked, chin in his palm and gazing at Tibs.

Tibs chuckled. "Resting from all the people outside."

The young man nodded. "All that helping will take a toll on someone."

Had he put an emphasis on 'helping'? Did he know Tibs had spent most of the day away? He was seeing suspicions where there weren't any. Although he could check.

"What have you been up to?"

"Oh, you know. Bedding people." No light on the words. Also, no way to ask further questions without either having to listen to details he wasn't interested in, or giving away he was trying to find out something.

"Where do all the animals come from?"

Lian raised an eyebrow.

"I've spent a lot of time in forests while traveling. I've never seen so much of them."

He shrugs. "The elements, I'm guessing. It's why the first family settled here. They were like you, traveling a lot. When they got here, there were enough kids that feeding them on the move was troublesome. They saw all the animals, and they settled."

"Why hide from the city, then?"

"Taxes. As soon as the city was large enough to need other people to do their work, collectors started going along the roads. They heard about them before they arrived, so they moved the road away."

"Moved the road?"

Lian shrugged again. "It was a long time ago. People were closer to the elements then."

"It sounds more like a story a bard told you."

Lian laughed. "My dad told me, and he's no bard. All his singing does is curdle milk. Claims we're related to the first family, but I don't believe him." He grinned. "Although, for them to have as many kids as the stories claim, they have to have enjoyed their bed as much as I do."

"Don't you take that from your mother?"

"True." The grin remained as wide. "But that just means my dad's not related to them."

Tibs chuckled. Lian's nearly unending jovialness was infectious.

* * * * *

Tibs spent the next days helping around the tavern and the town, then two with Rachel while she hunted, gathering tubers. Her refusal to let him do so without her protection reinforced his suspicion she was worried his wandering would lead to him finding the chest.

Then, after some time helping the refugees, Tibs headed into the forest. Now that he knew where Karliak was, he saved time by running along the canopy.

The chest was in the center of the same clearing, with the same concentration of metal in it.

"Are you back?" Karliak asked.

"Yes. Did someone else come?"

"Yes. They didn't talk with me. It took what I put in the chest and left, as it always does."

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"She," he corrected.

"She felt the same way you do, just not as bright."

How much practice until they could distinguish the essences enough to tell people apart?

"You weren't able to move your core?"

"I was," they answered with pride.

Tibs looked around for signs, then sensed under to the ground. The location of Karliak's core room didn't have to match the clearing.

Only it did.

"How far did you move?"

"Far enough I won't run out of Metal essence anymore."

Tibs couldn't sense a difference in the Metal essence pockets in the ground, not that he'd paid attention the previous time. Karliak had said they moved their core, so this wasn't just about them stretching their influence.

"Why is the chest still in the center of the clearing, then?"

"That's where it should be."

"But your core room is still under the clearing. The same as it was last time."

"Of course. I moved that too."

"Why?" Tibs sensed for signs of Karliak's work, but everything felt natural.

"How else will anyone find the chest?"

"That's not how this works," he said, unable to keep the exasperation back. "Runners have to work for what they'll get."

"But she's a people?"

Tibs groaned. He needed to remember Karliak knew nothing about what they were. It was so strange that they didn't, that because Simtor also didn't know, they couldn't figure things out. What would happen to them if Tibs just left? They knew they could move, so they could gather more essence, but how long would that work?

"Have you absorbed any animals?"

They could grow that way. It was how Firmen had gained most of their essence. But they had Merka as a guide of what to do with it.

"How do I do that?"

And that answered that. If he taught them how, would they stop with just animals? Could they tell the difference between animal and people?

"Alright. We need to start from the beginning. You, Karliak, are a dungeon."

"I know what I am," they replied, annoyed.

"A dungeon," he continued, "exists to test those who enter it."

"Test how?" Simtor asked, sounding interested.

"With traps, creatures, and puzzles."

"Why?" Karliak asked.

"So they, and you, can grow stronger."

"Why?" they asked.

"Because it's what you do."

"But why? Why do I do that? Why not just make things for them, for those Runners?"

"Because you can't sustain that. If you just give, eventually you'll have nothing left. I don't know if you can die that way, but you won't be able to make anything if you always give more than you can get. And if that's all you do, more and more people will come take from you. Until I told you to move toward more metal, you were having trouble getting enough for just one person. People have to be afraid of you, so they won't all come and take."

"I don't want them to be afraid. I want to help them."

"But you need to be around to do that. They need to give back to you."

"And they do that through the tests?"

"Yes, those who can't pass them, you get to absorb. You'll gain some of their essence as well as some of what they know."

"And that means I can help them more?"

"Yes. Those who pass your tests become stronger. You'll be able to sense the density of their essence."

"Like your essence is bright. Will they have as many as you?"

"No. They'll only have one." If even that. What were the chances of a Runner in the wild finding themselves in the right circumstances to gain an audience? Maybe if Karliak made everything out of wood, there would be enough of a concentration one of them would have one, but audiences in dungeons broke rules. It kept him from gaining the immunity. Adventurers didn't have that, so how would breaking the rule manifest? Could it mean they couldn't survive their audience?

It was best not to risk it.

"Alright," Karliak said. "How do I go about making tests?"

"The first step is to stop giving away what you make. Remove the chest."

"I…can't. Why can't I absorb it?" they sounded scared. "Are you doing something to it?"

"No, I'm…." He looked at it, how close he was. "Okay, here's a lesson. When people get close to something you've made, it disrupts your ability to affect it. So you need to keep that in mind when you make your rooms. They need to function without your control." He stepped away. "Keep trying to absorb it."

Tibs was deep enough in the forest he lost sight of it. "Karliak?" he called and received no answer. He was outside of its influence. That had been fifty paces? He slowly stepped forward.

"There you are," Karliak said.

He was a few paces outside the clearing, able to see the chest was gone. "This is where your influence ends. You can't sense or affect anything past this point. As you grow stronger, that will increase." He looked at how little space it gave Karliak for his first floor. Sto's had been much larger, but he also hadn't been giving away essence to people. He'd been accumulating it.

Which meant it wasn't absorbing people itself that let a dungeon grow. They were simply a concentrated source of it.

"And that's going to let me find more essence?" they asked eagerly.

"Yes. And you need more. One of the way you can grow is to accumulate essence."

"I thought it was by testing Runners."

"That's one way you gain essence. Absorbing it from what's around you is another."

"I can do that."

"Good. The next thing you need to do is remove the clearing."

"Why?"

"It's too distinctive. When Rachel comes and doesn't find the chest, she's going to wonder what happened. She's going to search and she might dig and find your core room. So you need to grow trees in the clearing and move your room again.

"How do I grow trees?"

"How did you remove them?"

"I just moved them away."

"How?"

"I pushed the earth away with them on it."

"Okay, then move them back the same way." He felt the essence in the clearing shift. Roll through the ground and…pull was the closest word to what he sensed. He couldn't see any changes.

"How long did it take you to move them away?"

"A lot of changes in the level of light essence."

"They're called days," he said. "One day is a cycle of it growing strong, then weak, and strong again. It's how we track time."

"Then it's many days."

"Once the clearing is covered, move away…" he put his back to the village and pointed. "In that direction. Can you tell where I'm pointing?"

"Is it the essence you're extending?"

"Yes." It was as good of a description as any for his extended arm. "Keep moving as fast as you're able to." He didn't think the dungeon had moved all that much in the days he'd been away, so should be able to sense it. "I'll come back in a few days, and we can start setting up your tests."

* * * * *

"What are you doing?" Darla asked, pulling at one side of the net Tibs had made.

"Just keeping my hands busy." He'd had trouble coming up with ways to explain a drop tile trap that could support different weights in a way a dungeon could understand until he'd realized Karliak would be able to sense items better than understand concepts. This would be flawed, but it would be a starting point.

"You are a strange one, you know that?"

Tibs smiled. "I've been told that a few times."

* * * * *

Tibs knew Rachel had gone to the chest by her expression when she entered the tavern. Pensive perplexity. She missed Darna calling to her, going to a table and putting her quiver on it, studying the arrowheads.

She had plenty more in her pouch, but it was now a limited number.

Darna sat with her and the hushed conversation confirmed that she, if no one else, was in the know. She was back behind the bar when Lian entered and she sent him to Rachel. Korl when he entered.

No one else.

So they were the ones. Korl could be the one who hadn't cared for the arrowheads. Or maybe Darna, but she was busy enough with the tavern; he didn't think so.

Now he just had to hope Karliak was far enough that if they decided to investigate as a group, they wouldn't find the dungeon.