Stepping Wild (Dungeon Runner 04)

Lian dropped in the seat opposite Tibs and smiled, resting his elbows on the table and his chin in his hands. "I have a secret." He sing-sang quietly.

Tibs raised an eyebrow and continued to eat.

"Do you want to hear it?"

"Secrets don't remain that if you tell them."

"It's not mine." The glint in the young man's eyes did not inspire confidence.

"Then you shouldn't tell it. The person it's about won't like it. They might take it out on you when they hear it from someone else."

"It's yours," Lian said, as if Tibs hadn't given a warning.

He continued eating, wondering what this could be. There weren't many secrets Tibs had the young man could have learned, since he didn't have an element.

"I know you don't spend the days helping around the village."

How hard should he deny it? It would depend on what else Lian knew in relation to it.

"Why do you think that?"

The laughter was soft. That of someone working at not having everyone notice it. "Come on. This is my village. I know everyone in it. When one of the farmers notices that the guy who went with Rachel a few times walks into the forest by himself, they tell me when I go help them relieve the strain of working so hard."

"Do you always make the sex you have sound like something…innocuous?"

"No idea what that means. But I've only been careful with how I say it since the city folks arrived. They have really strange hangups around knowing I'll fuck anyone willing."

Tibs nodded. "Not everyone likes to listen to the detail of what people do."

"I get that, but this was them reacting to me talking about going off to fuck. No details. Didn't even say who it was with. And they got… all icky about it." He shrugged. "So I've been wrapping it into stuff they can explain away."

He nodded again and went back to eating. The silence didn't stretch as long as he'd hoped.

"And I don't want anything."

"Then why bring it up?"

"Because I thought you should know I told them not to tell my sister or anyone else."

"Why?" He didn't bother hiding his suspicion.

"Because I don't want her to kick you out. Which she's going to do if she thinks you're venturing into 'her' forest." He shrugged. "Her and Rachel have been possessive about it since we were kids. It was where they had their 'adventures' where they fought 'dragons' and 'ogres' and 'elves' and 'dwarves' and all kinds of monsters. I thought she'd grow up to be bard with all the stories she told about what they got up to. Not take over the tavern when her dad had the accident."

Them being kids meant…twenty years ago? Could they have encountered Karliak then? No, not with stories of fighting monsters. Those were all out of bard's songs and stories village folks told each other to explain the world. Even if the dungeon had been there that long, they didn't know how to make creatures.

"Why do you care if she kicks me out?"

"Because without you, I go back to an all-meat diet. Unlike what Korl says, or any of the guys I've fucked with. I need more than that."

There was no light on the words, so he could trust that Lian wanted that; right now. It still gave him some leverage.

"I don't have to stay," Tibs said.

"I know."

"If you try to use that to have me do…." What could Lian try to blackmail him into?

The young man grinned. "The only thing I'd have a reason to use that for, I already do with guy in the village, and a good number of the city folks now."

He didn't know about Tibs's other skills, so those were probably not something he'd think of, but….

"If you try to force me to do anything, I'll just leave."

Lian nodded. "I understand." He smiled. "So, just what do you get up to all day in the forest?"

Tibs smiled. "That's my secret to keep."

*

The room was unimpressive to look at, but it was there, and that was impressive in itself.

"Did you put any thoughts in making it like this?" he asked.

The room was an uneven circle with three opening, three corridors from it to where Karliak's influence ended.

"I thought into this shape," the dungeon replied.

"But why this shape?"

The answer was slow in coming. "You said there had to be corridors, so that means openings. You said at least two, but not if there's a maximum. Three seemed fine. Then I made the walls to join them, but that seemed like a small room, so I pushed them back until it was like this." The pause was filled with hesitation. "Did I do it wrong?"

"No, it's your room. You can't make it wrong. I just wanted to know how you'd come to this shape. Simtor, did you help them?"

"Was I supposed to?"

This could be a problem. "Do you have ideas about what the room should be like?"

"I'm not the one making it."

"But you are here to help." How to say this? "You two are a team."

"Aren't those Runners?"

"No, team just means a group of people."

"We aren't people," Karliak said.

"You are people, of a sort," Tibs replied. "You can think and you can do, so if you want, you can work with someone else, and that makes you a team."

"What if Karliak doesn't want to?"

"Why wouldn't I want to work with you?"

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

"Because I don't have anything to add? I don't know anything. No one taught me how to help you."

"Don't think that way," Tibs said. "No one taught me how to survive the Street, but I still managed it. Even if you don't know how you were expected to help Karliak, you can still help them. So, do you have thoughts about the room?"

"Well…. You said that things happen in the room. The traps, the puzzles, and fights. So I think that if there's more space, it's better. So the walls could push back as far as they can."

"But doesn't that remove the corridor?" the dungeon asked. "It just leaves openings."

"You can leave the corridors. The room doesn't have to be uniform, right?"

"That's right," Tibs said.

"Then this is what it would be like." The walls moved back, leaving the corridors protruding inside the room. "I don't know, the corridors kind of get in the way."

"I'm sorry, I knew this was—"

"Stop," Tibs said. "You aren't wrong, Simtor. And you aren't wrong, Karliak."

"Can we both be right?" the helper asked.

"More often than people think," he replied. "There will be times when only one of you can be right, but this isn't one of them. This is about helping each other. Karliak had an idea. You have yours. If you discuss it, try them, figure out if there are other ways to make rooms, you can come up ideas neither of you could manage alone."

"But I'm the dungeon. I'm the one who makes the walls."

"Yes, but don't start thinking that means you're the only one who can be right. If, in the end, you both think different shapes are good, then you are the one who picks which one you'll make. Maybe you can use Simtor's idea on the next room, if it will work, for what you plan to have happen there."

"Two rooms? Won't they be small?"

Tibs smiled. "You will grow as you gain more essence. Which is where traps play a part. I'm going to need the net." He gathered branches, then secured them in the ground and set the net between them until it was mostly flat.

"Think of this as a representation of your floor."

On the other side of the room, a copy of what Tibs did grew out of the ground.

"You'll come up with better ways. This is to teach you the principles behind this kind of traps." He made squares of stones and placed them so they were kept up by the net's strings.

"Do you make a lot of traps?" Simtor asked as he worked.

"No. They're things Sto put in his rooms for us to have to figure out." A stone fell, and he had to reset it. Many of them did the same, to the point he considered using essence to hold them, but he didn't know if Karliak had enough to manage it on the size of a room.

Once they were all in place, he noticed how the wood essence within the string reacted to the weight of the stones, and realized he had a way to help with his demonstration. He made another stone in the shape of a person.

"This is a drop tile trap." He placed the person on a stone where the 'strain' in the string's essence was strongest. "When some steps on one." The added weight was enough, and the string shifted, causing the floor to drop to the ground. "They fall."

"So I make it so it can stay up, but not support their weight."

Tibs picked up the stone person. "Ah, but this is where one of the rules of dungeons comes into play. It must be possible for a trap to be overcome in such a way that all members of the team can reach the exit." He placed the person on a stone where there was barely any strain on the strings holding it, and nothing happened.

"Why?"

"Because everything you do is about testing the Runners." He moved the figure to a stone with more strain. "You force them to, in this case, think, be patient, tests if the tiles will support the other's weight. They need to overcome your test, which means there has to be a way to succeed. And with a team, it means the whole team has to make it through to the exit."

"And if they fail, I absorb them."

"Most of the time it won't be an entire team that fails."

"What happens then?" Simtor asked.

"It will depend on the team. Some will turn around and leave."

"They can do that?" Karliak asked.

"Yes. Teams aren't required to finish the floor they entered. If they decide they are too weak for the next room, they can leave."

"Doesn't that mean I don't get anything?"

"You don't get any essence from that run, but you will gain knowledge. You'll see what they do, how they overcame your traps, or the creatures you had them fight."

"But what if they never come back?"

Tibs smiled. "That is where loot comes into play." He moved the stone person to another tile, and it shifted, but didn't fall.

"Loot," Simtor said, sounding like they were searching. "That's what the reward's called, isn't it?"

"Yes. It's what we, Runners, call anything a dungeon gives us as part of overcoming the tests. The biggest one is the chest at the end of the floor. The one they get after defeating the floor boss. But they can also be in caches throughout the floor."

"I don't know what that is," Simtor said, defeat in their voice.

"Those are small hidden alcoves that will contain something small. Some, Sto made, had pieces of clothing, knives, little things to encourage us to continue. On the first floor, they were always in the same room or corridor, but he moved them around. He also added traps to them, in case we grew overconfident."

"I don't see how a tile floor will do anything in something small that just holds a small item."

Tibs smiled. "That's just one kind of trap, and it's designed for a room. We'll talk about blade traps later."

"Then, a trap like this tests them, and the loot I hide motivates them to continue."

"And," Simtor said, a bit of excitement in their voice. "you'll have to balance what you get from the runs against what you need to use to make them. You don't want to use more than you get, since in the end this is also about helping you grow."

"Exactly," Tibs said, unable to mask his pride they're worked that out without his help.

"Then I think there's a problem with the trap. They are going to fall into my room. Simtor said that I can't have anyone come here. That it's bad."

"I heard someone say that," Simtor said.

"And Ganny said the same. I've been in Sto's core room but…." Now was not the time to bring up the Them.

"But what?"

"I'm his friend. He trusts me. Since people don't know dungeon are people, in their own way, they'd see your core as something valuable. Maybe your channels too, since they are filled with colors. They'd think it's just more loot."

"Then they only fall to above my room."

"Or you move it out of the way."

"I don't have anywhere to move it to."

"Yet. By the time you deal with Runners, you'll have enough essence to have a full floor." Or so he hoped. They were far enough he doubted anyone would come here anytime soon.

"How am I going to gain essence without them?"

"You'll see when you're ready to use the trap. For now, do you think you can recreate the trap as part of your floor? Make it the floor for the other side?"

The mockup Karliak had created melted into the ground, then essence shifted about.

The ground sunk in as the dungeon absorbed the essence that made it up down to about Tibs's height. Then, wood essence wove itself over the pit, others mixing with it as thick ropes became visible. Between them, stone essence concentrated, a weave of its own with all the elements Tibs had mixed in, and others.

When it was done, he looked at a larger version of the one he'd made, and could already tell there were problems, but that would be part of the lesson.

"Another rule is that you can't make changes once Runners enter a room."

"Why?"

"I think that one's so you can't make changes at the last instant. You need to work out the details of how it will be from what you sense of them, as they reach the room."

"It's so you don't cheat," Simtor said.

"Why would I cheat?" Karliak asked.

"Once clever runners keep overcoming your traps," Tibs said. "It becomes tempting." The tile he stepped on was a long stride. Not the largest, but definitely not the smallest, either. He walked around them. "Do you see a problem?"

"No."

"Shouldn't he fall through one of them?"

"He said to make the one he'd made. I had to make it bigger for that. So there's more essence in them."

"This is where adapting ideas comes into play," Tibs said. "When you make a change, it will affect how the trap works. In this case, it makes them able to resist my weight." He jumped. "And more. I don't think I'd be able to cause this to fall without using essence."

"I suppose that I can change how the essence makes the tiles. Make them more fragile, or the ropes not as solid."

"That's a way to adapt the trap." He reached the center. "Remove the stones at the edge of the trap." They melted away, and he walked to them. The bottom was flat stone. "Do you see the problem now?"

"You can't cross them?" they said tentatively. "Which goes against the rule of there being a way to overcome a trap. But you told me to remove them."

"As an another example of what can happen. How would you make sure it doesn't happen?"

"By not removing all those tiles."

"You could make them smaller," Simtor offered. "Instead of making everything larger like this, you could fill the space with smaller tiles."

"I guess I could." There was a pause. "Which one is the right way?"

"Both," Tibs replied. "Maybe neither. There isn't one way a trap works, or one way it's going to be the best one. It's going to be about you figuring out how it works best for what you're trying to do. If the trap is about forcing the Runners to think, work out the path to cross, then maybe smaller tiles will suit that purpose since it increased the possibility. If it's to challenge them physically, larger one might be best as they might have to jump over them." He lined up with a larger one, ran, and jumped.

"So this is the lesson for today. If you're still moving, you can stop now. I want you to do two things while I'm away. You and Simtor think of different ways to make drop tile traps, not just with size, but what they look like, what they are made of. How they register someone stepping onto them. Along with that, I want you to study the way trees are made. Next time, we are also going to work on making you less noticeable."