Stepping Wild (Dungeon Runner 04)

Darna eyed him as Tibs leaned against the counter. She looked at his usual table, then him again. "It can't bode well for anyone that you're at the counter."

Had he done anything when standing here to cause problems? The only time he stood here was when he went with Rachel. And the worse that happened then was they arguing. She still wouldn't let him forage alone, even if Karliak's chest wasn't there anymore.

"I need to head to the city for a few things."

"What can you need that we can't provide?" she asked in dismay.

He raised an eyebrow. "Right now? Nearly everything. Your village has enough trouble providing for all the refugees."

"Who come from that city with stories of oppression and unjust imprisonment."

"I'll be fine. I'll be there for a day at most, and I'll be buying stuff. Cities always like people handing over money to their merchants."

"They'll take everything you have."

"Don't worry, I'll make sure to keep enough to pay for my spot in the attic."

"You've brought enough food to cover that," she stated.

Tibs shrugged. "I'll be back in three weeks, at most."

"You said you'd only be there a day."

"It's nearly a week and a half of walking to reach it, Darna."

"You should take Korl with you. He can protect you from bandits."

"I don't need protection. I'm used to traveling alone and avoiding bandits. And there were guards along the road, so it's going to be safe."

"You can't—"

"Darna. I will be fine. I'll be back."

He left the tavern before she could add anything. Her concern was nice, but he wasn't her friend. She wasn't his. None of them were.

*

As he'd promised Darna, the trip was uneventful.

He did most of his traveling running on the forest's canopy, with the aid of his elements. He played with his Air Etching, altering the position of the Arcanus, even changing some to see what would happen. When he found a new combination that gave him more speed, he worked on it, going even faster.

And then much faster.

That first impact against the tree had hurt.

But it had let him cut his travel time in half. Which ensured he'd have more time to gather his funds for the items he needed to buy. As much as it would make things easier, he still wasn't stealing from the city's merchants.

Getting in undetected was as simple as leaving it had been. Over the wall in the night, cloaked in an etching of darkness.

He saw nothing different that first night. Guards patrolled the streets and the few people they caught were dragged to cells.

The next day was markedly different from his previous stay.

Guards traveled in larger numbers and, instead of being viewed purely with fear, many of the city folks looked at them in anger. But they didn't act.

Those who acted came out of the alleys. Groups too organized to be gangs, darting out, inflicting injuries and vanishing among them again. There were few guards risking the alleys.

Many of the roof watcher's posts were destroyed. Those that survived had double the watchers, but looked more intent on protecting themselves than making sure the roofs were untraveled.

The quiet rebellion wasn't so quiet anymore.

The markets were surprisingly unaffected, which told him there was a conscious effort not to disrupt the city's economy. He didn't know how likely it was to remain that way as the conflict continued. Eventually one side would decide the merchants were, willingly or not, supporting their opposition. As much as he'd seen them try to remain neutral in such conflict, merchants had money, and that made them valuable to all sides. So something that had to be removed.

But as they were still there, he took advantage.

Passing himself off as one of the city folks looking to better secure his house in these perilous times, he placed an order with a locksmith. All different types of locks, he instructed, to ensure no thief could just figure out one, and be able to enter through any door or windows.

With a skilled woodworker, he commissioned puzzle boxes. With another, hand puzzles; for his daughter, he explained, who liked to tease her mind. He paid well with money he stole from the nobles, staying out of the conflict behind their locked doors.

He remained unnoticed. He didn't take part in the conflict, other than to discretely help when it spread to endanger uninvolved city folks. Or to defend himself when he wasn't given the choice.

He didn't seek out anyone from the no longer quiet revolution. He didn't want to know what had come of them, or be drawn into this conflict. He was no longer that person.

*

He couldn't stay out of the conflict.

Not for the week it took the artisans to make what he commissioned. He couldn't sit at the back of taverns, listening to the stories people told, and remain indifferent. Stories of guards kicking in doors and dragging out families, for them not to be seen again. Of hooded figures who assaulted random people, leaving families broken.

Did they have reasons?

Possibly. Tibs couldn't know without spending days and weeks searching and asking questions. Time he didn't have.

So the city folks gained an unknown defender for the week he was there. Someone who struck out of the shadows even in the day and stopped guards and rebels alike when they targeted the common folks.

Tibs was certain he'd helped the rebellion at times this way, since their people were the ones more able to hide among the common folks, but he didn't care. Couldn't care. It wouldn't last, anyway. They'd have to go back to fending for themselves once he left.

But leaving wasn't as easy as he wanted it to be.

He collected what he paid for in packs he bought to carry them, then had to stop guards as they attempted to drag an entire family away. On the way to the walls, he subdued masked people in the process of breaking into a merchant's shop.

The night was made brighter by a fire consuming one of the poorer neighborhood, and Tibs did something he suspected he would come to pay for, eventually.

He put it out.

He couldn't hide what he did. He couldn't pass it off as anything but what it was.

He willed the fire to starve, saving countless lives, and letting everyone know essence had been involved. He had to hope they would see it as the elements intervening and he used the darkness to leave the city before another conflict in it pulled at him.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

*

Tibs placed the items on the room's floor and stepped away. "Those are locks."

They melted into the floor. "What do they do?" Karliak asked.

"People use them to make it harder to open doors, which you can use that way too, but I bought them because, under its use. What a lock is, is a puzzle. The rogue needs to adjust the pins correctly so the cylinder will turn, which will pull the bolt out of the frame, letting them open the door."

"Oh," Simtor exclaimed. "I see it now. But how do they adjust the pins? The space is too small for your fingers."

"Maybe I'm supposed to make it larger?" the dungeon offered. "Like I had to make the tiles smaller."

"You can do that," Tibs said, making picks. "But rogues will have tools." He placed them on the ground. "Those are picks."

"Why so many?" Simtor asked once they had melted away.

"Because locks are made by different craftspeople, so in different ways. We don't always know what we'll be facing, so we carry those experience taught us will be the most useful."

A tension bar grew on the ground. "I don't see how this is used. It's too large to manipulate the pins even in the largest lock."

"That's a tension bar. It's so the rogue can turn the lock once the pins are in place. Make one of the locks and I'll show you how we work."

A lock and set of picks grew, and Tibs made two blocks of stones as a table and stool. He set to pick it, explaining what he did.

"Oh, that's not how I thought that went," Simtor said as he set the small end of the tension bar in the lock and applied pressure before inserting a pick "I thought the small end went at the back, but the groves got in the way."

"Without an element, a rogue doesn't have a way to hold the pins in place. The tension does that, but we need to be careful not to apply too much, or too little. One will lock the pins in place even if they're set wrong, the other won't hold the pins at all. And because the pins aren't identical, we have to learn to vary the tension without letting the pins drop."

He took his time, slowed and at sometimes restarted to explain what he'd done.

"And they're all like that?" Karliak asked when Tibs unlocked it.

"At their core principles. They'll be more or less complex, depending on how much money those having one made are able to pay. It can be by having more pins, by the pins being made with tricks that will make the rogue thing it's set when it isn't. Those don't have that. I didn't have the time to have complex ones made."

"But you had that money thing?" Simtor asked, making Tibs smiled.

"Money isn't something a good rogue is ever out of. Which brings me to this." He set a copper, silver, electrum, and gold coin down, stepping away.

"Oh, do you have more of that one? There are a lot of essences in it."

"You need to show it to me, Karliak."

"Right." A gold coin grew.

Tibs picked it up.

"Will I get it back?" Karliak asked, voice filled with hope.

"Yes, I just want to sense it." It had a lot of essences, and it was dense. Comparing it to electrum and silver, it was the denser of the three. He'd never stopped to consider why the coins were valued in the order they were. He'd thought it was a people thing. Gold was used in decoration and as a demonstration of a noble's status. How much gold someone had on them was a quick way to know if it was worth robbing them.

Karliak's reaction indicated there was more to it. And it could explain why dungeons started off offering copper. He'd figured Sto had done it because the people the guild had thrown in before they started sending runners had some on them, and that he'd heard the guards talk about money. Firmen hadn't said anything, but he had had enough essence for an entire first floor, and to start work on the second one. It might not have been noticeable to them.

He put the coin down. "Make the one that's easiest for you." A copper coin grew. "The next one." A silver one. "The next." The copped and silver melted away.

"I don't have enough essence without absorbing the one you still have."

"Don't bother then." He stepped away from the gold coin. "It answers my question."

"Which was?" Simtor asked.

"Why dungeons give the coins they do. The first floor is alway copper, with only a few silver for the larger mobs. That's the first and second coins. The second floor will be mostly silver, with some copper, and electrum. That's the third coin. I don't know that it's a rule, although the first two floors probably shouldn't make a Runner rich. None of them should, but they should let a good Runner afford proper gear."

"I don't follow," Karliak said.

With a chuckle, Tibs took the hand puzzles and puzzle box out of the pack. "Don't worry about it. That's for once you have Runners." He placed them down.

"What are they?" Simtor asked once they melted away.

"Make me one."

A box grew.

"That's a puzzle box. You can sense the way the wood that makes it can slide. It's a form of lock, like most puzzles can be, but these aren't used as such because they're time consuming even when you know how it works." The quality was poor, not because the artisan hadn't been skilled, but because Tibs hadn't been able to give them the time, and he'd asked for two types so they could sense different ways to make them.

"What should I use it for?" Karliak asked.

"Anything you want. Anything you can think of. Maybe you can make a door using that principle to give your Runners a hard time."

"I don't know how I'd go about doing that."

Tibs put the box down. "Don't let what you don't know keep you from trying something. Remember what I said before? Sometimes a mistake one place is a solution elsewhere."

"You didn't say that."

He shrugged. "Something to that effect. Don't be afraid of making mistake, Karliak. And that goes for you too, Simtor. You are a dungeon. You have time. Be willing to get so much stuff wrong, you end up having trouble remembering them. Because while that's happening, you'll get stuff right."

"So we try whatever we think of?"

"And see what happens. Even if it's not what you planned for, it might be useful."

"Why does contemplating that make it hard for me to think?" the dungeon asked.

"Sorry. I think I just gave you your first headache."

"I don't like it."

"Neither do I. But I was told something, when I was young, that makes more sense now. Getting a headache while learning something just shows you your mind is growing."

"And that's a good thing?"

"If I'd stopped leaning just because I got headaches out of them, I wouldn't be the Runner I am today. I wouldn't be able to help you, because I would have stopped asking questions. And the more I learned, the less of them I got."

"That means you still get them," Simtor pointed out.

"Yes, there are books that are so complicated I have to stop because of the headaches. But now I know it's because I'm learning. So I rest, then go back to it."

"I'm going to need rest from all this," Karliak said with a sigh.

"Then I'll leave after two things." He placed the pack down. "When you get Runners, put this in your loot table for your second or third floor and lower. You'll be handing out enough stuff that they'll appreciate a way to carry it all."

"You still haven't explained the other floor thing," Simtor said.

"I'll do that next time."

"What is the second thing?" the dungeon asked.

"The three hand puzzles that were with the boxes. What do you want in exchange for making me copies?"

"You want to give me something so I'll make them?"

"That's how trading works."

"I'll take another of those dense coins," they said, eagerly.

Tibs chuckled. "I don't have another one, and trading is also about balance. You want to get more than you'll put in, but not so much the other thinks it's unfair."

"How do you know what's going to be fair?"

"Well, you don't, not really. And really, since you can't talk with anyone else, you won't have to worry about it too much, but when there isn't a system in place that sets what things are worth, people haggle. One asks for something, like four of each of the hand puzzles. And the other, you in this case, asks for something in return that you think will give you slightly more that you'll expend making them."

"So…like you give me one of those bears to absorb?"

Tibs sensed, but there was nothing of that size. Instead of telling them that, he made a counteroffer. "That seems like too much. How about I bring you a deer?"

"I don't know what that is."

"Right, this falls apart without similar frame of reference. It's another kind of animal. You probably sensed them, they're—"

"Say yes, Karliak."

"Why?"

"It's another animal for you to learn."

"But is it similar in essence?"

"Who cares? The knowledge will be valuable by itself."

"Is that true?" the dungeon asked, and Tibs was confident it was directed at him.

"Knowledge has value, that's true. It's why I read so much. Books contain a lot of knowledge. But that value isn't fixed, because you and I are probably not looking to learn the same things."

"Then how do I know if it's a fair trade?"

Tibs grinned. "You don't want it to be fair."

"Okay," Simtor exclaimed. "Now I'm getting one of those headaches. You said trading was supposed to be fair."

"People are complicated, remember? And fair isn't a fixed value. I have an idea of how much work I'll have to put into getting that deer, but you don't. Over time, as we work together, you can learn to approximate and use that. But right now, all you have is what you think you'll gain out of the exchange, and my reaction to the offer."

"But you made the offer."

"True. Then it's about if you think I'll put enough work into it for what you think you'll gain."

"Two deers?" the hesitation stretched the words enough Tibs fought not to laugh.

He brought in his sense until the closest herd came in more details. He got a rough sense of the animal's healths from their Life and Fever essence, and two of them were weaker than the others. It wouldn't affect how hard getting them would be, since he wouldn't hunt them fairly, but he didn't want to damage the herd.

"Alright. But make it five of each."

"But…."

"Yes?" Tibs asked, purposely not smiling.

"Are these headache things going to come often now that you've given me one?"

"Probably. People have complained I cause them a lot."

"Okay, I'm doubling what I want from you, and you're only adding one of each to what I'll give you. I don't know how much essence I'll from those deers, but Simtor is certain learning about them is enough. So I think it's still in my favor."

"Then we have a deal."

"We do?"

"It's what people say when they agree to the trade. I'll be back shortly."

He killed the animals as soon as he headed in their direction, causing the herd to flee. He kept a wolf away to the application of spikes of pain, then carried the carcasses back.

"I thought they'd be moving," Simtor said, disappointed.

"That wasn't part of the deal," Tibs replied.

"Can we get one?" they asked. "Seeing how they move would be good."

"How about this?" He gathered the puzzles. "When you have enough essence to have a second room, I'll get you a deer to act as runner."

"We have a deal," Karliak said quickly enough, Tibs suspected he had been played, but he'd wait to see how before commenting.