Dungeon Runner
The Tiger Writes
sciencefiction
sciencefiction
31K5
Tibs survived by picking pockets; until he's caught.
Instead of losing a hand, he's sent away and told he must now survive a dungeon.
How is a kid who knew nothing more than his ...Bottom Rung, Chapter 44
The entrance was no longer a simple crack in the cliff wall. It was a square opening flanked by two intricately carved columns depicting rats and bunnies in various attack positions. The teeth on the rats made Tibs shudder. The slab of stone that had blocked the entrance was not there at the moment.
He'd heard from the early and late teams that it melted into the floor in the morning, and reformed after the last team came out. Claims were made that the stone couldn't be chipped or forced out of the way. Tibs wanted to know why the dungeon needed a door and closed it at night, but Alistair was away, and he didn't want to bother Bardik after their last conversation. It left Harry and Tirania as guild members he had contact with. The guild leader was deep into the building and the few times Tibs tried to approach the guard leader, Harry glared him down.
"How many rooms?" Jackal asked the two guards in green and black standing by the door.
"Is there a reason we should care about that?" the one on the left said. Tibs couldn't tell what he was, he could be a fighter or a Rogue. But he didn't have the heavy armor fighters prefer or the lighter one for Rogues.
"The guards used to—" Carina started, but stopped at Jackal's raised hand.
"We aren't the first ones to ask, they could have just told us it wasn't part of how things were done anymore, but you were told to make my life difficult, were you?"
"We were told you weren't that smart. I'm surprised you even picked up on it."
"This isn't being smart," Jackal replied, "it's knowing who I'm dealing with." He looked at the woman dressed in a white robe with the hood around her shoulders. "I don't know how to ask this politely, but are you in on this 'make Jackal's life difficult' thing?"
The robe reminded Tibs of the one Paul wore, and when she looked at the fighter, she had the same so pure eyes as to not be a color. "No," she said, her voice low. "But a little hardship has never hurt anyone."
"Only a cleric would say that," Jackal grumbled and stepped into the dungeon.
Instead of the tunnel with the uneven floor and walls, they were in a hall twice as wide and high as the opening in the cliff, with a flat floor covered in a mosaic of colored tiles that made no image Tibs could discern.
"This is a lot nicer," Carina said, as they walked through it.
"And we can see where we're stepping." Mez indicated the glowing stones in the wall, which replaced the torches that had provided hardly enough light to maneuver before.
Tibs studied one of the stones.
"Tibs," Jackal called.
"Let me try to pry it out," he replied, trying to slip the point of his knife between it and the rock. "That would be better in our room than the lamp." And if he could remove one, he could remove two and keep one to use when he explored dark rooms in the town.
He paused as he heard a hissing. He hadn't heard it in weeks. Had almost forgotten about it. He wasn't stressed, so Alistair had to be wrong. He pushed the point of the knife harder and it intensified with some cadence to it that nagged at him.
"I suspect the light is created by the dungeon," Khumdar said, running a finger over another of the light stones. "It might continue working here, once out of the wall, but if you take it outside, it will probably revert into an ordinary stone."
Tibs wasn't sure of that. His shoes still worked, but his shoes had essence woven through them, so he could check this stone. No matter how hard he focused, he couldn't sense any from it, which supported Khumdar's opinion. He still wanted to take it, just in case, but decided he'd do it on the way out. He had an entirely new floor to explore. He shouldn't waste time here.