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 48
Tibs woke to the sounds of the town and the sun filling the room with light. There had been talk of buying fabric to cover them so he could sleep better, but he hadn't let them spend the coins. He'd learned to sleep under all kinds of conditions while surviving his street. The room was empty, everyone about their business. Carina and Jackal hadn't been in their bed when Tibs had stopped by in the night to change into something more suitable than his armor to move quietly into houses.
He knew where Jackal was. Any night he wasn't here he spent with Kroseph, but he couldn't think of any time Carina hadn't slept in her bed while part of the team. He'd have to look for her and talk about their issues. He did his best to do as she had suggested to Jackal, about him and Kroseph, and account for their different views of the world, but she'd have to explain why letters were so important to her.
He knew they were, and he knew she had to know them. As a sorcerer and someone who came from more coins than he did, it was expected. It was her insistence on him knowing them he didn't understand.
He relieved himself in the empty bucket, then dressed. His clothes smelled of soap and flowers. The first time it happened, he told Carina she didn't have to, and found out Mez was the one who'd had them cleaned. He could get an armload of clothing clean for a copper at the laundry house, so he got it done. The way he'd said it told Tibs he wanted him to do it too, but he was fine with dunking them in a barrel of rainwater to clean them.
Mez wasn't fine with that.
He got a tankard of water from the barrel outside the rooming house and brought it back to the room, where he spent time and most of his patience trying to sense and manipulate essence.
At one point, the door opened and closed fast enough he thought he'd imagined it, but he'd sensed the person walking away on the other side of the door. An earth essence Runner. One with a key to the room, so Jackal. Tibs still looked around the room to make sure nothing had been moved before getting back to his practice.
The most frustrating thing about it was that he couldn't see any kind of progress. He still lost 'touch' with one the moment he tried to add the other. Alistair had talked about it as if it was easy, but now Tibs realized there might be a reason this was taught later, and not just because it was the way things were always done.
Once he had enough, he moved onto imbuing, using one of his new throwing knives to practice with. Like the sensing and manipulating exercise, it wasn't as easy as his teacher made it seem. It was simple enough to move the essence into the knife; essence was everywhere, but it was making it stay there that proved harder.
Alistair had done something that kept all the essence from flowing out; and studying what he remembered of the feel, there had been a change to the shape of the knife's essence too, but that part Tibs had problems with, although he'd worked out he needed to use the essence he wanted to imbue to cause the change. Alistair couldn't have used metal essence since it wasn't his. He could alter the shape, but he hadn't worked out how to get it to stay in the new shape.
The door slammed shut and Tibs looked up as Mez threw himself on his bed. "I hate this place." He yelled into his sheets.
"I think everyone does at one time or another," Tibs said, and Mez's head snapped up in surprise.
"I thought you'd be out."
Tibs shrugged and showed his knife. "Training with my essence. Once it's dark, I'll walk the roofs for a while." The sun was lower, but not to the point he needed a lamp. He'd woken up early today.
Mez grumbles something else as he buried his face in covers again.
"Did Jackal do something to piss you off?"