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 56
Tibs let out the breath as he moves the air essence into the knife. Three evenings now, and it was finally getting the hang of this.
He didn't have to do much, other than let his essence flow into it, the way it was imbued, the structure of it, guided it into creating the effect, the enchantment. Carina explained that for it to qualify as an enchantment in the eyes of sorcerers, it needed to generate its own essence so anyone could use it. Otherwise, it was just imbued.
Tibs didn't care, these knives could do something when he pushed essence into them. That was an enchantment to him.
The knife lifted off his hand and Tibs smiled. He felt his essence within it, and when he moved it such.
The knife drifted to the left. He altered his essence within the knife and it drifted to the right. Another change and it floated up. He concentrated and got the knife to turn until the point was down.
The door closed shut, and he startled. The knife dropped and sank into the table enough it stayed up.
"Sorry," Carina said, holding back a chuckle. "How are you coming along?"
Tibs pulled it out. Fortunately, there had been ample scratches and gouges on the wooden table before he started. This one wouldn't be noticed. "I can move it a little, but I don't have enough essence to do anything more." He sheathed it with its twin at his hip. "I can tell it can hold a lot more, and I figure that if I can fill it, I'm going to be able to make it fly around fast, but..." he shrugged.
She flung something at him. "This can help." He caught it and was looking at Carina's amulet. "It's drained. I checked with my teacher and once fully drained it can be refilled with a different essence."
"Don't you need it?"
She pulled the stone from around her neck. It was now wrapped in leather strips. "This one's better. It can hold more essence and it flows in and out easier. Do you know how the dungeon made it?"
Tibs shook his head.
"Can't you ask it?"
"I don't hear him from here. I think he needs to be thinking at me for me to hear it because he said that he and—" he stopped and shook his head. "That he liked to comment on other teams, and I didn't hear anything he had to have said about those Omegas we ran into."
"Think?"
Tibs shrugged. "It's how he describes it. I guess that since he doesn't have a mouth, it's all thinking to him." He turned the amulet in his hand. As she'd said, he felt no essence in it. "What did your teacher say when you asked if other essences could go in it?"
"He thinks I'm going to sell it to a merchant or another Runner. If he knew I'm giving it away, he would have taken it from me."
"Can he do that?"
"He's Delta, he made sure I knew that. I'm pretty sure it means he can do anything he wants at that point."
Tibs nodded. He bit his lower lip, then asked. "How is it with... you know?"
She sighed and dropped onto her bed. "It's over. We had an arrangement, and he didn't hold up his end, so I'm not staying in it. Of course, I couldn't exactly tell him the dungeon told you he'd been talking about me, so I expect he's going to be screaming at all his friends, but I really don't care about the trouble it might cause them. They're on his team, so they can take the blowback. Tibs, don't get involved with anyone."
He chuckled. "I already didn't plan on getting any special anyone."
She snorted. "He wasn't my special guy. If I'd have had with him what Jackal and Kroseph have, or even what Mez and Tandy seem to have, I might have given him a chance to explain."