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 07
"There you are," Ariana said as she sat next to me. It had been a few days since they'd been able to find each other to eat. Their mornings were busy with training, and Tibs spent the afternoons walking around the tents or the perimeter, marked by the spikes in the ground and the adventurer patrolling it. Every few days, it was extended as a new tent needed space. Tibs hoped that it would reach the lake and the stream he could see now that the trees around it had been cut down. He'd never touched so much water.
"I did a second dungeon run today." She looked at her slop, then ate it unenthusiastically.
"How did it go?" Tibs was on his second bowl.
"Even after you told me about yours, I didn't expect I'd get one. When I asked my instructor he made it sound like there was a roster and that I'd only go after everyone else had. Rogues are different, he said, because they keep dying."
"Seems to me it's everyone else that keeps dying," Tibs said morosely before eating again. He hadn't told her about how the sorcerer had tried to get him eaten by the rats. He shuddered at the memory. "I don't think there's a roster. They just throw people together like they did with me and your group. Maybe they ask what you are to make sure they cover all the classes, but that's it."
She nodded, "there's four classes here, so it makes sense they want them evenly represented. Then it doesn't matter who the fifth is. I was hanging among the people waiting for their turn in the clearing when one of the adventurers asked my class and put me with a group." She smiled and leaned in, lowering her voice. "The rogue didn't know how to tell what tiles were triggers. I had to point out the symbol to her." Her smile fell. "We lost our sorcerer, the other archer, and fighter in the boulder room. We didn't try to go further. I did notice something I want to verify the next time we go in."
He waited for her to elaborate, but she made a face at her food and went back to eating
"Why do they put five people in each team is there's only four classes?" he asked.
She looked like she'd ignore his question, continuing to eat, but then stopped. "eventually they're going to let clerics take part. When they're like us, they train at a different dungeon, one set up just for them."
"Oh." That explained it, not that he knew what a cleric was, but by her discomfort answering him, he decided not to ask and went back to eating too.
As they left the mess hall, yells of 'thief!' and 'someone stole my coppers!' sounded behind them. Ariana looked at Tibs, who shook his head. He put his hand in his pocket both to avoid the temptation as they were jostled as adventurers entered and to make sure his bundle of wrapped coppers was still there.
* * * * *
"Excuse me," Tibs asked the adventurer who was looking over the knives spread on a display before a merchant's tent. There was now a wooden building in the town, but it was a tavern. Tibs hadn't been able to go inside; there were people lining out the door for the taste of a tankard of ale after weeks of whatever the mess hall served, but he had climbed the wall to sit atop the roof and had gotten an even more amazing view of the countryside. The woods were bigger than he thought, and the stream leaving the lake continued down the gentle hill until the horizon.
The man looked him over, his utterly black eyes taking him in and going back to looking the knife over. "I know you from somewhere," he said, placing the knife back.
When the man looked in his direction again, Tibs discretely tapped his left wrist, hoping the rogue adventurer hadn't shown that to every other thief he met.
He frowned, then smiled. "Mister Light-Fingers. I'm glad to see you're still alive, and with both hands. Can I help you with something?"
"Do you know how to fight?"