Stepping Up, Draft 1, CH 40 (Patreon)

“Have you ever heard of a King Barnacle the Just?” Tibs ask Alistair, who was seated in front of him, on the floor, legs crossed over each of them in what looked to be a painful way, but his teacher didn’t seem to mind. Tibs was similarly seated on the floor of the training room, but cross-legged in the normal way. He was supposed to focus on overfilling his reserve to get the essence to fill his body, but that had happened when he’d absorbed part of Bardik’s. If only he could tell his teacher, they could move on to whatever came next.

“I can’t say that the name is familiar, but it’s a large world, with many kings. Now focus, Tibs.” They were silent for a few seconds, then Alistair sighed. “Why do you ask?”

Tibs cracked an eye open. Alistair still had his closed, although his brow was creased.

“One of the conscripts claims to have killed one of his regiments.”

Alistair opened an eye. “Did he?”

“Is he lying?”

“Do you know how large a regiment is?”

Tibs shook his head. He hadn’t known what a regiment was, but Jackal had explained it was a group of army people that worked for a king.

“The smallest regiment I know of is two hundred and fifty soldiers. King Julius Of Bastalon keeps his at one thousand.”

Tibs didn’t try to work out the sizes of the numbers. He hadn’t even heard of thousands before. He simply went with big and bigger. “So he’s lying?”

“At the very least, exaggerating. Did he say if he was alone when he did it?”

Tibs shook his head. “Sort of. I killed a regiment, is what he said. He could have been trying to impress us.”

Alistair chuckled. “I haven’t interacted with hardened criminals like the ones they brought before, but I expect they don’t feel a need to impress anyone. Unlike you, and those who were brought here when the dungeon appeared, who mainly committed crimes to survive, these will have grown comfortable breaking laws. Those are—”

“Rules, like the one Harry set for the town,” Tibs replied. “I know what laws are. So, they’re all bad people?”

Alistair started responding and stopped. He frowned. “I can’t say. The only thing I know is that they broke laws. But not all laws are just. If this King Barnacle feels the need to proclaim himself Just, I doubt he is. That doesn’t mean this conscript you speak of was justified in what he did, but he may have felt he had good reasons.”

Tibs thought of Bardik, who’d wanted to kill Sto so he could stop the guild from exploiting people like him. “What happened to Bardik?”

“Who?” Alistair looked at him.

“He was the leader of the group that tried to kill the dungeon. An adventurer with darkness as his element.”

“Right, you knew him. As he was here already because he’d broken guild rules, and the severity of attempting to destroy a dungeon, he would have been sent to Castle Despair.”

“I thought he was sent to a prison.”

“The castle is a prison. Or rather, the catacomb, which is where the guild houses the prisoners who are too powerful to allow elsewhere. I’d advise you don’t think about him anymore, Tibs. No one sent to Castle Despair leaves it.”

Tibs nodded and closed his eyes. It seemed to him they should just kill someone if they were going to send him to a place like that. “So, could he have killed a regiment?”

“Bardik?” Alistair asked, surprised.

“No, Quigly, that’s his name. The conscript’s name.”

“Could one man have killed a full regiment?” his teacher mused. “If it’s a smaller one, and if the man was skilled and had time to prepare the terrain, I suppose it would be possible. But for such a man to then be captured.” He fell silent. “That man would not have ended up here, Tibs. A man who does that is beheaded in front of a crowd as a show of force by the king.” He fell silent again, and this time Tibs opened his eyes. Alistair looked at him curiously. “Unless he was caught for something else. If the king didn’t know he was the man behind the killing, he couldn’t act in reprisal.”

“Alright,” Tibs said tentatively. “Then why are you looking at me like this is my fault?”

Alistair chuckled. “That isn’t why I’m looking at you. If anyone else had told me this story, I’d tell them the man they spoke with was outright lying. But you, Tibs… you have a habit of attracting the oddest people to yourself.”

“What do you mean?”

“Look at your team. The son of a master criminal. A man claiming to be a cleric of the dark when no such thing should be possible. You, a rogue, has made friend with Harry Hard Knuckles, whose dislike for us is so intense, that if not for his orders, we’d all be in cells this right now.”

“Harry isn’t my friend,” Tibs said. “He doesn’t like me very much.”

“But he respects you, which is an even harder feat to accomplish.”

Tibs studied his teacher, trying to understand how he could think that. Harry wanted to throw Tibs in a cell; he just didn’t have a reason since Tibs was careful not to give him one.

“I’m not special,” Tibs stated. Doing his best to sound convinced of it.

Alistair smiled, and Tibs nearly groaned in defeat. “Your eyes contradict you, Tibs. You are special. The way you think, what you accomplish. You, I suspect, will be someone who accomplishes great things, given time.”

Tibs did groan now. He didn’t want to accomplish great things. All he wanted to do was survive his runs, reach Epsilon, and then…

Then what? Would he abandon the town? Could he leave the guild and not leave the town behind? He’d been so set on cutting ties with the guild the instant he had repaid what he owed, but now?

He closed his eyes. “I think I’m going to start by just reaching Lambda,” he said and did his best to appear as if he was pushing more essence into his reserve.

* * * * *

The thief moved cautiously. She’d looked over her shoulders a few times, which made Tibs suspect she was aware she was being followed, so he’d let her get further ahead. He had her in his essence sense, so he could afford to let her get out of sight.

She’d snuck into a tavern’s stockroom and had poured something in the ale barrels. There had been corruption in it, and it had altered the ale on contact, but Tibs hadn’t been able to do anything to stop it. The alterations extended to more than just the concentration of corruption in the ale. He also couldn’t say anything to the owner. He wasn’t even sure about telling Harry, since while the guard leader would know Tibs wasn’t lying, this wasn’t something Harry had asked him to do, and he had broken into the storeroom just as much as the thief had.

So, following her back to whoever was behind this and handed them to Harry would be how Tibs fix it.

She exited the row between the houses as Tibs entered it. She seemed confident as she walked in the dark, so he thought they were getting close to where she would meet the person who gave her orders. Hopefully, it would be that woman he’d heard referred to by some of the other thieves.

He was halfway in the lane when something creaked loudly over him and he jumped out of the way before the bales of something fell on him. He looked up as he got to his feet and made out the shape of someone.

He cursed and ran for the other end of the lane before his quarry got out of range. A knife flew by him and he reflexively threw himself to the side as it planted in the ground. He cursed his reflex. It hadn’t been aimed at him; he could have kept running. He started for the end of the lane again, and this time the knife would have planted into his shoulder if he hadn’t jumped out of the way.

“They’re getting away,” he growled at the figure.

“You have something of mine,” they growled back.

“And once you’re willing to sit down and talk. You can have it back.”

“You’re going to give it to me now,” they replied, “or I’m going to continue getting in your way.”

A door creaked open and Tibs moved into the shadows as someone exited the house whose balcony the bales had fallen off. They exclaimed something in a language Tibs didn’t understand, but the tone was pained more than angry. The form was gone, as was the thief he’d been following. She was out of range now.

This wasn’t working as well as he’d hoped, and his shadow, his opponent, said they’d continue to get in his way. With a glance at the man calling out to others from the house, Tibs walked away to search for another thief in the act of sabotaging the merchant’s business.

* * * * *

“I’m going to kill them,” Tibs snarled as he devoured the plate of succulent meats and sauce with less impressive vegetables, but still quite good.

“I don’t think Knuckles’s going to let you get away with that one,” Jackal said. Carina and Khumdar were seated at the table with him, eating their midday meal. Mez hadn’t eaten with them since the meal where he’d walked out on them.

Tibs had just woken up after falling into his bed so exhausted he hadn’t removed his bracers and they’d rubbed badly against his wrists as he tossed and turned in his sleep.

“He’s going to have to find what’s left of them first. I can use corruption to get rid of the body. I don’t even have to bother with throwing it into the pool. I have my own supply.”

“I’m afraid I may have missed details,” Khumdar said.

“You wouldn’t if you ate with us more often,” Tibs snapped and immediately felt bad for it, but it was true, so he didn’t apologize. He continued eating.

“The other roof runner,” Carina said. “The one Tibs stole the lens from—”

“I didn’t steal it, it was the loot for winning that fight.”

“They’ve decided that until Tibs gives it back,” she continued, “they are going to make his life difficult. And right now that means thwarting his attempts at finding out who is giving the orders leading to the disruption of the merchants’ business.”

“Three times,” Tibs snarled between bites. “It’s been three times now when I know I was close and I lost my target because of them.”

“Did you find out anything about that?” Jackal asked the cleric. “You’ve been poking your nose in a lot of things since you got here.”

“I know that chaos is coordinated,” Khumdar answered. “I did not look into that, yet, as stepping into the way of criminals is how I ended up here. I have learned to be selective of the secrets I investigate.”

“Well, you should help me with this,” Tibs said. His plate was empty, and he looked at Carina, hoping she’d let him have a second one. She’d let him move on to actual food a few days ago, but she was still controlling how much he ate.

She shook her head.

That meant he’d have to get something at one of the taverns later.

“I am not sure how I can. I certainly cannot help with this other roof runner as I have never encountered them.”

“You have,” Tibs said. “They’ve been around me a few times, trying to pick my pocket.”

“You never said anything before,” Carina said.

“How didn’t you catch them?” Jackal asked.

Tibs sighed. “They’re not so good at it they were able to pick it, but they are good enough to know to do it in crowds, so I couldn’t grab them or chase them. I maybe caught a glimpse of a sleeve a few times, but that isn’t enough to find them.”

“If you can rip a piece off,” Carina said, “and are willing to spend the money, there might be a way. Sorcery,” she added at Tibs’s look.

“Do we have sorcerers for hire now?” Jackal asked.

Tibs thought of Nora. She was strong, and maybe she’d be willing to help, but the cost would be letting her study him. That wasn’t happening.

“No here,” Carina said, “but I can send words out, and I’m sure someone will be willing to help.”

“For the right number of coins,” Jackal said. “Of which we don’t have an unending number of.”

“Would the dungeon help?” Khumdar asked.

Tibs shook his head. “He can’t give more than he already has, and we need to earn that as part of the loot.”

“So we need to assume coins aren’t going to be something we can use to convince a sorcerer to help.”

“The guild then?” Khumdar asked. “This must be disrupting them too.”

Jackal sighed. “Knuckles has increased the number of guards, but he doesn’t believe they’re part of the problem, or at least not helping to solve it. He believes too much that no one can lie to him.”

“Maybe you need to do it,” Carina said, “and show him his ability can be countered.”

“I’d end up in a cell, possibly until I died of old age, for that. Knuckles can be vindictive. He is a Wells after all.”

“I thought Wells were smart,” Tibs said.

Jackal narrowed his eyes at him. “You have met me, right?”

“You really think that act fools us anymore, Jackal?” Carina asked.

“It’s not an act,” the fighter protested. “I’m as thick as the stone I’m made of.”

She patted his hand. “If it makes you feel better, I believe you.”

He smiled. “It does.”

“My dumb and loving man,” Kroseph said, depositing full tankards on the table and taking the empty ones. “I wouldn’t have him any other way.”

“I thought you’d have me any way you could—”

Tibs gagged. “I’m eating here.”

The server smiled. “Unless you plan on eating the plate, I think you’re done.”

“That’s still not things you talk about at the table. Keep it for your special times.”

“And how special they are,” Kroseph said, grinning before walking away. Jackal kept looking at him longingly.

“You can go with him,” Tibs said.

Jackal shook his head. “After the last time I took him away while he worked, his father made it very clear what he’d do to me if I did it again.” He smiled at Tibs. “And I need that part so I can—”

Tibs groaned as loudly as he could, and Jackal laughed.

“If you cannot stop the sabotaging at the source,” Khumdar said once the fighter was down to snickering, “and the guards can’t be relied upon to provide adequate security. Have you considered arranging it yourself?”

“There’s only three of us,” Carina said. “Four if you’re including yourself.”

The cleric looked at the empty seat.

“Mez made it clear this isn’t part of his duties as a runner,” Tibs said, unable to hide his growing disdain.

“I would help,” Khumdar said, “although my skills may not be well suited for such an endeavor. But I believe you are missing a rather obvious, to me, group who can help accomplish this.”

“Who?” Tibs asked, trying to think of anyone who could help.

The cleric stared at him. “Look around, Tibs.”

He did, at the inn, the people eating, Kroseph and one of his sisters serving them. His father was behind the bar, laughing at something he heard.

“I don’t think Kroseph’s family can really do anything to help us.”

Carina chuckled. “I don’t think that’s who Khumdar means.”

Tibs looked around again, at the Runners eating, talking, arguing. Making plans for their next run. He shook his head. “They’re not going to want to help,” he stated. “All they want to do is get out of here.”