Breaking Step, Draft 1, CH 36 (Patreon)

The cheer that went up as Tibs reached the bottom of the stairs nearly sent him back up as anger flared. How could they be happy to see him after what he’d put them through? What he’d been planning? He would have let each of them die to accomplish his goals.

I forced himself to move, failing at unclenching his fists or his teeth. He bristled when someone slapped his back and expressed how happy she was he was back as she headed for the counter. He shouldered another aside as the man put a hand on his shoulder and smiled. The sheer happiness they all expressed at seeing him was grating, and he—

“What the fuck is wrong with all of you?” he yelled, and finally the room grew quiet. When the conversations restarted, they were subdued, but what he picked up was still about him.

What did it take for them to just stop? He considered burning them down, for a second. That would make them shut up, but as angry as he was, it would be too easy to give into the temptation to let fire take him and them. He was worried he wouldn’t stop until the world was burned if he did.

He was also tempted to use Water to cool his anger. But he didn’t trust himself not to go too far in that direction either. For as dangerous as he’d become, there had been a comfort in not caring what happened to anyone else.

“How are you—” Don started.

“Don’t,” Tibs snapped as he dropped into his seat.

“Okay,” the sorcerer said, smiling as he raised his hands in defeat. Tibs narrowed his eyes. Not trusting how easily Don was agreeing. When did he smile like that? And why were the others smirking?

“What happened while I was in bed?” he asked. He wasn’t giving any of them the chance to ask how he was feeling. And he had too much to catch up on. Ten days. Ten fucking days he’d wasted in that bed, feeling sorry for himself when he should have been out there, making sure Irdian didn’t take advantage of his absence to—

The askance look they exchanged told him enough.

“What?”

A steaming plate of meats and vegetable appeared before him, along with a tankard.

“I’m not—” he started to tell Kroseph, but the sweet and spicy smell punched through his anger and his stomach took charge. Tibs moaned as his mouth burned from the spices, the sweetness only accenting them. Before he knew it, his plate was empty, and he was still ravenous.

“Shouldn’t you take it easy?” Don asked as Tibs motioned to Kroseph with the empty plate. “You’ve only had broth for a few days, if that.”

Tibs glared. “I’ll be fine.” Suffusing himself with Purity was something he could do without danger or being tempted to overdoing it. He didn’t enjoy his work enough to want to always do that.

Tibs paused after his third plate and sighed in relief as he leaned back in the chair. A full stomach made everything feel better. Even the ongoing discussions about him going on at the other table. They were mostly amused now, with some wondering if he was safe to approach now that he’d been fed.

That, Tibs decided, would depend entirely on why they approached him. He wasn’t interested in sympathy or well-wishes. There was too much to do.

“Okay, now it’s safe to tell me what happened.” He sipped his tankard.

“Without you to keep them on it,” Jackal said, “not a lot of the rogues kept up with protecting Merchant Row, or going after any of the troublemakers that the guards couldn’t catch. So some of the merchants didn’t pay when it came time.”

“No one ran things while I was in bed?”

“Me and Quigly did the best we can, but rogues don’t take well to brutes ordering them about.”

“What kind of damage are we looking at?”

“Darran will have numbers,” Jackal said. “But there’s been a rash of break-ins and breaking of stuff. Just wanton breaking. The big stuff was stopped, no building burned down, no one was killed because of my father’s revenge, but the small, sneaky stuff we couldn’t do much without the rogues.”

Tibs ground his teeth. Of course, that wouldn’t stop just because he was wallowing.

“Tibs?” Mez asked.

“I’m fine,” he growled.

“I’d be more convinced if your teeth parted to say that.”

Tibs glared at the archer, then forces himself to unclench. “I’m fine,” he repeated. “I’m just angry that I didn’t think about any of that when I went and fell into wallow.”

“You were healing,” Don said.

“I was wall—”

“You were healing.” The tone left no room for argument. “You still are. What you did caused you damage as much as what you inflicted on others. You are going to need time until you’re whole again. And that starts with accepting you made mistakes, that you will make more, and that’s okay. You’re angry and I get that, but you have to find a way to let some of that go, mainly what you’re directing at yourself.”

“What makes you such an expert?” Tibs snapped. “You read books about what I did?”

“Retired asshole here, Tibs. I have a sense of what it’s like to cause damage and—”

“Semi-retired,” Jackal said.

“No,” Don started. “I have put that—” he paused, thought about it, then glared at the fighter. “Fine, semi-retired. Some people are making it hard to put all of my assholeness behind me.”

Jackal smirked. “What’s the fun in it being so easy?”

“I—” Don bit back the rest. He let out a slow breath and looked at the others. “Just how do you put up with him?”

“That,” Khumdar said, “is a question that all of time shall never be able to answer.”

Despite himself, Tibs smiled.

* * * * *

“Look,” Tibs told the assembled rogues, “you can’t just walk away from the work you agreed to do.”

“You did,” Sarsan said.

“I was healing,” he said through gritted teeth, again.

“Like there aren’t potions the dungeon gives out for that,” she replied. “I didn’t sign up to work for the merchants. I’m a rogue. I run the dungeon, and then I have fun. Running after other troublemaker’s not as fun as you made it sound.”

Tibs closed his eyes. Ice would be so nice right now. It might lead to him encasing her in the stuff, but at least he wouldn’t have to deal with the forming headache she was giving him. Purity could only do so much when the cause was constant.

“Alright. Just to be clear. You’re done helping. You want to go back to just being a Upsilon Runner and relying on the guild to make sure you have the training you need to survive the dungeon.”

“Sound good to me,” she said.

The uncertainty in the others comforted Tibs. They’d been taking for granted the training he and the older Runners had been giving them. Forgetting there was a price attached to it, even if it wasn’t in coins.

“Alright. Any who aren’t interested in helping keep Merchant Row safe, give me your name, and I’ll pass the words so no one calls on you from this point forward.”

Sarsan and five others stepped forward, three of which stepped back on noticing how few of them did it. Tibs could manage the loss of three rogues, especially with how many teams had graduated to Upsilon while he was in bed.

* * * * *

“What’s to say you aren’t going to just vanish again?” the baker demanded. She was a nice woman normally, baked amazing breads and pastries, due to having Wood as an element, Tibs was certain of that, even if she was unaware of it. [note: would there be a better element, not fire, that could be linked with baking/making food?] But she’d been the target of many attacks while Tibs was incapacitated.

“I am going to vanish again,” Tibs snapped before he could stop. He forced his breathing to slow. “I’m a Runner,” he continued once he was calmer. “Eventually, the dungeon will eat me. But I’m making sure there will be people to continue running things, and that everyone will keep you safe.”

The gasp reminded him again that, unlike him; they weren’t as aware of death. They had no problem believing it was something that happened to others until it happened to them. Tibs had to fight for his survival more now than when he was on the street, and that made it hard to forget death was only one mistake away.

“I’m sorry you were hit hard by the attacks. I’ll do everything I can to make it up to you.” He’d wanted to replace everything she’d lost, but Darran had stopped him. Coins weren’t the problem, he explained. It was the revelation he had them that was. 

If the merchant realized Tibs had more coins now than they could ever pay him for the services he provided, there would be questions as to why he was requiring them to pay. Others would start seeing ulterior motives, begin doubting him. And it would only be a question of time before that turned them into antagonists.

So Tibs would only replace a small portion of what she’d lost with the money he had. The rest, he’d decided without telling Darran, he would fund through his nightly training.

* * * * *

“Why?” Tibs demanded. “Why the fuck doesn’t it just work?”

Alistair looked at him, his lips curling up.

Tibs had tried not to let on he wasn’t iced anymore. He’d approached his training calmly and systematically. But unlike when he was iced, when something went wrong with his attempt, he couldn’t study what had happened, make careful changes, and have it go wrong over and over and over again until he got it right.

Now; Tibs got frustrated.

And his fucking teacher was amused by it.

With a wave of the hand, Tibs launched a torrent of water at the man. Catching him sufficiently by surprise, he sputtered water once it washed over him.

“Feeing better?” Alistair asked, still smiling.

“Yes,” Tibs reluctantly admitted.

The water lifted off Alistair and moved between them. “Then how about you try it again? And this time, don’t take for granted that your easy progress of before means you’ve done the work.”

“But I was able to do it? I still know how. I can see it when I place Bor next to Dhu, but it just isn’t working.”

With a motion, the water stretched into two thick strands, with Bor and Duh written between them in fixed intervals.

“Look at it, study it. Now, close your eyes and recreate it. Don’t try to sense it; I’ll block you. You saw it, you studied it, use that to recreate it.”

Tibs did as instructed, taking his time. When he opened his eyes, he shook with anger at the clear differences. He’d been so careful, he should—

“Before you explode, Tibs,” Alistair said. “What you made is normal.”

“It’s wrong,” he growled.

“Yes, but that’s normal.” Alistair absorbed the water. “What you did, while iced, it wasn’t exactly cheating, not that it would stop us if it was. But it was a crutch. These exercises aren’t exclusively about you learning how to do them. They’re about helping you gain an instinct for how etching works. How Bor and Dhu interact, what their positioning feels, when you’re going for a specific result. Learning while iced lets you do what needs to be done, but you have to think about what you’re doing. Once you’ve mastered this way. You simply know how to do it.”

“Why didn’t you tell me to stop, then? You know I was iced, that I wasn’t learning properly. Why did you let me continue? So you’d get more gold?”

“I wouldn’t have been able to stop you. I know what it’s like to ice yourself. I doubt there’s one person with Water as their element who hasn’t done it at least once. Many of us became monsters because we were iced. Some had to be killed because they didn’t want to stop. That’s the thing with being iced. You won’t stop unless you want to. Once you’ve made the ice, there’s nothing left that others can use to convince you. There is no compassion to call on, not even reasoning to appeal to. Ice makes you care only about what you want, so until you want to stop, there’s nothing I could have done.”

That didn’t match what Tibs had gone through. He’d always had to fight to keep the ice in from cracking. It had become easier the longer he did it, but if he got too angry, the cracks were larger, tougher to fill. It’s how Jackal had broken the ice. Then Tibs had been driven by his rage until he had nothing left.

Was that because he had other elements? Was that why Harry never saw a problem with how he was acting? Without other elements to pull at the one he was suffused with. He saw nothing wrong with what he did?

“Is it the same with all the elements?”

Alistair shrugged. “You’d have to ask a sorcerer or a scholar. They’re the ones asking questions about things that have anything to do with them.”

“If that’s your attempt at making me stop asking questions, it’s not particularly subtle.” Tibs paused. “Would you have stopped me if I became a danger?”

“The odds are I wouldn’t have been here. If the other Runners didn’t realize what you were becoming, the guild would have noticed in time and they would have acted.”

“Could the guild have made me stop being iced?”

Alistair considered the question. “Maybe. The guild has access to more resources than I know exists. Maybe there’s something in there that could force someone back from such an extreme. But Tibs, I think the better question you need to ask is if the guild would see a point in doing it.”

* * * * *

Tibs forced the nonchalance as he walked. He felt the stares the people inside the guild gave him. They knew, he was sure of it. They knew he’d been iced, that he wasn’t anymore. That he had the medallion that let him see through the distortions that made the inside of the building difficult to navigate. He’d never questioned it until he had the medallion, but now it made sense that Tibs was always accompanied when he needed to go to a specific location. Or that he’d always gotten lost when he didn’t.

Why hadn’t it ever occurred to him before to sense if the person taking him to his destination had a magical item on them?

The answer was simple. Magic had been too extraordinary for him to think just anyone here would have one. And if he’d thought to sense, it wouldn’t have helped him. Everyone had something magical on them. Small things with tightly woven essence within them. Even now, he didn’t know enough to tell if they did the same thing as the medallion in his pouch.

The clerk knocked on the door, then left Tibs there.

“Come in,” Tirania said.

Tibs steadied himself before opening the door. He so needed ice to go through with this. How was he supposed to convince her he was still her ally when all he wanted to do was burn her?

She smiled at him. “Tibs, I am so glad you’re better.” She motioned for the chair. “You had us worried for a moment there.”

Did she know? Did she know how much he hated her. That he’d been iced. That the only thing he’d wanted was to find a way to destroy her and her abyss cursed guild?

He sat. “Thank you.” She had to have at least realized about the ice. She was old, older than he could understand, he expected. And Alistair had said everyone who had Water as an element iced themselves at some point. She had to have seen the effect.

“I hope you are feeling better,” she said seriously, “because you made enough of a mark on Lord Galdain when he was here that he requested you be present when he returns for his children to decide if they will train here.”

“Me?” Tibs asked in disbelief. He had no idea who that lord was, or if he’d even interacted with him during the event he’d been forced to attend, but what would a noble want with him? He swallowed his immediate refusal. If he was her ally, he couldn’t simply say no. “Wouldn’t Don be a better choice? He knows how to act around them”

“This isn’t about what I or you think is best. Galdain specifically asked for you. Basically said that if you weren’t willing, I shouldn’t bother contacting him.” She smiled. “Which is why I’m happy you’re willing to accommodate him.”

That was not how Tibs would describe how he felt about this. If he’d known this would ever be something asked of him, he would have… gone through with it. He’d been iced. It would help him reinforce his position as her ally, so he’d have done it.

“What does it mean I have to do?” he asked. “I’m just a Runner. I don’t know anything about what a noble needs or wants.”

She smiled. “You simply have to be there. Galdain will have a house while he’s here, and that is where he will have the soiree. I suspect he might want you to act as a guild for his children, maybe take one of them with you on a run.”

“No.” He closed his mouth before he could tell her that was a stupid idea. “We run the third floor. That isn’t a place someone who isn’t a Runner yet should go.”

“I’m sure you can convince your team to do the first floor. This is just so they can get a sense of what waits them when they become Runners here.”

“Don would be better for that,” Tibs stated as neutrally as he could.

She smiled. “And I’m certain he can instruct you on how best to deal with them. I’m glad you and your team get along with him.”

“He’s part of the team,” Tibs said. “And he isn’t that bad of a person when he tries.”

She nodded. “Considering your history, I wasn’t sure it would work when he ask I put him on your team, but I have to say that it’s good the two Heros of Kragle Rock are working together.”

Tibs stared at her, not hearing the rest over the sound of his rage.

He was going to kill him.

Don had fucking played him

Again.