Breaking Step, Draft 1, CH 52 (Patreon)

“So it’s tonight?” Archer asked as Tibs stood at the window, looking outside.

Once Tibs had returned to the Brokerage and found that the threads he’d move were still attached to the hook, he’d moved as many of them each night, enduring the mind numbing pelting of the rain. When he’d moved all the threads he could sense and interact with directly, he was left with too many of those that he couldn’t identify still in his way. He couldn’t guess at how much he could pull them away, since his inability to tell what element they were meant he couldn’t sense details about them. The threads were there, as were the letters, but how close to the breaking point they were? He had no idea.

He’d had to use threads he could control as ropes to pull the others out of the way. He’d been careful, moving them slowly until they were parted like a curtain. The gap was tight, and if he hadn’t been utterly exhausted at that point, he could have slipped in, found the safe holding the coins Archer was after, and it would have all been over.

Instead, he’d trudged by to the tavern and fallen onto his pallet and slept through the rest of the night and the day. He’d promised himself that as soon as it was dark, he’d be in there. He wanted to go home, back to his friends.

“No,” Tibs said, looking at the clear sky. Torus was to his left, its horns seeming thicker than they did in Kragle Rock. Every city he’d visited was accompanied with slight differences in how Torus looked. He didn’t understand how that could be, and that was one question he didn’t feel he needed the answer to.

He already had too many unanswered questions.

Claria was nearly full, her eye on Torus’s horns.

In the street, people were out in drove, as if the clear weather was cause for celebration.

“You said you were ready.” There was no accusation in the man’s voice, also no light on the words. Tibs didn’t remember speaking with the archer before falling asleep.

“I need the rain to hide me from the guards.” He turned and leaned against the window frame.

“Can’t you use magic to hide from them?”

He shook his head. There was Darkness, but Tibs didn’t have the training to weave anything out of it. He only remained hidden while in concentrated. “I’m going to have too much to focus on. I might have to work on the weave before I can go in, and there’s two guards who can see it without effort and a third that only has to turn and they’ll see me.”

“I can distract them.”

He shook his head again. “The goal is to not attract attention. I get in, get all the coins, and get out with no one knowing. Hopefully, it’s going to be days before they need to pay someone out of them and we’ll be gone.”

“Where are you going?” Archer asked as Tibs opened the door.

“Outside. I’m going to visit the city since there’s nothing else for me to do.”

“Don’t get into trouble.”

Tibs didn’t reply. He had no plans to do that, but he knew better than to promise on something out of his control.

He ate a quick bowl of the tavern’s stew along with a tankard of ale. Then he was outside, letting the crowd jostle him along.

Once he had enough of being bounced against the others, and his pocket felt heavy enough, he suffused himself with water and moves easily between them. He took an alley that opened into a courtyard with people gathered around a brazier. They were too jovial to be street and simply keeping warm.

Tibs nodded greeting as he walked by and exited via another alley. The other street he was in wasn’t as busy. Houses with the occasional candle or lantern by a window. The occupants were sleeping or out celebrating the clear night.

Without the heat of the crowd, the cold of the wind slipped through the joins in his armor and made itself felt. It didn’t bother Tibs, Air was his element and couldn’t hurt him in any form, but with nothing else to do, he noticed the cold.

Wind could be cold, as did water, even the ground, earth. With it being common thought multiple elements, Tibs had expected it to be its own element, working along with the other. Maybe one that pulled from the others. Sebastian had called the elements beyond the eight core ones their children. Cold could have been that. [or did I just justify why cold should be its own element? I’m willing to rework this, if that’s the case]

Instead, he sense that it was in the way the essence moved that the cold was created. What he found interesting was that it wasn’t the same motion of the essence that generated the cold. He couldn’t find words to express what he sensed, so he assigned them. It was in the flow of Air. In how some essences moved faster that the cold effect happened. It was in the heaviness of the Earth. In how some of the essence sunk that it happened. It was in the stillness of the Water. The part of essence that didn’t move among the rest.

If he took those essences and willed them to follow along the rest, the cold went away.

Another way he could do it was to introduce fire essence. He couldn’t create cold out of fire, and making it hotter was only about adding more essence.

He wondered if any of the books in the library explained why that was, then put the question out of his mind as he saw a shop selling candies. It had been too long since he’d had any.

* * * * *

Tibs shielded his eyes against the sun. He’d forgotten how bright it was in the nearly two weeks of constant rain. The air was still cool, but the wind had died down, letting the sun warm him. He found a courtyard by a restaurant with tables and found an unoccupied one. The ale was better than the tavern, and more expensive, as was the meal. Layered slices of vegetables and meats with spices. Nearly everything served in this city was spiced, and the colder the weather, the more they added. Even the candies made locally were spicy, some to the point of feeling like fire on his tongue.

It was appropriately called Red Fire.

There was no more fire essence than in another other item, so Tibs didn’t know how the burning happened, but he enjoyed it.

Archer dropped in the chair opposite Tibs in enough of a dark mood he expected him to be surrounded by Darkness essence.

“How long until you have to go back?” he asked. Waving to a server.

Tibs checked the bracelet. The gem was still yellow. “I don’t know. Once it turns red, I have two days.”

“I can’t get anyone to make it rain.”

“They can do that?”

The man rolled his eyes. “Magic can do anything. But in this place, no one wants to make it rain. They already get too much of it as far as they’re concerned.”

“Give them more coins.” Tibs went back to eating.

“The point of this excursion of form me to have coins left when we leave.” He accepted the tankard and ordered something called Harkan Soup. Tibs asked for some, too. “If it turns red, and it’s still clear, you’re going to have to go through it with, anyway. I’ve scouted the area and I will be able to provide a distraction that’s going to let you slip in. I figure it won’t matter all that much at that point if they notice you leaving. You can lose them in the city.”

Tibs nodded. “Did you find a way for me to carry all those coins?” he wasn’t mentioning his pouch or the hiding place in his armor to this man.

“I’ve had that for a few days. I’ll hand it to you when you go do the job.”

“It’d be easier if I had it now. That way, the moment the weather changes, I can get started.”

“And have you fill it with other stuff between now and then?” the archer shook his head.

“I’m not going around stealing.”

Archer indicated the bowl as the server placed them before each.

“That’s not the same thing,” Tibs said once she left. The soup was good, almost cool compared to the spiced plate he’d been eating. “It’s just a few pockets here and there.”

“Only a thief would make a distinction between what they steal.”

“I’m a rogue.” He altered the meats and the soup, enjoying the difference in level of spices.

“Out here, you’re a thief. No one’s going to care that you’re a Runner, because trying to figure out how much trouble holding you will cause with the guild. Before you think that’s a way to avoid ending up in a cell. They aren’t going to know you’re some hero to them. So guard will put you in a cell and others… well, the cells in this kingdom have a tendency of being more empty than other places.”

“I’m not getting caught.”

“I’d be happier if you stopped stealing entirely until we’re gone.”

“I have to keep training.” He grinned. “You don’t want my fingers to grow stiff.”

The man shook his head and ate in silence.

* * * * *

The thunder woke Tibs. It was so loud he thought the building had shaken with it.

He looked out the window. It seemed too early for how dark it was.

“I guess today’s the day.” Archer grinned. He pulled a bag from a small chest and threw it at Tibs.

He felt the essence woven through the bag once it was out of the chest. A lot of it was darkness.

“A bag of holding,” Archer said. “It’s also enchanted to make it harder to detect and so that what you put on it won’t weigh as much.”

The bag didn’t have a way to attach it to his belt. “If I need to carry it, it’s going to make things difficult.”

Archer shrugged. “It’s the best I could manage. Anything convenient is already claimed by people with more money than me. This was her practice bag.”

“And you’re sure it’s going to work?”

“It’s not the first time I’ve used it. The enchantments on it work. It’s just inconvenient to use.”

“How much coins does it hold?” Tibs looped the end under his belt and tied it around. If it didn’t bulge too much, he’d be able to do that once he filled it.

“More than they’ll have.” Archer studied Tibs as he stood and moved, then adjusted the bag on the belt.

“What?”

“I’ve just handed you something that can hold more than you can find in that building, and you’ve just tied it to your belt without even checking how it might do that?”

“The inside is larger than the outside,” Tibs said. “Have you ever been in the dungeon? That’s how the chests work. Something like that,—” He motioned to the small chest the bag came from. “—can hold a full set of armor. This isn’t as amazing as you think it is.”

“Just to a Runner,” Archer muttered. “I nearly fell into it when she told me what it did. I put my arm in to my shoulder trying to feel the bottom and almost lost my balance.”

“I wonder what it’s like to be inside one of them.”

“She advises against it. Strongly. When I asked why, she said I wouldn’t be able to stand finding you.”

“I’m not like—”

“She knows the life I live. The things I’ve seen. If she says I won’t be able to stand those details, I believe her. You should too.”

He’d ask Ganny during the next run.

He chuckled at the realization that he would be able to talk with her and Sto. If Don hadn’t handed his secret to the guild when he returned, they’d be able to talk through this problem.

“What’s that about?” Archer asked suspiciously. 

“Just something for when I’m back home.”

“You aren’t keeping the bag.”

“I don’t need it.”

The suspicious look was back.

“I don’t steal from my home.”

Now the archer looked at him in disbelief. “You mean you aren’t the one that’s always getting into noble’s houses and taking their things?”

Tibs sighed. “I don’t take things from them. I do it for the practice.” The guards hadn’t dragged him to the cells for that, so either the nobles were just talking about it, exaggerating what was taken from them, or, and this one was more likely and worrisome, they planned on dealing with the issue themselves.

Something else he’d have to look into once he was back.

Archer didn’t believe him, which was fine. Tibs didn’t care what the man thought of him. He’d do this job and then wouldn’t see him again.