Breaking Step, Draft 1, CH 59 (Patreon)

The designs on the steps had changed again; the last three showed Gnolls ripping Runners apart.

The cleric by the door looked them over and nodded. The guards hardly glanced at them as they entered.

Sto didn’t great them.

Jackal opened the doorway to the third floor before the others reached him. He was by the hallways, bouncing in place, when Tibs stepped through. “Come on, we need to hurry.”

“We have half the day,” Don said. “Now’s not the time to rush and make mistakes.”

“Sto,” Tibs called, “You here?”

“Is this wise?” Khumdar asked as the other looked at him. Don with a perplexed expression.

“I told Don I’d explain the rest once we were here.” He looked up. “Sto?” silence. “Ganny?” they might be focusing on the fourth floor, or the first two, since there were new Runners on them.

“Tibs? Who are you calling out to?”

“I’ll explain when one of them answers.”

The sorcerer looked at the others. “Do you have any idea what he’s doing?”

“Yes,” Mez answered cautiously. “But I don’t think we can explain it. It’s not exactly…”

“Believable,” Khumdar finished.

Tibs headed for the hallway and crouched, studying the floor.

“Tibs?” Sto asked, “did you say something?”

He stood. “Hey Sto, you’re back.”

“Yeah, sorry, with Don there, I didn’t think you’d be talking.”

Tibs ignored the look the sorcerer gave him. “After that last run and him finding out I have multiple elements, we had a talk and agreed we were done holding anything back, you’re the last one, and until we were here, I didn’t know how I’d be able to explain you to him.”

“Tibs,” Don said cautiously, “what is going on?” he looked at the others, who, other than Jackal, looked concerned. The fighting only looked impatient.

“Don, I’d like you to meet Sto.” Tibs motioned around them. “The dungeon.”

“His he serious?” Don asked Mez, no nodded. “He believes the dungeon has a name?”

“It’s more than that,” Mez said.

“You realize he can’t hear me, Tibs.”

“I thought you could do like you did with Jackal. Have one of the Big Brutes come and interact with him.”

“I don’t have them nearby.”

“What’s a Big Brute?” Don asked.

“The big golems in the boss room on the third floor,” Mez answered.

“Tibs names them?”

“Sto does,” Tibs replied. “There has to be something you can do to convince him.”

“Tibs, dungeons can’t talk.”

“According to who?”

“Everyone.”

“No me.”

“Everyone else.” Don ran a hand over his face. “Is this because of all the elements he has?”

“Yes,” Tibs said.

“They’re affecting his mind? Should he be doing runs, then?”

“I have something,” Sto said, “but you need to make sure Don’s serious about learning I’m a person. And I need to check something with Ganny. Ganny!” he called, his voice fading.

“Sto can prove it, if you really want to know he’s a person.”

“This is a dungeon. They’re not people, Tibs.” Don looked at the others. “Shouldn’t you have done something about this delusion?”

“Just say yes,” Jackal snapped, “So we can move on. We need to clear the floor.”

Don looked at Tibs. “I want your word Tibs, that once whatever you think the dungeon is going to do doesn’t happen, you will come with me to see a cleric.”

“After the run,” jackal said.

“Sure,” Tibs said.

“Alright, have the dungeon do whatever it’s going to do.”

“Actually,” Sto said, “I need you to make it to the first cache. You’re going to need what’s in it. Ganny agreed this is worth bending the rules.”

“Okay.” He went back to studying the floor. “It’s going to be at the cache after the first fight.”

“Yes,” Don said, sounding amused. “Of course, it will.”

* * * * *

“Cover your eyes!” Tibs yelled, waited a second, then released the compressed light essence. He followed it with rushing the group of Gnolls before him. He sliced the first one, flung a ball of Corruption at the next, leaped over another and stabbed its back as he landed, then grinned at the once in front of him and iced it.

He made a metal hammer, swung it as hard as he could, and it exploded into shards. He looked around. The others were finishing the Gnolls they’d taken on.

“We’re going to have to rethink every fight,” Ganny said. “If Tibs’s not going to hide everything he can do anymore.”

“Why didn’t you use the lighting?” Sto asked.

“I haven’t practiced it yet. Don won’t let me.”

“You’re letting Don control your training?” Sto asked, surprised.

“He read about it and thinks his method will work better.”

“He read about how to train people with more than one element? I thought you were the only one.”

“He read about the things I told him I go through while learning to control myself, and has me practice something called Oneness. I don’t think it’s working, but he deserves a chance.”

“Tibs,” Don said. “The fight’s over.” There was challenge in the tone.

“Better get on with proving to him you’re a person.” Tibs located the cache, checked it for traps, and grinned as he found one. “You really thought I’d rush before of this?”

“This was setup before Sto made changes,” Ganny replied, sounding insulted.

He opened it, checked the inside, then took the content out.

He looked the lasso over.

“Is a lasso supposed to prove the dungeon can think?”

“Even you know dungeon can think,” Mez said.

“You know what I mean,” Don replied.

“Sto, I’m with Don.”

“It isn’t a lasso, Tibs. It’s his lasso.”

“I still don’t under…” Tibs didn’t recognize it, but he had never looked at it up close. “Oh.”

Sto spoke, And Tibs repeated what he said, as he handed it to Don.

“On your first run after the siege. When you made it to the Ratling camp. You sent everyone on your team to search the tents for the chests. When you were alone. You held the Radcliff’s lasso to you and cried. When you were done. You put it in a tent and waited for your team to return.”

“How?” Don asks, drying his eyes. “How do you know?” there was some anger in his tone.

“Sto can be anywhere, since he’d the dungeon. You’d never acted like anything other than an ass before that, so he was curious.”

“Cliff was a pain in my ass,” Don said with a laugh. “I don’t think he ever took me seriously when I was ordering him about. He’d do what I told him, but I could see him roll his eyes. He called me out of the stupid stuff I’d get hung up on. But fuck, was he brave. After all that, he’d get me a tankard and talk with me as I glared daggers at him. When I pushed the others too far, he was between us, talking sense in them, and me. Then, he died.”

Don clutched the lasso. “I hadn’t realized how much of a friend he’d become until you were screaming at him not to die.”

“I tried to save him. I used as much purity as I could, but I didn’t know what to do with it, and his essence just faded away.”

“I couldn’t let anyone see me cry. And while we fought during the siege, it was easy to turn that into anger and make anyone working for that man pay for Radcliff’s death. Then… well, as a hero, being alone wasn’t easy. And I had to rebuild my team. And be the Voice of the Guild.” He spat. “If I hadn’t been so full of myself, I’d have told Tirania to go fuck herself. In the encampment was the first time I managed to really be alone and say goodbye.”

He dried his eyes and took a shuddering breath.

“You didn’t have to go through that alone, you know?” Tibs said.

Don’s laugh broke. “You have no idea how terrifying the idea I’d look weak in front of anyone was.”

“Mourning’s not weak,” Jackal said. “It’s normal.”

“Caring made me weak. Leaders don’t care. They send friends and family to their death and never shed a tear.”

“Someone’s been listening to the bards too much,” Jackal said.

Don snorted. “I never had to. I looked at how nobles acted and created this image of what leaders were like. Then I promised myself that’s who I’d be. That I’d never be weak again.”

“If you’re waiting for me to make a joke about that,” Jackal said when the silence stretched. “We’re going to have to miss the run entirely.” Don rolled his eyes.

“So the dungeon’s name is Sto.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Sto said.

“He’s happy to meet you.”

Don snorted. “He has seen me act, right? How happy can he be to meet me?”

“I was also happy to meet Jackal, even if he’s always winning the fights, so you know, take it for what it’s worth.”

Tibs chuckled. “He’s always happy to meet someone.”

“Who’s Ganny?”

“She’s his helper and advisor. She tries to keep him from breaking the rules.”

“The dungeon has a woman helping him?”

“She’s not a person like you and me. Her voice sounds like that of a girl, which is why I think of her that way, just like Sto sounds like a guy, but they all refer to him as ‘it’ and he doesn’t mind.”

“And the dungeon needs to follow rules? Who came up with them? How do they enforce them?”

“Oh, not again,” Jackal muttered. “We are in the middle of a run. Can we leave the questions of how the dungeon does everything it does to once we’ve reached the fourth floor?”

“Someone’s a little sure of himself,” Ganny said with a chuckle.

“He has a bet with Quigly that we’ll reach the fourth floor before them.”

“So,” Don said, “you can talk to the dungeon, and they answer you.” Tibs nodded. “Can you have them tell you how to beat all the boss room?”

“No,” Tibs said with a sigh. “That’s one of those rules Ganny keeps Sto from breaking.”

“Hey, I’d never tell you how to beat a room. Where’s the fun in that?”

“I can think of a time or two where Tibs almost got you to reveal something.”

“Almost doesn’t count.”

“It does when I had to stop you from talking.”

Tibs smiled. He’d missed the banter.