Breaking Step, Draft 1, CH 63 (Patreon)

“Sto said he can change the color,” Tibs said as Don held the blue-gray robes and frowned.

“It’s not bad.”

“You mean corruption sorcerers aren’t required to dress in that sick purple color?” Jackal asked.

“It’s traditional to wear our element’s color,” the sorcerer replied, opening the robe, “but not required. Especially not to wear only that color.”

“So you dressing alway in that color was…?” the fighter asked, grinning.

Don fixed his gaze on him. “Me warning people how dangerous I am.”

Jackal lasted a few seconds, then had to look away, his skin slightly green. Don’s eyes still had the effect of making those looking into them queasy. Tibs forgot that, now that they no longer affected him like that.

“And is that no longer something you wish others to know?” Khumdar asked.

“I’ve…” he trailed off, still studying the robe, then looked at them. “I’ve realized that it doesn’t matter if anyone else knows how powerful I am. That it doesn’t matter what others think of me.”

“Glad we could help,” Jackal said.

Don snorted. “Don’t flatter yourself. My teacher has been on my back about my attitude.”

“So, you’re saying we had nothing to do with you becoming a better person?” Jackal asked. “I mean, didn’t you say something about how you arranged to be on our team because—”

“You’re really going to make me say it, aren’t you?”

Jackal grinned.

Don sighed. “Fine. Watching Tibs go about like he’s just some guy living in this place, like everyone else, when he’s got all that power to call on, did help show me that I don’t have to shove what I’m capable of in other’s face to be respected.” He considered something. “I don’t have to demand respect, to get it.” He grinned. “Happy, Jackal?”

“Of course. You think that was about getting you to say I played a part?” he snorted. “I’m the first one out there showing just how strong I am. What do you think all those fights I get in to are about?” He looked around when no one replied. “No smart comment?”

“We all know that’s why you do it,” Mez said.

Jackal looked disappointed.

“And yet,” Khumdar smiled. “You have yet to take on Cross.”

“I am not that stupid.”

Don sighed. “I so wish I could argue that point.”

“Just wait,” Tibs said. “He’s not that stupid, but he’ll do something stupid at some point.”

* * * * *

The air smelled better.

Tibs sniffed.

“You didn’t think we enjoy that smell anymore than you, did you?” Don asked, as they approached the pool of corruption. Scaffolding had been erected on all sides, doing up in an arch to meet over the pool, and large wooden beams were being set in the ground next to the scaffolding.

“How are they doing it?”

Don shrugged. “Essence work, obviously.”

A woman in gray work clothes with purple trim that match her eyes approached. “Acolyte Arabis, how can I assist you?” she looked him over.

“This was a dungeon find. I’m still considering how I’ll accent it.”

She nodded.

“I thought you couldn’t be an acolyte until you reached Epsilon.”

“The title has nothing to do with the acolyte’s affiliation,” she replied. “It’s an acknowledgment of his contribution to the academy. Once he is free of the guild, then it will become a mark of his position within our organization.”

“I’d like to use the recharging chamber, if it’s available,” Don said.

“It is.” She motioned to the scaffolding. “The construction isn’t yet advanced enough people trust it, despite our reassurances. You know the way.”

Don thanked her, and they walked around the pool. Halfway to the other side, Tibs made out a structure among the scaffolding, held just above the corruption. A man stood from the table next to the entrance.

“You are?”

“Don Arabis, this is my friend, Tibs.”

“Ah, yes, Acolyte. Here to meditate?”

Tibs raised an eyebrow.

“Recharging takes time, Tibs. Sitting with your thoughts is a good way to pass that time.”

Tibs almost pointed out how he’d showed Don to pull it in and speed it up, but if the sorcerer wanted to go along the way the guild taught things, it was his decision.

When Tibs followed Don, the man who’d written Don’s name in a ledger stopped him. “This isn’t for you.”

“He’s a friend,” Don said, his tone hardening.

“His element is water,” the man replied. “This won’t bring him anything.”

“Tibs’s curiosity is never ending. He doesn’t have access to a pool of his element, so he asked to come so I can explain how it works.”

“You can do that in a tavern, over a tankard of ale.”

“I could, but as I told Tibs, recharging takes time. While I’ll be happy to sit with my thoughts, I find a friend’s company to be more enjoyable.”

The man considered. “If he gets sick, you will clean it.”

“Of course.”

The bridge to the small structure wavered with their steps. “Is this solid?”

“Solid enough.”

Ropes held it and the building to the scaffolding, and it too moved as they entered. It felt like what Tibs imagined standing on a large plank floating on water would be like. 

The structure was a single circular room with a table and chairs in the center. An open chest by the door contained writing implements.

“I thought people came here to meditate.”

“We come here to recharge our reserves. For most, it takes time. Experiments can deplete it, and sometimes they don’t have the time to wait for it to happen naturally. Not everyone enjoys being alone with their thoughts for so long.”

“So they have to travel here?”

“Or to one of the other academy build over a connection to our element. This one isn’t unique, Tibs. But it is in a city. I think that’s going to make it appealing once it’s finished.”

“The other aren’t in cities?”

Don snorted. “Contrary to what you’d think. Corruption doesn’t manifest itself in cities. The academies are all in the wilderness, with only three of them under a day’s ride from a city. They each have towns that support them, but it’s only the brave folks who settle that close to the influence of corruption. Help me move these.”

“You aren’t going to use them?” they moved the table and chairs to the side of the room.

“I need the space for the etching.”

“What are you going to etch? Is it to help you recharge?”

Don chuckled. “Considering what you taught me, standing outside it all I have to do. This is so I can use the robes. All the reserved in it have air at the moment.”

Tibs nodded, remembering Carina’s joy at all the reserves the robe contained. One for each element, she’d said, but she’d set each for air, since it was the only element she could manipulate.

“The etching’s going to do that? I thought the elements couldn’t affect each other.”

“Not directly. You couldn’t use corruption to will air out of the reserve. You wouldn’t even know air’s the essence in them. I know, because I know the precious owner had air, and you didn’t contradict me. But etchings can include Arcanus, and each letter alters its effect. The one we’re going to etch here serves to drain reserves so they can be repurposed. We have a constant need for amulets, but few that are found have corruption in them. So we have to drain them to fill them with our element.”

“Is it because people don’t like corruption?”

Don paused in tracing lines of essence on the floor. “What?”

“That there aren’t a lot of corruption amulets. Isn’t there a corruption dungeon that will make them?”

Don chuckled. “Dungeons that fixate on one element are rare. There’s the Purity one.”

“Sto’s stone. That’s why he picked that name. It’s what he is. Stone Mountain Crevasse,” he said at the quizzical look Don gave him.

“He is named after where they are, what they are made of and… is there a crevasse?”

Tibs shrugged. “What is it?”

“You don’t know what a crevasse is, but you didn’t question why it’s in their name?”

“It’s a name. Why would I question it?”

“Good point. A crevasse is a break in the ground. I guess that with them being in a mountain, there is at lease one. It’s still funny they have that as their name. I thought Sto was just… Sto. Like you said. I didn’t question it.” He went back to tracing the etching. “But I wouldn’t say they’re fixated on earth as their element. I don’t think they’d have the people golems if they were, or the Gnolls.”

“The Ratlings and Bunnylings are made of stone.”

“They’re on the second floor. I think they’re like that because that was what they had to most to work with. From what I read. Most dungeons do use more of whatever element is the most common where they form, but the later floors always diverge from that. So the fact there aren’t a lot of amulets with corruption in them has more to do with the fact that there are many elements, and on the whole a smaller number of corruption users. Any amulet can be repurposed. The simplest way is to get someone with that element to drain it, then you recharge it with yours. Only a little will get it going, since they recharge naturally.”

“So you could get someone with air to drain these, then put corruption in it.”

“If I could convince them there is essence to be drained. Remember, only Carina could sense the reserves. I can’t sense them. Hopefully, the dungeon can change that too, or at least once there is corruption in the reserve, I’ll be able to tell how much they contain.”

“I could drain them.” Tibs had been surprised at how easily Don had accepted his word the robe had reserves. He’d forgotten how Sto had made it so it imprinted on Carina. Don had been curious at how it could be done, but he hadn’t doubted Tibs.

“But this lets you practice.”

Tibs narrowed his eyes. “This is training, for me?”

Don smiled. “How else are you going to learn anything about etching with corruption? No one will be able to tell what we’re doing from outside the room. There’s too much essence here for this to be distinctive.”

“You’re already doing the etching.”

“I’m laying down the pattern. I always do that before I create the actual etching.”

Tibs looked at the floor. “You can do that?” as far as he could tell, the essence was an etching. There were none of the letters there yet, but he sensed no difference to a simple etching he’d do that didn’t contain them.

“How do you practice yours?”

“I… just etch them.”

“And if you make a mistake?”

“I start small.”

Don snorted.

“I clean up the mess.”

“Your teacher never showed you how to lay down the pattern?”

Tibs shook his head. “I don’t think it’s something he does. He makes the motions, and it happens.”

Don sat back on his haunches. “He must be good. My teacher still does this with anything but the simplest etching he knows.” Don motioned to the space facing him on the other side of the etching. “Sit. We’re about ready to start.”

Tibs grumbled as he sat, already feeling the headache forming.

* * * * *

The headache faded slowly as he sensed the essence draining out of the robe. He couldn’t sense the reserves themselves, but Air dripped out and into the etching, then dispersed around them.

“Is it working?” Don asked.

“You said we didn’t make mistakes.”

“Yes, but this isn’t simply an amulet, the dungeon added weaves upon weaves on the robe. I don’t know if they’ll interfere.”

“It’s working. I don’t know how fast.”

Don nodded. “We have hours before anyone checks in on us. I doubt there’ll be someone else needing to use it.” He stretched.

“Don? How do you think Khumdar did what he did?”

“I don’t have the faintest idea. His element is Darkness. There is no way, based on what I know, that he should have been able to use it to pull along Earth. That’s just…” he sighed. “It’s got to be a cleric thing. If he was a sorcerer, I’d have theories. Mainly that he’s much stronger than he claims to be.”

Tibs shook his head. “He’s Lambda at most. That’s how dense his essence feels to me. It’s not quite as dense as yours or Jackals. Denser than Mez.”

“You?”

Tibs shrugged. “I don’t think it matters how dense mine it, since I barely know how to do anything.”

“Then he can’t be a sorcerer. We’re not taught how to pull essence from object until we’ve graduated to Zeta. Did he use Arcanus?”

“I don’t know. I was too busy fighting to sense the details.”

“You didn’t ask him?”

Tibs shrugged. “Darkness is about secrets for him, so I let him have them.”

“Considering he claims not to have received training—”

“He didn’t lie. I’d have seen the light on the words.”

“I’d be careful to rely too much on that. With Darkness as an element, I figure that if anyone could find a way to lie and keep it from you, it would be him. But he does go around finding out things. With the guild, and all the teachers here, it’s reasonable he got someone to tell him about etching, as well as Arcanus.” He hummed. “Actually, it’s unreasonable to assume he is any lower in his training than we are. He isn’t arbitrarily kept at a rank until he can do something that has little bearing on how strong we actually are.”

“So he might be learning things above Lambda.”

“Or Zeta, or even Epsilon. The teachers here are all Delta, at least.”

“Not all of them.”

“According to the guild, they are.”

“Not according to how dense their essence is. You think the guild is lying?”

“Wouldn’t you know?”

“I’d have to ask the questions or have one of them say it before me to see the light, or not.”

“They might not be lying. Like I said, the tests are an accurate representation of how strong we are. Knowledge and skill can compensate for a lack of power. I think that Khumdar learned how to etch using Arcanus, and that’s how he did his attack.”

“But he isn’t a sorcerer. Aren’t they the only ones with the right mindset to learn how to do it?”

“Clerics like him aren’t supposed to exist,” Don whispered. “The ones from Purity go on and on about how clerics are something only their element produces. And they only train them to help and spread the belief Purity is at the core of everything, and corruption responsible for all that is wrong in the world. If Khumdar is proof they are wrong. And, if I’m going to be generous, they exterminate all who claim to being clerics of another element because they don’t know any better. The result will be that there is no way to know what a cleric can and can’t do. Maybe clerics come from a mindset that lets them pull essence out of objects like sorcerers can. The only way I’d have to know is to ask him, and I’m not sure I’d trust any answer he gave me.”

“Don’t ask him when I’m around.”

Don chuckled. “I don’t plan on asking him. Unlike you, I don’t go looking to get headaches.”

“I don’t go looking for them. They just find me.”

“Of course. That’s why it’s so easy for you to keep your mouth shut and not ask questions.”