Breaking Step, Draft 1, CH 65 (Patreon)

“How is everyone’s reserves?” Jackal asked as Tibs healed him. The first boss room fight had taken it’s toll again, but they’d won it with only Jackal severely injured. The creatures had focussed their attention on him to the nearly exclusions of everyone else. The few who hadn’t attacked the fighter seemed there to prevent the others from coming to his rescue. When they were finally able to do so, Mez had trouble shooting them without Jackal being caught in blast. Don had been more successful, but not entirely so, and the injuries Tibs heals were almost equally caused by the creatures and his friends.

“Good,” Mez replied.

“It will last me this coming battle,” Khumdar said, “but I will have to be cautious if we expect there will be more beyond that rush.”

“There will be. You can bet on that.” Jackal looked at Tibs, who shrugged. 

It would take more than these attacks for him to expend enough essence to feel it. Unlike his friend, his concern remained getting hurt faster than he could heal himself. And so long as he wasn’t the subject of the type of focused attack Jackal had been, he had enough time to suffuse himself with Purity while fighting.

“Don?” jackal called. “Don!”

“What?” the sorcerer asked pulling his attention from the dragon.

“I asked how is your reserves.”

“Oh, they’re fine,” he said distractedly and looked at the dragon again.

“Fine enough you can space a couple of those essence potions for me and Khumdar?”

“He can have mine,” the archer said.

“Don,” Jackal called when the sorcerer remained silent. “Any chance you can rejoin the team from where ever your mind’s wandering to?”

“It isn’t wandering. The path it’s on is well marked.”

“Then you should be able to find your way back to us,” Jackal replied.

Annoyance flashed on the sorcerer’s face, but it vanished as he looked at the others. “I’m sorry, what are we discussing?”

“Can you spare some of those essence potions,” Mez said. “Khumdar’s getting mine. He and jackal don’t have the kind of reserves we have.”

“Of course.” The sorcerer pulled three bottles of the yellow liquid from his satchel. “These robes have enough reserves to last me through a dozen of this floor.”

“Don’t give Ganny a challenge,” Tibs warned.

She snorted. “I don’t care about the sorcerer. It’s Jackal who is getting all of my attention this time.”

“I think we’ve noticed,” Tibs replied darkly.

“Don’s safe, isn’t he?” Jackal chuckled.

Angering the dungeon might be among the least wise things you have ever done,” Khumdar stated.

“Hey, I’m not angry at him,” Sto replied. “Ganny is. Does Don sure he doesn’t want me to change the color of his robes? It’s not too late for him to put them in the cache by the entrance.”

“Sto wants to make sure you’re okay with the robes.”

Don chuckled. “I am fine. I’ll have the highlight added. I checked, and its healing magic doesn’t prevent a seamster from adding to it.”

Tibs nodded and sensed Jackal once more to make sure he was fully healed. “This is what you get for getting Ganny angry.”

The fighter grinned as he stood. “Yeah, it’s fun.”

“So we should put this on the list of things we can threaten to tell Kroseph when you annoy us?” Mez asked.

“How is there anything left on that list?” Don asked. “Doesn’t he annoy you daily to the point you have to tell his man?”

“It seems that we have grown accustomed to Jackal’s… eccentricities.”

“I have no idea how anyone can get used to that.”

“Give it a few months,” Jackal said, “and you’re going to love me just as much as they do.”

“We don’t love you,” Mez said. “We tolerate you.”

“How about we disarm the next two attacks?” Don asked Tibs. “Instead of getting drawn into what is sure to be a deep and philosophical discussion.”

“But you love me, right Tibs?” Jackal asked as Tibs walked away.

“Ask me again once you survived this room.” He took position by the pattern and checked with Don. On his signal, they started, remaining alert for changes.

With the second trigger disarmed, they stood paces away from the dragon.

“You run off to punch it alone,” Tibs warned, “and I’m letting you hit the wall.”

“I would never think to abandon the team just to get a few hits in on my own.”

Tibs glared.

“Well, not a second time.”

“We will—” Don fell silent, then shook his head when the others looked at him.

“Tibs, Khumdar and me rush it. You and Mez hit it with everything you have, and when the wave starts, try to thin it before it reaches us.” Once the others nodded, he faced the dragon. “Now.”

Tibs ran, sending a spear of ice ahead of him. It shattered on the scales, but left red scratched. He made a sword and shield once he was in range and struck and dodged the large paw swipes. Out the corner of his eye, Jackal and Khumdar were hitting it just as hard, and distracting him from—

“Retreat!” Don yelled.

Tibs threw himself back as the dragon roared. He was on his feet as the essence shifted in the walls. Jackal and Khumdar were hurrying back as creatures poured out of the doorways, rushing in a straight line to where Tibs, Khumdar, and Jackal had been fighting the dragon.

The line ran past each other, with only those with spears throwing them at the Runners in passing. Those were easily diverted of destroyed. Then all the creatures were gone through the opposing doorway.

“What was—”

“Attack!” Don ordered, cutting off Jackal.

Tibs spared the sorcerer a glance, then ran at the dragon, dodging and slashing at the underside. He got in one and one slash, barely avoiding getting crushed when the dragon stomped down, then—

“Retreat!”

Tibs was next to the sorcerer before the doorways were done forming, and the roar finished resounding.

“What is going on?” Jackal asked as the creatures again ran out from each side.

“Some form of automatic response,” Don replied, dissolving a spear with a wave of the hand. “I’m not sure what the trigger is yet, probably the damage we inflict, but at some point its eyes glow red, then it roars, the doorway open and creatures pour out to attack any runner in their path.”

“But why aren’t they chasing us now?” Jackal motioned to the creatures entering the doorways.

“Get ready to attack,” Don said, paused until the last creature was gone. “Now.”

Tibs ran at the dragon, putting aside the whys and focusing on killing it. This time, he only got in nine hits, one of which was a stab that went deep enough he couldn’t pull the sword out, before Don called the retreat and they watched the creature perform their useless run in silence. Then they attacked again.

Tibs planted a sword in the softened underside and left it there for ice shard to spread. He did the same with the next one and the next, putting enough essence into each he noticed the dip in his unending reserve. As he let go of the sixth sword, the dragon’s skin took on a red glow, just as essence shifted, but not within the walls, within the dragon itself.

“Retreat!” he yelled just before Don called the same. “This is going to be different!” He was out of the dragon’s reach with the others when the glow became a flash that forced the others to look away.

Tibs watched in awe and the dragon expanded, broke into nine balls of essence and reformed into eight smaller dragons, each without signs of injuries.

“Well, that’s just not fair,” Jackal said as the dragons shook themselves. “All that damage we inflicted is—”

With a unified roar, the dragons rushed the Runners.

Tibs sent a spear of ice as he moved away from the others, and the dragon launched itself in the air, its wings spreading. It weaved around a column, then opened its maw and it spat a ball of fire at him.

Tibs threw himself aside after trying, and failing, to take control of it. It splashed down and the fire spread on the floor as if it was water.

Light shot out of the mouth of the dragon Mez shot at, then Tibs had to dodge his own attacker as it flew by him.

He slammed it down with a column of air, then grew the ground over its wind to pin it in place. It spat balls of fire at him as he jumped ever closer, its long neck letting it continue to target Tibs until he was close enough to slash, and his ice blame cut through the scales as if they weren’t there. The head fell to the ground, and the body grew limp, before breaking down into rubble.

“Tibs!” Don called. “I need your help!”

Tibs ran to the sorcerer. Six dragons remained, one of which spewed corruption at Khumdar, who raised a wall of darkness that survived only long enough for him to run out of the way.

Don cursed, and Tibs sensed him try to wrench the corruption away. He snarled and let go as Tibs reached him. He pointed to the dragon remaining airborne at the back and not attacking.

“We have to kill that one, it’s—”

“Purity,” Tibs said as it send essence at an injured dragon and healed it.

“They’re vulnerable to the opposite element, but that one,” he pointed to the dragon that has spewed corruption, “keeps flying to intercept my attacks.”

“And it’s immune to its own element?”

“Just about. If we attack from different directions, one of use will get a hit through.”

Tibs hurried to the other side of the room, Blasting the dragon that breathed earth on Jackal apart with a tornado. Don was already throwing jets after jets of corruption at the purity dragon, with the corruption one nimbly flying to intercept them.

Tibs blasted it with corruption essence, counting on the how much he was throwing at it to make up for the lack form to it. The impact sent the dragon against the wall, then it melted away under the assault.

Tibs switch to purity and blasted the corruption dragon with it. It dodged, but lost part of its wing to the blast and crashed to the floor. Mez pelted it with arrows until there was nothing left.

The ground shook and Tibs turned to watch stone rip out of the floor to impact with, and rip apart, the dragon diving at Jackal. Light and darkness flashed, then the light was swallowed and silence fell in the room.

Jackal downed a healing potion before Tibs could go help him. “Is everyone alive?” the fighter asked.

“Only those on our team,” Mez replied.

“Good enough for me.” The fighter lied back. “I’m going to take a nap.”

A click, then a rumble, and the fighter on his feet. The back wall opened and Tibs saw a chest, as well as top of a stairwell.

“Right,” Jackal said, “we won.”

“I’ll take the fact he isn’t jumping with joy as a victory,” Ganny said.

Jackal looked around. “Okay, collect the coins and whatever that is. Tibs check the chest, then we head down the stairs. I want to see how that fourth floor starts before heading out.”

“You okay?” Tibs asked.

“I’m fine. Really, I am. I’m just in a hurry to rub in Quigly’s face that we got to the fourth floor before him.”

Tibs didn’t believe him, but didn’t press.

The chest had no traps and contained a bow similar to Mez’s, but with metal as its essence, a sword with so much essence woven through it Tibs was reluctant to touch it, but it did nothing when he pulled it out.

“Don,” he called on seeing the book under the green sorcerer’s robe. It too had essence woven through it, and that he wasn’t risking touching.

The sorcerer reached in and pulled it out without hesitation, then looked through it. “It’s blank.”

“Why would Sto have a blank book woven with essence as loot?”

“More importantly,” Don mused, “why have such a book in a boss chest. Will they tell you what it is, or is this something else they can’t talk about.”

“The enchantment on it so it will record the knowledge that is focused on it,” Sto said.

“It records knowledge that is focused on it,” Tibs repeated, not understanding what it meant.

Don’s eyes grew, and he flipped through the pages. “How much can it hold?”

“I don’t know. Mind essence isn’t as straightforward as others to work with.”

“He doesn’t know. Is it important?”

Don looked at Tibs. “Do you know what is the most arduous thing a sorcerer, or a scholar, has to do?”

“Read?”

“The opposite. Writing. Taking our thoughts and finding a way to translate them into something clear enough for others to understand, or, more importantly, for us to be able to understand as we work through getting an experiment to completion. Academy have large archives of books no one can understand because the sorcerer couldn’t be bothered to properly document the steps they took along their research into this enchantment or that etching. With a book like this, I’d only have to pause long enough to think what I need to be on the page, and I’d be able to get back to my work.”

“So this is important to you?” Jackal asked.

“Of course, but—what are you doing?” Don asked as the fighter took it out of his hands.

“Making sure the guild doesn’t screw you over for this.” He slipped it into his pouch and Tibs looked away. The woven essence did something to the opening that gave him a headache if he watched too closely.

“Okay, that just doesn’t look right,” Don said, rubbing his temple.

“If that’s the last of it, we have a fourth floor to see.”

Tibs checked the chest to confirm it was empty, then they headed down the stair and stopped at the bottom.

“Wow,” Jackal whispered.

“That is an understatement,” Don said.

At first, Tibs didn’t understand what he was looking at. Instead of a room or a hall, after the stairs’ landing the space before them opened in all direction, with another stairwell doing down before him for a long way. He couldn’t see the ceiling, which felt wrong, considering the stairs he’s walked down only had two and three steps, or the cavern’s walls on each side. At the bottom of the stairs, dots of light were spread among square and rectangular shapes and they too vanished into the distance.

“That’s a city,” Mez said. With it named, the shapes became buildings, the lights marking the streets and entrances. “How can there be a city under a mountain?” he looked at Tibs.

“Sto?” 

“Remember when I told you we’d found something while working on the fourth floor?” the dungeon asked. “It’s when I was able to make all those items for your team.”

Tibs nodded.

“Well, this is it. Once the stairwell went deep enough, this entire space came into my awareness, and… I don’t know how to explain it. But imagine if suddenly you had a third arm attached to your back, but at the same time, you also know everything you can do with it. That’s how it was with this. As soon as I was aware of it, I knew all there was in it and could draw on it. So not only didn’t have I have to use essence to make this floor, but there were reserves throughout the buildings.”

“You didn’t make this?” Tibs had trouble understanding.

“No.”

“Then who did?”

“No idea. There are no ways in or out except for these stairs.”

“Ganny doesn’t know?”

“Sorry Tibs. This isn’t something anyone told me about.”

“So that’s the floor we need to clear?” how were they supposed to clear any entire city in the half day the guild gave them, or even full day, which some Runners had suspected would happen with this floor.”

“Well, in this case, clearing the floor isn’t going to mean doing every room and every hallways. Somewhere in there I put the boss room. Ganny set up clues to guide you, if you can find them and figure them out, but even without them, if you search every building, you’ll eventually find that room. And, and this is where things get really interesting, there are rooms in there that I have no idea what they are.”

“How can you not know what they are? This is all you, isn’t it?”

“Again, I can’t explain it. I tried to get into one of them, I was pretty sure I’d managed it too, but just as the weave aligned itself, the room just… wasn’t there anymore. I mean, the structure is still there, but I wouldn’t go inside if I were you, if you find it. It’s… odd.”

Tibs looked at his friends, and saw the alcove where the doorway waited for him to activate. “I’m going to tell you at the inn. I need a drink.”