Mind Your Step, Draft 1, CH 03

The fire low and Heather sleeping, Tibs moved away so he could talk with the core without her overhearing him, if she only pretended to sleep. He doubted that was the case—she was too upfront about what she intended—but while he could tell her body had relaxed by the way Fever settled within her, that didn’t mean she slept. He suspected he needed the element of Dream to know that. Or possibly Mind.

“We can talk, now,” he said, sitting against a tree with the light of the fire reflecting off others. He kept his sense close enough to tell the difference between animals and made sure nothing large approached.

“Talk about what?” it replied.

“About whatever you’re curious about.”

“Oh.”

The lack of interest caught Tibs by surprise. There was so much to learn.

“Aren’t you curious about the world?”

The reply, when the core answered, came with a sense it tried to keep a neutral tone. “You took me out of my world.”

When that had happened to him, it hadn’t dampened Tibs’s curiosity. But he’d already known there was more to the world than his Street. For the core, that was all that existed.

He needed a different approach to engage them. And he had his own curiosity to get things started.

“What are the rules a dungeon has to obey?”

“There’s aren’t any.”

“Come on. You know what your helper knew.”

“I thought you knew the rules.”

“I worked out a number of them. Ganny told me some.”

“Who is that?”

“She’s Sto’s helper. His friend really.”

“Who is Sto?”

“He’s a dungeon, the first one I met. My friend, too.”

“A dungeon with a name?”

“Every dungeon I’ve met has a name.”

“What’s my name?”

“I….” If it didn’t know its name, how was this supposed to work? “What do you want it to be?” he asked, remembering a detail. “Sto picked his name. Stone Mountain Crevice. Me and Ganny called him just Sto because that’s too much.”

“Stone’s the element. A mountain’s a lot of stone atop itself. A crevice is an opening in it.” The silence stretched. “Is that what my name is supposed to be?”

“It’s what you want it to be. Sto picked that, because he liked how it sounded. It sounded like him. Didn’t your helper know your name?”

The silence stretched again. The reply was soft. “No. Just before I dr—killed them, the thought of me as Monster. Wild. Feral. Terror. I don’t like any of those for my name.”

“What was their name?”

This time, the silence was so long Tibs thought the core wouldn’t answer him. “Atirak,” they said, sounding ashamed. “I killed someone named Atirak. I didn’t know. I didn’t know they were someone. I was just….”

“What were you?” It wouldn’t be pleasant, but the core needed to acknowledge what it had done and why.

“Happy. Happy to have something else to drink up. Something with so much in it. I just wanted to take it all, and I did.”

“How do you fell about what you did now?”

“Hurt. Like I wouldn’t have had to be alone if I hadn’t been so full of joy I didn’t listen to them. I could have had someone to talk with. To help me be…. Maybe I’d have been a better dungeon with their help.”

“Remember that feeling the next time you’re happy to take something.”

“I shouldn’t take, should I?”

Tibs chuckled. “Oh, you can take as much as you want. So long as you can live with the consequences of what you did.”

“How do I know what they’ll be?”

“Just like you can’t always know if you’ve made a mistake until after you’ve made it. You won’t always know what the consequences of your actions will be. All you can do is compare the situation with those you’ve been in before. If it doesn’t fit, you need to decide if you’re willing to endure what that unknown might bring. Some people never try anything new because they’re too afraid of that unknown.”

“I could hurt someone again?”

“You might.” He didn’t point out the number of people it had killed counted. One situation at a time. “But that’s also what the rules can help with.”

“I…don’t think they will.”

“What are they?”

“A dungeon exists to challenge those to enter. A dungeon will set those challenges so every other person might fail them. Every challenge had to be overcomable. Everyone in the group has to be able to cross the challenge, so long as one of them can guide the others through. The first set will only be for those without their element. Other sets will follow the progression of their strength, from Upsilon to Alpha.”

“Who told Atirak the rank’s names?”

“I don’t know. They didn’t know the one who instructed them. They thought they were the same, but they didn’t know for sure. Is that important?”

“I don’t know. It’s just odd that the guild, those are the people who send Runners into the dungeons they find, uses the same names, since they can’t talk to dungeons. I thought they might have known where those who train the helpers had heard it first.”

“Atirak didn’t.”

“Go on.”

“That’s it. Those are the rules.”

“Nothing about how rewards are to be given?”

“What are rewards?”

“They’re what you give when someone overcomes a challenge.”

“I’m supposed to give them my essence?” it asked, fearfully.

“I guess not, since it’s not a rule. But I’m pretty sure Ganny said it was.”

“Maybe that helper lied?”

“She wouldn’t do—” Although, considering how stubborn Sto could be. “Maybe she did. To make sure Sto did things fairly. He….” He chuckled. “Liked me enough to make things easier on me and my team.”

“That breaks a rule,” they said. “How would a reward make things easier?”

“He gave my team items we needed, so we’d have an easier time surviving his creatures. Armor, better weapons.”

“Those aren’t things Sto should have rewarded your team with?”

“It’s that he made sure we got them, instead of them being random. The rewards are there as incentive for us to push further. As first, there’s small things. Clothing, shoes, maybe a knife. The creatures will drop a copper coins when we kill it. The rewards become better the further we go, as do the challenges. And we needed to decide if we wanted to try the next room, so we could get that reward, or if we were too injured, or tired, and leave to come back another day.”

“Leave with my essence,” it said, but there was no anger this time.

“On the whole, you get more out of runs than you give away. And you learn new things too. New ways to use the essence you have. New puzzles to make. New creatures. It’s part of the balance you need to achieve. You have to give away enough that we’ll want to return. To push further, even if we might die, while not so much that you can’t continue to grow.”

“That sounds complicated.”

“I expect it is. Sto and Ganny often argued on how to do stuff. Sometimes one of them had to make concessions, in exchange for getting something they thought was important.”

“I don’t have to do that,” they said, but Tibs thought he heard sadness in the tone.

“Maybe you’ll get another helper when you are a dungeon again.”

“Will you let me be one?”

“It depends on what you learn.”

“On if I learn what you teach me.”

If he did his job correctly, it would be beyond that. But he didn’t need to burden the core with that.

*

“Heather, it’s your turn at watch,” he called, standing before the tent.

“Go away.”

“We agreed we’d split it.”

“I never bothered with at when I traveled alone,” she replied, annoyed.

“And I’m surprised you haven’t been killed in your sleep by a bear.”

The tent flap burst open from the raw Force essence that hit it, and then a surprised Heather looked at him. “I know to make a fire large enough, it’ll keep the animals away.” She frowned as the flap pressed against her, trying to return to its flat position.

“We’re keeping watch. We don’t need to waste the wood.”

“Look around. It’s not like the forest is going to run out of it.”

He shrugged. “I’d like to sleep. How about you get out of your tent and take watch?”

She grumbled, returning inside, then exited pulling her armor. “I’m going to need my sword.”

He removed it from his belt and handed it to her.

She eyed it, and him, suspiciously. “Just like that?”

“You’re going to need it if we’re attacked. Leaving you in a situation where you can’t defend yourself just means I’m going to have to deal with them on my own.”

The suspicious remained, but she took it, and he walked into the trees.

“Where are you going?” she called.

“To find a place to sleep where you won’t be tempted to plant that sword in me.”

*

Tibs offered to help take down the camp. She glared at him. So he packed the meat he had dry overnight, using the remnant of his shirt as a poorly made pack. How large of an animal could he ‘hunt’ with a sword and have Heather believe him? A bear would provide him with enough leather for pants and a shirt, but it would destroy his credibility as someone who no longer had magical items.

He’d stick to wolves for now.

*

“How do know where they are?” Heather asked as he uncovered the marker he’d sensed.

“Not my first smuggler’s trail,” he replied, looking in the direction it pointed, before covering it up again. “How did you follow me? I made sure to cover the markers once I oriented myself.” He headed in that direction.

“I asked around.”

He raised an eyebrow. There had been no light, but she was asking him to believe a lot if it was all she’d provide him with.

“There was this fight. Big one. The kind of fights you made happen. No one saw it, because of the storm, but people talked. Lots of talk of magic for how some buildings were damaged. There was also the kind of theft you do. Some really important artifact at the university.”

“I’ve never stolen from university before.”

She grinned. “So it was you.”

“You didn’t know, did you?”

She shrugged. “It was all over by the time I got there, of course. But I figured you’d need to run after something like that. Asked the caravan that had come to the city, but they hadn’t encountered anyone. Asked how else someone would travel without being noticed, and someone talked about smugglers’ trails in the area. More asking around led me to this fighter who’d had maps of them, so I bought copies. More asking around led me to a tavern, where this regular swore he saw a shady-looking group argue about something. Couldn’t find them, but found someone who swore he overheard an argument in a house during the storm about trails. Then found a guard who claimed someone flew by her during the storm. She didn’t know where you’d gone, but I now knew where you’d landed. I went to the closest trail, which was the wolf one, used the directions the map owner gave me to the first marker and—”

“You asked them how to reach the first wolf marker?”

“I asked how to reach each of the first marker. I wasn’t wasting time returning to him if it turned out to be wrong. It was the closest to the city. I figured you were in a hurry after that, but I only gave myself one week to confirm it was the one you took.”

“I was well more than one week away when you found me.”

“I found your camp, the one that almost burned down the forest?” she added, and Tibs started.

That had been nowhere near the trail.

“I’m guessing you haven’t burned a lot of wood. It’s got that smells that lingers. There was no rain, so nothing to wash it away, and the wind was in the right direction. Other than the burned trunk, I didn’t find evidence of your camp, so good job hiding it otherwise.”

“I’m impressed,” he finally said.

“Thank you. After that, the smugglers confirmed it was you on the trail.”

“Really? How did they do that?”

“Someone refusing to return to the city with them because of some employer he didn’t want to disappoint?”

“Anyone could be in that situation.”

She shrugged. “But not anyone had just fled the city they were going to. Found the scuffle by the trail. Signs something was dragged, and followed that. Didn’t think that’d be you. But I figured it wouldn’t take long to check, and there you were, talking to yourself in a dingy cave.”

Tibs chuckled. If the core could hear her, they’d have opinions, he was sure.

“What’s funny?”

“Nothing.”

She rolled her eyes.

But, if nothing else. This had told her to never underestimate Heather again.

*

Tibs surfaced and shook the water out of his hair. He had needed this. Three days of hunting, three killed wolves, as ‘normally’ as possible so she wouldn’t be suspicious, had led to him covered in blood and with a few ‘created’ cuts. Sensing the streams and rivers in the distance, but not being able to go to them had been torture. Let alone not being able to douse himself in water, or absorb the blood. He had so many ways to not have to deal with the problem, but still had to endure it.

“That’s interesting ink,” Heather said, head above the water of the lake.

He looked at the black staring at left wrist and ending halfway up his forearm and shrugged. Returning to scrubbing himself.

“How did you get it?”

He gave her an annoyed glare, and make his scrubbing more forceful, as if he was making a point of not wanting to answer her.

“Come on. I told you about myself. We’re going to be traveling together for a while.”

He made his sigh heavy, someone giving up the fight. “It’s covering ink I got when I was young.” He dunked under the water. When he surfaced, she was looking at him with interest.

“Why spend money to cover up something you paid to have done?”

“I didn’t pay to have it done,” he said, glaring, and already knowing she wouldn’t give up. She kept looking, and he sighed again. “I was young when my mother died, and I feel in with criminals to survive.”

“Your dad?”

Tibs snorted. “She never talked about him. Once I was with them long enough, once I’d proved my worth to them by getting into enough houses, they made it official by marking me.” He raised his left arm. “Only after that, I realized how far they expected me to go as part of their gang. Stealing’s one thing. Cutting someone’s throat isn’t something I want to do unless I’m not given any other choice. I ran. They chased me, but….” He shrugged. “I’m here.”

“I’m sorry.”

He didn’t have to force the laughter. “I so don’t need your pity. I’m perfectly fine with where I am. And those were people to played a part in getting me here. I just didn’t like the reminder of how wrong I’d been about them. So my first successful robbery went to hiding the reminder.”

Clean, he left the lake, feeling her eyes on him. When he looked over his shoulder, her expression was calculating, but lacked the lewdness he saw on people planning on making things he had no interest in happening.

She followed him, and he studied her. Her muscles were well developed from the metal in her armor, and he’d watched her stretch every morning. He’d also fought her, so knew she was more limber than most would expect her to be. She wouldn’t go about climbing walls and running roofs, but he expected she could hold her own crawling around tight turns and ledges if she had to.

She didn’t pay attention to him studying her.

Not being able to simply remove the water, and without spare cloth, he had to let himself dry as he worked toward tanning the skins from his hunts. She didn’t know how it worked beyond the basics, so he used Fever to help things along.

He wanted proper clothing.

What I'm Working With

Travels and training and distrust.

The dungeon should talk. Need converstions. After a week or so, the core sounds weaker. Even though the core is intact, it has lost essence. Tibs needs to come up with a way to protect it.

Tibs’s ‘tattoo’

The some discussions of dungeons, rules. Some more interactions between Tibs and Heather. And establishing how Heather was able to track down Tibs. That one I’m not sure if it works with what happened in the previous book, and if I did thing correctly at least one element should make no sense if you think about it.

The scene in the lake serves two purpose. Reestablishing Tibs’s ‘ink’ and the etching covering the brand. As well as the fact Heather doesn’t look at him ‘sexually.’ She’s a hot blooded woman, all of you heterosexuals out there don’t have to worry. She’d just smart enough to know better than be interested in someone she’s hunting. I also wanted to establish in this book that Tibs looks at her clinically, as well as inserting element of his disinterest in sex.

I am please with the result