Chapter 100: Chapter 33

“How’d you make out?” Jackal called to Tibs as he entered the camp’s ‘center’, carrying the sword he’d found. It had been the only other chest in the tents he’d cleared. It was enchanted with a simple weave of essences he couldn’t identify, but suspected contained metal. He tried to study the weave to determine if there was more than one essence, but that was still beyond his abilities.

“I…” he hesitated. “I made out okay,” he answered, handing the fighter the dozen coins killing Ratlings had given him. “How about you?”

There weren’t as many Ratlings bodies as Tibs expected. Maybe they knew better than to take on Runners in such an open space after all this time? Sto knew, but Tibs hadn’t worked out just how much of what he knew about the Runners he let the creatures know.

“Close to three electrum’s worth in silver,” Jackal said, smiling.

That was three sets of one and five. Three sets of ones became three. Three of fives became… he counted on his fingers. One and five. So that one was put with the others and that became four. Four and five silvers. So yes, there had been more Ratlings than what Tibs saw.

“Carina isn’t back?” Tibs asked, noticing how Khumdar leaned on his staff. “Do you need me to heal you?”

“I am now,” she called, stepping out from among the tents, carrying a staff over her shoulder with pieces of armors tied to it.

“I am well enough,” Khumdar responded.

“Good haul,” Jackal’s smile broadened.

“You’re carrying this then,” she said. “Why can’t everyone just wear robes? That isn’t as heavy.”

“Armor’s better,” Jackal said. “And everyone looks good in armor. You and me are about the only ones who can really make the robes work for us.”

She dropped the staff and armor at the fighter’s feet. “Not that I’ve ever seen you wear one.”

Khumdar cleared his throat, but Jackal ignored him, except for his smile getting yet brighter.

“And overshadow you in yours? I’d never think of doing that.”

She rolled her eyes. “You are so full of shit, Jackal.”

The armor pieces were mostly metal, epaulets, boots, and grieves. The chest piece was leather. It and the boots had essence woven through them. A simple, but tighter weave than the sword. The staff was identical to Khumdar, except for the essence woven through it: fire.

“I…” Tibs hesitated again, running a hand over his bracers.

Sto remained silent. Considering his suggestion that Tibs not mention them, he’d expected some protest.

“I also found these.” He offered his arms to Jackal.

“Bracers?” the fighter took a forearm in his hand and looked it over. “Why did you put them on? Yours were in better condition, right?”

“Yes!” Sto exclaimed. “I told you this would work.”

“What worked?” Tibs asked, before realizing Jackal hadn’t mentioned the reserves. He should have felt them once he touched the bracer. Now he understood what it was Sto might have been suggesting he kept to himself. Of course, his question now has his friend looking at him for an explanation.

Sto needed training in how to keep things from being accidentally revealed.

“You can’t feel the reserves?” he asked the fighter. “Sto put amulets in them.”

Jackal frowned in concentration.

“They’re attuned to you,” Sto said. If he felt something about Tibs telling his friends, it didn’t carry in his tone.

“What does attuned mean?” Tibs looked at Carina as she took his other arm in hand to study it.

“It means only you can use them,” Sto said.

“Attuned is what we call an items made to only work for one person. The only way I’ve read it being possible is if the person is included as part of the making, so their life force gets woven into the item. Don’t ask. I didn’t get the part that explained how that was possible. I didn’t read anything about a dungeon doing it.”

“What can I say,” Sto replied proudly. “I’m just that good.”

“Okay,” Tibs said, attempting to process what she said. “But why can’t Jackal and Carina sense the reserves? Even if only I can use them, they’re still there.”

“Only you can see through the enchantment on them,” Sto said. “The attunement means that for anyone else, even when they touch it, it still affects them.”

“And to do it, you have to know the thing that makes… me? I thought you couldn’t sense us.” He paused as Jackal opened his mouth, grinning, but a glare from Carina silenced him. “Because of our life force. That’s why you can’t just absorb what we’re wearing, or see it.”

“That’s not… quite right,” Sto said. “This might take a bit to explain. It might be best if I did that after you’ve done the run?”

“I can’t ask you questions when I’m outside with all the Runners around,” Tibs replied, then told the others. “The explanation won’t be quick. Now’s a good time to rest up.” He sat while Jackal grabbed the armors and staff before stepping away.

“Okay,” Sto said. “I can see you. That should be obvious, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to know who’s entering me. And remember, I can sense everyone’s essence. You’re right, I can’t affect you or what you carry, and from what I’ve put together—” Ganny cleared her throat. “—with help, what’s preventing me from doing that is that life force thing. But I can see what you’re holding. It’s just not as clear with the others as it is with you since we’ve been able to talk. But even if I can’t affect you through it, I do see your life force.” Pride filled his voice.

“Calm down,” Ganny said. “You’re not that special. Every dungeon does that.”

“You heard Carina, she’s never read of another dungeon doing what I did.”

“That’s because they aren’t in—” She stopped. The anger had been mounting in her tone. “Just because she didn’t read about it doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened. Even she says there are way more books than she’ll ever get to read.”

“You didn’t know I could do it.”

“I’m not—”

“She left,” Sto said as the silence stretched.

“Are you two okay?”

“She’s just being difficult. Anyway. What I did is more clever than just putting how your life force is into the bracers as I made them. Ganny’s annoyed because I figured out how to do something she said was impossible. I made the item so that whoever touches it first is who it gets attuned to.”

“What if I hadn’t listened to you and Carina had picked them up?”

“Well,” Sto hesitated. “With Ganny watching me, I couldn’t have just moved them to a chest you’d get to.”

“Don’t you think she might be angrier at you for something like that than figuring out how to make these?”

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“Oh no, that’s not what got her buzzing about. She’ll get over it.”

From what Tibs had seen of Jackal and Kroseph, getting over a problem wasn’t something that happened. Anytime Jackal didn’t realize he’d hurt his man, it escalated until he was made to realize it. Then the apologies started. He didn’t get the sense that Ganny and Sto were that kind of special, but he hoped the dungeon realized he was hurting her with whatever this was.

“Okay, how did you figure out how to do the attunement? You said you need an example before you can try things with it. This seems far outside what you’d get from the Runners.”

“Oh, a noble had a sword that was attuned to her,” he said dismissively. “It was interesting studying it once I’d absorbed it.” Tibs nodded. At least one of them had ended up being good for something. “That’s about it; unless you want me to go into how I made the weave, it might be best of you and your team went to the next room.”

Tibs stood, and the others took that as the sign the rest time was done. The pieces of armor were tied to Jackal’s pack while the staff was on Mez’s.

“I should have been able to sense something,” Carina said, walking next to him.

“Bardik said that something like the pouch Sto gave me back then, which this is like, needs a specific mindset to go along with the essence to be able to see through the enchantment.” He smiled at her. “You’re not suspicious enough for it, I guess,” He offered an arm to the cleric. “Do you want to try? Darkness is key to the weave.” To Tibs’s surprise, Khumdar shook his head.

“So no one can even know it’s enchanted?” Mez asked, and Tibs nodded.

Bardik had said he was the only one in the town who could see through it. He’s also implied few in the rest of the world could.

“Am I the only one who feels this is far too powerful to be found on this floor?”

Jackal snorted. “The dungeon made it for Tibs. He’s soft on him. Has been from the start.”

“Am not,” Sto protested.

Tibs chuckled. “He made them because I saved his life. Each one can store four essences.”

Carina whistled in appreciation. “How much essence can you put in each?”

That stumped Tibs. He sensed what was in the water reserve of the bracers and the amulet and shrugged. “Three times as much as in the amulet? I don’t know how to go about measuring it.”

She whistled again, turning a bracer over and running a finger along the side. “I can’t even feel a bump where they’d be. We’re going to have to do tests to see how large the reserves are. I hope I can get the right books for that.”

“I’m not reading them,” Tibs stated.

She smiled. “They’re for me. I have ideas on how we can go about doing it, but I want to find out what the official methods are first.” She let go of his arm. “The thing is; if there are eight reserves. The dungeon knows what you’re doing.”

Tibs nodded. “He sensed the corruption and I said I needed the core essences. He worked out which they were. He’s smart that way.”

“What did you do with the other bracers?” Jackal asked.

“I left them behind for the dungeon to take.”

Jackal opened his mouth in a clear protest, then closed it. “Okay, that might be for the best. The guild might get suspicious if the dungeon handed out worn armor.”

“You could say it was one of ours,” Carina offered, grinning.

Jackal considered it. “Then we’d have to explain who’s wearing the ones the dungeon gave, and I don’t want us to get into that. No matter what Tibs and the dungeon think about the magic on them. The guild had powerful sorcerers. And they are plenty suspicious.”

They stopped at the opening to the Bunnyling room and Jackal rubbed his hands. “But now you have all that essence to use to help us kill the bunnies.”

“Bunnylings,” Tibs corrected. “And I don’t know how to use all this essence I now have.”

The fighter looked at him in surprise.

“I didn’t have anything to practice with before, remember? I’ve flung a few air blades and tried to harden it. I can use earth to make myself tougher, my armor stronger, and me, too. Without someone to guide me, I don’t know how to train with fire, and I don’t even know if I want to train with corruption.”

Jackal and Mez stepped away from Tibs, looking worried. He rolled his eyes. Although he understood their reaction. With only Don as an example of what could be done with corruption, Tibs wouldn’t want to be around any of his own practices.

He looked into the empty room.

“Does it feel weird to anyone else that there are no tents here? It is some sort of Bunnyling village or camp. There should be something.”

He crouched and focussed on the essence moving under the floor. Then shifted his focus to the stone and tried to work out the layout of the warren. His range only let him cover this half of the large room, and the tiles the Bunnylings could jump out of were sufficiently well hidden he couldn’t tell them apart anymore.

He frowned as he thought about what he’d done. About his range.

His range was growing slowly, but that wasn’t what bothered him. He’d affected the entire pool when he’d frozen the water, and the room had been larger than this. So why couldn’t he do the same thing here?

Simple. He’d sent out his water essence, and it had affected more and more until all the water in the pool had been turned to ice. Here he was relying on what he could sense of the essence already in the floor because he didn’t have enough essence to….

He used to not have enough essence. He rubbed the bracer and smiled. He placed his hand on the ground and pushed his essence through it and watched as the warren complex ‘lit up’ to his senses. He whistled in amazement as more became visible. How far could he see this way? The third floor?

“What is it?” Carina asked, sounding worried.

Right. This room now, the rest of the dungeon… one day. “I can see the warren. It’s more than just tunnels from one trap door to the other, like on the first floor. There are rooms, small and large, gathering places. The way they’re positioned reminds me of how the Ratling camp is laid out. Either the dungeon made changes since the last time, or we missed most of this when we searched the tunnels.”

“Lots of loot?” Jackal asked.

“I can’t sense that, just the shape of the tunnels. And why aren’t you doing that? You have earth. This should be easier for you than it is for me.”

“What’s the point? They’re going to jump out of there to attack us.”

“You might have known about all the tunnels,” Tibs said and added, because that wouldn’t be enough to make Jackal consider it. “There could have been more loot in them.”

“And,” Khumdar said, “we must keep in mind that the dungeon makes changes to more than the layout of the rooms. He also changes how the creatures behave. We may be required to hunt the Bunnylings into their warren if we want all the coins it is possible to obtain.”

“But it can only do that while we are outside the room,” Mez said, “talking and giving it ideas.” The archer stepped into the room. “I would rather kill them and continue.”

Tibs smiled and followed Mez. Time to put his new, extensive water reserve to the test. And maybe he’d get ideas for things to try with his others. After all, he couldn’t burn down the dungeon if he had a mishap with fire.

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