Chapter 28: Chapter 27

“I heard you and your team defeated the floor boss,” Alistair said as they walked through the guild building, “and that you were the first to do so.”

“Yeah,” Tibs replied, the distraction of surreptitiously watching everything and committing it to memory, lessening the impact of having the team referred to as his. It wasn’t his, or anyone person’s, it was theirs.

He may have pulled back on his plan to make the guild pay for Walter’s death. Maybe Alistair was right and things were more complicated than he understood because of his age and being Street, but if something happened, he wanted to be ready.

The people who filled the halls didn’t look like adventurers, they didn’t wear armor, just nice clothing, and none of them had weapons. But he’d learned from Bardik, and his own armor, that weapons could be easily hidden. What they all had; were eyes of people who had an element. He tried to catalog the colors, but there were too many of them and he couldn’t take the time to stop and study them carefully, not without attracting attention.

“Tibs?” Alistair called, and Tibs cursed himself for not paying attention to his teacher. He turned and the older man held a door open.

“Sorry,” Tibs mumbled as he entered the room.

“How did you do it?” Alistair asked. Had he asked before? Way to not make someone suspicious. “The way I remember it, that first floor is a challenge because of how few resources you have access to.”

“I iced the floor, so the golem fell on its back.” Was this the same room as before? He should have paid attention to where they were going. “Then our two fighters hit it until it broke.”

“Didn’t it have arms?”

“It did, but the archer destroyed its eyes and I was silent.”

Alistair closed the door and studied Tibs. “How far were you from it?”

Tibs shrugged, realizing he’d made another mistake. He was letting being inside the guild again turn into too much of a distraction.

His teacher stepped to the center of the room; it was nowhere near as large as the one where the boss had stood, but it was large enough for what Alistair was going to ask.

“Show me where you were.”

Tibs bit his lower lip. He could lie; move as close as he had to so it would work, but he liked Alistair. He was a good teacher and a good man, even if he was in the guild. He stepped to where he’d been, took an extra step toward his teacher, then with a sigh, he stepped back.

“Has your reserve increase?”

Tibs shook his head, eyes on the floor.

“Have you grasped how to draw from the surrounding essence while manipulating your reserve?”

Could he use that? Except, if Alistair thought he’d mastered it, he’d move on to the next step in his training; would using the amulet work with whatever was next? How much of a drain would it be on it? Recharging was slow even when he focused on it.

And it would be a lie. One of those was enough between them.

He shook his head.

“Then you see the problem, don’t you, Tibs?”

He nodded.

“Now, I don’t think you lied about what you did. You’ve never come across as someone who takes credit for other’s work, and I’d find out quickly you couldn’t do it, if you did claim it. So the question is, how did you do it?”

Tibs looked up from the floor, tried to keep the defiance from his eyes. Alistair wasn’t an enemy, just not an ally. “Can others hear us talk in this room?”

Alistair studied Tibs, arms crossed and a finger tapping his bicep. He closed his eyes, let out a breath, and something happened in the room.

The humidity in it rushed past Tibs, away from the two of them, leaving the air dry; he hadn’t realized it was humid in the room until then. Sensing around him, Tibs felt the water essence at the edge of the room, arranged in a pattern he couldn’t quite understand.

“Anyone who tries to listen will hear flowing water. If someone uses essence to work through the ward, I’ll know, same if they step to the door to enter. I don’t expect any of those to happen. These rooms are for training low level students which only deals with things everyone in the building has learned so long ago they probably forgot they have. But we are as secure as I can make us without making others aware I’m doing it.”

The expression was as grave as before. Alistair took his desire for privacy seriously.

Unable to keep from sighing at what he felt like a defeat, Tibs took the amulet from the pouch. It didn’t have much essence in it, forcing essence in took as much work as trying to manipulate and grasp essence, so he’d focused on that one since it would let him advance in his studies.

“That’s a guild amulet,” Alistair said, surprised. “Where did you get it?” He reached for it, but Tibs tightened his grip.

“Walter.” He didn’t bother keeping the defiance out of his voice.

“Did you steal it?” Alistair demanded, tone sharp.

“No, He died.” Anger kept the pain in check.

The man searched his face, concern in his eyes. “You should have returned it.”

“Why?” Tibs demanded. “Walter gave it to me. Told me to keep it.”

“It wasn’t his to give, Tibs.”

“He paid for it! He paid with coins and his life.” Tibs let the anger color his voice because he wasn’t going to cry again. “That guild of yours screwed him over hard enough. Why should I give it back?”

Alistair sighed, sounding older, tired. “Because if they find out, Tibs, they will not be kind.”

“You didn’t know,” he replied, voice laced with venom and pride.

“And I’ll address how that is afterward. Please hand it to me.”

“It’s mine!” He snapped, pulling it away from the man’s outstretched hand.

“I will give it back, Tibs. I promise. I need to examine it.”

Tibs searched the man’s face for signs of deception, then reluctantly handed it over.

Alistair turned it over in his hand. Tibs felt him shift the essence in the amulet, and he paid attention to that. If his teacher did something to his amulet, he wanted to know what, so he could undo it, or try to.

“It is an ordinary sorcerer’s amulet,” Alistair said, perplexed. Tibs nodded, unsure what his teacher had expected. “These aren’t made for a thief to draw from. You shouldn’t even be able to sense the essence within it.”

“You taught me to sense the essence around us, how is that different?”

Alistair considered the question. “Alright, that’s a valid point. But how did you draw from it? Spreading your water on the floor wouldn’t have emptied your reserve, and you said you haven’t grasped manipulating and drawing in. So how did you do that part?”

Tibs studied Alistair. Was this some sort of test? Only the older rogue did look perplexed still.

“Doesn’t it feel like another reserve to you?”

Alistair stared at Tibs, then the amulet. He closed his eyes and let out a bark of laughter. “I see.”

“So I pulled on the reserve like I normally do. Moved the water over my arms to join the rest, then iced it. I only lost the reserves because as it fell the golem hit me and I flew away.”

Alistair nodded, lips tightening. “I should be angry at you, Tibs. You broke guild rules, used what I taught you in ways I clearly never intended for you to do.” He chuckled and place the amulet in Tibs’s hand. “But you’re a Rogue, and what are a few broken rules if you don’t get caught. Now, about how you hid this from me?”

Tibs place the amulet in the pouch. “This is a pouch of hiding. Anything in it is hidden, and unless you touch it, it just looks like a normal pouch even when you look for its magic through essence." He considered mentioning that Bardik had seen through it, but decided that secret belonged to the other rogue, not him.

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Alistair touched the pouch, then knelt, eyes wide as he studied it. “Where did you get this?”

“In the dungeon there’s a hidden cash in the trap room. That’s where the magical stuff Runners wear come from unless they were able to buy some. I found my shoes in it, there was a glove we gave to the archer. A knife sheath once, but that groups’ ‘leader’ insisted he kept it until a ‘worthy’ rogue joined his team. Then he went and got bashed by bunnies and we couldn't retrieve his equipment. Didn’t anyone tell you?”

Alistair shrugged. “I’m not all that interested in what happens here, other than training you, Tibs.” He ran a finger along the pouch. “Maybe I should be.”

“After Walter died. This is what I found, along with the belt. I tend to forget I have that too.”

Alistair looked up. “You found this after the sorcerer died?”

Tibs nodded.

Alistair stood. “You found the exact item you needed to hide the amulet after that Walter told you to hide it from the guild?” Alistair’s expression became bemused, just like Bardik’s had. “That is some level of luck.”

“Is that a thing? Being Lucky?”

Alistair chuckled. “There is no such thing as ‘luck essence’ so no, it isn’t a thing. But every so often things happen in a way that led multiple universities to dedicate entire wings trying to prove that luck is a thing dungeons manipulate; that’s where most of the incidents take place.”

“I don’t know that uni word,” Tibs said. He didn’t mind admitting he didn’t know things to Alistair, because the man would teach him instead of mocking him.

“University. It’s a place where people go to conduct research that doesn’t really amount to anything, except when it does, in which case it can change the world.”

Learning things like that didn’t always help him understand what a word meant. “So the dungeon made it happen?”

“Dungeons make everything happen within themselves.”

“So it knew what I needed?”

Alistair frowned. “I don’t think so. This young, a dungeon is nothing more than a feral animal. It simply reacts. When too many teams get through too quickly, it adapts and makes changes. Older dungeons show more instances of planned cunning. At best, the dungeon senses your pain and might react to that in some way that makes sense for a dungeon. But that pouch is the result of randomness.”

“I did say some pretty mean things to it.”

Alistair chuckled. “Dungeons don’t understand us. They aren’t smart. So that isn’t something you have to worry about.” He grew serious. “Be very careful with the amulet, Tibs. If the guild finds out you have it.” He paused. “You might think that what you’ve been through at this point has been terrible, but you have to keep in mind all of this took place while the guild wanted you to succeed. Right now, you and the other Runners are at a stage that if the guild catches someone committing a major infraction, which is what you’ve done, it will feel the need to make an example of you to make sure no one else considers doing it.”

“Like what?”

The question seemed to take Alistair by surprise, and he hesitated. “Like, throwing you in the dungeon without even your clothes on your back for you to fend for yourself until the dungeon eats you, and that’s the least horrible thing I can think of.”

Tibs didn’t ask for what could be more horrible than that. Being alone in there, with all those rats. He shuddered. He hated it even when he had a knife and a team. He didn’t want to know anything worse.

“Alright, take a seat, I think you’ve sidetracked today’s training long enough. Keep the amulet handy, maybe we can use two reserves as a way to help you bridge-over drawing in and manipulating essence.”

* * * * *

“Are you sure this is safe?” Carina stood on the ground, looking up at him crouched in the second-story window.

“You can catch me, right?” He took better hold of the frame and he picked his landing spot between her and Jackal.

She looked around into the darkness of the night. “I’m more talking about one of the adventurers catching us.”

“We’re not breaking any rules,” Jackal said. “Saphina got us permission to jump out the window, and there’s nothing down here to break. Well, other than Tibs, but we all know the adventurers don’t care about that part.”

“And when they ask what we’re doing here, letting him jump out of a window?” she demanded, looking at the fighter in disbelief.

“We’re helping you hone your magical air skills,” Tibs answered. “Ready?”

“You don’t even know if this is going to work,” she hissed and Tibs looked around. Had she seen someone?

“You said that once your trainer let go of you, it was like you were falling through the air, with the wind so fast you could barely breathe, right?” Jackal asked. “Tib’s going to be falling, so that part’s covered. You’re going to generate wind to catch him, so that’s going to make the wind so fast he'll get the 'he can’t breathe part'.” The fighter shrugged. “That's basically how we went about getting him to Earth.”

“Right,” She eyed Jackal suspiciously. “You sort of glossed over the how you got him his audience.”

“He buried me alive,” Tibs replied. “Can we get on with this?”

“He what?”

“I told him to,” Tibs said.

She glared at Jackal, “And you listened? He’s a kid.”

Jackal raised his hand between him and her. “It worked.”

“That’s not a reason!”

“I’m throwing myself out,” Tibs said, “so be ready to catch me.”

Before she could protest, he was out and falling.

The initial wrenching sensation as his feet left the sill had his stomach tightening as his mind told him that without a doubt this was going to hurt. Then wind buffeted him, and he worried that he’d hit the building’s wall instead of the ground as he tumbled over himself. Before he worked out which was more likely, he was on the ground, breath flying out of him. It didn’t hurt as much as he’d thought it would.

He got to his feet and wobbled, pushing his hair out from his face.

“So?” Jackal asked.

Tibs shook his head. “I could breathe fine. I don’t thing this is high enough.” He looked up.

“I don’t think I can talk Saphina into convincing her father to let us jump from the roof.” Saphina was the friend who’d held on to Walter’s robe, which Carina now wore.

“Can you make more wind?” Tibs asked as he started climbing.

“Sure, but I’m going to be drained after this.”

“Tibs,” Jackal said as he reached the second-floor window. “I’m pretty sure they expected you to use the stairs.”

“This is faster,” He replied, continuing past it.

“Tibs, they aren’t going to like that you aren’t respecting the agreement.”

He looked down, grinning. “Then we don’t tell them.” This was going to be more fun than the window. And he’d get to see the view first. He hadn’t climbed this building before.

He made out the quiet cursing below him as he looked around at the other roofs. Even the shorter buildings were mostly wood now. The tents kept moving further away from the transport platform in the center of the town to make room for more buildings. Soon they were going to be at the lake and he’d be able to touch it. He wondered what that much water felt like. Was it like when he met Water? He’d know soon enough.

He looked down at his friends, turned his back to them, and let himself fall backward. He was right, the fall was more fun for being longer, more exhilarating. Unfortunately, he didn’t get the ‘not being able to breathe’ effect Carina described. And the landing hurt a whole lot more.

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