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Stepping Wild, Draft 2, CH 92
🕑 Added 2025-08-13 13:00:06 +0000 UTCThe rain was thick enough Tibs couldn’t make out his old teacher within his bubble of no-rain, but the dense Water essence stood out among the natural one surrounding them. His hope was to reach Alistair before he noticed him, then keep him unbalanced and…. He’d come up with something to take him out long enough he’d escape.
He wished the identity he’d created for his time here carried a sword. He couldn’t make one since, even if Metal wasn’t Alistair’s elements, he had to have the needed training to be sensitive to other essences. He was the one who had told him properly trained adventurers could do that.
Tibs needed to remain an unknown through the coming fight. That meant no essence use.
The wall of raw Water essence coming at him manifested at such speed Tibs’s only defense was to try, and fail, to wrench control. The impact sent him flying and reflexively he etched a water cushion to land in, then curse for revealing he had an element. But since he had, he channeled Water. He would need everything he had for a chance at keeping up with what Alistair threw at him.
Only Alistair was now heading away from Tibs. He followed the fleeing team; the spear.
Tibs rushed to interpose himself, forming a disruption etching when another wall of water came at him. When the rain parted as Alistair’s bubble passed over him, Tibs formed a sword and pointed it at his old teacher. Alistair would have been proud of how straight it was; the lack of spikes despite Tibs’s less than stable emotions.
His old teacher slowed. “Out of my way,” he ordered.
“No.”
The man stopped two and zero steps away. “This doesn’t concern you. Whatever they paid you isn’t worth my wrath.”
Tibs snorted. “As if I’d take money to get in your guild’s way.”
“My guild?” he asked, tone puzzled. He sighed. “Fine, it’s not like this will cause me to lose the spear.”
That confirmed Alistair was somehow tracking the spear itself, and not following clues Tibs might have carelessly left behind. Like people, items had their own patterns. How little did someone with as much experience as his old teacher had need to study one before he could tell it apart from everything else? And the spear’s dense essence had to simplify that.
But how far could he sense? Tibs hadn’t known anyone with his range while a Runner, but he’d purposely kept well away from as many adventurers as possible.
Still, regardless of what Alistair implied, he had limits. All Tibs needed to do was cause delays until the others were outside of it.
Essence followed the wave of Alistair’s hand. Tibs readied himself, but it was ‘loose’ and nothing in the way the lines connected lent themselves to aggression. The Arcanus could alter that, but all he made was a tight sheath of water in case it was supposed to affect him as it passed. It left him untouched then, once it reached the dome, it latched onto the rain beyond it and expanded.
Tibs wished he had more time to study the etching. Nothing he’d come up with was this effective. Willing the rain away from him was still the best method for him to keep it off.
Could his old teacher know what their surroundings were like, now that the rain no longer fell on the closest buildings? In the dark, Tibs had the advan—
The essence holding the water back altered. Arcanus interacting, shifting about. A faint glow rippled throughout the dome and a blue light, like that of early morning, illuminated them.
“Who are you?” Alistair asked after studying him.
Tibs’s smile wasn’t pleasant. “Someone who’s suffered through your guild enough not to care who you are.”
“Suffered?” Alistair looked him over again. “We took you in when the alternative was your death. We trained you, taught you strength, and you repay that by helping thieves run off with one of our precious artifact?”
Tibs momentarily worried Alistair had worked out who he was, but as a thief, Tibs hadn’t been headed for death. Just the loss of a hand. “Aren’t you forgetting every gold your guild charges for that? Holds over us? How they’re used to indenture us?”
“And you hope to free yourself by taking criminal’s money?”
Tibs smirked. “Just following the example your guild gave me.”
The stunned silence had Tibs wondering if Alistair could be so naive as to not know the guild did business with anyone who had the gold, or if he simply refused to notice it.
“Then, once I have taught you the folly of walking away from the training you could receive, and made those criminal pay, I will bring you back.”
Tibs smiled. “Maybe I’ll teach you what comes of not letting your guild restrict what I learned.”
Alistair’s sword was simply there. Tibs hadn’t sensed it happening. The man took two running steps and, between them, it was in his hand, slashing even if Tibs was nowhere within its reach. The other hand moved, an etching forming at the fingertips, finalizing as the sword’s tip reached it, becoming its focus.
His shield didn’t form as quickly, but still enough, with concentric lines connected by Arcanus, to weaken the etched attack with each circle. What made it through wasn’t enough to leave a mark on his clothing.
He smiled at Alistair’s frown and staggered stop.
“I guess your guild never taught you to just think your etching in place? How is that after all these years, you haven’t even worked that out? It only took me a few years.”
He didn’t bother with etching as he ran. He couldn’t hope to outmatch his old teacher in a direct essence fight. He should have gone for Air, or Earth. Or any of his other elements, instead of reflexively reaching for what was so abundant at the moment.
Alistair stepped aside the swing, and when his sword impacted Tibs’s shield, Tibs slid back. There shouldn’t be that much strength in it; Water wasn’t about strength. Expect that anything an element could do could be recreated in some fashion by another. Earth had strength, therefore, Water could be made to have that too.
Tibs parried the attack, then stepped away. “You’re a better fighter than I expected.” Was he underestimating what Water could do because he had so many elements?
“Undo your sword and shield,” Alistair said, walking around him. “Help me retrieve the spear. And I’ll show you that you have much more to learn than simply relying on your element.”
“You don’t get it,” Tibs grumbled, then straightened. “That wasn’t me being impressed. It was me realizing I don’t know you as well as I remember.” He attacked, and Alistair didn’t respond fast enough. Tibs cut through leather and flesh etching the water left behind to bloom into spreading ice, only for it to shatter before doing any damage.
He blocked and staggered from the blow
“We’ve met?”
He only allowed himself a ‘focus’ as reproach, then attacked with quick slashes Alistair diverted with ease; never taking his eyes off him. Tibs couldn’t shake the feeling his old teacher was peering into him.
He iced the water on the ground as the man put his foot down without effect. Like him, keeping himself from slipping was instinct.
Again, the etching appeared faster than Tibs could react; the finger movements registering after the fact. Instead of an attack, the exploding water only forced him away.
“Did I teach you?”
Tibs was well out of sword range before he wrench control of the water and willed it away. Alistair’s will was strong.
“Why? Wondering if I still owe you gold?”
He visualized the etching around Alistair. Intertwined strands around the arms and legs; over hands, between fingers. He added Kha, more than he normally would. He couldn’t let his old teacher move. Qu, Sah and Ter, before Bor, to keep him fully immobilized.
Seeing it all, keeping it around Alistair, as the man moved, was a strain, but Tibs had decades of practice. If not quite on this scale, or with a more experienced opponent.
He activated it and strands of water manifested around the other man, sticking to him, then hardening. The only indication Alistair might have been surprised was one raised eyebrow. Then, even if he was ready for it, the strain staggered Tibs as he fought to keep his etching intact.
“I hope I can convince you to work with us,” Alistair said. “This is impressive work, for someone clearly not as skilled as he could be. You could go far.”
“And turn into you?” Tibs replied through clenched teeth.
He sensed the crack and shifted some focus to hold it, but another appeared, then another and again, and then Tibs was the one encased in an etching.
Alistair’s fingers traced between them and more of the etching build. Tibs disrupted some, but not enough.
He stopped.
He was wasting his strength. He didn’t need to move to fight back. He just had to work out the correct etching.
“What did your teacher do to you?” Alistair asked, sounding baffled.
Oh, the ways Tibs could respond. But he settled for something simple. “He disappointed me. He let his guild destroy what they promised to protect.” He visualized lines and Arcanus.
The man nodded. “The guild isn’t perfect, but if you stopped fighting, if you worked with us, instead. You would be inside, able to make things change. Make sure it became better.”
Waves and interconnected lines. “Like you did?” he replied with disgust. “How did that work out for you? Is it better? Or did it just end up turning you into someone more interested in advancing himself than protecting people?”
Tibs detonated the etching as Alistair’s eyes widened, the man’s surprise further weakening his hold over Tibs.
Tibs picked himself off the ground as Alistair groaned. His clothing was cut as badly as the other man’s. H e’d have to hope his old teacher would explain the lack of blood on Tibs by him having included the right Arcanus to exclude himself from that aspect of the effect.
“Tibs?” Alistair asked, voice trembling.
He cursed.
His old teacher pushed himself up, eyes fixed on Tibs’s left arm.
The brand itched.
“How?”
“What do you care?”
Alistair shook himself, then was standing, eyes filled with determination. “I’m bringing you back. Surrender yourself to me peacefully.”
Tibs snorted. “I’ll never submit to what your guild wants.”
“You tried to assassinate one of our leaders,” he stated in a cold voice.
“Come back to me once you’ve held them accountable for every person in Kragle Rock who died because your guild didn’t protect them.”
“That isn’t the same thing, Tibs. You—”
“It should be!” He reined in his anger. “You don’t get to tell me I need to be punished when not one of them paid for those deaths. I didn’t actually kill him.”
“But you are wanted for it. I will bring you in, Tibs.” The sword dissolved, and Alistair pulled two knives and traced.
Tibs barely got a sense of the Arcanus that were part of the attacks; they were so fact. A lot of Kha; so to restrain him. Par, along with Qu, of course. His own etchings weren’t fast enough to block or deflect them all.
What hit him weighed him down, eventually pulling him to a knee. It didn’t bother him, until he noticed it was more difficult to focus. Alistair wasn’t restraining his body alone; he was attempting to restrain his mind.
Tibs felt cold in a way he couldn’t remember feeling.
Alistair would capture him. Tibs would be back within the guild, and they would punish him for escaping.
He glared at the man.
No. Not ever.
Let his old teacher sense this. Let him puzzle over how he’d done it. Part of him hoped Alistair survived, but not being captured was more important.
He filled the space between them with water essence, and Alistair took a step back, knife at the ready to etch. Tibs didn’t shape it, simply kept adding to it.
He’d done this by accident a long time ago; the first time.
He’d done it again, trying to understand what had happened.
He never had.
But the results were always the same; destructively the same.
He channeled fire while still pushing essence out.
Alistair’s eyes grew wide before anything happened, and Tibs sensed something wrong with his deep reserve. It didn’t change from the blue of Water to the red-orange of Fire. Both mixed and—
The explosion sent Tibs through a wall, filling him with pain. Before he thought of Purity, he was channeling Fever, pushing it through his body, repairing it.
His reserve was the single color of Fever; that deep red with hints of brown within.
He forced himself to his feet instead of thinking about what had happened. He staggered toward Alistair’s still form and sent the purity etching at the unconscious man when he noticed how much life essence he was losing.
He might be making a mistake, but he didn’t care.
Alistair’s reaction told him that, as always, his deep reserve had been reflected in his eyes. He hadn’t imagined the two elements there. His old teacher would tell the guild…if he lived.
The smart thing to do was to remove the etching, let the essence leak out. But for as angry as he was, at times, with his old teacher. Alistair didn’t deserve to die.
He hadn’t been the one ordering the guild to let the people of Kragle Rock be butchered by Sebastian and his people. He was just another pawn in their machinations.
He added more Purity etchings and hoped they would be enough because he couldn’t say to be certain.
Rain fell on them again, but the explosion would draw people and he needed to get out of the city.
Comments
Kindar
thanks. I've corrected them. regarding #2, I've changed the 'he' in the previous paragraph to 'tibs' to make it clearer Alistair turned the table on him.
Kindar
thank you. I'm glad you enjoy the story. it's no longer Stubbed on RR, yesterday, I decided to stop proactively playing into KDP's game of not posting this on free sites. if they complain about it beinf on RR, I'll stub it again, but until then, it's available. the darkness is on purpose. I wrote Bottom Rung as a response to all those Dungeon core book where the 'hero' gets everything handed to them just because they found a dungeon. as if that gave them power. Dungeon Runner is my take on what I feel a Dungeon Core world would actually be like. Also, I'm already writing book 5, and the draft one will be posting as soon as this book ends
Jim Smith
Now I seriously want more chapters. Which seems unfair given that I read all through the backlog in a bit over a week. Still great series.. "make thing[s] change" "Tibs detonated the etching as Alistair’s eyes widened, the man’s surprise further weakening his hold over Tibs. [I was under the impression that Tibs was restraining Alistair and dealing with the cracks Alistair made in the restraining essence." "man’s. And {remove And from new sentence}]
Jim Smith
I’ll see if I can give the other chapters a pass later. That said I really like your work. I was going to read bottom rung o. Royal road. The. I saw it was stubbed, went on KU, but it’s rather diverting. That said the heist arc is rather lengthy for a diversion, but I’ll see where it goes. I would have thought it would have done better on KU. It’s a bit grim, at the start, and the middle for that matter, but I rather think that makes it seem more authentic to the world.
