kindar
patreon
Stepping Wild, Draft 2, CH 91
🕑 Added 2025-08-11 13:00:09 +0000 UTCTibs changed direction when sensed the Water manifest on the transportation platform. He’d planned on wandering the markets; on resting from all the reading that had provided him with nothing of use. The kingdom had a surprising lack of dangerous areas based on the books.
The essence was so dense, even before it was fully there, it could only be one person. Tibs was…unsure how he felt. But he could justify checking in on Alistair’s arrival by being curious why he did so this early.
Or was it early for his old teacher?
It had been decades since Tibs had traveled by platform, and it was easy to forget how time shifted when using it. He’d read that time wasn’t the same in every kingdom, but the explanations were incomprehensible to him. Of course, the sun moved in the sky. That was what made a day, but how did that mean it didn’t move the same way in other places? It was always in the same place in the sky at noon, or at sunrise and sunset.
Too many scholars said the same thing for him to dismiss them outright as one of those things they thought was true when it clearly wasn’t. And he needed to keep in mind the elements. They didn’t act on the world, but they influenced it through their essence being part of everything.
Maybe void did something that change the order of events? After all, only those who had that element could see things out of order.
Except that tended to cause them to lose their mind. Wouldn’t it cause something similar to everyone traveling on the platform if void shifted time around?
Alistair ignored the booths, heading for the university.
The guard at the entrance stopped his old teacher, and Tibs used an Air etching to bring their words to him.
“…isn’t here at the moment,” the guard said.
“When will she be back?” Alistair sounded annoyed.
“She’s usually here with the Zenith.”
Alistair looked up; the sun was barely two fingers above the walls. “Tell her the guild agreed to her gift. I’ll be back at sundown to take possession of it.” He turned the way he came.
Tibs followed him until the first market, where he returned to his wandering.
*
“There you are,” Charlie said, hands on Tibs’s table, panting. “I need your help.”
Tibs now wore an oiled cloak in preparation for the rain the darkening sky promised. He’d stopped for an early meal and was surprised the man had found him.
“I’m not working with you.” He kept his tone neutral. “I’m not doing anything other than my research.”
Charlie looked around and lowered his voice. “If I wasn’t desperate, I wouldn’t be here. Please, Thibaud. We are in trouble.”
He wanted to say no. Tibs wasn’t someone an old acquaintance just showed up to after agreeing to stay away and asked for help. He rubbed his temple. But the desperation was plain in his eyes and there was barely any glow on the words.
“What happened?” he at least owed him to listen.
“Not here. Come with me.”
He started to protest, but he’d already agreed to listen.
Outside, wind shoved them, and the rain that had been promised when he’d entered, slammed into him. He let it and didn’t complain; the way Charlie did. Thunder rumbled. A dozen heartbeats later, lightning flashed in the distance. The storm was only starting.
They left water on the floor as they crossed the house and Tibs noted one of Charlie’s team was missing when they entered the room they were assembled in.
“He’s going to help?” the leaner of the two women asked.
“I said he would.”
He didn’t bother glaring. If he didn’t like what he heard, he’d leave and reveal him to be a liar. “Where’s your rogue?”
The look they exchanged told him why Charlie had brought him.
Now he glared.
“Reanar when and got himself caught by the guards,” the muscled man said.
“After I told him not do to anything stupid,” the lean woman added. She was the smart one of the group, or so he thought Charlie had said.
“Get yourself another rogue.”
She leveled her gaze on him.
“A different one.”
She raised an eyebrow at Charlie.
“We don’t have the time,” the man said. “We only have two days to get it.”
“Tell them you need more time.”
“She isn’t someone you go back to and say you aren’t doing what you agreed to,” the muscular woman said.
“And….” Charlie looked away.
“What?”
He sighed. “You already have access to the university.”
Tibs ground his teeth, looking them over. “Was this always the plan? To get me to help you?”
“No!” Charlie protested, and the hint of light on the word made Tibs thing the man had hoped to bring in him, even if it hadn’t been part of the plan.
“Charlie said you were out.” No light on her words. “Reanar had a contact there, but he didn’t tell us who. If we had time, we’d find someone, but as Jeanine said. Our boss for this doesn’t take changes of plans well. Charlie still wasn’t going to do anything until I pointed out it’s asking you or dealing with the killers she’ll send after us for failing her. He says you’re the best he’s worked with.”
Pointing out he was the only rogue Charlie had worked with, other than the one on this team, wouldn’t help. “What are you after?” so long as it wasn’t something the university stored as too important, the security would be light.
“Just a spear they have on display.”
“The Corbin Spear?” he asked, because it was just how things had to go with five people on the team. The stunned surprise made him groan. “You don’t have two days. A guild representative is coming at sunset to take it.”
“How do you know?” Jeanine asked. “We were told two days.”
“I overheard him tell the guard this morning when he found out the woman he’s dealing with wasn’t in.”
The case had a simple lock without a weave. The room saw little traffic, and the scholars there were focused on the items they studied more than what happened around them. So long as it hadn’t been moved, and at this point he wouldn’t be surprised if it had, this would be quick. “Do you have a fake to put in its place?”
“This was a smash and grab,” the, he questioned how smart she was, woman said.
He looked at Charlie.
“This is all we have to work with, Thibaud. I don’t have a theater to make me all the fakes I need. Or know someone here for papers. Reanar was going to have someone sneak him in. He’d grab it and run. He’s really fast. We were going to meet, then we were out of the city before they had time to organize.”
“And how are you dealing with them chasing you? The university gets favors for what they give the guild.” He locked eyes with the man. “The Adventurer’s Guild.”
“We have our escape route set,” the muscular man said. He unrolled a crude map. “These are smuggler’s routes. Hardly anyone knows about them, and if they don’t know the symbols, they can’t follow them.” He tapped lines on the drawing. One had a bird and a turtle, which diverged. There was one with a wolf’s head, and another that might be a boar. “We take them, and we disappear.”
“Except Wolf’s Trail,” Jeanine said. “I am not going through there again.”
Charlie shrugged when Tibs glanced at him.
“Lots of stories about that one. Roaming things on it. But we didn’t come across anything on the way here when we followed it.”
“That’s because the lot of you sleep so deep the abyss could take you and you wouldn’t wake up until you were gone.” She shuddered. “I heard things…. Saw things.”
No light on the words.
It only meant she believed what she said. She could still have imagined it. But it was more than what he’d found in the books. “I want the map.” He didn’t know why there hadn’t been stories of those trails. As unknown as they might be now, there would have been a time when many people knew about them.
“We need it,” the muscled man said.
“Them make me a copy.”
“Thibaud—”
He glared at Charlie. “I’m going to have to run, too, and I’m not prepared. I’m going to do better than smashing and running, but someone is going to notice it’s gone. I came here by caravan, was going to leave the same way when I was ready. I don’t know those secret trails, so I need that map. And no. I’m not going with you. I’m making my own way. You tell me where to meet. You hand over the map, and I hand over the spear. Then we go our separate ways.”
Charlie searched Tibs’s face, then nodded.
“Charlie,” the muscular man started.
“What’s the alternative, Marok? We need him. We wouldn’t even know we’re out of time if not for him. We have however long it takes Thibaud to get it to find someone who can make us a decent copy.”
“You work that out,” Tibs said as he could see the protests forming. “Where do I meet you?”
Charlie told him of the house and the marks that would tell him which one they’d be in, and he left.
This time, he didn’t let the wind and rain bother him. There was hardly anyone out, and it was already dark enough the rain could stop, and still no one would see him. The thunder was louder, and the lightning followed six heartbeats later. With proper timing, the storm would keep anyone from chasing him. The oiled cloak hid his clothing, so that would add to the difficulty in identifying him.
He let the rain pummel him once he passed the last intersection before the university. He shouldered the door open over the guard’s protest. He counted on her not being allowed to leave her post, even with this rain, and an understanding no one wanted to stay in that storm to avoid pursuit.
He sped the water dripping off him so that when he entered the display room, he was dry. It was deserted, with only the forgotten lamp on some of the tables providing barely enough light for someone to walk through. There were more on the wall and columns, but during the day, the sun provided most of the light.
No one was approaching the room when he reached the case. The thunder was muffled by the thick stone, and the flashes of lightning revealed him as he used essence to unlock it.
He took the spear out and wrapped it in his cloak, then wrapped that in etching of Darkness layered atop one another. Darkness worked better when people could explain away what they thought they’d noticed. This still looked like nothing other than a long item wrapped in a cloak.
He missed suffusing himself.
He headed out.
The etching frayed as soon as the rain pummeled him, hard enough that even once he kept it away, his mind echoed from it. Lightning followed thunder by four heartbeats.
His calculation of how close the storm would come to the city were interrupted by the void in the rain entering his sense, with dense water essence at its center.
Sunset!
He was supposed to come at sunset. It might be dark enough to be the middle of the night, but it couldn’t be close to sunset yet.
He ran.
He detoured far around Alistair; he had no idea what his teacher’s range was, but he figured that if he couldn’t sense his old teacher, he couldn’t sense Tibs either.
It meant that by the time he sensed Charlie and his team, it could be sunset with how long it took. Two heartbeats separate thunder and lightning now.
It stretched to three by the time he shouldered the door open and slammed it closed. He leaned against it, catching his breath and ignoring the swords pointed at him. He rubbed his temple, still feeling like the rain was pummeling him.
He pushed away and placed the spear on the table. “Where’s the map?”
Marok placed it down, and Tibs unrolled it. It was the one they’d showed him.
“We have our copy.” The man tapped the leather tube resting against the table before opening in and putting the spear in it. He sensed more papers.
“How do I identify the trails?”
“You’re going to have to search in the underbrush for the first one,” Charlie said. “It’s a stone marker planted in the ground and it’ll have the trail’s symbol on it, pointing in the next one’s direction. They’re roughly three hundred paces apart.”
Asking Jeanine where she’d heard the sounds would make his search faster, but that would tell Charlie which route he’d take.
He rolled the map. “Then, I’m—” He froze.
How had he missed this until now? He looked at the door, the void in the rain with the dense water essence at its center moving toward the house. Did Alistair have a way to mask himself?
Every element could recreate the effects of the others with the correct use of the Arcanus had been one of his old teacher’s lesson.
“You need to run.” Far enough, they had time.
“What’s going on?” Jeanine stood, drawing her sword.
“They found us. You have to leave, now.”
“How?” Marok slung the leather tube over his shoulder. “Were you followed?”
“Must have.” Better that, than they realized the truth. “Get out. Lose yourself in the storm.”
“What about you?” Charlie asked.
“I’ll hold them back.”
“Are you crazy?” the smart woman, Lidia, asked.
“Come with us,” Charlie said.
“I can deal with guards.” Easily, but Alistair? “Get out of here before they reach the house.”
It looked like Charlie would implore him again, then he rushed the others to the other side.
He wanted to follow. Run away from Alistair. He doubted he’d fare well against his old teacher, but he had to keep him busy long enough for the others to escape.
He rolled the map and secured it inside his clothing.
He should have known this would turn bad.
He readied himself.
The team had been five people.
He ran out the door and toward Alistair.
