Breaking Step, Draft 1, CH 25 (Patreon)

Tibs was next to Jackal as they turned the corner. Before them were a team of golem people. The archer letting an arrow loose, which Tibs stopped with an ice wall. Jackal was around it, grinning and running at the other team.

Tibs sent jets of water around the fighter to keep the enemies distracted, then joined in, short sword in hand, shield over his arm and targeting the sorcerer whose element Tibs couldn’t determine.

The faceless sorcerer gestured, etching essence before him. Tibs couldn’t tell the exact nature of the spell, but the lines converged, which nearly every offensive spell Tibs had watched done did.

He brought his shield up, thickened the ice, and readied himself for the impact.

The attack hit his shield, moved through and around it, then detonated into Tibs, sending him backward and on his back, jerking uncontrollably, his mind in shambles, his hold on his element slipping. He couldn’t work out what had happened, where he was, who he was. All that he knew was how painful it all was.

There had to be something he could do, but he had no idea what was happening. He grasped for something, anything would do, if only there was—

There.

I pulled on whatever that was and the essence assaulting him fled into the floor. He could breathe again. Think. He switched to Purity to end the enduring pain, then back to that element in case the attack returned. He didn’t know why metal had made that element go away, but he’d stick with that until he was sure no more would come back.

He raised his head, looking for the sorcerer who had hurt him.

“That, fucking, hurt,” he growled as he stood.

He pulled the essence and realized he had no idea how to use it. Fine. He didn’t need anything more than to coat himself with it. Metal was hard. It could take hits, and it protected him from the sorcerer.

“Tibs?” Mez said, looking over his shoulder at him. His eyes went wide. “Don, keep them busy!” he instructed as the sorcerer started looking over his shoulder too. Then the archer was before Tibs. “What are you doing?” he whispered. “What’s with your eyes? How did you get metal?”

“I had an audience,” Tibs replied, pushing Mez out of his way. Jackal and Khumdar were fighting the rogue and archer, respectively. The fighter had trouble landing a hit, and when he managed it, water rippled over the golem’s skin, deflecting it. Khumdar was deflecting arrows after arrows, but couldn’t get close enough to land a blow, or pause to focus on using essence. The sorcerers’ attacks seemed to cancel each other, lightning and corruption erupting into a sickly cloud between them.

Mez caught Tibs’s arm and pulled him to a stop. “You can’t do this now. How much training do you have?”

Tibs fixed his eyes on the archer. “Let go of me, Mez, or I will make you.”

“None.” The archer let go and Tibs headed for the sorcerer again.

“What is he doing?” Don asked as he walked by.

“A Jackal thing,” Mez replied angrily, and arrows joined the attack against the sorcerer, but lighting broke from the cloud to intercept them, shattering even those made of fire. 

Tibs ignored the bits of essence that splashed out from the cloud, as well as the rest of the fight. They didn’t matter. His team could deal with them while he kicked that sorcerer’s—

“Tibs!” Khumdar yelled, just as an arrow impacted and staggered Tibs. 

He regained his footing and glared at the golem archer. That one was next.

He returned his attention to the sorcerer, who had noticed him now. A quick gesture and lightning hit Tibs, traveled over him, stung, then sank into the floor. Tibs kept walking, a grin forming on his face. That barely qualified as pain.

The sorcerer shot lightning at him over and over as Tibs closed the distance, and the stinging increase to pain, but Tibs didn’t care, he was going to make it pay for that initial pain, no matter what he had to endure to get there.

It didn’t show fear, or anger, or irritation. The smooth face showed nothing, but Tibs figured Sto was trying to figure out what was going on, if he was paying attention. The dungeon didn’t seem to be around his team all that much anymore.

Maybe Tibs should have a talk with him about that at some point. Sto was supposed to like him, so why wasn’t he watching?

He added earth to the metal over his arm as he raised it. From this close, when the lightning hit him, it definitely hurt, but he was not letting that stop him.

His fist impacted the golem’s stomach and sent it back against the wall. Before he crossed the few steps to it, arrows and corruption impacted it and it dissolved. Tibs frowned. It should have been his kill. He’d remind them of that after he dealt with the other one who had attacked him.

Tibs turned to the archer as corruption splashed on it, and Khumdar took advantage of the distraction to break it into two with a hit of his darkness covered staff. Another of his kills they’d taken from him. How dare they!

He turned to remind them of how things were and found Jackal blocking him from them.

“Stop,” The fighter ordered.

“They—”

“I said, stop.”

“I will not—”

“I’m the team leader,” Jackal said, earth spreading through his body. “You follow my orders. Don’t make me stop you.”

Tibs glared up at the man, what mattered to him now warring with Jackal’s friendship.

“Now,” Jackal said. “Let it go.”

“I need to—”

“Not like this,” Jackal snarled quietly. “Not until we’ve had a talk about you keeping this from me. Water. Now.”

Tibs ground his teeth, considered putting his unending reserve of metal to the test against Jackal’s vast one of earth, as well as his years of practice at kicking people’s asses. There would be time later, Tibs decided. When the fighter wasn’t expecting it. He was a rogue, after all. He shouldn’t be looking for face-to-face fights.

He let metal go, and pain drowned him for the far too long instant it took for him to take hold of Water and filled himself with it. Just that rendered the pain of the loss he’d suffered bearable, but he didn’t want bearable. He wanted it gone. He iced the water and felt like himself again.

“I’m good.”

Jackal snorted. “I doubt that, but that’s also for another time.”

“I’m sorry for—”

“Later, Tibs.” Jackal turned from him. “What do we have?”

“A pair of boots,” Mez said, taking them from Don, who was staring at Tibs, “an iron bracer from that fighter.”

“Coins, from the sorcerer,” Khumdar said, “eight silver.” He nodded to the bow. That was all that was left of the archer.

Tibs turned, and where the sorcerer had been, a leather tube lay on the ground.

He checked it for traps, then pulled the top off. Inside were papers, and on them were diagrams. Lines and symbols. “Don, what are these?” He offered them to the sorcerer.

Don took them, but kept on looking at Tibs for a few seconds before looking at them. His eyes went wide as he looked through the four pages.

“Spells, these are spells.” He looked at the others. “I’d read about some dungeons having spell pages on their loot, but I never thought—” His face fell. “I never thought I’d get to see some.”

“So they’re just for sorcerers?” Jackal asked.

Don shook his head. “As far as I can tell, these only contain one element, so anyone with that element could learn from them. I can’t tell which element they are about without research.”

“Okay, then once we’re out, you can get to work on that,” the fighter said. “Tibs, how do we—”

Don laughed bitterly. “Get on that? What, you think the guild’s just going to let me borrow these and the books I need to research them?”

“We’re not giving that to them,” Jackal said, taking the boots and putting them in Khumdar’s pack.

“Is this wise?” the cleric asked, while Don seemed stunned into silence.

“He’s on the team, right? And that can help him.”

“How are you going to get that by them?” the sorcerer asked. “They have magic to know what comes out of the dungeon. I know teams who tried it. They didn’t succeed and none of them were around after that.”

“That was back in the early days,” Jackal said, looking the bracer over before adding it to the pack.

“You think they stopped paying attention just because we’ve become more skilled at all the things we do?”

The fighter faced the sorcerer. “Are you, or are you not part of the team, Don?”

The sorcerer took a step back. “I— yes, of course I am. I— I was put on it.”

“Then you need to start trusting that we know what we’re doing.”

“That would be fucking easier to do if you weren’t all hiding stuff.” Don pointed to Tibs. “Like, what was that? An arrow glancing off his shoulder hard enough to stagger him, but not damage his armor? What’s with your ‘cleric’? Where are you getting all that essence for your arrows, Mez?”

“No complaints about me?” Jackal asked.

Don rolled his eyes. “I know you’re just playing at being an idiot.”

“Ice is hard,” Tibs said. “It’s harder if I put more essence in it.”

“Ice doesn’t deflect lightning the way it was dancing over you and doing anything,” the sorcerer snapped.

“Don,” Mez said, “you should—”

“Don’t ‘I should’ me, Mez. I’m fucking trying, but how the fuck am I supposed to be part of the team, if I don’t even know the people I’m on the team with?”

“Maybe you should have thought about that,” Jackal said, “before you went out of your way to piss off each and everyone of us.”

“Don has never had that effect on me,” Khumdar said.

“Where did the team sticking together go?” Jackal said with a sigh.

“Ah,” the cleric responded. “Yes, Don, you really should not have exasperated me do much if you wished for me to share my secrets with you.” He looked at the fighter. “Better?”

“Yes, although it would be even better than that if you shared some of those secrets with the rest of us.”

“Maybe you too have exasperated too much.”

“I know Tibs hasn’t.”

“And how certain are you I have not shared some of my secrets with him?”

Jackal closed his much, thought about it, and nodded. “That’s a good point.”

“Do you ever take anything seriously?” Don demanded.

“Not if I can help it,” Jackal replied.

“One thing,” Tibs said. “You take one thing seriously, all the time.”

“No, I don’t… oh, yeah, right. That.” He grinned at the sorcerer. “I take Kro very seriously.”

“How have any of you survived this long with that kind of attitude?”

“We’ve survived this long,” Mez said, “because that’s how we act. It took me a while to get it, but this place is most likely going to kill me at some point. If I let that stress me too much, that’s going to kill me faster. Once I realized that, I also realize it applies to most of my life. I joke where I can, because the rest of the time, I’m pretty busy trying to survive.”

“That… that doesn’t make any sense. Surviving requires attention and focus. Even Tibs knows that, considering what he’s doing with his element.”

“And how long can you maintain that, Don?” Jackal asked. “How long can you spend thinking only about how you’re going to survive, while you let people around you die?”

“That is unfair,” Mez snapped, as Don’s face fell. “Don has his problems, but you are not helping by constantly shoving his mistake in his face. You don’t hear us always bringing back how you’ve thrown yourself into fights without us and nearly died in them.”

“Actually,” Khumdar pointed out.

Mez let out a breath. “Right, really bad example.” He rubbed his face. “Look, you keep telling him to trust us so he’ll be part of the team. How about you start trusting him beyond how he can help the team and as an actual person?”

“Maybe If—”

“I’m sorry,” Don whispered.

“Don,” Mez said, “this isn’t you that—”

“I’m sorry I was an asshole when we first met. I’m sorry I treated you like trash when you were on my team, Mez. I’m sorry I blamed so much on you, Tibs. I know that after everything I’ve done, it doesn’t mean much, but I am sorry. It doesn’t matter if you never see me as anything other than how I acted back then. I do want to change.” He looked at them and let out a breath. “I told Tibs I was going to be a scholar before I ended up here. What I didn’t tell him was that my family ways—”

“Stop,” Jackal said.

“I’m trying to explain why I did what I did.”

“And I appreciate that.” The fighter motioned around them. “But this isn’t the place, and we don’t have the time right now. So what’s more important, having this conversation, or getting through this room so we can find the actual loot it’s holding?”

“You’d give up loot so I can explain myself?”

“Yes, Don, I am able to put something before loot.”

“Is this a joke?”

“Do I look like I’m being funny?”

“No. And that’s kind of disconcerting.”

Jackal grinned. “Good. Tibs?”

“I think we have more to gain by resolving this with Don. The room’s going to still be here on our next run.”

“I was afraid you’d say that. Mez?”

“I’m for giving Don the time to tell us what he needs to say.”

“Khumdar.”

“You know I am always pleased to listen to secrets being exposed.”

“It’s not a secret,” Don protested. “I just don’t volunteer the information.”

“Alright, then Tibs, work on getting us out of here so Don can tell us his life story.”