Dungeon Runner

Bottom Rung, Chapter 14

"Try again," Alistair ordered.

Tibs closed his eyes and focused on the little of the water he could feel within him surrounding a vast emptiness. He closed his hand on the pommel of the knife at his belt that Alistair had lent him. He did as he'd spent the last two days learning and channeled the essence through his arm to his hand, let it accumulate there; then, as he pulled it out of the sheath and added the flicking motion, he released the essence through the knife as the point lined up with his target.

The blade glittered as the water coated it, but what should have been a jet of water, as Alistair had demonstrated, was little more than a few drops that fell before him. Yet another attempt without the proper result.

His teacher looked more puzzled than angry. "It has to be because you are so young."

"How old were you?" Tibs asked to mask how out of breath he was. Alistair had already expressed concern with how easily the exercises tired him out.

The man looked at the dummy they used as a target and his gaze became distant. "Sixteen," he finally said, "is when I did my first dungeon dive, but it was more than a year after that before I graduated. Things didn't happen this quickly back then, we knew to take our time." He crouched before Tibs. "Look at me and call the water to your hand."

He did so, keeping the small pool in his palm. This didn't tire him out, he could keep the water in his hand for hours—it was the first thing Alistair had him do— it was the moment he let it fall away that he felt it. Not the movement needed in flinging it, just the water no longer being in contact with him.

The man studied Tibs's eyes. "Still no change, not even a hint of blue. Definitely your age." His tone became angry. "I told her you were too young."

He wondered if he should tell Alistair what he'd done, the choice he'd made, instead of choosing Water itself, herself? Maybe it was why his eyes hadn't changed? With the attention Alistair put on his eyes, Tibs had paid more attention to the other runners, and he'd noticed many of them had either unusual colors, or theirs were more vivid.

Tibs had worked out that those with reddish-brown eyes had earth as their element by sneaking around the tents where training for those with essence happened when Alistair had been called away. Those with air essence had light gray eyes, fire was red and water blue. There were other colors, green, purple, silver, black, and that strange color shifting that Tirania had, but he hadn't worked out the corresponding elements. Everyone who had an element had eyes that matched it.

Except for him.

Alistair stood. "Alright, let's call this a day, Tibs. Tomorrow we'll try something different; clearly, the established methods aren't working. We'll start by testing your limits and go from there. So I'll see you after your regular rogue training." He pulled the tent flap out for Tibs.

Tibs exited and decided he couldn't afford to wait for a perfect opportunity. "Is it possible Water isn't the right element for me, and that's why it doesn't want to work?" If he could convince his teacher to take him to the other elements under the pretense of trying to find the right one, it would make things easy for him.

Alistair smiled sadly. "That isn't how it works, Tibs. If Water had been wrong for you, you wouldn't have survived your audience. It's the reason why newly graduated divers are told to think carefully about the element they will pick." Tibs frowned at him. "Well, we used to tell them that. Now it seems everyone gets rushed through without care for how many we lose."

"That's not it. Are divers what you called yourself? We're runners now."

The older man smiled, this time in amusement. "Yes, dungeon dives are what we called what we did. The term changes every few decades. But to stay with your element, Water accepted you, so the reason for why you have trouble handling the basics will be something else, most likely your age."