Dungeon Runner

Bottom Rung, Chapter 55

Tibs looked over the room with the path over the water basin. He walked ahead until he reached where the essence triggers were and felt them move. "Stay there," he told the others. Mez was now supporting most of Khumdar's weight, Jackal was limping heavily, and Carina was pale. Tibs couldn't sense what was wrong with her, and when he asked she'd just said she'd overextended herself and needed food and rest.

"Sto," he whispered. "Do you think this is fair?"

"What do you mean?"

Tibs indicated the path before him, then felt silly without someone there for him to see that they understood. "The triggers are still there."

"Of course. That's the puzzle."

"But I solved it, we went through with only Jackal getting hurt."

"He did? How?"

"The last slab crushed his foot."

"But he's walking. Oh, I see what you did, although I don't understand how you did it."

"Sto, the triggers."

"That's how the room's designed, Tibs."

"So the room is here to kill us then?" he asked, anger flaring.

"No, it's here for the teams to figure out how to cross the path, or how the ledge works."

"I know how to cross the path, Sto." He stopped himself, his voice was getting louder and he might say his name loud enough the others would hear. He wanted to respect the dungeon's wishes about that until he determined he didn't deserve the respect. "This one is about waiting until both essences move in time to make a space large enough to pass through, the next one is just about waiting until it's on the opposite side of where you're standing, the last you wait until you can pass under it."

"That's right."

Tibs waited.

He looked up.

"I don't know what you're waiting on," Sto said.

"Look at my team. We know how to cross the path, but we can't do it because we're injured. How fair is that?"

"Oh."

"Don't even think about it," Ganny said.

"Tibs's right, Ganny."

"There are rules, Sto. You can't intervene in how a room works. You can't even make changes while they're in it."

Tibs turned back the way he came.

"That's easily dealt with, Ganny," Sto said.

"We need to leave the room," Tibs told the others.

"Sto, if they find out about this, you are going to be in so much trouble."

"Who's going to tell them?"

She didn't answer.

"Look. Tibs made a good point. None of this is supposed to be about just killing them. You said so yourself when I started making the rooms. It's about testing and getting them to improve. This doesn't do either. They already know the trick, and what about trying to cross it injured leads to them improving? That's what the fighting is for."

"But you can't just turn it off because you're sweet on Tibs."

Sto sighed. "That's not why I'm doing it. And I'm not sweet on him, he's just the most entertaining of the Runners."

"Sure."

"Tibs, I'm going to turn them off this time, but I'm going to have something in place for the next one, I already have it ready for when the room reset. You're going to have to work for getting them to shut off on your next run. Oh, and do me a favor, don't tell that to that team who's helping you. They need to work for it too."