Dungeon Runner (Book 1 and 2)

Stepping Up, Chapter 47

Tibs moaned as he bit into the fried potatoes and the meat's juices within it poured into his mouth. He couldn't believe how good this was.

"You have to try this," he told Jackal, who watched him, shaking his head sadly. "This is really worth a silver."

"If Kro heard you say that, Tibs, his heart would break." Like everyone around him, Jackal had shadows within him. Secrets, Tibs figured. He had many and of varying density. He wasn't sure what that represented. How important they were?

"Not if he tried this," Tibs replied. He didn't know how he did this. It was more like with how he sensed his essence in people. He could actively stop, but he didn't need to be using the essence for it to happen.

He'd had a broth at the inn once they'd returned. He'd wanted a full meal, but Carina had said no. She'd said that when they came back from their audience, the clerics always only ate broth for a day or two so they could get used to food again. She must have told that to Kroseph, because this morning, he would only serve him broth, again.

Fortunately, she was busy with her training right now, so Tibs headed for another booth as he ate the fried potato and meat.

He had a tankard of a sweet ale, then a pastry that was so sweet it hurt his teeth. He still ate it, but decided he wasn't having that again. He had roasted meats sliced so thin light shone through when he raised it against the sun, meat in cubes wrapped in sour leaves, fruits dried in salt, or sugar, or marinated in wine, and even some in vinegar, those were surprisingly tasty.

"Slow down," Jackal said. "You're going to spend all your coins this way if you don't make yourself sick first."

Tibs shrugged, placing coppers on a counter in exchange for fried balls of sweet dough. There were enough people around no one would miss a copper here and there. Or if they did, they'd think they'd spent it without noticing.

The merchants in the bazaar were good at extracting more coins than those buying from them intended.

"What do you think is Darkness's echo?" he asked the fighter, offering him one of the balls.

He looked around as if Kroseph might catch him enjoying someone else's food and bit into it. "Clerics, I'd guess."

Tibs shook his head. He'd considered that. "But it's just Khumdar."

"There have to be others. The world's too big for Purity to be able to hold sway over all of it. Even the Guild doesn't control it entirely, and there's a lot more of them than there are Purity's clerics."

But Darkness had implied Tibs could locate them, and that there was more than one. "Okay, but if it isn't clerics, what could it be?"

Jackal shrugged. Popping the rest of the ball in his mouth. "Anything dark, I guess." He chewed and swallowed. "These are just okay. I'm sure Kro could make better ones if he tried."

"I'd eat all of them," Tibs agreed. He'd eat everything he could find from now on. He was not going hungry ever again unless he had no other choice. "And it can't just be something dark." He stepped around a noble. "His robe's dark, but that doesn't make it an echo." He ran to a booth selling candies and place his new coin on it, it was silver. "Do you have Sea Drops?" he asked.

"Never heard of them," the thin merchant answered.

"They're sweet and salty, hard, but when they melt in your mouth, it's like the foam on the shore looks like."

"Sorry, kid, that doesn't sound like anything I have."

"Something sour and sweet then. It's orange, and I prefer the chewy kind."