Dungeon Runner

Stepping Up, Chapter 96

The building Tibs slipped into, through the window, was lit only from the lanterns placed on the floor where the group was crouched around papers. As he landed silently, two spun and unsheathed weapons. A knife for Gerald, and short sword for Armania. They put it away on recognizing him.

Tibs joined the eight of them around the papers, and looked at the routes marked on them. Jumian placed a finger on a spot where a corridor hadn't been marked. "That passage continues forward."

"No," Gerald said. "It turns to the left."

"So it's another one with multiple ways to be unlocked," Bea said, writing letters next to the spot. "Anyone noticed the triggers that might affect them?"

Shakes of the heads all around.

Each of the Rogues here was on a team that had made it to the third floor, and Gerald had been the one to suggest they do their own version of the sorcerer's map, but one with information they could use, instead of theorizing about things that meant nothing to the run.

Having listened to Carina talk about some of those theories, Tibs knew they had their uses, but this was something he could take an active part in.

The only path they could all agree on led to the three crests, as well as the crest with the lion. This was the path that avoiding every trigger opened. It meant that they all agreed on it until the first intersection. After that, it depended on which trigger had been stepped on by accident.

Tibs had decided it was Ganny's way of teaching them triggers weren't always meant to be avoided, which was the ingrained reaction after two floors of the way Sto did things.

Armania was who had picked the attic of the unoccupied house as their meeting point. It was at the edge of the noble's neighborhood, a house they had bought to prepare for building their wall, but they still had ways to go since many owners of the houses the nobles needed were being difficult.

It might have something to do with the nobles plans having been learned by the townsfolk.

Tibs had hoped it would lead to them rallying against the plan, but they were holding out until the nobles offered a lot more coins.

"From the bottom of the stairs to the first intersection," Tandy said, "it's sixteen paces."

"Twenty-three," Bronze corrected at the same time Armania said.

"Nineteen." They shared a look. "If we can't agree on that, it's going to make everything a lot harder."

"It would be easier if the floor was tiled instead of this cracked pattern."

Tibs took a piece of paper from his—he had no idea where the others had come from, and he wasn't asking—and drew the layout of the floor leading to the intersection. "This is what it is." He identified the triggers, using symbols to show which he knew worked together. "I'm not good enough to show it this way, but the way the cracks make the tiles isn't random."

"Yeah, I've noticed a repeating pattern," Nataniel said. "I was planning on figuring out what they did."

"Okay, that might be what I noticed," Gerald said. "I hadn't made the connection." He used a blank space to draw a pattern.

"I've seen one like that," Bea said. "We nearly lost our archer to that trap. If she'd been just a little slower, she'd have lost her head instead of an arm. We had to turn around right then to get her and the arm back to the cleric."

"Anyone noticed if the tiles change from one run to the other?" Armania asked.

"They haven't on my runs," Tibs said.