Breaking Step (Dungeon Runner 3)

Breaking Step, Chapter 11

Tibs found Cross in the Drunk Worm.

She sat, laughing with guards, at a table in the center of the tavern. More guards sat throughout the tables. The Worm was a favored drinking place for them. On noticing Tibs approaching the table, the guards left it for others. Those who walked by him mouthed a "Sorry".

"You've become quite the fun killer," she said, grinning. She motioned to the tankards on the table. "Feel free to sample what one of them left behind in their hurry to escape you."

"They didn't have to leave." He sipped from the one where he sat. As with the reputable taverns in Kragle Rock, the ale was fine.

She smirked. "When your boss doesn't like someone, it's not a good idea to be seen sitting at the same table."

He nodded and placed the paper before her. "Have you seen a puzzle like this?" He'd drawn the tiles of the dragon crest with the pegs and indicated how they moved.

She glanced at it, sipping her drink, then put it down, frowning. "The pieces are square?" he nodded. "And they pivot around the dot in the corner?" she asked in disbelief.

"There's essence involved."

"There'd have to be." She studied the drawings. "Squares can't spin like that among other squares. The corners get in the way. If it's magic, it's not the kind of puzzle I play with."

"As far as I can tell, essence isn't how the puzzle is solved. It's just there to let the pieces move."

"And how sure of that are you?" she sipped her drink, eyes still on the drawings.

"Another puzzle does something like this. It's tiles too, but I need to slide an entire row or column. Edges have void essence woven so a tile that crosses it moves to the other side of the puzzle, on that same row or column."

She studied him. "How do you know it's void? I thought adventurers can only sense their essence."

"We can sense other essences with enough training; but I can't tell it's void. Void essence is just the only one I know that can do that. That's the element the Attendants at the transportation platform have. What essence the dungeon is using here doesn't matter. It's just about letting the pieces move in the way the puzzle needs."

"And that's why you think it's the same thing here?"

Tibs nodded.

She tapped the four squares he drew. "Each two-by-two grid moves around this pivot?" she tapped a cruder drawing of the nine-by-nine puzzle. "Here you have pivot pegs at the corner of each tile. Can you turn more than one grid at the same time?"

"When one isn't aligned. The others can't move."

"Can you move a larger grid?"

"Only two-by-two."

"And you're certain magic isn't the solution?"

"The dungeon is consistent in how he tests us. Puzzles that need essence to solve are made of essence. Fights are about testing us physically. When there are traps at the same time, it's about noticing them and avoiding stepping on them while fighting. The traps I need to disarm have their triggers in the same form as what the solution needs. Locks come in different form, but follow those same rules."

Tibs turned the paper over and used his charcoal stick to draw a rough square with tiles and a missing one. "The rooms we need to win to unlock the final one have puzzles as locks. The lion room is just tile sliding, where I have to use the missing one to move them and make the crest's image. The boar's room has those sliding lines with the essence at the edge, and I have to also remake the crest. So the dragon room will be like that, but I need to turn the tiles around the pegs to remake it."