Breaking Step (Dungeon Runner 3)

Breaking Step, Chapter 80

"Get it off!" Jackal yelled, his stone arm in the large dog's mouth. "Get it off me!"

"You know," Mez said, essence forming into an arrow as he pulled the string of his bow, "you are strong enough to punch it off you." He loosed the fire arrow, and it exploded in the dog's side, sending it tumbling off the fighter.

Jackal scrambled away as he got to his feet.

Tibs stepped between the growling dog and Jackal. "Bad dog! No treat for you!"

Its head snapped up, and the growling hitched. Tibs thought he saw confusion in its eyes, then it lunged and Tibs swung, stepping aside. He'd added filigrees of Duh to the metal edge of his ice sword, and the added sharpness caused it to cut half its muzzle and head off with hardly any resistance. It turned to face him on landing.

A real dog would have died, one of the first dogs they'd encountered on the floor would have too, but this loss only diminished its essence slightly. Even its growl wasn't affected. It ran at him, and Tibs smashed his shield into the remains of its head, staggering it, then pinned it to the ground with his sword. It still didn't die, but while it struggled to get itself free, Tibs formed another sword and cut it apart until it crumble away.

"They're tougher," he commented, absorbing both swords.

"And bigger," Don said.

"And sneakier," Jackal snarled.

Within blocks of leaving the plaza where they'd eaten, one had jumped out of an alley at the fighter. Then, one had burst out of a door to reach him, and this one had jumped on him from a roof.

"Is it me," Mez said, "or has the dungeon picked up on Jackal's love for those animals?"

"I don't like them!" Jackal looked at the rip in his arm and armor, both of which were stone. "This is going to take weeks to have repaired."

"Buy a new one," Don said, while Tibs formed a purity weave to deal with the injury.

"But I like this one," Jackal replied. "It's the one I've worn since Tibs burned the last one off me."

And now, he was responsible for Jackal losing another armor. Even if his was in worse condition, at least Tibs's armor would repair itself over time.

"Have you considered that this may be the dungeon's attempt as instructing you to your unwise habit of throwing yourself at your opposition?"

"They're throwing themselves at me!" Jackal sighed in relief after Tibs applied the weave. "Where's the next building?"

"Over there." He motioned toward the...oddity in his sense, and they were on the move again.

He didn't know what it was, since it registered as a hole in the essence, but it was the closest thing that wasn't like the rest of the buildings on this floor.

They checked houses, most of which had nothing of interest, other than the occasional essence laden food on plates like offering for them, which Tibs and Don didn't allow Jackal to touch.

At one, a 'family' attacked them, which included a child that took advantage of Tibs's surprise at its presence, and how odd a child looked when gray and squished down like all the people that were part of the city, to grow its fingers into claws and scored one gash in his side, and then Tibs dispatched it, cursing himself for never realizing that Sto wasn't limited to making adult golem people.

More dogs attacked, and Tibs figured there was something random about their placement, while the golem people were limited by the roles they played. Guards patrolled, so could be avoided. Thugs stuck to the alleys, so they could stay away from those, and families only came from houses.