Breaking Step (Dungeon Runner 3)

Breaking Step, Chapter 103

The nearly black knife floated between Tibs's hands.

He didn't need them there, like they nestled the etching, but he found it comfortable to have a visual limitation to how the essence moved.

* * * * *

"Corruption doesn't flow," Don explained once they were seated inside the room above the corruption pool, "the way Water does."

Tibs had been concerned his friend would get in trouble for using it without asking permission this time, but so long as no one needed it, he'd explained, no one cared. He'd looked at Tibs and added, 'so long as it's still there by the time we leave.'

He raised a hand as Tibs started to correct him that water essence didn't flow. "I know it isn't the right word. Believe me, any scholar who researched essence knows it's never the right word. Half the books I read spend more time arguing over which of the words should be used instead of explaining the research. For the purpose of this session, Water flows, and Corruption oozes."

Tibs nodded, and Don continued.

"Unlike Water, Corruption doesn't have a condition in which it can be solid. It goes from oozing to drifting to floating. Simply put, you can make Corruption less solid with will, but not more. For that, you need an assembly starting with Ike, which—"

"Wait, won't Ike make the etching fly apart? The Arcanus is about movement. It's what happened when the lance I'd made just flew out of my control."

"Has your teacher explained how not every Arcanus interacts with the elements the same way?"

"It has come up," Tibs said, remembering the headache that had caused. Not only did the Arcanus not always act the same from one element to the other, but the same Arcanus could have a variety of behavior depending on what the other Arcanus were used in the filigree.

"In the case, Ike does add motion to the essence." Don formed a box of corruption, which drooped as soon as it existed. Tibs sensed the sorcerer add a filigree of Ike spaced well apart and the drooping stopped. "As you can sense, the essence is moving, and that motion is letting the form I will it in remain."

He was right. There was a vibration in the essence now, but instead of making the box fly out of Don's control, it went in all directions at the same time, and caused it to be solid.

"What Ike is doing is getting stronger," Tibs said, sensing the vibrations increase.

"Indeed. It's why Ike can't be used on its own." The box exploded in a formless cloud of essence that Don absorbed. "The Arcanus builds constantly, adding more and more stress on the essence lattice. You can compensate by adding more lattices, but that's a losing battle. Ike will always overcome them; it's simply a question of time. You need to use other Arcanus to...buffer its effect. Which one and how you place them will depend on the specifics you are looking for."

He'd looked at Tibs expectantly, and he'd had no choice but to describe what he needed, since learning about all the way to make corruption essence work would take more than the rest of this day.

He needed it as hard as metal, he'd explained, aiming to keep the description vague. The etching then needed to be able to have other essence wrapped around it without them interacting, because they'd have their own filigree.

And Don set forth with explaining what Tibs needed to do. Kha was needed on each side of Ike because it could 'absorb' some of the motion it created. How close would depend on the exact 'solidity' Tibs was aiming to create, Sah, was then needed on the flow side only—Tibs had to ask for an explanation of 'flow side', and Don demonstrated by pushing the essence from himself into and etching with a filigree, the direction the essence moved was the 'flow side'—and it would serve to balance the constant growth in the movement since over time, Ike could overwhelm Kha just like it did the etching's lattice. Ool was then needed on either side, as well as any crossing of filigree, so he had control over what went where. Again, Tibs would have to experiment with positioning.