Dungeon Runner (Book 1 and 2)

Stepping Up, Chapter 20

Tibs looked at the crystal sphere on the pedestal.

The room was thirty paces in length, with the pedestal against the wall, but the exercise, the test he was practicing for, wasn't about the distance. It didn't matter how far from it he was, anytime he used the 'x' attack on it, he hit it. These weren't combat conditions.

He took the knife out, channeled his essence to the point, and readied himself. For him, this was about controlling the flow of the essence as it flowed from outside and into his reserve and then to the knife as it fed the attack. He had good control over pulling the essence in, but controlling how much of it went into the attack was still a strain.

He moved the knife, traced the 'x', and stabbed its center. The essence pulled out of his reserve and he focused on both replacing it and limiting how much went to the attack. He didn't want to balance it. He needed to bring in more than was taken out if he wanted to be useful to his team in combat.

As every other time, he studied the sensations, both to figure out how to use them to better control the flow, and because he wanted a way to describe it to someone else so they could help him.

But as with any other time trying to assign descriptions to essence, he ended with approximations that, while he knew were incorrect, he didn't know how to make better.

It was like the wind flowing around him if he ran really fast, except that it flowed through him. It was like the pressure of the water against him when he'd been in the lake, but again, inside him instead. A burning, tracing the path from his reserve through his body as it reached the knife, but instead of being hot, it was wet.

He gritted his teeth with the strain of controlling both flows, and when he cut it, it was as if the string holding his hand steady toward the sphere was cut as the jet of water left the point of the knife.

Instead of being sliced, the sphere exploded from the impact.

"You may have put too much essence in it," Alistair said, and Tibs only stiffened in surprise. He didn't have the strength for more after a full morning of it, although his heart raced as if he'd run from the boss' room on the second floor of the dungeon to the exit.

"I'm still not good at controlling it." He bent and placed his hands on his knees. He didn't understand why, but the position made the strain pass faster.

"Is your reserve not refilling?" his teacher asked, worried.

Tibs chuckled. "It's full. It's trying to hold back the flow that's tiring. I'm trying to not cause the sphere to explode. I can cut it like you did, once in a while." He straightened, turned, and stepped up to his teacher, hugging him. "I missed you. I don't think Tirania's happy you took so long to respond to her call."

"She'll take it up with our superiors." He hugged Tibs back. "I came as quickly as I could. And I missed your inquisitiveness, Tibs. I hadn't realized how accepting of everything we've become until your questions." He released him. "Now, explain how you figured out how to sense and manipulate; then we'll see if that understanding is the reason this is straining you."

"It's like when I turned my reserve from the lake with the waves into the box it is now. It was about how I felt, no, thought about the essence. About how I thought there was my water essence and then, the essence outside of me." He formed a puddle of his water in his hand. It barely covered his palm with only a sliver of essence in his reserve. "I can add to that from the amulet, but that was also my essence. Although I didn't understand it wasn't true before, or how true it really was. It's two things that are and can't be at the same time, again."

Tibs watched his teacher for a reaction, approval or not, a clue that he was explaining things how Alistair wanted, but the man simply motioned for him to continue.