Breaking Step (Dungeon Runner 3)

Breaking Step, Chapter 06

"Yes, sir!" She placed a hand on Tibs's shoulder and guided him through the building. "I'm sorry about that. After everything you did for us, he shouldn't treat you this way. I'd let you go if it was up to me."

Tibs nodded, still thinking over what the man said. Harry had abandoned his post. Not left, abandoned. What could push Harry to do that? The guild was everything to him.

He was pulled from his thought at the muffled cacophony come from a barred door and the amount of woven essence behind it. He stood at the bottom of stairs he didn't recall walking down.

"The Hero's getting the tour?" one of the two guards by the door asked, amused.

His escort hesitated. "He's getting to share in the accommodations."

Tibs kept his expression neutral. All he sensed from within what had to be the cells was... he had no idea how to define it. There was no definition to what he sensed. He couldn't even tell if there were people in there, even knowing there had to be.

"What?" the other guard asked, pushing himself from the wall he'd been leaning against. "Is this a joke?"

She shook her head.

"Didn't anyone tell him what he did for us?" the first guard asked. "There wouldn't be a town for us to guard is not for Tibs and Don." He shared a confused look with the other. "I get throwing the occasional Runner in when they get uppity, but him?"

"You're welcome to go up and explain that to him," she replied, "but until you convince him to change his mind, Tibs is going in a cell."

"How the fuck does he expect us to clear a cell for him?"

"His orders are to put him in with them."

They looked at Tibs in disbelief. "They are going to rip him apart when we put him in there without his armor or weapons."

"The captain didn't say anything about taking anything away," She said.

"But the rules are that we have to disarm anyone we put in the cell," the guard on the left said.

"But not remove their armor," the one of the right added, smiling. "We've just been doing that because it takes away the one advantage a runner might have over the others." His smile faded as he looked at Tibs. "I'm going to have to take that knife." He hesitated. "And any others you might have secreted on you."

Tibs handed the one at his belt, and the one from within his bracer. If they'd told him to, he would have removed his armor. He wasn't worried about the others in the cells, or whatever the guild had that disrupted essence. He had enough to make sure he was left alone.

The guard secured the knives in one of a series of chests along the wall that had a simple-looking lock. The other unbarred the door.

"Don't bother trying to do the water thing you do," that man said. "The cells have all kinds of enchanting on them to keep anyone in them from using magic."

That could explain why he had trouble sensing inside the cell. "How?"

"How should I know?" the man replied with a chuckle. "Magic. It's got to be that, since it can do anything."

Tibs was tempted to point out all the things it seemed not to be able to do, but the man opened the door and the muffled sounds of before became loud voices speaking over one another, and arguing, laughing.

His escort urged him forward, and the loudness vanished as the prisoners noticed them, then was replaced by hushed conversations.

Men and women dressed in clothing ranging from street to wealthy looked at him as if he was the answer to all their problems. No, as if his corpse was the answer.