Breaking Step (Dungeon Runner 3)

Breaking Step, Chapter 12

"Ah Tibs!" Darran's jovial expression turned serious. "What happened?"

Tibs eyes his cut shirt, and the blood that soaked the sleeve where his attacker had cut his arm. "I'm fine." It had been the first of his would be assassin attacks, and the only one that reached his flesh. The other cuts on his shirt were sacrifices he had to make in the process of getting close to her to end the attacks, and her. She'd smirked as her life essence had ebbed away, probably thinking that the poison on her knife would finish the job.

The corruption in it hadn't affected Tibs, and he'd easily healed the cut with Purity.

He hadn't killed her with essence, since he didn't know if that left traces a skilled adventurer could use to guide them to the culprit. Tibs could sense essence, and his swords left traces of water essence in the cuts, which dissipated after a few seconds, but was that because he was not skilled enough to sense what was left, or there was nothing left?

He couldn't take a chance.

He left her body in the alley where she'd attacked him. With all the thugs and troublemakers acting on Sebastian post death revenge, plenty of bodies had been found by the guards. She'd be one of those. Another skirmish for the glory of being Sebastian's hand in the destruction of what Tibs loved.

"You are bleeding," the merchant said, stepping around the counter. "Why weren't you wearing your armor?"

"It's Kragle Rock," Tibs replied as Darran took his arm to examine it. "I don't need to wear armor in my town."

He'd also hadn't wanted Darran to realize it wasn't the armor he had sold Tibs. Sto had made it identical, but details were important to merchants and thieves, so Darran was skilled at noticing them. The merchant might not think much of it being different, but he might. As friendly as he was, Darran was a merchant; coins drove them. What would the guild give to learn Runners weren't handing over all enchanted items they found in the dungeon? That the dungeon made some that couldn't be detected as magical?

"There is no cut," Darran said, turning his arm over.

"I had a cleric heal it."

The merchant eyed him suspiciously. "You paid what clerics charge for this?"

"I know a few." Tibs knew one, but he hadn't seen Clara in Kragle Rock since the end of Sebastian's raids. She'd been recalled, and he didn't know if she'd be allowed back after disobeying the orders not to help the Runners.

The injury in the alley, with no one watching, had given him the chance to experiment. Instead of applying the weave, if it was even that—he wouldn't know how it compared until Alistair taught him how to make one with water—and letting it do its work, he kept it from moving deeper, then broke it apart partway. It resisted him. Once formed, the weave wanted to continue its work. To heal was needed to be healed, to move into him and find other injuries until it was spent.

Use and dissipate sounded more like an etching than a weave. Was that what Tibs made with Purity, even if Clara liked it to weaving? Something else he wouldn't know until Alistair taught him.

Darran eyed the other cuts and the blood on his shirt and pants.

"It's hers," Tibs said, and anything not on his sleeve was. He'd tried using water to clean it out, but the stains left behind by the parts that weren't carried away as he pulled the water through the cloth looked more out of place than the blood on a Runner, especially the one known for having been a thorn in Sebastian's side.

"What did you do with her body?"

"I left it there. Irdian isn't stopping everyone coming in to destroy my town. Guards find their bodies every few days as they kill each other. So long as it's not one of the townsfolk, or someone who looks to have coins, he isn't going to care."