Breaking Step (Dungeon Runner 3)

Breaking Step, Chapter 78

He cursed on locating the table.

The Paper Pusher had maneuvered him to the side and placed itself between Tibs and the table. He stepped to the side, and it moved with him, the pile it was under seeming to never run out of paper.

It was taking so much to keep them from making it through his ice wall Tibs could sense his vast reserve dropping. He could keep this going for a long time regardless, but this wasn't getting him to the table.

He needed to change things, but there wasn't enough essence in his bracers for any of the element there to help, and if he stopped channeling water, the only element that ensured he wouldn't die in the resulting onslaught was earth, and as the attack on Jackal had showed, that wouldn't mean he couldn't be beaten.

The assault stopped just before heat so strong Tibs felt it through the ice exploded.

"I've got it!" Mez yelled. "Go Finish this!"

Tibs saw papers with lines being consumed by fire as he ran by. Was that the trick? They needed to attack the Paper Pusher itself to get the lined papers? Something to test on the next run.

He slammed the paper on the tray, and with a shimmer, it melted into it.

Sighing with relief, Tibs turned and leaned back against the table.

The piles of papers throughout the room shuddered.

"Tibs?" Jackal called as papers flew off the piles. "Is that what's supposed to happen?"

He almost said yes, but instead of scattering away, they flew to the center of the room, gathering together, taking a form. Tibs looked at the tray. The page had shimmered into it. He'd solve the puzzle.

"Maybe that wasn't the solution!" Mez yelled, firing arrows at the growing form to little effect. Papers burned off, but were replaced by more flying at it. The body grew to twice the size of a pile. Formed like a person too fat to be able to move.

Tibs joined the fight, water dislodging papers, only to have more replace that. If putting the oddity in the tray wasn't it, then what? He dodged a page, slicing it, and frowned at the falling pieces. Lines again.

He cursed as one embedded itself into his already injured arm and focused on keeping them off him while puzzling out why there were now so many pages with lines on them.

No, he knew why. He'd been right; each strike on the Paper Pusher resulted in inked papers flying off. What he realized was nagging at him was that not all lined papers were the same.

"Someone tell me how many different papers there are!" he yelled, too busy defending himself to take the time. He needed both arms working.

"Busy here!" Jackal yelled back.

"I think I have two," Mez replied. "But the pages are half burned."

Tibs cut papers, trying to also see something of the papers littering the ground, but they overlapped, folded, or ripped. When too many came at him, he shrouded himself in darkness, and most fluttered to the ground, letting him dodge and cut the rest.

"Five," Khumdar said. "Say something different."

"Do they tell you how to kill this thing?" Jackal yelled.

"I do not know what they say. They are—"

Tibs glanced, jumping out of the way of an attack. Khumdar was busy striking at the attacking papers. Maybe the Paper Pusher didn't want them to have the time to talk about the papers. Did that mean Jackal's question was important? Did the papers say how to kill it?