Breaking Step (Dungeon Runner 3)

Breaking Step, Chapter 85

Tibs's chest tightened at his remembered nightmare and how his friends were falling in the wake of the thing hunting him. It took an effort to convince himself he hadn't done this to Kroseph.

"...they didn't." Her expression soured. "There's so many suffering that only those with money warrant it. When I heard about it, I rushed here, and..." She sighed. "He was stronger when I arrived, but nothing I did helped. He faded away until..." she motioned to the unconscious man on the bed. "They don't usually last this long."

Tibs hesitated. "Doesn't that mean he's going to be okay, then?"

"But he's not getting any stronger," she replied, slumping in the chair. "I can't find anything wrong with him. Clearly there is, but none of the etching and weaves I've learned are telling me anything. Even the best clerics we have aren't finding anything. No one here has ever seen, or even heard, of something like this," she said in exasperation. "Even the best of us encounters a sickness that's too strong for them, and the sick will die, but they will find out what the sickness is in the process." She motioned to Kroseph again. "There's nothing left there."

Not yet, Tibs wanted to tell her. He still sensed some life in Kroseph, even if it was so very faint.

"And yet," she said. "He's holding on. If I could work out how, it would give me an idea of what's happening to him. I could use that to help others. But the fact he isn't dead yet is just like this sickness. There's nothing to explain it."

Tibs studied Kroseph's essence. It moved, if barely so.

In people who weren't sick, even those without an element, the essence moved through them along what Tibs now recognized were their channels. When someone fell sick or got hurt, the flow was affected. Injuries were easy for him to identify because he could see the problem, along with sensing how the flow responded to it. Sickness affected it in less clear ways, but even if it obstructed the flow, it only did so where the problem was.

The Weakness caused the essence to simply fade as it slowed until there was nothing there and they died. So Clara was right. How was it that Kroseph's essence still flowed? As faint as it was, it should be still. He needed to try something.

"Is there anything you can do for him?" Tibs asked in as conciliatory a tone as he could.

She shook her head. "Until I figure out what is—"

He squeezed her shoulder. "Why don't you go sleep. I'm sure Jackal is grateful for what you did, but you have a team to think about."

"I can't leave," she protested. "If there's—"

"If anything changes, I'll send someone to get you, I promise."

Her determination faltered, then she deflated. "I'm sorry I couldn't help," she told Jackal as she stood, but the fighter didn't acknowledge her.

Tibs extended his sense to follow her until she left the inn, then hurried to pull it back in and reminding himself there was nothing in the shadows. It was only his imagination and the lingering effect of darkness on the node.

He took Clara's seat and focused on Kroseph. "Okay, what is going on with you?"

In anyone, even those who were sick, there was a cycle to how the essence flowed in them. It was faster in Runners; and the stronger they were, the faster it flowed. He hadn't bothered investigating that once he'd noticed it, since the list of what he needed to do was already too long. In contrast, Kroseph's flow only went in one direction, drifting out of him as it moved.

So where did it originate?

He realized he didn't know the answer for any of them. Tibs absorbed it, but did others do the same? If so, how did townsfolk do it? Only runners were supposed to be able to interact with essence.