“I think I have a way to keep us from being broken up,” Tibs said, then shoved food in his mouth, ignoring the looks. He’d been thinking about it more and more as their run approached. And with it being the next day, he was out of time to find a different method.

“I was not aware we were about to be broken up,” Khumdar said.

“He means from another one of us graduating,” Mez said.

“I thought we’d agreed you were going to make sure to fail whatever test they were going to give you,” Jackal said.

“That’s not sure to work,” Tibs replied. “My idea is going to ensure it.”

“I don’t think there’s any way to make sure we don’t graduate,” Carina said.

“If we don’t do the runs,” Tibs said, “we can’t get stronger.”

“That is not true,” Khumdar replied, “but I understand your reasoning.”

“But we have to do the runs,” Mez said. “That’s what we are here for.”

“And with how attentive the guild is of you, Tibs,” Jackal said, “I doubt they’ll let you just not do it without punishing you in some way, maybe by breaking us up.”

Tibs nodded. That had been one of the reasons this method was the only one he could come up with. Everything else and Tirania might decide he was testing her patience.

“We can’t do a run if one of us is in a cell.”

“No,” Jackal stated.

“Why would any of us end up in a cell?” Mez asked.

Tibs raised an eyebrow at the archer. “For breaking a rule.”

“You’re always breaking the rules,” Mez replied, for once without accusation. “You’re a rogue, you have to.”

“No, Tibs,” Jackal said.

“But if I get caught,” Tibs told Mez, “I’ll still be sent to a cell, and the team can’t do a run.”

“I said no.”

“But you don’t get caught,” now Mez’s tone had some annoyance in it. “You’re too good.”

Tibs smiled, surprised at the indirect compliment. “But I can make sure I get caught.”

“Why did you all make me the team leader if you’re just going to ignore me?” Jackal asked.

“There’s going to be other runs,” Tibs replied. “And once Sto graduates to Rho, the loot’s going to be better.”

The fighter looked at Tibs. “You really think this is about the loot?”

“When is it not?” Carina asked, covering up a smile with her tankard.

Jackal opened his mouth and closed it. “This time, it isn’t.”

“It’s not going to be bad,” Tibs said. “I’ll make sure it’s something small, so it’ll just be a few days. Harry likes me, so he’s not going to be harsh.”

“Knuckles hates rogues,” Jackal replied. “And he won’t be involved in you being sent to a cell unless it’s big. But I don’t want you to do it, anyway. You have no idea what the cells are like.”

Tibs shrugged. “There’ll be other rogues. Probably other Runners. It’s not that bad, won’t be as crowded as the cell I was in before coming here.”

Jackal shook his head. “There’s more than just Runners breaking the rules, Tibs. Most Runners make sure not to break them because it can cost them a run. What you have in those cells are criminals coming here because they think a new town is easy pickings. Only they then have to deal with Knuckle’s guards. And one of the reasons they’re better than they should be for a town like this has more to do with us keeping them on their toes than them working for Knuckles. So those criminals in the cells aren’t going to be happy with any Runner thrown in there.”

“I have my essence.”

“Where are the cells, Tibs?” Jackal asked.

Tibs realized he didn’t know. The only time he had a reason to want to go there was when he wanted to speak to Bardik after he was captured, but by the time he woke from his injuries, the adventurer had already been sent to another prison.

“They’re in the guild,” Carina said, pensive. “I hadn’t thought about why before.”

“It’s the only official building,” Mez said, “so it makes sense that it’s there.”

“But it also means they have enchantments all over the building,” she said. “How else can you keep someone who has an element from using that to escape?”

“Would anyone try that?” Mez asked.

“You’ve seen the kind of people they bring in, haven’t you, Mez?” Jackal asked. “Anytime Omegas arrive now, some of them try to run. You think getting an element, getting special power, will suddenly make them not try to use them to escape from any kind of captivity?”

“And did you spend much time in those cells yourself?” Khumdar asked.

Jackal snorted. “Of course I did. You weren’t here before Knuckles was in charge of the guards. Before Tibs was there to make sure I stuck by the rules, I was always picking fights.”

“I never—”

“Just pretend you did,” Jackal said, grinning. “The story sounds better that way.” He sobered. “But I’m serious, Tibs. I don’t want you to be thrown into a cell just to keep us together. They’re not going to care how young you are. And you aren’t good enough to survive what they’d do to you.”

“You would,” Khumdar said.

Jackal grinned. “Oh, there’s no doubt of that. But I’d have to deal with my man once I got out, and he has more potent threats to use if I step too far out of line.”

“We’ll be fine,” Carina said as Tibs tried to come up with something to convince Jackal. “You’ll see.”

* * * * *

“Yes!” Sto exclaimed as Tibs and his team walked up the steps. “Now you’re really back and—” his enthusiasm vanished. “This is… new.”

The cleric by the door glanced at them and asked in a bored tone if any of them needed healing, then motioned for the guards to let them in.

Inside, Tibs’s steps faltered. Then he forced himself forward. Sto hadn’t targeted the people he knew. He’d just tested them, like he tested everyone who came in, and they had failed. To distract himself from the pain, he sensed the walls. He was sure he’d felt something during his last run.

“So,” Sto said, “corruption?”

Tibs checked he was far enough inside. “It was the only way to get rid of the essence that was in me.”

“By making it one of your essences? How is that any better? You do remember what that stuff did to me, right?”

“That wasn’t the element.” Tibs tried to think of a way to explain it. “The elements aren’t like you or me. They don’t care about us. It isn’t Corruption that hurts you. Bardik is who did it, using corruption.”

“Is this going to be a thing? You accumulating elements? I thought you had all the elements you needed already. That’s why we can talk.”

Sto was evading, Tibs decided. But he didn’t mind. As badly as the corruption had hurt him, it was nothing compared to what Sto had suffered. And his question reminded him that he’d been so focused on dealing with the corruption in him he’d forgotten Water’s words.

“I need to get the rest of the core elements.” He went to name them when he realized that, as part of the conversation, he’d forgotten to sense the walls. “Hey, are you trying to distract me?”

“No, why?”

“I know you put something in the hall, and now I have to walk back to sense the wall because you made me forget to do it.”

His friends froze.

“Oh, sorry,” Sto said. “I didn’t mean to, but you aren’t there yet. I’ll be quiet.”

“I thought this hall was supposed to be safe,” Mez said, taking hold of the string on his bow. Tibs felt the fire essence forming.

“It is safe,” Tibs said, as the others also went on the defensive.

“Do you need us to stay back?” Jackal asked.

“It’s not dangerous,” Tibs repeated. “It was there the last time, but I didn’t have the time to search for it.” He thought about something. “Carina, has anyone from the other teams said anything about this hall?” He’d stopped paying attention to the papers being exchanged between the teams’ sorcerers. The longer it went on without Harry putting a stop to it, the less hidden it became. Now it was normal for sorcerers to huddle around a table and discuss their maps of the dungeon.”

“No. This is the first time I’ve heard of there being anything in this hall.”

“Did none of you sense something when we exited last time?”

“You mean that time when I was barely holding myself together?” Jackal asked. He grinned. “No, can’t say that I did. But then again, until I walk into essence, I don’t really notice it, do I?”

“I believe it would be helpful to have more information to work from,” Khumdar said. “‘Something’ is rather vague.”

Tibs tried to remember details. It had been like what he’d sensed on the second floor, but had it been the same? He’d been distracted by Jackal when they left the dungeon.

“It was the shape of a door, and it had a lot of essences as part of it. Yours were there, I’m sure of that. But you should still be able to tell when there’s essence, even if it isn’t yours.”

Jackal closed his eyes and his entire face creased in concentration. Khumdar got a far-away look and Carina tilted her head. Mez just stared at Tibs, and he couldn’t work out if he was annoyed, angry, or just hadn’t gone before they entered.

“Got nothing,” Jackal said with a put-upon sigh.

“Then you aren’t doing it right,” Carina said. “There’s stone all around us. You should be able to sense that.”

“Yes, that I do,” the fighter replied. “But that’s all I got.”

“I also have nothing,” Khumdar said, and Carina shook her head.

Tibs tried to figure out how that could be. There were a lot of essences woven through the walls, especially earth, but also enough air that Carina should be able to sense the difference between—

“You haven’t been taught about etching and weaving, have you?” He’d forgotten that some of what he’d learned was more advanced. But the etching was needed for the test to graduate to Rho, so it had to be basic for them, too.

“I know etching.” Mez said, “Not that I use it now that I can make fire arrows. It was how I made my explosive arrows before; I’d mentally etch the essence into the tip to create the effect.”

“I knew it! My teacher said I had to use a knife to etch essence.”

“Maybe it’s a rogue thing?” Mez said.

“No, it’s a mental discipline,” Carina said. “And I know etching too, but I’m nowhere near learning weaving. I asked my teacher about enchanting and she said I had to learn patience first.”

“I do not know the terms you are using, as I had no one to teach me,” Khumdar said. “I do mold my essence through and around my staff and it does sound like what you mean.” He paused. “I do not expect enchanting is something I am capable of, as that is the sorcerer’s purview, even among purity.”

“I thought purity only had clerics,” Mez said.

Carina shook her head. “Purity’s an element, and like all of them, they can be of any class. But they don’t work for the guild and they only train at the purity dungeon. Then they mainly work to support the clerics.”

“As fascinating as the conversation is getting,” Jackal said, yawning, “I’m here to do a run, not find out what purity do or don’t do. Tibs, is it safe to continue?”

“Keep talking,” he said, walking further in. “I’ll check it out.”

“Tibs,” Jackal whined, “I don’t want to listen to them.”

He smiled at his friend’s antics, then focused on the walls. It had been the one on his right, and within a dozen paces, he sensed the door-like shape. He couldn’t tell what essence made the door, but there was a bundle of every essence connected to it in the way the triggers for the traps were.

He picked water since he had the most, but nothing happened. Studying the bundle, he found another thread containing water. Every thread was doubled, he realized, but they weren’t identical. Where the thread he ‘held’ was made entirely of water. The other one was water around an empty center. He pushed the two threads together until it was all water.

Essence shifted as the space within the doorway shimmered with a golden light. Then he was looking at the bridge going over the pool of water on the second level.

“It was Mez’s idea,” Sto said with pride. “It took me a while to work it out. Connecting two locations to each other isn’t particularly easy.”

“And who explained the calculations behind it?” Ganny said.

Tibs glanced around to make sure his friends were still occupied, then whispered. “Hi, Ganny.”

“Hello, Tibs.”

“You did,” Sto said. “I didn’t claim I’d done everything.”

“No, you just have a tendency not to mention my contributions.”

“I just forget,” he replied, annoyed.

Tibs kept himself from replying as he noticed someone approaching.

“Is that the second floor?” Mez asked.

“The dungeon says it was your idea.”

“I never talked with it,” the archer replied defensively.

“It hears everything we say,” Carina said, having joined them. “You said the runs would be easier if we didn’t have to do the first floor all the time.” She reached for the opening.

“Should you be touching this?” Khumdar said. “It could be dangerous.”

“It isn’t,” Sto said.

“The calculations all line up,” Ganny added. Tibs didn’t miss the slight hesitation. It reminded him that for as much as Ganny seemed to know, she, like Sto and Tibs’s team, was learning as she went.

“I had a BB go through,” Sto said. “Nothing happened.

“A Big Brute,” Ganny clarified. “The bigger one wouldn’t fit in it.”

“There’s nothing to touch,” Carina said, waving her hand through the open space.

“Neat,” Jackal said. “It’ll make coming back a lot faster. Come on, loot isn’t going to collect itself with us just looking at this.”

“Why don’t we go through?” Tibs asked. He was curious if this would feel anything like the transportation platform.

“I’m with Tibs,” Mez said. “This lets us start the second floor faster.”

“And miss the loot that’s on this floor,” Jackal countered.

“It’s not like there’s a lot of it,” Carina replied, studying the doorway’s edges.

“I agree,” Khumdar said. “I, too, would prefer heading directly to the more rewarding tests.”

“Loot.” Jackal pointed toward the trap room.

“Only a handful of silver,” Carina said.

“Loot!”

Tibs sighed. This could go on for a while. He stepped through.

“Tibs!” Jackal and Carina said at the same time.

There was a tingling that vaguely felt like when he traveled on the platform, then it was gone and he stood next to the stairs going up.

“Tibs,” Carina called, her voice distorted. “Are you okay?” It was lower, sounding almost like she was a man.

“I’m fine,” he answered, then was distracted from studying the alcove the opening was in by the way his friends looked at one another. “Can you hear me?”

“We can,” Jackal said, his voice higher than Carina’s normal one, and vibrating. “You sound like a morning songbird.”

“I don’t know what those sound like.”

The fighter stared at him. “You have got to stop sleeping through the mornings. Your voice is really high, and it has a song-like quality to it. It’s funny. But now you can come back so we can do this floor.”

Tibs smiled. “Or you can come through and we can do this one.”

“Loot, Tibs, loot!”

“It’s only a few silver’s worths,” Tibs countered, trying not to chuckle at how his friend sounded like a young girl clamoring for candies.

“How can you say no to loot?” he demanded suspiciously. “You’re a rogue.”

“I have enough coins to get anything I want.”

Jackal’s expression turned to one of horror. “You can never have enough coins.”

Tibs watched as Mez and Khumdar moved behind the fighter. With a nod, they ran at him and Tibs moved out of the way.

Jackal stood there, the two with a shoulder against his back. He looked over his shoulder. “What are you doing?”

They kept pushing, hard enough their feet slipped on the stone floor.

“Trying to get you to go through,” Mez replied through clenched teeth.

Jackal rolled his eyes. “Lambda Earth Fighter here. I’m not moving until I decide to.”

“Then be reasonable,” Carina said. “I’ll give you the silvers you’d get clearing the first floor, if that’s what it takes.”

Jackal stared at her, then stepped through the opening.

By the time Mez and Khumdar crashed to the floor, the fighter was by Tibs’s side.

“That was weird.” He turned. “Well, what are you all waiting for? We have a floor to clear.”

Mez glared murder at the fighter as he got to his feet, but then hesitated in stepping forward.

Carina and Khumdar stepped through.

“It’s going to be void essence,” she mused. “I’ve never read anything about it being used this way, but that’s the only one I can think of that can do this. I wonder why we have platforms instead of doorways like this.”

“I wish you could get me one of those platform things,” Sto said. “A lot of Runners talk about it.”

The comment reminded Tibs of something, and he took the cylinder out of his pouch. “Mez, you need to come through.” He put the cylinder down on the other side of the doorway. “He can’t take this while you’re in the room.”

“Actually,” Sto said, “a dozen steps away is enough.”

“Then why can’t you make changes to a room while we’re in it? They’re bigger than a dozen paces.”

Mez still hadn’t moved, so Tibs grabbed his arm and pulled. Mez resisted, then stepped through.

“A room’s more complex. I can change one specific thing if it’s far away, but there’s a lot of interconnectivity between what they do. So anything more than changing the look of a stone needs changes all over the room to work.” The cylinder melted into the floor. “I wish you’d gotten me the cube.”

“Cross wasn’t willing to lend it to me.”

“She’s who gave you that?” Carina asked. “I thought she was a fighter.”

“Don’t use me as an example of what fighters are like,” Jackal said.

“I’m not,” she replied. “I knew Pyan too…” The rest faded as if she’d just realized what she’d said.

Tibs swallowed the pain. Pushed down the desire to accuse Sto of killing his friend, two of them. They were Runners like he was, it was the danger of what they did.

“You can recreate it now, right?” Tibs asked when the cylinder didn’t reappear. “Cross is expecting me to return it.” Focusing on that was better than thinking of what had happened. It reformed, and Tibs picked it up.

“It’s an interesting mechanism. Surprisingly simple for what it does.”

“Makes you wonder why you didn’t think of it before, right?” Ganny asked with a hint of snark in her tone. There had been an accusation in her previous comment, too. Were they fighting about something?

“Alright,” Jackal called. “We’re here, so let’s get going. Carina, what’s the consensus on crossing the pool?”

Tibs sensed ahead as they stepped to the start of the bridge.

“It’s getting complicated,” She replied, looking over the papers. “The pool is pretty much the only way unless we want to risk the ledge going around. The triggers on the bridge are too fast for most to attempt. There’s also something in the water like Tibs said the last time, so swimming isn’t a good choice.”

“Still don’t know how,” Mez said.

“We’ve seen what happens when Tibs ices the pool, but no one’s recreated it. There’s no telling what the dungeon has done to make it tougher.”

“I nominate Tibs to use the ledge,” Jackal said.

“Because he’s the rogue?” Carina asked.

“Because he liked to climb walls, which this basically is, only he’s got something under his feet, and without the corruption, he’ll be able to reach that thing to turn the traps off.”

“Carina,” Tibs called in the ensuing silence, “how fast did they say the triggers are?” He frowned, studying their motion.

“They just say that it’s fast enough that they didn’t want to risk it. Especially that last trigger. The way the lines move, and at their speed, the opening isn’t there for very long.”

“This doesn’t feel that much faster to me.” He waited until the line was high and stepped under it. Moving to the next one let him sense the last trigger. He frowned. “Are you sure? I think Jackal can cross that last one easily.” He turned, and the fighter was at the first line, hand extended before him. “Since we can all sense the triggers, I think this is the easiest way now.”

He watched as Jackal’s hand moved in time with the line. “Can’t you sense it at a distance?” He asked.

The fighter shrugged. “This is easier.” He stepped under it. “I’m with Tibs. If this is the speed the others are at, I’m not going to have a problem.”

Carina frowned, flipping through the papers she had. “I don’t get it. More than one said the bridge couldn’t be crossed anymore, and not just recent Upsilons either. Francis, On Arruh’s team, swore this room was now set on killing anyone stepping into it.”

Tibs frowned. This would be where Sto commented on other teams and how they’d made mistakes. Maybe he wasn’t listening. It had sounded like he and Ganny were about to argue.

He studied the triggers. Maybe one of the changes was that their speed varied from one time to the other, or depending on when they reached the room? Having to clear the first floor meant they’d be here later. This could be a reward for using the doorway.

He stepped around the trigger moving side to side.

“Unless Tibs said otherwise,” Jackal said, “We’ll use the bridge.”

“I say that we don’t take for granted that next time it’ll be like this,” Tibs replied, approaching the last trigger, “and we’ll be fine.”

He waited for the opening to come twice, paying attention for changes, and when there were none, he crossed it on the third. He stepped off the bridge and looked at his friends. Jackal was at the last trigger. Carina was the only one not on the bridge yet, still looking at her papers.

“Carina, you can look at them later,” he called.

She put them away and stepped on the bridge as Khumdar reached Tibs. She stepped under the first, around the second, crouched for the third, but froze and Tibs’s heart started beating again.

“What’s wrong?” Jackal asked.

“Nearly mistimed it,” she replied. Her eyes moved in time with the line going up and down, then she hurried across, the one moving from side to side, almost catching her. She turned once she was off the bridge. “This was definitely nowhere near as fast as they led me to think. You think this is because of the doorway letting us get through faster? I could see the dungeon setting this trap to speed up as an incentive to either get through the first floor faster or to look for a way to cut through it entirely.”

“Unless they’re not telling you the truth,” Jackal said. “So we’ll make mistakes.”

She glared at the fighter. “This is research. We’re not going to accomplish anything if we withhold information from one another.”

Jackal nodded. “And sorcerers are so well known for always sharing everything they know, right?”

“Yes,” Carina replied forcefully.

Jackal didn’t look impressed. “We’ll take time for you to make notes before continuing. What can we expect in the next room?”

“Carnage,” she said, taking out a sharpened stick of charcoal.