Tibs wanted to run into the room and help his team.

His stomach twisted itself into a knot and he groaned. He couldn’t wait for this to be done so he could eat.

“You okay?” Jackal asked, suddenly in front of him.

“No.” He couldn’t shake the feeling he sounded petulant, and the fighter’s smile said he hadn’t imagined it. “Do you need me to get the loot?” He looked around Jackal and noticed the trap doors to the warren were broken off.

“We managed, although Mez’s armor will need to have the scratches worked out of the leather if he wants it to look like he only parades in it.”

“I don’t care about how used my armor looks,” the archer replied. “I’m a Runner, not someone pretending. But next time, Tibs, you go in there. Those tunnels are way too narrow.”

“I will. I guess that is the privilege of being small.” He took Jackal’s hand, and the fighter hoisted him to his feet.

It was strange crossing the room, seeing the result of the fight, and knowing he hadn’t taken part. He felt like he was a burden. It didn’t matter how hungry he was, he should be helping. He’d fought when hungry before.

He’d lost most fights then, and in the dungeon, if he lost, he could die.

It didn’t help. He didn’t want to stand on the sidelines.

“The opening is here,” Khumdar said, indicating the hallway wall, halfway in the middle of what had been the essence maze the last time. The pedestal with the trigger to shut it off was still at the end. “I am afraid Tibs may need to unlock it. I cannot make out the essences involved.”

“Earth, fire, air, and water,” Tibs replied reflexively, their colors clear to his mind even if his stomach took most of his attention. He couldn’t wait for this to be done with.

“Can’t the dungeon just open it for him?” Jackal asked.

“Sorry,” Sto replied. “But even I have limits on how easy I’ll make something. I made it as simple as I could to take into account your condition, Tibs.” He lowered his voice, “you really don’t look great.”

“It’s okay. I’m not so out of it that I can’t deal with moving essence around.”

“I can sense the air,” Carina said. “That’s interesting. It’s woven into a hollow strand. Are the others the same thing?”

“Yeah,” Tibs said, as Jackal placed a hand on the wall.

“Okay,” the fighter said. “I guess we have to fill the tube with our essences?”

“Is that safe?” Mez asked. “You guys remember what tends to happen when Tibs doesn’t get a trigger right.”

“This isn’t Sto testing us,” Tibs said, “and I have all those essences, so I can handle them myself.”

“No,” Carina said. “We each handle ours. Mez, you have to get used to doing this.”

“It’s not like I’m ever going to break into a fucking house,” the archer grumbled, stepping closer to the wall.

Tibs moved water within the hollow and watched as the others were also filled. Air moved from one end to the other, never spilling out. Fire was just there, contained within the tube, while earth… Jackal had trouble keeping the essence limited to inside. He grumbled choice words as he focused, and when the door began lowering, he stepped back in surprise.

Tibs was surprised, too. He’d expected the unlock trigger needed the essence to be cleanly within the tube.

“Didn’t this thing go up last time?” Mez asked.

Tibs didn’t answer, staring up at the light spilling out of the ever-widening gap. It was so bright,

A hand was over his eyes. “Don’t look into it,” Carina ordered.

“But it’s beautiful,” he whispered in awe.

“That’s the kind of beauty that’s going to claw your eyes out.”

“I knew a woman like that,” Jackal said. “But this is more having her jab your eyes with a hot poker. I didn’t know light could be so bright.”

“This will not be solely light,” Khumdar said. “This is its essence. That is not something you will ever witness naturally. It leaves me wondering how large a dungeon’s reserves are to accomplish this.”

“They’re big,” Sto said.

“Just wait until you’re older,” Ganny added.

“But I can’t maintain this indefinitely. Tibs, I need you to go in.”

He stepped forward, only for Carina to tighten her hold on him.

“Is this safe?” Jackal asked.

“It’s got to be safer than fire,” Tibs replied. He moved the hand off and stepped into the light.

The door rumbled as it closed behind him, echoing his stomach. He looked around, but there was nothing to see. For all the light that was in the room, he couldn’t even make out the door behind him.

“Are you back?” Sto asked.

“I didn’t go anywhere yet.”

“Oh.”

“Did I leave the last time?”

“I don’t think so, but it happened so quickly. The fire burning you, then the fire went out, and your friends rushed in trying to save you. I was so afraid I didn’t pay attention.”

Tibs nodded and extended a hand, feeling for the wall. Once he found it, he sat and waited. Holding onto his stomach.

Food. There was a time he’d believe food was more precious than the slivers of copper he’d occasionally get. Food meant a diminishing of his stomach’s complaints, but also a reawakening of the memory of what going hungry again would be like. As much pleasure as eating had brought him, it was always bittersweet since he hadn’t known when the next time would be. Or if there would even be a next time.

At least, once he was done with this audience and Darkness, he would never have to go hungry again.

“Tibs?” Sto asked.

 “Still here. How long has it been?”

“Long enough your friends are getting worried.”

Why wasn’t this working? He was among the essence; his stomach was hurting as much as it ever had. The idea he had to wait another two days to have the audience with Darkness and wouldn’t be able to eat was distressing.

“Sto, did Ganny figure out what Fire meant when he said that you helping me have the audience with him broke some rules?”

Sto chuckled. “She has no idea of anything happening around you. She talks about asking some ‘other’ helper, older ones, but that means she’d have to leave and… well, I’m glad she hasn’t needed to at this point.”

Tibs nodded. It sucked not knowing anything about this or having anyone to ask his questions to who’d have a chance of knowing the answers.

How long until the audience happened?

How long until the guild thought his team had died and sent in the next one? It was longer for them than for the omegas, since clearing two floors took longer, no matter how over-skilled they might be for the first one. But there was a limit.

If a second team made it here, how would they deal with it? He didn’t remember who was the team after his on the schedule. Was there anyone left he’d be willing to trust with his secret?

Had there ever been anyone outside his team he trusted that much?

“How much time has passed?”

“Some,” Sto replied.

Right, time wasn’t something the dungeon had a good understanding of. Maybe he should steal a timepiece so Sto could learn to keep time.

How much longer could he afford to wait?

With a sigh, he pushed himself to his feet. “It isn’t going to work.”

“You could wait a bit longer. There is no other team waiting yet. That means there’s still time.”

Tibs shook his head. “If it was going to happen, it would have.”

“Are you sure?”

Tibs nodded.

The room became so dark he imagined there were motes of lights floating around. Before he could be confused, the door rumbles, and a sickly light appeared in the crack.

No, not sickly, just normal. After what Tibs had experienced, normal light looked…lacking.

“Tibs,” Jackal said, on seeing him. “What happened?”

“Nothing.” He kept walking, heading back the way they’d come. He’s wasted his time. He’d gone hungry for nothing. Felt this pain again for nothing.

“Tibs, the boss is in the other direction,” the fighter called.

“I don’t think we’re fighting them,” Mez said.

“We can still proceed,” Khumdar said, “as Tibs would remain outside the battle.”

“We’re not leaving Tibs alone,” Carina said. “Don’t be a jackass,” she added.

“Hey, I’m Jackal, not Jackass,” Jackal replied, offended.

Tibs wrapped his arms around himself both in an attempt to stop the pain he felt and because for the first time in a long while. He wished Mama was here to hold him.

* * * * *

The cleric frowned when Tibs moved away from his touch.

“I’m fine,” he muttered angrily. He wasn’t risking the healing reducing his hunger. Not that he was sure it would work for Darkness anymore than it had with Light. Maybe Carina was right, and only clerics could use this method.

All this hunger and nothing to show for it. How had he stood it before?

He kept going for the town when his friends turned for the guild’s table to hand over the loot they’d found. He bypassed the inn and went directly to his bed, and there he curled in on himself and let the tears fall.

* * * * *

“I can walk,” he grumbled as Carina kept her arm around him.

The two days had passed in his bed in a miserable blur of sleep and recrimination and trying to figure out why the audience with Light hadn’t worked. His friends had tried to get him to leave it. Offered to accompany him to the bazaar, help him train, or just go see Darran, but Tibs hadn’t wanted any of that.

He’d wanted to either die or eat everything the inn offered.

Jackal tried to raise his spirits by telling him about the Omega’s he’d watch exit the dungeon, how subdued they’d been, compared to how prideful on entering. The fights when some of them tried to hold on to the little they’d found there.

Tibs did his best to ignore his friend.

He didn’t care the Omegas who survived had learned a bit of humility. He didn’t even care they had survived right now. All he cared about was how he was wasting his time. None of the pain he was suffering was for anything. Darkness wouldn’t grant him an audience either, and then he’d have to wait far too many days and weeks until his next chance.

“Are you sure we need to go that far?” Jackal asked. “It’s going to put us awfully close to the limit and the guards aren’t going to be as understanding about us stepping over it than they are about Mister Light Fingers here.

“That’s not my name,” Tibs grumbled, focussing on putting a foot in front of the other. He had a headache, his stomach hurt even more than it had ever in his life, and his limbs trembled.

“For the audience to occur,” Khumdar replied, “he must be in the embrace of darkness. There can be no source of light; even the candles at the windows would ensure Darkness stays away. I traveled for a day into the deepest forest I knew of to have my audience. Tibs will have to contend with being as far from the town as possible. Even the grove of trees is no more.”

Mez wasn’t there. He couldn’t leave his girl for this.

“I’m wasting my time,” Tibs whispered.

“Don’t say that,” Carina replied. “We’ll figure out what happened for Light and find a way for you to get that audience.”

“I’m not going hungry for it,” he said. “I am never going hungry again. I am going to eat all the time from now on.”

“You’re just going to make yourself sick doing that,” Jackal said.

“I don’t care,” Tibs snapped. “What’s the point, anyway?”

“To get more essence,” Jackal said.

“To find out what happens when you get them this time,” Carina said soothingly.

“I wish I’d never taken that shadow,” Tibs grumbled.

No one commented.

When they stopped, Tibs could barely make out the marker in the sliver of Claria’s light. It had grown ever so smaller since the sun set, and soon, she would wink out. Looking back, Tibs couldn’t even make out the town. He didn’t know how far they’d walked, too distracted by his thoughts.

“Here will have to be adequate,” the cleric said, and helped Tibs get to his knees. “Remember, do not lie to them; they will know it.”

That wasn’t right. Light could see lies. Darkness went after secrets.

“Show them respect.”

Then Tibs was alone.

The thought popped into his head that his friends had abandoned him. Just like Walter, Pyan, Fedora, Mama. They’d left him alone to die when they could have helped.

The anger didn’t come. He was too hungry, too tired. For as much time as he’d spent in his bed in the last two days, he wasn’t feeling rested.

He would die here, alone, attempting something he had been warned couldn’t be done.

His stomach tightened, and he bent over.

This was it. He was eating his insides now.

When his friends came back for him, there would be nothing there.

He should never have done this.

He didn’t want to die.