Breaking Step (Dungeon Runner 3)

Breaking Step, Chapter 34

"What?" Don asked.

Kroseph patted his shoulder. "I think I like you a little more after this." It took the plates in a hand and tankard in the other and headed for the kitchen.

Don stared at the retreating back, then at the others at the table. "What did I say?"

"If you do not know," Khumdar replied, "then you can be assured it was the correct thing."

The sorcerer looked at Tibs.

He shrugged and went back to eating. He might have escaped the tirade because of Don's actions, but Kroseph wouldn't let it go if the plate wasn't empty soon.

"We still need to talk," Jackal said.

Tibs weighed the fighter nagging him against Kroseph's, and how likely they would turn on each other if Tibs pointed out Jackal was the reason the plate wasn't empty yet. He sighed, Jackal had to have cleared this with his man. Which meant Kroseph would add that to his nagging.

Tibs looked at the fighter.

"You have to—"

"No." Tibs didn't see how Jackal could even consider that. There was too much work to be done to deal with the chaos it could cause.

"Tibs, your actions are affecting the town."

"Everyone's actions affect the people in Kragle Rock," Tibs replied.

"But not everyone had a house burned down," Don said, and Tibs wondered how he'd known.

"Or set up Runners for cell time," Jackal added.

"They're fine," Tibs said. "They were released before their runs. And there's plenty of other houses for that family to use." That was if they didn't want to stay at their tavern, the way Kroseph's family stayed at the inn.

"Are you going to buy them a new house?" Mez asked.

"What?" Why would Tibs have to spend coins on that? Staying in a house couldn't be that much more expensive than Tibs staying in the housing building. A house had more rooms, so it would be what, three or four silver every month?

"Unless you buy the house for them," the archer said, "they can't just move into a vacant one. They have to own the house," he added at Tibs's frown.

"No, they don't," Tibs scoffed. "All these recent people just got the houses that were built."

"Those were paid for by their families, so even if they don't directly own them, it's still theirs while they are looking after the Omega Runners."

"There are still plenty of people in houses no one owns. Don lived in one before moving to our room."

"Just one floor," the sorcerer corrected. "And I still had to pay for it, every month."

"They can do the same," Tibs said.

"I doubt they can afford to pay for the house you had burned," Mez said, "and rental on another place."

"Why would they have to pay for the house if they can't live in it anymore?"

Mez shook his head. "You have no idea how housing works, do you?"

"People spend coins to live in a house. When they move, someone else moves in and pays the coins." It was pretty simple, as far as Tibs was concerned.

"It's more complicated than that," the archer said.

"Then they can live at their tavern." Fine, it was more complex. Why was that his problem?

"And what happens to the money they aren't making because they can't have people pay to sleep in them? They aren't like Kroseph and his family. They didn't build their tavern, so they'd live in it. The rooms there are so people can pay to have their fun, or because they drank too much to make it home. They need every coin they can get to pay what they owe."