Breaking Step (Dungeon Runner 3)

Breaking Step, Chapter 80

The shops yielded loot, and the occasional shopkeeper and customer to protect them.

"Yes!" Jackal exclaimed after one such fight, as he shoved amulets, jeweled daggers and necklaces into his pouch, leaving the pieces of armor for the others to put in their packs.

"You're really going to put all that in there, aren't you?" Don said, motioning to the other displays.

"Don't you want the loot?" Jackal replied, adding bracelets to it.

"Don't you want to keep your pouch?" the sorcerer replied.

"They can't know it's magical."

"But they know you're greedy."

"Which is why you guys are carrying the armor. They know we're going to sell that."

"You mean this?" Mez showed a leather armband with an intricate design. "Tibs, how much do you think Darran will give for this?"

"A few silver. Two and zero at most. One of the artisans might give more because it looks good."

"And that necklace Jackal is shoving in his pouch?"

Tibs snorted without bothering to look. "Hundreds of silvers. He knows a lot of people who like jewels."

"Darran isn't going to tell anyone what he buys from us," Jackal said.

"But won't the guard think it's strange," Don said, "that Quigly leaves his run with enough jewelry to please a king, and all we found are common armor? Won't they question how the great Jackal couldn't manage to find the good loot? Or maybe they'll start wondering if it isn't more that you found a way to hide loot from them?"

"They can' t tell the pouch is magical," Jackal repeated in a tone of 'why aren't you getting that?'"

"Until they reach in it to check what's there."

The fighter stared at the sorcerer, his jaw working silently. But fear was building in his eyes.

"That's why we have to carry most of it," Don said.

"But you know they're going to take it," Jackal protested. "It's not just magical things they keep. It's anything they can make good coins with, and that is the best coins. They're my coins!" He clutched the necklace to his chest.

"Only if they don't realize you're cheating them. You have to know they need to think they're scamming you if you want your scam to work."

Jackal looked at Tibs for support, but he shrugged. "I can't help that he's right."

"Fine," Jackal grumbled and put the necklace in the pouch. "You can have the rest." Then he lunged for a large red jewel in a gold broche. "But I'll take that."

* * * * *

The nothing in the essence was a building in the center of a large plaza, much like the first one. But only in looks. Unlike the other, where he could sense something blocking his sense. Here, the more or less circular building simply wasn't there according to his sense.

"Are any of you creeped out by this?" Tibs asked, approaching it. There couldn't be something that wasn't made of essence. Essence was everything.

Jackal reached for the stone wall, but his hand stopped before touching it. "Don, tell me this is some sort of enchantment."

The sorcerer hesitated. "I've never read anything like this. Even that stone your father brought to the city felt like something. I mean, it pushed our essence away from it, so it generated an essence that did that. This...? The essence that crosses the wall just ends." He shuddered.