Breaking Step (Dungeon Runner 3)

Finding Don took longer than Tibs expected.

The sorcerer hadn't been in their room, the inn, or training at the guild, so he'd cast his sense over his town and started walking. Don was the only person with corruption, other than the sorcerers working on the building over the pool, so Tibs shouldn't have had the difficult time of it that he did.

Again, he was reminded that, for as much as his sense had expanded, Kragle Rock had grown faster. From one side of it, He could just about sense the center, which was no longer the transportation platform. The town was growing unevenly, stretching more toward the midday sun than the other directions. He sensed some with corruption, but they were too powerful to be his friend. Sorcerers taking breaks from the construction work, he decided.

Where he finally found Don, and Tibs cursed himself for dismissing the place out of hand, was the corruption pool. He knew how the concentration of the element muddled his sense. So he shouldn't have assumed Don wouldn't be there. Even the old Don was known to help out when it served him. And having the academy, where he would do his research once he was free of the guild, finish what they were building here, would certainly serve him.

Tibs figured the old Don would have done only as much as needed to show he was helping, while his friend was dressed in rough worker's clothing and sweating while he hammered planks in place with other, much stronger, sorcerer.

The sight amused him a little. The element liked things to be easy. When he'd channeled Corruption that first time, whatever seemed the easiest was what he'd done, careless of the consequences. Even his first encounter with one of their sorcerer, as she tried to swindle Don out of a pool he didn't own, had supported the impression bards sang when it came to them.

Never trust someone with corruption as their elements. They will trick you into doing all the work and giving them all the rewards. Take care if any of them are on your team, but take especial care of the Sorcerer who wields corruption, who is only less trustworthy than the rogue.

Yet another reminder, as if he needed them anymore, that bards didn't sing about how things were. They twisted events to make 'good' stories. And twisted how people thought of those in the songs in the process.

Tibs hesitated in calling out to his friend. Searching for him after leaving the guild had moved the sun until there was only slightly more than a full hand-span until it touched the horizon. He was hungry, and Don was working, and wouldn't it be safer if he went to another corruption sorcerer for help? One who didn't know so much about him. Who would have an easier time believing the tale Tibs would tell them?

But would they be able to help him if they knew so little about what he could do? Would his questions lead to questions of their own as to why he was so curious about an element he couldn't use? Or could he pass himself off as a Runner with corruption and hope they wouldn't know Don was the only one? He could claim to be from outside and—

"Tibs!" Don called, waving. He spoke to another of the sorcerers before placing the hammer in a bucket and stepping around stacks of planks that seemed precariously balance to Tibs. "What are you doing here?" He wiped his brow.

"Looking for you, but if you're busy with something you need to do to be part of the academy, I can—"

"No, I'm not forced to do this," Don said, chuckling. "I was tired of not getting anywhere with that book I got from the dungeon, so I came to help to have something else to think about."

"I didn't think sorcerers who work at an academy would be hammering planks in place," Tibs said.

Don looked around and lowered his voice. "You can sense they are all sorcerers?"