Breaking Step (Dungeon Runner 3)

Tibs slipped past the stunned clerk's fumbled attempt to catch him, then suffused himself with darkness, adding that to his sheath, and speed for the exit. He needed to be out before they thought to sound the alarm. He didn't know what measures they had in place, but he expected remaining hidden wouldn't be possible.

"Stop him!" a man yelled in the distance behind him, not long after Tibs had turned a corner. The man's feet were wrapped in earth essence; a way to avoid slipping as he made the turn like Tibs had done.

The clerks in the corridor looked in the man's direction, then searched around.

"Stop who?" someone asked.

"Just block the corridor!"

Ahead, essence formed into an etching that stretched from one side to the other.

Tibs smiled. The essence was metal. The adventurer was well into Delta, but his expression was more bored and curious than attentive. His smile faltered once he realized he didn't have metal within his bracer's reserve. He'd have to hope his sheath would be enough to hide him while he did this. He channeled metal and slipped it within the etching. Then grabbed the other man's essence with both it and his will and pulled.

The adventurer staggered, hand to his head, as Tibs ran past. He'd just gotten a reminder that strength didn't matter if he didn't apply himself to what he was doing.

"There's something there!" someone yelled, and Tibs ducked a badly aimed lance of an element he didn't know. He suffused himself with darkness again. He grinned at the sounds of confusions which followed. Then he was in the air, his concentration broken, along with the shoulder that had received the blow.

He pushed through the pain. His landing first. He couldn't be slowed. Ice on the floor from where he'd land to the intersection; the essence tight in that way that made it even more slippery.

He landed badly, and the added pain broke his concentration, but the ice was already in place. He breathe the pain away as he slid and as soon as he could manage one thought he suffused himself with Purity.

"I think he's there! On the ice!"

He glimpsed golden eyes behind him as he got to his feet and ran, spreading the ice until it covered the floor, and using essence to give himself traction.

With the intersection approaching, he attempted to orient himself to the exit, and in the unexpected confusion, he realized he'd dropped the medallion. He couldn't tell where it was now, but he was confident it had been to the left when he'd headed down this corridor, so that was how he turned. This corridor was long, hopefully, long enough to reach the training area where the building's magic didn't make the layout a maze.

He shouldered clerks out of his way as more orders to stop him came from the intersection. He was more interested in breaking their concentration than remaining fully hidden.

Unknown essence formed before him, but with just enough familiarity Tibs threw himself to the side, laying down ice again before the void adventurer appeared. But she was already turned, and her fist connected with Tibs, causing him to lose his breath as he slid again.

How was a question for later. No, actually, he already knew the answer to that one. Void adventurers could see things out of sequences.

He was on his feet and running again, and now people were getting out of his way. The sheath was coming undone. He didn't sense someone's will on it, so he simply had too much to focus on.

That one mattered most, so he remade the— Essence formed ahead of him again.

Not this time. Tibs made a block of ice where it was; then it shattered in time with a pained cry behind him. He still sensed the adventurer, so that hadn't killed her, but she was lying on the ground.