“How did it get the essence back in there?” a voice screamed as Tibs caught his breath. He was on his knees, his leathers ripped apart, but he wasn’t hurt. He didn’t understand how that was, since the damage had been done before the audience.

  The boon, then. It was what she’d meant by it. He wanted to go over the rest, but he had a dungeon to deal with.

  “How should I know?” the other, Merka, replied. There was fear in their voice.

  Tibs stood. “How about we try this again?” The remnants of shattered trees littered the ground around him, as if he’d unleashed a torrent of blades, but the reserve in his bracers were full, and his vast reserve was still life. “Hi, I’m—”

  “Kill it!” Merka yelled.

  Tibs stepped aside the tree that erupted out of the foliage, pointed tip far too sharp, with a sigh. He wasn’t fast enough to entirely avoid it, and it ripped his arm open, sending pain lancing up. He shoved the questions that brought aside, as more trees tried to impale him.

  “Stop that!” he ordered; to no effect.

  He dodged what he could, but any that connected hurt far more than they had a right to.

  “That’s enough,” he snarled, and the bubble of raw fire essence consumed the attacking trees, as well as those that were part of the walls. The top of those toppled down, and he incinerated them before they could hurt him, or risk causing damage to the facing wall.

  “Now.” He let out a breath. “How about we do this without you trying to kill me? Hi, I’m Tibs. What’s your name?”

  “Wha…. What are you?”

  Merka whispered, “It has another element now.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  They let out a strangled cry.

  “Once more. Hi. I’m Tibs. I heard you call your helper Merka, so what is your name?”

  “Don’t tell it!”

  “I don’t think it’s going to give me a choice,” the dungeon replied in a whisper.

  Tibs sighed. “If you don’t want to tell me, that’s fine. I’d just like to have something other than Dungeon I can call you by.”

  The silence stretched.

  “Firmen,” it finally said.

  “Alright, Firmen. To start with. If you don’t want me to hear you and Merka talk, you just have to move away from me. I don’t know how far, but I figure the second floor should be enough.”

  “Like we’re going to trust anything you say,” Merka said hatefully.

  “If you don’t believe me, that’s up to you. Second, I’m here—”

  “What second floor?” Firmen asked.

  “Don’t talk to it!”

  “Then you tell me what it’s talking about.”

  Tibs sensed under them and confirmed what he’d sensed before. “There isn’t anything under us.”

  “Don’t answer it,” Merka warned.

  “Okay, Merka, I’d really appreciate it if you stopped referring to me as an ‘it’. I’m a man. You should be using ‘he’.”

  The helper snorted.

  “He?” Firmen said, as if he wasn’t familiar with the word.

  “Yes. If you or Merka prefer being referred to as he, or she, just tell me.”

  “What do they mean?” Merka asked, the vehemence replaced by what sounded like genuine curiosity.

  “He is for men,” Tibs said. “She is for women.”

  “What are those?” This time, Merka’s puzzlement sounded profound.

  “Weren’t you taught about people before you came to help Firmen?”

  “How do you know about that?” they asked fearfully.

  “Ganny explained some of it, back when I was a Runner in Kragle Rock. She never went into details, but she talked about being taught the things she’d need to know to help Sto. She mentioned often how a lot of what I do wasn’t covered.”

  “And how did that Ganny know any of that?” Merka asked defiantly, but Tibs suspected they used that to cover their fear.

  “She’s like you. She helps Sto with what it means to be a dungeon.” He smiled. “He made her life difficult at the start, with how he didn’t want to bother with the rules.” The chuckle escaped him. “I didn’t help.”

  “How can—”

  “Merka,” Firmen said, the firmness of the tone barely covering their discomfort. “I’d rather we stick to more important things. Like why… he is here. And how … he is alive.” Each time, it felt like using the pronoun took effort.

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  “I’m still alive,” Tibs answered, “because I had an audience with Wood.” He decided to stick with how people referred to the element. It would avoid confusion when dealing with other people.

  “Please tell me you know what it’s talking about,” Firmen said in annoyance. Tibs decided to let the slip pass.

  “Wood’s the element,” they replied.

  “The audience thing,” Firmen snapped. “I understand you didn’t tell me everything, that a lot of it is for when I’m ready, but it—” they sighed. “—he brought that up.”

  “I don’t know what that is,” Merka said.

  “They didn’t tell you why dungeons exist?” Tibs had trouble believing they wouldn’t have been taught something so integral to what a dungeon was. Which might mean… “if you don’t want to talk about that with an outsider, I understand.”

  They let out a strangled laugh. “I wasn’t told people understood us, so it isn’t like I was told what I couldn’t share with them.”

  “Then, if it’s because you aren’t comfortable with me b—”

  “You terrify me!”

  “I’m sorry. It isn’t what I want.”

  They snorted.

  “Merka,” Firmen said, “can you tell him?”

  “Why are you going along with what it wants?”

  “How about because he hasn’t killed us? Whatever he is, he’s clearly strong enough to do that, and I killed him. Some of the others were cursing and promising that for just nearly crushing them with a tree, or them nearly falling into a pit.”

  “It’s just—”

  “He, Merka.”

  “It! I’m not playing whatever game it’s playing. It’s probably not even a person. They aren’t like that.”

  “How about this?” Tibs asked. “You tell me what happened to the man who came here yesterday…close to when I arrived.” Knowing there was a dungeon, it made sense this was how he, and the others, had disappeared. “If you haven’t absorbed their body, I’d like to have it so I can return it to his women. Then I’ll leave.”

  He’d give them time to settle down. A few days should be enough. Hopefully, they could have a more productive conversation, then.

  “There isn’t—”

  “I haven’t absorbed it,” Firmen said over Merka’s denial, “Because it isn’t dead yet.”

  “He’s alive?” he hadn’t expected that. Even Omega Runners, who knew what to expect of a dungeon, didn’t always survive the first room.

  He sensed around him, but even knowing there should be life somewhere, the dungeon’s stronger essence overshadowed the man’s faint one.

  “Should I be using ‘he’ for it too?” Firmen asked. He hesitated. “It looks sort of how you do.”

  “You can use it for anyone else,” Tibs replied. “They can’t hear you, so they won’t care. I mind, because ‘it’ is used to refer to objects, and there’s an entire class of people in cities who delight in making me and others like me feel like we’re nothing more than that to them. How is he still alive?” he asked, bringing the conversation to what mattered. “I’d have expected him to die in the first trap you set, or the first of your creatures he encountered.”

  “It ran past the Woodling when it attacked and into the room. The trap cut it, but it stopped the essence from flowing out with what’s it was wearing. It’s huddled into a corner and hasn’t moved. It will run out of essence at some point.”

  “The Woodling didn’t go in there to fight him?” he pulled his sense in. The first room should be near, and he might have enough precision to tell the man’s essence apart from Firmen’s.

  “That’s a trap room, not a fighting room. And I’ll absorb it once it’s out of essence.”

  “Then I want him.” If there was a chance he’d sense it, he’d have managed it. Firmen’s essence overpowered the man’s completely.

  “Don’t—” Merka started.

  “No,” Firmen stated. “If it means you’ll kill me, I can’t stop you. But he entered me and he only leaves if he passed my tests. There are rules. You asked why I exist, and I was going to let Merka answer, but I’m here to tests whatever crosses my threshold. Those who pass grow, leave, and can return to test themselves again. Those of fail become part of me and I grow from absorbing them.”

  Tibs nodded. “What do the rules say about those who work in teams?”

  “That’s how it should happen,” Merka answered reluctantly when the silence stretched, but hurried to add. “We aren’t breaking rules if they show up on their own.”

  “Then I want to be on his team.”

  “You can’t do that,” Merka replied.

  “Firmen, you’re the dungeon. It’s your decision.”

  “Don’t you dare break the rules,” Merka warned.

  “Which rule is this breaking?” they asked. “You never mentioned one about a team having to enter at the same time.”

  “That’s because they’ve always just come one at a time,” Merka replied, sounding, to Tibs’s ear, petulant.

  “Then what’s the rule?”

  Tibs couldn’t make out the grumbled reply.

  “Speak up, Merka. You know I hate when you do that. If you don’t want to talk to me, just don’t say anything.”

  “There isn’t one, happy? It knows the rules. Good for it.”

  “Alright,” Firmen said. “You can be on its team. But it doesn’t chance things. It still needs to leave on its own.”

  “But if I’m on his team, I can go in and help him leave. I just have to make it to him alive.”

  “With all that essence?” Merka demanded. “What can Firmen do that you can’t just burn down?”

  “That’s good point,” he replied.

  “You’re planning something,” they said in a suspicious tone.

  He smiled. “I’m a thief. We’re always planning something. How about this? I don’t use essence, except to make a sword and a shield, and thieves’ tools. I won’t use etching as defense or attacks, unless…” He looked at his no longer injured body. Only, an Omega Runner wouldn’t be able to heal himself. “No essence work beyond what I mentioned.” He’d have to be careful, but this was a first floor and, unless Firmen could tell he did it, he had his sense to help him.

  “What are thieve’s tools?” Firmen asked.

  “You don’t know?”

  “I don’t know what thieves are, either.”

  “How about rogues?”

  “Merka said those are the ones who focus on the traps and at being sneaky.”

  Tibs chuckled. “Thieves are what rogues who don’t work for the adventurer’s guild are called.”

  “What’s the adventurer’s guild?”

  Tibs closed his mouth on the reply in surprise at what the question implied. “How do you not know about the guild? How does Merka know about rogues, then? The guild is who named the runner classes.” He made a variety of picks, instead of taking those hidden in his right bracer, and placed them on the ground; then he added a knife. He didn’t want to limit himself by too narrow a selection.

  Merka’s sigh broke the silence. “I wasn’t taught where the names come from. Just them, and what they mean. Fighters throw themselves at the creatures. Sorcerers wield essence of one element. Archers use a bow and arrows from the back. Rogues deal with traps and are sneaky. And cleric try to keep everyone alive.”

  “Those are the tools thieves use.”

  “And they’re the only ones you’ll use?”

  “I’d like to be able to make them as needed. I didn’t bring a leather roll to hold them. And to remake my sword and shield if needed. It’s easier for me to return everything to essence when I don’t need them.”

  “You can’t be considering going along with this,” Merka said. “You know it’s going to cheat.”

  “I’m not going to cheat,” Tibs replied. “I’m going to be sneaky.”

  “I’m agreeing to this,” Firmen said, the smile audible, “because I’m tired of them not making it far. The furthest one of made it was the third room, and that was before I’d put much in any of them. I want to test someone properly, and I’m fine with him being sneaky. I planned for that.”

  Before Tibs could wonder what they meant by that, the essence shifted around him. By the time he pushed his sense further to get a sense of what Firmen had done, it was over. But Tibs could tell what had happened.

  “You changed the layout of the floor?” he asked before thinking better of it.

  “Did you think all you’d have to do was reach that first room and leave? I want to see what someone who knows what they’re doing can do. You want your teammate? You’re going to find it at the end of the floor.”

  Bottom Rung is available on KU:

  here

  Stepping Wild, on Ream Stories where the story is multiple chapters ahead even at the lowest tier, and the support helps ensure I can work with a minimum of real-life interruption.

  Thank you for reading this chapter.

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