The call to assemble came while Tibs was returning from delivering the box; if sitting at Old Walrus’ bar with it and suddenly realizing he no longer had it counted as a delivery. The ale had been good, at least.

Halfway to the edge of the town, a man yelled. “Mezano!” and the archer froze.

Tibs groaned, recognizing the voice.

They turned and watched as a sorcerer in dark purple robes strode toward them, ignoring the protests from the people the two fighters walking before him shoved out of their way. By the time the four of them, the rogue stayed a pace behind Don, reach Tibs and his group, people were giving them all a wide berth.

Tibs looked around for guards, but they were probably all on the field; which was where anyone would expect problems. When Don shifted to glare at Tibs, he looked away, not interested in dealing with how the almost color of his eyes made him feel. Don looked over Jackal and Carina, smirking.

“Looks like you got back in time,” Jackal said, sounding disappointed.

The larger one looked like he wanted to say something, but only glanced at Don and waited.

“You have the balls to jump team the moment a gang takes on these idiots and that’s who you end up with?”

“Gang?” Carina asked.

Tibs studied the men they’d fought. They still had injuries, some of which included cuts. Those on the thug and rogue made sense, but where had the third fighter gotten them? Jackal had punched him.

Mez looked them over and sighed. “Thanks for the help, but—”

Jackal pushed him back before the archer moved and stepped between the groups. “Team or not, I know you don’t want to go back with them.”

The archer mumbled his agreement low enough Tibs didn’t think anyone past Jackal heard.

“You’re talking like you have a say in what Mezano does,” Don said, stepping forward and fixing his gaze on Jackal. “When someone owes me his life, I collect.”

Jackal pushed the sorcerer back, and he stumbled,

“How dare you touch me!”

“Then get those ugly things you call eyes out of my face.” Jackal rubbed the bridge of his nose. “What color is that? How can you stand to look at it in a mirror?” He shuddered. “I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy.” Jackal suddenly grinned. “Well, they do fit your ugly personality, so you’re welcome to them. Don, isn’t it? Full of yourself, bossing people around. Yeah, I heard of you. So,” he continued as the sorcerer fumed, “when me and my team rescued Mez from your thugs, was that you collecting on that debt you claim he owes you?”

The sorcerer stared at the fighter, his anger seeming to evaporate in surprise. “You’re going to try to take the credit for beating my team?” He stepped forward, snarling. “What did you do? Show up while they were unconscious and kick them? That’s what you call rescuing that coward?”

Jackal stopped the sorcerer by shoving a finger against his sternum.

Don looked at it. “Do not touch me.”

Jackal smirked. “Move it yourself.”

“Jackal,” Mez said, “it’s okay. I really appreciate what you did, but you don’t need to do more. I’ll—”

“No Mezano,” Don said, smiling, and Tibs moved his hand closer to his knife. Anytime he’d seen the sorcerer smiling like that, something bad had happened. “You don’t need to grovel anymore. I was generous, I took you in when no one would, I thought you appreciated the gesture. Clearly, I was wrong.” He took Jackal’s hand in his, and the fighter’s smirk became wide.

Tibs looked from one to the other, Don couldn’t think he’d out muscle the fighter, he was a little shorter and a lot thinner., and Jackal could call on his essence to be unmovable and stronger still, which Don’s essence wouldn’t let him… what was the sorcerer’s essence?

Jackal cried out as Don twisted his hand. “You’re welcome to stay with this group of losers, Mezano.” He twisted again, and Jackal dropped to a knee. “You deserve each other.” The sorcerer let go of the hand and walked past them. Tibs crouched next to Jackal as the fighters and rogue glared at them, but Don called to them and they heeded.

“Just like dogs,” Jackal whispered, chuckling before crying out again. The hand Don had grabbed was covered in black spiderwebs that spread under his skin.

Carina cursed. “We need to find a teacher, get you a potion.”

“Can’t,” Jackal panted.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Mez said.

“Right thing,” he groaned, “to do.”

“There has to be one around,” she said, looking at the people keeping their distance.

“There’s no one to teach,” Tibs said. He wanted to help Jackal, but while he could sense the essence moving under the fighter’s skin, he couldn’t do anything to it.

“Then we need to get you a potion,” she said. “They have to still be around, right? Let’s go to the training fields.”

“Even if they have them,” Mez said. “They won’t hand them out unless we’re coming out of a dungeon.”

“Don broke the rules,” Tibs said. “We show this to Harry Hard Knuckles.”

“I’d rather we don’t,” Jackal replied, straining to grin.

“Tibs right,” Carina said. “Harry will have to do something, we’re not allowed to attack each other.”

“You can bet Don will have his goons claim we started it,” Mez said.

“And,” Jackal said, forcing himself to stand, “you’re counting on Hard Knuckles liking me. I can promise you he doesn’t.”

“What did you do, Jackal?” Carina demanded.

He smiled. “I exist. Sometimes, someone as awesome as me is enough to piss off someone like Hard Knuckles.”

She let out an exasperated cry. “I can’t believe you, what are you going to do, take justice into your own hands? Don’t you dare,” she added at Jackal’s thoughtful expression. “We’re not allowed to hurt one another. What’s Harry going to do if he catches you?”

Jackal grinned. “I’m hurt at your lack of trust in my ability to get rid of someone without anyone finding out.” The black under his skin had stopped spreading, giving it a sickly bluish-gray tint all the way to his wrist. He tried to open his hand and Tibs had to support him. He cursed.

“Does it hurt?” Mez asked and received a disbelieving stare from the fighter. “I mean, if you don’t move it. I can tell what happens when you do move it. I’m not blind.”

“Why aren’t you running away?” Jackal said through gritted teeth. “I just said I was going to kill a man.”

“Well, I don’t believe you.”

Jackal glared and almost raised his gray hand at the archer, having to stifle another cry of pain.

“You do it,” Mez said, “and you’re going to get caught. Your team’s going to lose you, and that’s going to hurt them. It hasn’t been long, Jackal, but I do get that about you. You’re not going to hurt your team if you can avoid it.”

“Fine, and yes, it hurts even when I’m not moving it.” He winced as he lowered his hand to his side, then began walking toward the field again.

“Does he understand the kind of trouble Don is going to cause for him?” Mez asked Tibs as Carina chased after the fighter.

Tibs looked the archer in the eyes. “Are you worth it?”

Mez cursed. “I didn’t ask him to do that.”

“He’s Jackal. You don’t need to ask.”

“He’s going to hold this over me, isn’t he?”

Tibs couldn’t believe the man. “No, he won’t. He’s not like Don.”

Mez followed after Jackal and Carina, grumbling. “How the fuck can I walk away now?”

Tibs joined him. “Easy. You decide we’re not good for you.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“It is.”

“No. There is such a thing as honor, don’t you get it?”

Tibs shook his head. “Do you know what Don’s essence is?”

Mez looked like he wanted to keep ranting, but Tibs raised an eyebrow, and the man sighed. “It’s corruption.”

That explained the eyes, Tibs thought. They always looked wrong because whatever color they were, it was breaking down, it was what corruption did.

“How come I didn’t know it? Why isn’t Don telling everyone how amazing his essence is?”

“I don’t know,” Mez replied, hurrying to catch up to Jackal and Carina.

* * * * *

“Welcome back!” Harry yelled bitterly. He stood on steps now leading to the door in the mountainside where the crack used to be. “And for those new people here to test themselves against the dungeon,” the man said, sounding almost pleasant. “Welcome. I’m Harry, I run things out here for the guild. I am not a nice man; I do not care if you die in the dungeon. But I am a man of rules. Abide by them and you will enjoy meeting me, break them, and you will not want us to meet.”

Jackal snorted, then grimaced. He was cradling his hand against his chest again.

“The rules are simple. There will be no crime in this town. There is now a prison, and I will have no problem throwing you in it if you so much as start a brawl. I will have no problems taking your team off the roster as a way of punishing you.”

Tibs was sure that Harry was glaring in their direction when he said that. At Jackal.

“If I decide your crime merits it, I will throw you buck ass naked in the dungeon before it closes its door for the night. Good luck surviving it that long.”

Protest rose from the groups of better-dressed people.

“I am the law!” he yelled. “Piss me off at your own risk.” Silence fell. “Those of you who paid to be here, if you feel being a law-abiding citizen is too difficult, leave my town. Those who are here as payment for your crimes, I really hope you know better than to cross me because, with everything the guild has invested in you by now, I get screamed at any time I have to throw one of you in a dungeon ‘without reasons.’

“To the nobles in the crowd, I know how some of you love to abuse the system. Teams will not have more than two members who are one level higher than the dungeon. If you wondered why we didn’t allow anyone Lambda and above to be on teams, it’s because we limit entry to one level above the dungeon. You come here to challenge yourself, not pile on the loot the dungeon gives out. I know we’ve already screened for them, but if somehow you managed to sneak in some highly trained guards; when I find out, you’re going to be removed from the roster permanently, and consider yourself lucky I’m not allowed to just throw you in the dungeon for that infraction.”

He let that sink in and Tibs looked at the nobles, who eyed one another suspiciously.

“For those of you at Omega level, you step onto the second floor at your own risk. That floor is going to kill a lot of Upsilon runners and some of the careless Rhos. It will not make an exception for you just because your family happens to own a city.”

Carina leaned closer to Tibs and whispered. “I guess it means we can just walk through the first floor’s rooms now?”

So long as he no longer had to deal with rats, Tibs would be happy.

“From this point forward, until the guild decides new people have to be brought in, you are the only Runners allowed to enter the dungeon. Those of you allowed to leave; request a bracelet before you do, otherwise, you will not be allowed back as a Runner. Only complete teams are allowed to go in, and a team can only fill a spot if that member has died. So make damned sure you need to leave the town and that you know when you have to be back. Remember that for all the risks you will take in the dungeon, the rewards will be great, both in value and power. It is your duty to not let the dungeon eat you, to force it to grow stronger so you can do the same along with it. Some of you will die, but that is not why you are here.”

“He’s lying,” Tibs said as cheers rang out. “The guild wants us to die.”

“Hard Knuckles doesn’t lie, Tibs,” Jackal stated. “And I don’t think he’d go against the guild. If they want us to die, they don’t want it as actively as before.”

“Maybe they’re counting on the nobles to die in our place,” Carina said.

“They have essence,” Mez replied. “They must know how a dungeon works.”

“And some are Omega,” Jackal said. “No one is safe in a dungeon, we win by our wits, our strength, and making sure Tibs is on our team.”

“He was the dumb one of the team,” Tibs said to Mez’s quizzical look, then grinned as he left the archer to puzzle out what he meant.

“Now,” Harry said once the quiet returned. “Those of you who have paid to be here will have been explained some of this. For the conscripted Runner, you now have some control over when you will go into the dungeon. Every team will be allowed to pay for the privilege of going in before the others. How this will work is that on the day before a new rotation is put out, you can give money to the guild. The order will be set by who gave the most. Those of you who don’t give anything will be assigned randomly, at the bottom of the roster. Let me remind you all that the dungeon gets stronger each time a team goes through, so you might want to think carefully about saving your money versus the danger you will face.”

“And the guild gets more of our coins,” Jackal grumbled.

“As this is the first rotation, you have the rest of the day to register your teams and put in your bids. Only teams of five will be accepted. If your team isn’t full, deal with that first. Don’t bother me with it.”

“What if one of my team dies?” someone yelled.

“Then find someone to replace them,” Harry growled.

“How do I make sure I bid more than the others?” a woman asked.

“Then make sure to give the guild a lot more than the others. And no, we’re not going to tell you what the highest amount is. You’re smart, you figure out a way to come out on top. Once the roster’s up, you’ll know for sure.” He raised a hand as more questions sounded. “I’m not here to answer questions! I’ve told you what I had to tell you, now get to what you have to do before you run out of time and I have to listen to you complain about it.”

People moved; the Runners hurrying, while the nobles took their time. Tibs eyed Jackal’s hand as they walked.

“Do you think the clerics are here yet?”

Someone snorted and Tibs glared at them.

“I meant no offense,” the man said, hands up placatingly. His words had an odd lilt to them. He wore pants of deep red with blue trim, and his shirt was in blue with red trims and silver buttons and threads. Tibs wondered if they were actually silver or a pigment, like what Carina told him made the leather look like gold.

“Then what do you mean?” Tibs asked him.

“There is a man claiming to be a cleric.”

“Where is he?” Tibs looked around for a white robe.

“I last saw him at the Long in the Tooth tavern, wallowing in his misery.”

Tibs ran off before the man added anything else. Carina yelled after him, but he didn’t stop. He had to get the cleric to join their team.