Tibs enjoyed the porridge, possibly too much. It was a third bowl Kroseph was bringing him.

“You’re up early,” the server commented. The sun was just starting to shine through the windows.

“Late,” Tibs said, finishing the bowl and pulling the other one before him. “I did stuff through the night.” This was the last bowl, he promised himself. He shouldn’t eat so much.

Kroseph plopped down in the chair after looking the nearly empty room over. “Have you finally found yourself someone to spend the night with?” he asked with a grin.

Tibs narrowed his eyes at the server and lowered his voice. “What has Jackal said?” He did his best not to make the question an accusation.

“Nothing,” Kroseph leaned forward and lowered his voice conspiratorially. “Why, is there something I should know?”

“I’m not interested,” Tibs replied flatly before going back to eating his food.

“You’re still young, Tibs,” Kroseph said wistfully. “You’ll meet someone, and then you won’t ever be without them.”

“Shouldn’t you be working?” Tibs asked, and the words had more bitterness to them than he’d intended.

The server motioned to the still nearly empty room. “Pa isn’t going to get on my case until a few more of the tables at occupied. For now, I just have to watch for someone wanting something. So we can talk.”

Tibs stifled the sigh. Like Jackal, Kroseph meant well; but Tibs wasn’t like them. When he watched the two of them, he didn’t only see their happiness. He saw Kroseph, devastated at learning Jackal hadn’t survived the dungeon. Tibs wouldn’t cause that to someone else. If that meant he only had friends, and no one special, he was okay with that.

Tibs looked at the spoon of porridge as his appetite deserted him. That was how Bardik saw the situation he was in, although a more extreme view than what Tibs had just admitted to himself.

“Are you okay?” Kroseph asked, looking at him with concern.

He lowered the spoon. “Something I’ve been told sort of sank in too deeply.” Every time Jackal or his guy talked about how Tibs would, one day, find someone, it annoyed him. But that was sort of what he’d done with Bardik.

“It must have gone to your heart to make you look like this.”

Tibs pushed the bowl away and Kroseph stared at him.

“Right through your heart. I’ve never seen you push food away.”

“Just Runner stuff,” Tibs said and added so Kroseph wouldn’t worry. “Not Jackal.”

Kroseph smiled at him and patted his arm. “If he’d told you something that made you push away food, he’d have told me his plan first. Do you want me to take it away?” He motioned to the bowl.

Tibs shook his head. “It’ll pass.”

“It’s going to get cold. I’ll get you a warm bowl when you’re ready.”

Tibs caught the server’s arm. “It’s still good cold.”

Kroseph studied Tibs. “That’s a street thing, isn’t it? You aren’t there anymore.”

Tibs wanted to protest, claim it was a him thing, or that it wasn’t actually a bad thing to be street. “It just is. I shouldn’t waste food.”

“It won’t be wasted. Someone let dogs loose in the town, and they’re hungry enough they eat any scraps we give them.”

“I’ll finish it,” Tibs stated.

“Kro!” the innkeeper yelled from the kitchen door. “You know that Runner of yours only gets so much leeway.” He motioned to the tables that had filled while the two of them talked. “Talk with him later.”

Tibs leaned around Kroseph and waved to the older man.

“Hi Tibs,” the innkeeper greeted him with a smile, which vanished as he set his eyes back on his son. “Get in here. Tibs gets no leeway, you have tables to serve.”

Kroseph stood. “Are you sure about the bowl?”

Tibs nodded and moved it closer. Eating would help him put Bardik out of his mind.

* * * * *

“Hey guys,” the woman called as she approached the group.

“Pyan!” Tibs took off to hug her. “You’re still alive!”

She chuckled and hugged him back. “It’s not like I was able to do a run after the one we did together. Jackal, Carina, good to see you two are still with us.” She offered her hand to the other fighter, and they clasped forearm.

“Tibs won’t let us die,” Jackal said with a shrug, “and you saw how I am, I just can’t refuse him anything.”

“That,” Carina continued, “and Tibs kind of did the almost dying for us when he threw himself off a cliff.”

“I fell,” Tibs grumbled, to Jackals and Carina’s amusement, while Mez and Khumdar looked as confused at the people with Pyan.

“Now I remember why the run with you was so fun,” Geoff said with a shake of the head. “Did you really fall off—”

“Excuse me,” a thin woman said, “but—” Carina’s hug stopped her speaking.

“Tandy! I’m so glad you found a team that’s working out for you.”

The rogue gave a strained smile as she looked around the training field. She hesitatingly placed her arms around the sorceress. “Thank you.” She stammered the next words and tried again. “Please let go of me. You know I don’t like…” she trailed off.

Carina immediately backed away. “I am so sorry. I forgot.” She motioned to the others. “That’s Jackal and Tibs and these are Mez and Khumdar.”

“Hello Mezano,” Tandy greeted the archer shyly. “It’s good to see you aren’t with Don anymore.”

The archer squirmed and Tibs thought he might be blushing, but with his dark skin, it was hard to be sure. “Hey Tan, thanks. These guys kind of saved me, and they aren’t as bad as they appear.”

Jackal cursed softly and Tibs glared him into staying silent. Now was not the time for something snarky. The fighter sighed and threw his arms up in defeat.

“I’m glad,” Tandy said. “That sorcerer had no right to force you to be on his team. And if Carina is with them, they must be good people.”

Tibs glared at the fighter harder and Jackal gave him as innocent a look as he could manage.

“It’s clear you two know each other.” A sorcerer in bright green robes stepped around the still blushing rogue and offered his hand to Khumdar. “I’m Amid. Sorcerer and, one day, ruler of the Forest of Teltirak.”

“I am Khumdar of Temerity,” he replied, looking at the hand uncertainly, then grasping the forearm the way the fighters had done. “Cleric.”

The following silence was only broken by the sound of training further away as Pyan’s team stared at the cleric.

“We need to come up with something else,” Jackal said. “This could be a problem.”

“Why?” Carina asked. “Because they’re no longer looking at you?”

The fighter beamed. “You know me so well, dear.”

“How did you score a cleric?” a tall man in leather armor asked. “I thought they weren’t joining teams for at least another level.”

“And you are?” Jackal asked, looking the man over in appreciation.

“Taken,” Pyan replied, smirking.

Jackal opened his mouth, closed it. “I did something like that to you, didn’t I?”

She grinned. “You did, but he is taken, aren’t you, Hun?”

“Taken and branded,” the fighter said, proudly pushing the collar of his armor down to show a red mark.

Pyan’s tanned fave became much darker. “That was an accident,” she stammered. “I… got carried away.”

“No need to be bashful, Pyan,” Jackal said. “Enthusiasm is a good thing. Ask me about the marks my man leaves on me when we don’t have training plans.”

She put her face in her hands. “I so don’t want to see that.”

Jackal laughed as he offered his arm to the other fighter. “Well met Taken, I’m Jackal.”

“It’s Karl, actually,” the man answered, grasping the forearm. “Earth element.”

“Same here,” Jackal said. “What about you Tandy?”

“Void,” Mez said as the woman finally stopped looking at the ground and showed her golden eyes. Mez looked at her, eyes wide, and cursed. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t—”

She laughed. “It’s all right. My eyed give away my element, just like yours do, Mezano.”

“Still,” he protested. “It isn’t my place to—”

“Mez,” Jackal interrupted the archer, “when a woman said it’s okay, the proper response is to bow your head and respond with ‘my lady is too gracious’. Don’t make too much of an ass of yourself. That’s my job.”

“To make an ass of himself,” Carina clarified, “not make one of Mez.”

Tandy covered her mouth as she chuckled. “You have found yourself an odd team, Carina.

“These two remind me of being home,” she replied. “I have brothers who are kind of like them.”

“And Mezano?” Tandy asked, glancing at the archer, then at the ground again.

“We’re still working things out, so tell me where to stop and I will.”

The rogue looked at Carina, eyebrow raised.

“I have eyes, Tandy,” the sorceress said with a chuckle. “He’s a good-looking guy. I’d give him a chance if I thought he was available.

Mez cleared his throat, but before he opened his mouth, Jackal cut him off with a loud whisper. “Women are fighting over you, do not interrupt.”

“This seems to be more of a negotiation as to who is in a position to get the most out of our archer,” Khumdar said.

“Am I supposed to be flattered?” the archer asked, confused.

“Why wouldn’t you be?” Jackal asked.

“Because I should be the one wooing one of them,” Mez answered.

“And which one would you be wooing?” Tandy asked, all amusement leaving her face.

Tibs backed away. He hadn’t expected people other than Jackal and Kroseph to have those kinds of arguments.

The archer looked from Carina to Tandy, then back, his expression serious. With a curse, Jackal covered the archer’s mouth as he opened it.

“You, Tandy, He’s going to woo you.” He moved his mouth to the archer’s ear and lowered his voice as the man protested. “She’s a void rogue. You’re in enough danger as it is. Don’t anger her any further. I don’t have any archers in mind to replace you yet.”

Mez pulled the hand off his mouth. “Of course I was going to say Tandy.” He glared at the fighter. “How would it have sounded if I just blurted it out? I have to show her I consider her the better choice.”

Carina shook her head, and Tibs took another step back. “You do know that if this was anyone other than Tandy, I’d blast you, right?”

“Did you want me to pick you?” the archer asked, sounding more confused.

“Of course not, but being referred to as the inferior one isn’t nice.” She looked at Tibs and fought a smile at the distance now separating him from everyone else. “I’m starting to agree with you about not getting anyone special. I’m not liking how guys behave when they’re around their special someone.”

Jackal clamped his hand back over the archer’s mouth and this time it didn’t move. To Carina, he said. “You do know there are women out there too, right?”

“I’m well aware,” she replied, “but I want a man.”

Amid cleared his throat. “I’m going to start by saying I have absolutely no idea what’s going on right now, but I am a man.”

“Can you trip over your tongue anytime you look at me?” Carina asked, looking him over. “How about insulting me without meaning to?”

“Why would I ever want to do that?” the sorcerer replied, horrified.

“Jackal never plans on doing those things,” Tibs said, returning to the group now that it felt safe.

“And I’m stabbed in the back,” Jackal sighed.

“I’m a rogue,” Tibs said, “it’s kind of what we do.”

“But you’re supposed to be my rogue.”

Tibs looked around. “Anyone have coins? The fighter forgot how rogues think.”

“May I ask,” Khumdar asked while Karl took his coin pouch off his belt and Carina looked through hers. “I was under the impression this was to be a training session. It has begun to look suspiciously like a theater troupe, and not a particularly good one at that.”

“It is,” Jackal said, sounding serious and releasing the archer. “We’re looking to work on team cohesion. Like I explain yesterday,” he told Pyan, “our next run is the first one we’ll do with the five of us, and the first one for Khumdar.”

“Can a cleric even fight?” Karl pointed to the staff Khumdar held. “I was under the impression clerics stayed at the back and made sure we all survived.”

“Ours is special,” Jackal said proudly.

“Let us not turn this into another comedy routine,” Khumdar said as Pyan opened her mouth. “I will not go into explanations, regardless of how much you might insist, but it should be obvious I am not of purity.”

The other team’s leader looked at Khumdar, her amusement vanishing. “So you’re just calling yourself a cleric,” she said with a mocking chuckle.

“With all due respect, Lady Pyan, I am not on your team, nor am I indebted to you. My team knows of my circumstances, and that is enough for us. Your attempt into goading me into an explanation is wasted.”

“This is why I’m thinking we need to go with something other than cleric,” Jackal said. “They’re having this reaction and they’ve been in the dungeon. You know things aren’t always as clear as we want them, Pyan. If you’re reacting like this, I don’t want to imagine how the nobles are going to react. Something tells me mocking isn’t going to be all they do.”

“So you believe him?” Pyan asked.

He leveled his gaze at her. “Pyan, he’s on my team. What I think of him isn’t something I’ll share, but if I didn’t think his presence was going to help, he wouldn’t be here.”

“That’s fair,” she replied. “I guess I haven’t seen enough of the world to know everything about it.” She inclined her hand to Khumdar. “I apologize.”

The cleric returned the nod.

“But Karl’s question remains,” she continued, “can you fight with that?”

Khumdar slowly spun the staff in his hands and nearly dropped it. “Not yet. I have only recently acquired it. I have swung it, but I have neither struck nor blocked.”

“Geoff,” she called to her archer. “I’ve seen you hit the rats with your bow in the boulder room. Do you think you can help Khumdar?”

“Bow fighting?” Mez asked. “That’s a thing?”

“If you have a bow build for it.” He unhooked his from his back. Tibs remembered it as being thicker than others, but he hadn’t considered why. “I can show you at the same time, but your bow might not be able to handle it.”

“Alright,” Jackal called. “I’m calling this individual training. We can figure out team cohesion another day.”

“You didn’t think this through, did you?” Pyan asked.

“Hey, this is me you’re talking about. I use my head to bash things.” Jackal pointed to Tibs. “I wanted him to be the leader for a reason.”

“Then you go fight with the two fighters,” Tibs said, stepping up to the other rogue. Tandy was shorter than the others, except for Tibs. “Do you know how to throw knives?”

She seemed surprised by his approach and question. “I have some training in it,” she finally said.

“Can you show me how?”

She looked around. “There’s nothing to throw at here.” She became more confident as she spoke. “Maybe I can focus on how to hold your knife, a few throws at the ground if you don’t think it’ll damage your knives too much.”

Tibs nodded. The ground was soft, so it wasn’t like it could hurt his knife.

“Pyan, is it all right if I teach Tibs?”

Her leader nodded as she, Jackal, and Karl moved away, Karl’s skin tuning stone gray.

“That leaves us,” Carina told Amid as Tibs and Tandy stepped away. “But I’m not sure if there’s anything a wood sorcerer can teach an air one, or the reverse.”

“I agree,” the man replied, “but tell me. Before you were caught, did you happen to come across a treatise by…” their voice faded until Tibs was too far to hear.

“Did you really find the door leading to the boss before anyone else?” Tandy asked once she stopped.

“I don’t know.” They were at the edge of the training field. He could see the markers indicating the town’s limit. “We were the first to open it, and I’d noticed it before that, but someone else could have seen it before that and not have the tools to open it. Since we can’t talk about what happens in the dungeon, it’s impossible to know who saw it first.”

“But how did you know it was there?” she asked. “Even once the guards told us there was a fourth room, I had trouble finding it.”

Tibs shrugged. “I just noticed how the color didn’t quite match the rest.”

“You have better eyes than I do. I had to feel around. The door looks like it’s made of stone like the walls, but it’s a different material.”

“Did you know about the key?” he asked, taking out the knife from the bracer sheath.

She took hers out of the one at her belt. “I knew about one of the boulders in a corner turning, but it wasn’t until I overheard another rogue talking I realized there was more than one. I found them on the next run.”

“I found out after I opened it the first time. Someone filling a spot on our team mentioned it. I used my water to unlock it.”

She nodded and looked at his eyes. “They say it’s because of your age that your eyes aren’t showing your element.”

He shrugged. “It’s what my teacher says.”

She eyed his armor. “I can’t wait to find something that will let me afford good armor.”

“It shouldn’t take long. There's the second floor now, it’s got to have better stuff than the first one. When you do find something, see Darran at the Shield and Rope. He specializes in the kind of items rogues need.”

“Thanks for the recommendation.” She motioned for his knife and studied in once he passed it over. “This isn’t balanced right for throwing.” She handed it back. “If throwing knives is how you want to go, you’ll want to invest good money into them, but you should wait until you know how to keep the dungeon from eating it.”

“The dungeon eats our weapons?”

“I overheard some archery trainers debating if they should teach their students how to do it now, instead of waiting until they graduate.”

“You overhear a lot of stuff,” Tibs said, smiling. He wondered how someone who couldn’t sense the essence around them would go about using it to protect their weapons. Or was part of the questions the trainers were debating including teaching that aspect early.

“People tend to overlook me in crowds,” she said with a shy smile.

Tibs nodded, and she began showing him how to properly grip the handle, but he had trouble focusing on it. If he could figure out how someone could manipulate essence without sensing it, he could teach the others, maybe even Tandy.

He wasn’t sure if he should teach something he wasn’t supposed to know yet to someone on another team, but it would be nice if he could repay her for the help she gave him.