Tibs sliced up, and the Gnoll fell away. He blocked the other’s attack with his ice shield and skewered it. The heat struck him in the back, unbalancing him, but the ice covering his armor minimized the damage. It wasn’t the first time a Gnoll used fire essence on him, and each time, they were more clever about how they used it. Like now, distracting him with multiple attacks from the front so he’d forget one of them behind had fire.

If not for the fact Sto created them, Tibs could think they were training and learning new ways to use their essence from watching the Runners fight.

Tibs quickly etched water essence. Three lines to focus, a spiral to pull from around it, with Arcanus to hold and make the resulting attack harder. It shattered against the fireball the Gnoll threw. Tibs would have needed more time to ensure the etching was tight enough it could resist, but that hadn’t been the goal.

Tibs leaped through the wall of steam the impact created, adding air for the extra height, then came down on the Gnoll, sword first; impaling it in the creature’s head as it watched him.

He formed a new sword, turning and readying himself for another attack.

Jackal slammed his last Gnoll against the wall.

Khumdar had two in a cloud of shadows, a determined expression on his face. They dropped to a knee, then fells to the side, and after a few more seconds, crumbled and were absorbed into the floor. The cleric dropped to a knee too, using his staff for support and panting heavily. He had spent a lot of his essence defeating them.

Don was fighting three, sending cloudy jets of essence at them. One jumped out of the way, while another caught a jet in the chest and melted, and the third lost an arm. Tibs opened his mouth to warn the sorcerer of the one behind him, but Don raised a hand, a spearhead forming, and threw it as he turned. It splashed, instead of impaling the Gnoll, but the corruption melted through it.

Tibs scanned for Mez to see how—He ran at the archer who leaned against the wall, fumbling for his belt bag. The gash in his side was so deep Tibs saw the essence diminish as the life drained out of the archer.

He had an essence wrap over it before reaching Mez. Then he pulled the healing potion out of the pouch and helped him drink it.

“I miss the days I could just call out to you and you’d heal me,” Mez whispered, resting his head against the wall. His breathing improved quickly as the wound closed and the potion replenished the life essence.

It was interesting to Tibs that, unlike the potions that refilled the reserves, the essence from healing potion didn’t change into that of the person drinking it. It remained life essence. He expected it was why it was so effective at healing, but how did the potion know not to change the essence?

“It’s a good thing we have potions.” Tibs glanced at Don, who watched the last of his attacker writhe on the floor with a self-satisfied smirk reminiscent of the old Don.

“Only when I’m not so out of it to take one,” Mez replied. “And we’re going through them quickly. I only have two left. Hopefully, not too many of them will get in a lucky shot in the next fights. And yes, I know luck’s not a thing,” the archer added as Tibs opened his mouth. “But it’s better than me admitting I wasn’t paying attention to the Metal user because all it made for the entire fight were swords. Until I had a javelin ripping my side open. I still had an arrow in its eye through that pain, though.”

“Are you okay?” Don asked.

Mez showed the empty potion bottle. “Pretty much all healed.”

“Jackal,” Don called. “Mez needs a new—” he stopped as Jackal narrowed his eyes. “I mean, he could use a replacement for the potion he drank.”

“I still have two,” the archer said, “and I doubt I’ll have to use them in the next room, so I’ll be fine facing whatever’s on the other side of the dragon room.”

“The boss room,” the fighter said.

“It might be best to ensure you have more before entering this room.” Khumdar drank an essence potion.

“It’s just pushing walls,” Mez said, then looked at Tibs. “Right?”

“I don’t know,” he replied. “A wall moved when if I push it, but we won’t know if there’s more until we explore it.”

Mez pushed from the wall, and slowed after a couple of steps, pressing his arm against the not entirely healed injury. “Then let’s find out. We’re making good time, but if we stand around talking about what we should do, we won’t reach the boss room.”

The time shield was only half used up, and it was only the shifting floor room they had to cross. He knew the pattern now, so it was as quick as the others could jump and no one falling off. The game of conquest had been quick, too. Don knew the game, and Tibs had a sense Ganny used it more as a puzzle than how the game should be played, using the rules to constrain how they moved to complete it.

Of course, he couldn’t ask Ganny if she was simply keeping the game simple, or they were all getting that good. No team running the third floor had lost a Runner since the latest schedule had been up.

Of course, once teams of Omega graduated, the second floor would take its toll on them. Tibs hoped the equipment would be here before that. And that they would accept his help. The urchin trusted even less easily than those who’d come here from the cells.

He finished the dragon shield marginally faster, he thought, then looked into the room. The hall was five large tiles deep, and knowing it was there, he could just make out the left turn at the end. He sensed the first tile, confirming there still were not triggers on it, then stepped in. The second was the same. He considered his team, waiting on the other side of the threshold.

Did he want to give Sto a chance to lock him in again? He could ask what their issue was with him filling himself with ice. He missed talking with Sto during the runs, having him comment on how they did.

“Step in and stay one tile behind me.” He didn’t have the time to waste on pointless conversations. “That way, we’ll stay together if walls shift without notice.”

“Or we end up crushed together,” Jackal said, entering.

“That won’t happen,” Tibs said, and the others looked at each other before joining the fighter. “I’ll make sure there are no triggers, then you can walk around.”

There were none all the way to the turn. Three tiles in it, it turned to the right, then ended four tiles later.

“Did we take a wrong turn?” Jackal asked.

Tibs retraced his steps, looking for clues on how to proceed. Shifting the walls was part of it, but there were no signs as to which one would move, or what the result would be. That first one had been Sto cutting him off from the others, so Tibs didn’t think he could base anything on that.

Once he reached the entrance, he decided that, like the shifting floor room, he’d have to work out the pattern through trial and error. He picked the fourth tile. “Get on my tile,” he told the others as he studied the right wall. It was uncomfortably smooth to the touch, but not slick. It was as if just by the feel of the surface, he could tell there was something unnatural about the way the essence formed it.

He pressed, and when it didn’t more, pushed harder. When it began moving, it was with a heavy grinding sound hinting at the weight. He stopped to study the side wall, but it kept grinding on, stopping only once it cleared three paces, forming a tile. So once a wall started moving, there was no stopping it.

“Stay there.”

A look confirmed the entrance was open. He walked to the left turn, then the right one. Nothing had changed there. He’d expected a cascade of moves, like in the shifting floor room. He returned to the newly exposed tile and studied the wall again. It hadn’t changed. It, like the others, still registered as one large weave of essence three paces beyond the ceiling and below the floor.

“Are we staying here?” Mez asked as Tibs placed his hand on the wall.

They were still in the hall, so safe. The worse thing that might happen was that the opposite wall would push them in with him. He looked at the wall on each side of him. Or that Sto would cut him off again.

“Move here.”

Once they were in position, Tibs pushed. Again, he had to apply force, then the wall ground and moved and kept moving as Tibs stepped back, cursing, and making a shield and sword, as he saw the lack of a wall on his right. How hadn’t he sensed the gap there?

Jackal was stone, and Mez had an arrow notched when Tibs leaned into the vacated space to look into the open one. Beyond the missing wall was a room three tiles deep and wide, but to his sense, it was all the same tight weave of essence that made out the walls.

Ganny had finally come up with a way to render this ability useless.

“Loot!” Jackal exclaimed and ran into the room before Tibs could stop him. He was on his knees before it, hands almost on the lid, when he finally stopped. “I guess you should look it over, Tibs.” He stood and backed from it.

“Don’t you ever get enough of chests?” Don asked, annoyed.

Mez snorted, and Jackal looked offended.

“How many runs have you done with us?” the fighter asked. “And how don’t you yet understand the wonderfulness of loot?”

“It’s an act, isn’t it?” Don asked as Tibs looked the chest over. “Like the idiot, you spend a lot of time convincing everyone you are.”

“I am an idiot,” Jackal stated. “When compared to you, Tibs, Mez, Khumdar, Kroseph, Quig, Orita, Filodore, Kain, well, every Runner who does more than run the dungeon, bash the thing in it, and out of it, and swoon over loot. This thinking thing, before I act? I tolerate it because it means I get to keep my man. He got tired of me nearly getting killed in this place once too often.”

“I have no idea what part of that’s true or not,” Don said in exasperation, “or how any of you deal with this.”

Tibs ran a hand over the joint where the lid touched the bottom part of the chest.

“You get used to it,” Mez said.

He hardly had to think about the motion anymore, but he needed to pay attention to what his fingers told him. Sto and Ganny learned from the Runners, just like Tibs did from them, and the traps on the chest were more subtle now.

“What you must keep in mind,” Khumdar said, “is that Jackal will only depreciate himself. Putting himself down is a skill he has mastered, and there is nothing he will not say to maintain that, even now that he has agreed to be smarter about how he acts for the sake of not leaving Kroseph alone. If he is downplaying himself, it is most likely a lie. If he is raising others, that will be truth.”

“I will never get used to all of you,” Don grumbled.

“You will,” Mez said, while Jackal mumbled something that didn’t sound flattering.

Tibs opened the chest and took out a small round shield woven with air essence and handed it to Jackal.

“That’s it?” The fighter asked. Looking into the chest as Tibs stepped away. He looked up. “Really? You give us amazing stuff in the other two rooms and this in here?” he waved the shield at the ceiling. “What’s going on?”

“And is that an act?” the sorcerer asked. “Or does he expect the dungeon understands him?”

“How do you know it doesn’t?” Mez asked.

Don stared at the archer. “Do you expect a dog to understand you?”

“Yes,” Tibs said, passing Don on his way to the wall. “And the dungeon isn’t a dog. That’s insulting.”

“To whom?” Don asked. “The dog?”

Tibs stopped in surprise and turned. Everyone else was also staring at the sorcerer.

“Did you…make a joke?” Jackal asked uncertainly. He stepped to Don. “Is that stick pulled out of your ass far enough you can joke about something?”

“I do not have—” He tried to shove the fighter away. “I have acted in perfectly reasonable ways with—”

“Acted,” Jackal said, leaning in. “Don’t think I can’t see what you’re doing; acting like you belong with—

“That’s enough.” Mez interposed himself between them. “Don’s trying, Jackal. Just like you’re trying to be smarter about what you do. I don’t see you succeeding all the time.”

The fighter took a breath and let it out slowly. “Tibs, any idea how we continue?”

“I have to test each section of the wall until we find the trigger.”

“There’s going to be a pattern,” Don said.

“I know, but I haven’t worked it out yet.” Tibs headed back to the main corridor and stopped. “We aren’t exiting the way we entered,” he called to the others, stepping to the wall now blocking the room’s entrance. He pushed against it as hard as he could, but it didn’t move, which made sense; there was a wall around the entrance.

He studied the corner, running the point of a knife, trying to get it in for purchase, but even to his sense, there was no gap there.

“It didn’t trigger with the first push,” Don said. “So did it move in response to getting access to the room, or because you pushed it a second time?”

Tibs shrugged.

“Is it possible other sections have also moved in response?” Khumdar asked.

“Stay here.” Tibs went to the end and back. “Nothing changed, but that doesn’t mean it won’t next time.”

“So we stay with you as you test the walls?” Mez asked.

“And listen for anything else moving when I push.” He sensed around again and confirmed that this way, there was no room. Only the section he pushed wasn’t part of the weave anymore. He pushed this wall, and it didn’t move.

This was a maze, but one where not only did he have to work out the path, but how to open it. Much like the rest of this floor. Don was right, patterns were maintained on each floor.

He moved one section to the left of the opening and pushed. It didn’t move. He moved to the next one, and it moved in.

“Is that an echo?” Mez asked.

“I’ll check.” Jackal returned quickly. “Nothing changed.”

“Then, any move Tibs makes can have repercussion we can’t account for,” Don said. He hesitated. “Maybe we should focus on working out how to open the entrance. We don’t want to be stuck in here when time runs out.”

“Nothing will happen,” Tibs said, stepping forward. “Other than there’s a chance we’ll run into the next team.”

“How do yo know?” Don asked. “It’s not like anyone’s risked it since the time shield appeared.”

“Ready?” Tibs asked, and his team moved on his tile. He pushed, the wall moved, and he made out the echo this time.

“Should I go check?” Jackal asked, and Tibs nodded. “We lost the left turn,” he said once he was back.

The first move hadn’t don’t anything they could see either time. He looked back. Except to allow them to step out of the corridor, where they couldn’t see if something shifted. Was that part of the pattern? He’d have to pay attention when he pushed a wall from the main corridor.

He pushed again, but the wall didn’t move. Even with Jackal’s help, it didn’t budge. He pressed against the wall to his left, and it moved the three paces. He pushed again, and it moved, and another sound came with it.

“That wasn’t a wall moving,” Mez said, as steps sounded behind them.