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Sequence 1 Merge 3, Element’s Altered Tibs, Human Tibs woke to…something. He looked around the room he shared with Jackal, but everything was fine. He was still alone; it being day. The door wasn’t opening, so Jackal wasn’t coming in for something. Except there was…. He let himself…see was the wrong term, further, and he became aware of someone climbing the side of the rooming house…not very well. What thief climbed a wall in the daylight? And if they reached slightly higher their arm would be better angled to pull them up. Softer shoes would let their toes better grip the wood’s imperfections. He had his pants on before he realized what he was doing, then at the door before he forced himself to consider if he really had to do this. He wasn’t Potentia. It wasn’t his job to tell a thief how to improve, even if this was something he actually knew, instead of when he could just feel how someone could improve what they were doing. Climbing walls was something he did all the time. Had done. He still enjoyed it, but he was no longer a thief, so it no longer serve to improve him. Now, he was here to help others. Even this clumsy thief badly using the shim to unlock the window. Tibs was surprised the room’s owner hadn’t noticed. Right, day. They were probably out. He frowned. And that was the love birds’ window. Well, he had to deal with this if only to keep their things safe. He easily unlocked their doors; they’d discuss getting a team room in one of the better rooming houses, one that used magical locks, but Tibs wasn’t trying to sleep with those two constantly having them time. Or Jackal bringing a guy to have his fun. With only the two of them, it had been easier for Tibs to argue his almost brother could have that elsewhere. Every runner had their room, and the town’s guys their house. He stepped into the room as the woman fell into it. He shook his head in disappointment, closing the door. “That isn’t how you enter through a window.” She stared at him as he approached. “You grab the top sill and pull yourself in. You have enough strength, you can do that.” She was still too stunned to stop him from taking her hand and moving it up to the sill. “Feel that? There’s nice gripping. Then you pull, move your legs in and the rest of you. That way you don’t fall like this. If the occupants had been here. He would have skewered you before you stood.” He let go of the hand. “Now. I have to ask that you leave. This room belongs to my teammates, and I can’t let you rob them.” He saw the attack come before the knife was unsheathed. It wasn’t the way a Void Runner saw out of sequence. He saw the flaws in her motion, the way if she just made small alterations the attack would be stronger, more precise. He stepped out of the way. The green and black shirt registered. He sighed. “Just go. I want to go back to bed.” “He wants you as dead as the other of his son’s friends.” He unsheathed his short sword. “At least stand straighter. You’re wasting most of your strength the way you’re moving.” He easily parried the knife, and she stepped back. “What is this? I’m going to kill you. What do you care how I stand?” “You’re not managing that the way you’re fighting. Reverse your hold on the knife. That way it won’t be ripped out of your hand when, well, if your slash connects. Really big if. And I’m not that great with a sword.” She unsheathed her sword, something delicate looking, as she sheathed the knife. “That’s better. Okay, move your foot back slightly.” Why couldn’t he stop himself? He wasn’t Potentia. “Feel how that gives your body better motion?” he parried the attack, stepped to the side, deflected the other one. “Much better. Stick with the sword until you’ve trained more with the knife.” He dropped, and the swing went over him. He caught the down swing on his blade and deflected it, stepping aside. “I thought you said you weren’t good,” she snarled. “I’m not, but you aren’t perfect, so I can see what you’re going to do. Jackal pretty much always hits me when we train. Really not fun.” He parried, dodged, deflected the blade so it stabbed the wall above the book Marlot was reading. Some collection of bard songs Tibs saw no value in. But his teammate enjoyed it. He shouldered her amway. “How about this? You leave, and we meet later so I can show you how to fight better?” She snorted. “I don’t need your help.” He dodged, deflected the blade, and parried the next attack. “If you didn’t need it. You’d have cut me by now.” “Stop moving so I can kill you.” “That’s not happening.” But he wasn’t convincing her not to try. So, he had to bring an end to this; without covering the room in blood. He deflected the thrust and maneuvered himself into position. “You need more strength if you’re going to do anything. Step back.” He parried and punched her stomach. “See. You’re not doing this right.” She had leathers under the shirt, not that she’d have felt it. He didn’t have strength on his side. She glared at him but stepped to the other side of the room. “Good. Now your footing. You need to come at me running if you want a chance of skewering me. Good, your back foot slightly further back, yes, like that. Now your grip. Loosen it. The way you’re holding it, if it connects, Force will travel through it and into your arm, and it can hurt you.” “If? I thought you were helping me.” He smiled. Having her angry helped him. “I am helping you. But I can’t do anything about you not being all that good.” “Why you—” she ran at him, undoing all the help he’d given her. He stepped aside as the point of the sword reached him, and the door opened. He grabbed the back of her shirt as she noticed the window she was heading for. Unfortunately, she was moving, and he was helping her in that direction. Trembor stared at him as she went out of window, screaming. “Hi.” “What are you doing in our room? Where’s Marlot? Who was that?” “She—” he looked out the window at her unmoving, broken form “—was one of Sebastian’s assassin. Not particularly good. And not really open to improving. She was here to kill you and him, I figure.” “And you came to stop her?” “Well, I wanted to help her improve. She was horrible as a thief. But then she didn’t really listen and made it clear my death was all she wanted, then yours and Marlot. He’s out, somewhere.” He noticed the hole in the front of the archer’s leather. “What happened to you?” “One of his killers almost killed me.” “That doesn’t look like something you survive.” “There’s a cleric in the town. He healed me.” “Where?” a cleric might be able to tell him how to deal with Potentia’s insistence. “Wait. Purity?” Trembor nodded. “I offered for him to join our team, but he refused.” That was good. He already had enough trouble keeping what he was from the guild with how Potentia kept having him suggest improvements. The only reason they hadn’t noticed anything was that they mostly laughed at him. At the Upsilon Runner, who thought he could help an adventurer or clerk improve. He was getting better at keeping his mouth shut when in their company, but he dreaded the day his Potentia trainer arrived. “I’m going back to bed. Jackal wants me to train with him later, so I need my rest.” Trembor stepped aside, giving him the same odd look he did anytime Tibs did something clerical. * * * * * Tibs landed on in back, groaning in pain. “Come on, Tibs. You’re better than that. You should be able to avoid my punches. You avoid just about everyone else.” He looked at his teammate and torturer. “That only works when you do something wrong.” Jackal grinned. “Are you saying I am a perfect fighter?” “You’re a perfect something,” Marlot said, and Jackal grinned wider. “No. But you don’t fight in a specific way, you just use what you know best, so it makes it difficult for Potentia to show me what you’re going to do wrong.” “If this is so effective, then how do I get beaten up in the pit then?” “Because you want to bed your opponent, and you think letting him beat you will make that happen? I don’t go around looking at everyone.” He groaned at that idea. “I’d never get anything done.” “Which, right now, includes practicing not getting hit. So stop trying to see what I’ll do, and see that I’m doing so you can react to that.” “I fight with a sword.” “Yeah, and how often does it fly out of your hand in a fight?” Tibs glared. “I have offered to teach you archery,” Trembor said. “And the other archers refuse to let him touch a bow,” Marlot replied, “ after your attempts resulted in one of them being hit.” Tibs pushed to his feet. “I apologized.” “Which did little good,” the rogue said, “when you nearly shot another of the Runners.” “Maybe you’re not meant to be a fighter,” Trembor said. “Each team is supposed to have a cleric, and—” “Tibs glared.” “Okay, fine. But then, you have to be the sorcerer, because I don’t think the guild will let us do the runs without a cleric when they finally get here.” “They aren’t going to care so long as there are five of us,” he replied. “Which means we need a sorcerer.” “And you need to learn how to fight.” Jackal’s punch made it past Tibs’s pitiful attempt at a block, and he was on the ground again. He took the fighter’s hand and got to his feet. He readied himself, envisioning what he’d do. When Jackal came at him, he brought the etching into being, and the air between them, which had only had the potential for lightning, erupted with it, sending Jackal flying back. “That’s cheating,” he groaned. Trembor and Marlot hurriedly looked around. “I’m a rogue,” Tibs replied. “It’s what we do.” “No.” Jackal unsteadily got to his feet. “You aren’t anymore. You have to accept that and—” The ground shook. “What was that?” They looked toward the mountain and the dungeon. Could it have caused this? Did dungeons do that? Then thunder sounded. So loud Tibs’s ears rang, and he expected the flash of lightning to come less than a heartbeat later. When it didn’t, and to Runners pointing up with exclamations of surprise and worry, he looked up at the rip in the sky through which darkness poured.