Breaking Step (Dungeon Runner 3)

Breaking Step, Chapter 64

The doors swung in hard enough under Jackal's push they hit the walls with an echoing 'boom'.

"We're here," he announced as he stepped into the boss room, dusting his hands off.

"He knows I've been following your progress, right?" Sto asked, and Tibs simply shrugged. The dungeon should be used to the fighter's antics by now.

"We do this the same as last time?" Jackal asked, turning to them. "Fight this first group, then you and Don work out how to not trigger the next attacks?"

"And if we can't," Tibs replied, "we blast those, too. We know what to expect, and I don't have to hold back this time."

"This raises a question for me," Don said. "Why have you been holding back in the previous fights? You said that your life essence flows through the creatures the dungeon makes. Why not just drain them? It would have made all these fights easier."

"Boring, you mean," Jackal said.

"Me and Sto have an arrangement," Tibs said. "I don't use my element to win fights, and he doesn't make things so hard no other team can survive."

"They can do that?"

Tibs shrugged. "He's the dungeon. He can do anything he wants here."

"What about those rules you said he needs to follow? What I got from how you talked about them, and the run, is that they're there in part to keep them from killing everyone outright, since they exist to force us to grow stronger."

"But if he uses us as the criteria to set how strong a team is, he's going to be justified in making it ever harder until we're the only ones able to survive."

"Alright, then how do they account for all your elements? That makes you the equivalent of multiple people on a team, if not multiple teams."

Tibs looked up.

"We're still figuring that one out," Ganny replied. "This is the first time you've used multiple elements consistently on a run."

"But," Sto added, "it isn't like you're good with any other than water. You're basically Upsilon with all of them, except—"

"I'd say Rho," Ganny interrupted. "Just from the raw volume of essence he can use."

"But they're going to be on the fourth floor soon, and that's going to balance things."

"But," Ganny said, "if you overdo it on this floor, we are going to have to make changes."

"They're working on it," he told Don. "But I'm not good enough with most of my elements to have much of an effect, and they don't think it will have any once we're on the fourth floor."

Don nodded. "Meaning that if we linger on this floor as you get more skilled, we're going to be causing everyone else problems."

"Two things," Jackal stated. "I say, let it bring on the harder fights, so long as the loot increases to match. And who is even thinking of us staying on this floor after we clear this room? I want the good loot, and that's going to be on the next floor, so how about we set on clearing this room so we can go and see it?"

"That's three things," Mez said.

Jackal counted on his fingers. "Two. Clearing the room isn't a thing. It's what's happening now." He stepped over the activation threshold, and the mass of creatures rushed them.

* * * * *

Tibs skewered a golem person, a fighter wielding water, and looked around. The last of the attackers crumbled to rubble, and anywhere one had fallen and they'd moved away as they fought. All that was left were a few silvers, or small jewelry.