For the next few days, we put ourselves to work. The Rat King had offered us his hospitality, but we hadn't seen much of him at all. He'd given us a single chamber in one of the towers that had a view of the winding body of water they called the Deep River. There was one bunk bed in the room. I took the top bunk, and Ellie took the bottom.
I was starting to really enjoy Ellie's company. She was fun to be around, but whenever I wanted to talk about the real world and the life I had there, she deftly changed the subject. I got the feeling that it wasn't something she wanted to delve into whatsoever.
We were mostly left to our own devices, so we focused on finding out all we could about the missing kid and the Sanguinari.
Despite Dregswyk being a literal pile of garbage, I found myself growing quite fond of this city under the city. The people here were free in a way that the people of Eldin weren't. The Rat King wasn't the only were-rat down here. They were many, and those soldiers we had seen practicing in front of the Trash Palace were a part of his militia. They were more guardians than law enforcement. Folks were mostly left alone unless they were a threat to others.
We asked around in every tavern and halfway house that we could find for any leads that might put us back on the trail of the kid. Once he left the cell in the sewers beneath the Allurian Orphanage it was like the kid disappeared from the face of Crematoria. No-one who saw John's pictograph recognized him. Or if they did, they weren't forthcoming with any information. I used my Persuade ability quite a bit while questioning people, and most of the time they didn't know anything.
My Persuasion secondary attribute kept on rising but had started to slow down a little. Games often made it so that raising your skills at the very beginning was easy, but the higher level you were, the harder it was to raise those stats.
I also hit Level 7 while we adventured and decided to sink the extra point I had into Charisma to help out with the amount of questioning we were doing. After leveling up, my stats looked like this.
Lucas Hutchins
Investigator
Level 7
HP: 180
Strength: 5
Dexterity: 6
Intelligence: 8
Charisma: 7
Perception: 9
Endurance: 6
Resilience: 6
Fortitude: 7
The Rat King had been shaken by the news we had brought to him. That symbol had scared him so much that it had caused him to double the on-duty numbers of his were-rat guards.
It was only when we changed the topic of our questioning that Ellie and I started getting any leads. We stopped asking about the boy and started asking about the symbol.
Nobody knew about the boy, but almost everybody knew about the symbol.
It was an omen of doom.
It was said that if you stumbled across that symbol, someone close to it would disappear. There was no rhyme or reason to who would disappear, but someone would eventually. Even the stray animals that lived down in Dregswyk avoided the marked areas.
Did the symbols denote targets? Did they mark hunting areas? Were they gang marks like the spray tags that covered the alleyways of New York?
A street merchant gave us our first clear clue as to what those symbols might mean.
He was selling an assortment of hand-made trinkets that were spread out on a rough blanket in front of him. Scruffy, smelly and on the streets, he was the kind of person I would have gone out of my way to avoid in the real world.
"Hey there," I said as we approached.
"Ello, Mister! I've a lovely assortment of good luck charms and trinkets available for sale, as you see. Anything take your fancy?" he asked.
"We were hoping to ask you about something. We can pay you for information. Not much, a couple of silvers if your information is good," I said.
"Well, how about I make you a deal. You buy one of my trinkets for a couple of silvers, and I throw the information in for free?" the merchant asked.
I grinned. "You've got yourself a deal. Do you know anything about this symbol?" I showed him the parchment containing the symbol and the scruffy merchant recoiled.
"Deal's off!" he said. "Here's your money! Leave!" He handed the silver back, then looked away from us pointedly and refused to meet our eyes.
"Wait just a minute-" I said, but he didn't let me finish.
"No, you won't trick me like this! I never saw the symbol, so you can't take me!"
I rolled the parchment back up and handed it to Ellie.
"What symbol?" I asked. I activated my Persuade ability. "It's gone. We're not going to hurt you. We're here to get to the bottom of whatever is happening."
It was a lie, but one that was almost a truth. I really wanted to find the kid to be able to finish my quest, but if I could get under the skin of this symbol business, I would.
The street urchin looked at me, then away.
"Please," I said, activating my Persuade ability again. My Concentration Points fell to 50%.
I held out another silver towards him. I hoped that my Persuasion skill was high enough but offering some further compensation might help in tipping the scales in our favor.
The urchin glanced at the coin, then away from us. He drummed his fingers on his stained and torn pants, then as quick as a mongoose struck out and took the silver from my fingers.
"The deal is still on. Pick a charm, talisman or fetish and then we will talk," the urchin said.
"We really don't have to," I said. "You can keep those, and the silver. So you can sell them to someone else. Make some more money, you know?"
"No! We don't talk if you don't take one! That's the deal!" He seemed adamant, so there was nothing more to be done except choose.
"Okay. Ellie? Which one do you think we should pick?"
Ellie looked down at the little trinkets spread out on the rough blanket. Eventually, she settled on a little shell pendant. The bivalve shell had a hole drilled in the wide end, with a thin strip of leather threaded through. When she picked up the shell, the urchin grinned at her with a rotten smile full of black teeth.
"Ah, very good choice! This is a Deep River snail shell I found down by the docks. Very strong, and to find one is very lucky."
Ellie laced the leather strip around her neck. "Lucas, would you mind?" She turned away from me, holding the two ends of the necklace behind her neck.
I swallowed. "Sure," I said as I stepped closer to her.
The knot I tied was basic, but it would hold.
"Any bonuses?" I asked.
"Yeah, plus one to Endurance. That's a nice little boost," she said, turning back towards me with a smile.
"Yeah, that is nice," I said, but I wasn't talking about her necklace. I was talking about her smile.
"What?" she asked as she tucked the necklace under her breastplate.
"Nothing," I lied.
"Now, the information." Ellie's tone was inscrutable. She would not take no for an answer this time.
The street urchin looked about nervously, then motioned for us to come closer. The smell of his breath was horrendous.
"I saw one of them coming from the other place," he whimpered.
"What other place?" I asked.
"The place on the other side of the door. On the other side of that symbol you showed me. You shouldn't just flash that around, you know. It will get you into serious trouble!"
I activated my Persuade ability. My Concentration Points dropped another quarter, down to 28%. I was using the ability faster than my CP was regenerating.
"Focus," I said. "We can't help you unless you tell us exactly what you saw. We can't fight them without your help."
The street urchin took a deep breath, and my Persuasion secondary attribute increased for the first time in a little while. I was a little confused at having both a Persuade ability which I could trigger as well as a secondary attribute called Persuasion. I figured that my ability could give me a direct boost on a specific query, but the secondary ability inc
reased my baseline persuasiveness that allowed me to get my way even without using the triggered ability.
"When they take you, they take you through the doors that they open. This is what people say, even though they should not talk about such things. When that symbol is drawn on a wall or floor or ceiling it can be used by them to open a door to the other place. I don't know what the other place is, but when something goes through, it doesn't come back."
"So they're opening portals somewhere and taking hostages?" I asked.
"Yes. But only they can open the doors. Those that take the blood. No-one else can. Then they take them through."
"Do you know someone who tried to open one?" Ellie asked.
"Yes. He was another merchant. He stayed near one of the doors, waiting for someone to come through from the other side. He wanted to learn their secrets and find a way to steal their power so he could get off the streets. Last we spoke, he said he was close to figuring it out, but I have not seen him since."
"Who? What's his name?" I asked.
The urchin looked at me like I'd asked him to divide by zero. "We don't give names. Better that way. Safer."
I activated my Persuade ability. "What's your name?" I asked.
The urchin just shook his head and looked at me like I'd kicked a puppy. Right, persuasion failed.
"I'm Lucas and this-" I began, but the urchin cut me off.
"No! I don't want to know!"
"All right, all right," I said. There would be no convincing him to give us his name, but perhaps he could give us something better. "This place that your friend was scoping out, could you take us there?"
"Not my friend. Just another poor soul." The urchin didn't answer the question.
"Fine. He wasn't your friend. This person you knew, could you take us to the place he was looking into?"
The street urchin crossed his hands over his chest. "You've already got one bit of information with your trinket. Buy another trinket and I might throw in a guided tour for free."
I couldn't understand the urchin's logic, but there wasn't a damned thing I would have been able to do to change it. "Sure," I said. "I'll take that one."
The trinket I chose was a lapel pin with a small bird's skull attached. I didn't check what bonuses it gave me, if any, I just liked how it looked.
"The eyes of the dead will help keep watch," the urchin said as he handed the pin to me.
Upon inspecting it, I was pleased to discover that it gave me a 5% bonus to all Perception checks.
"This will come in handy," I said as I affixed the pin to my jacket's lapel.
"Let's go, then. Follow me," the street urchin said as he folded all of his wares into the rough cloth they were spread upon and slipped them into a pack that he slung over one shoulder. "Time for a tour."
The street urchin led us far away from where he was selling his trinkets. I did wonder whether he might be leading us into some kind of ambush, but I had no doubt that Ellie and I would be able to defend ourselves if the need arose. As we continued, it became clear that the site at which his not-friend disappeared from was clear across the city from where he had settled. The closer we got, the more terrified he became.
People down here in Dregswyk reminded me of how my family and I lived when I was a kid. Entire families were living in spaces barely big enough for a couple. Kids played in the streets because they had nowhere else to do it. However, despite their poverty, these people still looked happy. Afraid, but happy. It's almost like they didn't realize how bad they had it, but then again, neither did my family, and neither did I. It was just the way it was.
People watched us with suspicion. These tight-knit communities knew the locals and they could smell outsiders. I was conscious of the weapons and armor we wore as we passed through the streets.
"Best to keep your mouth shut around here," the urchin said. "These people have lost many of their loved ones to strangers. They are scared of you."
"Is there anything we can do to convince them we're nothing to fear?" I asked.
The street urchin snorted, whether in amusement or derision I couldn't tell. "You could leave. But that's not going to happen, is it?"
"No. We need answers," Ellie said.
"If we go to the place where they take people to disappear, they might think that you are with them. They may think you're taking me away," the urchin said.
"You can tell them different," I said.
"They will not listen. Those they take go willingly," the urchin said.
I reached out and took the urchin's dirty arm in my hand. "Stop. What do you mean they go willingly?"
The urchin shrugged out of my grip. "Exactly what I said. The strangers somehow convince our people to go with them. Sometimes they resist, and that's when they leave bodies behind, empty and broken. They leave their mark here." The urchin lifted a hand to his neck.
"It's a bite wound, isn't it?" I asked.
The urchin shrugged. "I don't know. What I do know is that the bodies they leave behind are completely drained. They don't leave a drop left."
"Blood?"
"Aye. They take it all. Every last drop."
Images of desiccated husks of bodies drained dry floated in my mind. A cold coil of fear wound through my stomach and up my spine.
Were we dealing with some kind of messed up vampire type creature? Symbols scrawled in blood and bodies left behind completely drained of blood certainly made it sound that way. And that thing about some of the victims going willingly? Vampires could use their glamour to enthrall their victims to lead them to a secluded place to feed. Was that the fate that awaited anyone taken by one of these strangers? To be food for some kind of crazy vampire monster?
The names of the creatures were a dead giveaway.
Mordio had said that Sanguinari meant 'of the blood'.
"Best if we don't linger then," Ellie said.
"Aye. Come," the urchin said, and we forged ahead.
The path that he took us on seemed to double back in on itself more than once. These labyrinthine streets were a nightmare. Strange turns were made necessary by the streets carved out of garbage piles. The streets had to work around the places in which houses and hovels had been carved from the waste.
"We're not far," the urchin said as we left the winding streets and entered a refreshingly straight corridor.
Beggars and street merchants lined the street sporadically.
"This is where I was when I last saw him," the urchin said. "Just down the way, in the prime spot. He came from this same direction that we came, and he wasn't alone. He was with some fellow in fancy clothes. I could tell that this new guy had money. Tailored suit, shiny shoes, and I swear I actually heard the sound of coins clinking in his pockets. He smiled at me as he walked past, and at first, I thought I was a goner too, but he didn't say nothing. The rich man didn't belong down here, and the man I knew looked like he was not all there. He walked next to the man in the suit like he was sleepwalking with his eyes open. I figured people might pay money for some information, so I picked up my pack and followed them. I tried to stay out of sight, and I think I managed it. If he knew what I saw, I think I would have been drained and left like a husk too."
"Where did this man go?" I asked.
"Come, I'll show you."
We continued down the street. I didn't see the alleyways that split off from the main corridor until we passed them. The urchin turned down one of the alleyways on the left, and we followed him. There was barely enough room for two of us to walk abreast, so we had to walk in single file. We turned down an even more cramped passage, and the urchin's pace slowed.
"We're almost there. Looks like the lock's still on the door. Good," the urchin said. "That's how I knew this was a place that this person came often. They had the right key for that lock."
A heavy padlock hung from a short chain that was threaded through two small openings. One in the door, the other in a makeshift hole punched into the wood. There was enough space around the
chain to look inside. I put one hand on the urchin's chest and motioned for him to let me go ahead. He nodded silently and I headed forward.
Ellie slammed Paragon's Might down on the lock, which shattered.
The door swung inward.
Chapter Thirty-Two
The Crimson Order
The symbol was drawn onto the far wall of the hovel. Judging by the rust-colored stain, the symbol had been there on the wall for some time. Ellie held Paragon's Might in one hand and her shield in the other, ready to respond to any threats. My hand sat on the grip of my flintlock pistol. No immediate attack came, and we both visibly relaxed. I looked behind us for the urchin, but he was gone. He had fled in fear.
I swung the door closed behind us and moved a heavy chest of drawers to block it closed. If anyone else tried to enter from the street, they wouldn't be able to do it without alerting us of their arrival.
"Do you smell that?" Ellie asked.
I breathed in deeply through my nose. "Yeah, I do. What is that? Flowers?"
There was a table in the middle of the room and sitting on its center was a large clay vase filled with a variety of fresh-cut flowers.
"The Sanguinari like flowers?" I asked.
"Strange. This isn't the lair of some gross inhuman monster, is it?"
"No," I said. "No, it isn't."
The more I looked around the room the stranger it felt. Everything was organized so nicely. The shelves that lined the walls were covered with books, and the chaise lounge to one side of the room had a small throw blanket draped over the center. There was another small clay vase on the small table next to the chaise with another freshly cut flower.
The kitchenette towards the back of the house had pots and pans immaculately stacked inside each other. There was a large plate, small plate and a bowl stacked on top of each other too, with a fresh apple sitting in the bowl. Pots and pans hung from hooks in the ceiling, all hanging in a circle, and all facing in the same direction.
"I don't know what I expected, but it wasn't this," Ellie said.
I shook my head in disbelief. It was like we'd busted into the home of somebody's Mom. Somebody's Mom who just happened to kidnap people from the streets and send them through some kind of portal to another realm.
Rise of the Crimson Order: A Crematoria Online LitRPG Novel Page 26