by Albion, Rex
“I’m sure we’d want some storage, but I do see this could be excessive,” Roxy agreed.
“That’s not even the mad bit. See this here? This is the stuff my lads and I did in the foundations. Normally, a house like this we mostly work on gargoyles and fireplaces and fortified walls. Stuff that requires a master mason to make it look good and strong and get the carving right,” Arnold said. “I’m not losing anyone, right?”
“No, I understand, I think. You deal with the most skilled parts, and I’m guessing stones for the foundation aren’t usually what you do?”
“That’s apprentice work really. Shaping a stone block to be square, is a skill for younger lads, overseen by the journeymen. Takes years to become reliable at work like that, before you’re ready to chisel away at something for the pure beauty of it. You can’t just paint over it. Once you chisel off something you shouldn't, your statue just doesn’t have a nose,” Arnold chuckled.
“Is it full of statues then?”
“Maybe, but this area here, it’s a big stone lined chamber and a chimney for a fireplace to heat it, that goes right up through the house under the great hall’s chimney. Big enough for three sweeps to climb it. Who wants all that fancy carving in an underground room with no windows, eh? I daresay you’d do well with a house like this for the bits above ground, M’Lady. You could fit a lot of guests into such accommodation but why, you could practically put the temple itself underground in a grand space like we built him,” Arnold sighed. “Such a waste that nothing but his guards and delivery lads would ever see it.”
“That does seem wasteful. Tell me, what’s this passage going south?” Roxy said, pointing to a large underground passage that if Vandal was understanding things might be a level below the main cellar, which sounded like exactly the sort of place they were looking for.
Arnold blushed. “Oh, you don’t want to mind your pretty head about that.”
“I must though. Does it lead to another cellar? Perhaps somewhere to store less desirable goods than the wine or beer?” Roxy asked.
Arnold almost choked as he laughed. “Begging your pardon but after a fashion, less desirable goods would be about right. That’s a sewer. You wouldn’t need that though, if you were building out in the country because there wouldn’t be anything to connect it to.”
Vandal caught Roxy’s raised eyebrow. “But that one is connected? To what?”
“Why, to Tinshire’s sewers of course, and an expensive luxury that was too.”
“But that tunnel looks like it must be three feet wide. Surely even if they eat a lot, that’s more than you’d need,” Roxy giggled. “Maybe there is such a thing as too much roughage in the diet?”
“Hah. I can tell I didn’t need to worry about you getting all squeamish about bodily functions, Priestess.”
“Amoria expects us to be comfortable with bodily functions, Arnold,” Roxy said, patting his hand softly. “Although not these ones thankfully. Our domain is more pleasurable than this.”
Arnold swallowed hard. “Yes. Well. The sewer is actually seven feet tall and six feet wide, all the way to town.”
“Six feet? That’s big enough to walk down.”
“Exactly right,” Arnold said. Much more comfortable now he was talking about sewage and not other bodily matters. “People think you just need a pipe, like for those fancy indoor garderobes that people have these days. But the Sewer Fighter's need to get down those tunnels to clear blockages and maintain them. They’re brick and not stone of course, mostly. They have to be sturdy to last centuries, or else you pay twice as much digging up a pipe that’s burst, see?”
“So, they had to dig a tunnel all the way back into town?”
“Yes, fearsomely expensive but it all gets flushed away into the river, nice and clean that way so if you’ve got the money, it’s not so expensive in the long run. Cheaper than decades of paying someone to dispose of your nightsoil,” Arnold shrugged.
Vandal desperately wanted to bring up the subject of pollution, sewage in the drinking water for the city and general hygiene but decided against it. “What an impressive feat of engineering, I imagine that must be.”
“It is. The Sewer Fighters even take people on tours. Not that you’d want to be in there of course but they offer bounties for keeping the place free of Jellied Dodecahedrons and Giant Rats,” Arnold said.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know what that is,” Vandal confessed.
Completely straight-faced, Arnold looked at him with a frown. “Well, it’s a rat, right? Only. It’s really big,” he said, holding his hands as far apart as he could. “Of unusual size, you see?”
Everyone else laughed at his expense, and Vandal just had to take it until finally Arnold burst out laughing too. The old man calmed down and waved his hands. “No, no, I’m only teasing, son. I know what you were really asking, about the Dodecahedrons. I can’t even describe them, except to say they’re possessed of a fearsome geometry about it.”
Roxy laughed. “There must be a lot of sides to that description.”
“You studied mathematics then?” Arnold laughed. “Seriously though, I think they have a painting of one of the foul beasts in the Sewer Fighters Guild. Just remember to go and buy some posies from the Gardeners before you visit their hall. They try to keep it clean, but the Jacks and Jills can’t smell much of anything. Best to stay upwind, if you catch my drift, and you surely don’t want to catch theirs!”
“Jacks?” said, Roxy.
“An old nickname for the sewer fighters. From the nursery rhyme. The pail of water is supposed to be to wash away the stench of their work, you see?” said, Arnold. “Being a sewer fighter is a vital profession to be sure, but hardly one to make you socially popular, or fragrant.”
“How much would something like this cost our congregation, Arnold,” Vandal asked.
Arnold pondered that for a moment, “Well, without enough storage for a whole brewery and all the nonsense and a sewer tunnel. My guess will probably be a bit out of date. I know I don’t look old enough, but I’m retired, you see?” He puffed up his chest proudly as if he was revealing a secret about his age, and it wasn’t readily apparent. Then he grabbed a nearby pad and scribbled some figures on it, passing the estimate to Vandal.
Vandal whistled as if hugely shocked by the figure.
“See? I don’t think you want quite this sort of thing. Perhaps you should look around at the inns and pubs in town. Then come and see our architects and start with a budget of what you might afford. Build something a bit more modest like a coaching inn, with a bit of fortification but nothing too outrageous. Nearer the city it’ll be fairly safe anyway. You can always build something grand a few years down the line,” Arnold suggested helpfully.
“Thank you, Arnold,” Roxy said, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek. “You’ve been so helpful.”
Arnold blushed and looked quite beside himself with pleasure. “Thank you for listening to an old codger ramble on, young lady. I miss talking shop and sitting in the pub with these two pickaxe swingers isn’t half as interesting as they think it is. Between you and me, there’s a big difference between digging up lumps of rock and bringing them to life with nothing more than a chisel and a mallet.”
“I heard that, you cheeky bugger,” Ricky growled.
“Yeah, just because Ricky’s been hit in the head with so many pickaxes, he doesn’t know what season it is most of the time, doesn’t mean he’s boring,” Bert laughed.
“Too right. Everyone knows Bert is the boring one, anyway,” Ricky groused.
“Well, once you’ve had your liver, kidney and beetroot pie, Ricky, maybe Marjoram will let you go to the pub to discuss it with Bert and Arnold?” Vandal said. He fished in his pocket and offered up a few silvers. “That should be enough to get you all a few rounds, yes? Just a small thank you for your time and help.”
Arnold wasn’t shy about snatching the money, “Why thank you, young man. I wasn’t expecting to be compensated for a few old
stories, but I shan’t turn down a few ales on your tab and I’ll need them to listen to Ricky and Bert’s fascinating yarns for the thousandth time.”
Vandal laughed and shook the man’s hand, finding his grip was still like iron, though he could easily have been seventy if he was a day.
“It’s a deal, Arnold.”
Chapter Forty-Three
They left the old men chatting away, after getting directions to the Sewer Fighter's guild which was far up the street, where the less popular and well-off guilds were found.
It wasn’t hard to find, and much to Vandal’s amusement and Roxy’s revulsion, their sign was augmented by the stuffed and mounted head of an unusually sized rodent. The goblin shuddered and hurried through the doorway, so she didn’t have to look at it.
“I can’t say I’m upset not to have to look at that anymore,” she said, looking back over her shoulder to talk to him.
Vandal’s enormous grin must have given something away and she whipped her head around in time to give a squeal of disgust and horror as they entered the two-storey entrance hallway of the guild. There was a grand wooden staircase opposite them, which swept up to the left and right, into landings that went around the perimeter of the square hallway. On both floors, the walls were festooned with trophies, the most common style of which appeared to be the stuffed and mounted heads or skulls of giant rats. Judging by those gruesome things, the giant rat was less the size of a terrier, and more the size of a wild boar.
If Roxy hadn’t been green by default, Vandal was pretty sure that would have made her so. “Revolting,” she muttered. Vandal had to agree, though the heads didn’t bother him he could definitely smell a pretty rank odour. He was about to suggest they go and buy posies from Flora when a young woman in tight leather trousers and a jerkin appeared in front of them.
“Can I help you?” she asked brightly.
“Yes, we were wondering about getting a tour of the sewers. Arnold at the mason’s guild said you might be able to offer one?” Vandal asked.
“We do give tours. Once a week to the safer parts of the sewers only for tourists,” the woman said. Then she frowned. “But my, you’re both Clerics! Where are my manners? My name is Gillian. But everyone calls me Sewer Jill.”
“Well, I’m Vandal Lionheart and this is Roxy Lickspring, and yes we are clerics.”
“Pleased to meet you, Jill,” Roxy said.
“Are you sure you want to go down there? It’s not too fragrant you know, and a little dangerous, it’s not a fitting place for a cleric, really. Mostly the people who want to go are warriors and hunters, to see the horrible beasties that sometimes spawn in the depths under the town,” Jill explained, delivering her patter with a style that suggested she’d had a lot of practice. No doubt it helped sell more tickets if they tried to make it sound a lot more interesting than it would be. After all, whatever else you saw down there, it was still a sewer.
“We heard there are sometimes bounties too?” Roxy said.
“And that you might have a picture of a Jelly Dodo. Dododeck,” said Vandal before sighing and giving up. “That thing, Roxy, what was it called?”
“A jellied dodecahedron,” Roxy said, covering her nose with her hand after she’d spoken.
Jill grinned, and reached in her pocket. “Strong mints?” she said, offering out a packet. Roxy and Vandal both took one each and it did help a bit, although Vandal wasn’t sure the burning sensation in his nostrils hadn’t just changed to what you’d experience if you laughed and snorted toothpaste up the back of your nostrils, instead of the rancid smell of crap.
“You two should get posies if you’re going in the sewers, if you can’t stand the smell in here. We do our best but downstairs there’s always someone tracking stuff through without even using the boot scrapers. That’s why there’s no carpet on this floor,” Jill laughed and beckoned them to follow her into a side room.
Where she showed them that they kept a bounty board and an enormous oil painting depicting half a dozen guild members, fighting what looked like a globe made of purple jelly. Only it wasn’t quite a proper sphere, because it was made of angular faces of the same size. Vandal squinted at it and then light dawned.
“It’s a twelve-sided die!” he blurted out.
Sewer Jill looked at him askance, with a raised eyebrow and everything. Then she shrugged, and said, “It’s a Jellied Dodecahedron. It’s got twelve sides, but you can’t roll it like a die.”
“Excuse him. That’s just the name for them where he comes from,” Roxy fibbed.
“That makes sense, though it’s a bit of a mouthful, ‘twelve-sided die’ and not that imaginative. Although you likely will die if you try and fight one, so don’t do that. As far as we know, there aren’t any in the sewers at the moment, thankfully.”
“Are they always that big?” Vandal said.
“Yes, but they are only fast in short bursts, so if you see one and get out of the way quickly, you can outrun it.”
“How short a burst?” Roxy asked.
“About fifteen yards?” the girl said.
“That must be a sight to see.”
“Not twice though,” the girl said, as if she was speaking to two slow-witted people. She didn’t seem quite sure they were getting the message. “You can only kill them with fire, some chemicals and magic.”
“Can I ask why the people in the picture are using swords then?”
“If you can slice them into pieces, and not get swallowed whole, you can sell the smaller chunks to alchemists. They can dissolve all sorts of things with them so a whole Dodecahedron is quite valuable. Are you on your way to a temple, somewhere?”
“We will be once we’re done in town, but we are here for a little while longer,” Vandal said.
“We don’t have a temple of Amoria in Tinshire, you know,” The girl said. “I bet there’d be loads of worshippers around here who’d love to have one. Perhaps you could put in a good word? It’s kind of boring here a lot of the time and an Amorian temple would certainly liven things up.”
“Do you think so?” Roxy asked.
“Yes, of course. That’s why I do this job. I get to go down in the sewers and that’s about as exciting as it gets around here. Not the sewage, the monsters,” Jill explained. “None of the other temples are all that appealing to me. The god of axes and forestry? The god of mining?”
“I can see why those don’t excite you much,” Roxy grinned. “Is there no god for the sewer fighters?”
“A god of dried flowers, potpourri and nose plugs would be very popular, I’m sure, but as far as I’m aware none of the gods of the pantheon are particularly relevant to our trade. Perhaps they look at us with as much disdain as other people do? Even the gong farmers look down on us,” Jill grumbled.
“Gong farmers?” Vandal asked, feeling like something was being lost in translation.
“Night soil men,” Jill said, as if that cleared it all up.
“They come and empty your latrine and shovel up the horse manure and take it all away in wagons. It being ‘gong’ and farming being making something out of it,” Roxy giggled.
“I suppose you don’t have sewers and gong farmers wherever barbarians are from, eh?” Jill said, sympathetically.
“No, not really. But we don’t have giant rats either,” Vandal said.
“The giant rats aren’t a problem really, the Rat Catcher’s Guild takes care of a lot of them. Although we deal with them when we encounter them.”
“Good to know. We won’t have to fight giant rats then. Just the Jellied Dodecahedron and its ilk,” Vandal smirked.
“No, I mean, giant rats are only about as big as a small dog. You have to fight them, they just aren’t dangerous unless you let them swarm you,” Jill explained. “It’s the Boar Rats you have to be wary of.”
“Boar rats? What are they?” Roxy asked while Vandal did his best not to choke on something.
“Rats the size of wild boar, that can grow to the size of a bear.
They are quite quick and hard to defeat because they fill most of an average tunnel which means you can’t flank them easily, unless you catch them in a crossroads. Plus, they often have others of their kind around, and the biggest of all are the Titanic Rats,” Jill said. “Look, here’s a painting of one.”
Jill led them down the hall and showed them two paintings. One depicting several Boar Rats facing off against sewer fighters, and one of a Titanic Rat being fended off with a halberd. Another fighter’s halberd had already been bitten in half. Scaled up so the rodent’s teeth were over a foot long, the Titanic Rat became truly terrifying.
“Bugger me, it's huge!” Roxy exclaimed.
“About the size of a larger bear, usually, although they take a while to grow that big,” said, Jill.
“Are they common down there?” asked Roxy.
“No, as long as we keep clearing them out. The Giant Rats are most common, and more likely to come above ground. Thankfully the Boar Rats aren’t exactly common, but they do spawn quite regularly,” Jill said. “We rarely have to deal with the Titanic rats though, and when one is found, we just pray to our gods that we can escape and come back with a proper group to deal with it.”
“So, the Sewer Fighter’s mostly deal with Boar Rats down below?”
“The giant rats too, but the rat catchers keep them in check above ground. Thankfully the Boars and Titanics haven’t been seen above ground that I know of, although there are fairy tales of them, and much worse rat monsters being unleashed above ground,” said, Rose cheerfully.
“What the hell is that?” Vandal blurted out, as he saw the next painting.
“That’s a Sewer Octowocky. It’s a cross between an octopus and a jabberwocky, created by unholy magic. They live in the deepest sections of the sewers and they’re a little dangerous,” Jill said. This seemed like understatement if the artist’s impression was accurate. It had tentacles wrapped around two unfortunate sewer fighters and had already crushed one from hips to shoulders. The other was about to have his head bitten off, while more shot crossbows and magic into the beast.