by Albion, Rex
“Stay alert, there’s something down here and we may have to fight. Are you both ready?” Jill whispered. Vandal and Roxy nodded, and the shaman powered up her buffs. Jill turned to her, eyes wide and grinned. “Thanks.”
Then she headed out into the tunnel, Vandal a few paces behind. The stench was worse, but he was starting to get used to it enough that he could ignore it. He’d kill for a spell that would negate it entirely though.
Jill moved slowly, her footsteps patient and careful. The river of effluent oozed past them, and Vandal was surprised to see how innocuous it looked most of the time. Somehow, he’d expected something the consistency of a mudslide, but it wasn’t nearly so bad. What he hadn’t expected was all the branches, leaves, and other detritus that must have worked its way in through drains in the streets, unless the people of New Albion were even less responsible with what they put down the toilet.
Presently, they came to a junction, a crossroads and he’d imagined such things would be like two rivers crossing and you’d work your way from corner to corner to navigate them. Perhaps leaping over the stream and doing your best not to fall in. Instead, the builders had created a square platform that joined their paths at the corners with short steps. The effluent streams flowed through big arches below it.
That was where they found the source of the animal noises they’d heard earlier, or at least, the source of some of them. Two giant rats were atop the platform, and were squabbling over something fleshy and filthy, tugging it back and forth between them as their enormous teeth took chunks out of it.
Jill didn’t stop, she moved straight up onto the platform, ready to attack and Vandal followed, going right when she went left.
Roxy casts Imbue Strength on Vandal +2 Damage + 2 Strength
Roxy casts Imbue Strength on Jill +2 Damage +2 Strength
“I should come in here with clerics more often!” said, Jill, enthusiastically.
The rats squealed and hissed, darting forward to attack Jill and Vandal, but they managed to fend them off with their shields. Vandal was glad that the platform was relatively dry, and he had a good footing. It was only inches higher than the paths but falling off could only lead you into some serious shit, after all and that was presuming you didn’t crack your head open.
Jill’s next attack brought the left-hand rat down to low health, so Vandal cried out, “Roxy, finish that one!” as he attacked the right hand rat to keep its attention on him. If he could avoid killing it until he could do a finishing move, that would be best for their experience growth.
Hack: 8 damage!
Hack applies Numbing!
Giant Rat bites you for 3 damage!
Whirling Decapitation! You spin around and lop the head from your opponent!
Vandal managed to get his target down with a finishing move, but he hadn’t explained that to Jill and she just went all out at the rat she was fighting, which made sense as a professional Sewer Fighter she just wanted to kill everything as quickly as possible. It was going to die before Roxy could get an angle to finish it, which was wasteful.
Vandal swiftly thought of a new plan, and leapt at the rat, as high as he could, coming down with his sword pointed directly at the unusual rodent’s skull. The tip pierced the crown of its head right above the eyes, slipping through the brain and stopping only when it hit the stone of the platform.
You killed two Giant Rats (lvl 2). 20XP
New Finishing Move: You have unlocked a new finishing move, Impaling Leap! 100 XP!
“Flashy, but effective,” Jill commented, as she began the grim work of harvesting materials from the corpses.
“It’s more than just style for us, Jill,” Vandal explained. “Finishing moves like that improve the experience we gain from killing enemies.” He was pleased to see that the bonus you got for acquiring a new finishing move went up with your level. It had been fifty experience points at level one but was now a full hundred, meaning it didn’t immediately become trivial as he needed more experience for each subsequent level.
“Really? How much more?”
“About a tenth more,” Vandal said, not being quite sure how the locals levelled up. It might be quite different.
“The Awoken have many strange abilities, but I didn't know that particular one. I wish that we could benefit from them, but for us locals, there aren’t bonuses for things like that. Most of my experience is from completing bounties, and the actual kill experience isn’t as important,” Jill replied. “We do get more for being in a group, but the biggest benefit is being able to tackle more dangerous bounties.”
“That doesn’t seem fair,” Roxy said.
“Life isn’t fair. But it doesn’t matter. If you want to get better as a Sewer Fighters, you come down here in a group and do as many bounties as you can as quickly as you can. That’s the fastest way to improve,” Jill said. “Ten per cent more experience from the kills themselves wouldn’t hurt but it’s hardly worth me losing sleep over. If you don’t want this stuff for yourselves, I’ll hand it in to the guild and you can have the credit toward your bounties.”
“No, you keep it, Jill,” Roxy said. “We’re better off getting credit toward bounties right now than worrying about what we could craft with this stuff.”
“You can always buy the ingredients back from the guild anyway, if you have a use for them,” Jill agreed. “That depends on whether you have more money or time, really. Most people sell the remains of the monsters, and collect bounties then buy ingredients if they need them for crafting. It’s only worth keeping the things you get from rare monsters, and then only if you’ll use them.”
“We have plenty of time, but haven’t done much with our crafting yet, we’re really just starting out.”
“Once you level up in the Guild, you’ll get discounts anyway. It’s only the really rare ingredients that would be a problem for you to buy, and that’s just because they sell out. Giant rat teeth? We have barrels full,” Jill chuckled. “We only buy them because there’s a bounty paid by the town and it’s the easiest way to administrate proving that someone got some kills. Ready to move on?”
“I’m good,” Vandal said. Handing in the teeth of rodents was just a mechanic the game used for more immersion, but he wasn’t going to tell Jill about that. At least there was a monetary reward for doing it.
“Which way?” asked Roxy.
“This way,” Jill said, pointing toward the right tunnel from the direction they’d come. “Vandal, you take that side and protect Roxy, I’ll take the left-hand path. Stay a couple of places behind me so I can get the drop on anything, right?”
“Understood,” Vandal said, and he left the platform to move forward as she asked. There wasn’t much they could do given the layout of the tunnels, but Jill obviously knew the best way to prepare for encounters.
They moved down the corridor in that formation and although Vandal heard some more squeaks and distant noises, they didn’t encounter more giant rats. He saw a few normal rats, which were still the size of ferrets as far as he was concerned, but they weren’t threatening and made off into the darkness the moment the group came near.
The next junction had them going off to the left and Jill said, this would take them where they wanted to go. Most of the distance had been covered above ground, so it wasn’t complicated to reach. Vandal could already tell he’d be lost down here until his mini-map filled in. If they didn’t have that, he wouldn’t be able to get around Tinshire at all yet and would constantly be asking for directions to places he’d already been.
If they'd tried to walk all the way from the Sewer Fighter's guild, they’d have become lost very quickly, let alone having to worry about the monsters. Even with the mini-map though, it was limited. He’d noted something that wasn’t the case above ground. The explored areas didn’t stay visible once you moved away. They were still explored but if you couldn’t see or hear it, you weren’t getting updates. Perhaps that was just because outdoors, you had greater viewing distance.
He hadn’t noticed it when he first explored the temple though, maybe it was different for the Tinshire Sewers area for some reason?
“Jill, is it all like this?” Vandal asked, gesturing at the walls.
“Yes, some bits are older than others,” she replied.
“Are there any areas we can’t go to?” Vandal asked.
“Make sure you check at the Guild. Don’t go exploring or you’ll run into something you can’t handle, even in a group,” Jill warned.
“But no areas that are unexplored or unknown to the Guild?” Vandal pressed.
“We can talk about that another time, we’re almost where you wanted to go,” Jill said. Her response seemed somewhat cagey to Vandal, but he wasn’t going to push it. He did want to discuss it with Roxy though. This might be a good place to explore at some point. Was there some secret the Guild didn’t want even the Awoken to know? Or was it just that there were dangerous beasts they should avoid at their level?
“Sure, no problem,” Vandal said.
“Here we are,” Jill said. They were at another crossroad, only the tunnel directly opposite them, heading north, was blocked by bars that went from floor to ceiling through the effluent. There was a locked gate on one side.
On the other side of the bars the effluent was obstructed by some refuse that had worked its way into the sewers and was pressed against them.
“This is the tunnel from the mansion then? It’s a lot bigger than I expected,” Roxy said.
“Yeah, you could lay just a pipe but then it would get blocked easily and digging it up at all is a big part of the cost. At least this way you pay more but it can be cleared out.”
“What are the bars for though?” Roxy asked. “They just seem to make it easy for stuff to get backed up.”
“The owners insisted on it, saying their wife was afraid of the giant rats getting in. They can hire us to come down and clear it, if need be,” Jill said.
“So, you just open up the gate and move that stuff out of the way?” Vandal asked.
Jill fished her keys out her pocket and unlocked the door. “It’s a standard lock, so if we need to get in, we can.” She unslung her pack and fished around inside it, pulling out a few lengths of what looked like broom handles. They screwed together and the final one had a decent sized hook on it.
“Now I can clear this out for them, might as well while I’m down here,” Jill said. She pulled at the pile of rubbish, which looked like scraps of hessian and a few sticks or branches and broke it up a bit. Then she hooked a different portion and gave it a couple of vigorous pulls. A large chunk of the conglomeration came away and Roxy yelped in surprise as she saw the grisly secret revealed.
Rose had already flopped the thing up on the path in front of her before she gasped and took a step back. It was a ribcage and a gleaming white skull. The portion that had been underwater had been clean compared to the legs and dress above water. The bones clearly showed through the scraps of cloth.
“Fuck me,” Jill spat. “At least she’s skeletonised. Two-week-old floaters are the worst.”
“She?” Roxy whispered.
“Looks like it was a dress to me. Nasty find on your first day, but people sometimes find a way into the sewer somehow, through a drain or something. The rats will clean the body quickly. You can see the bite marks on the bones,” Jill said, as if this wasn’t a regular enough thing that it wasn’t any real surprise to her.
Vandal looked at Roxy, and she looked just as sceptical at Jill’s explanation as he was feeling. After all, they knew what these people were like. They’d thrown someone in the sewer after doing who knows what kind of horrific thing to her before murdering her.
“The shit is flowing smoothly now anyway,” Jill said, gesturing at the stream as she locked the door. “I’ll have to come back with a sack another time to collect her, poor thing.”
“Oh blessed, Amoria, grant his poor soul your love in the afterlife,” Roxy said. Jill hung her head as she said, the brief prayer.
“That was nice, Priestess.”
“I thought we should say something, even if we don’t know who she might have followed,” Roxy said.
“Come, let’s go back to the guild and get you all sorted out, shall we?”
Vandal would have preferred to finish a bounty, but they’d need ten rats for that and it might take a while. They’d achieved their main goal, of finding the passage that led to the estate. Now they could come back and explore when they wanted, if they could just get past the lock.
“So, Jill. How do we get keys so we can come back?”
“Eager to kill more rats, eh?”
“You could say that.”
Chapter Forty-Six
“There you go, there’s your Apprentice keys,” Jill said, handing them each a keyring with two cast iron keys on it.” They’d proved they weren’t entirely useless in the tunnels and could do as instructed so she’d said, it was fine for them to be formally approved as Sewer Fighter's at the apprentice level.
“Thanks,” Vandal said.
“Where can we use these?” Roxy asked.
Jill led them through to the room that held the Guilds bounty board and showed them a series of maps. One large one showed the general layout of the sewers. Smaller ones gave more details. Vandal noted that some areas of the large-scale map were blank and tunnels at the corners were marked with an ominous looking skull and crossbones symbol. He’d talk to Roxy about that later.
“Notice anything about your keys?” Jill asked.
“The top of one is shaped like an apple?” Roxy said.
“A is for apples, and for apprentices,” Jill said. She gestured at the maps which showed the area they’d just returned from. One was a map of the streets and one a map of the sewers. The gate they’d entered was marked with an A on the map.
“The gate. It had an apple fashioned into the ironwork, didn’t it? I thought it was just decoration,” Vandal said.
“No, it’s a simple way for you to see which key matches which door, right?” Roxy asked.
“Correct. Your key will open only the doors that have an apple on them,” Jill said.
“What about the other key?” Vandal asked, inspecting the second key which was much less complicated.
“That opens locks without any marking. Like the grate that poor woman was behind. Stuff that everyone needs access to. But you must swear to lock all gates, and never leave them open or unattended. Gates are there for a reason,” Jill said.
“We swear it, we’ll make sure they’re safe,” Vandal said.
“Good, because it doesn’t just prevent kids from getting in, it stops other things from getting out, you know?” Jill said. “Most people get it, but any Sewer Fighter who doesn’t, gets kicked out before they make Journeyman.”
“Understood, Jill,” Roxy agreed.
“Also, don’t go wandering outside the boundaries marked. If you look here and see a J for Journeyman marked on the map, you don’t want to be in that area. So, check the maps before you head into the sewers,” Rose said.
“How do we make it to journeyman?” Vandal asked. He wanted to make sure they could level up through the guild if it turned out to be valuable. It was certainly going to be more interesting than forestry.
“Carry out bounties. Read the guide I gave you. When you’re ready, you’ll receive a quest to complete to prove it, but you have to earn enough Guild Reputation through bounties first.”
“So, we can’t go in the Journeyman areas at all?” Roxy asked.
“Not can’t, there’s nothing to stop you wandering into them, so use your common sense but don’t try. If you don’t come back, we’ll find your body down there and know you didn’t heed the warning,” Jill said. “When you are more powerful, you could go with a guild group. But you don’t want to be in the journeyman areas, with just two people whatever you do. Five rats would have been manageable, but twenty would have eaten us, right?”
“Right. Bigger monst
ers, more of them, too many for apprentices to handle,” Vandal said. “I can’t say that being eaten by giant rats is appealing. We’ll be good.”
“Your keys have one apple. Complete some bounties, and you’ll get your first key with two apples soon enough,” Jill said.
“There’s more than one rank within the apprentice level then?” Roxy asked.
“Yes, for all levels of mastery within the guild. Two apples indicates bigger, more dangerous monsters or more of the bastards. Again, go above ground to the area you want to visit and use the closest gate. If that’s got two apples on it, you either need more people or to be more powerful,” Jill said. “Don’t worry about that though, you just stick to the rivers of shit and tunnels that you’re used to. Don’t go chasing shitfalls.”
“Shitfalls? Is that like…” Vandal began. It felt like he was being fed some developer's favourite inside joke. He could picture a serene forest waterfall suddenly turning brown when the humans set up camp above it and screwed his face up. He hadn’t seen the river downstream of Tinshire but suspected it wasn’t drinkable at all. Perhaps that was a little too much realism.
“A waterfall made of shit? Yes. Sometimes a tunnel will collapse into a cave, and create what the Masters charmingly call a shitfall. Exploring that cave could be the death of you so report it if you find one. Apprentices who climb into them, don’t come back,” Jill warned.
“You’re saying if we’re in the sewers, we shouldn’t jump into any caves that are being flooded with excrement and might be full of monsters,” Roxy giggled.
“You would be amazed at how apprentices choose to die,” Jill laughed. “But I swear, we really do have to warn them not to do that. There’s a bounty for reporting a new shitfall though. Then we escort masons in to plug the gap. That’s a good bounty day.”