For defeating your enemies, you receive 67 XP!
LEVEL UP!
Congratulations!
Your Alchemist is now Level 7!
+1 to Endurance
+1 to one of the skills:
>Alchemy< Sneak - Dash
Zack’s ears were ringing badly. His Wolfskin Armor was still somewhat on fire, at least decoratively speaking, and the stench of burning canine pelt was incredible. The room was filled with acrid smoke now, and the rest of the NPC attackers were lost in it for a moment, shouting and running into each other, blind to the targets standing right in front of them.
“The drain! The drain!” Zack shouted, pointing in case AliceX was also shell-shocked and disoriented. She seemed to understand; at least she closed in on the grate in the floor along with him. To his dismay, the intricately forged metal grating seemed to be intact, and remained in place.
Zack stopped in one place, discouraged, and yet AliceX, as much an FPS girl as ever, pushed him further so he stepped on the drain along with her. CRRRRREEEEAK, moaned the grating under their combined weight, followed by a thunderous CRACK.
The next moment, the two of them were tumbling down, through a mossy stone pipe, and through another rusty grating which also collapsed. And down, down, down the hole again, which seemed to be engineered at first and then turned into a natural-looking underground pass of some kind, then a pipe again. And finally, first Zack, then Elven girl crashed into a faintly lit round corridor half-flooded with murky waters.
Greenish light seemed to seep from somewhere above, and water was splashing everywhere, waves reflected on the stony tubular vaults running into each other in right angles. The stale air smelled of moss and wet stone.
“Where are we?” Zack asked.
“In the Sewers,” AliceX said. “It’s a hideout. And a punishing mode of commotion for those criminals who have to enter or exit Sanctuary hiding from the guard. Like I have to do now, for example. Thank you so much, little brother. Now I’m wanted throughout the entire Human capital, and the guardsmen will attack me on sight, until the next respawn.”
“At least you can respawn,” Zack said.
To much of his comfort, they soon made it out of the water and onto the hard paved curb, a narrow walkway along the sewers’ walls. The air was still damp and stale, and the cobblestones slimy, but at least Zack didn’t feel wet anymore. Zack thought of how many times he had to wade or swim through water in videogames – acid, even! – and how thankful he should have been those games did not present him with this level of immersion. He envied Alice, who seemed totally okay with wading through the cold slimy muck, and only stepped out of it to be able to travel faster.
She kicked a round mossy rock, and it rolled, then splashed back into water, and turned out to be not a rock but an empty human skull, a floating thing. Now, as his eyes adjusted to the light a bit, Zack could discern these skulls and bones were in abundance here underfoot, all kinds of them: animal, Orkish, rodent. Even lizard skulls. But mostly there were human bones, Zack realized.
“Rats must have picked them clean,” AliceX commented.
“Which rats?” Zack stopped dead in his tracks.
AliceX turned around, then readied her bow and quietly nocked a fresh arrow.
“Don’t move,” she said. “Rats like that one behind you.”
“Oh no,” Zack said. “Oh no no no no.”
You encountered a Lone Rat!
Sewer Rat Lvl 6
Screee! He heard, and the next moment, a grey body the size of a well-fed cat rocketed past his feet. Zack swung his dagger twice in a wide and clumsy arc, wasting a lot of breath and Stamina, missing the scuttling rodent completely. AliceX’s arrow whistled after the rat and also missed, hitting a stone wall and breaking into sparks and debris.
“Oh no, I hate rats,” Zack said, backtracking and holding the Copper Dagger in front of him. He kept saying, “I hate rats. I hate rats.”
“What do you NOT hate?” AliceX sighed, nocked two arrows and sent them one after the other in quick succession, aiming for the dark nook where the rat had disappeared. “I am a fugitive here now, maybe not only in the capital; I’m an Elf, see.”
Rat Lvl 6 was hit by AliceX and lost 9 hit points
“Gotcha, little bastard,” AliceX muttered, preparing another arrow. The cornered Rat, nearly killed by the attack, made it out of the nook and hurried towards them, preparing its final attack.
“Spiders were fine, more or less,” Zack admitted, backpedaling from the disgusting rodent with bristling hair and a burning pair of crazed eyes. “Spiders I could handle, yucky but I could handle them. Rats on the other hand… I was bitten by a rat once, when I was a kid. It’s a phobia. I can’t stand them. AAAAAH!”
Another arrow whistled through the darkness and hit the stone wall, raining more sparks.
“Stop it!” AliceX said. “I cannot aim when you scream like that!”
Screee! The rat darted between them again, snapped at Zack, then circled and hid into another nook. AliceX nocked a couple more arrows and sent them in quick succession after the fleeing creature. One of the arrows connected again.
Sewer Rat Lvl 6 was hit by AliceX, lost 3 hit points, and was killed!
“It’s FINE, stop it already. You’re like a little girl,” AliceX said, the Sewer Rat finished off. “Do you ever hear me complain? You hate them, well, just kill them, be a man.”
“YOU’re like a little girl,” Zack said. He let out a long breath. “Anyway, thank you.”
“For what?”
“For disposing of this rat… for coming with me, for becoming an outlaw because of me. This is a bond, isn’t it?”
“This is just me being me,” AliceX said, her bow gone from her hands. “I end up like this wherever I go. Thanks to my little brother, half the time.”
“Look, I think you’re maybe trying to be too good in everything?”
“It’s much worse,” she said. “Look, there will be other rats. Stay alert.”
“Oh, don’t avoid the question please, you sound like my mom.”
In fact it was him who sounded like his mom. Zack missed her terribly, but if he brought her up in any other way, his Elven companion would likely exploit this weakness of character so openly demonstrated.
“What’s your problem, really?” Zack asked as they plopped on through the sewers and made their way along the narrow curbs, from one stone pipe to another. Wherever they went, the sewers looked and smelled just the same, and the smell kept Zack on the verge of disgust. “Why are you suddenly an alien if you say people like you?”
“I am pretty,” AliceX said instantly, louder than before. “Okay? I look pretty. This face, this is more or less how I look, you see?”
“But that’s cool,” he replied.
“Uh huh,” she said. “Shows how much you know. No one notices anything else but this. I mean I study 3D art. I read a lot. You think anyone cares? They all say ‘be original’, but then, after you are, and you suddenly have zero friends, and your little brother makes sure you can never even… Look, I don’t even want to discuss this, okay? It’s not easy. You think I’m a feminist because I want it? I’m a feminist because I must protect myself. You there?”
“Catching up,” Zack groaned, out of breath, his boots soaking wet and feeling incredibly heavy; the suffocating wet smell of the Sewers being his constant reminder about how unpleasant every next encounter may be.
“I like rats,” AliceX said. “I don’t understand why people hate them. Like the people who made this game. Why do they always see and show them as these ugly and unpleasant creatures? Rats are supersmart and very friendly. They don’t live much but they love you so easily. I think it takes a very kind person to love a rat.”
“Scree!” They heard another squeak, followed by the patter of many feet, soft but not so little. It seemed they had tipped off a whole swarm of Sewer Rats this time.
“Brace yourse
lf,” AliceX said, peeking into darkness with her Elven Ranger’s eyes. “I think there’s at least five of them coming.”
Zack watched in slight terror as the Rats emerged. Now they were moving slowly, and he had enough time to see them in great detail. These were vile-looking little monsters, their backs bristling, their tails long and naked, their little beady eyes glowing in the dark like little evil embers.
And they were not stupid, either. The Sewer Rats advanced like a small army. Some of them, of higher level, stood on their hind legs or even jumped like little kangaroos.
You encountered a Pack of Sewer Rats!
Sewer Rat Lvl 7 Sewer Rat Lvl 8 Sewer Rat Lvl 7
Sewer Rat Lvl 8 Sewer Rat Lvl 8
Sewer Rat Lvl 9
“I can’t help it,” Zack said. “Whenever I see these things, I panic. I didn’t ever take this Rats in the Basement quest, the first quest in every second RPG. Just because of this, because of my phobia. And here, they look ten times worse than those that live in my project building.”
“Look,” AliceX said. “Look, it’s no joke, there’s too many of them!”
“Yes,” he replied, slowly backtracking away. “Yes, and they’re just repulsive.”
“Look, you must not let them swarm me,” AliceX said. “I’m Ranged, I’m not good at close range. I’m bad at Melee.”
“Same as I,” Zack muttered. “I mean, I cannot really fight them, can I? They’re a couple levels higher than me, each one of them! What if they kill me!?”
“LISTEN,” she said. “I followed you here. I’m trying to help you whenever I can. Are you going to abandon me like this just because you feel yucky? Aren’t you supposed to defend me?”
“Sorry,” Zack said, gritting his teeth. He equipped the dagger, and squeezed his fingers around it, trying not to think about how it would feel if one of these dog-sized creatures would brush past his ankles. “Yes. You’re right.”
“They’re not even rats. Look at them,” AliceX said, quickly assessing targets and trying to lock on the highest possible damage dealer. “They’re fantasy rats. They look like that sabertooth squirrel from Ice Age. A scrat. You’re not afraid of squirrels now, are you?”
“I’m strong,” Zack muttered and stepped forward. “I’m strong, I’m strong, ooooow, Alice, it’s crawling up my leeeeg!”
SCREEE! The rats finally charged, parting like a grey stream and breaking in two equal parties of three to flank him and Alice from two sides. Their repulsive bristling hair touched Zack’s ankles, and it prickled, and their paws scratched him, and Zack was terrified.
“I CAN’T DO IT, ALICE, I CAN’T!” he screamed in a shameful high-pitched voice. He ran back, and then around her, hiding from the Rats behind the little Elf Ranger and crouching in order to completely disappear from their sight.
“I hate you, Alchemist boy,” AliceX groaned, swirling round and putting an arrow in the biggest kangaroo-like rat, the one with the fur of a slightly different color.
Sewer Rat Lvl 9 was CRITICALLY hit by AliceX, lost 17 hit points, and was killed!
Zack was hit by Sewer Rat Lvl 7 and lost 5 hit points
AliceX was hit by Sewer Rat Lvl 7 and lost 4 hit points
AliceX was hit by Sewer Rat Lvl 8 and lost 7 hit points
Sewer Rat Lvl 8 was hit by AliceX and lost 6 hit points
Zack was hit by Sewer Rat Lvl 7 and lost 5 hit points
“My name is Zack!” Zack shouted.
“Who cares!” Her response was. “I told you we’d be dead after the first fight! There it is!”
AliceX was hit by Sewer Rat Lvl 7 and lost 6 hit points
Sewer Rat Lvl 7 was hit by AliceX and lost 5 hit points
AliceX was hit by Sewer Rat Lvl 8 and lost 7 hit points
It wasn’t their first fight though, Zack told himself. They had already been through a lot together, him and this girl. If only it weren’t rats. Their unpleasantness all by itself kept making him panic, stopped him from thinking clearly. The two of them were just fighting Dragonwatch, for crying out loud! They were trapped in the middle of the Mages’ Guild, confronted by much deadlier foes, and yet back then, Zack had used a…
“Firebomb,” he muttered.
Craft Firebomb
Alchemy Lvl 4 Recipe
Items Required:
Sulfur X3
Saltpeter X3
Not Enough Ingredients!
AliceX was hit by Sewer Rat Lvl 7 and lost 4 hit points
Sewer Rat Lvl 7 was hit by AliceX, lost 5 hit points, and was killed!
AliceX was hit by Sewer Rat Lvl 8 and lost 9 hit points
Zack was hit by Sewer Rat Lvl 7 and lost 6 hit points
Sewer Rat Lvl 8 was hit by AliceX and lost 6 hit points
The golden-braided Elf girl was desperate yet cold and gracious, dispensing arrows as fast as she could and honestly taking hits while Zack kept blundering and miscrafting. He felt really angry. Think! Solve this!
“Noxious Grenade!” Zack remembered all of a sudden. “I didn’t sell them yet, did I?”
“No! Not this grenade, no!” AliceX responded from behind his back. “What kind of an Alchemist are you anyway? Break this bomb apart, craft it into sulfur! They’re immune to poison, they’re Sewer Rats!”
AliceX was hit by Sewer Rat Lvl 7 and lost 5 hit points
Sewer Rat Lvl 8 was hit by AliceX and lost 4 hit points
AliceX was hit by Sewer Rat Lvl 9 and lost 7 hit points
Sewer Rat Lvl 7 was CRITICALLY hit by AliceX, lost 15 hit points, and was killed!
WHACK! WHACK! She quickly removed them as they attacked, and still Rats kept gaining ground on her. They had now formed a semicircle, which was deadly in terms of damage potential.
Slowly Zack realized what she had said. He weighted the Noxious Bomb he held in his hand, a dried mud pot with a profoundly stinking hole in it. No poison damage. Just Area-of-Effect. Not much damage though. And stun.
A Firebomb. To make it work, he’d have to blow it up right next to Alice. She would be heavily wounded, if not killed. The Rats would be all gone without him touching them though.
She wanted him to despawn her, Zack suddenly realized. She needed this as an excuse to leave him for good. Their mission was a failure anyway. And respawn would have cleared her of capital troubles. And AliceX wasn’t far from her starter set of items anyway.
“I’m doing this for you, Alice!” Zack exclaimed, and he tossed the Noxious Bomb under her feet instead.
BOOM! The green clay bomb popped.
IMMUNE!
Poison Resistance
“EWWWWWW,” Zack said. The stench was beyond words. The entire pack of Sewer Rats was still there, in a neat circle around the Elven Ranger, who was stunned along with them. Zack dashed forward and prodded the first rat with a dagger, nervously going for a red glowing eye, stabbing it several times until it went out. Zack repeated, “Ewwwwwwwww.”
“Go on,” AliceX muttered, frozen in place amongst stunned enemies, a damsel in distress. “You’re doing well, Alchemist boy. Go on.”
Sewer Rat Lvl 7 was CRITICALLY hit by Zack and lost 9 hit points
“My name is Zack,” he reminded her again, dashing from one stunned rat to another. “Ewww. EWWWWW. How disgusting. Like stabbing plush toys.”
Sewer Rat Lvl 8 was CRITICALLY hit by Zack and lost 11 hit points
“What’s disgusting in stabbing plush toys?” AliceX asked.
“Y-you know what, Alice, you’ve really got issues,” Zack said, burying his dagger down to its hilt in the red eye of another rat.
Sewer Rat Lvl 9 was CRITICALLY hit by Zack, lost 14 hit points, and was killed!
“I do,” she replied, still stunned amongst the slowly stirring rats. “Thanks for noticing, in fact. Why do you boys always sound so scared of this?”
“I’m scared because I’m stabbing rats like a psycho killing machine,” Zack confessed. “It can’t be good for my sanity. It’s like Viet
nam or something. Ratapocalypse Now. Phew. OMPH.”
“People always say: be original,” AliceX said. Her stun elapsed, she began to move in quick precise motions, taking down the farthest Sewer Rat from him, then one closer, then another.
And then, the Sewer Rats were done.
“They always tell you to ‘be yourself’, ‘be original’,” AliceX went on, golden-braided and beautiful amongst a pile of bloody Rat corpses. “And if you are by any chance original, if only slightly, then you’re suddenly alone with your problems. You’re weird, and you get offended by the things no one finds offensive, because I mean they’re all hicks. For instance, I don’t like the fact these rats are portrayed like evil and angry creatures. It’s like with plagues in Middle Ages. Rats had nothing to do with the plagues. They just fed where plagues were, because I’m sorry, when you are a rat you eat what you can get, right? A rat cannot choose. like a rational human being can, so when it sees a plague-ridden district, it sees a place where there’s a bunch of stuff to be eaten, and it’s immune to the plague, so what. So people see these poor rats feasting during all these plagues, and they blamed these poor creatures for spreading the infection, something they had nothing to do with, at all. Okay? And since then, or maybe since rats were stealing food from people, we humans treat them like trash, like vermin that must be eradicated. And rats are very smart. I’m sorry, I had a rat once and I loved it very much. I will not judge you for the fact you don’t like rats but please don’t look at this slaughter like it’s all fine from an ethical standpoint, okay? This is culturally wrong.”
For defeating your enemies, you receive 124 XP!
LEVEL UP!
Congratulations!
Your Alchemist is now Level 8!
+1 to Strength
+1 to one of the skills:
>Short Blades< Sneak - Dash
“I love you,” Zack wanted to say. Instead he said something like, “I gurgle-gurgle.”
AliceX examined him coldly. “This was repulsive and pathetic,” she said. “Please don’t ever do this again.”
“I wanted to,” Zack said. “Gurgle-gurgle, I wanted to…”
“I know what you wanted to,” AliceX cut him off. “This is why I’m asking.”
The Alchemist of Aetheria: A LitRPG Adventure Page 17