"Yes. To the Rat King, that name is a mark of pride. He rules an entire kingdom made from the things other people throw away. Everything is reused down here. Nothing goes to waste, because everything is waste. Even the people down here are recycled."
Ellie and I shared a look of horror.
James waved the idea away. "Not like that! What I mean to say is that everyone down here used to be someone up there. They become someone different entirely down here in Dregswyk. Everything is given a new purpose. A chance to start again."
Ellie's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "The Emperor allows the existence of a city underneath the streets of Eldin? A secret city under the seat of his power?"
"There's not really all that much that he can do about it," James said. "If you combine the might of all the vagabonds, the miscreants, the broken things, and the people that live down here in the dark, I dare say that they would give the Emperor and his Imperial Army a serious run for their money. And, speaking of money, that's another reason. The black market down here in the Dregswyk generates quite a bit of coin, and some of that money makes it way topside."
That made sense. "So, the Rat King is working for the Emperor?"
James shot me a withering look that made me want to shrink down inside my coat. "That is exactly the kind of stupid comment we want to make sure that you don't make in the Rat King's presence."
My cheeks flushed with embarrassment.
"I'm sorry," I said. "I didn't realize that was a dumb question."
"The thing that you need to realize about the Rat King is that even though he doesn't have complete power, he needs to believe that he does. To you, he's taking advantage of the Emperor's foolishness. And to the Emperor, the Rat King is simply a necessary evil that must be kept in check. Plus, there are those." James pointed towards the shadowy ceiling of the cavern.
I leaned forward and craned my neck. Ellie did the same. I could barely make anything out above the spire of the Trash Palace. It was just too dark.
"Is that...?" she asked.
"Yes," James said.
"What are you looking at?" I asked.
"For an Investigator, you can miss the bleedingly obvious, kid."
"The lanterns hanging from the roof of the chasm, they're attached to giant reinforced beams," Ellie said.
"Oh?" I asked. Then it hit me. "Oh."
"Precisely," James said. "Mutually assured destruction. If the Emperor ever tried to remove the Rat King from his Trash Throne, the canny bastard would evacuate Dregswyk and take the ground underneath the Imperial Citadel right out from under the Emperor's feet."
"Yikes," I said.
The sound of a squeaking wheel came from our right.
"The elevator is on its way," James said.
It arrived a few moments later, wheeled by a thickly muscled creature with deep red skin, glowing eyes, and horns that swept back from its forehead. It was one of the Hellkin.
The demon glowered at Ellie and me but grinned when he spotted James. "You're back!" the Hellkin said jovially.
"I am indeed, Resh! I didn't think I'd be back so soon, but we're on the trail of a missing young boy, and that trail led us down here."
"Who are your friends?" Resh asked.
"This is Mister Lucas Hutchins, a new recruit with LSI. I'm showing him how it's done, naturally, and this is Miss Eleanor Rooker, a new Enforcer with the Eldin Judiciary."
Resh snorted at that. "You be careful down here, Miss. The people of Dregswyk don't much like being told what to do."
"I don't plan on telling anyone what to do unless they're one of the criminals who kidnapped a little boy." Ellie sounded indignant.
James looked her up and down, then sucked on his teeth. "That uniform could be a problem."
"I'd get out of the blue and steel as soon as you can, Miss," Resh said. His tone wasn't adversarial. It was cautious.
"This is all I have," Ellie said.
"Don't fret, Miss Rooker. We'll address this problem before we seek an audience with King Malidar Rattus. I needed to get a new suit for Lucas anyway. That ratty old provincial suit is just not appropriate to wear on official LSI business."
My cheeks flushed.
"Ready to go below?" Resh asked.
"Let's go," James said.
The Hellkin pulled a lever, which started a complex series of ropes and pulleys that lowered us down into the chasm below.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Elan's Arcanium
New Area Discovered: Dregswyk
James led us through the meandering streets of Dregswyk. Some of the streets we followed could barely be considered roads. Some of them were merely paths through the ever-shifting tides of trash. Everywhere we passed, I saw tatterdemalion scavengers picking through the rubbish that covered everything.
Houses, stores, and roads - all covered in trash.
Some of the people we passed even had clothes made from bits and pieces of discarded fabrics sewn together with large rough stitches. They wore them in a way that seemed to deliberately obscure their forms.
We moved from a wide avenue running through piles of trash into a narrow path that headed up the side of a larger trash pile. I assumed it was just a huge pile of garbage until I noticed the small holes that dotted the sides. Beyond those holes I saw families huddled around dinner tables, miscreants squabbling over cards at a gambling table, and heard the undeniable sounds of people stuck in lust's iron grip from behind a pair of drawn curtains.
We continued for some time. Eventually, we found a market filled with vendors selling a wide variety of goods.
There was one merchant who was selling works of art that had been made by splicing pieces of rubbish together, then twisting them into strange geometric shapes. Bits of metal gleamed in knots of soiled pieces of cloth, which were tied to bits of splintered wood, which were in turn pierced with jagged slivers of metal. I couldn't quite understand what it was supposed to be, but there was a strange charm to it.
Other vendors sold a veritable cornucopia of wares. One merchant with a face like a basset hound tried to sell broken magical items.
"All you need is to figure out how to repair them, and you'll have a piece of magic all of your own!" he spruiked to the crowd. There was a crowd gathered around his table. The promise of a magical item seemed to be quite a draw card.
I tapped James on the shoulder. "What's the deal with magic items? Are any of those for real?"
James scoffed. "Them? No. Don't listen to a word old Naffer's saying. He might stumble across the odd broken magical artifact that someone tosses away, but the legitimate items always go to bidders with real money before they hit the markets. There's nothing more dangerous than using a magical item when you have no idea what it does."
"Speaking of magical items, can this guy identify that ring I picked up in the Stagnant Hive?" I asked.
"I wouldn't approach Naffer about it," James said. "If it was actually magical, he would probably use sleight of hand to replace it with a piece of junk, then sell it at a higher price."
"What a jerk," Ellie said.
We kept a wide berth from Naffer's stall. James, Ellie and I worked our way through the market at a glacial pace. We were jostled back and forth by the Dregswyk's residents, and I kept a sharp watch on my own pockets. There was a side street carved into the skeleton of a long-dead creature. The spine lay at the bottom of the street, almost covered with a layer of garbage. Knobby white vertebrae pressed up from below.
"What in the world did that belong to?" I asked.
James looked pointedly at the ribs that rose upwards in the distance. Lanterns were hung from their tips, which towered over the alleyway. "Something big. Things living down here in the dark tend to grow to enormous proportions. This is Spinefall Boulevard."
The street was wide and the knobby vertebrae poking out of the street split the traffic into two lanes.
"We aren't going to run into anything that huge down here, are we?" Ellie asked.
"Dregswyk hasn't be
en attacked by anything of this magnitude in many years," James said. "The Deep River runs far underground, into the abyss, before it opens up into the ocean to the east. Sometimes creatures from the ocean find their way into the Deep River, but there are dams and guards to alert the Rat King before anything ever makes it here. I would be more worried about pirates, to be honest."
James turned onto Spinefall Boulevard and continued along, looking for something.
"Aha!" he said. "Here we are! Elan's Arcanium!"
It just looked like another hovel to me. That was until we opened the doors.
The air inside the shop sang with magical energy. Bookshelves were arranged in rows between the door and the desk at the back, and the books were haphazardly stored. There were far too many books to fit on the shelves, so there were piles all over the place in no discernible order.
Three people browsed the shelves as James led us forward. One of the shoppers opened a book, which promptly shot a stream of ink into their face.
"Oh, honestly! You're in a bleeding book store, and you can't read?" came a voice from the back of the store. A young woman came out from the back room and rushed towards the patron covered in ink. She had a shaved head, tattooed with symbols. She took the book out of his hands and snapped it shut before returning it to the shelf.
"The seal on the front of this book says that without the blessing of the kraken, this book should not be opened," the young woman said.
"I'm sorry!" the ink-covered man blathered. "I didn't think-"
"No, it's not your thinking that was the problem," the woman said. "It's not following direction. I'm going to give you an instruction, and it might just save your life. That ink is seeping into your pores as we speak, and in less than twelve hours your lungs aren't going to work the same as they do right now. They're going to shrivel up to nothing, and the only way you're going to be able to breathe is through the gills that are going to open on the sides of your neck. Unless you can get to the Herald of the Kraken down by the river's edge and beg him for a blessing."
"I'm going to- wait, what? Gills?" the man stammered.
"Yes, and krakens live in the ocean, not in freshwater rivers. They need salt water to survive, and so will you. If you can't get a blessing from the Herald, you might think about booking a one-way ticket across the Sundered Seas and jumping overboard."
"You can't be serious!"
"Maybe you should have followed the instruction. Now get out of my store before you start drowning," she said.
The man turned and ran out of the store. He slammed into the door, which splintered on its hinges.
"Elan," James said. "Need a hand with that?"
She looked back at James, then smiled when she recognized him.
"James Treborn. Your help is not required," Elan said and waved a hand toward the door. It levitated back into place, and somehow, impossibly, the splintered door reformed itself around the metal hinges.
"Whoa. How did you do that?" I asked.
"A temporal rewind spell," Elan said simply. "It can't work on organic matter, though, otherwise I would have reversed the curse and charged that stupid man for my trouble."
"That spell would come in handy," I said.
Elan smiled. "Not quite as handy as you might think. You can only reverse something for a few moments after it happens. It's good for fixing broken cups and plates, but not much else."
She opened her arms, which were covered in long flowing sleeves. There was faint light coming from inside her robe, which illuminated the edges of her sleeves. James hugged her for a moment, and then they parted again.
"To what do I owe the pleasure?" Elan asked.
"My friend Lucas here happened to find a magical item. A ring. He would like to know what it does before he puts it on," James replied.
Elan nodded. "A wise choice. I once saw a man put on a ring he found in a warlock's satchel. He slid it onto his finger, and it turned him inside out."
My eyes went wide.
"Let's see it then." Elan held out her hand.
I fished into my jacket pocket and proffered the silver ring with the blue stone.
"Oh, very nice," Elan said. "Come."
She moved towards the back of the store, then cleared everything from her desk to make a blank space. Her fingers moved in deliberate and practiced motions on the wood surface of her desk. A line of light followed the places her fingertips touched, tracing an ornate circle around the unidentified magical ring.
"Reveal to me the secrets of this ring," Elan said, and the lines around the ring erupted with light. The ring lifted from the table's surface and the light was drawn to it. It wrapped the ring until it was so bright that I had to avert my eyes. The light brightened for a moment, and the ring fell back to the table. When I focused on it again, this time I could see exactly what it was.
An information panel appeared before me.
Ring of Farsight
Fatewoven
Grants the Farsight ability
I slipped the ring onto my finger.
You have been temporarily granted the ability Farsight!
I focused on the ability, which opened another information panel.
Ability: Farsight
Level: Novice (Temporary)
Full ability unlock will occur at Level 15.
Cost: 100% Concentration Points
Activating Farsight will allow the Investigator to see things from far away.
(This ability has been unlocked early using Item: Ring of Farsight. Using this ring will allow ability growth at a slower rate than if the ability was unlocked by leveling, and costs more than the ability would if learned through organic means.)
"It's called the Ring of Farsight," I said. "It lets me see things from really far away, apparently."
"That will come in handy," James said.
"You unlocked a whole new ability from equipping a ring?" Ellie asked.
"It looks that way," I said.
"I didn't even know you could do that. I can't believe all I got was this stupid chew toy," Ellie said as she held up Dagwood's ball.
I heard the roach hound puppy yipping from behind Ellie the same moment her face started to go white.
"Oh no," she said.
"Oh yes."
Dagwood came bounding out from behind one of the stacks on his stumpy legs. Her tongue lolled out of his gross mouth as he yipped happily at Ellie. He stared up at his ball expectantly.
Ellie closed her eyes and spoke in a low voice. "Why did I do that?"
"Because you love little Dagwood!" I said as I got down on one knee in front of the puppy.
He was cute in an ugly sort of way. Dagwood rolled onto his back, exposing his soft belly fur.
I reached out and ran my hand over his belly. Dagwood rolled his head backward, enjoying the attention.
"He's so soft," I said.
James and Elan didn't react to Dagwood. They couldn't see him.
"Ugh! That's enough! Dagwood, away!" Ellie put the chew toy back into her pocket.
Dagwood got back to his stumpy little roach hound legs, then bounded away.
"You secretly love him," I said.
"I do not," Ellie said, indignant.
"Thank you for your assistance, Elan. It is, as always, lovely to see you."
"Is that all you came for? To identify that ring? James, I'm hurt."
"The ring was the excuse to seek you out, my dear. I dare not come by idly in case I overstep my bounds."
"Your boundaries as self-imposed, Mister Treborn."
I could feel the sexual tension between these two radiating like a sunburn.
"Until next time?" James asked.
Elan sighed. "Indeed. And you two, should you require the identification of a magical item, I charge a fee. The first one's free, but the next one shall not be."
I dug into my pocket and pulled out 5 silver pieces, then handed them to Elan. I wanted to make a good impression with her. If I was stuck in this damned game until
I solved this case, then I wanted to remain in her good graces.
"For your services. Thank you," I said.
"This one has manners," Elan said. "I'm impressed."
"As am I by your talents," I said.
She nodded in acknowledgment. With my magical ring identified, we left Elan's Arcanium and headed back out onto Spinefall Boulevard.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Learning the Blade
James pulled us down a side alley that ran from Spinefall Boulevard. Once we were out of the bustling foot traffic, James turned to address us.
"I have some concerns about you both," James said, inclining his head towards Ellie. "You especially."
"Me?" she asked, looking dubiously at me. As though she thought I was the one James should be worried about.
"Not you as a person but walking around here dressed like that. You're already drawing some very unwanted attention. You haven't noticed it, but I certainly have. You don't want people here to know that you're part of the Judiciary. People from the Judiciary only ever come down here when they're looking for someone. Most of the time Enforcers don't make it back to the surface."
The color drained from Ellie's face.
How strange it was for such a human emotion to be conveyed so remarkably in a video game. As a data nerd, I found myself wondering just how Crematoria Online could render complex human emotions into raw data, and then feed that data into an interface that interpreted it correctly to channel the corresponding physical effects back to Ellie's in-game avatar. The algorithms that powered the effect would be more complex than anything else ever designed by human hands.
The portrayal of that visceral human response to fear was only possible because of cold, emotionless, impossibly complex machine learning.
Ellie reached for the Judiciary symbol painted on the front of her armor. There was no easy way of getting rid of that. Even if there was, the Judiciary's unique design they used for their Enforcer's bulky armor was unmistakable.
"What do I do?" Ellie asked.
"Luckily for you, I like to go shopping! And you," James said to me. "You need some better clothes, my friend. You look like you just wandered into the city for the first time, and for some people that'll be an invitation to eat you alive. For some, that would be more literally than figuratively. So, who wants to go shopping?"
Rise of the Crimson Order: A Crematoria Online LitRPG Novel Page 22
