The wiki had some basic information about Fol Alugut. For one thing, it was an actual river, an underground spring that had continuously served the city for over two thousand years. Household toilets, public latrines, and countless other sources of sewage pumped latrine slurry straight into it, but the water had stopped flowing and so had the waste. A chat with the NPC engineer who met us at the waste treatment plant revealed that the river had shown no sign of slowing throughout the majority of the Demon’s occupation. It had started to dry up barely three weeks ago, and after the city was liberated, two City Engineers and three brave priests of Khors had gone in to survey the system and try and find out what was wrong. None of them had returned.
We started in the maintenance tunnel they had entered, following the small battery-powered lights they’d used to make their way. We had a couple of miles to walk to reach the updated quest marker, but even this far away, the stench was gnarly.
“Gods! It stinks!” Karalti snuffled behind me, pawing at her running nose. “Ugh!”
“I thought you liked poop.” I teased aside a curtain of hanging fungus with the tip of the Spear, revealing a slippery cat walk sloping gently down and to the left. “You used to roll in it all the time when you were a baby.”
“Go to hell,” she grumbled. “I like SOME kinds of very fresh spoor, okay? They smell like prey animals. It’s like when you go to the market and smell all those different food smells mixed together-”
“Look, I'm an adventurous eater, but I draw the line at deep fried deer shit.”
“You don't eat it! You just sniff it, silly. There's so much information in a little piece. You can tell what direction they were traveling in, how recently they were there, if they've had babies recently, or whether they're male or female, or in heat...
“Hey, Karalti. I’m not judging you. Whatever flicks your clit.” I paused for a second, cocking my ears as a small ‘bang’ echoed up from the bowels of the earth.
“What?”
“You know. Buzzes your bean? Pokes your pearl?”
“Ugh, you're the worst.” She scowled, holding the torch up with one hand and pinching her nose with the other.
“Not as bad as Fol Alugut, though. This place is really fucking rancid.”
The maintenance shaft led all the way to one of the secondary sewer canals. By the time we reached it, I was pretty sure all of the skin on the inside of my sinuses had been obliterated. The regularly-spaced lighting ended here. There were glints and glimmers for about two hundred feet to our left, and beyond that, nothing but a dull black abyss.
“I’m gonna say that lighting a fire down here is a bad idea,” Karalti remarked. “Let’s get some of those magelights… they don’t throw sparks.”
“Here.” I pulled out two torches, cold and sticky with pitch, then a coil of [Hemp Twine]. “Stick four of them on and tie them to these.”
“Ooh! Good idea! Hang on, I’ll get some.”
Our improvised crafting session led to the creation of two [Arcane Glowstaffs], the fancy way of saying ‘duct-taped magic flashlights’. They cast a steady, cool light that became increasingly eerie as we edged toward the real darkness ahead. Karalti carried both of them while I handled the Spear.
“Something’s off,” I said to her. “Feel that?”
“Yeah. It’s cold.”
There was a drying channel of decomposing sludge not very far from us: sludge that should have been radiating warmth. As we headed toward the last light in the tunnel, I began to notice other off-putting signs. For one thing, the smell was getting better, not worse, as we went. For another, the ropy slime-mold stuff was drying up. There was no life here, not even algae.
And for a third, the light ahead glinted off dull iron armor: the crouched figure of a man trying to stay hidden by the flared base of a pillar about thirty feet away. He had his head tucked down into the deepest shadows and his hand resting by his side, a sword lying on the ground just below his fingertips.
“Charlie’s waiting for us straight ahead.” I held a hand up, and Karalti halted. “Hang back and keep the light on me.”
I gripped the Spear and activated one of my passive abilities, Mantle of Darkness. The Mark of Matir flared cold on the back of my hand, and a whispering, hissing sound slithered through the air around me. It felt like putting away an energy shot. I dropped to a low, quick cross step, and stuck to the shadows until I was in position. But when I lunged out, weapon ready to strike, the ambusher didn’t leap up or cringe back. He didn’t move at all. He – I was pretty sure the corpse was male – looked like he’d been down here for a hundred years, leathery dry skin clinging to the bones of his face, which was frozen in a grimace of agony. He was frozen on his knees in a spreading pool of black frost. The hand near the sword had been reaching for it - the other hand still clutched his chest.
“That ain't good.” I pushed the end of my spear against the man's head, checking for rigor mortis. His neck was stiff, but not the heavy, wooden stiffness of the typically-dead. His body was as light and brittle as dry grass, and when I applied a little more pressure, the end of the Spear punched right through his skin and scattered it into flaky ash.
“Oooh.” Karalti groaned as she wandered forward, sensing that something was off. “That guy smells like bad magic.”
“He sure does.” The man's armor was piecemeal, light on metal and heavy on old scarred leather. “He doesn’t look like an engineer or a priest. Looks more like a bandit.”
“Yeah. I don’t think whatever stopped the sewers is natural.” Karalti's lips peeled back over her sharp, dragon-like teeth, and she scented the air through her nose and mouth. “He was really scared, too. Like he was running for a while before he got caught.”
“Anything else you can smell?”
“Cold, ice. Some other kind of nasty smell.” Karalti swept her hair back, then bent at the waist and snuffled around. “You know what it reminds me of? It reminds me of Lahvan.”
Lahvan, the shadow I’d animated in Dakhdir. “You think shades did this?”
“That frost isn’t normal.” She pointed at the snowflake-like patterns of frost still sizzling on the ground. “And he had his life drained. You remember those wraiths we fought at Prezyemi?”
“Pretty sure I’ll always remember those.”
“Yeah, they did the same thing.” Her nose twitched as she looked forward into the tunnel. “Be careful.”
We continued down the corridor, and it wasn't long until we found another corpse, this one lying on the ground. We couldn't see him - only a swarming heap of rats, squeaking and squealing as they ripped at the carcass. Only the sight of an outflung hand and a fallen pickaxe told us what lay beneath the writhing mass of fur and naked tails. The next corpse wasn't much better, but the third and fourth was out of rat-reach and we got a good look at them.
Dead Guy Number Three was definitely one of the priests. The Forgebrothers of Khors shaved their heads and wore distinctive sky-blue robes trimmed in red, with sleeves and hems designed to be tied back and tucked into gauntlets and under sashes when required. He was bent double over a rusted saber planted in his chest, and he was pretty damn ripe – no signs of having had the life sucked out of him. Number Four, however, was neither an engineer or a priest. Like the first man we’d found, he was a scrappy, dirty-looking guy in piecemeal armor that looked like it had been looted from three different battlefields. Also like that man, he was sucked dry and had frozen the way he’d fallen. His hands clutched the air in front of him, as if he’d been run through by an invisible weapon. There was no entry or exit wound, other than the coating of dark frost on either side of his breastplate.
“It’s gotta be undead. Some kind of ghost or wraith.” I pulled out the pistol we’d looted from the Bandit Leader, and loaded a Phantasmal Round into it. “Drop one of those torches and take this. I’m pretty sure the Spear can hit incorporeal undead now.”
Karalti set one of the torches down, then came to me – and before I cou
ld react, she stood up on tiptoes, placed her lips against mine, and breathed in deeply. I felt something tug, the sensation of data being uploaded or downloaded from my mind, and unconsciously pulled her in close as the rush peaked and then passed.
“Sorry.” Her eyes flickered open, dark and distant. “I didn’t know how to use a pistol, but I know now.”
“If you can… uhh… download that kind of stuff from me, you should take the martial arts while you’re at it.” Despite the awful surrounds – the death, the squeaking and ripping – I found I couldn’t let her go. Even in human form, Karalti’s body was hotter than a normal human’s, and I had the mad urge to keep her exactly where she was.
“I might have already,” she replied coyly, looking up at me through her lashes. “But the hand to hand stuff is a bit more complicated than aiming along a sight and compensating for recoil. I still have to train it… my muscles don’t know how it works, even if my brain does.”
I blinked, then laughed. Then coughed, as the corpse reek pushed through the hypnotic sensation of Karalti’s body pressed against mine.
“Okay. Let’s search this guy.” Feeling strangely guilty, I peeled away from her and refocused on the scene in front of us. “There’s a story here. The priest was killed with a shiv. I’m betting the pickaxe we saw back there belonged to one of the engineers. We’ve found two armored guys who look like bandits. They’ve got armor and swords… most townies don’t have access to those. They’re possibly deserters. Both of them were killed by some kind of life-sucking incorporeal undead.”
“Wraiths are attracted to dying people,” Karalti said. “Maybe the deserters attacked the priests and engineers, and the fight attracted the undead?”
“Seems likely.” I frowned as a whispering hiss flittered to our ears from the tunnel ahead. “The wraiths chased the last one out of the maintenance tunnel, and then withdrew to wherever they normally like to hang out.”
“Yeah. These guys have both got pouches. You want me to search them?”
“Go ahead.”
I stood back while Karalti pulled the corpse to the ground. She looted [40 rubles], [Journeyman Tool Belt], and [Holy Symbol of Khors] from the priest, then a few coppers from the bandit before she pulled out a roll of vellum from the front of his shirt.
“Ooh! It's a map.” Karalti squatted down, setting the torch on the floor beside her, and unrolled a sheet of spotty vellum. “Uhh, let's see... that's the sewers, alright. There's a note on the bottom here.”
“What does it say?” I leaned over to look, but reading the handwriting was a lost cause.
Karalti's eyes scanned the lines. “Goreg says ‘hang a left at the third grate to get around the sewer line and go in toward the catacombs. Once you reach the cistern, take the left door and watch out for traps’. The University is gone so witchcraft shouldn’t be a problem no more. Don't try and hide anything when you get back. All clothes and bags slit open and turned inside out, or no cut.”
“Guess our Raiders of the Lost Ark here weren't down here trying to help their fellow citizens,” I remarked.
[Quest Update: The World Beneath]
I flicked over, curious to see what had been added.
New sub-quest: The Secret of the World Beneath
The Fol Alugut, Karhad’s ancient sewer line, is backing up and disgorging toxic sludge onto the streets. The filth is leading to outbreaks of disease that have caused your citizens to riot. A maintenance team went into the sewers to try and solve the problem themselves, but it appears they were murdered by looters, who were themselves murdered by something. But what were they doing down there in the first place?
Discover what the looters were searching for in the Karhad Catacombs.
Difficulty: High (Level 20-25)
Rewards: 150 EXP, 10 Build points, ???
“Yep. Looters.” I accepted and closed the menu. “I guess we can follow the directions-”
“Rats.” Karalti scrambled up to her feet, stuffing the map into her breastplate.
“Rats?” I looked one way, then the other, and saw a squealing tidal wave heading right for us from down the hall. “Oh, fuck. Rats.”
Chapter 24
I’d seen chihuahuas smaller than the fat, mangy, hissing [Stranged Rats] surging toward us. There were dozens of them, writhing over and around each other as they boiled toward the corpse Karalti had pulled down off the catwalk. Without thinking, I caught her hand and pulled her away just before the rats fell on it, ravenously stripping cloth and flesh. But as more and more of them piled on, their pointed muzzles turned toward us. Ignoring the corpse that had been drained by the wraith, the rats hissed and bounded forward, swarming the tunnel with nine inches of filthy teeth, fur, and naked flopping tails. I stepped in front of Karalti, spun the Spear around, and let a surge of dark power build through my body.
“Raagh!” When they were close enough, I rammed the Spear down toward the ground. Black energy bloomed through it and burst out into an explosive, frigid cloud. Rats squealed as they froze and burst, shattering as they struck the walls. Umbra Burst cleared enough of a path that we could run through, rats nipping at our heels. Individually, they weren't a threat. But fifty, sixty, a hundred, five hundred... the ones that had been skeletonizing the corpses down the hall were running to join the frenzy now.
Karalti snarled as one jumped up and latched onto her hand. Others were climbing my legs, squeaking and slipping on my armor. Teeth bored into the leather of my boots as I kicked and sent three or four of them flying. I dropped the Spear and pulled a knife, stabbing at them as we broke through the mass and into open air.
[You have killed Plague Rat! 10 EXP!]
[You have killed Plague Rat! 10 EXP]
“EUURGH!” Karalti stomped a rat and then pulled one off my back, hissing when it bit her. The rat squealed as it got a mouthful of mana and fell, sizzling, to the floor of the sewer. We held the line there, stabbing and struggling. When we had enough distance, I called the Spear to my hand. A second Umbra Burst sent the horde scattering, the live rats seizing the dead ones and devouring them like furry piranha.
“Let's go!” Karalti grasped my forearm, her hands still leaking bright blue liquid, and pulled me off into the darkness.
We sprinted around the corner, leaving behind the sounds of ripping flesh and furious rodents behind us.
“Hey, not bad EXP,” I panted. “Ten points here and there adds up, you know?”
“If you wanna go back there and level up, be my guest.” She wrinkled her nose. “They got some disease they tried to give me. 'Filth Fever'.”
Okay: the EXP was good, but it wasn’t worth getting sick over. The corner of my eye twitched. “Are you sick?”
“I'm immune to human diseases,” she replied. “But you're not, and you get freaked out when you get a cold. Come on. There's something big that squished these people in here, and we need to sort it out. Besides: what would looters be doing down HERE? There's nothing but rats and poop. You'd think they'd go to the market to loot stuff.”
“Good question.” I'd been wondering the same thing, but... “It sounded like they weren't angling for the sewers, as such. There was something there in the quest description about entering the catacombs.”
A dead, humid stillness settled over us. There was only the roar of the torch and our footsteps on the slick stone, squelching on centuries of built-up slime and algae. Every time Karalti shifted the arcane torch and a shadow flickered, I felt my heart jump a little. After ten minutes or so of battling running eyes and sniffly noses, we found a slippery flight of stairs leading down. The ceiling and walls hung with ropes of jelly-like colonies of bacteria, which we pushed aside to step out onto a rusted metal catwalk.
We had reached Fol Alugut: a long, straight, barrel-vaulted tunnel large enough to drive a pair of wagons through. The canal that usually carried waste water was still and sludgy, the contents bubbling like simmering mud. A dull green mist hung over everything, rising from the rotting waste that
stewed without water to flush it away. The smell was indescribable, like a million unscooped kitty litter boxes compressed into the space of a truck tray.
[Warning: Toxic Gas]
[You are being poisoned!]
I retreated after only a couple of seconds, coughing violently.
“Fuck. We can’t go in there,” I gasped. “Shit’s nasty, yo.”
“What do we do, then?” Karalti hung back anxiously, the pistol clutched in her hands.
“We go back up to those grates the map talked about,” I said. “And we go around. These looters seemed to know something about the place we don’t. What did the map say again?”
“Hang a left at the third grate to get around the sewer line,” Karalti said. “Up the stairs, maybe?”
We backtracked, and after a few minutes, we found what we were looking for: a series of grates at knee-height. The third on the left had been sawn through, then carefully put back into place. We pulled it out and crawled in, freezing when a chittering whisper passed through the stairwell behind us.
“We’re being followed,” Karalti said.
“Yeah. Let's get this the fuck over with. I don’t want to have to fight a wraith in here.”
A couple of weeks ago, I had crawled about a thousand feet through a narrow ventilation shaft. At the time, I’d been pretty sure that had been the worst claustrophobic experience of my life, but the entry to Lahati’s Tomb hadn’t included mold, slime, and rat droppings, all of which were in abundance. The only thing this experience had going for it was that it was relatively short. After about five hundred feet, we dragged ourselves out into what had to be the cistern: a towering, cylindrical chamber that had definitely seen better days. There were four doors and several tunnels leading off from it, all of them sealed off with rough, clumpy plugs of broken rocks, congealed sewage, and trash. A pale beam of sunlight fell from the center of the ceiling onto a buzzing, heaped pile of refuse at least twelve feet tall. It took up about a third of the room. There were craters all around it, big potholes where the paving stones had been smashed and chewed up. No skeletons that I could see. No obvious monstery presence... and yet, some instinct was tingling at the back of the ol' lizard brain. Maybe it was the brown spatter stain on the floor about twenty feet to my right. Maybe it was the old bouncer’s instinct to look for threats and map escape routes in any confined environment. But almost one hundred percent of the time, when the instinct to check my quickbar and find cover was triggered in a game, it usually meant one thing.
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