Chapter 12: There's Always a Sewer Quest

The stone glowed a lambent gold. It was about the size of a thumbnail, with tiny facets that allowed it to be almost perfectly round. Shin’s hand cupped it with care. “This is it?” Cecilia exclaimed, incredulous. “After everything we sold?”

“Charging stones are expensive,” Shin said. Mournful was the best way Cecilia could describe her. She suspected it was more about the loss of the money than not being able to get more than one stone. “In the cities there are many mages and they all require them. If he were awake, and we were not in our present situation, then he could requisition some from the Circle. As it is, this is what we can afford.”

Another thing that was, to some extent, Cecilia’s fault. She tried not to feel guilty. Cantor had chosen to help her, after all. But thinking about the mage’s collapse made the thought ring hollow in her mind. “Will it be enough?”

Shin shrugged. “We will find out. Perhaps, with the foods you insisted upon, it will.”

Mynet had stayed at the White Wings compound; he had questions to answer about the wagon and its goods. But Cecilia still remembered his advice, and she’d kept back a precious small amount of the money to purchase a whole roast–-bird of some sort (Shin called it a josa , but it looked a lot like a duck to Cecilia) that had been roasted on a skewer while being coated with a spicy, sticky sauce. It reminded her a lot of Peking duck from back home, but the smell was different - surprisingly herbaceous, with a strange, pepper-sour note. Now it was bright red, glossy, and wrapped in some sort of wax paper for them to carry home.

Or, at least, to the tiny room they’d rented on the edge of the city. They didn’t dare stay too close to the Guild, or the boarding houses that other adventurers favored. But Shin seemed to know her way around the city, and soon had a room procured for them for at least a week. That had taken most of the profit from their trade goods.

And, Cecilia reflected, as they approached - they’d probably overpaid. The tiny building was wedged against the shadow of several larger ones, and Cecilia knew a slum when she saw one. There were four other rooms, each one housing a whole family. She waved tentatively to a woman sitting in the panel-less window sill, nursing a baby. The woman looked down at her with suspicion, but gave a short nod as they stepped through the threshold.

There were no outer locks to the door that led to their rented room; from what Cecilia could see, most people didn’t have anything worth stealing in the first place. Shin paused at the door to listen, then pushed it open. The room was barely decorated at all - there was a small stove for heating, and a table against the far wall. That was it. They’d laid Cantor gently on the floor. He hadn’t so much as stirred since the moment he collapsed. He was breathing, slow and regular, but no amount of disturbance could wake him up, and his face was almost as white as his robes. Cecilia let down the inside bar on the door now that they were all inside, and she placed the roast bird on the table while Shin kneeled by Castor’s side. “I have never done this before,” Shin admitted, frowning down at the mage. “But it should be as simple as placing the stone in his mouth.”

“In his mouth?” Cecilia knelt at Castor’s other side. “But won’t he choke?”

“We will make sure he does not. Hold his mouth open, and I will lay it on his tongue, but keep a grip on it. That should be enough.” Shin didn’t sound confident enough for Cecilia’s liking. But it wasn’t as if she had any better ideas.

Cecilia grasped Cantor’s jaw, gently, and pulled it open until his lips parted. At least he wasn’t gritting his teeth in his sleep; she had no idea how she’d feel about having to pry his teeth apart. Instead, the jaw was slack and loose under her fingers. As if he were dead.

She swallowed. He wasn’t dead. “Do it, Shin.”

The hunter nodded. She didn’t hesitate, but spread his lips wider with one hand, while with the other, she placed the tiny, glowing stone on the tip of Cantor’s tongue. The charging stone glimmered there.

“How will we know–” Cecilia began to ask. The stone flared, bright and brief like a flashbulb. In the next heartbeat, it turned black, and Shin cursed as it crumbled to dust that fell on Cantor’s tongue.

The mage coughed, batted weakly at their hands in and on his face. Shin and Cecilia jerked their hands back as Cantor’s eyes fluttered open. The whites were tinged with red, riddled with tiny, broken veins. His mouth moved, but the sounds it made were incomprehensible.

“Is this just a part of the language I don’t know?” Cecilia asked.

Shin shook her head. “It is something else. Another language. I do not recognize it.” Her reply was toneless, and she grabbed Cantor by the shoulder, shaking him gently. “Mage. It is Shin and Cecilia. She even looks like herself again.”

Cantor’s eyes opened a little wider, his gaze coming to rest blearily on one, then the other. “Yes. I see.” He sounded like an old man. “Hello. Not dead or captured?”

Cecilia’s laugh was tinged with relief. “Not yet. Actually, everybody was quite impressed by your feat with the wagon. But apparently it, uh, took a lot out of you.”

He nodded. “Azoth. It’s been years since I have felt so drained.” He tried to sit up, then flopped back down, his head hitting the floor with an audible thump. “Ow. Where?”

“Shin found us a room far away from the Guild. We should be safe here. Are you feeling better?”

“Yes.” Cantor closed his eyes, and his tongue - still tinged with black - licked at his bottom lip. “Charging stone? From the Circle?”

“No,” Shin said. “We bought it. We are now broke.”

Cantor groaned, and tried to sit up again. This time, Cecilia slid her hand behind him and helped the mage upright. “Thank you,” he whispered, but she could feel his body trembling from the effort of just holding the position. “You should not have. I would have awoken. Eventually.”

“It would have taken weeks,” Shin said. She pursed her lips and gave him an intent once over. “It may still. You look terrible. We also brought some spicy josa. It will help.”

Cantor blinked. “It will.” His surprise was almost insulting, Cecilia thought. He continued, “But I will still need time. Several days, at least, unless you have another charging stone or I can access an alchemical lab.”

“I think the chances of finding an alchemical lab around here hover around zero,” Cecilia admitted. “We’re not in the part of town that mages hang out in.”

“There are some,” Shin said. “But they work for the gangs. If they discover that we are wanted, they will blackmail us. Or simply turn us in for the bounty.”

Cecilia stood up and paced the length of the room. If nothing else, the barren floor made for great pacing. Her feet thumped with more weight than she was used to, but she felt at least a little more in her own skin with her Doll’s Disguise reverted back to her preferred form. “So, we lay low until Cantor recovers? Can we afford to? We’ve only got the room for a week before we have to pay again, and I don’t think one bird is gonna feed us all for very long.”

“It will not,” Shin agreed, glumly. “We need money. Which means we need a job. One that does not require a mage.”

Cantor stiffened. “Give me a couple of hours and I’ll be ready to earn my keep.”

“You can barely sit up,” Cecilia pointed out. “I can see you trembling from here, and you’re still pasty under that disguise.”

He made a disgruntled sound. “I can’t just lay here–”

“Yes, you can,” Shin said. She pushed herself to her feet. “That will be your job. Rest. Eat. Gather azoth as you can. Cecilia and I will do a quick job or two.”

“But you can’t take jobs from the Guild or the Circle,” he protested.

Shin’s smile was grim. “There are other options.”

*

“I knew it,” Cecilia cried, one hand over her mouth. It didn’t help at all. The reek was everywhere. She feared it was going to seep even into her own stone skin. The stones were slimy, and she hoped to Heaven that it was just the thick, green algae growing everywhere. “There’s always a sewer level.”

“It’s work,” Shin said from up ahead, but even she sounded glum. She’d had to leave her bow behind - the narrow, twisting tunnels they walked made even magically-assisted archery a nightmare. Instead, she was wielding two long knives. “And the city asks no questions.”

“Because no one wants to do this sort of thing unless they’re desperate.” Cecilia brushed against a patch of moss; it shook itself and skittered higher on the wall. She bit back the yelp. “Now that no one can hear me being dumb - what exactly is a bathuiomox and how are we expected to fix it?” The word had no translation into English; whatever spell or effect was managing that for Cecilia most of the time didn’t even try to make it work, so her tongue stumbled inelegantly over the syllables.

Shin made a thoughtful noise. “Cantor would know more. But it is an alchemical array that exists beneath the city. It takes the foul water and–other waste–that the city produces, and transforms the waste into solid forms which can be used for various functions while leaving the purified water to be sent back into the city aquifers.” They both jumped to one side as a sudden gush of waste fell from a stone channel above them.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Some of the splash stippled Cecilia’s arm, and her joints audibly rattled as she shuddered with disgust. “So, it’s a waste processing plant, essentially. That works by magic.”

“It is not a plant,” Shin said, with a frown. “Although perhaps it would be better that way. Arrays require a great amount of azoth to function. And this one has gone wrong. Usually, this means that a monster or thief has interfered with the–” she gestured vaguely with the knife, “fiddly bits. We find the problem, remove the interference, report on any missing or destroyed components.”

“Seems simple enough,” Cecilia said, unable to keep a certain wariness out of her tone.

Shin chuckled. “It is. This is a job for low-level adventurers. Often the first job a city adventurer gets. It is beneath us, but we need the money.”

“I’m not complaining.” At Shin’s look, she added, “Much. I’m not complaining much! And you’re right, we need the money.” She glanced at the dripping ceiling. “You think Cantor is doing what we told him and resting?”

“No.”

They shared a low chuckle, accompanied by the constant sound of trickling water. The tunnel sloped downwards, and the sounds of other tunnels and their streams bounced off the wall, creating a static-like white noise. The torch Shin carried guttered and nearly went out as a foul gust of wind blew past. When Shin cursed at it, Cecilia said, “Here, let me try and cast a light for us.”

Shin came to a halt and Cecilia closed her eyes to concentrate. She’d picked up the Mental Grimoire skill with her last level up, and it had helped to make Cantor’s advice regarding spellcraft make more sense, but the casting still didn’t feel natural. The ‘shape’ of the spell glowed behind her eyes, defined by the power of the skill. All Cecilia had to do was spin out the azoth from her internal storage and fill the lines. She could feel the power shift within her; it had a weight and a texture of its own in her mental hands. Light azoth was slippery and delicate, like wet angel hair noodles. After a few tries, she got a solid grip on the magic and fed it into the spell. The faint lines behind her eyes glowed, swelling and connecting until the whole structure flared to life.

She could feel the light even before she opened her eyes. Shin was staring at the glowing light between them. “Not bad,” she said, poking at it with one finger. “Why is it this strange shape?”

Cecilia laughed. “Uh, I guess because I’m used to light bulbs.” Her light spell had taken the shape of a conventional light bulb - not even one of the LED lights that she actually had used more often back home. There was even the small squiggle of a filament deep in the center of the light. “Weird.”

“Very weird,” Shin agreed. As she doused the torch and turned to continue, she added, “What sort of plants have glowing bulbs? Useless underground.”

Cecilia opened her mouth, then closed it again. What was the point in correcting her? Besides, it made Earth sound more exciting than it actually was. After seeing the Wardstones and the water siphoning roads, she was having some mild world inadequacy issues. Now that the light was cast, she found it took only a very small part of her concentration to direct it above their heads and keep it steady and strong. It was like remembering a phone number in the back of your mind while working on something else; distracting, but not impossible.

The magical light illuminated even more of the sewer tunnel, which was a mixed blessing. Bright side, Cecilia could see the lumps of waste and step over and around them more easily. On the other hand, she could see the lumps. She hoped that the job would provide enough profit for a visit to the baths.

Things scurried just outside of the light’s reach. Rats, she thought - but some of them ran along the ceilings and floors and seemed to have too many legs in the quick glance she got before they disappeared into the dark. The tunnel continued its mild downward slope, and the smell only intensified the further they got underground, until both Cecilia and Shin were trying to breathe as little as possible. “We should be close,” Shin said, peering at a carved symbol in the large, hewn stones of the wall. “Be prepared.” She drew her knives.

Cecilia grinned and raised her hands. “Fists of the Forge!” They burst into hot, white flame.

“Very dramatic,” Shin said with a snort of amusement.

“Look, I don’t get the cool unsheathing motion a swordsman has. I’ve got to take my thrills where I can get them.”

“Just don’t touch the walls; some of this residue may be flammable.”

Cecilia grimaced. “Frankly, I’m surprised the air isn’t.”

Shin chuckled, and they splashed on. It was only a few more minutes before they rounded a curve and the tunnel widened into a large, circular room with walls that arched towards a domed ceiling out of reach of Cecilia’s light. Cecilia couldn’t help a low whistle as she took in the size of the space; it was almost easy to forget that the entire weight of the city was above them. It was dominated by a circle of carved stones - on first glance, they reminded Cecilia strongly of the Wardstones, shrunken down to just taller than herself.

On second glance, she was far more concerned about the creatures who were tied to the stones, their bodies ragged, torn, and bleeding. “Oh my god.”

Shin darted forward, and Cecilia was right on her heels. They reached the first stone and the body there, and Shin’s knives went to work cutting the body free. Irreverently, Cecilia’s first thought was someone’s gone and kidnapped Big Bird. The plumage was different; the body was overall humanoid, but covered in vibrant green and blue feathers. Many of those feathers had been yanked out in patchy handfuls, leaving a mottled skin underneath that was oozing blood.

As Shin sawed through the ropes, Cecilia extinguished her flames and grasped the body as gently as she could. She lowered it to the stone floor with a silent apology for the filth there. The face was a strange blend of human and avian - no nose to speak of but a hardened plate of something above the lips, studded with two nostrils. The lips themselves were also hard and protuberant, but she couldn’t quite call it a beak. The feathers here were smaller, dense and probably soft when they weren’t matted with blood and sewage. “Hey,” she gently patted the creature, unsure where - or if - she could look for a pulse. “Are you alive?”

Their eyes fluttered open. They were round and black except for a tiny ring of white around the edges. The lips parted and a creaky, chirpy sound came out. Before Cecilia could turn to Shin for help, they tried again. “Y-yes.” The bird person began to weakly struggle. “M-my nest?”

“We’ll get them down,” Cecilia promised. “Just hang in there for a little bit.”

The black eyes fixed on her with a desperate intensity that was all too human. Then fluttered closed again as they nodded. Cecilia stood to help Shin cut down the others. There were twelve stones, and twelve bodies.

Of the twelve, only four were still alive. Cecilia passed around her canteen so that they could drink some water while Shin performed some rudimentary first aid. “Who did this? Why?” Cecilia addressed the question to Shin, but it was one of the bird people who spoke up.

“Did not see. They…came at night. With treachery and spells. We woke up here. They tore our feathers, made us bleed. Wearing fox masks. Then they left us here.” A susurrus of feathers as they shuddered. “It has been five days.” Their head tilted towards the unmoving bodies of their kin, and a mournful, whistling note slipped out from their parted lips.

“As to why,” Shin said, quietly, “it must be to taint the water. Some rituals work on blood and sacrifice.” She sighed. “Cantor would know more. But we must report this to the city.” She looked down at the four survivors, her brow furrowing.

“I can get three of them,” Cecilia said. Never had she been so glad for her investment in her golem body’s strength. “If you carry the little one, I can get the other three. It won’t be comfortable, but–”

The spokesbird looked up and she thought the expression might be their equivalent of a weary smile. “We do not require comfort. Only the sky. Thank you.”

Shin bent to pick up the youngest survivor, cradling them gently in her arms. “Then the sky you shall have, as quickly as we might deliver it to you.”

*

When, at last, Cecilia and Shin returned to the rented room, Cecilia was torn between sadness and a seething anger. The sun had set; once they’d staggered out of the sewer with the bird people - who she now knew as the Krkrow, assuming she had been hearing that correctly - there had been a lot of questions to answer. They’d also accompanied a city official back down to the site, with Cecilia uncomfortably disguised every step of the way. They’d gotten paid, and assured that the Krkrow would be treated and taken care of, but Cecilia still vibrated with outrage at what had happened to them.

Cantor looked up at the opening of the door, half-asleep. But when the draft from the door reached him, he sat up straight where he’d propped himself against the wall and wrinkled his nose. “What is that smell?”

“That’s us,” Cecilia admitted. “Sorry. We meant to hit the baths before coming back, but it took longer than we’d bargained for.”

“We got paid, however. Which means we can afford the baths. So you will have to forgive our stink, but not forever.” Shin perhaps meant it to be playful, but it just came out tired.

Enough for Cantor’s look of disgust to meld into concern. “You don’t seem injured, but it doesn’t seem that the job went well.”

“We are…fine,” Shin murmured. “But not everyone was so fortunate.”

Together, they explained what they’d found, the desecrated array and the sacrificed Krkrow. Cantor’s eyes widened with horror, and when they were done, he asked, “Has anyone done a scrying? It might reveal more details of the villains who perpetrated this act.” He made as if to stand up, bracing his back against the wall and push himself with legs that immediately began to shake.

“Woah, there,” Cecilia said, putting a hand out for support. He took it, and rose slowly to his feet. “Be careful. You’re not ready to cast anything by the looks of it.”

He made a disdainful noise. “Casting is easier than walking.”

“A lie,” Shin informed Cecilia, helpfully. “And it is in the city’s hands, Cantor. They have mages. They will likely have the Circle investigate it–this sort of magical sabotage is not our job.”

“But–”

“I know how you’re feeling,” Cecilia said, “but do you really think the three of us could do a better job right now than the people who actually live here and have all the resources?”

“I–” Cantor scowled. “Well–” Then he slumped against the wall and groaned. “I feel useless.”

“You are useless,” Shin said, then raised her hands when both of them shot her looks of outrage. “It is the truth. For now, you must rest. If you attempt to ‘do something’, you will only get in the way and injure yourself.”

“There’s no need to put it like that,” Cecilia said.

But Cantor shook his head. With a wry lift of the lips, he admitted, “It’s probably the only way to get through to me when I’m as bored as I am right now. She’s right. I’ve got barely enough azoth to be conscious. Without more charging stones, I’ll just have to recover.”

“That doesn’t mean you’re useless.” Cecilia cleared her throat. “While we were taking the city official down below to get the rest of the bodies, I took some time to look at the array stones. I don’t know much about magic, but some of the sigils were cleaner than others - the stone was raw, not covered in slime. I figure that means that these fox masked people might have carved those in as part of the ritual. I memorized as many as I could. If I drew them…”

Cantor brightened. “I could at least take a look. See if I recognize them.”

Shin grimaced. “For what purpose? We have not been hired to investigate this. The city will not be pleased to have adventurers sticking their noses in. They might,” her voice was heavy with warning, “complain to the Guild. Who we wish to give no reason to look at us.”

“We don’t have to investigate,” Cantor said. He widened his eyes, bright and pleading. “It’ll just give me something to do. I’m so, so bored. And if I discover something useful, we can just…share it. Discreetly. With whoever is investigating.” His lips pursed. “Please?”

“Please?” Cecilia echoed, turning her best puppy-dog eyes on Shin, as well. “It doesn’t sit right with me, those guys getting brutalized like that and us just walking away. Not if we can do something.”

Shin glanced from one to the other, then threw her hands up in surrender. “Stop making those faces. We can do a little. Discreetly.” A glare at Cantor. “And provided it does not distract from our paying jobs.” The glare turned on Cecilia.

“Yes!” Cecilia and Cantor said it simultaneously. Cecilia threw up her hand. “Hi-five!”

Cantor stared at it in bewilderment, until she gently walked him through the motions. He chuckled. “This is a very silly thing.” Then he brought his hand to his nose and made a face. “And now I smell.”

“Sorry. Trip to the baths for everyone, and then I’ll show you the signs I remember.”