Splash Shot

“You’re awfully calm for someone tied up and at the feet of the people whose trip you screwed up,” Aria cooly said.

“Not the first time I’ve been in a, well, sticky situation.” Piper shrugged, her words flowing out as casually as if she was idly chatting at a coffee shop.

‘I think she’s putting on a front,’ Senka thought.

‘Yeah. Observe made it sound like she’s not involved with the Abyss,’ John replied. ‘So unless she regularly gets tied up on her jobs, she’s trying to give the impression of not being disadvantaged.’

“Look, I’ll keep this simple,” Aria stated, flexing her hand in a menacing manner. “You explain what you did and we don’t leave you tied up down here. Sounds good?”

“Not a lot of wiggle room there,” Piper remarked, maintaining the aloof facade as she pushed against her slimy bindings. “But I guess that’s going to be the best offer I can expect. Name’s Piper. And all I did was try to peek into your Barrier back in the woods.”

“‘Peek’?” Aria pressed, quickly glancing at Barbara. The twin tailed girl nodded slightly.

“What I lack in power, I make up for with skill,” Piper boasted. “And it sounds just like one would think. I touch the outside of a Barrier and look inside. Not really like poking a hole in it, but enough to feel what’s going on.”

Aria glanced at Aziza, a silent conversion seeming to occur between them. John took the opportunity to ask, “Why’d you go poking into our business?”

Piper’s eyes snapped to meet his and John caught a hint of amusement flicker across her expression before Aria firmly clapped his shoulder, pushing John back from Piper.

“I’m handling things here, kid,” the smuggler smoothly said. “But that was a good question. Answer it.”

John repressed a shiver when Aria’s jovial tone darkened as she issued her demand.

“Just got curious why a bunch of people were meeting out in the middle of nowhere,” Piper answered, nothing in her tone betraying her true intent.

John saw Aria’s eyes narrow, a clear indicator that she wasn’t buying Piper’s story.

“Lynn,” she said, shifting her attention to the alchemist. “You can keep that up for a bit longer, right?”

The blonde nodded and Aria clicked her tongue. A second later, a look of panic broke Piper’s aloof facade and she craned her head as best she could to look at the assembled group. Her mouth moved but no sound escaped her lips.

“Okay, now we can talk freely,” Aria said, motioning for everyone to walk a short distance away from Piper.

“You can hit the mute button on people?” Beth asked Barbara. “Wicked. Wouldn’t mind being able to do that to some people.”

“Beth!” Lynn chided.

“What? It is,” the younger Gryff retorted.

“We can gush over each other's abilities later,” Aeolia cut in before jerking her head towards Piper. “What are we going to do with her?”

“Well, let’s get the cruel option out of the way,” Aria cooly said. “We just leave her down here and go on our way.”

Despite what he knew about Piper’s real intent, the idea of just leaving her to fend for herself didn’t sit well with John. A glance at the others showed the distaste wasn’t something limited to him.

“Yeah, I can see that’s not going to sit well with you guys,” Aria remarked with a sigh and she ran a hand through her hair. “Won’t be good if she gets caught and rats us out. Hell, even just finding her body will cause them to tighten security and look at every non-gnome as a suspect.”

“So we’ll have to take her along then,” Vivian pointed out. “But then what? Let her go once we’re above ground?”

“That might cause the same issue as just leaving her down here,” Aziza said. “The gnomes are quite meticulous with keeping track of visitors.”

“Who are you anyway?” Beth cut in.

“Beth,” Lynn began but was silenced by Aria lifting a hand.

“I suppose since we still need to nav out of here, no point in being secretive,” Aria said before placing a hand on Aziza’s shoulder. “This is Aziza. Third member of Argent Echo.”

“So you’re like her then,” Lynn said, nodding towards Senka. “Some kind of elemental.”

John felt a wave of irritation radiate from Senka but the spirit remained quiet.

“Close enough,” Aziza replied but did not elaborate.

“We should figure out what we’re going to do quickly,” Barbara suddenly interjected. “Don’t want to waste mana keeping her deaf and mute since we need to find a way out of here.”

“Right,” Aria said with a clap of her hands. “So we take her with us and figure things out once we’re not in a dank sewer.”

“I think I can keep the slime binding her,” Lynn mused.

“Don’t think that will be necessary,” Aria remarked, holding her hand up with a finger extended. Threads of silver weaved into a short chain, each end terminating in a solid semi-circle. “A pair of cuffs will be enough.”

John glanced back to Piper, who could clearly see the restraint dangling from Aria’s finger. With the ongoing distress over being deafened, she was unable to hide the further dismay over seeing the partially formed handcuff.

With a nod to Barbara to reverse her sound affecting magic, Aria walked back over to Piper.

With a nervous chuckle, the green haired woman remarked, “Not exactly nice cutting off all the sound.”

“Isn’t exactly nice to snoop into other people’s barriers,” Aria shot back.

“Touché,” Piper muttered before glancing at the cuffs. “Normally I’d ask for dinner before getting into something like that, but I guess these are extenuating circumstances.”

Unfazed by her jokey remark, Aria continued, “Here’s the deal. We’re going to find a way out of here, keep ourselves from getting caught, and finish up the business we are here to do. You’re going to keep quiet and keep your head down until we can throw you back to Earth. Got it?”

“Well, I’d rather not die down here,” Piper answered. “Cuff me.”

Aria nodded at Lynn and the blonde let the slime finally melt away. Before Piper was completely freed, Aria’s free hand shot out and grabbed the verdette by the wrist. She simultaneously hauled Piper to her feet and slapped the half formed cuff on her. Silver threads quickly grew out of it and completed the circle, tightly wrapping around her wrist.

“You know, you could have just let me put out my arms and surrender,” Piper groused, slowly bringing up her unbound arm for Aria to cuff. “I’d have to be really fucking dumb to try anything with this many people around.”

“I’d say you and doing dumb things are pretty synonymous to me,” Aria countered as she took hold of the short chain between the two cuffs. The silver flashed with white light and Piper flinched back from it.

“And just to be sure you don’t fall back into that habit,” Aria cheerfully continued, “those will now give you a nasty surprise if you try to use your mana.”

“Great,” Piper sarcastically cheered, rubbing her wrists. “So, any clue how we’re getting out of here? Because I could have helped try and find a path by tracing the mana lines to a central point, which likely would be some access point, but well, my hands are tied.”

Everyone looked at Aria to see how she’d handle this development. She, in turn, looked at Barbara and jerked her head at Piper. The twin tailed girl narrowed her eyes and nodded.

“Mana lines?” Aria asked.

“The currents of an active bit of magic,” Piper explained with a shrug. “Saw a lot of them when I woke up, going around. Bit of a pain to look at really. Figure stuff like that would need some kind of central point where it can be run.”

“That makes sense, in theory,” Vivian said. "A system this expansive would need a main control point. Better that than needing to go to each point in the system to make adjustments."

"So you think you can track these lines?" Aria asked Piper.

"Pretty sure, yeah," the verdette answered with a shrug.

"Alright, here's the deal: I'll shut off the negation and you lead us to where these lines meet up," Aria declared. "Any funny business and the cuffs will be turned back on."

"Don't really have any desire to find out what'll happen when you do that so I'll be good," Piper said.

Aria waved her hand and the cuffs flashed once. Piper looked at the smuggler for a second then closed her eyes. When she opened them, she let out a light chuckle.

"Well, time for me to uphold my end of the bargain," she remarked, looking around the chamber. She pointed down one of the paths, one the slime had been blocking when the fight broke out. "Most lines are going through that one."

"Looks like that's going to be our path," Aria announced. "Let's get moving. You first."

"Ah, of course," Piper said as she began to walk, Aria right behind her, with the rest of the party after.

---

They walked for around a half hour, the path remaining peaceful.

"Think that was the only master slime?" Beth asked out of the blue.

"It might have been," John answered. "Or it could have only been the boss of the section we were in. How big is the city above us, anyway?"

"I think it's close to New York," Aria replied. "Never really looked into it."

"Great," John muttered, his eyes catching the sway of Piper’s long ponytail. The walk had given him time to ponder the implications of Vanessa sending a private investigator after Beth.

The first had been to wonder if Vanessa was a part of the Abyss, but he ruled that out by virtue of Piper’s Observe. It was more likely Piper had just been someone the Hawthorne family employed due to the results she delivered, not caring how she got them.

With the magic angle moved down the list of likely reasons, John was left with scant else. The only thing he could think of was Beth using her power to cause Vanessa’s skirt to rip.

'There's no way that started all of this, is there?' he wondered.

'It does seem unlikely,' Senka interjected. 'I think we'll be at this dead-end until we can actually confront her.'

John nodded slightly. ’One thing at a time. Get out of here, get to Martius so he can help Kiera, then deal with the P.I. ‘

"Okay, I think we're getting close," Piper suddenly said, getting everyone's attention. "A lot of lines are starting to converge, a little excited ahead. But… Fuck."

"What?" Aria demanded.

“They’re shooting straight up, through the stone,” Piper reported. “So unless any of you can phase through solid matter, we might be shit out of luck.”

“Let’s not deem this a failure before we fully survey the area,” Vivian cautioned. “If there is some sort of command center above us, then there might be some way for them to come down here so they can check the glyphs.”

“So what, we’ve got to look for a gnome sized manhole?” Beth asked.

“That seems the most logical starting point,” the redhead replied.

“Keep your eyes open, then,” Aria commanded. “If there is one, I can’t imagine it’d be far from this convergence point. If it is there.”

She leveled that last part at Piper in a threatening tone. The bound woman rolled her eyes.

“I want out of this mess just as much as you do,” she said. “Don’t fancy starving to **** down here.”

Conversation died down as everyone put their effort into looking for any egress point. Unsurprisingly, given the nature of her magic, Vivian found it first.

“Up there,” she pointed out, bending some of the ambient lighting to highlight what she found; a narrow shaft going up into the ceiling, with a thin metal ladder running down the wall below it. “Looks like it goes up pretty far.”

“That might be our ticket out of here,” Aeolia cheered as she peeked the redhead’s cheek. “I’ll go up and see if it is. Keep the lights on.”

Aeolia bound into the air, shrinking down before flying up into the tube. A few seconds later, she flew back down, Vivian’s spotlight revealing a drawn expression.

“Ok, we might have a problem,” she reported, landing on John’s shoulder. “It’s sealed at the top, but there was a bit of light coming through the cracks.”

“Did it look like we could open it?” John asked.

“Maybe?” Aeolia answered. “Kind of hard to try when I’m my normal size. I could stand on the ladder and shrink it loose.”

“Let’s hold off on that for a moment,” Aria said. “Doing that blind might attract attention we don’t want.”

“You said there was light coming through, correct?” Aziza asked, to which Aeolia nodded. “Then I could scout above it.”

“Does this involve that thing you did after you woke up?” John inquired.

Aziza nodded. “I can move between and reside in mirrors and other solid reflective surfaces. If I go up there, I might be able to jump to something outside.”

Aria picked at her collar and removed a glinting mirror from the inside of it. She met Aeolia’s eyes and tossed it to her. Aeolia caught it easily, cradling the reflective square under her arm.

“Don’t drop it,” Aziza said. “It’s a pain to escape a shattered mirror.”

“You’re in good hands,” Aeolia assured her. The horned girl nodded before vanishing in a flash of pale light. Aeolia took off, flying back up the narrow tube.

“Going to be a slow escape going up that,” Piper commented after a few moments of silence.

“Not like we have the luxury of looking for a more glamorous exit,” Lynn said, walking closer to the ladder to peer up the shaft. “It’s going to be a pretty long climb.”

“Just how deep are we?” John wondered.

“A few dozen meters, at least,” Vivian supplied. “Which sounds reasonable given what we know about the city. Leaves room for things like basements and gives a strong foundation for the buildings. Wouldn’t be good for the city if they had sinkholes opening up everywhere.”

A glimmer coming from the shaft caught John’s attention, and a moment later, Aeolia floated back down, landing on his shoulder. A second later, Azizia appeared in a flash next to him, the uninterested expression she had worn since waking replaced with one of concerned thought.

“Not good, I take it?” Aria asked.

Aziza shook her head. “It opens out into a street. Not too busy, but there are a lot of buildings around that will have a good angle to see us climbing out. Not to mention the cover looks pretty well secured.”

“I think I could deal with that,” Aeolia suggested. “Shrinking it down should be easy.”

“Still leaves us with having to get out,” Senka said. “Even if we prevent anyone seeing us open the shaft, the amount of time it will take us to get out will greatly increase the risk of getting caught.”

“I could hide us, but with that much time needed for all of us to get out, someone could easily stumble on us,” Vivian remarked.

“It’d be easier if we could get out in one go,” John said. “Only way I can see that working is if you shrink all of us at once, Aeolia.”

The winged woman scrunched her face. “Not a lot of space up there for everyone to wait for me to do that and fly everyone up. Plus, I’ll still need enough mana to shrink the cover. Be a tall order.”

“Can’t we just shoot ourselves out?” Beth asked, peering up the shaft. “Like, Lynn can water bend us all up while we’re shrunk. Then all Aeolia has to do is be at the top and get rid of the cap before we shoot out.”

“I guess I should be happy you think I could do all that,” Lynn said. “But it’d take a lot of control to both shoot up a column of water and keep the top of it from crushing us with the pressure. Especially if we’re reduced in size. Hell, being small might affect my magic.”

“I don’t think it would,” Vivian supplied. “I haven’t noticed a change in what I could do when shrunk. Since we both have a manipulation ability, I think the same should apply to you.”

“Still leaves us the problem of me crushing us with water pressure,” Lynn shot back. “If we could do it in waves I might have been able to do it, but that leaves us with the issue of getting noticed. A few geysers are sure to attract attention.”

“Uh, excuse me,” Piper interjected, pointing a finger at Beth. “What exactly is your ability? I’m asking because you and blondie there have rather compatible auras so I was thinking you could work together to pull this off.”

“We’re sisters,” Lynn answered before Beth could. “And our abilities aren’t the same.”

“Wasn’t what I was getting at,” Piper snapped. “I mean, if her powers could complement yours, you could easily work together. Take the strain off you so don’t crush us.”

Beth perked up, her head swiveling to Vivian as she answered Piper’s initial question, “I can cling to stuff or make them slippery.”

“Adhesion manipulation, huh?” Piper muttered, bringing one cuffed hand to her chin. “Might not work then. We’d need to stick water to water, unless…”

Piper directed her attention to Aeolia. “Can you control the size of things you shrink? If we can have the cover just fit through the shaft, she,” a nod to Beth, “can make sure things go smoothly for us, while blondie launches us up.”

“It takes a lot of effort to do that,” Aeolia said. “On top of shrinking everyone, I don’t think I could control the size well enough. Last thing we need is for me to slip up and have the cover either grow too big and turn the whole thing into a bomb or make it too small and have everyone get a pressure washing. Plus, the ladder makes the shaft uneven.”

"I think that first idea could work," Aziza piped up. "I can combine your powers into one hybridized ability. Given some similarities between them and your familial connection, it should let us pull this off. Adding in the water enhancing power couldn't hurt either."

"Just what is your ability anyway?" Lynn asked. "It's one to say you can do something, but going in blind isn't settling anybody's fears about this."

"That's fair," Aziza graciously said. "At its core, my magic lets me combine other mana together. One function of that was making Aria's swords more effective against the slime. With my power, she took in some of its mana and turned it against it.

"Our escape plan would be another way to use my magic," she continued. "By combining your mana and innate abilities into one. Lynn's hydromancy will be enhanced by Beth’s ability, giving her greater control of water's cohesion."

"I'm putting my trust in the plan, if that's any vote of confidence," Aria offered once Aziza was done, placing a hand on the horned girl's shoulder.

"I suppose with boosted power and control I could pull it off," Lynn relented after a moment of thought. "How are we doing this?"

"If I may?" Vivian asked. When no one objected to her, she said, "Aeolia can wait at the top, and when we give the signal to go, she gets rid of the cover and flies out. We then shoot up. Lynn, you'll be able to change our trajectory so we can land on the street instead of going off into the sky, right?"

"If I've got enough to get up there, a change in direction will be no problem," the blonde said.

"Then we'll do that," Vivian concluded. "I'll be ready to veil us for extra security."

"I'll make sure we're quiet too," Barbara muttered, after she got a look from Aria.

"Sounds like a solid plan," Aria commented. "Looks like you got a good head for this sort of stuff."

Vivian blushed. "Well, I'm trying to break into the scene."

"Might have to look you up if we run into a tough job," Aria remarked, getting very close to Vivian. "You got a card?"

"Well, yes, but I didn't think I'd, or we'd need any," the redhead stuttered out.

John was about to step to her defense, something the rest of their little polycule was also doing, besides Aeolia as she was on his shoulder, when Barbara stepped up to Aria, a frustrated look on her face.

Whatever the silver haired girl said to the silver crafter went unheard by John but it seemed to get Aria to back off.

‘What was that about?’ John wondered.

Senka only sent back her confusion before saying, “I think it’d be best for me to retreat. Saves up space and mana.”

“You don’t think I couldn’t handle you?” Aeolia playfully asked, a teasing smirk on her lips.

“Oh, I’m sure you can,” Senka purred. “Hopefully we’ll have a private place where we can put that to the test.”

She blew a kiss before vanishing into John’s aura.

“At least we have one good memory of this place,” John muttered before shaking his head to clear away the lascivious thoughts before they could form. Work now, fun later.

“So I just have to let my mana flow?” Beth asked incredulously as Aziza lightly grabbed one of her wrists after everyone gathered under the shaft.

“Yes,” the horned woman answered tersely, taking Lynn’s wrist in her other hand. “I’m adding the particularities of your mana to hers. All you have to do is keep channeling.”

“Should I recast my spell before or after you link them up?” John asked next.

“After,” Aziza replied. “Once I have the link up, I can maintain it even from inside a mirror.”

John nodded, focusing his mind. Arcane Sense activated, letting him sense the watery feel he had become accustomed to. He let that fade to the background as he shifted his attention to Aziza and the sisters. Beth and Lynn felt as he had come to know, so he focused on Aziza.

Her presence felt like the faint light of pre-dawn on a winter morning mixed with the sort of feeling of being pulled by the riptide of the ocean. It was deep and cool and John realized he’d sensed it before: back when they were opening the way to Detreye. He put that out of mind as he sensed Beth's mana begin to flow into Lynn along a channel of Aziza’s power.

"Okay, that's a weird feeling," Lynn remarked as she gestured with her free hand. The water below them responded to her command and surged upwards, forming into a tendril. The blonde placed her hand on the tentacle, experimentally pushing on it.

"The surface tension is a lot easier to maintain," she muttered before looking at John, a confident look on her face . "Get that boosting spell going. We're getting out of here."

John nodded once and cast Arcane Wellspring. The power it produced was the same as the previous use and Lynn began to gather more water from the channel. Aeolia flitted around, shrinking everyone. In short order everyone was reduced and Aeolia flew up the shaft.

Lynn willed the water around them to flow under their feet, lifting them off the stone floor. John noticed her expression had grown more concentrated and he worried that lifting them might be beyond her capacity.

"Going up!" Lynn suddenly cried out and they surged upward, passing into the dark shaft. For a moment the only thing any of them were aware of was the roar of their passing and the roiling surface they stood on.

Then, daylight suddenly broke through the darkness. John felt Vivian’s magic begin to weave around them and they shot out into fresh air.

John only had a second to take in the impressively carved stone buildings of white stone before the water coiled up around the edge of their platform, fully encasing them in water. He saw Lynn's face wet with sweat, her closed eyes scrunched tight, and he realized they had gone past the range of his skill.

With one final grunt of effort, Lynn directed the geyser to the ground. Their little bubble hit the ground hard, the layer of water above them crashing down on them as a cold rain. John’s arms caught Vivian as everyone toppled over, the semi-solid floor returning to its normal state.

Quest Complete: Scattered Sewers
You escaped the sewers and all you got were wet shirts, and well, everything else. And you only ran into one minor obstacle. There is some really messed up stuff deeper down there. The gnomes would really do a good cleaning.
Reward: 950(50) EXP

Level Up!
5 Skill Points Gained

New Achievement: Double Digits
Reached Level 10. Now you’re not absolutely the weakest member of your party. Have something to spice up some of your skills.
Reward: 2 Skill Enhancement Tokens.

The momentum of the magically induced current carried them into a side road before it petered out. John felt Vivian’s magic wash over him as he sat himself and the redhead up, ignoring the popups for now. All of them were well soaked, which caused everyone’s attire to cling to them, very attractively in his opinion.

Wrenching his gaze away from how the damp clothes lovingly caressed Beth’s cute breasts, John asked, “Everybody OK?”

“If ‘OK’ is code for ‘alive but soaking’, then yes,” Piper was the first to answer, her long hair a tangled mess.

“Well, good thing your opinion doesn’t count,” Aria shot back. “Veil up?”

“Yes,” Vivian answered. “I take it sound is also being dealt with.”

“Yeah,” Barbara tersely replied.

“Could you try to direct Aeolia down here?” Vivian asked, pointing into the air above them. “She’s about there.”

Barbara nodded and pursed her lips like she was whistling. A second later, Aeolia descended, her form flickering as Vivian’s veil around them clashed with Aeolia’s personal one.

“Nice geyser,” the winged woman remarked as Lynn staggered to her feet.

“Lost control at the end,” she said through somewhat heavy breaths. “Had to trade finesse for power.”

“We probably left the range of my spell,” John admitted. “Sorry.”

“We made it out.” The blonde shook her head, her hair completely dry.

"Yeah, we did," Beth cheerfully said, her eyes affixed on her sister. "Not a bad trick we pulled off, right?"

"We can talk about later," Lynn remarked as she pulled her communication disk from her pocket. "Let's call Martius and see if it's safe for us to get to him. No knowing if we've set off any alarm."

Thanks again for reading this little story. If you liked the chapter, please hit that thumbs up, and if you want to support my writing, check out my Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/ScrapCrow. Get access to my chapters before they’re published here and join my private Discord.