Sewer System

‘Senka, you there?’ John thought, slightly panicked that whatever went wrong might have ripped Senka out of his head and manifested her somewhere.

‘I’m here,’ the spirit assured him, a calming embrace wrapping around him. ‘I was rendered **** too. Not sure if it was because you were or if the magic did it.’

Calming down a bit, John took a breath as he equipped his jacket. He pulled his phone out too and spat a curse when he noticed there was no signal.

‘Everyone probably got knocked out,’ John presumed. ‘And from the quest I got, they are at least in the same area we are.’

‘Do you think there are crocodiles in this sewer?’ Senka mused.

‘Is now really the time for that kind of joke?’ John questioned her choice of humor as he surveyed their surroundings. He stood at the top of a channel around four meters across and three deep. Several glowing glyphs flickered in a faint blue up and down each side, about a meter above a small river of water.

‘Just something to try and break the tension,’ Senka replied. ‘Let’s not allow dark thoughts to plague us. I can’t imagine a city allowing such things to dwell under them.’

‘Then why word the quest like there was going to be something going after us?’ John pressed as he threw an Observe at one of the glyphs.

Water Control Glyph
A glyph for ‘water’ in the gnomish language of Detreye. Small variations from the textbook form influence the flow of the water that runs close to it. Employed to move water through the aqueduct system.

‘Could just be Gaia lighting a fire under us,’ Senka remarked, though her tone had lost some of its confident quality. ‘Or, more likely, there may be some patrol or automated defense we’ll need to avoid or defeat.’

‘So we should try to find everyone quickly,’ John thought, nervously fiddling with his coat. ‘I’m mainly worried about Kiera. Everyone else can fight or use their abilities to hide, but I don’t think she’s got enough of her mind to deal with an enemy.’

‘A fair worry,’ the spirit replied. ‘But finding anyone right now is a matter of chance.’

John nodded as he closed his eyes and activated Arcane Sense. He felt the environment’s mana settle over him like he was submerged in oddly thick water. Within that muck was a clearer flow of energy from the glyphs as they pulled at the actual water below.

‘Nobody close,’ John reported, though he knew Senka had felt everything he did. ‘Guess we’ll have to use the old reliable way to find someone, eyes.’

‘Perhaps you can use the wind spirit,’ Senka suggested as John began to walk down the sewer, towards what looked like a left turn. ‘You were able to peer into Kiera’s aura with those abilities, so perhaps you can scout with it. You wafted over the scent of fries before.’

‘Bit of a stretch to call that a scouting move,’ John amusedly thought. But her idea had merit. If nothing else, trying would let him focus on something that wasn’t the possibly horrible situations everyone else might be in or how they ended up in this situation.

John let the wind spirit fly from his aura in its partially manifested state. He focused on its whirling currents while thinking about how he and Mason delved into Kiera’s aura. As he did, he made note of how the spirit was formed, a bundle of wind streams flowing around a central core.

Touching upon the spirit’s innate desire to act, John willed it to spread out. The contained currents lashed out, whizzing past John in a phantom zephyr as the tight bundle unwound into a long cord. The core of the spirit remained where John held it, a condensed bead of power with uncountable threads of micro streams spreading out from the poles.

As he focused on the now long and undulating spirit, he felt something both in front and behind him, the steady thrum of those water control glyphs. What surprised him was that he knew his range wasn’t large enough to sense both.

Minor Wind Spirit Attribute Unlocked: Breeze Carry

John could feel his mana begin to dip as the spirit began to feed off it and he dispelled it so he could review just what happened.

‘First time I’ve pulled this up since Spirit Link updated after I linked up with you,’ John thought towards Senka.

‘I suppose there were more interesting things happening that distracted you,’ the spirit smugly replied.

John chuckled then focused on the spirit’s sheet. The addition of the spirit’s cost and range were expected and that they were unchanged from when he acquired it fit with how the spirit had functioned the same both before and after bonding with Senka. Which meant his attention could zero in on the new addition.

Breeze Carry: You can channel your skills though this spirit, using it to deliver the effect beyond your normal range. Some skills have better compatibility with this spirit than others, reducing the cost of the skill or unlocking additional benefits.

Cost: Skill Cost + 3MP/Min (Fully Manifested) or 6MP/Min (Partial Manifested)

‘Interesting that it costs more to use this when the spirit is only partially manifested,’ Senka noted as John dismissed the screens.

‘Probably because a fully manifested spirit can handle the effect better, needing less mana to bridge the gap,’ John surmised. ‘Think of it like a highway. When the lanes are blocked by an accident or road work, it takes more effort to get through.’

‘I suppose that tracks,’ Senka remarked. ‘I presume you’re going to use this with Arcane Sense to feel around corners and such?’

‘Yep,’ John said, willing the wind spirit into full manifestation. ‘Costs less to keep it out in full than it will to do so in partial mode. Just have the disadvantage of having it be visible.’

John focused a second, letting his mind enter the state needed for Arcane Sense to activate. As the surrounding mana came into focus once more, John also felt a tug towards the wind spirit and he let the skill flow into the swirling mass.

There was a shift in perspective and John became aware of his own aura. It was actually hard to sense as it clung tightly around his body. Focusing on it made John feel like he was standing at the edge of a deep hole, with subtle and varied vibrations shaking the ground behind him.

Arcane Sense has high compatibility with the wind spirit. Cost reduction: 50%.

‘Nice to get an immediate benefit,’ John thought as he **** himself to look away from himself and sent the spirit outward, towards where the path branched left.

‘I can send the spirit out about ten meters,’ he thought as he steadily followed after the spirit. ‘And Arcane Sense has a range of twelve. Pretty good for scouting.’

When the spirit reached the turn, John directed it down that path until it reached its limit. Just at the limit of its range, a muted but somewhat familiar presence tickled his senses. John hurried down the path and came upon the **** Aria.

‘Hopefully this means everyone is down here,’ Senka noted as John knelt down beside the smuggler. Before he pulled out the staff to heal her, he gently nudged her shoulder, hoping that since he was undamaged by their rough trip here everyone was just knocked out because of magic and not due to trauma. He also cast Observe on her, but willed the display away for later examination.

His light touch or the caress of his magic proved enough to drag the white haired woman’s consciousness to the surface and John found himself knocked back by her sudden awakening.

-1HP

Faster than he could process, John found himself on his back, a wide eyed Aria straddled atop him, her blue eyes sparkling. A jagged spike of silver was clenched in one hand and was pointed at John’s throat, the tip only a few inches from piercing his flesh. Reflexively, John drew the wind spirit between them and conjured as strong a gust the little spirit could.

Against a fully aware opponent, it would have done little more than nudge them back. To a still somewhat groggy target, it was more than strong enough to **** her off John. Aria hit the stone ground with a thud, the silver shiv clattering beside her.

John scrambled to his feet, half expecting Aria to attack again, and was about to summon a weapon when the smuggler said, “Hold on. Sorry about attacking you. Guess you don’t know not to interrupt a lady’s beauty sleep.”

“I think knocking you down makes us even,” John retorted as Aria stood up.

The white haired woman looked around and spat out a curse.

“Fuck! What the hell happened?” she muttered before pinching her collar between her fingers. After a moment, her expression grew more worried and she looked at John with intense eyes.

“Hey, I followed your instructions,” John defended himself. “And so did everyone else.”

After a few more tense moments, Aria shook her head.

“No, nothing we did caused this,” she said, closing her eyes. “Okay, crash course for ya while we look for everyone else.”

“You don’t have any way to reach your partner?” John interrupted her. “I mean, my phone’s not working, but I figured…”

“Even if you had the upgrades for your phone to work completely off Earth, it’d still be dead down here,” Aria said, pulling out her own to show the same lack of signal before starting to walk down the path. “Of course Barbara and I have the right upgrades, but still, dead. Too much stone above. Plus, even if they did work, I think trying to call out might not be the best idea.”

“Why?” John asked as he caught up.

“Do you think our less than perfect entrance wouldn’t attract attention?” Aria asked. “Our method isn’t just ‘take a step through and hope we don’t get seen’. We had to figure out how to slip past any detection spells. And given Detreye’s history, they’ve got a lot.”

“Yeah, I heard a bit about that,” John said, recalling Lynn’s brief history lesson. Before any further conversation could transpire, he recalled her Observe sheet, preferring to not remain in the dark regarding his unexpected ally’s information, however sparse it might be.

‘Well, that’s not much,’ John thought as he scanned the display. Given he had hit her while she had been ****, the lack of emotional info and a basic relationship blurb was expected. Her title of ‘Silver Crafter’ matched up with both the metallic feel to her aura and the blade she had when she awoke.

‘I didn’t see where she got it from,’ John noted. ‘Going by her title, I guess she can conjure up silver. Is it real silver the way my powers make real loot or is it some kind of fake magic sliver? Probably the latter. I think normal silver’s too soft to use as a weapon.’

‘Don’t tell that to anyone who’s ever written werewolf stories,’ Senka remarked in an amused tone.

‘That makes me wonder if her silver has any special properties,’ John mused. ‘They were a key part in how they got us here.’

‘Not exactly the most ringing endorsement there,’ Senka thought with dry amusement.

Before John could comment further, Aria stopped short, half turning towards John.

“Something wrong?” John asked, keeping himself several paces behind the smuggler.

“It’s a bit quiet down here, don’t you think?” Aria asked.

“Uh, no. The water’s kind of hard to ignore,” John answered, wondering where this was coming from and if Aria wasn’t as fit as she seemed.

Instead of responding, Aria held out a hand and a lattice of glowing white metallic threads grew from her palm, weaving into a small nugget of silver. She then pivoted and threw it down the corridor. John watched it land several meters away, but couldn't hear the telltale noise of metal striking stone.

“A benefit of knowing and working with a sound mage is getting pretty accustomed to minor changes in noises,” Aria commented with a self satisfied grin. “The water sounds a bit off, and given how quick you and I woke up, I would expect Barbara to have tried to contact me. That she hasn’t made me think something else was up.”

“Huh,” John ineloquently intoned. “Wouldn’t have picked that up.”

‘And nothing Arcane Sense picked up and gave that away,’ he thought.

‘It’s possible the ‘thick’ feeling you got is a part of the sound suppression inside of the water’s presence,’ Senka postulated. ‘Perhaps Aria will speak more on it.’

“Any clue why something like that would be down here?” John asked, not content with leaving the conversation in the smuggler’s court.

“Could be a number of reasons,” Aria answered with a casual shrug of her shoulders as they began to walk again. “Could be as simple as wanting to keep the sounds of the plumbing from disturbing the people above. Or it could be something from when this place was under outside rule and used to hide rebel groups. Can’t know for sure unless we find the source. Even then, it’s not a sure fire thing. It’s not like people just leave detailed notes about things all over the place.”

‘Observe probably could,’ John couldn’t help but to internally gloat over that. But a worry began to gnaw at him which robbed the good feeling that brought. With the sound around them dampened, they could get ambushed easily. And any nearby attack in progress could go completely unnoticed if they didn't get close enough to almost be on top of it.

"You worrying about your friends?" Aria asked, drawing John out from his paranoid thoughts.

"Of course I am!" John snapped.

"Whoa, no need to bite my head off," Aria playfully remarked. "Wasn't implying you weren't. I'm in the same boat. But tying your guts into knots over the situation isn't going to rewrite reality. And, I don't think there's anything down here that poses a real threat."

No sooner did the words leave her mouth than a gelatinous blue blob came sailing into their path from around a corner. It flew across the channel and splattered against the far wall, oozing down it slowly. They hurried to the turn, reaching it in time to see Lynn thrust her arm towards some sort of animated slime.

Before John could take in its features or cast Observe, it exploded, chunks of goo flying away from the blonde alchemist and into the water below.

"Okay, I stand corrected," Aria said, which attracted Lynn’s attention.

"What the fuck happened?" The blonde wasted no time in tearing into Aria, a frantic mix of panic and fury etched across her face as she stomped over to them.

"Something outside the barrier screwed up the jump," Aria explained, surprisingly calm given the enraged alchemist closing in on her. "Only ran into him so far."

John fought to keep from flinching when Lynn's gaze snapped towards him before honing back on Aria.

"Is that all you have to say?" Lynn growled, her vials shaking. "'Oops, something screwed us up. Hope that doesn't mess with your plans?'"

"It's the truth of the matter and starting a yelling match isn't going to help us find everyone else," Aria stated. "Especially since there's a sound dampening field down here."

Lynn balled her hand into a fist and John decided to do something stupid: try and de-escalate the situation.

"Okay," he cut in, stepping between the two women, "let’s dial things down a bit, all right? We've got more important things to worry about than figuring out what went wrong and who's to blame. We need to find everyone and get to Martius. And the longer we're stuck down here, the more likely we're going to get found out, right?"

"It's a possibility," Aria answered. "That slime thing might have been some sentry. Or it could have just been a cleaner."

"I don't think it was trying to wash me," Lynn snidely remarked, her expression and posture becoming less tense.

John let out a breath, relieved he was able to keep things from exploding into a fight.

New Achievement: Mediation.
Managed to prevent a fight from breaking out. Not many would get in between two women when one’s about to attack the other.
Reward: +1 Charisma

‘If I keep getting charisma points from achievements, I think I can forgo putting level up points into it,’ John mused.

‘Let’t not assign points before we get them,’ Senka cautioned. ‘Never know if we’re going to end up in a situation where you’ll need to become as suave as possible in a short time.’

John repressed a shudder. ‘Not sure any amount of boosted Charisma will be enough for me to want to be the center of attention like that.’

“So, you two came down from that way?” Lynn asked, gesturing towards the direction they had come from.

Aria nodded and Lynn continued, pointing to the passageway behind her, “I came out from there and the slime attacked.”

“It’s likely the slime came from somewhere in that direction,” Aria mused, crossing her arms under her bust.

“No shit, Sherlock,” Lynn muttered. “What we should be thinking about is where we’re going to look for everyone.”

“That was my suggestion,” Aria cooly said. “It’s possible the slime’s point of origin may be back that way and serves as a central location for this maze.”

“And going right into their base sounds like a grand idea,” Lynn snarked.

“Do we have any other choice besides picking a random direction and hoping?” Aria asked. “We can’t rely on trying to hear anything, and even if we could, shouting might just attract more enemies. At least heading that way means we’ll be ready to fight if the need arises.”

“I can scout ahead just to be safe,” John piped in, willing his wind spirit into view. “I can sense mana a good bit away with this.”

Aria cocked her head to one side, her bangs swaying as she did, a coy smile on her lips. “Well, that’s a neat trick. Don’t think I’ve run into someone who could so casually extend their sensing range.”

“W-well, it doesn’t have that much range,” John stuttered out, not liking the intense look in Aria’s eyes. “And it’s not exactly cheap to use. Don’t want to burn all my mana just to find out we’ve got to fight something.”

“Okay, we’ll head towards certain danger,” Lynn cut in. “We’re wasting time just chatting.”

Aria chuckled and walked to the front of their little group. “I’ll take the lead then. Let’s get moving.”

The smuggler proceeded without any more words and John saw Lynn grind her teeth in frustration before following after.

‘Hopefully we’ll find everyone before they actually start fighting,’ Senka remarked.

‘Yeah,’ John replied, willing Arcane Sense into the wind spirit. He cast the spirit out in front of the group, letting it look for any sign of their missing companions.

Thankfully, moving towards possible danger seemed to have put both women into a focused mode and they didn’t trade any more barbs, letting John maintain focus. Several minutes passed, each costing five mana to keep his senses expanded, but then John felt something besides the mucky environmental presence.

“Something’s up ahead,” John said, breaking the silence that persisted among them. “Feels like a mass of something slimy. A big mass, right around the corner.”

Aria nodded. “Drop your spell and be ready to attack. Don’t make the first move. We might be able to avoid it.”

John nodded, letting the wind spirit fade back into his aura. Lynn didn’t show any outward acknowledgement of Aria’s command, but she did leave a hand hovering over one of the vials fashioned to her coat.

They rounded the corner, which opened into a large circular chamber, ringed by a canal and connected to the various passages that branched off it by narrow stone bridges. A massive blue blob of slime sat in the center. Numerous air pockets filled the creature’s insides, and each had an occupant.

“Beth!” Lynn screamed when she saw what was in one. Indeed, each pocket was filled with their missing companions, all of them seemingly ****. The blonde threw her hand out and John could feel the surge of her mana trying to free her sister. The slime’s body quivered but resisted Lynn’s attempt to control it as several portions of it began to glow.

John fought back a surge of panic at seeing the women he greatly cared for in such dire straights and joined Lynn in trying to free Beth, firing off a Hex at the slime. He felt his skill hit the slime, but it seemed to have no effect.

While John tried to think of another angle of attack, the blonde alchemist did not give up, even as sweat began to gather across her brow and her face grew red. Aria stepped back and **** Lynn’s arm down, breaking her concentration.

“All you’re doing is exhausting yourself,” the smuggler spat, her usual confidant aloofness replaced with worried determination. “It’s too much for you to affect.”

“Then how do you propose we deal with it?” Lynn shouted back as the slime began to ooze closer to them, the illuminated parts of its body pointed towards them.

“I’m not at the top of my game,” Aria said, threads of silver appearing over her extended hand, weaving into the form of a sword. At the same time, the lines John had seen before extended down the back of her hand, covering it in a diamond pattern. “But if we can get her out, we’ll be able to deal with this thing easily.”

She pointed her blade to one of the pockets and John saw someone he didn’t recognise, a petite woman with dark hair in a simple black dress.

“That’s Aziza, my other partner,” Aria said before either John or Lynn could ask about her. “And her magic will make dealing with this thing a piece of cake.”

“So we just save your friend first, is that it?” Lynn snapped. “I’m supposed to just forget that my sister's trapped in that thing.”

“We don’t have time to argue about this,” Aria shouted, pointing at the approaching slime with her sword. “You don’t have the power to save your sister, not alone. You think I like having to prioritize Aziza over Barbara? But I need her out to do the most damage. So, if you’re not going to help, step back and let me work.”

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.