We split up into our respective groups, Lock and I make our way down the sewers along the right hand side, the middle has the same covered pipe where all the waste is flowing down. Light crystals slowly light up around us as we proceed down the maintenance paths and extinguish after we past by.

Something I didn’t notice last time I was down here was that from the walls there are smaller grey pipes that exit from the walls or roof and end at the large central pipe.

Lockness moves under one of these pipes, “These areas closest to the service entrances are normally clear.”

“How do we want to run this? You take lead and I support from behind?” I ask through the Voice Chat.

“Yeap, oh I should add that try not to walk on the central pipe. It could crack or fall in.”

“Easy, don’t want to do that.”

I bring my hands down to my side and keep an ear out for any sounds other than the odd sound of water flushing through the pipes. At least it doesn't smell.

We spend the next few hours walking down the path, not seeing anything interesting aside from stonework and pipes, the entire sewer system leads under the roads of the city, every road and back alley. I am getting quickly board of this…

“So Lock, you have much experience with missions like these?”

“Some, when I turned fifteen I joined under an Adventurer Apprenticeship, I had undertaken several low ranked missions with other groups and mentors but this is my first time running one by myself.”`

“No wonder you're all business about this then, got any ideas about when we should run into this infestation? It's been hours already and I am starting to feel like this is a waste of time.”

“Yea I know, these listings are sometimes not specific enough. Give them an excuse to get us to clear the whole system and not just that small section.”

“That sounds like a bad idea, why?”, “Politics.”

Ah that sounds great, we continue walking down the massive system of tunnels for a few more hours with no contact from the other teams, the darkness follows us as the lights go out, as we slowly make our way further and further from the centre of town more of the tunnels appear older, not cleaned or simply out of use.

The smell is getting worse, leaky pipes and water damage from the cracks, webs cover the surface with brown spiders that are remarkably similar to Earth's scuttle around.

Some squeaks can be heard up ahead, scuttling, crunching, the sounds of it are maddening. It's like listening to thousands of things fight and eat. I don’t know if just us two will be enough. As we turn a corner we see it, thousands of rats, too many to count and large, some as big as dogs.

Thousands of large rat things as big as dogs. Great.

“Um, Lock, buddy, what the hell do we do now?” I whisper as I pull myself and Lock back behind the corner. Wet brick coating our backs in water.

“Uhh, I don’t know. I’ve never heard of this happening before, how did it get so out of hand?!”

“Ok, how can we stop this? Think Lock.”

“Alright, alright, pass me the map.” As I pull the map from the Inventory I pass it to Lock who quickly finds out our location, “Ok so we have a dead end, they are trapped here, we can block them in here but we’ll have a hell of a fight.”

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“They must have a nest or chewed through the stonework, even if we antagonise them they could easily just run… We could use that. Antagonise them into leaving the nest and then clear out the fighters, then go in and clean house.” I say thinking aloud.

“We could do that, would your ability to move stone work here?”

“Nope, I could very easily destroy the streets above or cause a cave in. Counter-plan, does your Lightning Power chain attacks?”

“Chain?”, “Yea like, go from one target to another automatically.”

“Yes, it’s just tricky to do.”, “Ok, then hows about we do this, a burst of fire into the main chamber, they see and run after me, once they come out you attack them from behind and then once taken care of we go in and take the others out.”

“But if they have nests further in we could miss quite a few of them, I’m not sure what to do for those aside from closing off the tunnels.”

As he's saying that I feel the wetness from the wall on my back having soaked through my gear, water!

“I can move and freeze water, I take the water from the walls and cracked pipes and push it into the nests then freeze it. That should take care of the rest of them.”

Nodding Lock gets himself prepared, “ready when you are” he says, pulling out a thin cylinder of metal that ends at a point from his circular sheath, pale crystal inserted into the hilt at the hand grip. It is the length of a short sword but with no edge, all points.

I take in a deep breath and step into the middle of the path, back to the main tunnel and pipe and straddling the pipe along the middle of the rat infested path. Some rats take notice and hiss at me warning the others, several take notice and start walking toward me.

Taking in a deep breath in and out, tasting the filth of this tunnel in and out, in and OUT! I breathe out fire and shoot fire from my fists at my sides coating the floor of the tunnel and some of my walls in fire.

The smell is horrid, it would make me feel faint if the Protection of Mind and Body Power wasn’t protecting me. As I stop the fire I push again from my fists forcing the air and smoke back into the tunnel to give Lock a clear line of sight.

I keep an eye out and as the fire dims I hear more screeching, hundreds of rats rush out of cracks in the stonework and come toward me, yeap time to go. I rush out toward the opposite side of Lock’s position and the rats follow, as I run down the tunnel Locks Power activates.

Holding his “sword” horizontal towards the horde of rats following me and lightning arcs from his hands, through the crystal in the hilt and through the end of the sword. The Lightning shoots out as a massive charge, chaining through dozens of the rats.

As the charge ends he fires again, another Lightning bolt shoots out, chaining into more and more of them but some turn the corner towards Lock and run towards him, taking the brunt of the Lightning meant for the ones chasing after me.

Speaking of, I have a few hundred chasing after me right now and I am terrified. I throw the needles from my belt toward them and control them with Psychokinesis, Its sharp points penetrating the rats, blood and viscera coat the floor, I move the needles back and forth horizontally along the floor in rows and rows, low enough to penetrate them cleanly and shred them apart.

As I move them back and forth I bring my hands up into a plus and two more clones appear. As they do Number 6 punches forward shooting fire into the mass of the rats while Number 7 moves his arms around, moving the smoke along the bottom of the path, choking out the rats that have not yet been killed off. Soon the tide slows as more and more are either brunt from Lightning and Fire, ripped apart by needles or smothered in smoke.

As the last ones are dying, Number 6 runs back toward the side tunnel entrance near Lock and pushes forward, water from the walls and the leaking pipes flows along the floor, slowly filling the floor and moving into all the nesting gaps in the stonework.

As more and more of the waste water is moved in from the pipes into the tunnel there are several that are trying to swim out, Number 7 and I finish with the leftover rats and move along to the side tunnel entrance. We pull on the water, pulling from deeper and deeper from the pipes and into the tunnel it eventually fills to the top and into all its chambers while Number 7 and I hold back the water and Lockness picks off any stragglers. The cost of the mana is heavy but we make it just in time.

Lock turns towards us, nodding we freeze the water with a twist of our collective hands and at once the grey water filled with gods knows what is frozen solid, we have wiped out the infestation, now we just need to work on cleanup…