Clearing the rats in the first room was an easy task with Sparky's light cantrip, forked lightning, and Grog's taunt.

Caisin decided to try out his new gun, and the results were spectacular. The muzzle flash was almost blinding in such a dark environment, but the results on the hit rat were equally spectacular, the load time made it impractical to take a second shot. But Lance could see from Caisin's smile that was okay. After this, the rats fell quickly, and the party hardly broke a sweat even though the rats were all level six. Once this room was finished, the quest was updated.

At the back of the basement, there was a crack large enough for a person or an unusually sized rodent to crawl through.

"I'll go first," Grog offered. "I can lead with my shield and push back anything that shows up. Give me one of those glow stones, however."

No one objected, so Grog grabbed a stone from Lance and crawled into the crack. After a minute, Grog's voice came back. "Clear over here; the tunnel is not that long."

The party followed Grog, crawling through a rough stone tunnel that was three feet wide and maybe four high. At the other end, the party found themselves in an expanded tunnel. In the glow of Sparky's light, it was easy to see that the walls contained veins of copper.

The group passed through the area and came out into what appeared to be a workshop. It was clearly designed to be a metal working area, and there were several tools lying around, some of them clearly designed to drill through stone and open a passageway.

"Okay, so whoever works in this workshop is likely responsible for creating the tunnel we just crawled through," Lance said thoughtfully. "This still does not tell us why the rats are so large and aggressive."

"Part of the kit we got at the supplies store was copper ore," Sparky noted. "I am guessing whatever else is true we are going to need to smelt it into usable metal using one of the machines here."

"Most likely true," Caisin replied. "But what if it is copper ore and not copper that is needed later in the quest? I think it is better if we hold on until we understand what is actually required."

The room had an exit in the opposite direction as they had come from, which looked like a normal part of the structure. As the party progressed down the new tunnel, the air quickly became increasingly damp, and the tunnel soon emptied out into what was apparently a sewer. The new tunnel was wide and tall with a channel running with a dark-colored liquid down the center.

"Yikes," Grog said. "It’s great to have a more sensitive nose as an Orc, but this..." The orc fighter began gagging.

"Agreed," Caisin said. "Bad enough for a human nose!"

The sewers lead to the left and right, but to the right, there was a faint glow in the distance, so the party chose to investigate that direction first. As they moved along the passage, Lance noticed that at fairly regular intervals on the walls, there were gates made of copper, all oxidized to the blue-green color that copper attains with age. As they moved down the walkway, they found themselves nearing the glow but stopped as they heard someone, or something, speaking in low tones. Lance and Lucinda crept forward in sneak mode to find out more.

"I should really fix it... But no, why would I? But the rats are nasty. But I am stronger. But the rats. But they have all found the basement and left us alone now. What would the lady want?" It sounded like a conversation between two people, but as they rounded the last corner, they saw only one grotesquely misshapen goblin talking animatedly to himself. The creature was lopsided, with its left leg larger than its right and its right arm larger than the left. All of the limbs were hugely muscled, but the imbalance gave it the feeling of a hunchback. Above its head, the nameplate read

**********

Suddenly Quasigoblin spun around, looking directly at the two thieves. It must have super senses as well as super strength, Lance thought. "Help would be appreciated," he hollered toward the party as he drew his sword and dagger.

As Lance heard the rest of the group begin running to their aid, the creature made a great leap, covering the twenty feet between them in a moment. The creature landed on Lance, pinning him under its massive arms. Lance struggled for a moment before yelling, "Giant strength!" Lance could feel the strength surging through him and was able to push the mutated goblin off and get to his feet.

Lucinda had been stabbing the creature, and it skittered back out of range as Lance pushed it off. Just then, the rest of the party arrived.

"Wait," Quasigoblin yelled as the party readied its attacks. "I suffer here as much as anyone." The creature bowed its head, looking up just enough to cast one eye at the party to see their reaction.

"You say this now when you see our full strength," Lance replied. "But you attacked us first. Why should we show you any mercy?"

"Because I am a slave, forced to work here in the sewers. For years I opened and shut the gates, fixed them too, cleared the problems, and ate the rats. I faithfully served my masters above." The creature looked up again from its exaggerated bow, searching for a reaction.

"So what changed?"

"The alchemist always has the most interesting discharges. Some make me feel more healthy, and some do other things. But they are always fun and interesting. A little while ago, this glow appeared. And I came here to investigate. When I opened the gate, the fluid splashed all over me and I got strong. But the rats drank some too and they got strong as well." Quasigobin looked up again from telling his story.

"Continue," Lance said with a wave of his hand.

The goblin shuffled its feet and then continued, "I...I couldn't kill the rats, and they kept attacking me. So I barricaded myself in the workshop, and in my hunger, I could almost smell the grain that I knew was just beyond the walls of the mine under the Inn. So I dug a tunnel; it was that or starve!" Again the creature looked up at the party.

Lance wondered if it was stalling for time somehow, waiting for something. He waved his hand for the creature to continue.

"I ate a little grain, but soon the rats could smell the grain too, and they broke down the door and pushed me out. I killed many of them but could not kill them all."

Lance saw a notification pop up indicating that the party had completed the quest requirement, Discover why the rats are so large and aggressive.

"But now I have nothing," Quasigoblin continued a sad look on its face. "No grain, no rats, no nothing."

Suddenly the goblin's eyes lit up. "But I have the glow to make me strong and my girl to keep me company."

As Lance was processing this last statement, he heard a scream that sounded like Polly's. It issued from behind him as the huge goblin leaped forward again.

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"Polly is down. No heals. We are flanked," Caisin yelled in quick, informative staccato.

Lance could hear the second battle taking place behind them but kept his focus on Quasigoblin.

Grog pushed through to meet the goblin head-on, allowing Lance and Lucinda to flank the engorged creature.

Grog's shield bash seemed to disorient their foe, and the thieves were quick to get their poison dots on the creature. Every two strikes Lance landed, the dots disappeared, slowing the creature’s movement, but it was evident that Lucinda was going for the full dozen on her side. For the Goblin's part, it seemed to shrug off the blows. It attacked Grog with fury, clawing at the fighter, dislodging his shield, and raking its claws across his face and arms.

Behind him, Lance could hear shouts as another battle raged.

"We need to end this quickly!" Lance shouted as he stepped back and laid a trap on the ground. "Back up three steps," he yelled.

The three on his side of the battle scuttled back five or six feet, the battle-enraged goblin following immediately. As soon as the party was out of range of the trap, it erupted with a biting cold wind, leaving the goblin's skin covered with ice, and its movement slowed even further. The party surged forward again. Lucinda quickly landed her twelfth blow and converted the dots into a huge spike of damage to their foe.

Lance continued to pound away as well, blow after blow delivering both damage and his slowing poison. As the battle continued, Lance laid down another trap and called the party to step back again. The goblin's mind must have been muddled either by the concoction it had partaken of or a berserker rage, but it again fell for Lance's trap a second time, and its movement slowed to something like half speed. After this trap, the party made quick work of the goblin between Lucinda's poison and the damage the group was delivering. The whole exchange had taken ten seconds.

Spinning around, they watched as Sparky poofed into an orb. They rushed forward to join the others who had been fighting on that side. The blow that took Sparky down had been some sort of a chaos bolt. Lance looked up and saw another goblin engorged with power, but this time it was the head that was greatly expanded, not the body.

"Flank her," Lance shouted as he bent down to lay yet another trap. His stamina was bottoming out.

Grog and Lucinda moved up the walkway to either side of the female goblin. Luckily, it continued to target Caisin, its finger unwaveringly targeting him as it built up some huge spell. Suddenly, a bolt of every color, including black, erupted from her finger, flying in a crazy zig-zag pattern toward Caisin. Lance was sure it would have taken Caisin out in one shot if it had been allowed to strike his friend, but as it moved forward, a tight grouping of cubes, pyramids, and other highly ordered shapes rose in a narrow line between the combatants and intercepted the bolt. The order trap canceled out the impending chaotic doom that had been streaking toward Caisin. Gobrainiac howled in frustration as Grog and Lucinda quickly dispatched it.

Lance, Lucinda, Grog, and Caisin began to glow as the leveling process took place, making each of them level 7. As the other party members popped back into existence after the end of the fight, they looked frustrated.

Sparky said what was likely on Polly's mind as well. "So close to level seven! Frustrating to lose all of that experience on death."

Caisin put his arm around Sparky's shoulders. "I would trade places with you in an instant, friend; I would much rather have our casters level than muscle like me."

Lance quickly checked the bodies of the mutated goblins but only found one thing. A strange-looking talisman on Quasigoblin. He held it out for everyone to see.

Polly’s eyes widened when she looked at it, “Let me see that; that looks like a gift from a deity.”

The healer took the item and rolled it over and over in her hands. “This has markings that make it clear that this is from Dajixian’s temple. Maybe a communication device of some sort?”

“Is it dangerous?” Lance asked.

“Not sure, but probably best to keep it in inventory and not handle it too much,” Lance motioned for Polly to keep the item, and it suddenly disappeared into her inventory.

**********

As the party reassembled after having distributed their stat points, Sparky wandered over to the gate with the glowing fluids. He examined the gate itself. "It looks like something is missing here. I would guess it's a gear. We clearly need to find or create a gear to fix this gate."

"I suppose," Polly said. "The workshop is where we would do that. Let's get this quest finished."

The party moved back into the workshop, immediately beginning the smelting process. Luckily, this followed video game logic and did not require any special ability from them. There were several forms for creating gears, and Sparky was sent out with tools to bring back a sample gear, which allowed them to identify the correct form quickly. Grog set the form under the smelter so that when the molten copper poured out of the smelter, it filled the form. It was simply a matter of letting it cool, using a rasp to clean up the edges, and placing the new gear in the broken gate. But the gate still refused to move.

Lance pulled out the skin of fluid, saying, "Wondered what this was.". Applying the oil to the gear got it moving, and they were able to shut the gate.

"What?" Grog said after the gate was tightly shut. "I thought that would complete the quest.

Everyone checked their quest status, which came back with:

"We have stopped the source," Grog asked, "Have we not?"

Sparky spoke up then, "I think the source is actually above. We have stopped it here, but if the alchemist keeps dumping his failed brews down here, the gate will eventually fail. I am guessing if we had not closed the gate, the rats would have generated again, and the quest would have updated with more rats to kill."

The party nodded. Caisin said, “So I guess we need to go talk to the alchemist next.”

"Hang on," Lucinda said, "There is a rope in the kit. We need it somewhere here."

The party began a systematic search of the sewers and eventually found a ledge twenty feet up in a larger open space. It had an anchor point that could have been easily lassoed.

Lucinda scoffed. "Who needs a rope?" she said as she climbed the wall. She quickly climbed back down, "We need a rope."

"What is going on?" Lance asked, "Does it go up higher?"

"Nope, it's a chest, and I am not touching it," she replied.

Lance took out his magic rope and commanded it to go up and anchor itself. After that, he easily climbed up to the ledge. "If this is a mimic, I will be coming down quickly. Get ready."

Lance took out his sword, stabbed the chest several times, and then called down, "I think we can safely rule out this being a mimic, but it is locked."

Lucinda grumbled a bit but then climbed back up and unlocked the chest. "Okay, I am out of here. I just don't like chests anymore."

Inside the chest was a mace, a helmet, and a pair of boots, along with a significant amount of silver.

Lance dropped the items and then climbed down. He then proceeded to identify each item.

"Okay, mace is for Grog," Lance said as he handed it to his friend. "Looks like you can say icy strike once per battle for an extra effect."

"Nice," Grog said as he examined the weapon.

"Helmet looks like it has extra defense against blunt weapon strikes," Lance said as he looked around.

Grog and Lucinda pointed at Caisin, so Lance handed it over.

"Lastly, the boots," Lance said, "Looks like these are for Polly, and we all win when she does. Boots of the Healer. Doesn't say more than that, but I am sure that Polly will want these."

The healer nodded vigorously as she received and then put on the footwear. "And they match my robes nicely!" she added.

**********

Heading out of the sewer, they walked to the Alchemist's shop.

Sparky greeted the owner. "Hey!"

"Howdy Sparky, how are things going?"

"Well," The mage responded. "We are finishing up a quest, and I believe we need you to stop dumping your excess potions down the drain. It has been causing problems in the sewer."

A voice from the back of the shop shouted, "I told you not to do that, honey."

The Alchemist's face turned a little red, but he nodded his head. "Yeah, my lovely wife has been warning me about that. Okay, we will find a safer way to dispose of our waste."

Lance got a notification and pulled it up.

"Okay, that worked. Thanks, friend," Sparky said.

"Before we leave, I think we have enough coin to get some potions.”

The proprietor brightened up. "We have two levels of the basic potions, regular and extra strength."

Lance responded, "So, by the basic potions, I assume you mean health, mana, and stamina, correct?"

"Correct."

"Okay, how much more potent is the extra strength?"

"Triple, but it only costs double."

"So what are the prices?"

"Regular is one silver each, extra strength two."

"Okay," Lance said, "I will take 5 each of stamina and health, both in extra strength."

Each party member put in their order and paid; then they returned to the Bird and Baby for their reward. Lance received a new leather jerkin that increased his stamina by 2 points. And from the looks of his friends’ faces, everyone got something good.

"Worth it?" Sparky asked.

Everyone nodded.

"Totally," Caisin said. "I feel much more prepared to face the wraith now, but on the flip side, that quest with all of the crafting has cost us another day before we can tackle our main objective."

Lance nodded. "Well, let's get some food and a good rest tonight. Tomorrow we tackle the wraith and whatever lies beyond."

As the party settled in to eat dinner, they were suddenly pushed into their offline home.