The walk to the nearest entrance of the Perfumery, the city's sewer network, was relatively uneventful, despite its location in the Silk Quarter. As I passed by the rough tanneries and rougher dwellings, a disheveled individual, a desperate Dust addict with glazed, wild eyes, accosted me. He begged for a few coins, but my response was a quick kick, sending him on his way. As expected, the city folk around us didn't spare a single glance in our direction.
“Whatever you do, don’t grow up to be like one of those,” I suggested to Larynda.
“You don’t have to tell me twice. That’s exactly what I don’t want to be like!” was her surprisingly mature response. I had expected an entreaty to be kinder.
Turning a corner, I stopped suddenly. Larynda skidded to a halt behind me, bumping into my back. I stood in front of some serious-looking gates guarded by some very mean and rough sorts. The construction was decorated with hellish imagery, the dark wood banded with steel. Before the gates, were what I assumed to be the Perfumers, the maintenance workers and de facto guards of the sewers. The greater part of them wore heavy armor of varying quality, type, and styles and only a few of them were in civilian clothing. However, they all wore the same uniform lantern at their hips.
A sour stench, just a hint of it, for the time being, emanated sinisterly from beyond. We had arrived at our destination, the entrance to the sewers of Al-Lazar.
To supply a city as dense in population as the City of Dust with water was a monumental proposition and ensuring its sanitation with the limited advancements of this world, doubly so. Along with the briefest of explanations, the receptionist had provided me with a rough map of the sewer network, and from my cursory study of it, it truly was almost as impressive a feat of engineering as the city above. The maintenance of such a sanitary network alone would cost a fortune daily.
And thus it was the Perfumed Men, the sewage workers of the city, that this humble duty fell upon. Funded by the Council of Al-Lazar, they were essentially an arm of the local government, and like most things run by governments, woefully inefficient and ineffective. It was the Guild of Adventurers that took up the slack, culling the multitude of things that bred in the dark depths of the sewers. It was an example of outsourcing, the lazy last resort of failed administrators.
“You one of the new ones? Copper rankers, right?” a large bulky man asked, stepping up to me and not-so-subtly blocking my way.
“Leave him be. Looks like he’s just going to be another victim for the tunnel killer…” sneered a cross-eyed excuse for a human a few meters away. “You lot been dying more than usual lately... and not even kind enough to leave your stuff behind.”
Even with the overpowering stench of the sewer, I could still smell this walking piece of filth quite clearly.
The bulky man laughed at his companion’s words. I met his gaze, forcing my expression to remain pleasant. On a basic human level, I found it to be difficult to treat such an ugly person in a pleasant manner. A scraggly beard did little to hide a face that had never recovered from its war with acne, and his eyes looked in different directions like a crazed chameleon. Despite his ugly excuse for a face, this man was more muscle than fat, if the thick exposed neck above his armor and wide shoulders were anything to go by.
“Aren’t the pair of you… well a little scrawny and young to be going into the Perfumery? Ain’t exactly the place fer…” he continued, nattering on like an old woman.
“I am stronger than I look. Likely more so than you. And the girl, she can probably kill everyone here with a few words. We are here on a ridiculous quest to kill twenty Sewer Rats. Now step aside and let us in,” I commanded, still in my most pleasant voice. Larynda stuck out her tongue at him.
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“Ho! Ho!” he laughed off my claim, “The brazen balls on this one!” His toothless comrades chuckled alongside him. “Be our guest. Just thought of giving you a piece of advice. People have died down there, is all. Lost a few mates over the years. You can’t be careless down there,” he answered placatingly. I noticed there was an edge of nervousness in his voice.
“Mate, just you know you ain’t the first to be going down today. Another groups has been down there since yesterday evening. One of you lot,” he commented. “Also, likes, you should probably be at least taking a torch or lantern down there. We can rent you one out at a reasonable price… All of you be needing one if you want to go down.”
“We will be alright, but thank you,” I stated tightly,
“Perhaps, you don’t get it. You be needing one to go down, and the price of a rental goes up the longer I’m talking,” he stated no-so-subtly.
“As I said, we will be alright,” I replied firmly, unwrapping a cloth bundle from my boiled leather satchel. A bright piece of Zajasite answered his suggestion.
He wiped his forehead with an armored forearm, the gesture more symbolic than anything else. “Well I’ll be, that’s a stone from the Travelling People. They don’t give ‘em out or sell them to outsiders,” he said awestruck, the flame of avarice burning brightly in his odious features.
“They don’t. Now, may I enter, or must I make a formal complaint to the Guild? Step aside,” was my simple and flat response.
He looked around nervously, probably thinking to make light of the situation. I looked at him with eyes, dead in their seriousness, willing him to say anything out of order so I could have the merest of excuses to end him.
“Yeah, can we go in now or do I have to kill 'em all like you said, Gil?” Larynda cut in with childish innocence, drawing worried glances from the men around them.
“Mate, no need for any o’ that now. Is the rules that you have to pay us for the service,” he answered worriedly.
Something was afoot here, the receptionist at the Guild had made no mention of this. This whole thing, truly, stank of simple corruption.
“No. No, you were not. I know your type. You were trying to threaten me. Now you are probably wondering how you can rob me. See this stone? Take it from me if you can. I invite you to it,” I offered, giving them each a confident smile. “I dare you all.”
The big man looked for support from the men behind him but found none. Perfect.
“Likes I said, now, there be no need for that. That stone be more than enough to pay fer going in for a year…” he said, nodding to himself as he came closer.
I answered him with an armored backhand that knocked him almost spinning to the ground. He reached for a round mace at his waist as he tried to regain his feet, but I simply kicked at it with a steel boot, knocking it out of his grip.
“You… can’t be doing this,” he wheezed, a bloodied and broken nose adding to his beauty. “I’ll be reporting this to the City Guard and your Guild I will!”
I noticed his friends looking in different directions, slowly edging away from him at an appropriately cautious speed.
“The contemptible blatherings of the weak. You will do no such thing, because if you do… well you won’t be able to do much after. Let’s leave it at that. Oh, come to think of it, you have wasted quite a bit of my time on what should have been a relatively simple procedure.”
“Was a shakedown if you ask me, Gil,” commented the little girl, her childish voice at odds with the content of her words.
“Yes, you are most likely correct. That it was. Here I was thinking for a moment that this city was meant to be civilized. Disappointment, it follows me wherever I go,” I lamented comically, as I sent out my searching spell. A trick I had learned to keep people off balance.
Arif Rashid - Sewage Worker (Human lvl.12)
Health: 101/147
Stamina: 28/31
Mana: 7/7
“Don’t you think I deserve a token of apology for this heinous waste of time? Arif Rashid,” I demanded.
I had grown to love Identify, for its utility in breaking down a person’s worth into objective numbers.