Carl went back into his house one last time and opened the garage door. Pulling out of the garage he started up a beautiful FLH sparkling blue ninteen seventy-three Harley Davidson motorcycle. Roaring to life, the sound of the engine made some birds in a tree nearby fly off in protest. He pulled up next to the team and motioned for them to follow him.

Loading up in the GS2 and the H2, the teams took off down the street behind the motorcycle. Carl wore a black full-head helmet and a black leather jacket with a back patch that said "Born To Ride" with his jeans and appeared to be exceptionally comfortable riding through the streets and around stalled vehicles.

"We need to form a biker gang now! Look how easily he avoids the cars!" James said.

"Yeah, but he can't plow down goblins on that little bike," Tom said.

"But we don't look nearly that badass either," James countered.

"If you want a motorcycle, I'm sure we can find one. But I'm not giving up the Goblin Slayer," Tom said. "It's too useful, and I can upgrade it."

"I wonder what kind of upgrades a Harley gets?" James asked beginning to get excited.

"Maybe some phallic grips and some sack-shaped footrests?" Graham interjected.

"Yeah, something like....hey wait..." James said.

Continuing to wind through the streets of Albuquerque, the teams eventually stopped in the middle of the street in the heart of the city. Carl stopped his motorcycle and took his helmet off, looked back at the groups, then down at a manhole cover on the ground.

"Wait, he wants us to go where?" Jay asked.

"Looks like into the sewers," Derek said looking pointedly at Tom.

"If it has to be done, it has to be done," Tom said opening the door to the vehicle after pulling off to the side of the road.

"We are gonna have to ride with the windows down for the rest of the trip," Kiera said putting her face in her hand. "And Squirrel is gonna smell the worst."

Squirrel looked over at her and whined.

"Yeah, I'm talking about you. It's not your fault, it's our fearless leader's idea." Kiera said.

"Hey, you all agreed with me except Derek," Tom said.

"And let the record show I still think it's a bad idea," Derek said.

"Duly noted," Tom said.

Walking over to the manhole, where Carl was standing, the teams gathered around.

"Is everyone ready for this? It's not going to be fun, but their hideout is underground. Jimmy left me a map once because he has been pressuring me to join for days." Carl said.

"No," James said.

"Not really," Kiera said.

"This sucks," Austin added.

"Oh come on guys. It's not any different than mucking out a barn," Clay said.

"That's the spirit, Clay," Tom said. "Let's get to it."

Carl produced a manhole cover lift out of his inventory and pried the metal disc off of the hole. He pulled it back and set it down, depositing the lift back into his inventory.

"So, who's first?" Carl asked.

"Shouldn't you lead since you know the way?" Tom asked.

"I will, but I ain't goin' in first. No idea what's down there these days." Carl said. "So, hop to it."

"Yeah, Hop to it oh fearless guild leader who makes the calls," Derek said.

"Fine, Let's go," Tom said and he began to climb down into the hole.

Rotting fish and excrement were the smells that hit Tom's nostrils first. He almost gagged as he climbed down the metal rungs of the ladder set in the wall of the sewer. The squeaking of rodents could be heard as he put his feet down on the pavement below, reaching the bottom of the climb down.

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"See anything?" Derek called down.

"Nothing here so far," Tom called back up.

Derek then began climbing down after him, never one to leave his friends behind. Once everyone else was in the sewer, Carl took the keys out of his Harley and climbed in behind them. The sewer was a main line that had two ledges on either side of the main spillway that ran down the middle. The tube was much larger than Tom had expected as he thought he would need to duck to walk through it from what he knew of sewers.

"Is this normal? Should the tunnels be this big?" Tom said looking up at the nearly ten-foot-high top of the pipe.

"No," Derek said equally confused. "These pipes normally aren't this large. Must have been something with the magical changes of the world that changed them."

"Shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth," Carl said interrupting their thoughts. "We could be walking hunched over through the sewage in the bottom."

"So which way first?" Tom asked.

"That way, then we take the first left," Carl said pointing further down the tunnel.

"Couldn't we have gotten in down there?" James asked.

"The turn is before the next manhole. I did the best I could to keep us near the places we needed to go. I don't want to be down here any more than you do." Carl replied.

"Alright, let's do this then. Like you said, we don't want to be down here any more than we have to." Tom said and took off walking down the tunnel.

"Also, a word of advice, try not to fire off any guns in here. Ricochet and all that." Carl said.

"What if I'm really close to the bad guy?" James asked.

"It might come out the back of him and ricochet. I'd rather not get hit by a stray bullet just because you got trigger-happy." Carl said.

"Ugh....fine." James acquiesced.

Walking for about a block and a half the team came up to the left turn and had to jump across the drain in the middle to get to the other side of the sewer. They continued following the directions Carl gave them as they made a right, then a left, then a right, then two more lefts over the period of about two miles.

Coming up to a wall in the tunnel, they had to stop.

"Well, this is a dead end," Jay said. "Did we get lost?"

"No, it's just got a secret door. Here let me find it." Carl said.

"Actually I have a skill for finding hidden objects, I can help," Jay said and they set to looking at the wall together.

Looking around the wall, Jay and Carl felt around for some kind of switch or ledge that would open the door to the other side. After about fifteen minutes of searching, Jay hopped over to the other side and found the switch hidden in a broken brick high up on the wall.

"Well, that's why it was so hard to find," Jay said and he pulled on the switch.

The door popped open on the side everyone else was standing on and Carl pulled it open.

"For fucks sake. We'd have never found it without you." Carl said.

"I honestly don't even know why I went to search over there. Just felt something pull me in that direction and jumped over. Must be the skill." Jay said.

"Whatever it was, it worked. Now we can keep going." Tom said stepping through the door.

As he stepped through the door, Tom was tackled from the side and pushed to the ground. Someone leaped on top of him and began to punch him in the head. Yelling as best he could between blows, Tom called out to his friends as he tried to get his arms up over his head to protect his face.

Derek raced into the room, yanked the man off of Tom, and began to kick him when he too was jumped from behind by another person. The room soon devolved into chaos as more of the team began to pour into the room and jump into the fight while more of the mysterious people also appeared and tried to stop them.

Soon, the team began to pull weapons, beginning with Jay and his knives, from their inventory and use them on the attackers, and with that, they fled. Three men lay in the room dead. Tom, Derek, and Bobby were on the floor as well bleeding from wounds they had sustained from the fight. Tom healed himself, and Briana healed Derek and Bobby. Soon they were back up and looking around.

"What the hell was that?" Tom asked, still holding his head a bit from the blows.

"Part of the cult. People waiting to see who would come here I would suspect. This was why I wanted nothing to do with them. They're thugs, trying to bully people into joining that they can't bring in with scare tactics or by giving them some kind of weak hope." Carl said.

"Well, we need to be on our guard. We didn't think they were this dangerous. I mean we knew what they were trying was dangerous, but not that they were out here ready to attack people." Tom said.

"Yeah, and now I'm pissed. They are using cheap blows to get the drop on people. Time for some payback." Derek said.

"Well, they ran off that way," Kedron said. "Go get them."

"With pleasure," Derek said walking off in the direction that Kedron indicated.

"Dude, I didn't think he would do it. I thought he was playing tough." James said as the others started following after him.

After the wall, the sewage pipe seemed to have been replaced with just a brick-lined tunnel that went on forever. They walked for nearly half an hour before coming to a right turn that continued on into a large open room. Derek entered first with a determined look on his face. As he came out into the room another thug tried to jump out at him from around a corner.

Dodging back, Derek caught his arm and threw him to the side. Stepping to the right away from where he threw the man, he dodged a man's strike who had been standing on the other side of the doorway, pulled his mace out, and bashed him in the back of the shoulder with it. The man cried out in pain as Derek then swept his feet out from under him.

Hearing the commotion, the others came into the room as well, this time with weapons ready to go. Once again devolving into chaos, more and more of the people dressed in all black jumped out of the shadows to try to attack the party. This time, the battle was much more one-sided as the party was prepared and was fighting using tactics instead of being blindsided.

"ENOUGH!" A man yelled from the far side of the room.

All fighting stopped as Carl looked up at the far end of the room at who had called out. A snarl came to his face.

"Jimmy," Carl said through the snarl.