Chapter 92

Fred had led them on a winding path through hallways and rooms. Most looked more like classrooms than a library and were stuffed with various bits of equipment. Koots looked upset to be going wherever it was they were headed and kept shaking his head.

Oddly enough Jay did not hear any sounds of pursuit and the closer they got to their destination the quieter things became around the group.

Still, he kept quiet. No one wanted to attract any more attention from monsters than they already had. Not that anyone had the breath for a conversation as they were running full speed at the moment down a long hallway. At the end of the hallway Fred grabbed the doorknob and turned it just as she bumped the door open with one hip.

Inside of the room was a vault door and little else. The room was made of smooth stone blocks and an overhead fixture provided a dim light in contrast to Koots' bright lantern. Everyone piled inside and Glenda shut the door with a solid thud behind her as she stumbled in to the room. As everyone caught their breath Koots spoke up.

“Are you planning on telling them where you've dragged them off to?” Koots asked snidely, obviously displeased with the plan.

“Fine.” she said as she turned around from the vault door. “But it's gross, let me warn you.”

The rest of the group looked at each other nervously. Deadly, they were prepared for that. Violent, murderous, big nasty teeth – they were expecting those things already. Gross though.. gross was something entirely different and the group looked hesitant.

“Gross how?” Norri finally asked surprising even herself as she spoke. She raised a hand to cover her mouth but it was too late. She hadn't intended to ask that out loud.

Fred sighed. “It's no big deal. Every animal does it except for us.”

The group was confused, “Does what now?” Aiden asked.

“You know what fertilizer is?” Fred asked with a pinched expression.

M'redith nodded, “Excuse my language but poop. Animal poop.”

The entire group reacted as if M'redith had made a serious social faux pas, a breach of good manners.

Jay looked confused for a different reason. “I don't get it, what's the big deal? It's just poop.”

The others looked at Jay in horror.

“Only animals poop. It's disgusting.” Aiden remarked.

“What the what now?” Jay asked.

“You didn't know that? How?” Norri asked incredulously.

“Er.. I think things might work differently on Eden compared to Earth.” Jay said as he began to understand where the confusion lay. “If I'm understanding you, and just bear with me here, I'm not from Eden, but are you saying humans don't poop? Only animals?”

The group made disgusted faces.

“Ew. Gross. Of course people don't poop, none of the intelligent races do. Why would we? We use up everything we eat and drink!” Aiden said as he eyed Jay oddly.

“And the other animals don't?” Jay asked.

The entire group shook their heads no and looked disgusted by the implications of Jay's questions and Jay was quick to try and move the conversation along. Now at least he understood why he hadn't had to use the bathroom since he'd arrived on Eden. On Eden people didn't poop, only animals.

It was just a computer game after all – there was no benefit to programming in human outputs. If someone wanted to program things like farming in to the game however some fertilizer would be needed, hence, animal poop.

Jay wasn't about to explain that back on Earth everyone pooped. There was even a book about it. That bit of information would most likely make his group mates physically ill to hear about. Every society had things that you didn't talk about. On Eden that included things like people pooping.

Jay wanted to get away from the topic of conversation as quickly as he could and thankfully it was Fred that moved things along.

“The room behind that vault door is a massive open area topped by a series of grates. The monsters tend to use that area to..poop. It seems that they can't digest everything so the bits that they can't digest end up there.”

The group looked horrified by the implications of what she was describing. They were beginning to understand her plan.

“Now the smaller ones can get through the grate but oddly enough they don't. Or won't. No idea which. Regardless, they refuse to go in to this room at all. Even trapped they will fight to the death rather than enter this room.” Fred said, losing herself a bit in the scholarly description before coming back to herself with a shake.

Koots spoke up, “It used to be cleaned every day with fire just the way the corridors are at night but it doesn't work anymore.” He paused a moment to let that sink in. “That means we'll be walking through mountains of monster poop.”

“Can the cleaning system be fixed?” Aiden asked.

“Maybe,” Koots admitted, “but if so we certainly don't know how. It's a different system than the one used for the corridors.”

M'redith was shaking her head, “I don't want to go in there.”

Norri chuckled, “It won't kill us.”

“It's disgusting.” M'redith said distastefully.

“It certainly is.” Koots admitted.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“Shh!” Fred said, finally frustrated with the small talk. “If you don't want to go just wait here. We'll probably come back out this way.”

The group quieted down and Fred unlatched the thick vault door and swung it open. As she did so a wave of foul odor washed over them. The scent was overpowering and Aiden gagged while the others all covered their mouths and noses with their hands which did nothing to help with the smell. It was a thick smell that you could also taste. In a word, horrific.

The scent was complicated and had notes of dead fish, fresh body-odor, vinegar, and something uniquely biological with a sweet smell that Jay couldn't identify other than to label it as revolting.

Fred led them in to the cavernous room and shut the door behind her. Aiden looked at her with a raised eyebrow. “Just in case. Don't want anything sneaking up behind us.” That was enough to satisfy Aiden and he nodded and returned to inspecting the gross landscape he now found himself in.

The area was vast, perhaps the size of a football field. Some magic was absolutely involved Jay thought as the insides of Ashagi seemed far larger than the outside could possibly contain. The floor of the room was stained in blotches of black and spotty white. They reminded Jay of bird feces but he didn't point that out to his group as he doubted they would appreciate the comparison.

The smell got worse as they entered the room and their eyes began to water. Fred latched the door behind them and walked a little further in to the room. They were hemmed in on all sides by mountains of gelatinous poop. The area they were standing in was the only clean spot Jay could make out. Calling it clean was being overly generous.

“This should do.” Fred said as she turned to face Jay. “What now?”

“This is it?” Jay asked.

Fred nodded. “Unless you would like to go further in?”

“No!” M'redith and Aiden both answered vociferously in unison before looking at each other in embarrassment.

“Ok. One person at a time stands next to me for thirty seconds. When you're done I'll call the next person, I'll leave the aura running until everyone is clean. Sound good?” Jay asked.

Fred looked thoughtful. “Two and a half minutes. We need to hold out for two and a half minutes in order to clean off five people. We should have enough time. If I say we have to go though then we have to go, ok?”

Jay nodded and she repeated her question to the rest of the group, “OK?”

Everyone nodded that time.

Jay walked over to Fred, “Just so you know sometimes you may feel a slight tingle or vibration. It can be quite pronounced in some people. It's fine. It won't hurt you.”

Fred looked worried for a moment before nodding.

Jay turned his aura on and Fred grinned. She felt it as a light buzzing just under her skin and she immediately noticed when he activated it. As soon as he did so the group could hear a high pitched wail come from above them up above the grating and they could follow it as it moved by the sounds of its footfalls.

Fred had been wearing a dingy looking purple dress and it visibly became brighter as the aura worked. Motes of light could be seen drifting off of the material as the dirt and grime was removed from the fine dress. Her hair began to frizz and puff out as Jay's aura cleaned her hair and scalp. A flurry of motes continued to rise off of her.

Fred closed her eyes and moaned but then had the good graces to open her eyes wide in shock and turn bright red in embarrassment.

Jay said next but she didn't move. He had to say it again before she seemed to come back to herself and step aside to make room for Koots. As she moved to the side everyone noticed her clothing practically glowed. Her skin was flush as if she had just stepped out of the bath, her hair was light and clean and shined in the light of Koots' lantern. She looked like an entirely different woman than she had before she went through Jay's aura.

“This feels amazing!” Fred said as she ran her hands up and down her now clean arms. As she inspected her newfound cleanliness the aura went to work on Koots.

Koots' dingy white robe and brown cardigan were similarly cleaned but there was only so much the aura could do with the material as it was low quality to begin with. Still, his appearance improved significantly and he stepped aside looking bright and clean and ten years younger as Jay said “Next.” and Norri walked over to stand next to Jay.

Howls and snarls could be heard from above them and fluids of unknown origin dripped from above and down all around them but thankfully it missed hitting the group.

Norri's cleaning went well and she muttered constantly through it due to the intense tingling. Finally she was finished and she stepped to the side for Aiden but with a wide smile on her face. She smoothed her bouncy hair down with one hand.

Everyone looked clean and spotless at this point save for Glenda and Aiden who still appeared as if he had traveled through three days of mud to get to Ashagi. Jay's aura turned the mud in to motes of light – there were quite a few of them. Aiden sighed at the sensation of being clean once again and enjoyed the feeling of clean clothes on his skin.

Finally Jay moved over to Glenda and she grunted once softly to herself as it kicked in and Glenda grinned. It was Glenda's first time using the aura and it came as a bit of a surprise to her just how much she enjoyed it. Glenda was used to having to be dirty during adventures – to be on an adventure AND be spotlessly clean? Well that was just heavenly as far as Glenda was concerned.

The ceiling grates were now covered in monsters screaming and barking at them. Occasionally some of the smaller monsters would slip through the grate but would then quickly return above, not wanting to get any closer to the mounds of poop.

They stood there as clean and pristine as was humanly possible. Their clothes shone in vibrant colors, the materials spotless. It was not lost on the group that they stood fresh and clean in a sea of monster waste and they each wanted nothing more than to leave that room as soon as possible.

Fred picked her way carefully back to the vault door and unlatched it before disappearing in to the adjoining room. The rest of the group quickly followed, the sounds of gnashing teeth and howling screams pursued them as the monsters continued to froth and gibber on the grates high above Jay and his friends.

Once everyone was inside the vault door was shut and latched by Glenda. Everyone stood there for a moment, they took deep shuddering breaths of clean air. Aiden had stopped gagging a few moments after leaving the cavernous poop room. Everyone looked clean and happy to be out of there.

“That was disgusting.” Norri finally got out and everyone except for Fred nodded in agreement.

“That was wonderful.” Fred insisted as she inspected her dress along with her now pristine skin. “I haven't been this clean since before I first arrived here!”

“How long have you been here?” Aiden asked impolitely.

Her eyes flicked towards Aiden's for a moment before returning to stare at her own dress. “Too long.” she answered unhelpfully as she smoothed out the front of her now bright purple dress.

“I like your dress.” Norri said sweetly.

Fred straightened her back and smiled as she said “Thank you,” with a light nod to Norri.

“You did your part, I'll do mine. We'll head back to the map room and I'll show you the rooms I know of that might have what you're looking for.” Fred said sincerely.

Jay and his group grinned, “Great!” he said, “We'll follow you.”

Fred chuckled, “Of course.”

Koots took a deep breath before he kicked the outer door once and then again but heard nothing in response. “Here we go!” he said and without pause he tore out of the room and ran off down the hallway, the rest of the group in close pursuit.