Claudius and Josef descended down the rusted ladder for what felt like a minor eternity. No exit was in sight. Far, far above them was the square hole they'd fled through, its opening a tiny pinprick of light in the dense, gloaming darkness. More than once Josef had the perception that if he let go, he would simply fall forever.

"Claud—" Josef began.

"Quiet!" hissed Claudius from just above him. "Words aren't safe for you right now. Until your neocortex blossoms, Josef, you're on a strict timeout from language. I know you have twelve billion questions and you're probably wishing you were back in your goo-sac, but please just keep going."

"But smell—"

"I know, I know. Unfortunately, it's only going to get worse," replied Claudius, who also couldn't stand the horrendous stench. But he was much more worried about Josef. He'd been saying a prayer every ten rungs. Josef plummeting to a rapid, unfortunate, and splattering death would be a major setback. Malark would be horrified and Claudius would face a welter of taunts until his inevitable depropagation.

Claudius peered down at Josef's form wavering in the darkness. "How are you doing there, Josef? Please make a chirping noise if you feel relatively safe." Claudius waited. He knew he sounded anxious, but his previous attempts at saving goo-drinkers had gone less than stellar. Up from the darkness, Josef gave a despondent bleat, less a bird chirp and more like a lamb caught in a rosebush. But it was enough to set Claudius slightly at ease.

Josef, however, felt completely bamboozled. His brain wanted certainty, his stomach wanted some food, but all he was getting was more darkness and a smell so putrid his nostrils were staging a cave-in. Already images of his cozy goo-sac were nuzzling up in his brain.

He also knew that he was violating Claudius's injunction not to think. But he couldn't damn well help it. Trying not to have a single thought while descending a ladder in utter darkness wasn't a skill he possessed. In fact, he felt highly limited. He had the sense that simple tasks, such as saying the word 'basket' or sitting down cross-legged, were completely beyond him. Thinking all of this, his arms shook wildly as he focused all of his meagre attentional resources on descending down the next rung.

Chancing a glance down below, Josef saw the bright wave of an orange flame. A small rush of relief flooded through his body. He quickened his descent, flying down the ladder until finally plopping down onto a wet cobblestone floor.

Josef retracted a full step in horror. He suddenly realized where the smell was coming from. They were in a full-service sewer. He was standing on a ledge only an arm's length wide. Green slooping and sleeving sewer sludge chugged by him. He'd gone from pinkish goo to greenish sewer. His hands reached for the ladder.

But Claudius came hurtling down the ladder, landing beside him, his webbed feet splashing aggressively in a puddle. "Way too fast, Josef. Way, way too fast! You can't push your body like that."

Claudius then noticed Josef's hands and shook his head. "Josef, cowardice is a sin. You can go back up if you want but remember what Malark said. 164 hours. That's your destiny up there. This escape route, on the other hand, has yes to prove itself a complete failure. We can do this."

Josef relented, releasing his grip while sniffing the hair like a hesitant feline. His throat buckled. He stuck out his tongue.

"Welcome, officially, to the Ba'ha Grotto sewers," said Claudius, reaching into his rucksack and removing a jar of lavender cream. "Weaselscruff," he explained while dabbing a bit on his finger and smearing it on Josef's upper lip. He then placed a dollop under his own nose as well.

Claudius inhaled deeply. "Beautiful. Simmered and condensed weasel fur. Wards off even the most horrendous of smells."

Josef arched a brow and then gave a light sniffle. Miraculously, the sewer smell was gone. He now smelled something between wet fur and maybe lettuce? Whatever it was, it was an improvement. He could breathe.

Above them was an arched cobblestone ceiling complete with deep, frightening cracks throughout its foundation. The cobblestones were of the same red sandstone colour as the floors of the goo-sac room, but everything seemed far more eerie to Josef: the entire ceiling was slimy and shimmering thanks to the ghastly orange torchlight reflecting off the sewer water; in addition, thanks to the spacing of these same torches (every thirty feet or so) their light halos were just insufficient enough for a smattering of darkness to creep in between them.

Josef flexed his toes, feeling completely unsure of himself as he stood next to Claudius in a puddle. He also felt terrified.

"You've done a great job so far at keeping your face shut, Josef," Claudius said as he put the lavender cream back in his rucksack. "I'll be honest with you. I don't know much about you. Quite frankly, Malark and I had written you off. You hadn't given us the slightest glimmer of hope that you'd awaken and there were no prophecies to speak of. Certainly, this is to your disadvantage, and mine as well, I suppose."

Josef stared at Claudius. His brain gears clanked. His heart wobbled. His thoughts turned existential.

"Want to trust, but—" Josef started to say, but Claudius cut him off once again. He realized he couldn't even speak properly. His brain was on the run.

"You need rest, Josef. We also need to get you to safety. Right now those two objectives are not compatible. You're going to have to give it your all for a bit here. Can you do that for me?"

Josef felt like crying. But he nodded with vigour.

"Now here's the real juice of the problem. We need to get you ratified during the next Moonsneeze or your brain will combust." Claudius paused here and scratched his chin. "I probably shouldn't have told you that, but Izzblum's Guide to Drinkers of Goo doesn't explicitly warn against it. I guess forewarned is forewarned, as they say."

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Josef's hands felt along the top of his skull. He whimpered. He was feeling very frail.

Claudius, however, was watching him with pride, a gust of paternal gumption percolating throughout his system. A fresh opportunity stood quivering in front of him. This was his shot. He was going to blow his contacts socks off. He would make sure this goo-drinker, his goo-drinker, had the best chance in the world to break the Ba'ha Grotto's record of 164 hours. But they needed to hurry.

"Let's get a move on, Josef," Claudius said, clapping him on the shoulder. "I'm going to start with a loose jog. We'll ramp up or down depending on how you're feeling."

And with that, Claudius began to lightly sprint down the sewer line. Josef engaged his motor skills and puttered after him, his brain still in harried development. He could hear the glug and gurgle of the sewer next to him. There was also a persistent and scattered dripping noise caused by condensation falling back into the moss-green sewer stream. To Josef, everything seemed terrifying. He didn't know what Moonsneeze was or what it meant to be ratified, and for a brief moment he tried to figure it out, but it was like jamming together an apple and an orange and calling it a puzzle.

While jogging, Claudius turned back and looked at him. "How's your brain doing, Josef? Most importantly, do you currently feel like fainting?"

All Josef could do was shrug as he pushed his body after Claudius. He felt so weak, so debilitated. His body hadn't moved this fast for as long as he could remember, which was about twenty minutes in total. Claudius gave him a thumbs up, continuing on at their current pace.

Partially out of fear, Josef glanced behind himself. He sighed in relief. No one was chasing them, but he did see a mildewed coffin bobbing along in the sewer. Closer to them also floated a few chair legs, a broomstick, and even a statue of what appeared to be a feathered eel.

Claudius caught Josef staring. "Eyes ahead. I don't need another goo-drinker going for a dip in the sewer."

"Last goo-drink? You save him?" Josef knew he wasn't supposed to be talking but he was too curious.

Claudius looked over his shoulder and tutted him for speaking. "Her, and no. Tried my absolute best. We didn't get much further than this unfortunately. I made the mistake of trying to explain the weirdness of this world by using Yolplay's Theory of Gujai Teleportation. Also, I may as well tell you right now, Josef, so that you have a bleary memory of this later on, but I'm trying my best to save your life. Please always remember that. As we speak, a few brainsnakes and machos are interrogating Malark concerning our whereabouts. He may lie for us, he may not. He's flaky like that."

Josef, half-stumbling behind Claudius, gave something akin to a nod. Strange visuals were starting to appear, including a gopher turning itself inside out. He moved to say something but he remembered Claudius's wish for him not to speak, so he simply did his best to listen on as Claudius jabbered away.

"Speaking of gujai," Claudius said while pointing a teal finger towards the sewer water, "there's one right now." Claudius and Josef paused jogging to savour the scene of a particularly large gujai fish plucking up from the green goop and baring its fangs like a hideous raccoon. A thick mucus-like coating, similar to goo, covered its scales.

"Born and bred in these sewers," explained Claudius to Josef. "An entire treatise was written on these gujai by Yolplay, a Hokin scholar from about 230 septujinnys ago. He travelled and gave lectures, arguing one could use these fish to teleport."

Josef watched as the gujai began use its tiny pincer teeth to nibble on one of the bobbing chair legs. As it chomped, its eyes bulged out like waterlogged potatoes. Josef could see more of them slithering up from the sewer slime to nibble on the broomstick. He gave an involuntary shiver.

"Through experiments, research, and crowd-funded ventures," Claudius continued, warming to his lesson, "Yolplay was able to come to the rather unusual conclusion that if one gave oneself wholeheartedly to these gujai, that is, let oneself be nibbled to death while envisioning a particular realm, a kind of 'teleportation' would take place. He believed that upon ceasing to live here one would then be transported to Hokin-Ha, an unverified afterlife."

Josef watched his brain latch onto every word Claudius said. His mind was ravenous, gobbling up every minced bit of information he could hear, see, or smell. A part of him — the unruly, brain-dazzled part — was completely entranced by Claudius's words. He couldn't help but let his eyes drift from gujai to gujai. An unholy calculation was being performed somewhere deep in the recesses of his brain.

Claudius was gazing at the ceiling, continuing to pontificate. "Apparently so many adherents began to accrue around Yolplay that the gujai in these sewers began to grow rather large due to the massive amount of 'teleportations' taking place. At the same time, a strange yellow resin began to grow in the gujai's livers, which the sewerfolk of these waters soon discovered they could sell as a delicacy to every affluent half-wit from Kaway Mahay to Brunbath. It was a bonanza. Before long the gujai were fished to near extinction, which had the knock-on effect of causing Yolplay's Theory of Gujai Teleportation to become all but impossible to perform. The gujai were gone, and along with them, Yolplay's adherents' dreams of zipping off real fast to Hokin-Ha."

Josef was still listening with eager anticipation as he stared deep into the eyes of the nearest gujai. There was something eternal and beguiling swirling in its eyes. He twitched.

Claudius sighed as he angled towards his conclusion. "His theory, proven and disproven numerous times, has been largely forgotten, but every now and then someone finds a treatise, has a read, and then inevitably gives it a shot—" Claudius then paused awkwardly and turned. He looked at Josef who was much too still and staring into the sewer water. "Anyways, it was all one big mistake. My attempts to prepare the previous goo-drinker for the strange byways of the Gentle Void only made her go insane. It's so difficult with you goo-drinkers. Knowing what to say and when to say it—"

Josef laughed, screamed, and dove headfirst into the simmering emerald slime like a jack-knifed dolphin.

Claudius's mouth dropped, his gills pulsated with dread. "Josef!" he cried out. "Get out of there, you idiot! It was a lesson not an invitation."

But Josef was in a state of absolute shock and bewilderment. The toxic sewer water was searing his skin and he felt himself willed beyond his understanding to seek out the nearest gujai.

Horror-gripped, Claudius shrieked as he watched Josef doggy-paddle further and further into the sewer's bubbling flow. And it was at this moment that Claudius realized he'd made the exact same mistake as he had with the previous goo-drinker. A wave of self-loathing blasted into him and he stood there frozen as his skin deepened to an eggplant purple.

Claudius tried to console himself with the fact he'd had only a handful of decadons to prepare for this latest arrival. And yet, he couldn't shake the glaring reality that he'd managed to repeat the same theory (and mistake) he'd sworn many, many times never to repeat again. Briefly, he wondered if the fault perhaps lay with Josef. Perhaps he was a defect, a goo-drinker meant for lesser things. It was an enticing thought, but Claudius knew in his heart of hearts that the blame lay solely at his webbed feet.

He threw his rucksack and pouches to the sewer floor and screamed, "I'm coming, Josef!" and dove in, spearing himself towards his young charge. Immediately he felt his skin begin to burn, but he kept going — this wilful, rag-clothed, vacant-brained newborn was his goo-drinker, and he wasn't going to let a foul-mouthed pack of gujai feast for free.

And so he darted through the water with amphibious speed, flipper-kicking his way over to Josef's scrawny form, praying he could save him before the feisty gujai summoned the rest of its mucus-coated pack. Not again, Claudius whispered to himself, not this goo-drinker. His goo-drinker was going to live.