A thunderous shockwave rocked the sewer as a magical blast hit the globiilous slime twice the size of a human. In a blink of an eye, the slime's glimmering body flowered outwards shooting out a chunk of itself all over the brickwork as the spell left a gaping hole, hollowing out the giant slime.
The sound of glass rolling on the greenish floor echoed in the pitch darkness causing the elf to look toward the source of the noise. A large crystal was tumbling on the uneven pathway with a furless sewer rat attached to it. Its pink skin was covered in burns and its eyes were melted shut causing the vermin to resemble more of a grotesque candle fused to the slime core than anything else.
*Scrrr*
With a screech which grated against Iris's pointed ears, the melted vermin lashed out toward her ripping its skin from the crystal as its survival instincts kicked into overdrive. The sound of Iris's heel hitting the floor caused the water in the canal to ripple as she pinned the abomination down before bringing down the black edge of her spear through the dog-sized vermin.
The elf had been wandering the sewers under the Oriripol for quite some time now in search of completing as many quests as she could in one fell swoop. She didn't want to visit this hive of filth any time soon but given the amount of problems the local guards had with this place she might have a complete monopoly on quests in this area. Given that she didn't need to breathe the putrid air and her night vision aided by the small silvery light hanging above her shoulder allowed her to see into the tunnels as if it was day she was the best-suited person to delve into the sewers.
"Gor." Annoyed grunt came from Iris as she swatted a corpse fly buzzing near her ear.
She had been plagued with mood swings since coming down into the sewer making the risen remember the days of her elven days. Like some sort of a cruel joke now was a time that she was experiencing being a woman once again at a particularly crimson time of the month. Still unlike the Living, Iris didn't feel like she was being punished by the Aspects for no reason with random unexplainable emotions since she was at least able to point out the source of her mental sorrows.
Kia's mind had been encroaching on her own mind throughout the day. Iris felt her kitten's emotions become less cryptic for the price of the girl accidentally messing with her. Still, the ancient's side of their link remained as dark as the darkest of nights and her whisps of emotions remained largely indecipherable for the young undead. She would describe the strange out-of-body experience as being somehow more aware of Kia's thoughts and the sensation of them but not the meaning.
The elf sighed and whispered a spell barely opening her mouth which caused the flesh fused with the slime core to burst into flames. While the smell of burned flesh was being added to the local air, she turned and tucked on the scally tail of the candle rat. She ran her nail near the base of the tail finding the bone which connected it to the body. The tail quickly came off with one simple cut, her nail could easily cut through the spongy bones in the rat's tail but she had learned her lesson. Her first attempt at claiming a mark of her kill resulted in a yellowish-green liquid squirting out of the firm sponge she had cut through and onto her clothes. The goop was probably the reason why each tail sold for eight copper each rather than the copper for a similarly ranked monster, but this didn't mean that she wanted it on her clothes.
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Casting Flame, Iris held the bleeding end close to the fire cauterising the wound and sealing everything inside. She added the tail to the bundle of similarly treated trophies hanging on her side, held there by a scrap piece of rope she had found. There was a reason for one of the adventurers in a party most often the tank to carry a large voluminous backpack and like the first monster slayers of old Iris quickly found the reason why.
The slime core shone with a dim blueish light as Iris picked it up and held it in the air. The piece of solidified mana was almost the size of her head and its smooth surface made it hard to hold onto, yet she couldn't leave such a thing here. She was already thinking about going back and leaving the core here would be like leaving money on the street, in addition, it felt wrong to leave such a radiant thing in a place of filth and darkness to be corrupted once again.
With the core under her arm, she rested her spear on her shoulder and pulled out a bundle of folded papers from her satchel. Her purple eyes scanned each page ensuring her mental checklist was correct.
The quest to find a missing pet stuck out like a sore thumb, someone really must have cared about their pet to leave a golden coin as a deposit with the Guild. She took this quest purely on the miraculous chance that she would find the goose in the maze-like sewers but she would return it given her lack of luck. The rest of the requests were of more standard with simple population management tasks.
"Let's go, I have to be back before Kia finishes her studies." The elf sighed as she flipped through the papers finding that many species enhanced the sewer that she had not seen yet.
With these words spoken to none but herself Iris began to race her footsteps which wasn't a hard thing to do. She might have not been a veteran Adventurer but she knew marking her way back at each split in the way. In addition, it helped that she had left a string of corpses behind her which confirmed that she was going in the right direction.
The light of the sun was a welcome sight as Iris pushed away the heavy iron cover and emerged into a remote corner of a guard station. Her arrival wasn't unseen as a couple of guards noticed her rather unceremonious entry they made no efforts to help her, probably because of the smell. The elf instantly walked over to the small half-opened shack with a bucket above her. She really wanted to congratulate the person who decided to build this as she tugged on the string causing water to hit her shoulders hard. She wanted to fill the bucket again and again cleansing herself however many times it took for her to become clean again but a new flood of alien emotion rocked her mind. Iris stood still, water dripping off the tip of her nose before she stormed out with a curious vigour. The new whisps of emotions felt utterly incomprehensible to the risen but they gave off a feeling which made the elf think about a secret or rather the feeling of keeping a secret. She doubted that any hue-man would make the ancient feel the need to keep any secrets. Her kitten might be clumsy and naive about how the world worked but she seemed to have understood that speaking about their undeath wasn't a great idea. A jealous flame burned through the elf as she headed toward the Guild House while thinking about what she had just missed. Whatever it was the elf wanted to be there with Kia and see how the girl reacted.
A chime of a bell pulled the concerned elf out of the spiral she was going into and she saw a familiar face standing behind the counter.
"Hello Iri-" The human's words were cut short as her forehead wrinkled and she brought her fingers to block her nose.
"Should have stayed under the water for longer?" The undead hoplite asked before smelling her hands which smelled like nothing.
"Mmm!" The trainee eagerly nodded as she grabbed the large slime core Iris dropped on the counter and quickly disappeared.
"Hey, need a Clean spell?" A man wearing a long pristine robe seemed to have walked up to her from the dinner to her left.
"Yes, if you could." A blueish halo enveloped Iris and she felt a sort of heaviness leaving her.
Her receptionist seemed much happier than she was to the newfound cleanliness and chatted to the elf but Iris quickly sold the rest of her trophies for a pretty copper before leaving.