“I hate being a dwarf,” Aaron muttered as he moved down the ladder and into the sewers.
“Why would you say that?” Tommy asked as he grabbed the stout dwarf from the ladder. Awkwardly, Aaron maneuvered himself to sit atop Tommy’s shoulders.
“Forget about it. You wouldn’t understand.” The dwarf could feel the migraine in the back of his mind, threatening to make a presence.
“Try me.”
“Well, for one, dwarves are supposed to carry more pride than I care to carry in a bucket.”
“You don’t carry any pride, buddy.”
“Exactly. Any decent dwarf would refuse to sit on an elf’s shoulders.” Aaron took off his dark-shaded spectacles and placed them in a trenchcoat pocket—the sewers were too dark to see through them. “I will not be a decent dwarf.”
Tommy laughed. “You refuse to be a decent anything. But that’s not the same as hating being a dwarf; that’s just hating on decent dwarves.”
Aaron flipped on the flashlight in his Hacklet and looked back to ensure they weren’t being followed. “Yeah, well, there’s more to being a dwarf than decency.”
“You talking about stereotypes, like what Officer Gundar was talking about?”
“That Nord is a cop. All he sees are stereotypes.” Aaron pointed the light forward and began to work out a GPS signal on his Hacklet. “He talks about rising above your heritage—ha! That old Viking wouldn’t know a thing about heritage even if Odin coated a lightning bolt with it and shoved it up that Nord’s ass.”
“I thought Thor was their god who dealt with lightning bolts?”
“Whatever.” The Hacklet still wasn’t picking up a signal. Aaron tapped the screen hard a few times, shook his wrist, and continued. “My point is that Nord, like every other cop, is a hypocrite. Just because his heritage placed him in a higher station, he thinks he can look down on any other lower race and wave a chiding finger.”
Tommy carefully walked around a large pile of sewage that shined slimily in the light. “Isn’t it hypocritical to stereotype Officer Gundar as a cop?”
“It’s not if the stereotype fits.”
“And you’re not a dwarf who drinks too much?”
Aaron grumbled a low curse at the elf as he thumped his Hacklet a couple more times. “I think this thing is glitching on me. I can’t get a lock on our location.”
“There’s light up ahead. Looks like it’s coming from another open manhole cover.”
“Another open hole without any maintenance workers? Is there a strike going on or something?”
“I dunno, but maybe you can get the GPS working if you poke your head up out of this sewer tunnel.”
Aaron hummed affirmation as he looked to the sewer walls for evidence to help him know where they were in the city.
With the dwarf still sitting on his shoulders, Tommy stood at the edge of the pale light column and looked up. Specks of dust danced down the light column while the sky looked darker than night. A trace of powdered dirt swirled above, but the light source could not be seen. A rusty ladder led up and out of the sewers to the dark, starless sky.
Tommy and Aaron looked up at the hole and then at each other.
“Where in the depths are we?” Muttered Aaron. “Stay here while I take a look at the top side.”
The dwarf clambered off Tommy’s shoulders and ascended the old ladder until his shoulders crested the surface. Looking about, Aaron felt like they had wandered into a very old, abandoned junkyard—scratch that, ‘metal graveyard’ was a better description of this place.
Stacks of dead and rusted cars towered high into the night sky, where the darkness was unnatural and thick—as if the atmosphere was closer to the ground than it should be. A tall, dirty lamplight next to the sewer exit held back the black sky and provided the column of pale light that shone down through the hole.
Many tall, thin streetlights were littered about the nearby car stacks; a few were sticking out of the stacks at awkward angles, all emitting a column of pale light. Beyond the edge of each light column was more of the sky’s thick darkness. The whole place did not belong in the city as it felt dry, dusty, and utterly desolate. In the shadows of the old, rusty car stack, it looked like dim headlights had blinked on, which created a sensation that crept up Aaron’s spine and began to gnaw with the migraine at the back of his mind—it was the sensation of an unseen danger and the need to run away from here.
Aaron quickly descended the ladder and got back on Tommy’s shoulders. “It didn’t work. We need to backtrack and see if we missed a turn.”
Tommy turned to head back the way they had come. “Did you see anything helpful up there?”
“Nope. I am quite confident there is nothing helpful up there.”
“That’s too bad.”
Aaron continued to swing his light from wall to wall, searching for a marker or anything to help provide him a reference regarding where they were in the sewers. “I hate being down here.”
“Is that because you hate being a dwarf?” Tommy chuckled.
“No. I hate being a dwarf because I am supposed to enjoy being underground, surrounded by stone. But I genuinely just hate being in this dark, smelly collection of large death pipes under the city.”
“You’re talking like you’ve been down here before.”
“It was a long time ago before I joined up to fight in the War. My grandfather was a sewer dwarf. If he wasn’t laying pipe, he was mending it. And if he wasn’t mending it, he was hunting wererats.”
“Huh. All these years I’ve known you, and I don’t think you ever mentioned that before.”
“I don’t mention it because I don’t like to talk about it.”
“Was your grandfather a mean man?”
“No!” Aaron shifted his weight on Tommy’s shoulders. “Why in cinder and scoria are you asking about my grandfather now?”
Tommy shrugged in response, forcing Aaron to reshift his balance with the rise and fall of the motion. “I think I see a turn here.”
The dwarven investigator turned his flashlight in the direction indicated by Tommy and confirmed the sewer tunnel did have an intersection they could turn with.
Aaron – Investigation Skill 5 vs. Normal DT – SUCCESS
Memories of his time with his grandfather flushed through Aaron’s mind, but he stayed away from the emotions and focused on the mental map that could be made from those memories. While this intersection was unfamiliar, he remembered a trick his grandfather shared when working in the sewage tunnels. “Hey, Tommy, equip one of your knuckles and punch this wall.”
Tommy complied easily and successfully punched the wall, leaving a deep score mark in the stone wall of the intersection.
“That will help us know that we’ve been here before and where we’ve been.” Aaron turned to his Hacklet and made another attempt to get a GPS signal.
Tommy continued to walk down the new path. “Did you want to hear about my grandfather?”
“No, Tommy.”
“My grandfather was an incredible fisherman, one of the best on the whole island. He was known for catching some of the most exotic fish in the ocean. He would always catch two, so he could offer one in a sacrifice of gratitude to our ancestors.”
“No means no, Tommy.”
“My father was also a great fisherman.” Tommy paused to punch the wall at another intersection, then continued to move forward. “That’s where part of my name comes from, you know? Upega fagota tele. It basically means big fishing net. But when the Mad Mages destroyed our home, and you helped us move here, immigration couldn’t say my name, so they renamed me Tommy Fisherman. You remember that?”
“I’m not equipped to deal with your slag, Tommy.” Aaron’s smoldering anger was like molten lava atop Tommy’s shoulders. “Give me a drink and a puff, then maybe, maybe, I might be willing to deal with your refuse. But don’t sling this fracking slag at me while I’m forced to be sober.”
“Why don’t you call me by my name, Aaron?”
The question was unexpected and rocked Aaron like a cross-punch to the face. “What?”
"Why do you call me Tommy like everyone else? You know my real name. Why don’t you use it?”
It’s because of Molly—speaking anything about the island always brought the pain of her memories. And those pains, those memories, were things Aaron would not allow to be recalled. Not here in the underbelly sewers of the city—and hopefully, not ever.
“It’s because of Molly?”
“Shut up!” Aaron wasn’t sure if he spoke his thoughts out loud, but the Hacklet pinged a signal, which brought the dwarf a welcome reprieve from the conversation. “I got a signal on our location. Gimme a moment, and I can pull up a map and route for us.”
Something squeaked in the darkness of the sewers, prompting Tommy to freeze in his tracks.
The elf and dwarf both froze, listening to the silence of the sewer’s darkness, attempting to increase their ability to sense what might be hiding in the darkness. A faint, occasional drip could be heard somewhere in the distance. The sewer stench was a constant presence in their nostrils, which left a bad taste in their mouths. Aaron slowly panned his light across the dark, shallow waters that covered Tommy’s feet and ankles. The Hacklet’s light danced and reflected off the ripples that gently rocked across the shallow waters covering the sewer floor. Aaron slowly raised the flashlight to peer further down the tunnel behind them.
“Do you see anything?” Tommy whispered.
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Another squeak was heard, closer than the last. The slight echo in the sewers made it difficult to tell if it was just one squeak, and the smelly, dank concrete walls made it impossible to know where the sound came from.
“You said your grandfather hunted wererats down here, right?” Tommy took a careful step back. “Is this what a wererat sounds like?”
As Aaron searched the light’s perimeter for eyes shining with reflected light, a memory emerged into the forefront of his mind. It was a time when Aaron was just a dwarfling, all wide-eyed and wondering about the world. His grandfather decided to take him hunting…
“You know why we dwarves own the sewers and the Underdark of the city, my boy?” Aaron’s grandfather was old and bent. He hailed from a generation of dwarves that were nearly extinct—the few who sought to preserve the ways of the stone.
“I didn’t know we owned all this…” The sewers felt so much bigger to Aaron back then.
Grandfather chuckled, then returned to a somber tone. “All this modern era has caused many dwarves to lose their way. We were never meant to live in cities that reached for the skies. Our place is here, in the ground, where we build down to conquer the infinite depths.”
“The depths are infinite?”
“Yes, my boy.” Grandfather unholstered his long, large-bore revolver and snapped open the drum to count the rounds. “Never forget. You belong to the stone. And the stone calls you to answer to the depths.”
“I belong to the stone, and I answer to the depths.”
“Good boy.” Grandfather pulled a large caliber round from his waist belt. “You see this? It’s a silver bullet.”
Aaron thought it odd. In the light from grandfather’s headlamp, the bullet did not shine like grandmother’s silverware.
“You need silver bullets to kill wererats.” Grandfather put the bullet back in his waist belt. “But silver bullets are expensive, and it’s a waste to kill regular rats with bullets such as these.”
Aaron nodded dutifully. He then accepted the shovel his grandfather handed to him.
“Tonight, we’re hunting wererats.” Grandfather stated firmly as he faced forward and advanced into the sewers. “This is a hunt that we only do once a month—and we only have a very small window in which to hunt.”
“Why is that, Papa?” Aaron cautiously advanced with his grandfather, clutching the long, heavy shovel with both hands.
“For one, wererats only turn on the night of a full moon.” Grandfather paused at an intersection of sewer tunnels, sniffed the air, then continued forward. “Any other night, they look like normal rats—and like I said, no one will waste a silver bullet on a regular rat.”
Aaron couldn’t understand how his grandfather could sniff the putrid air down here. The air alone hung so thick that it added to the confinement and claustrophobia that came with entering the dark, dank spaces.
“For two, we need the wererats to help keep a balance in these sewers.”
“We need the wererats?”
There was a low grumble was heard ahead, accompanied by a torture-racked squeak. Aaron froze in his tracks.
Grandfather held the revolver in both hands and carefully aimed forward. “That’s right. There’s worse things than rats that live in these sewers.”
“Worse?” Aaron stared at the darkness ahead, where grandfather’s headlamp could not penetrate. Within the darkness, a pair of large eyes flashed red from the reflected lamp light.
“Much worse.” Grandfather took careful aim at the darkness. “Our window opens when the wererats are done killing the worse things.”
Aaron’s small hands trembled as he tried to grasp the shovel tighter. Another pair of red eyes lit up in the darkness.
“Standfast, my boy. Be ready.”
# # #
Aaron awoke from the memory with his grandfather’s revolver drawn, aimed shakily at the darkness beyond his Hacklet’s light. The squeaking had multiplied, intensified, and Aaron was sure it was headed for them.
“Buddy, is it a wererat? What do we do?” Tommy was tense, unsure if he should fight or fly.
“It’s daylight,” Aaron muttered to himself. “We’re not in the window.”
“What are you saying?”
“It’s not a wererat; there’s no full moon.”
Rats suddenly emerged from the darkness, running with incredible speed through the tunnel past Aaron and Tommy.
Tommy yelped, hopping from one foot to the next as the slick and slimy rats darted across his feet, whipping past his ankles and calves. “If it’s not a wererat, then what is it?”
“It’s worse…” Aaron remembered his grandfather. “Much worse.”
Another sound came from the darkness, rising above the panicked squeaks of the rats. The sound was like a deep, guttural hiss.
“Run, Tommy.”
“Run?”
“Follow the rats! RUN!”
The muscular, bronze elf turned about and ran as fast as his legs would carry him and Aaron. Rats and sewer muck splashed in the wake of each footfall as Tommy let caution fly with the rodents.
Aaron bounced heavily on the elf’s shoulders, intermittently glancing back while struggling to check his Hacklet. The sewer map download was at ninety percent—just ten percent away from triangulating their position and finding the nearest exit.
A roaring hiss echoed off the surrounding walls—closer and louder than before.
“What’s worse than wererats?” Tommy yelled above the cacophony of squeaking rats.
Aaron looked back with the Hacklet light and saw something huge, nearly as big as the tunnel and covered in slick, shiny scales, snap back into the darkness with a loud, angry hiss. “Hold on to me!”
Aaron felt the elf’s grip tighten, and with that acknowledgment, the dwarf let his top half fall back so that he was hanging upside-down. Turning while seated on Tommy’s shoulders was proving to be very unmanageable. Hanging upside-down turned out to be a different sort of unmanageable, but the dwarf pressed through the head rush as he bounced against Tommy’s lower back.
Another growling hiss snapped like a whip, and Aaron turned his Hacklet’s light to the source. A wide, gaping mouth with fangs the length of the dwarf’s torso glistened as the head of a giant sewer snake lunged for the duo. Aaron pointed his grandfather’s revolver and fired.
Aaron (Crackshot) vs. Giant Sewer Snake – 10 vs. 9 Aaron succeeds.
The large caliber round fired through the barrel of Aaron’s hand cannon with explosive force. The dwarf had forgotten how severely his grandfather’s revolver kicked back, and Aaron thudded hard into the elf’s lower back. Tommy stumbled but did not fall.
The giant snake’s head sailed through the air a moment longer before falling, crashing, and tumbling over its massive, sinewy body. At the edges of the Hacklet’s light, Aaron could see the giant snake’s body wrap in tight convulsions around its head—he couldn’t tell if it was dead or injured.
“What was that?” Tommy panted, struggling to maintain pace with the rats.
“It’s a sewer snake,” Aaron responded, groaning as he made the arduous effort to sit upright again. His head swayed from being upside-down for so long, and he grasped Tommy with his free hand for support. “They are nasty, territorial creatures.”
A loud guttural hiss was heard from the darkness, followed by two more deep, angry hisses.
“Buddy, we need to get out of here.” Tommy slowed his pace slightly as they approached an intersection. It seemed more rats were taking the turn at the intersection than running straight.
“Ninety-nine percent—we’re almost ready.”
A smaller, but still very large, sewer snake suddenly lunged from the darkness in front of Tommy and Aaron, chomping its jaw closed on dozens of small, fear-filled rats. Tommy hurriedly turned down the intersection and renewed his pace. This new tunnel opened vast and cavernous. Slithering and thumping could be heard behind them as the giant snakes collided with each other and the sewer wall, rapidly gaining in their pursuit.
“Ah, ha!” Aaron exclaimed when the download displayed one hundred percent. Quickly, the dwarven hacker tapped on the prompts needed to find their exit from the city sewers. “We’re in luck; just keep running straight!”
Tommy pushed himself harder, faster, not giving heed to the rats and muck that flew high in his wake. The elf was set and determined to make it to the exit.
“Almost there.” Aaron looked away from his Hacklet and pointed the light behind them. Glittering scales, fangs, and snakes flashed in and out of the light as the snakes steadily gained on their prey. Aaron turned forward, searching for their exit. “There!”
High in the ceiling of this spacious tunnel hung a small access ladder. It wasn’t close to the floor, but Aaron thought he might be able to reach it if he stood on the elf’s shoulders. However, Tommy had a different idea.
Aaron was suddenly pulled off Tommy’s shoulders and found himself in the elf’s arms. “Alley-oop, buddy.”
Tommy – Strength (No skill) 6 vs. Difficult DT – SUCCESS
Aaron hollered as he was suddenly flying high in the air, flailing from being thrown by Tommy. Miraculously, Aaron’s flailing hand hit and grasped the bottom rung of the ladder. He swung with uncontrolled momentum but managed to grab the rung with his other hand and pulled hard to get high enough for his legs to be on the bottom rung. From high up on the ladder, Aaron looked down at the scene below. “Tommy!”
In front of Tommy, at least 5 giant sewer snakes slowly slithered across the floor—behind him were two more of the massive sewer monsters. Tommy looked up and smiled at Aaron. “It’s okay, buddy, I got this.”
“No, no,” Aaron turned up, hitting and pushing against the closed manhole cover—but the thick, heavy metal cover would not budge. The dwarf moved down and reached, “Grab my hand.”
“No can do, buddy.” Tommy held his ground, focusing on the encroaching snakes. He did not look up. “Just stay up there. I’m going to activate my Hero’s Die.”
“No,” Aaron muttered as post-traumatic terror set hold. “No!”
Tommy slammed his foot down in a wide-stance squat, letting out a tremendous ancestral warcry.
Tommy has activated The Hero’s Die. Tommy (Ailoa Afi + The Hero’s Die) vs. Giant Sewer Snakes – 25 vs. 10 Tommy experiences exceptional SUCCESS (+3 modifier awarded). Tommy is granted narrative control.
Fire fueled by the rage of ancestors who have followed Tommy on his journey to the city swirled and raged in a terrible sphere, expanding outward and burning fear into the hearts of the opponents of the mighty elven warrior. Tommy danced with a spirit blade of fire; in his native tongue, he cried out with the voice of a thousand storms.
Aaron did not hear a word of Tommy’s narration. The dwarven hacker watched in stupified horror as he no longer saw Tommy standing there, but Molly, the only person he had ever truly loved, was standing tall and brave. Defiant in the face of death. “I’m going to activate my Hero’s Die,” she said.
“No,” Aaron responded. They were back on the island, standing on the last beach, not corrupted by the Mad Mages. “We have to go now. We need to get on the boat.”
“Aaron, we’re not going to make it. Everyone on the boat is injured, and I don’t believe a single one except Tommy has a Hero’s Die available to them.” She held Aaron’s face in her hand. “You’ve already used your Hero’s Die to get us this far. Tommy will use his to get everyone farther from the danger here. But you and I know that won’t be enough.”
“I’m not getting on that boat if you’re not.”
“Why? So we can die together in some vain sacrifice?” Molly held Aaron with both hands now, pleading with her love. “Go, please. Let this mean something for me. Let me know I can save the one person I love.”
“No,” Aaron shook his head hard, holding tight to Molly. “This is not how it’s supposed to happen. You’re not the one who is supposed to leave me.”
“I love you.” Molly drew Aaron in close and kissed him hard.
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” Tommy said from behind. “But we are out of time. That corruption will catch up to us any moment now.”
Molly smiled gently, combing back Aaron’s white hair with her fingers. “Tommy, can you do me a favor?”
“You’ve saved my family, Molly. Name your favor, and it’s done.”
“Keep an eye on Aaron for me.”
Tommy looked to Aaron, then back to Molly, and nodded with understanding. “I’ll be by his side so long as we both can breathe.”
“Thank you, Tommy.” Her loving smile never wavered.
Aaron began to tremble. “Please, don’t. Don’t do this.”
“Go,” She said. “Let this be worth something to me.”
Tommy placed a gentle hand on Aaron’s shoulder. “Come on, brother. We need to go.”
Molly let go of Aaron, and something deep inside the infinite depths cracked. Aaron’s world became muted, slow, and unclear, as the ground beneath him rumbled and shook. Another deep, violent crack came from the ground below and resounded in the sky above, sending the three friends tumbling across the ground.
“Go!” Molly yelled as she got back to her feet and ran inland.
Aaron’s feet were like blocks of lead embedded in the sand. Yet Tommy lifted the dwarf as if he were lighter than a feather.
They were in the boat now with the last of the island’s inhabitants. Tommy was at the helm. He started the engine and quickly began to speed away from their home.
Aaron scrambled to the boat's edge and looked back to the island. Despite the distance, he was sure he could see Molly standing tall and brave, looking back and smiling at him. With the pain of tearing one’s heart from the lava, Aaron cried out, reaching for Molly from the escaping boat. He watched his soul become ripped away with the distance from Molly while she activated her Hero’s Die and sacrificed herself to the final destructive act of the mad mages.
# # #
Aaron was suddenly falling into a black abyss, his strength gone, his soul forfeit.
Strong arms caught Aaron and stopped his fall into the abyss, waking him to the present and realizing it was Tommy’s arms that had interrupted his fall. The dwarf blinked as he awakened, and Tommy smiled.
“Fuck you!” Aaron punched Tommy hard in the chest. “Fuck you, you frack, slagging son of an oil slick!”
Tommy let his friend down, who awkwardly rolled out of his arms and stomped a furious circle in the floor while screaming. “I had to, buddy.”
“NO!” Aaron stomped over and Tommy by his tattered leather jacket. “No! You don’t fracking do that, ever! You hear me!? You do that, that…!”
Tommy gently placed his hands over Aaron’s hands. “I hear you, Aaron. I hear you.”
Angry tears welled in Aaron’s eyes like burning steam caught in a trap. He punched Tommy again and cried in his friend’s arms, no longer able to block the searing pain of the memories he so desperately wanted to touch.