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Skill-Less Swordsman
22. The Underground

22. The Underground

I watch in shock as Garut immediately decapitates the last prisoner. Everyone then bursts into action, packing bags and preparing to leave.

“How long do we have?” I ask Gael.

“No clue, but I’m guessing not a lot of time. Put your helmet back on, they only have a location right now. They have no reason to believe this is related to you.”

I nod firmly.

“GODAMNIT, I knew Moren being here was a bad omen. Now my beautiful Inn is gone.” Delorie says sadly.

“Hey it’s not all ba-“ Uncle Moren attempts to say.

“SHUT UP, you fucking asshole! I don’t want to hear your voice right now, it’ll only make me angrier.” Delorie interrupts.

We all eventually make it outside, including Delorie, and begin walking down the street.

“What’d you do with the bodies?” Gael asks.

“Left them, no time.” Garut quickly says.

“Damnit! Let’s just hope they don’t have a spirit caller or a necromancer on call. Garut, you stay here and monitor the situation. We’ll meet up at Hoggle’s place.”

“Who’s Hoggle?” I ask

“You’ll see.”

“Ugh, of course it’s another sewer, but I thought you said this place would be teeming with traps and guards?” I ask Uncle Moren.

“Not this far into the Inner-city. On the outskirts of the city yeah, but the people above us right now are so filthy rich that the local guards can’t afford to offend them.”

“How would they offend them by patrolling the sewers?”

“The black market, that’s where were heading right now. It’s also where a large amount of the wealthy make most of their money.”

“I don’t get it, if the guards know about it, why don’t they bring it to a stop?”

“Because THEY don’t care about it, but the Empire does. Anything sold down here has some sort of government sanction by the Empire. The city itself could care less if these items are sold. That’s also why the city has been so restless recently, lotta outside people poking around, looking for you.”

We continue walking through the sewers, until finally we reach what seems like a large cavern that seems to be the inside of a nearby hill.

All around us are various stalls shouting items and prices. People with and without anything covering their face walk around, browsing items at their leisure, as if we were in some sort of shopping center.

The items themselves are a large variety of things. Skill crystals, illegal magitech, strange books with spells for magic users to practice, if the Empire has it sanctioned, it’s down here.

Walking throughout the market, I notice the large neon magitech sign all over the place, and colorful and animated people behind the stalls.

“What’s with the signs?”

“Advertising is important down here. People will only buy from someone with a good reputation. Now quite with the questions we’re almost there.” Uncle Moren lightly chides.

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Finally, we reach our destination, a smaller tunnel in the side of the cavern with a large, broken down wooden sign that reads ‘Hoggle’s Emporium’. Inside is a litany of rotting, wooden shelves that display all manner of illegal good. I’m pretty sure I even saw a few organs.

‘Don’t even want to know where he got those.’

As we walk through the tunnel turned store, we reach a counter. Behind it, is what looks like some sort of hairless mole man sleeping.

He has an old-world baseball cap and thick leather overalls on.

Uncle Moren walks up to the counter and bangs his fist on the counter. Not enough to break it, though I’m sure he could, but enough to cause a loud bang.

The mole man startles awake and reaches for some sort of gun underneath his counter.

“Who the hell is it? Who’s there? I’ll shoot I promise!” Hoggle says while pointing the crossbow at the air next to us.

“Hoggle! How’ve you been old friend?” Uncle Moren says heartily.

“Oh it’s you. What the hell do you want. I may be blind, but I can tell when you’re here for trouble.”

“Oh come on! Don’t be like that ol’ chap! I was just in the area, wanted to stop in, see how it’s going.” Uncle Moren says placatingly.

Hoggle scoffs,

“Ha! Fat chance of that.”

“Hoggle we need a temporary place to stay for a day or two. We got a transfer here, and we need a place to plan out how we’re gonna get him on the jump pad.” Gael says.

“Gael? Haha! Why didn’t you speak up sooner! How’re you old friend!”

Uncle Moren mumbles angrily under his breath while Gael replies.

“Very good, but we got Empire trouble we need help with, so do you mind?”

“Of course, of course! Not at all! But if you don’t mind me asking, what happened to Delorie’s place? I thought that was the usual staging ground in this city for this kind of stuff.”

“Moren the bad omen happened…” Delorie says sadly.

“Even Delorie’s here too? Wow it’s a party then huh?”

“Hmph, I wish, anyway so what happened was this…”

Gael then proceeds to explain what happened with the prisoners and the life-sensors.

“So now we have Garut, another on standby, assessing the situation. Hopefully he’ll be able to give us some info on how much they find.”

“Well won’t they find the tunnel to the jump pad?” Hoggle asks worriedly.

“Hopefully not, but it’s definitely a possibility depending on how much importance they place on those two spies. There’s a lot of what ifs that we simply won’t know until later on.”

“And I’m gonna have to leave Earth too… this place was awesome, very quaint.” Delorie says while sulking.

“And that.” Gael says empathetically. “For now though, we need a plan, and fast. We need to get ahead of this before they have time to realize our mistake. We start when Garut get’s back. Hoggle, do you mind if we use the back of your store?”

“Not at all, though it’s a bit messy back there I will say.” He says pointing to the wooden wall behind him that separates his home from his store.

We all enter the back portion of the shop through a wooden rickety door, and Hoggle wasn’t lying when he said it was a mess back here.

I have to wade through piles of scattered metal trinkets and discarded food items to get anywhere. The amount of cockroaches and spiders I’m able to spot would lead me to believe he’s some sort of bug whisperer.

“Come here my pretties.” Hoggle says as hundreds of bugs bunch up beneath his feet like dogs.

‘Right on the money I suppose.’

“You ever gonna introduce yourself kid? Or are you just gonna stand there quietly all night.”

“Uh right, sorry. I’m Rowan, Rowan Attain.”

“Well it’s a pleasure to meet you Rowan. Hope that bastard Moren hasn’t rubbed off on ya too much.”

“Yeah… hey what’s with the bugs? Is that like part of your class or something?”

“Bit rude wouldn’t you say young Moren? Status details are supposed to be private ya know.”

“Right uh, sorry I just-“

“Haha, I’m just messing with you kid. I don’t mind telling you what my class is, as long as you don’t mind if I don’t go into specifics. My real class is Sly Merchant, but my sub-class is Bug Tamer.”

“Why’d you pick that as your subclass?” I ask curiously.

“I like bugs! What else?!” Hoggle says while chuckling like he just said the funniest thing ever.

“Ah got ya…” I say somewhat awkwardly.

I watch as they clear out a nearby table of scraps and place some sort of map down. What the map is of, I couldn’t tell you. Way too many lines and symbols to try and decipher.

‘Man, why can’t I just go back to sword practice. All this stuff is too complicated for me…’ I think sadly to myself.

They begin to discuss some things like optimal travel routes and expected patrol regions. At a certain point I just tune it all out. I can’t even begin to contribute to this conversation anyway. Hopefully one of them will dumb it down for me when it’s time for action.

Suddenly Garut enters the back room, having to duck to enter through the doorway.

“Finally, what’s the situation big guy? How deep in shit are we?” Uncle Moren says nervously.

Garut opens his mouth to speak with a dark look on his face.

“Bad, it’s very bad.”