There were plenty of entrances to the sewers, with the caveat of being too small for Dyani to traverse. But there had to be entrances for people, from when it was built at the very least.
She went by Veraine’s house to chat with her friend, both to socialize and pick her brain. Even if her bookish friend didn’t have the answer, she would know where to look.
She was met with the familiar faces of Veraine’s parents, who informed her that Veraine, Daggan, and Nodin had passed their Slayer’s exams and were in extensive training. Apparently their talents and skills, the normal kind, not the magical, had caught someone’s eye, and they were being fast tracked.
It was amazing news…for them.
That left Dyani with one, terrible option, the school library.
She was surprised when no one stopped her from walking in and perusing the books. The public education system was strictly limited to children, and Dyani’s awakening had been her first step into adulthood.
Still, it wasn’t like there was much to differentiate her from the older kids, besides the runes stamped on her left arm, which no longer glowed and were hidden beneath her sleeve.
After a mind numbing amount of useless reading about Root Perch’s founding, architecture, and amenities, she actually found something useful.
In the goddess’s wisdom, the founder established a system of sanitation beneath the earth, along the lines of the Mountain Oak’s largest roots.
So, the sewer ran along the Mountain Oak’s major roots, the same roots that broke the ground’s surface and divided the city into districts.
It made sense. The roots were what absorbed the sewer’s contents, so bigger roots would absorb more. If she followed one of those roots for long enough, she was sure to find an entrance.
It was better than bashing her head into another dry book.
The closest major root to her house divided their district, the Weaver District, and the Red Eye District. Unlike what someone might guess, the Weaver District was named for the unusually grid-like setup of the roads and buildings, as if they were weft and weave of cloth. The older and more prosperous sections of the city had a more organic layout.
Dyani hiked up and down the hilly streets, face red and breath puffing. She couldn’t wait until she had enough experience to advance to level 1.1, the first and only sublevel during level one, as long as you didn’t count the starting one of 1.0. Each level had a number of sublevels equal to that level, so one for level one, two for level two, and so on.
Reaching those thresholds might not give her a talent, but each sublevel allowed you to allocate your gathered experience into one of your attributes. And some points in strength, endurance, or speed should make this journey more manageable, especially on such a warm day.
She had been walking for an hour and a half without an obvious entrance to the sewers she knew were below the root. At least building directly on or beside a major root was illegal, so she didn’t need to go around buildings. She passed some kids kicking around a large acorn like a ball and smiled.
She, Daggan, Nodin, and Veraine had played similar games when they were younger, just a couple years ago. Dyani wondered what they were up to now, probably fighting weaker monsters gathered by Trainers, reaping loot and glory. She’d do anything to be there with them.
***
Daggan would do anything to escape this torture.
“Lift your sword four degrees higher, and widen that stance. Do you want to get knocked over by the first Ridgeback you meet.”
Daggan made the required corrections, cursing the false confidence his talent had given him before starting his training.
It turns out that perfect form was only useful when fighting identical opponents. Monsters, with their various sizes, weights, shapes, and affinities, necessitated both subtle and dramatic changes to the traditional stances he’d learned in school. When fighting a Copper Scaled Ridgeback, for example, their long strong arms and swiping attacks meant a stronger stance and lower center of gravity was needed.
His swordsmanship trainer who only went by his nickname, Paunch, slapped him with the flat of his sword.
“You’re lazy. A talent like yours is a waste more than a blessing. Sword forms must be learned here.” He slapped his impressive belly. “Not here.” He poked a finger into Daggan’s skull. Daggan assumed the man’s signature feature was the result of the man’s talent, since he was obviously a high enough level that his body should remain fit, regardless of what he ate.
“Yes, Mr. Paunch,” Daggan chanted. Paunch slapped him with his sword again.
“Just Paunch!” he scolded, shaking his head, “I told you before. Too bad your talent doesn’t fix the rest of your memory.”
Daggan cursed his luck. When their exam proctor had told them they qualified for accelerated training, they were all exhilarated. It turned out that all it meant was twice the pain in half the time. He wasn’t ready to quit just yet, but part of him was secretly jealous of Dyani, relaxing at home.
***
Dyani couldn’t escape the bubbling alchemy of excitement and dread in her stomach. She’d found it, a round metal plate with the words, ‘Root Perch Sewer’, cut deep into the surface. Luckily, it was in a less traveled part of town filled with large warehouses and industrial structures similar to the recycling plant her mother worked at, without residences or stores.
Waiting for a moment when no one was nearby, Dyani scrambled over to examine the entrance. The metal plate was weathered and slightly rusty, but still solid enough that it would be difficult to move without leverage. Thinking fast, she pulled her improvised spear from her backpack and pushed the blunt end under the plate.
Heaving with all the might her basic fitness class had given her, Dyani managed to dislodge the disc, and push it out of place. She hastily looked around to ensure that no one had noticed the grinding noise, but still found herself alone.
Peering down into the dark, Dyani gagged at the smell that hit her nose. The pleasant smell of earthy loam mixed with rotting sewage, somehow creating something worse than sewage alone. She clenched her jaw and her fists, forcing back the need to vomit.
Not sparing more than half a minute to acclimatize herself to the odor, Dyani eyed the rusted ladder that led down into the dark. Crouching down, she put enough of her weight on the first rung to test it, while bracing herself on the ground with her hands in case it broke.
Like the metal plate that guarded this place, its corroded appearance belied its impressive strength. Dyani craned to the side to get one final breath of fresh air before pulling out the glowstone she’d pried from her bedroom ceiling and strung on a simple chain.
“Mom would be thrilled. I’m finally getting into jewelry,” She muttered with a sardonic smile as she put it on.
Dyani looked down into the dark, mind filled with the monsters that awaited her. She tried to think of something profound to say, something to add the tales of her exploits when she was a famous hero.
“Let’s kill some shit.”
It was maybe half an hour before Dyani noticed anything other than terrible odors and dripping moisture. The main issue was that she had no practical way to keep track of where she was going, so she stayed close to the ladder she’d descended to get here. She didn’t want to know what would happen if she got lost down here until she was just more rotting refuse for the Mountain Oak to feed on.
A scuffling sound and the scratching of claws echoed down the tunnel. She tensed, hands tightening around her spear until they ached. She wasn’t scared, just a little nervous, but even nervousness was enough to slow her approach in this dark and unwelcoming place.
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Walking slowly and choosing only the sturdiest and driest sections of stone to place her feet, she finally turned a corner and found the first of her prey.
It was a rat-like monster, with thick patches of blue fungus growing from its back. It shrieked as it saw her and the light around her neck, pouncing in front of whatever it had been clawing at before it noticed her. Dyani couldn’t make out what that was. She was far more focused on the fungus laden critter before her.
She moved to flank it, but the large rat moved to face her whichever way she moved. It hissed at her and blue-green spittle flew from its mouth.
“Don’t want that on me,” Dyani said under her breath. She didn’t know if it was poisonous, acidic, or something worse, but glowing liquid from a monster was never something good for your health.
She searched her memory for the spear techniques she’d learned, cursing that she had focused so much more on swords. The one thing she remembered well was the primary advantage of using spears was its reach. With it, she had far more reach than even an enlarged, monstrous rat. Before she could doubt herself even more, she lunged forward to pierce the rat through its middle.
Dyani kept a keen eye on the monster, ready to adapt and intercept its dodge. Except it didn’t do more than flinch as her sharp blade cut through flesh and fungus and dug into the dirt. The rat squirmed on the end of her spear, the blood leaking from it a strange mix of red and the same luminous green-blue of its spit.
Dyani released her spear and backed away as it finished its death throes, unwilling to let those rivulets of blood touch her shoes. Moments after it finally went still, Dyani felt a pulse of turbulent mana burst out from the corpse.
She scrambled to catch the escaping experience, forgetting in the chaos the gathering techniques she’d learned in class. It wasn’t as if she’d actually ever used them, so she lacked any real skill.
Dyani absorbed maybe a fourth of the experience, the rest twisting in the air above the dead rat before dispersing into the ambient mana. She flinched as wood creaked, jumping to the side of the corridor. Dust fell as the massive root above her shifted. She reached out her weak spiritual senses and found that a good portion of the rat’s experience, around half that escaped her, was being absorbed into the root.
“Greedy tree,” she said, kicking the wall, “It’s not like you need it. You’re the size of a mountain.” The Mountain Oak apparently didn’t feel the need to reply as its root stopped shifting. Still, she felt the tingle of experience running through her spirit. Turning inward she felt that small amount of experience was nowhere near enough to fill up her capacity, but she still smiled in excitement. It was a start.
Dyani looked over the rat’s body as she carefully removed her spear. Many monsters contained magical substances useful from alchemists or crafters, but she had no idea what this creature was, let alone which parts of it might be valuable. The glowing fungus on its back might be the secret ingredient to an elixir of immortality for all she knew, but Dyani doubted it. If anything down here was valuable, there would be hosts of slayers harvesting it, even if the conditions weren’t the most pleasant.
Dyani decided just to push the rat’s body into the slow moving river of sludge that ran along the tunnel to feed the Mountain Oak along with all the other waste. She didn’t have a disposable cloth to clean the glowing blood from her spear, so she just rubbed into a patch of packed earth. It wasn’t the best way to treat a blade, but she’d rather a grimey or damaged dagger than a fungal infection or worse.
Finished with cleanup, Dyani examined what the rat had been so keen on defending. After scraping away at some dirt with her spear, she saw it was a locket half buried in the muck. Whatever picture the lock might’ve contained had long since rotted away but she could feel a spark of mana resting in the metal.
Anything enchanted had some value, so she didn’t want to just leave it there.
She debated on how to pick it up, finally using her spear to lift it on its chain and carried it back to the ladder. Using her foot to dig a small hole in some dirt, she dropped the locket inside and covered it back up. It wouldn’t stop a determined critter from digging it up, but she hoped if they didn’t notice it, they would leave it be for now.
Dyani would bring something to carry it out of the sewers tomorrow, since she didn’t want to touch anything down here with her bare skin if she could help it.
Dyani managed to find two more fungus rats and something like an orange jellyfish that crawled over the ground instead of swimming. The rats were as easy to kill as the first one she’d encountered, but the jellyfish proved a bit trickier. It was slower than the rats, so stabbing it was easy, but its body was so tough and rubbery that her spear didn’t even leave a mark.
She finally managed to end it by smashing it with a large rock. The fluid that squirted out of the jellyfish hissed and bubbled, even managing to burn small holes in her trousers and blister her skin.
It was extremely satisfying to absorb the experience from the horrible, acidic thing as it deflated and died. She was getting better at it. After a few times absorbing experience, the dense and complex mana that monsters released upon death, she was getting about half of it, with most of the rest going to the Mountain Oak’s roots. Those roots didn’t always move when they absorbed experience, but Dyani got the distinct impression that the tree was enjoying the free donations.
After the painful and blistering acid burns from the orange jellyfish, Dyani decided to call it a day and returned to the ladder, happy that she remembered the few turns to navigate back to safety. Tomorrow she’d bring something to mark her passage, but for today, getting in and out mostly unharmed was good enough.
Dyani noted with satisfaction that the earth where she’d buried the enchanted locket was undisturbed. She’d have to remember to bring protective gloves as well, or at least some waterproof fabric or leather to collect it and any other treasures she found down here. Checking all her gear to make sure she hadn’t lost anything, Dyani climbed back up the ladder and listened for any sign of people before sliding over the metal disc that blocked the entrance.
She slipped out and started hyperventilating the fresh city air. Dyani wouldn’t normally consider the air in this industrial district particularly fresh, but compared to what her nose had gotten used to, it was the smell of freshly baked bread doused in perfume, which now that she considered it, sounded pretty awful.
Regardless, it was a genuine relief to be free of sewage smells, and with quite the haul of experience to show for herself.
As she replaced the metal disc and jogged over into a narrow alley for privacy, she ran spiritual fingers through the warm, buzzing energy inside her spirit. Dyani wanted to cry out, or maybe just cry. Without an analyzer to give her the numbers, Dyani didn’t know exactly how much experience she’d gained, but if she had to guess, it was around five percent of her capacity.
That meant in around twenty or so excursions, including this one, she could reach level 1.1, and then level 2 in another twenty, maybe less if she could explore further to find more monsters and get better at absorbing experience before the greedy tree took it.
She lifted up a sleeve to look at the runes she’d received on her awakening. That was only a few days ago, but it already seemed like such a long time. With one trip a day, she would receive her level 2 talent in less than two months. She barked out a laugh when she realized that even with their accelerated training schedule, she would probably reach level 2 before her friends started killing monsters.
Of course, she would have to undergo that same training once she had another talent and qualified for Slayer’s Guild membership, but that was a small price to pay for a dream.
“I’ll get there, Dad. It might take me a little while, but I’ll get there.”
***
After her nose came fully back to life, Dyani realized that she smelled nearly as bad as the sewer she’d been delving. Her mom would definitely notice that and demand an explanation, so she had to trek even further along the major root to the Green District, which housed several parks and commercial gardens. She passed the entrances to the well manicured parks, instead finding the run-off of one of their sparkling rivers.
Whoever owned the park must’ve set up some kind of enchantment or permanent illusion, because the clear water that glittered like a gemstone transitioned to ordinary, if clean water, as it flowed through the park’s outer fence. After passing a collection of older buildings that probably contained gardening tools and equipment, the water was finally directed down a large, circular hole covered with a metal grate that Dyani realized was another entrance to the sewers.
If she could find a tucked away sewer entrance closer to this water source, she would be able to avoid her smelly and conspicuous walk across two districts.
Seeing one dirty, smelly child could be overlooked, but the same smelly child trespassing on the property of this fancy park every day for a month and a half would turn anyone’s head. It wouldn’t take more than a couple days for someone to contact city security, and she didn’t need that kind of trouble.
Dyani washed herself off as best she could until she was only soaking wet, not a crime against the senses. She hoped the summer evening air was warm enough to dry her before she arrived home.
It was not, so Dyani did the only sensible thing and pushed open her bedroom window, tried not to think about how easy it would be for someone to break into their house, and crept inside.
Or at least she tried to creep. The reality was more of a soggy flop, but it was the thought that counted. Dyani kept still with her eyes screwed shut, waiting for her mother to call out to her or float through the wall. She sighed with relief when neither happened. Without standing up, she peeled layers of sodden clothing off herself, wincing when wet fabric chafed against the blisters on her ankle.
With similar stealth, she dried her body as well as she could with a clean shirt and put on a new, gloriously dry outfit.
She repeated her window entrance in reverse, walked to the front door and swore when she realized her keys were in her backpack, which was waiting in her room.
Anyone watching would be hard pressed to explain the convoluted steps this young burglar was taking to break into her own home.
After returning to her room through the window, retrieving her house key, and exiting her window once again, Dyani finally opened the front door and went inside to find a note with a single word on the kitchen table in her mother’s messy hand.
Shopping. It was short and simple like most notes her mother wrote for obvious reasons, and it shattered Dyani’s emotional state like a fireball.
She collapsed on the couch, tears in her eyes. All that effort, and all the day's dangers and glories came out her as choking half-sobs half-laughs. Dyani looked over to her father’s enchanted sword hilt on the wall as she finally got control of herself and smiled.
That wasn’t bad for a first day.