“Listen,” I said, backing away slowly with my hands held up, “I’m not one of you-”

“You must aid us on our quest comrade adventurer!” The leader interjected.

“Aid us!” The rest echoed once more.

I knew what was going to happen. I had been in Celestia long enough to understand how this damned system worked and there was absolutely no way I would be accepting it.

No, no, no, no, no…

New Quest:

The Proletariat Will Rise Again

“God damn it!”

The gnomes need your help comrade!

Aid them!

Objectives:

Help the gnomes: 0/1

Reward: Unlock a powerful skill for Asmodeus.

I knew this was going to happen. I just knew it.

That being said, I was rather interested in what giving Asmodeus a new skill would do and I guess this did qualify as a sub-quest for the director. Would this reward mean that Asmodeus could help me in combat?

Or use it to eat my soul… I shivered.

“Human!” The dragon whispered in my ear, at least he seemed to intend it to be a whisper, but I was certain that everyone in the immediate vicinity could hear him. “You must aid these little people. My skills are locked away as I am only a fragment of a demon lord in this current body.”

“Will you try to eat my soul if you get more powerful?” I asked.

“… nooo…” he replied, quite unconvincingly. “I can help you fight with my skills unlocked. They are quite powerful you know.”

“Aid us!” The gnomes said in optimistic unison.

“… But I’m not a communist,” I protested as they moved in closer, looking up at me with happy, heart wrenching smiles.

“But you smell like a communist,” one of the little fellows said after making an exaggerated sniffing noise in my general direction.

“Please comrade, you hold the eternal flame, I can sense it,” the gnome leader said, dropping off his soap box and approaching me with his hands clasped firmly behind his back.

He was an aging man with a trimmed white beard and big, round eyes. Perched on top of his head was one of those furry hats with the ear flaps, a hammer and sickle insignia was sewn onto the front.

The hat reminded me of those that the Russian soldiers wore in Call of Duty: World at War, a game I had fond memories of from my high school years. That wouldn’t be enough to sway me though.

I wasn’t sure that helping the gnomes would qualify as completing the quest Freja had given me. I wasn’t even sure if I should be taking sides at all.

“Kaleb,” Bell said, tugging on the sleeve of my armour like a child attempting to emotionally manipulate their parents into buying them a new toy, “you can’t say no to that face. Just look how cute he is.”

“That’s not the word I’d use,” I moaned. “This damned torch has been a pain in my arse since the day I got stuck with it. If I help out a group of commie gnomes in the middle of the aggressively capitalist continent we’re on, you just know that it’s going to spell trouble for me later down the line.”

“The director told us to resolve the situation,” Bell replied hopefully.

“She didn’t say to join the protestors though, did she?” I replied, rolling my eyes as I spoke.

“Kid,” Panda said, clasping his own hands behind his back and mimicking the gnome. “Do you even know what the gnomes believe in? Back in Havar, your definition of socialism was quite different to the king’s. It might be worth talking to them before you brush them off. Besides, we don’t even know what they want.”

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“The back-up snack speaks truthfully, human,” Asmodeus agreed, “… and I want one of my powers unlocked. I demand that you speak with them.”

Panda glared back at the dragon but didn’t retort.

Looking around at the group, I eventually gave in. Panda made a good point and the thrill of completing quests was always a nice dopamine hit. Hell, maybe it would be a quick and easy one for once.

“Fine,” I sighed, looking at the gnome leader. “Let’s talk, then I can decide.”

“Thank you comrade,” he replied in his squeaky voice, with a little bow, “if you’ll follow me, I know a place where we can discuss this in private.”

“What about your protest?” I asked.

“The others will remain here, it is only this body that will accompany you,” he replied and I shrugged back at him.

With his hands still clasped firmly behind his back, he led us off to the side and down an alleyway that snaked behind the building we had just been in front of.

Contrary to the clean and well-maintained streets we had previously been on, the alleyway was dirty and it smelled of urine. It reminded me of home.

“Where are you taking us?” Bell asked as we walked, very slowly, behind the tiny gnome.

“To the Under-Slums,” he replied in an almost mechanical voice. “That is where the undesirables of this city live. Those chased out of regular Cali Port society for one reason or another.”

“They must really hate communism here,” I replied.

“It reminds me of home,” Bell said, almost sadly, “my parents grew up during the cold war and the anti-communist sentiment was so driven into them that the mere mention of red made my dad… well… see red. I still remember the lecture he gave me when he found me reading Russian fantasy books.”

“Well in his defence,” I replied casually, “their way of thinking doesn’t exactly have the best track record. It might sound nice in theory, I grew up poor as muck so I get the appeal, but in reality it always ends with one psychopath having too much control and everyone under him living in squalor.”

“Maybe where you’re from,” the gnome said, “but we gnomes are of a hive mind, we are not individuals, we are one consciousness spread across multiple bodies. It is different for us.”

“Sure, but you’re only one of many species who live here,” I replied, opening my palms as we followed him, “something that works for you might be to the detriment of everyone else.”

“Perhaps,” he responded absently, “we’re here.”

Pointing to a rusted manhole cover, he turned towards us with a wide grin and bowed once more.

“Your people live in the sewer?” Bell asked.

“He did call it the Under-Slums,” Panda said with a shrug before taking a drag from his bamboo pipe.

I had a sudden flashback to my last trip into a sewer where I’d massacred a bunch of slimes and nearly died inside a slime queen.

Was this going to happen in every city I visited from now on? The obligatory sewer trip. I hoped not.

The gnome lifted the grate and a foisty smell of stale air and earth leaked out. It didn’t smell even half as bad as the Havarian sewer, I’d needed a mask in that place. No, this smelled more like unwashed people and a lack of fresh air.

Grabbing the ladder with his stubby hands, the gnome began climbing down and an echoing thunk rang out with each of his steps.

I followed with my team.

“I know I requested the retrieval of my power, human,” Asmodeus began, trying to pinch his nose shut with his claws, “however I did not realise that would require me to accompany you into a peasant hole. Perhaps you should make the retrieval without me?”

“No way,” I replied sternly, “you wanted me to speak to the gnomes, you want your power back so you’re coming with me… Azzy.”

He huffed loudly and a small puff of flame erupted from his nostrils, lighting the sewer hole for a moment. It was made of damp, moss covered stones.

I reached the bottom with a light splash as my boots hit a shallow puddle which had gathered there. It was pitch black, but only for a moment. The gnome pulled a lit torch from his inventory.

The flames danced and flickered among the receding shadows and I saw that we were in a cramped drainage tunnel covered with moss and made of the same damp stones that I’d seen on the descent.

“Comrade,” the gnome said, looking up at me through the orange flames, “add your flame to mine, I want to see it.”

I rolled my eyes and did as he asked, equipping the Torch of Eternal Communist Supremacy from my inventory. The makeshift item I had made with the system gift of Stalin’s Stylish Socks still burned brightly, the faint logo of a hammer and sickle dancing beneath the reddish, orange glow.

“Wow,” the gnome said, clearly awestruck, “it is magnificent, comrade. Thank you for allowing us the privilege to gaze upon such a wonderous flame.”

“Just get walking and take us to this private place of yours,” I muttered back as Panda and Bell exchange whispered snickering behind me.

We were barely walking for more than a few minutes before the sewer opened up into a massive, sprawling favella.

“Under-Slums is right,” Bell gasped, “it looks like the beginning of Fast Five down here.”

She wasn’t wrong.

The Under-Slums was a huge underground shanty town. Small structures were dotted about everywhere, seemingly made of corrugated iron, bits of wood and old tyres. It was a marvel that any of them stayed upright.

People littered the streets as we passed through the makeshift town. There were hundreds of them, possibly more. Noticeably, I didn’t spot a single human or svartalf.

There were plenty of gnomes, lycanids, catonids and an array of different creatures I’d never seen before. I even spotted an unhappy looking garuda sat on a mouldy rocking chair and gazing up at the roof of the sewer system. I wondered if he was thinking about the sky outside. If I could fly, I’d hate to be holed up underground too.

I placed my torch back into my inventory, the slums was lit by glowing moss on the roof and an array of fires which burned in metal barrels.

The sewer dwellers were dirty and many had missing limbs and bruises. All of them were armed to the teeth like some kind of militia and in their eyes burned a searing hatred. I didn’t like that look.

“Through here comrade,” the gnome leader said chirpily as he ducked under a piece of corrugated iron, holding it back like a tent flap for the rest of us to follow.

I ducked inside, the others hot on my heels.

The interior was dark and the air felt moist, and kind of rancid.

“Hey, Mr Gnome,” Bell called out, “it’s a little dark in here, do you have a light?”

We waited a few moments but there was no reply. With a heavy sigh, I pulled the torch from my inventory once again and the room lit up in bright orange as the flames danced around the room casting shadow puppetry on the walls.

Stood directly in front of us was the gnome leader, his hands placed ceremoniously behind his back. Flanking him were two others: the biggest lycanid I’d ever seen, and a catonid wearing a beret.

Both of them held crossbows aimed squarely at mine and Bell’s chests.

Well shit.