image [https://i.imgur.com/OxHsgsX.jpg]
Empowered by the Amphibious swim buff, I dove toward the double doors. My robe pulled at my shoulders as I swam. Corrosion encased the door’s metalware—the hinges, lock, and handles. Suction kept it in place with a combination of swollen wood and rot. Fabulosa wore our strength gear, so forcing them open wasn’t an option.
Gripping Creeper and the trident at once, I jabbed them into the door’s hinge. The Underwater Trident acted as an anti-vessel weapon, causing structural damage. A progress bar showed I’d reduced the door’s integrity by over 20 percent with every hit.
Jabbing it four more times forced them to give way, and water pressure tore them asunder, flushing them into the space below. The current pulled my legs, and the rest of me followed. My enhanced swimming buff lacked enough propulsion. Like a butterfly in a hurricane, I lost all sense of control and spilled through the vortex.
The violence of the ride surprised me. The current swept me through a hallway and into another room. I lost my spear and trident in the jostling wetness, slowing only after the water washed me down a broad staircase. I stopped tumbling when I hit a pillar at the bottom. The water ebbed as it dispersed across a wide room. I alternately gulped for air and coughed. Presence illuminated the chamber’s features of a staircase and balcony supported by pillars. I struggled to stand and fought the waterfall up the stairs to reach my friends.
Fabulosa tumbled through the pillars next, catching herself on a copper railing. After shaking with coughs, she soon breathed easy again. She had fallen to 65 health. I cast another Restore and Rejuvenate on her.
Next came the dwarves, followed by Fletcher and Lloyd. Though the current waned, it washed them down the stairwell. I grabbed Fletcher on his way down the stairs. Even through the torrent, his skin glowing with Presence.
“Blimey, that was a whirlpool!” Lloyd spat out water while he laughed.
Blane’s eyes searched the room’s corners. “What did ye do, Guv? Pop a leak in the dungeon?”
I ignored their questions. “Fab. Are you okay? What happened to the fisher?”
“I don’t know—I couldn’t see squat.”
I peered through the pillars while Fabulosa performed a Rest and Mend. The hallway deluge diminished to a knee-high stream. Presence lit up the hallway, but I saw no crustacean.
Fabulosa splashed past me back to the room. She cast Heavenly Favor and Ignite Weapon on her saber.
“Wait, where are you going?”
Fabulosa gave me a severe look. “That bottom scratcher was tougher than all git-out, but I’m not about to let it duck a fight. It’s time for payback.”
“It was orange, Fab. It’s rated orange against all of us.”
“Maybe in water. That crawdad doesn’t know it yet, but it just made my menu.”
“Well, okay. Let’s let everyone regroup, and we’ll sizzle it together.”
While doing a quick Rest and Mend, I scanned the room with Detect Magic and spotted my trident and spear under wreckage.
After I retrieved my weapons, we doubled-back up the stairs, down the hallway to where we fought the bug, only to find an empty nautilus shell among the debris. With the water gone, we could see where we’d entered from a balcony doorway. If there had once been stairway access, it had long disappeared.
“That big ol’ coward lit out of here.” Fabulosa kicked the edge of the shell and gazed at a broken balcony railing. The upper level, without the water, looked inaccessible. Fabulosa inspected gouges in the wall, possibly tracks the monster left behind when it climbed away.
Fabulosa regarded the marks.
“What are you thinking, Fab?”
She grunted but said nothing. Handhold-by-handhold, she climbed the wall. I followed her lead, albeit with more difficulty. Her higher strength made the climb eaiser, and I could barely make it.
Blane watched with a worried expression. “Ye sclimming up like a cat on a new chair! Ye don’t expect us to follow? I doubt me arms could reach!”
“You guys stay down here. Patch and I have a score to settle.” Fabulosa hoisted herself onto the balcony, turned the corner, and Slipstreamed out of my line of sight.
The climb took me longer, but I made it without embarrassing myself in front of the dwarves and the Sternways. After hearing the sounds of battle, I equipped my trident and Slipstreamed the rest of the distance.
The fisher’s threat level had dropped from orange to green. Even without a nautilus on its back, the weight of the crustacean’s armor proved a liability out of the water.
Fabulosa applied several damage-over-time debuffs on the creature with her Ignited Weapon. The monster, on land, clumsily waved its claws. It presented its back as a target, and I landed a heavy backstab for nearly 200 damage. When it turned to face me, Fabulosa backstabbed it, and vice versa. Its pale chitinous plates presented little defense in its joints.
With its mobility hindered, we brought its health to zero. Like the mummified anomalocaris in the sarcophagus, we killed the aquatic creature for easy experience on dry ground.
Fabulosa collapsed to the ground with a soggy squish. “I don’t think that kill was cheesy, do you? We survived its underwater attack.”
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“Nah, we earned it. Draining its bathwater wasn’t a cakewalk.”
“Speaking of bathwater, that counted as a bath. My 48-hour countdown started for Unbelievable Stench. I can’t wait until it’s gone.”
While the game rated the fisher a green threat, it dropped an orange core, worthy of a dungeon boss.
Item
Orange Core
Rarity
Epic (orange)
Description
Level 65 core
Monster Bonus 1 Armored
Monster Bonus 2 Camouflage
Both armored and camouflage traits seemed ideal for crafted armor. The haul included experience points, which only Fabulosa and I split. We each received 100 experience, almost half of what we needed to go from level 20 to 21.
As for treasure, we likely flushed it out of the room, but we searched the arthropod’s craw to be safe. I took large sections of the creature’s meat and rolled them into my void bag for feasts later. Surprisingly, the operation produced no fish market stench.
I finished harvesting the meat. “It’s getting late. We can’t spend too much time here. We need to get going if we want to free these prisoners.”
After returning to our party, we trekked through knee-deep water, following a passage that opened to giant pipes and copper fixtures. Grates and corroded metalwork covered the ceiling above us. It looked abandoned, but dry. The hallway ended in a shaft with cuts in the wall, similar to a ladder on a concrete pool. The rungs led up a shaft.
Lloyd shrugged and reached for the first handhold. “Up is good!”
Passing a dilapidated catwalk, we climbed several levels to a dry hallway. A few boards covered the doorway, but the warped wood and rusty nails looked easy enough to bust through. It encouraged me that someone had nailed over the shaft from the other side. It felt like we’d crossed back to civilization.
Everyone looked at Lloyd for a reaction.
He looked down the hallway in both directions before picking a route. “This looks like an old utility tunnel. We’re close. All hands in my wake—weapons ready.”
We followed Lloyd to a door that looked operable. Its copper hinges showed only a thin green verdigris, but corrosion hadn’t yet rounded its surfaces. He tried its handle and gave the door a hard jerk. It opened with a sharp squeak. After a sliver of light divided Lloyd’s face, he peered through the crack, turned to us, and winked. “We’re on course again, Cap’n.”
Lloyd opened the door to a wide hallway lit with oil lamps every 20 yards. A copper tube as thick as a trashcan ran along the hallway’s ceiling. We saw no engineers or guards.
Fletcher and I turned off Presence.
“Blimey, now that I’m bigger, I’d like to give what-for to those guards. Killed some of my mates, they did.”
Fabulosa looked offended. “They killed children?”
“We weren’t no children—we were pests to be exterminated. If they couldn’t catch and clobber us, they’d get the engies to drown us like rats.”
I identified with Lloyd’s animosity. My truant days in Atlantic City weren’t so long ago. Some kids I hung out with grew dangerous, and I didn’t know any better than to hang out with them. And in the eyes of everyday citizens, I became guilty by association. Animosity from strangers felt familiar. I didn’t doubt that Lloyd and his crew faced heaps of trouble.
We followed Lloyd through corridors as he pointed out things. “When street hydrants release water, the Underworks gets the runoff. It makes some passages impassable.”
Fabulosa stretched. “It’s past midnight.”
Bernard snorted. “Well past, L.T. Wee hours of the morn, I’d wager.”
When the tour hit a lull, Blane asked to take a break. “Is anyone else hungry?”
Bernard looked at me with hopeful eyes, and Lloyd nodded. “It’s a good time for mess. We’ll need our strength up there.” He pointed to the ceiling.
My stomach rumbled at his suggestion. “We have the rest of the meat wraps.” I passed out the remains of the food we bought. It tasted fresh and delicious and filled our need for energy. The onset of a food coma hit me, and I had to fight to stay awake.
“It had better be.” Lloyd consulted his tidal chart. “Midnight tide won’t be good for us.”
I stood. “We shouldn’t get too comfortable then. Are we good to go?”
“Step lively, friends.” Lloyd sprang to his feet and led us to a stairwell going up.
We passed a device on the wall holding a transparent tube filled with water. This gauge caught Lloyd’s eye, and he studied the hash marks on the tube.
Lloyd checked his tide chart. “Ah, this here is what we need!” Lloyd turned a green valve wheel next to the tube. “Thar she is. After one more valve, the passage for the prisoners should be safe.”
Fabulosa looked disappointed. “Turning that little wheel was all we needed to do? This corridor is the control house?”
Lloyd shook his head. “Nay, but this valve pressurizes the bilge tunnels, stopping the flood. We’ll need it dry when we escort folks through the Underworks. The control house is nearby, and it’s our shortcut out of here, lest ye prefer the more scenic route. We’ve only hours until Phaos peeks over the horizon. The early hours are the best time to visit. The night crew should be good ‘n sleepy.” He turned to me. “On your command, Cap’n.”
I couldn’t help but smile as I pulled out my Wall of Wind. “I’m ready, Lloyd. Let’s go!”
“Then we’re off!” Lloyd turned and rushed down a corridor lined with thick clay pipes.
I didn’t expect he would approach the control house in a dead run.
We took off after him, rounding a corner where a pair of guards sat, leaning against a wall. They shook themselves awake and stood. Neither wore armor, but they wore identification patches and carried truncheons on their belts.
One guard saw us. “Hey, wait a minute. Who are—”
Lloyd swiftly kicked one of their ankles, spilling his target into a pile. He kept running.
The other pulled out a mace and hammered it against a tubular bell hanging in an alcove.
Fabulosa raised her arms and spun around. “Wait, are we not fighting them? What’s going on?”
Everyone looked at one another, waiting for an answer. We didn’t know whether to follow Lloyd or knock these guys out, so we followed.
Fletcher’s eyes widened with concern. “Father, slow down, please.”
Ahead of us, Lloyd rounded a corner and slid to a stop. He turned to face us and ran back in our direction. “It’s too late to reef the sails, son, but there are too many that way. Let’s chart another course, one that circumnavigates the guards. Let’s hit the valve room from the north spillway.”
Name
Cistern Sentry
Level
8
Difficulty
Easy (green)
Health
140/140
Four more sentries nearly ran into us from a nearby doorway. Though surprised, they wasted no time swinging clubs, hitting me for 12 damage. Some might have been “engies” that Lloyd mentioned earlier. Tools, not weapons, hung from their belts. Some had levels in the single digits. I didn’t know if these particular guards posed a danger to wayward children, so I didn’t want to kill them.
I extended my Wall of Wind and triggered its push mechanic. My robe blew in the wind as three guards tumbled into one another. Fabulosa grappled the fourth and threw him to the ground.
The sentries who rang the alarm brought up the rear of our mad race. One covered their nose as they ran. “Oi! What is that stench?”
The other replied. “Are they undead, do you think?”
Fabulosa muttered under her breath as she ran. “We were clean before we came here.”