The next few days after for the survivors of the Visitor Center were more encouraging than the earlier. Ever since the arrival of the Rangers, the Sarenites, now equipped with a prospectus to take back the Temple were redoubling their efforts to see it all through. When the rain falls, the Mujahidin venture forth to fight and steal back the Raincoats of the Filth Drinkers to use for themselves. When one claims those silken garbs, they could take claim of four more. It wasn’t long before now all of the Sarenites and the Rangers had their own Raincoats which allows for them free movement around Katheer at last after five years of being oppressed into what unmelted shelters remained from the Acidic Rainfall.

“Ar-righty this is far enough.” David lifted a fallen piece of lumber from the ruined house as he led Merizi and Tomos upwards. Based on Tutoria’s old accounts of her hap-hazard journey to the Temple, they had gone through significantly closer without tipping the patrols that had scrapped through the area.

Team X-Ray that day had planned by David was to split off into two teams. His team took charge of scouting the urban approach to the Temple of the Dawn’s Grace. The days of progress lately had caused a significantly lowered intensity of Filth Drinker Patrols around Katheer. It was an opportune gap in the Xoveronic Armor that High Priestess Kamala had been waiting to turnabout the Mujahidin’s fate with. Still, she remained cautious despite the growing enthusiasm amongst her followers. The Cleric and the Silent Songstress Navideh having entrusted the Desert Rangers to reconnaissance the Temple to observe the movements of their mutual adversary and so they did.

Meanwhile, he had entrusted the heroic Ghoul Raul to lead Ice and Tutoria down the Sewers to verify the integrity of the Water Filtration System that is the key to the Katheer continued survival.

Once everything is all written into note by the Ranger’s scouting, the High Priestess is confident that a two-pronged assault, one frontal and the other from beneath could allow the Sarenite Mujahidin to retake the Temple.

With both surprises, adequate preparation from the new Raincoats acquired and Saint Habir’s Rod of Cancellation to deal with what arcane madness sprout forth from the Nethysian Wound would bleed over, the Dawnflowers remaining faithful could triumph against the encroaching darkness in their sacred temple.

“That big ol’e dome down there looking mighty fi’e-er the more we tread over these mucky arse---” Merizi complained.

“Don’t move!” David eyes leaped up as he intersperses the Azarketi from taking another step further.

For her ankle was but a breadth away from breaking a white yet eerily shimmering solid line hidden keenly between the divides of a half-ruined portal.

A Tripwire. The Elder Ranger educed from his memory, either a booby trap or an alarm. Not wanting to set off, either way, to find out.

“Gozreh’s piss.” Merizi sighed in relief as the Ranger reclined and traced his fingers carefully along the thin white line. David’s hands quickly gauged the design of the trap.

The wire led him to a rusted hollow pipe whose dilapidated edges pointed upwards rather than towards its unwary prey. Carefully poking his finger into the hole, the Ranger dug out a paper bullet-shaped shell with fumes of sulfur, magnesium, and potassium nitrate. It was an elementary design of a Flare Rocket. David however sighed slightly disappointedly however. It wasn’t another Shotgun Trap again, he would have loved to scrap it down for parts but if the way his nose tickles upon the scent of the flare’s ingredients were to go by, they were very potent for its yield.

“I got it.” David smirked confidently after he fully defused the Tripwire.

The Azarketi sighed in relief before curling her stiff ankles loose.

“What was it? The Trap?” Tomos curiously asked.

“Not a Trap, more of an alarm. Shoots a little flare rocket up to the sky. Very loud and very bright. Would have kicked this hornet’s nest if I didn’t stop Merizi from stepping any further.”

“Can I see? Oh, I am quite curious about your to Blackpowder. It was the pinnacle of Alchemy before the Cataclysm.” Tomos requested.

“Well careful with these. Don’t put them anywhere near fire or it will go off.” David gave the Flare Rocket to the Aasimar Alchemist. “A strong smell… remarkable, very remarkable quality.” He inhaled clemently.

“Indeed, but let’s get back to work.” David reminded him as he knelt down and pulled out a pair of Binoculars from his bag.

Adjusting the dials of both its zoom and focus, the Scout peered on from their observation spot.

“It’s even uglier than I thought.” David cringed as his eyes scanned the Filth Drinker’s impious sanctuary.

Dividing the between himself and the Temple was an expansive bridge of mosaic-decorated masonry that stood above the putrid waters of the polluted Azure Canal. The architecture had housed a shanty town filled with Demons and their enthralled Child Soldiers. It was mostly the Children who were being cruelly cracked to jog about, erecting wooden and sandbag barricades for defense. They knew that this bridge, this vital artery towards the dark heart of their infernal enterprise in the once-Mercantile City of Katheer was key to their continued survival. They worked tirelessly upon the craven and slothful gazes of their demonic masters whilst commanding from their panoptical position. They harked orders whilst distributing rations of food and water, still contaminated, but nourishment nonetheless. Yet what can be most threatening of them all was a great shielded turret that formed the main bulwark of the Bridge’s defense. Its familiarly shaped nose according to David’s own memory protruded between the shield’s sight lines.

“Oh hello… M2 Browning Machine Gun. What are you doing over there.” David zoomed closer to the Machine Gun and smiled nuttily. He almost forgot that such a reverent American weapon was being held in the hands of tyrants.

For every action the Rangers had caused damage to these marauders, they giveth back in equal measures by these heightened defenses now that both enemies are seeking to even out the slowly changing playing field.

“I would be pissed like your sister too if I have seen such a place like this. This place looks like a worse shithole than the one me and Ice left.” David shook his head. “And that Turret over there? That’s going to cause us some trouble unless we take it out first.” He pointed out.

“A Ballistari Bolt Thrower.” Tomos shuddered at the Turret, comparing the alien Earth Weapon to a similar weapon he had only read of its designs in books of Engineering Warfare.

“Worse than that… much worse. But you’re close. It's like a Bolt Thrower but shoots faster. Punches harder with its shots.” David explained.

“The same principles stand; the user of the Turret must require line of sight to use his weapon effectively. I can cook up some Flash Bombs back at the Visitor’s Center. Outlander, can I use the Black Powder from this shell for them?” Tomos clawed his chin.

“Yeah, yeah… do that kid.” He nodded at the Aasimar Alchemist’s coefficiency.

“So, like a Puckle Gun?” Merizi butted in.

“No, a Browning.” David stiffly redressed her. But he knew that explaining some of the more nuanced technologies with the Golarionites is going to take some time, let alone from someone with whom he still needs to have her earn his trust, let alone his respect.

“Yeah… a Puckle Gun! I know just how to use one here.” Merizi bravado. “Reminds me of me time back when I was just a wee-deckhand… But Gozreh’s piss… they expecting a lot of trouble coming our way.” Merizi caught her tongue mid-sentence.

“Nothing ever good comes from these Abyssal fiends. They can only mock or desecrate what is precious and beautiful. Sarenrae weeps as her Temple continues to be defiled by the Lord of Ruins.” Tomos nodded alongside him. “Outlander, can you see to your left? You see a sluice gate over there across us? That’s where most of the water comes from.”

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

“The Water Filter, right?” David clarified whilst rotating his binoculars to where Tomos directed. “Or what was it…” his teeth clattered into a wince.

The sluice gate, although functional and sprouting forth water from its mouth was vomiting forth sickly black and red water. Its tainted vitae bubbled angrily when it comes into contact with the Canal’s slowly crumbling walls. Above the gate was a set of mechanical controls with an access manhole that leads to the maintenance tunnels that spread around Katheer. It would be a difficult assault from the bridge alone, but a flanking force as planned by High Priestess Kamala should tip the odds in their favor. In addition, the discovered Personal Antithesis of the Xoveronic demons is the sight of their desecration be undone. Navideh the Bard and several of the Sarenite Clerics will see to it that this mortal weakness be exploited to the fullest.

“Yucky me… I rather be dried to a crisp than have to swim through that muck!” Merizi flew out her tongue.

“High Priestess Kamala told us that the Sewers and the Cistern can be both accessed through the tunnels.”

“And the Cistern is connected to the Water Filter below the Temple, I get it now.” David nods. “Well, I hope the Ice and your sister can handle the smell. Because I know Raul’s Ghoul Nose can’t smell shit… kinda jealous of him now.” David cringed as he averted his gaze from the putrid sight that tests his stomach’s fortitude.

[-]

“So? Whazit like?” Isaiah crouched by Raul’s side as he finagled his necrotized fingers upon the many machined parts of the Katheerian Water Filtration System.

The Ghoul, Isaiah, and Tutoria had infiltrated the bowels of the city’s sewers quietly. Their continued furtiveness hanks to Raul’s peculiar knack for navigating the noisome cloaca of Golden Katheer, they would have been grasping and frothing from their lungs disgracefully. It was a help that at least for Raul’s constitution that his snout’s ability to sense smell had long since withered away just like the rest of his rusting skin.

The Water Filter that allowed Katheer to become the golden oasis in the desert siphoned river water from the nearby Pashaman. Hundred if not thousands of gallons of water marches through the Cisterns of Katheer to provide safe and clean drinking water during its prosperous days. Those were sadly faded now that the Water Filter is controlled through the besmirching whims of Bogrus, the Satrap of Spoilation.

“All the moving bits seem to be all intact. Pressure Valves, Pipes, Levers, and all. I am impressed by all of this plumbing. Looks like our shit-spilling friends above us didn’t even bother to smash them up.” Raul shook off the dust and cobwebs that fell onto his face with his handkerchief. “Then again… I am beginning to see why they would not.”

“The High Priestess will be pleased to hear, but where is all of this filthy water coming from? River water shouldn’t be this revolting? My brother and I had to fetch water from the Pashaman all the time.” Tutoria blenched, covering her nose.

“Oh no… no… those banditos better not have…” Raul fidgeted his flashlight and wrenched from his two hands.

“Do you know of something we don’t?” Tutoria asked the Ghoul.

“The Filters, we need to check the Filters.” Raul abridged his tongue.

He led his two companions through a door they had not passed over. It was heavier built than previously passed aperture, requiring Isaiah and Tutoria’s aid to pull it away. When they did slide the door aside, the chamber that greeted them let forth a wave of putrid miasma.

“Sun and Fury!” Tutoria barely held her guts intact as she thickened the coverings for her nose with her scarf.

The heavy door creaked loudly, sand and dust giving way as Raul hovered his lamp beyond the nearing chamber.

The group carefully stepped forth and beheld to their utter dismay the depths the Abyssal Demons would go to taint the land. Within the holding baskets of the Katheer’s integral Water Filter housed a plethora of sickly green stones, engraved with the Unholy Symbol of Xoveron’s Five-Horned Gargoyle. The passing river water becomes tainted with the fecundate stones to become the loathsome tears of Katheer’s dying luster. Across the Filter, lay piles of ashen-black, wet and honey-combed-shaped stones. It permeated a pure yet smoky scent that was easy to discern away from Xoveron’s taint.

“Well, it’s definitely ain’t doin ‘er job.” Isaiah expressed some low-browed dry humor out of all of this.

“Of course, it ain’t.” Raul scoffed the kid’s commentary off. “Tutoria, what were the Filters supposed to be anyway?”

“I recognize that smell.” Tutoria turned to the black blocks, its scent overpowering the previously horrid stench the closer she stepped. She grabbed a lump of the stone and observed it keenly with her avian-like eyes. It was waxy to the touch yet remained firm in its solid state. “If memory serves me right, folks around here call them Sarenrae’s Sudor. It is a miraculous medley that Master Ibrahim would tell me ‘purifies all defilement, great and small’.”

“Ey’ I gimme that!” Isaiah vaulted over to Raul and took the black stone away from his palms. He whiffed the smell. “It’s Charcoal…” he sniffs again. “Special Char… eh… what did momma t’oll me? Acck-tea-vaded Charcoal. Don’t know why… it has no switch to turn it on…” he handed the stone back to Tutoria.

“Charcoal? Like the black blocks, you use to cook food with?” Tutoria tilted the side of her head.

“Yes and No…” Raul nodded. “What the kid is trying to say is that… eh this is Activated Charcoal. A Special kind of Coal used for cleaning. It’s like… Uhm… you know what a sponge is?”

“Yes. I would use one to bathe myself in Oil every week.” The Paladin softened her voice as her hand unconsciously began to wave around her armored body as if she is cleaning herself. She will definitely need a nice wash of clean water after all the toils this last week brought.

“Well Activated Charcoal is like a sponge. It absorbs up dirt, toxins so it can clean wherever its placed. Just like a Filter.”

“Tock-Sins? Like evil spirits?” Tutoria’s train of thought derailed.

“Dirty stuff, Poison, Unclean things you don’t want to be breathing or inside you… eh yeah, I think you are getting it.”

“Bad air too!” Isaiah added.

“Well more I say it… you can say it is ‘miraculous’. All you got to do is just replace these filters every now and so and well… this ‘Sarenrae’s Sudor’ does all the work for you.” The Ghoul nodded.

“Sun’s Grace… that’s enlightening. Very enlightening” Tutoria amusingly nods.

“Just pluck these stones out of the way and you pass me all of the Coal Blocks to me. I want to have a nice clean glass of water after all of this is over.” Raul cracked his knuckles, his hands shifting their paradigms from Raul the Gunslinger, to Raul the Craftsman.

He carefully dropped down to the Water Filter’s Housing Baskets, careful to not fall off. He approached the first basket and reached out to grab the first handfuls of the Xoveron Demon Stones from out of it…

“Hijo de puta esta maldita cosa!” Raul recoiled and cursed as a bolt of electricity repulsed him.

His incessant vulgarities bellowed through the halls of the sewers.

Hurried footsteps slowly arose from the doors leading southward towards the Temple as a gang of vile Demons emerged to investigate the ruckus going on below. To the groups horror, the centerpiece of the repugnant band was a Temple Rune Ward, its holy symbol of the Dawnflower’s compassionate embrace twisted downward into a burlesque caricature of its true master, Xoveron the Lord of Ruins. Unstable Magic jittered around its body as it hovered between Tutoria’s friends and its demonic allies.

“I knew it! I knew it! Iknewit! Knewit!” A verminous Abrikandilu Demon cried forth, his wicked claw pointing accusatorily to the three.

“You disgusting demons, you turned out magical Wards against its rightful master!”

“Eeetch! I will show you ‘disgusting’! Magic Rune! We have intruders trying to breach the Temple! Blast’em! Blast’em!” the Abrikandilu Wizard curled his fingers as he ordered the corrupted Living Rune.

Electricity cackled from the corrupted Living Rune, mistaking the lies of the Demons for the Sarenrae’s truth of their sanctified wards. It raised their magic-vapored arm to strike back on the Temple’s Intercessor.

Raul kicked his shoulders back, chest out, and chin high as he pulled out his Magnum Revolver. “Weapons hot Vaqueros.”

[-]

“The fuck is going on over there?” David zoomed in his binoculars.

Activity had suddenly taken a spike as the Filth Drinkers began to suddenly leap into alert as they picked up their weapons and rushed towards the Temple. Enhancing the view through his looking glass, David saw to both his amazement and horror, his junior Isaiah, the Paladin Tutoria and their Ghoul Ally Raul Tejada locked in battle as hordes of the marauders descended upon them.

“Son of a bitch.” David sheathed his binoculars and grabbed his Rifle.

“S-Sis!” Tomos exclaimed.

“They ain’t going to last long out there with just the three of’em.” Merizi pointed out.

“You and Tomos. I need you to run back to the Visitor Center and get High Priestess Kamala and her Mujahidin ready to battle. Tell her its either now or never!” David ordered.

“What about you Outlander?” Tomos gave a passing glance to the Ranger as he rose to his two feet and readies himself to bolt off.

“I can shoot my gun from here. Just get Kamala here now… oh and I need Navideh too!”

“The Bard? Why what do you think she can do?” Merizi asked.

“I… I… we’ll know when she gets here! Go!” David yelled.

There was an aching feeling deep within his gut that the Spherewalker was much more than just a smiling blue-haired maid. There was something off… if not so… fantastical of her that the Elder Ranger could see beyond the glimmers of her bejeweled headdress.