Zach felt a gentle swaying motion under his feet, as a few seconds passed while Andy and him waited for Alexa to arrive. By closing his eyes, he felt the floor softly drift downward a couple of inches before drifting to his left. Now that Zach was concentrating on what he felt, there was a small tingle of energy coming from this right followed by the intense sense of a heavy object moving towards him. Opening his eyes, Zach only saw the exit portal, until the moment that Alexa appeared out of the gray mist. Zach briefly pulled back in surprise as Alexa stumbled forward. Once again, Andy was there to help and giving her the same advice that Zach had received.
While Zach briefly checked over Hayze, out of the corner of his eye he saw Andy and Alexa prepare their weapons. Nodding to each in turn, Zach moved to the dungeon entrance and hopped over the boundary, with a small splash of greenish water, Zach found himself in brick tunnel as a soft light came from the inch-tall lazy flowing water in the spillway. Looking down, Zach saw the water slowly draining away in front of him, as paved stones covered in muck and debris would randomly pop up showing a soft green light emitting from the stone. Seeing a stone walkway off to his right, Zach started to move that way as another splash came from behind him. Turning around to see Andy, Zach continued to move, until he felt dry ground under him.
Zach entered six-foot-wide paved path with a wet smack of his boot leather. The arched sewer roof came down on his right, forming small arched sections that at times created a small alcove that was pitch black. More splashes of water came, as Zach began to hear the faint sounds of fighting drifting down the tunnel. A soft cry of pain and striking of metal came down as Alexa and Andy took point. Zach watched at Andy and Alexa shuffled forward, Andy with his chains wrapped around his chest and arms had a short sword in one hand and a mace in the other. Alexa though was supporting a round shield and mace instead of her normal sword, as she took a step forward making sure to never cross her legs.
Quietly, they made their way to the first bend in the sewer and as they turned, Zach could see a group of teenage boys fighting what looked like ten or so rats, the size of a house cats, darting back and forth. Zach saw a rail thin teen dressed in roughly spun clothing take his quarterstaff and swing it back and forth keeping three rats at bay. Another teen with dirty blonde hair and perhaps a foot shorter than the thin teen with the quarterstaff was using a dagger and makeshift cudgel to attack any of the rats that got through the quarterstaff’s guard. Lastly, a teenage boy dressed in rags with a mop of red hair and a pencil thin mustache started to rotate his sling faster and faster as he took aim at one of the pacing rats outside of the quarterstaffs strike zone.
The group of boys looked desperate, as the sling released and missed the hissing rat. The rat surged forward, going for the red head. The rats black hair was slick with moisture and its long bare tail flicked the water back and forth, as it ran forward and pounced. The red hair boy gave a cry like a girl, while the boy wielding the quarterstaff, spun around and smashed the end of the staff downward on to the spine of the rat. A load crack echoed throughout the tunnel as the rat fell to waterway bouncing twice before finally resting. Soft shrieks of pain came from the creature as lay in the murky water trying to move. The boy with the quarterstaff, turned around and lashed out with rough leather work boots, striking several of the rats that had taken the opening in his defense.
Zach, Andy, and Alexa began to pass the group that was fighting in the waterway. Back and forth, the teenage boys fought off a rat or three as they would occasionally get lucky and get a damaging stroke on one of them. With another loud crack, Zach turned to see the red haired youth hit a rat in the face, bending its neck in an unnatural manner. A small look of triumph came over the boys face, as his hand went into a satchel to grab more ammunition. Turning back around, Zach followed Andy until they arrived at the first intersection.
The sewer tunnel opened into a room that was a close to a thousand square feet. Clay pipes came out of the ceiling, as dirty water and occasional debris fell out of it and splashed into the middle of the intersection. A large stone platform with grates, broken clay pipes, block and tackle, lever and drag chains was in the middle of the intersection connecting the walkways with some heavy wooden planks. Walking over the plank, Zach saw that the water was much deeper as it feed into a gate system around the intersection from the connecting water ways. A load crack of wood sounded against a rusted grate as it broke itself apart against the current.
Andy stopped in the intersection and spoke quietly, “Grim, which way?”
Zach turned his gaze from a rusted iron lever, back to Andy, as Grim spoke, “Left.” Andy and Alexa turned towards the left and started to head off, as Zach took a moment and looked through a grate that was at the middle of the platform. Large iron doors hung over openings as Zach saw slime coated chains connected to a massive gear shaft. Why, put a water channel mechanism in a dungeon? - Zach thought as he continued to move with everyone else.
As the group moved away from the intersection, the roar of water and sound of fighting faded away and gave way to the sound of pouring water coming out of numerous pipes. As the group neared the half way point of the tunnel, three large splashes caused everyone to turn their heads toward the middle of the spillway. Zach noticed the water from a clay pipe stop flowing, right before a large plug of debris shot out of it into the water way. As Zach looked on at the mass of hair, cloth, and wood it slowly began to move. A black piece of blackish slime the size of his hand slid off the debris and into the water exposing raw flesh of some animal. More splashes continued and the water that was being blocked by the debris began to overflow onto the stone walkway.
Zach looked at Andy for a moment to see the him looking intensely out into the sewer water, when all of a sudden, an intense searing pain coming from his left calf caused Zach to scream out. Out of pure instinct Zach raised his foot to look at what was causing the pain, only to find a large slug like creature with a black slimy body wrapped around his shin. The creature’s body pulsed and Zach felt the pain slowly go away as his leg began to feel cold. Zach felt his back hit the brick wall behind him, as Grim’s voice screamed out, “LEECHES! HAYZE ATTACK!”
Andy and Alexa start to shuffle backwards, as they raised their swords and maces bringing them down into the water. Hayze went from a standing guard position by Zach’s side, to attacking an approaching leech in a blink of an eye. Zach looked down at to see Hayze’s spear point in a black wiggling leech leaking dark red blood from its wound. The leech lifted its head showing Zach a small circular mouth the size of a quarter with sharp pointed fangs encircling a dark maw. As the leech splashed about dying, Zach saw more of the black forms slithering through the water towards them.
Reaching out with his right hand, Zach form the first-hand gesture of [Flaming Arrow]. Words of unknown origin began to come out of his mouth, and his wrist rotated while his fingers twisted to make another sign. Zach felt like his body was moving on its own speaking arcane words as a burning energy gather from outside of his body channeling itself through another set of veins and form a ball of flames in front of him. As the last words fell from his mouth, Zach point at the mass of incoming leeches. The ball of flames formed itself into a thin pencil arrow that shot straight at the leech he was aiming for. Flames flared up as the magical spell hit its target, then as the slime around the leech caught fire another ignition occurred from a leech that got to close.
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Zach started with another [Flaming Arrow], as Hayze darted back and forth. Zach target was another grouping of leeches, when dark shadows into the water began to converge around a leech in the group. Darkness flared out around the leech and a dozen thin cuts opened across its flesh as it stopped moving. As Zach moved his eyes to another leech, Alexa screamed out, forcing Zach to keep his focused on the mass of leeches coming. Another blast of fire came from Zach, hitting the leech in the center of their slithering black mass. Flames quickly started to spread over the mass turning it into a flaming pile of death. Zach could hear the high whine pitch of something, almost like a gnat buzzing in his ear, when he realized that the leeches were screaming in pain. A leech rolled out of the flames splashing into the water catching Zach’s attention. Flames slowly extinguished themselves as the black flesh of the slug turned into an angry twitching red mass of blood and flesh.
Zach broke his gaze away from the leech, and took a look around the battlefield to se that Alexa had two leeches wrapped around her right leg. Alexa was using her sword to cut the body off of the one that was around her thigh as Andy pressed forward. Andy step forward with his chains rotating in fast small circles, one leech approaching him become bloody pulp as the rotating chains and blades acted like a blender. Seeing no immediate threat to Alexa, Zach looked at his golem to find that Hayze had several bodies of the leeches pierced on his spearhead. The golem moved its brown head as if scanning the area before it began to walk out into the water and attack some of the masses in debris piles.
Grabbing the polished wood handle of his dagger, Zach used his left hand to grab the body of the leech around his shin and pull it away from him. The leech’s body began to pulsed again, making Zach’s entire left leg numb and weak as a sense of coldness spread deeper. Grunting Zach unwrapped the leech from him until he could feel his skin stretch where its mouth was attached. With a quick downward stroke, the dagger sliced half way through the leech, stopping as it caught on some meaty tissue. Red blood began to pour out of it as Zach came down again severing the monsters body. Zach left the small two inch head still attached to his leg as he wanted to make sure no other creatures were around him. Red blood dripped down the severed body on to moist stones as Zach realized the water had receded back into the channel. Throwing the leeches body down in disgust, Zach looked around for any more to attack.
Seeing movement at the edge of the walkway, Zach shuffled over to it, as two more leeches propel themselves forward like worms. Zach realized that without water, the leeches had to move their bulk by thrusting forward a few inch at a time, instead of swimming through the water. Wasting no time, Zach placed his boot heel down on the body of one of the leech and saw it try to twist itself to attack him. Quickly, he slashed open the leech and moved to the next one, killing it in the same manner.
Seeing no additional threat Zach saw Alexa sitting on the ground with two bleeding wounds in her leather armor. Putting away his dagger, Zach felt the muscles in his leg began to tighten, flexing as hard as they could until a uncomfortable stillness stop the muscles from moving. Just as he was about to see if he could help Alexa a red screen popped up.
Warning! Your left leg has been paralyzed from poison. You will regain the use of your leg in ten minutes.
After dismissing the red screen, Zach saw the loot screen come up as flashes of light from his [Auto-loot] appeared across the sewer.
Congratulations and your party has fought off your first opponents in the Bellmare Dungeon! Know this that your battle with multiple Paralyzing Leeches has brought you rewards!
You have gained +2 to your mana pool!
You have gained +16 to your experience!
You have gained +1 to your Wisdom!
You have gained +1 to your Constitution!
You have gained +3% to your Mastery of [Spell: Flaming Arrow]!
You have looted a Mana Core containing Death Mana!
You have looted 4 drachms of Paralytic Poison!
You have looted 3 Copper Coins and 2 Iron Bits!
As you have killed your first Paralyzing Leech, you have gained 1 mana point. Kill another 84 Paralyzing Leeches to receive another bonus!
“Zach!” Andy shouted, making Zach look up from the screen. Andy was bent over Alexa, as she applied bandages to wounds. Zach hopped over to Alexa and placed his shoulder to rest against the brick wall. “Be careful with your Auto-Loot, if we run across another group they might think we are stealing from them.” Andy said as he carefully helped Alexa off from the ground so that she could tie the bandages around her leg.
The sound of metal footsteps told Zach that Hayze had returned from attacking the debris piles, and Zach choose to use the golem to help steady himself. A faint glow of light began to take shape of a teenage boy as Grim’s avatar appeared. “Andy, per the Guild map the next intersection isn’t a spawn point, but then again there shouldn’t have been a leech spawn point here.”
Alexa stealth her sword and placed an arm over her father’s shoulders. With a gentle touch Andy place a hand on his daughter hip to help keep her steady. “It’s alright, Grim. My guess is that very few people even try the leech and rat tunnels. From the looks of the reward table, I am guessing Alexa and Zach barely got 1 experience point from two leeches. If that’s the case then the monsters could be slowly building up down these tunnels.” Andy helped turn his daughter and they quietly talked to one another before hopping towards the next intersection.
Gripping Hayze’s armor Zach hopped behind Alexa and Andy, “Actually that’s a good question, why aren’t there hundreds of people in here right now? I mean the entrance square was choked with people.”
Andy sighed for a moment, pausing to let Alexa balance herself, before he answered Zach’s question. “The best theory is that nodes are in a pocket dimension that don’t quite share the same timeline as the outside world. So when we hopped in, we started a new timeline with a few other adventurers. Every dungeon seems to be set up that way, so when the dungeon meets some magical number of people in it, it will wait for others to leave. Why it does this, and how it synchs up our times? No one knows, but when they send the hour warning that they are closing the dungeon we need to get out of here.”
Alexa as she hopped forward, “How about instead of talking about time and dungeons, we talk about what the hell happened in the fight?”
Andy grunted a laugh as the two of them continued forward down the walkway. “It looks like the leeches spawn from the pipes coming down into the spillway with the debris. Once the debris was cleared excess water briefly flooded the spillway, allowing leeches to swim to us. Next time we start hearing splashes, we can go ahead and have Hayze attack the debris piles, while we try and run beyond the splash zone. Since we will be upstream and the current will sweep away most of the excess water, we shouldn’t have to worry about them swimming near our boots again. Once the splashes stop, Zach can start helping Hayze with the debris piles using his fire spell. While Alexa and myself kill any that come onto the walkway.”
As soon as Andy said it, Zach knew that it was a good plan; because it took away the advantages of the leeches and coordinate everyone into a simple task that didn’t put them in great risk. Quiet agreement descended back over the group as the limped along the next few hundred feet to a new intersection. Looking pass Andy and Alexa, Zach saw what appeared to be a cave in from one of the sewer tunnels. Brick, dirt and clay pipe built a small dam blocking the water flow from the opposing tunnel and sending it down another one. The sound of hard rushing water echoed throughout the chamber, as small eddies of foam broke against the edge of the stone platform washing rubbish over the lip.
As the group crossed over to the stone platform they pushed aside the scraps of cloth and broken woods chips out of their way. Zach eased himself down on the platform, as the feeling of water soaked into the back of his pants. Taking out his dagger, Zach pressed the point against the leech’s mouth trying to figure out the best way to pry it off.