Remus and the Ambition Clan were taking their damn sweet time.

Over the past few days, Damion had acquired an encyclopaedic knowledge on why sewers were the most disgusting, stomach-turning, eye-watering places to ever exist. Even worse when you were left in those twisted tunnels in hiding, speaking through only hushes and whispers, for Durations at a time. Not even Damosh’s throne room could be this abhorrent. At least if they were cooped up in there, maybe hiding in his holiness’ tea cupboard or something, their only concern would be channelling out the man’s insane rambles.

Here? Each step forward was a visceral barrage on every one of his senses.

A stream of waste followed them always, as did the lingering scent of an entire city’s waste. Damion tried to avert his eyes from the discoloured broth that trailed the dark tunnels. There were two platforms in each passage of the sewer, the liquid underneath separating both. The only way to cross was one bold jump. A jump Damion would rather start a bar fight with the biggest guy he knew than attempt.

Critters scurried across the curved walls. Moss provided the only decoration as Damion slowly advanced, a tiny pinprick of light from Edmund’s sole lit finger illuminating the way forward. At least he had some company: a full squadron of combat trained Carpentry clansmen. The rest of the number was made up by brave volunteers, hoping beyond hope that they could escape the city with their lives intact.

And, as he had mentioned, Edmund. You had to love him.

“So reinforcements are really coming?” Damion asked slowly, wondering if the man hadn’t understood the question the first five hundred times he’d asked.

“Like I’ve said Damion. They’re coming.” Edmund was pleasant enough, having arrived at the Carpentry Clan three days ago with the promise of escape. And a full force of Ambition clansmen who were yet to arrive.

Damion held back all of the sarcastic comments that were dancing on his tongue. He could tell the man wasn’t particularly pleased with the situation either, and Damion couldn’t exactly blame one person for an entire clan’s belatedness. Apparently things were pretty tough back at the Ambition Sect too.

This was all very reasonable and all, but being reasonable when his nostrils were under constant assault was very difficult indeed.

Nobody really talked much. Far too risky. When they did, it was barely whispers. Which was a very good thing too, otherwise, the hovering eyeball may have noticed them first.

The group froze, and, before the rotating orb could face them, quietly slipped behind a turn in the junction.

Another thing about sewers that dramatically decreased Damion’s opinion of them: they were crawling with security. Well, at least this sewer was.

So this was how the Sight Sect were being used: instead of enforcing the peace, their abilities now ensured that every possible escape route away from Damosh’s madness was covered. Not that it would stop Damion. Nor had the other twenty eyeballs he’d immersed in wooden cages, blocking their line of sight.

It would surprise Damion if any Sight clansmen truly poured their heart and soul into guarding these tunnels. As long as no damage came to the eyes, they wouldn’t be informed of any suspicious behaviour, and wouldn’t notice anything unless they were actively choosing to observe what the constructs were seeing. Which Damion heavily doubted they were. Death threats and the like had kept the Sight Clan in Damosh’s hold, but the King was pushing his luck.

Despite the reasoning behind it, this amount of security did seem overkill. He had to wonder, could Damosh be holding something valuable down here?

Nothing but the last shreds of his dignity. Damion mused, constructing a box of oak that erupted out of the walls and encased the eye.

“All clear.” He whispered. The eyeballs didn’t seem to pick up on sound, but he wasn’t willing to risk it.

All together, as fast as they could without making a ruckus, the party tiptoed past.

Up above, probably enjoying themselves far more than Damion and his number, the rest of the Carpentry Clan were slowly departing in batches, all miraculously receiving work that required extensive excursions out of First Rite. What luck!

In reality, they were all taking the nearest route to the Ambition Clan.

Ever since taking on the role of sect leader, Damion had felt a crushing responsibility to look after every one of his clan; his family. He had always felt that way of course, but the weight of responsibility was a potent catalyst. Now he was in a leadership position, and he couldn’t afford to save them. If even one casualty came from this mission, Damion didn’t know if he’d be able to live with himself.

He hated how powerless he felt. He hated how he had no way to protect the half of his clan not with him. He hated how he couldn’t control when or where the Ambition Clan’s assistance would arrive, or in what form. And he hated these sewers!

If not for the thousands of reasons telling him not to, Damion would have kicked the nearest wall. He was starting to see why Remus had gone to the lengths he had. Why he had risked the things he did.

This was hell.

And his list of complaints was not nearly complete. Down here, with no sun, moon, or dazzling stars to indicate the time of day, there was no indication for their internal clock of when to sleep, or when to rise. Not that they could safely afford to rest all together. Only half of the party rested at a time, while the rest guarded them. It was functional, but the fatigue was catching up to Damion.

“Remember, we have to ration out the food.” His appetite was diminished from the sewer stink. Regardless, he still had to eat. You would be surprised how many calories you could burn, trekking through the underground tunnelling of the city.

“It’ll last.” Edmund promised. That was another one of his reassurances Damion was starting to question the legitimacy of. When it came to it, pretty white lies and hope wouldn’t keep their bellies full.

Damion was about to say some slick comment, only to pause in place. Edmund walked into his back. “Gosh, why did you-”

Damion put a hand over the man’s mouth, hoping the rest of the party would catch on.

It was barely visible from the scant light of Edmund’s finger. But at the end of the passage, unmistakably, was a Wealth clansman. Their bejewelled uniform reflected Emund’s ghostly flame. Their back was to them, but before the man could turn around, bearing his own torch in one hand, Edmund smartly extinguished the wick. It draped them in darkness, the orangery light of the guard’s own lamp failing to flood through the entire passage.

They had talked about reinforcements from the Wealth Clan being present down here, but Damion had to admit, now that he was confronting it in real life, he wasn’t sure how to act. Discussing a potential danger from the comfort of your own home, cup of tea in hand, was one thing. Coming face-to-face with that same danger was something no amount of forethought could prepare you for.

Before Damion could whisper out orders, Edmund’s hands flew into some silent gesture.

The Wealth clansman cursed, the light of his torch extinguished.

Damion’s mind raced. He found it impossible to grasp what exactly was occurring. Calm down, he instructed himself, remembering who he was. He wasn’t in a position to let panic paralyse him. It wasn’t his own hide he had to account for.

What happens when you have no idea what to do? You fall back on your training. All of those days, sweating in the sun with Andreas barking commands down at him. He had hated it at the time, only seeing it as a necessary stepping stone towards acquiring the power their clan needed. Now Damion couldn’t be more grateful for his grandfather’s final gift to him. Lessons taught through sweat, blood, and suffering.

His body dived into a battle stance, and saws erupted out of Damion’s knuckles-

The light returned. It took Damion a second to clock what colour it was: blue.

Edmund stood over the unconscious guard’s body, kicking the Wealth clansman to the side. A few of their company began to cheer, but Edmund put a finger to his lips. They had to remain silent.

That was awfully anticlimactic. Damion smiled alongside the rest of the clan, a certain pressure deflating from his body. Yet, at the same time, he was supposed to be the leader here, not Edmund. Here he was, standing tall with the title of sect leader, distinguished amongst his own number. And he had almost lost his cool at the first hint of danger. He was a popular sect leader to be sure, but an insecure part of him had to wonder . . . What if he’d only been chosen for this position out of nepotism?

He shook his head. Now was no time to be having an identity crisis.

When they had continued on down another empty tunnel, Damion finally deemed it safe enough to talk again. “We must be getting close.”

Edmund raised an eyebrow. “How do you know?”

“If we haven’t seen any clansmen — only those eyeballs — prior to this point, then that must mean something. I’d bet my left kidney we’re near an exit.”

Edmund nodded. “Sound logic.”

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And still no back-up. Damion was really testing his self-control now. After all they had done for the Ambition Clan, rebuilding their base after the Pet-Keeper came trampling, they couldn’t even keep up their side of the alliance. Maybe this was why none of the godly unions held any weight. At the end of the day, your own priorities came before that of your peers.

After a few minutes, Damion deemed the place safe. “Alright guys, group B can get some rest. Group A, we’ll eat some rations and keep watch. Group A can eat and switch posts afterwards.”

Nobody argued. Damion had found that the promise of food was a good reconciliation when the advent of sleep was denied. He sat in place, munching on nuts, and chugging down brackish water, when it happened.

In the curve of the passageway, a flood of gold appeared. Tons of coins, jewels, and other priceless possessions could be spotted, all filling the entry of the junction. Damion leapt to his feet, floating hammers materialising in the air at his back. He wasn’t about to flinch in the face of danger again. With a flare of his Mark, Arcus’ power flooded through the chamber. Several layers of wood blocked the sea of wealth. He wasn’t sure how long it would hold, but he grinned in triumph.

“Everybody!” He didn’t bother to keep quiet. “Stay calm and run after me.”

Nobody argued. They were halfway down the hall when a second sight tested Damion’s faith in the universe.

A second surge of gold.

Damion summoned another wall of oak, but his heart wasn’t in it.

Keep calm. Keep calm damn it! Sometimes your own advice was the hardest to follow.

They were at a junction. There were passages splitting off to the north, east, and west. Surprise to surprise, at each passage, the same crashing sea of gold could be seen.

In other words, they were being pressed in.

Damion had thick oak barriers covering each exit, and was already in the process of forming a solid platform across the sewage, allowing for easier movement. The party all gathered in a circle, staring out suspiciously at each route. The walls were holding, but there was only one question on each of their minds: where would they be attacked from first?

Edmund had fires lighting up all three expanses now. It wasn’t as if they had to keep a low profile anymore.

“Whatever happens, my clansmen, hear me!” Damion imbued his words with more confidence than he had. “This is what we’ve been trained for! Andreas’ combat skills were taught to me, and from me to you! Our old sect leader is alive in each and every one of us. Do not let his will die!”

The group screamed back, but he could tell they were forcing it. Just as he was.

All heads turned as a dent was made in the western wall. Damion wrestled with the force trying to burst through his barrier for a solid five seconds, but it wasn’t enough.

The coins came surging through, clinking and chinking against every surface in sight. The other two walls held as his clansmen added their wills to his, implanting reality with the unbreakable promise that both walls would not break.

Reality didn’t listen, both of them visibly trembling, despite their united efforts.

Amongst the stuffed western tunnel, bodies climbed out of the golden pile. Wealth clansmen leered at them, fully emerging into view. More riches floated in the air around them.

Despite the dire situation, Damion had trained his men well. Even as all three walls came crashing down, Wealth clansmen pouring through in a furious hoard, they each suited their most adept battle stances.

Any carpentry tool you could name now levitated in the air. Mallets, saws, chiesles, drills, cutting knives and sharpened axes. They all gleamed in Edmund’s azure light. At once, they flew into the opposition.

Gold against steel. The air was a whirlwind of flashing metal and sharp edges. Within seconds, more cuts than Damion could count appeared on his skin. He growled in pain, his eyes counting ten Wealth clansmen comprising the attack force against them.

They outnumbered their attackers. Damion and his peers could survive this.

The coins scattered across the tunnels began to flow over the advancing guards. It coalesced against their standard Wealth clansmen uniforms, forming golden sets of armour that only grew more impressive as the seconds went by.

Every moment that passed, the Wealth clansmen were strengthening themselves. Damion met eyes with Edmund. No words passed between them, but in that split second, they seemed to be thinking the same thing.

Damion purged all thoughts from his brain, charging into the fray with a blood curdling scream. He sprang into the closest of the clansman, catching them off guard with his abrasiveness. Floating tools hammered into their armour, a craft knife flying under the cover of the man’s helmet and slitting his forehead.

First blood. Well, if you discounted the twenty cuts down Damion. But at that moment, it felt like he was only just getting started.

Razors erupted out of Damion’s exposed forearms. He battered the clansmen with both, breaking through the armour and gushing forth a different kind of gold with every impact. The Ichor splattered onto Damion’s face, mixing with his own, and in his mad rage, Damion didn’t stop until the man below him was a crumpling mess of gore.

He was seeing red. While he looked at his bloody hands in horror, Edmund flew past, carrying another clansman in tow. They crashed into the ceiling of the sewer, set fully alight. Only when the guard stopped screaming, and Damion saw the bent metal fused into his seared skin, did he know they were dead.

Damion didn’t see the corpse toppling back to the floor, and, based on the sound of breaking wood, presumably finding its final resting place in the sewage below. He was rushing to the next enemy.

Two Carpentry clansmen struggled at the mouth of the northern side of the intersection. They faced a guard each, both of whom wielded mighty truncheons with giant jewels set into the head. A ruby, and a sapphire.

Damion, motivated by rage and rage alone, leapt in between them. In one sweeping gesture, he sent great wooden pillars bursting out of the ground, carrying the guards to the ceiling. The birch pressed into their sternums, crushing the breastplates of their armour and winding the duo.

His arsenal of carpentry tools made target practice of their bodies next. Both clansmen summoned coins to protect themselves, but too little, too late. One of the guards perished soon after, and Damion turned his attention to the remaining guard, who had a similar fate awaiting him.

To Damion’s amazement, he found the patch of ceiling empty. A punch broke the muscle in his left cheek, flying him into the wall where a blast of coinage kept him pinned there.

“How do you like being pressed into a corner, eh?” The man had an eyepatch, failing to cover the trailing line of a scar that ran through his right eye. Out of his other hand, another surge of riches occupied two carpentry clansmen rushing to assist Damion. “I’ll make you watch as we kill your men and women, one by one. Then we’ll carry you out into First Rite, and make a spectacle of your death. It’ll send a message of how we like to treat twisted rodents like you vermin!”

Damion screamed. It was the equivalent of a three year old throwing a temper tantrum. Only if that same three year old were strong enough to topple buildings.

Every inch of Damion’s body erupted in spikes. He drove through the coins, reinforcing his body with all of the pent-up Infinity he’d been accumulating. Some clansmen liked to expend their Infinity in a slow drag throughout battle, perhaps occasionally launching out with a more handsome expenditure when the need arose. Damion? He was the equivalent of a pinchpenny, who, once a year, would splurge out on a lavish buy.

His Vault was full to bursting with Infinity. Such was to the benefit of his Radical Exposure Mould, designed for this exact purpose: storing up Infinity ready for one fatal outburst.

And fatal it was.

He blasted through the coins as if only through a fierce wind, stretching his hands to embrace the clansman’s body. He felt them squirm, shrieking shrilly before they finally stopped moving, hanging upon his metallic thorns in a limp bundle.

Three men now dead, and by his hands. Damion couldn’t recall having killed before. He felt strangely jaded. Maybe it was a coping mechanism, his mind trying to dissociate from the present moment, from the blood that was beginning to dry all across his body. Whatever the case, it seemed like the most suitable reaction for the moment. He had to keep his head in the game. This was no time to contemplate the morality of his actions. Not when more clansmen wanted him and those he loved dead.

In some dark sense of the word, this was justice.

Damion’s eyes roved across the battlefield. The Carpentry clansmen seemed to be winning, the bodies of deceased guards littering the floor. He didn’t see any of his own number deceased yet, though wasn’t sure if he was mentally prepared for such a sight.

Edmund was a force to be reckoned with, laying down clansmen at the eastern tunnel without remorse. Obsidian armour rested on his body, each of his blows forming great dents into the shielding of his enemies. The gold at his feet had melted into a shining layer. When he finished, First Rite’s sewers would be completely refurbished with the metallic sheen.

Before Damion could join the man, four shapes surged into view.

A knee to the jaw knocked Damion aside, his head barging against the curved walling behind. He commanded a hammer to intercept the next man that came charging at him. No use. They knocked the object aside with their braced forearm, a plethora of spiked jewels all stabbing into Damion's own thorny exterior.

But it was an awfully exhausting form to maintain. As four guards bombarded him with coins, goblets, vases, and other priceless treasures, he found the sharp ends withdrawing back into his skin. He was left, once again, raw and vulnerable. Any one of those projectiles could have fed a struggling family in the Labour District. But nope: it would see no other purpose than battering Damion bloody.

He couldn’t see. His senses were overwhelmed, as the storm of attacks never ceased for a moment. His nose was broken and leaning to the side, the cuts and bruises on his body fought with one another for territory, and great gleaming light was the only thing his blinking eyes could make out.

My clansmen, my clansmen. The thought persisted in his mind, chilling him to the bone. I can’t see. I can’t see if they’re safe . . .

He couldn’t die without at least knowing they were okay. Damion would never be able to rest in peace without that closure. His jaw rebounded off the stone floor for what must have been the fifth time, and it was while feeling how loose the teeth in his mouth felt, that it dawned on Damion that death may not be some distant notion after all.

Strange. Dying had always seemed like something that happened to people other than him.

For one, brief, merciful second, the onslaught stopped. His ears were ringing, but Damion thought he could hear his clansmen continuing to fight. Good. If I have to die, at least let them survive. Let them get away.

A guard wrenched his head back, holding him roughly by the shoulder.

“This is the sect leader.” A gristly voice spoke. “Andreas’ successor.”

“Get his name out of your dirty mouth.” The words struggled around his bloody teeth, Damion’s voice nothing short of a growl.

“Oh?” Damion could hear the snarl forming on their face. “Tch.”

Fast as a bullet, the guard tugged his arm backwards. It felt like Damion was being torn apart.

Damion swallowed back his cries and tears. He mustn't die with dishonour.

When he looked, it only confirmed what the raging pain told him: his right arm was broken. A Foot-Soldier body was more than capable of healing it, but something told Damion these clansmen weren’t about to give him that chance.

The guard spat at his feet. “Now for the other.”

Damion gritted his teeth, revving his Mark into action. He had one last burst of power left in him. If he could just save his clansmen a little more time, than maybe-

From the mouth of the northern tunnel, blue light blasted outwards. Coins were sent scattering, and Damion followed one Inkling as it rattled over to his feet. It was streaming.

Even the Wealth clansmen paused. All eyes turned to their new arrivals, and Damion wasn’t afraid to admit he started to cry.

Better late than never, their backup had finally arrived.