The adventurer Lucia was of the solitary sort.
Repeat encounters were rare for her- in fact something she actively tried to avoid. She moved from town to town, doing enough commissions to pay her way, talking to few and never looking anyone in the eyes if she could help it.
And yet.
Twice now had this little street rat accosted her, appearing from nowhere to call her something she was not. Twice now had Lucia been forced to glare into those glassy grey eyes and raise her voice.
“Why are you following me?!” She demanded, before suddenly closing her eyes and shaking her head when an even better question arose to replace the first. “How did you even get here??!”
“I hid in a box.” The girl explained simply, expression blank as if that was a normal, everyday occurrence. “The traders carried me on their cart- it was actually pretty easy.”
The fire of Lucia’s anger suddenly sputtered and died at the admission. This kid really didn’t give a shit about anything, did she? Lucia remembered their first meeting in Bearwood’s guild; she was equally blasé about her crimes then.
“Getting down here from the highlands costs a good chunk of cash.” She stated grumpily, feeling the empty coin purse hang at her hip. “Stowing away like that… you got guts, kid.”
“Of course I do???” The girl seemed confused, placing both arms around her stomach protectively “I mean- I haven’t seen them b-but you’re not supposed to, right?”
There was a brief bout of silence as Lucia struggled to comprehend just what the fuck the girl was talking about. When the realization finally came, an exasperated sigh came along with it.
“…All guts and no brains, huh?” Lucia pressed a hand against her face, dragging it downward and stretching the skin around her eye. “What are you even doing here, kid?”
The girl seemed to actually stop to think about what she was about to say, a rarity from what Lucia had experienced of her. Her eyes dropped to her fingers, her right hand fiddling with the pronounced bones of her left before moving her gaze back up to meet Lucia’s again.
“…I always wanted to leave that town- even just for a little while.” The admission was quiet- restrained, so much so that Lucia struggled to hear it over the sounds of the guild. “I wanted to learn about the world outside.”
“I have so many questions, and someone told me that adventurers could answer them.” She looked out at the rest of the guild, eyes hopping from person to person.
Lucia sighed, closing her eyes and rubbing at her temples. “If I help you; answer your stupid questions, will you leave me alone?”
“Yes! Yes I promise!” The girl hopped up on the chair opposite of her, a determination igniting behind those dull glassy eyes, akin to a fisherman, finally reeling in a catch after a long day on the water.
The questions came fast. Lucia tried her best to answer each as they were fired off, but they were relentless.
Was the Hero-King alive? If he was, they would be celebrating more than just ten years.
Had she met any heroes before? Probably not? Heroes didn’t look any different from normal people though, so she couldn’t be sure.
How many elves had she seen? A few? A bunch if you counted half elves. There weren’t as many as humans or orcs, but they were around.
Were there more kinds of beings in Louterre? Yes. But not all of them played nice with humans so you wouldn’t see them around human cities.
How many adventurers were there? A lot? It’s really hard to-
Was the adventurers guild bigger than the military? She didn’t-
Which one was stronger? That’s-
How strong was the current king?
“I don’t know!” She finally snapped, throwing up her hands. “You know what, help revoked! Get lost!”
“But I still have-“
“Noon quests!” The thump of a heavy stack of papers and the sound of a woman’s voice pierced through the rumble of conversation, bringing all attentions to the back of the guild.
Many guild workers stood in front of the quest board, the quest assignments themselves placed on a table nearby.
In a practiced motion, the guild workers split the stack, a synchronous click against the table’s surface straightening the new smaller piles. Employees carrying a stack of papers paired up with employees carrying a cushion filled with pins and together the pairs rapidly covered the entire quest board with new commissions.
When at last every quest was posted, the employees lined up together in a row. “Thank you for waiting!” The woman in the middle announced, then the guild workers all bowed as one before breaking ranks to return to their posts.
Lucia took the showy procedure as an opportunity to escape from the table, power walking across the hall before the street rat could continue to badger her.
She reached the board before anyone else, free to scan across its entirety for something suitable while the rest of the guild was scarfing down the last of their meals.
Her eyes drifted to the lower threat side of the board; after the mental strain of the last ten minutes, the idea of doing anything actually difficult made her headache throb.
Taking a quest paper from the low threat side at random, Lucia slowly read through the handwritten description.
> SCOUT AND REPORT!
>
>
>
> Outlet flow of city sewer system abnormally dirty, sudden decrease in population of water treatment slimes likely.
>
>
>
> Suggested causes in order of decreasing likelihood:
>
> - Increased territoriality and aggression in sewer rat populations due to social changes such as the rise of a new direrat alpha.
>
> - Infestation of foreign creatures aggressive or predatory to common slime species.
>
> - Illegal dumping of material harmful to common slime species into city sewer system such as non-neutralized alchemical wastes.
>
> - Purposeful sabotage of city water treatment by malicious actors.
>
> Accepting guild member(s) will confirm the population decline, confirm the cause of the population decline, and eliminate any and all threats to sanitation workers so that stabilization/restoration of slime populations may begin. Facial masks will be provided to prevent exposure to toxic fumes.
It went on to discuss the exact rates of pay based on what exactly the cause of the problem ended up being. The most likely reward wasn’t a huge payout, but she just needed enough to pay her room fee for the next few days. Lucia also worked solo, meaning she wouldn’t have to split it with anyone.
“Sewers… just like old times.” She mumbled to herself, stepping back from the board so that the mob of other mercenaries approaching wouldn’t trample her. It had been a long while since she graduated from sewer quests, but the adventurer still held a certain respect for their role in shaping her into a real fighter.
A head of black hair suddenly leaned in to partially block her view and interrupt her reminiscing. “What does it say? I can’t read.” The little stowaway had followed her to the board.
Her head throbbed again.
“I thought I told you to get lost!” Lucia growled, turning to shove the annoyance away. “I can’t help you!”
“I promised to leave you alone if you answered all my questions.” The girl stated with a small frown, stepping back towards her to try and make sense of the letters on the quest sheet. “I still have questions, so I won’t go.”
“What kind of quest is it?” She asked when she got too lost in the length of the sentences. “Is it hard?”
Lucia blew air through her closed teeth. “Pssh, no. It looks like pest control- rats. I’ll be done this in less than an hour.” Even when she was a weakling starting out, rat culling wasn’t a massive time investment.
“If it’s easy then can I come?”
“What?” Lucia felt her face scrunch up. “Fuck no. I’m not gonna babysit you.”
“But I’ve got armour and a weapon and everything!” The kid protested, pointing to her dirty leather chest piece with one hand and holding up what looked like a sharpened chunk of obsidian in the other.
“That looks like rock. You’re gonna defend yourself with a rock?”
“How dare you!” The girl suddenly cried, holding the rock to her chest; seeming genuinely offended. “This is far more precious than any rock- it cuts better too.”
A woman in white approached the arguing pair before Lucia could retort. “Who’s this Ilya? Did you make a friend?” The colour and decoration of her robes made her identity unmistakable.
Lucia’s teeth clenched together tight, her eyes widening. What the fuck was the Saint of Amasur doing here?! This had to be a nightmare: the two individuals she had wanted to see the least, together in one place.
“Yes!” Ilya, as she was apparently called, nodded to the priestess with a smile. “We’re gonna go on a quest together!”
“A quest? How wonderful! I’ll come with you then.” Saint Annabelle looked down at the girl with warm eyes, causing Lucia’s grasp of reality to slip further. How did such an open and unrepentant criminal get a servant of the god of justice to look at her like that?
Her confusion twisted into anger when she registered what the pair had actually said. “Fuck you aren’t! Either of you! This is my quest and I’m running it solo.”
“You go on quests without a party?” Annabelle quizzed, her expression turning moderately concerned. “What possible reason could you have for that?” This was bad. Playing 20 questions with the stupid kid was bad enough, doing it with a saint could only end in her being smote.
“Because I don’t want to split the reward with anyone.” She grumbled, hoping the reason sounded convincing enough to prevent an inquisition. “None of your business!” She added when the saint’s expression refused to change.
“Why does a saint want to go on a sewer quest, huh? You’re complete overkill! Don’t you have more important shit to be doing with all that power?” She was shouting now, drawing attention from other members of the guild.
Annabelle’s eyes gleamed with curiosity, her short eyebrows slowly rising. “Ahh. So you’ve picked up that quest. I was just speaking with the staff about it: there may be a relation between the problem and a recent outbreak of illness.”
She continued, pressing her right hand against the street rat’s mid back. “I was simply going to follow along to watch over Ilya, but this gives me an additional reason to see the quest through.” Fuck. Fuck her and her big mouth and her need to always have the last word- now the saint was invested.
The saint placed her left palm on her chest, her head tilting down in a slight bow. “Do not worry about my abilities; I will only be present in a supportive role. Any spell I cast will be purely for the sake of Ilya’s safety, you have my word.”
“Do not worry about the reward either, we have no need of it. I want for nothing, and so long as Ilya is in my care, neither will she.”
Lucia’s tongue pressed against the back of her teeth. There really wasn’t any way out of this- she was fucked. The saint wasn’t afraid of her and definitely couldn’t be hurt by her, so her usual bluster and threats would be useless. Her last resort of letting the quest go and picking another was also shot down, as when she turned desperately to the board, she found the entire low threat side had been picked clean.
A strained sound forcing its way past her clenched teeth was her last form of resistance before she finally relented. Lucia, defeated, made her way through the long line to the front desk, and when the guild girl asked for her total party size, for the first time in years, she answered. “…Three.”
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“What are these for?” Ilya asked as Annabelle helped her tighten the mask so that it properly hugged her nose and chin in the right way. The newly formed party was stood in the middle of a nondescript street in the Midgate District, a heavy stone manhole cover at their feet, ready to be lifted out by a nearby worker.
“They’re enchanted with [ Clean ]. It does exactly as the name suggests.” The worker explained, resting his weight on the tall, hoe-like implement he had brought with him. “Wizards and the like use it for household chores, but those masks use it to clean the air before you breathe it in.”
Seeing the mask was snug, Annabelle patted the girl’s covered cheeks before moving to put on her own. “Sewage systems are filled with terribly foul air that is also dangerous.” She continued where the worker left off, her voice becoming slightly muffled as the tightly woven fabric covered her mouth. “These masks will keep us safe.”
The adventurer Lucia stood off to the side, tapping her foot impatiently. She had her mask on within seconds, but the worker wouldn’t open the cover until all party members were ready to enter. Annabelle had tried to placate her on the walk over, but the woman remained standoffish and rude, vocal in her desire to complete the commission as quickly as possible and then never see them again.
It wasn’t the most optimal environment for Ilya’s first quest, socially speaking, but she hoped the experience would still be valuable.
When at last everyone was ready, the worker hooked a heavy chain into the manhole cover, attaching the other to the end of his tool. “Stand back.”
Stepping on the slightly curved head of the tool to anchor it to the ground, he yanked the handle back like a lever, pulling the cover out of its hole.
“This will also be your exit point.” The worker informed the trio as they descended into the hole. “When you’re done, just follow the map back here. More of the guys will be here soon to watch over the entrance and your stuff.”
The stone pipe they landed in was just tall enough for Annabelle to stand up straight and just wide enough that Ilya could stand beside her without either of them pressing against the walls. Leaving her bulky top layers on the surface had been a sound decision; as much as she loved her full regalia, it would have been a hindrance in such cramped confines.
The daylight coming in through the manhole lit up the pipe slightly, but the brightness it provided only spanned a few feet, quickly giving way to darkness in either direction.
“[ Guidelight ].”
With a word, a warm glowing ball popped into existence, its lazy movements matching the direction of the saint’s finger. She dragged a fingertip through the air, guiding the light directly above Lucia so she could read the map better.
“If we follow this it should link up to the main line somewhere.” Lucia mumbled, more to herself than to her party. “Then we can follow the main line to a filter chamber and see if the slimes are all dead.”
“Out of my way.” She shoved past rudely, eyes glued on the map as she walked out of the range of any light source, vanishing into the blackness.
After a brief moment of staring after her, the saint looked down at Ilya. “Dealing with unfriendly people is an unavoidable part of living life.” She spoke softly so that her voice wouldn’t echo down the pipe to Lucia. “They always have their own reasons and circumstances, even if it doesn’t seem like it.”
“Okay.” Ilya replied simply, accepting her teachings without comment. The saint smiled- she didn’t understand, but she was trying to, which was what mattered in the end.
Raising a finger to control the light, Annabelle took the smaller girl’s hand in hers. “We should try and catch up with her. She has the only map after all.” Ilya nodded silently, shifting her grip on the priestess’ hand but not pulling away.
The pipe turned and twisted as they walked, passing many holes in the wall where much smaller pipes emptied their contents into the larger one.
“I’ve never seen a sewer before.” Ilya spoke up suddenly, looking from side to side at the carefully fitted stones. “I think the east side back home had one, but near the alley I slept in they just dumped stuff out onto the street.”
Annabelle had guessed that Ilya was a gamin from the way she carried herself- the saint had seen many like her before -but that didn’t make it any easier. Children deserved to be loved; to live in a warm and clean home, safe from danger. They deserved justice.
She gripped the girl’s hand tighter. Though the innocence of childhood was long gone for this one, the saint had been guided to her nonetheless. Lord Amasur had surely seen the injustice from on high: that one so blessed would be left to rot in the gutter, her potential unfulfilled and her holy gifts tainted.
The image of Ilya’s palms, bloody and broken, flashed behind Annabelle’s eyes.
Her jaw set. She needed to stop thinking about this.
“Sewers are an important step in building a proper city.” She explained, hoping to distract herself with her role as a mentor. “Poor management of waste can lead to all kinds of diseases.”
“You said that this quest might be related to those people who got sick.” Ilya replied after a moment of silent thought. “Is that because these sewers are broken? That thing that man said about rats before?”
“A very good connection!” A smile returned to Annabelle’s face; her student was such a clever girl. “It’s the easiest explanation for the disease, yes. As for what the ultimate cause is, that remains to be seen.”
Ilya nodded in understanding but said nothing else after that, allowing herself to be guided along by the arm.
The pair eventually caught up to Lucia, standing at what seemed to be the end of the pipe with her twin daggers in each hand. The stained blades glinted in the warm orange glow of the guidelight, brightening one half of her body while the other half darkened in shadow. At her feet was a large red splatter, the moving water slowly cutting a line through it as it washed the blood away into the next room.
“Did you kill something?” Ilya seemed rather excited at the prospect, freeing her hand from the saint’s grip and running up to the other woman.
“Yeah, a fuckin’ rat.” Lucia confirmed with a grunt, expression bored. “We’re in a sewer, there’s rats.”
Ilya moved to the very end of the pipe and looked over the edge, opening her eyes wider to adjust for the lack of light. “Oh, wow.” She breathed, blinking twice. “Why is that rat so big?”
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“They’re dire rats.” Lucia’s brows knitted together with annoyance. “I thought you were from Bearwood, you’ve never seen a direbeast before?”
“I know they exist and people hunt them sometimes.” Ilya replied, looking up from the bloody corpse to meet Lucia’s eyes. “I was too busy trying to not starve to go out and see one.” The way the shadows hugged her gaunt features was proof enough of that.
Annabelle caught the way the roguish woman’s expression softened in pity: an almost imperceptible relaxing of the jaw and brow. It didn’t last long, replaced soon after by her usual scowl and scoff, but for a brief moment the saint and the adventurer were on the same page.
She walked forward to join them, frowning as the smell of human waste became perceptible even through the mask. Directing her guidelight out of the pipe, the saint illuminated the area it spilled out into.
Stone maintenance pathways ran alongside a dark and foul stream, other pipes similar to their own dotted around, adding fresh sewage to the flow. There was a cut in the pipe’s wall to their right, where a narrow set of steps allowed them to descend safely.
Lucia forwent the stairs, walking off the edge of the pipe and letting the direrat’s corpse break her fall with a wet crunch. Stepping off the crushed body, she kicked it a few times, rolling the rat into the river to be carried away into the blackness.
“There’s probably a filter chamber down that way…” The adventurer hummed to herself. “…but the water’s already so fucked up here...” She turned her neck to look up and down the waterway before sheathing her blades and pulling out the map. If the system was failing this badly, even this far up the main line, the earliest chambers must have been completely lifeless.
The slimes used in sewers weren’t especially durable, but one had to make a dedicated effort if they wanted to clear out a whole filter. Populations tended to scale with the amount of gunk there was to eat, so a filtration chamber in a bigger city like Flavenport should have hundreds of the fuckers. Not so easy to exterminate.
“Hey, Lucia?” Ilya’s voice interrupted her train of thought before she could speculate further. The girl had made it down the steps and was now hovering next to her, another question waiting to be fired.
“I’m busy.” Lucia grumbled without looking up from the map. “What do you want?” If she got their current position right, the pipe spit them out midway between two filter chambers, making it no faster to go upstream or downstream.
“Can I kill the next rat we find?” Ilya asked, her enthusiasm audible. “Annabelle says I should practice defending myself and I also really want to use my knife.” There were a few swishes of air as she swung at nothing to demonstrate.
Again, the adventurer didn’t look up from the map. “Be my guest.” As long as the kid didn’t slow her down and as long as she got paid, Lucia couldn’t give a shit about who killed what.
“She says it’s okay!” Ilya relayed loudly, rushing back to the saint’s side. Lucia cringed at the way her voice echoed, reverberating through the tunnel and alerting anything that lived to her presence. At least their targets would come to them now.
Lucia tucked the map away once more with a sigh, gesturing upstream. “We’re heading that way, towards the source. Mind the pipes overhead unless you wanna get just fuckin’ covered in actual shit.”
“Thank you for the reminder, Miss Lucia.” The saint was making some sort of face at her from under the protective mask. “I will forgive your… crass word choice.”
She made a face back. “How generous of you.”
They didn’t have to wait long for the consequences of Ilya’s shouting to manifest. A few minutes of walking and the party found themselves face to face with a swarm of normal rats and another direrat. The hound sized creature looked a little worse for wear, patches of its body blistering and hairless, but that didn’t seem to deter it from attacking them.
“Oh! My turn!” Ilya cheered, jumping in front of the two older women. She stood with her feet shoulder width apart, ten fingers wrapped around the leather bindings the blade had in place of a real handle. It was a decent enough stance for a first timer; Lucia was almost impressed.
The direrat did not seem to share her sentiment however, immediately charging forward and shoving its body weight into the girl’s gut. Ilya let out a rather pathetic cry of surprise as she was tossed back, landing in a heap on the filthy stone floor.
Annabelle hurried to her side, kneeling down to check her head and torso for injury.
“Wow.” Lucia sputtered a laugh, the mixture of amusement and disappointment bubbling past her lips. “Taken out by a single rat- you fucking suck!” She didn’t even care that the saint was glaring at her, it felt too good to say it out loud.
“It’s a very big rat…” The girl whined in defence, lifting her head from Annabelle’s lap to glance warily at her assaulter. The rat wasn’t pressing pursuit, simply sitting there and hissing vulgarities at the skinny little orphan it had successfully beaten down.
A single knife was drawn from a sheathe on Lucia’s chest, one closer in length to the girl’s obsidian shard. “Watch and learn.” She announced, flipping the blade to hold in reverse grip.
The rat, seeing its territory was still under threat, stood back on its hind legs, hissing louder and puffing out its fur. Lucia continued approaching with her dagger, unaffected by its attempts at intimidation.
Eventually realizing violence was the only option, the direrat returned to all fours, barring its teeth and pouncing at the adventurer. A quick sidestep moved Lucia out of the rat’s way, her bicep curling until her fist almost touched her ear before twisting to forcefully stab the blade down into the animal’s neck.
Hot blood shot out of severed arteries, splattering her arm and face and chest in red. Lucia didn’t even blink- she was used to it.
The beast squirmed wildly as life drained from its body, but she held the blade firmly in place until it stilled.
“With a short knife like this, opportunities to attack are limited.” Lucia explained, placing a boot on the corpse to yank her weapon free. “You have to either wait for an opening or create your own.”
“I doubt you could pull off any slick feints or dodges, so you’ll have to hang back and look for chances to-” Lucia suddenly pursed her lips shut, frowning as she realized just how genuine she was being; how real her advice had been. When her red eyes shifted sideways toward her party members, she found Ilya staring back with rapt attention and Annabelle raising a brow questioningly, both waiting for her to continue.
She did not continue. Wiping the edges of the dagger clean, Lucia silently slipped it back into its sheathe and turned to continue walking, muttering to herself all the while. ‘Stupid, stupid, stupid.’
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The trio eventually reached the end of the path, a wall of stone separating the tunnel they stood in from the filter chamber on the other side. A large grate allowed sewage to pass through the wall, though a dark gunk was beginning to build up between the bars, putting a timer on the liquid’s continued flow.
Off to the side, a tar treated door marked ‘access’ allowed them to go around the obstruction and into a cramped storage room.. A long crate lying flush against the wall held equally long staves with metal hoops affixed perpendicularly at the ends, as well as what looked to be very long fishing nets. There were other barrels sitting around the room as well, and by their labels they were said to be filled with different substances for nurturing newborn slimes.
Lucia walked past all of the containers, stopping before another treated door, this one heavily reinforced and secured with multiple metal bars that would have to be unlatched and pushed aside before it would open.
“Behind this is the filter chamber.” The adventurer explained, more to Ilya than to the saint, but Annabelle still offered her attention.
“The slimes are probably all dead, but the quest says we still have to check.” As unhappy as she sounded about having to do it, Annabelle was still impressed at the woman’s adherence to their task’s instructions.
“I’m opening it.”
A few quick motions and the screech of metal against metal were all it took for the door to be unlocked, and with a forceful two handed tug at the handle, the door slowly swung open.
The room was even more foul smelling than the river of sewage outside, causing the saint and the adventurer to turn their heads away and retch, though Ilya seemed totally unaffected.
“What’s fucking wrong with you?! Why are you fine?!” Lucia snarled at the girl, though another gagging fit stole her attention away again.
The enchanted masks kicked into overdrive, cleansing the air enough to allow Annabelle to inhale without her lungs objecting. The saint brought a hand to her chest, feeling the rise and fall slow as her breaths normalized.
Beside her, Lucia coughed up the last of the toxins into her own mask. “Let’s just get this over with.” She angrily threw the door the rest of the way open, stepping across the threshold and into the room.
The chamber was large and boxy, four walls of equal length holding up a square ceiling, with a circuit of metal and wood scaffolding allowing one to walk the perimeter. Apart from this perimeter of platforms, the room was an open pit, filled with dark sewage that bubbled slightly as gas escaped its depths. Lucia peered over the edge and into the pit, looking for any movement that indicated the filter was even slightly active.
“Like I guessed, it’s no fuckin’ party down there…” The adventurer grumbled, squatting down to bring her eyes a little closer to the target of her scrutiny. “There might be one? Maybe?”
“Might just be the current, that movement was too…” Lucia trailed off, her eyes widening after a second, suddenly stumbling back onto her butt. Ilya looked like she was about to ask what she saw, but the sound of something surfacing interrupted her.
A large mass rose out of the pit, displaced water rolling down its gelatinous form to return to the pool below. Lucia’s sentence went unfinished, but the saint could guess what the final word would have been.
Big.
It was far too large to be a normal sewer slime, it’s round body almost touching the scaffolding on all four sides of the room. Despite its size, it did not look healthy, the typical pastel greens of a common slime darkened to such an extent that it’s outer membrane looked almost black.
The skeletons of numerous direrats floated within its lighter internals, some with remnants of fur and flesh still attached, others digested completely into a loose collection of pure white bones. The slime let out a low gurgle and one such collection was forcefully expelled from its body, flung towards the party like a rain of very blunt arrows.
A thrust forward of Annabelle’s open palms and a wall of light flashed into existence before them. The bones bounced off of its shimmering surface harmlessly, tumbling into the muck below.
Lucia’s blades were drawn in an instant and the adventurer broke into a sprint, running along the scaffolding and dragging the edge of each dagger across the slime’s membrane. Annabelle remained rooted in place, eyeing the aura of sickness and disease that wafted off of the monster before bringing her hands together to pray.
A pulse of light leapt from her skin and the golden glow of [ Purity ] filled the room, rapidly melting away every trace of corruption before it could fill the room entirely and seep into their bodies.
The plagued slime seemed angered by this, letting out a low warble as its membrane deformed, growing into multiple large arms. Annabelle watched one of the slime’s new appendages reach out for the adventurer slicing at its side, but Lucia was far too quick, easily dodging to the side.
“Fucking die! Why can’t I cut you!?” Lucia growled, her violent attacks leaving only minor scratches on the slime’s tough exterior. Jumping over another slow sweep of the monster’s arm, she shot a silent glare across the room at the saint, as if she was somehow to blame for this.
Annabelle had little time to think on the odd look, for another large arm raised above her head to fall on top of her. Another thrust of the saint’s palms and the barrier was reinforced, catching the attack before it could harm her or her ward.
At the reminder of Ilya, Annabelle’s head snapped right to check on her, but found only empty space. She looked around frantically, and for a brief horrible second the thought arose that she had already been taken. “Ilya?!”
She could only see Lucia and the slime, the adventurer’s blades swiping uselessly against the monster’s body. A body that the saint reminded herself was translucent; if Ilya had been eaten she would still be able to see her.
If she wasn’t inside the slime, then where-
Suddenly, a loud piercing sound echoed in the square chamber, followed immediately by the slime bursting like a bubble, splattering all of its insides against the walls.
Annabelle was spared from being covered in slimy insides by her barrier, but Lucia was not so lucky. She had at least turned her head in time, as to not get any in her eyes.
“Oh! That worked pretty well.”
Snapping her head to the voice, the saint found Ilya, standing directly behind where the slime had been. She was completely covered in green, her arm still outstretched from when she had apparently stabbed the slime with her dagger, killing it instantly.
“What???” Lucia stared dumbfounded at the girl they had both seen be beaten down by a rat not fifteen minutes earlier, now standing victorious over a much stronger enemy. “W-What did you do?!”
“I waited for a chance to attack, and then I did- just like you told me to.” Ilya answered, tilting her head. The goo on her face mask vanished quickly, but the rest of her body remained covered in it, making the whites of her eyes stand out amidst the green.
“With that thing?!” Lucia asked incredulously, pointing at the sharp chunk of obsidian in the girl’s hand.
Ilya nodded proudly. “Yes. It’s very good at cutting things.”
The adventurer just stared for a few seconds, before a puff of air escaped her chest, followed by another and another, until she was genuinely and openly laughing. “Yeah, I guess it is.”
Annabelle released a breath she didn’t even realize she was holding, walking the circuit around the room until she could place her hands on the girl’s shoulders. “Well done Ilya.” She praised, casting a quick [ Clean ] before the jelly covering Ilya’s hair and forehead could drip down into her eyes.
“Miss Lucia, please come here- oh.” She was about to offer the same service, but when she turned her head, the adventurer had taken off her mask and began wiping herself down with it, the enchantment in the fabric leaving no residue behind. She looked like she was holding her breath through the whole task, an impressive feat given how long the mask was off for.
Once her face was covered once more, Lucia allowed herself a long inhale. “Well fuck, that answers some questions.” The slimes weren’t dead, they were changed; instead of cleansing the water of filth like they were supposed to, they were adding more.
“Is the quest done now?” Ilya asked, looking between the two women.
“No.” Lucia’s breath came out as a deep sigh. “Something fucked up this slime; we need to find out what it was and get rid of it.“ The knuckle of her thumb pressed into the space between the bridge of her nose and her brow bone as she groaned. “We should probably check out all the other filters too.”
And so, a quest that was supposed take an hour ballooned into a massive multi-hour undertaking that spanned the entire length of the sewer system’s main line, involving each of its connected chambers.
Through numerous encounters with rats, slimes, and even a giant roach, the party of three fell into a comfortable strategy of distraction and stalling. Lucia’s aggressive attack style forced any enemy to focus their attention on her, instead of the tiny girl sneaking up behind them with a knife. The saint remained in the supportive role as promised, keeping her spell use constrained to lighting the way, purifying corruption, and protecting Ilya when something went awry.
The final chamber to clear was the intake basin, where the large stream the sewer was built on top of constantly fed water into the system. It was a large, shallow, and vaguely triangular chamber, tapering from the width of the original water source to that of the rest of the sewer. it seemed to have been built with the rainy seasons in mind, able to hold much more water than was strictly necessary. As it was now, the water level was very low, allowing them to stand in the basin without getting anything wet beyond their boots.
Something sat in the centre of the basin, the freshwater pouring in from behind it darkening as it passed by. The same foul aura that billowed from the corrupted slimes shrouded their new foe as well, blurring its silhouette into a dark fuzz unbreachable even with Annabelle’s guidelight.
Two green dots of light suddenly appeared in the black cloud. They stared at the party from across the room, jittering ever so slightly as the creature within looked from one member to the next.
“What the fuck is this?!” Lucia groaned in exasperated disbelief. This was not low threat level; the front desk would be receiving some choice words from her soon.
As if responding to her words, the pillar of shadows receded, revealing the source of the city’s recent woes. It was humanoid in form, much of its skeleton exposed to the open air as the rest of its flesh seemed to be in the process of sloughing away. It knelt in the shallow water of the basin looking like an abandoned doll, each of its joints bent unevenly and both of its arms hanging open at its sides.
“Lucia, I think that’s a zombie.” Ilya helpfully provided, and Lucia’s headache returned.
“How do you even…” She started before deciding to give up entirely. “Whatever! Fuck it! I don’t care!” A throwing knife was pulled from its sheath and Lucia angrily hurled it across the room, embedding it deep in the undead’s drooping face.
The creature’s head bent back from the force, and it would have toppled over entirely had its body not suddenly righted in a motion too quick and precise to be natural.
Its pinpoint eyes flared, locking onto Lucia. She drew her daggers in response. “You wanna go asshole?! Come on then!”
The adventurer dashed in, swatting a claw swipe aside with one blade and carving up the tendons of the offending arm with her other. She had to quickly back step to avoid a second swipe as the undead didn’t falter a second to react to its new injuries.
“This was supposed to be a quick quest!” Lucia roared, stabbing the zombie in what remained of its lungs. “You fucking wasted my afternoon!”
She ducked out of the way just as the monster’s arms closed around where she once was, its teeth clacking together instead of into her flesh. A few quick slashes at its legs and she backed a safer distance away to catch her breath.
A spurt of something flying past her head informed the adventurer that it was not a safe distance after all. Toxic bile spewed from the zombie’s throat, the same black gunk that now filled the whole main line and made her hack up a lung earlier from its stench.
Even more reason to want this thing dead.
Closing the gap once more, Lucia traded swings with the undead, choosing to focus her efforts on its face as those were the only injuries it actually reacted to. Multiple times it tried to sink its rotten and jagged teeth into her, and multiple times she fed it only steel.
As she continued fighting the creature head on, Lucia caught a glimpse of a small shadow out of the corner of her eye, something creeping around behind their foe. She was on a timer now: either beat this thing before Ilya got to it, or let the violent little rat girl steal the final kill.
That brief moment of distraction was enough for the undead to finally land a hit on her, its claws slicing savagely through the skin of her arm. Lucia didn’t flinch, thrusting both daggers forward into its chest before lifting her arms to slice up through its throat.
She was running out of meat to carve into- she had done so much damage to the thing, but it would not stop, attacking just as fiercely as if she had done nothing.
‘If only there wasn’t a saint watching me…’ She grumbled in her head.
Inky black mist spilled out from between its ribs, forcing Lucia to back away as the toxic aura returned, empowering its strikes with unknown levels of poison and disease. After minutes of straight aggression, she was pushed to the back foot, her exhaustion finally catching up with her as she was forced to dodge a flurry of attacks in sequence.
Lucia glanced over its shoulder again between swipes, the little shadow was closing in; she was out of time.
The creature’s chest suddenly jolted forward as the black blade hit home, but instead of slumping over dead like everything else they had faced, the zombie twisted its head entirely around to glare at a surprised Ilya.
“…You’re very tough.” The little orphan complimented as she shuffled in retreat, slipping on the submerged bricks and falling onto her back just as the creature lunged to bite her.
A translucent wall of golden light flashed into being, blocking the attack before it could get anywhere near landing.
“I’ve humoured your existence this far to honour an agreement.” Annabelle spoke, her voice uncharacteristically hard. “But now you force my hand, sinner.”
The saint turned to look at her, blue eyes glowing in the dark chamber. “Miss Lucia, I apologize, but I’m stepping in.” Lucia wanted to argue, she really did, but the scariest thing in the room was no longer the fetid melting corpse risen by hatred.
Another spew of bile shot across the room, but it too met a glowing barrier, the blonde woman standing behind it slowly bringing both hands together to pray.
“Repent and be at peace. [ Daybreak ].”
The next thing Lucia knew was all encompassing, all devouring light, as if the sun itself had been pulled from the sky and placed before them. She bit back a pained hiss as the blinding rays seared her skin, but calling it pain was surely a disservice to the agony of the spell’s true target.
The creature of Chaos screamed and thrashed as judgment came down from on high, the full might of a saint focused entirely on dolling out its decreed punishment. The creature’s flesh boiled and sizzled under the glory of the dawn, its cursed bones burning away until everything that it once was became nought but sinless ash.
Overkill indeed.
----------------------------------------
“Well ladies, I would say it’s been fun, but that would be a fucking lie.”
The soon to be disbanded party stood victorious back on the surface, faces finally free of masks, wounds healed, and their bodies and clothes repeatedly purified with [ Clean ].
“I had fun!” Ilya replied, excitedly raising two fists in front of her. “I killed so many things!”
Lucia just shook her head. “You’re fucked in the brain, you know that?” Her gaze shifted up to meet the saint’s frown with her own. “You really know how to pick them.”
“Miss Lucia, why must you be so derogatory towards others?” The saint asked with a hint of frustration.
“Hey, you barged in on my quest! You don’t get to dictate how I talk!” The adventurer retorted, looking away angrily before opening her arms to shrug. “Plus I’m fucking hungry; everyone’s rude when they’re hungry.”
“Then return to the guild and buy a full dinner for yourself with the reward.” Annabelle’s suggestion was more like a scolding demand. “Tell them everything that transpired below and tell them I will corroborate everything tomorrow morning. The things we faced are more than enough for the maximum reward.”
“I’m hungry too…” Ilya mumbled, looking sadly into an empty pouch that must have at one point contained food.
Annabelle placed a comforting hand on her head. “You will be returning to the convent with me for dinner and a bath.”
“A bath? Didn’t that spell clean us?” Ilya looked very confused.
“We may be physically spotless, but it is the belief of many faiths- including mine -that a good bath is cleansing for the soul as well.” The saint paused afterwords to watch the gears turn in the girl’s head.
“Okay.” She finally accepted in that non understanding way of hers.
“Well you two have fun with your fancy church bath.” Lucia snarked. “I’m gonna go use the guild’s like the peon I am.” Then the adventurer walked away and the trio became a duo once more.
“Shall we?” Annabelle offered, holding out a hand for her student to take. Ilya silently agreed, letting the saint guide her back through the sunset bathed streets of Flavenport towards the church.
There was a flurry of activity when they entered the abbey, nuns young and old moving from their rooms to gather in the dining hall. Many of them stopped to greet the saint when they saw her. “Annabelle, welcome home! I haven’t seen you since morning service!”
“Much has happened.” She replied vaguely. They seemed to want to ask her to elaborate; to explain the girl standing beside her, but when Annabelle gestured for them to hurry to the table, they obeyed.
Dinner was at once lively and quiet. Lively, as many of her sisters were eager to get to know the little urchin she had brought home; quiet, as all of their questions for Ilya were met with mumbled one word answers that quickly dampened the energy at the table.
The bath following the meal was more on the quiet side, just the two of them relaxing in the saint’s private bathtub and sharing very few words other than a “Is it nice?” and an affirmative hum. The last twelve hours had been the most eventful in the saint’s recent memory: signs from her god realized, a gifted girl taken under her wing, hundreds of people saved, evil slain, all ending in a moment of quiet bliss and reflection.
For the moment, Annabelle was content. Everything was right in the world.
At least until Ilya turned to allow the saint to wash her hair, revealing her bare back for the very first time.
“Ilya… w-what are these?” The saint’s fingers ghosted over the rough red scars, disturbing droplets on the girl’s skin which slipped down her back and disappeared into the bubbly water. The cuts were deep, as if carved by the claws of a devil or the whip of a slave driver, and the way they curled and connected looked like a mockery of the written word.
“How do they look?” Ilya asked with a strange tone, trying to turn her head enough to see for herself. “I can’t really look at my own back.”
“…They look like they hurt.” By instinct, a gentle healing light flowed from her hand, but no matter how much faith she poured into the spell, the shadows of those grievous wounds remained. One particularly jagged cut looked almost like a tight lipped grin, mocking the saint for her helplessness in the face of Ilya’s pain.
“They did at the time, but they don’t anymore.”
Annabelle wanted to ask who had done this, what vile monster had dared to lay a finger on such a lovely girl, what sinner would she have to subject to the glorious light of justice–
She took a deep breath, swallowing her rage.
Ilya would tell her when she was ready, prodding her with questions when she was not would only dredge up more unhealed scars.
This evening was about relaxation. For now, Annabelle would gently pour warm water over the girl’s shoulder, run soapy fingers through her hair, wash away her troubles and the stresses of a long day.
When the bubbles had all popped and the water began to cool, Annabelle removed herself from the bath, wrapping a fluffy white towel around her body before stepping out of the room.
Ilya was staring blankly into the water when she returned with clothes, her thin lips mouthing something too minutely for the saint to read.
“Ilya.” She spoke softly, seeking to break the girl out of whatever trance she had fallen into without spooking her. “Are you ready to get out of the bath?”
Her ward slowly looked up at her with no expression before nodding. She rose out of the water with little fanfare, carefully stepping over the rim of the tub with the assistance of Annabelle’s offered hand.
The saint helped her towel off, patting the girl’s hair until it was acceptably dry before dropping the nightdress over her head. As expected, the hem of the sleepwear extended much further on Ilya, covering her ankles and feet entirely, leaving the remainder to pool on the floor.
It took some effort due to the new tripping hazard but eventually the two made it across the room to sit in front of the saint’s vanity. Ilya was immediately entranced by her reflection, her gaze never leaving the mirror- watching her double replicate every tilt of the head, every open and close of her mouth. Annabelle saw her own reflection begin to smile just as she felt her lips part, quickly brushing through her golden tresses with practiced motions while her eyes remained locked on the innocent display.
As soon as she was done her own hair, the saint lifted from the bench to stand behind Ilya, brush still in hand. She looked at the Ilya in the mirror, the girl’s eyes slowly drifting down as they seemed to do whenever she was deep in thought.
“…I’ve never seen myself this clearly before.” The girl finally murmured, allowing Annabelle into her mind. “I’ve only ever gotten glances in sunny windows or still puddles.”
Annabelle listened patiently to her words, gathering a bundle of charcoal black hair and beginning to gently brush through it.
Ilya looked herself in the eyes again, taking in every detail. The nose that tilted up slightly at the end, the thin eyebrows that shifted with every emotion, the strands of black hair that always stuck up in that one place. “Do I really look like this?”
“You do.” The saint leaned her head over Ilya’s shoulder to purposefully meet her gaze in the mirror. “In my humble opinion, you have all the makings of a very beautiful young woman. All you need is a little love and care.”
Her ward bashfully averted her eyes. “Thanks Annabelle… you’re really nice.” The edges of girl’s lips quivered like she was trying to suppress the smile that wanted to form.
“Treating the unfortunate with kindness, it’s just what my faith asks of me.” Annabelle replied, continuing to brush Ilya’s hair.
It might have sounded like she was waving off the compliment, but it was the truth. The Amasur Sect taught the pursuit of justice in all aspects of society, and to her, none in society were owed more than the downtrodden and left behind.
“The priests back in Bearwood aren’t as nice as you.” Ilya refuted, her eyes drifting down once more. “They’re always kicking me out.”
Annabelle felt her hand pause its brushing motions- felt, not saw, for in that instant all the saint could see was red.
“...What.”
Ilya elaborated, the tone of her voice becoming low and tired. “They let me hide from the rain if I listened to them talk about stealing being wrong and stuff, but they never helped me, even when I asked. They never let me stay the night either.”
Molten gold surged through Annabelle’s veins, the searing fury tearing her capillaries to shreds and leaving nothing but slag. She tried to continue brushing the girl’s hair by feeling alone, but her hands were shaking, the crushing grip she had on the brush making her motions rigid.
Annabelle knew she could have a temper at times, she knew she could be strict, but she had never known she could be so wrathful. It physically hurt to be so angry, like she could burst into flames at any time and take the whole abbey with her.
She blinked rapidly to try and clear her blurry vision, forcing herself to return focus to the Ilya of right now: safe and sound and receiving the care she was denied.
Her hair was less tangled than the saint expected, likely due to active effort on her part. Even after all she was forced to endure alone, Ilya still took care of herself in whatever small ways she was able. That fact was enough to hold Annabelle together through the rest of the task, removing what few tangles there were and bundling the hair together in a loose ponytail so that new ones wouldn’t appear while Ilya slept.
When the two were finished with the vanity, the saint again helped Ilya across the room to the bed. The girl stared at the soft mattress with curiosity, prodding at it like some kind of test before climbing in and curling into the fetal position.
“It feels a little like laying in mud.” She murmured, sleep already beginning to take hold. “I’m sinking...”
“Just let yourself relax.” The saint hushed, sitting down next to Ilya on the bed. “You’ve… you’ve done a lot for one day.” She was about to reach out and gently rub her shoulder, but paused when she reminded herself of what lied beneath the thin material.
Those terrible scars, that corrupting darkness that clung to her soul and turned spells of love and healing into those of pain, did they come before or after she sought help from the church- before or after she was betrayed by those sworn to protect the helpless?
Annabelle didn’t know which was worse.
She felt the righteous indignation roil beneath her skin, the bindings of self discipline that held the feelings back beginning to fail. Before she allowed herself to fall apart completely, the saint carefully lifted the blankets over Ilya’s body, tucking her in for a well earned rest.
“Sweet dreams.” She bid, and after casting [ Silence ] on herself to not disturb her sleeping ward, the saint finally let go.
There would be no peace for her that night, her furious screams and shouts of hate shared with none but the void.