Saturday 24 October 2015

Chapter 9

Foul Findings

Back at the sewer grate, Jay felt like he had become a new man; even though he had taken the iron rod earlier, and sold it, he no longer needed it to pry open the iron grate. He activated 'Enduring Willpower', feeling his Strength grow, and gripped the iron bars, pulling up the grate with unfamiliar ease. He now had 19 in Strength, it felt like it was more than enough for him at his current Level.
Crouching down, putting a hand on each side of the hole, he lowered his body, taking a few steps down the rungs of the ladder on the side of the wall. He was finally confident that he would be able to enter the sewers without having to run away when he met the creatures lurking inside.
If only the dank wafts of warm air didn't cling in his nose, smelling like he was bathing in a midden heap, he would feel great at the start of this small adventure of exploration and investigation. When his feet struck ground he looked around. And saw nothing.
Where the ladder reached the ground a cone of light lit a small room with an arched doorway that led deeper into the sewer. Last time he was here, he was attacked by a rat and had to flee before he even got a look inside the sewers. But now he wanted to find another rat to kill, to see how much he had grown; this would be fun, his first adventure. He only wished the scent of decay and feces wasn't so pungent and clinging in his nose.
After lighting a torch—its yellow light stretching far—he could see far enough to feel fairly safe. He was ready to advance. Looking back and forth, he walked through the doorway carefully observing his surroundings. To either direction outside the doorway a corridor with stony walls stretched into the distant darkness. The grooves between all the stones were deeply indented, as if the stone had eroded over a long period of time. In the middle of the corridor a slowly flowing mushy liquid floated by, foam bubbling slowly on its surface, foul gases rising from its depths. On either side of the fecal flood was a raised walkway. Phew, Jay thought. I'm glad I don't have to walk through that. Who knows how deep the sewage is.
I don't know, Jay, Claudine chimed in. If you really want to know, why don't you measure how deep it is.
I don't want to know, Jay thought, exasperated. It was only an idle thought.
Oh, Claudine said, somehow sounding slightly disappointed. Never mind then.
Some thirty meters away, in the dim darkness, a large rat sniffed the air; seeming to notice Jay, it went into a quick trot.
Seeing the rat, Jay smiled. Already, he had found a good test for comparison on how he had grown. Magic Wall. A cloudy white transparent wall, outlined in blue, sprung up just in front of the rat. The rat ran right into it, starting to bite in the air, scratching at the impeding magic. It didn't take more than a few seconds for the enormous rat to tear through the Magic Wall. Jay cast another two walls and readied himself to kill the rat with his dagger, drawing it out and crouching down in preparation. It felt like he would almost drop the dagger at any time, holding it in his hand felt clumsy and awkward, but he had to try it out at least.
As the rat closed in on Jay, he stabbed straight at it with the stiletto, piercing the rat in the shoulder. The rat scratched his leg before retreating.
You have hit the Large Rat in the shoulder for 7 Damage
Large Rat loses 7 Health


You have been attacked in the right arm by a Large Rat
You lose 15 Health
The dagger didn't kill the rat in one go which meant he had to change tactics. He hadn't thought the rat would die in one hit, but hoped that he could kill it in two hits. Now, however, if he needed three attacks with the dagger it wasn't worth the effort to use it. However, he now knew that he had grown. He could, if needed, kill a rat without relying on his magic. But magic was his forte now. Magic Bullet. A small whitish blue cone-shaped piece of Mana coalesced atop his hand, flying out, striking the rat in the face.
You have hit the Large Rat in the neck for 17 Damage
Large Rat loses 13 Health and dies
From this first fight he had figured out the pattern he needed to use to kill rats. He could start exploring the sewers without any real danger now.
His strategy worked as well on the cockroaches he met later without any trouble; repeating the actions of putting up Magic Walls and attacking with Magic Bullets until his enemy died, he advanced down the sewer walkways, sketching a rudimentary map of the corridors on a piece of paper. He had to know where he was and how he could get out again later.
After a while, Jay had begun creating a crude map. He had only made lines for the corridors, approximating their lengths as best he could, but now that he looked at it, it wasn't good enough. Then he had an idea. Claudine, he thought, is there a map-function or something that I can put in my field of view instead of having to make my own crude map?
Yes, Jay, Claudine said. If you have the cartographer Skill called Mental Map or the Perfect Recall Skill, but you're too low Level for either.
And you can't just keep track of my surroundings and maybe transform into a rudimentary map while I'm down here at least? Jay thought.
Yes, of course, anything else you want? Maybe I should just transform into a Level 100 Spirit Beast and do everything for you while you ride on my back? Claudine said. Jay could swear he heard a faintly bitter, almost sulking, tone in Claudine's voice and then a barely audible whispering continuation, as if Claudine didn't want Jay to hear. He wants the world handed to him. Just because I know a lot doesn't mean I can do much. Lazy. He's just too lazy. In a normal tone Claudine then said: I can't do everything, you know. I only know things when I come in contact with them or if you ask about something, and most of what I know is ordinary knowledge without real importance. I'm just a helper with a connection to a store of knowledge.
Weird, Jay thought. So, you think I'm lazy? About the map, it was just an idea, no need to take offense if I asked for something you can't do.
Yes, Claudine said. Or no? What? The amorphous billowing cloud with a feminine face drifted out in front of Jay with a slightly confused expression. You shouldn't have heard that, I was clearly not talking to you...
Not talking to me? Then who? Ah, never mind, it doesn't matter, Jay thought back. Something was definitely off about Claudine; it wasn't the first time she had behaved strangely. Maybe it was something he should be concerned with? I have to remember to ask Claudine about her functions later. It seems I should try and understand her better if I want to utilize her abilities to their utmost.
Yes, Claudine happily chimed in. If you don't remember to ask I'll remind you. After how much time would you like your reminder?
Ehm, Jay thought, just later.
That won't do, Claudine said. To set a reminder alarm you need to specify a time.
Yeah, I wasn't trying to do that. But, just tell me in a week if I don't ask before that.
Yes, Jay, Claudine said, floating back into the periphery of Jay's field of view.
- - - - - - - -
As time went on, Jay found out that the sewers was really easy to explore, actually; the giant rats and giant cockroaches couldn't even reach him before they died. The only dangerous things where sneak attacks from the river of sewage. He was almost dragged into the waste when he was attacked the first time by a large crocodile that flung itself out of the river as Jay walked by. Only by reflex and luck did he get away. As the crocodile lunged for him, Jay reacted quickly, forming his home-made Spell, shooting a metal pin into the crocodile's eye, killing it in one go.
After that first crocodile's sneak attack there was little danger from them. Every time something moved in the water, Jay instantly threw up a Magic Wall between himself and the water. Most of the time there was no enemy nearby, but he had now defended against eleven crocodiles and a couple of large snakes. They gave good Experience, and after skinning them, Jay had probably gotten a neat profit from just the crocodile's leather; even though it smelled dangerously disgusting, he believed that the leather could fetch a good price when sold.
The exploration progressed slowly, but surely. A few hours passed and he had now mapped a large portion of the sewer, but had not found anything that triggered his Quest or something that he could investigate to forward the Quest. The strangest part was that he had not met a single person either; Jay had thought at least someone would be down here, killing creatures or maybe even doing the same Quest as him. It would have been good to find someone doing the same Quest so that they could do it together. But there was nothing to do about that, so he continued.
Walking onward, Jay turned right at every crossing or turn, thinking the sewer was akin to a labyrinth; and it turned out that was partly true. He had now gone around in a large arc according to his make-shift map. He was close to where he believed the walls of the Magician's Guild's compound walls were and found out that the sewer was only something beneath the Magician's Guild. The sewer complex wasn't beneath the entire city, which was good; that, at least, meant that it wouldn't take weeks to search the whole of the sewers. He had been afraid that the sewer stretched out beneath the entire city and that if he couldn't find any hints he might have to search the bowels of an entire city. Not a pleasant thought. The area beneath the Magician's Guild was big enough to be difficult to explore in a short time, but it wasn't as troublesome as it could have been.
Walking, killing monstrous creatures, and meditating when he needed to, Jay spent a couple of hours more exploring. He found several places where he could exit the sewer and marked these on the map, but couldn't find much of anything else.
There was a strange pattern to the sewers; it was as if the sewers had first been something else. Every now and then an archway into a large pool of stagnant filth could be found. It was as if at first the sewers had been corridors that connected rooms in a large building. He had now walked in almost a circle and would soon find himself back at where he started if he kept going by always following the right wall.
A quarter of an hour later, he was back where he had started. He had now circled around an empty area of a couple of thousand square meters according to his map. The only thing he could figure from this was that in the middle of sewer was the answer to how to progress in finding out about the black ooze in the sewers.
From what he remembered about the Magician's Guild buildings, the large thick spire that was the main building of the Guild stood right above the area he had not searched in the sewers. He hoped it was a hint to finding out something.
It was good to be thorough, he now knew how the sewers looked like and he had a fairly detailed map. And from all the creatures he had killed he had gotten Level 10, and would soon Level up again. Lighting another torch—the first one had begun to sputter—he now only had to search the area in the middle of the sewer. It was almost certain that he would find out something pertaining to his Quest there.
He walked to the closest branching corridor that lead into the uncharted area and soon found himself at a place in the middle of the make-shift map. This place was different from any other place in the sewers. After going through a doorway he stood in a large circular room without any sewage in it. All around the room was doorways leading away from the room. And in the middle of the large room was a staircase that lead up into the ceiling, without an entrance to the upper floor, but it did lead downward. All his senses told him that this was the place he had been looking for. He had to go down to the lower floor.
Going down the staircase slowly, he vigilantly looked for any monster that might attack him. Soon he arrived at a lower floor. There was no sewage rivers here, but small rivulets of brown water could be seen flowing down cracks in the walls and ceiling.
The place looked very much like the upper sewers, except the floor wasn't indented and he couldn't see any monsters right now.
Walking forward, he met no resistance before he came to a crossroad in the corridors. But just as he thought that it was almost too peaceful, two giant cockroaches ran toward him from two different directions and he had to raise four Magic Walls to stop them. He killed the first cockroach by flinging a metal pin into its head, then he killed the other with his 'Magic Bullet'. He had become used to the creatures here; it felt almost too easy now. As long as he could stop the creatures' advancement and kill everything except the last creature with the home-made Spell he had named Fling Shot he would never take any damage.
After he had advanced a couple of hundred meters he began to sketch out this floor's map on the other side of the paper he had used for the first floor's map. This floor had more large rooms and in the rooms were small packs of creatures, but if he stood in the doorway and blocked it with magic walls he could easily kill everything inside the larger rooms. Sure, every room expended most of his Mana, but he just had to meditate between rooms and it was easy. It had almost become too easy.
As if something had heard his thoughts about how easy it was to kill the creatures in this place, head-sized spiders began to jump off the ceiling, trying to sneak-attack Jay. The first spider almost took half his life away by biting, scratching and clawing on his head before Jay could fling it away. And when he realized that there were three more spiders crawling on the ceiling, he had to retreat while raising Magic Walls. But he easily killed the spiders after he retreated. The only dangerous thing about the spiders were really that they looked very much like the stones the building had been made from and that they crawled on the ceiling, a place he hadn't been looking at closely before. And the poison, he couldn't forget the poison those spiders injected with their bites. But that wasn't really a danger either, he only had to Meditate and rest for a little while and then he would have full Health again.
After an hour of carefully exploring the second floor he found a skeleton of a Large Rat covered in black smudges that spread out in a blotch on the floor. The residue could be a clue. Observe.
Slimy Black Residue
The slimy residue looks like it could be tar.
Your Observe Skill does not have high enough Level to tell anything else.
Reaching out to the black smudge, Jay touched it with a finger. To his horror, that was the wrong decision.
You have been Poisoned
You lose 5 Health every minute for 60 minutes
This is not good, Jay thought. He only had 280 Health and he would lose 300 total Health from this Poisoned Status. I should have gotten something to treat Poison, how could I not think of that?
I don't know, Jay, Claudine said. But with your Health Regeneration it isn't very bad. You will only lose a total of 120 Health after the poison has left your body.
That's still almost half my total Health, Jay thought back. He knew he had some Health Regeneration, but it was still bad. He had only touched the black residue with his glove and had still gotten Poisoned to this degree.
Bringing out his Stiletto Dagger he scratched the black residue with the point and brought it up to his nose, smelling it. Its smell was foul enough to make him gag. But now he had poison on his dagger, that would likely be beneficial.
He stood, feeling uneasy, slightly woozy. A noise came from the darkness ahead; the gurgling, sloshing noise came closer and Jay felt a bit of dread. What if that was the creature that had made the black sludge? It would likely be a lot more dangerous than anything he had met earlier.
In the distance, where his torch-light met darkness, two large, slightly translucent, green blobs came slowly sliding toward Jay. The things, not tall enough to reach his knees, looked like some green liquid that was barely contained by a thin membrane, their bodies undulating and morphing as they proceeded toward Jay.
The dread in his heart grew. Those things looked dangerous. He raised a Magic Wall in front of them, only to see that they rolled into the Wall and destroyed it in less than a second. Jay ran backward, easily out-pacing the creatures while shooting Magic Bullets at them, only doing slight damage. After ten shots he had to see if he did any damage. Observe.
Lesser Green Slime
Level 11
(531/600HP)


A greenish blob made from some viscous roiling liquid infused with a Mana Crystal Core.
Potential to inflict Poisoned Wounds is 50%
Not good, Jay thought. He shot a metal pin into the Slime and checked its health again, only to find that the pin, even though it had been charged with 100 Mana, only did slightly more damage than the Magic Bullet. Not good at all... Claudine, is there a way for me to know directly as I damage a creature how much damage I did?
Yes, Jay, Claudine said. I'll change that right away. There you go.
Jay shot a Magic Bullet, hitting the slowly advancing Slime, seeing a red 8 pop into the air above the Slime. Oh, that's good. How is it you can do something like that?
I know things like that. Apparent information in my surroundings are accessible for me without me having to do anything, Claudine said. And the number is only something you can see because I overlay that image in your field of view.
Well, Jay thought, that's good to know. Thanks.
You're welcome, Claudine said. To Jay, she gave off an impression of being happy, but how he knew that, he couldn't understand. He only saw wisps of her in the corner of his eye and shouldn't know what, if anything, she felt without seeing her expression, but he somehow did.
Jay came back to his senses, forgetting himself in contemplation over non-urgent things wasn't good. He had to focus. The Slimes had advanced toward him slowly, but was almost upon him again. Jay began backing away, thinking about his situation.
If he had only done about 70 damage after shooting 10 Magic Bullets, it would take forever to kill those things. 85 shots per Slime was quite excessive. The Magic Bullet drained 10 Mana per shot, and he had to wait for just under a second between each shot. This was not good at all. He didn't dare to try and block those Slimes, and had to run while attacking them. If he met any other creatures he could be trapped. But what choice did he have? He continued to shoot while slowly retreating, barely keeping away from the Slimes.
However, after a couple of minutes he had killed the Slimes. It hadn't been as dangerous as he first thought, but that was only because he ran back through corridors he had already cleared. He only met a single large rat and killed it before it could reach him.
The Slimes gave the most amount of Experience he had gotten from a single creature, and after killing them he advanced to Level 11. But now he felt he had to be more careful; if he was ambushed by those Slimes he couldn't hold them back with Magic Walls, and the fact that they could destroy a Magic Wall in a very short time by just brushing against them meant that their touch could do over 100 Damage in less than a second. If he was attacked by that he wouldn't even know what happened before he died. Had he entered this place too early?
After the Green Slimes died they left a large puddle of viscous liquid that gave off a putrid smell and wafts of a light green smoke. Jay kept away from both puddles and smoke. He couldn't believe they were any less poisonous than when the Slimes were alive. Inside the puddles he could see a minuscule sliver of green crystal, however. He wanted that crystal. But for some reason he couldn't remove the crystal from the liquid with his Mana Manipulation, so he had to give up. There was no way he could actually use his hands to grab the crystal without dying from trying, unfortunately.
View Quests. A list of two quests showed itself. View Quest 'The Poisonous Black Liquid'. As he thought that, he felt foolish for forgetting that the Quest's name was 'The Poisonous Black Liquid'. He should have remembered and not touched that black smudge earlier.
Quest
The Poisonous Black Liquid
Difficulty: G
Investigate the poisonous black liquid in the sewers.
You have found traces of the black liquid. Bring some of the black liquid back to Rolan Fairwater for inspection.
Follow the traces to its source.
Find out what the black liquid is and its origin.
When you have found the poisonous black liquid's source, destroy it and report back to Rolan Fairwater of the Magician's Guild.


Reward:
5 silver coins
10000 Experience
(A Dark Green Shirt)
The Quest information had changed slightly. He had found a clue on how to solve the Quest, or at least he now had a direction to go toward. He needed to go deeper into this second floor of the sewers but could he do so right away or did he need to resupply, maybe even buy better Spells? He didn't know.
Feeling there was nothing else to do but be extra careful and try to avoid those Slimes, Jay walked to a wall with nervous steps. He had spent too much time in the sewers to give up just because he met a slightly difficult opponent.
To be as safe as possible Jay sat down, eating a piece of bread, then Meditated until his Poisoned Status was gone and he had gotten full Health, Mana, Stamina and Hydration.

5 comments:

  1. I'm liking this. good writing. Also Glad everything is ok now. Thanks for irl update, was wondering what happened.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks :)
      Yeah, wasn't the best thing to not plan ahead, clearly a mistake on my part.

      I was just a bit too excited when I got many more readers than I thought I would early on and posted chapters a lot quicker than I had planned. So, lesson learned: I've decided to build a small buffer of a few chapters in case something like this happens again. I'll probably spend this whole weekend on this story now that my head doesn't feel like it might split apart when I look at the computer-screen.

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  2. The interlude is important later on, but you might be right about it being a bit disruptive early on (it's actually supposed to be strange, I tried creating a dissonance between the outside story and the game-story that would feel a bit weird until you understand how they relate to eachother).

    You'll see more of the outside story later on though, but not anything more in volume 1.

    That I got sick and didn't post another chapter for a while might also have made the interlude stick out more than it should have.

    I'll spend this weekend working on this story and probably the next one too just to build up a chapter-buffer for the future so there won't be a long time between chapters.

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  3. Thanks for the chapter Ataraxia.

    ReplyDelete