15. Under the Surface

 Johannes had been right; money never seemed to last long in their hands. As soon as the bagful of candy-coated gemstones had arrived in San Aria’s smithing quarter, it had seemed to melt away under the heat of the countless forges.

Valerios had taken his handful of gems - not a small amount, considering the size of his hands - and practically flung them at a lizardfolk weaponsmith, who began the process of re-mummifying him in steel.

When the fork-tongued armourer strapped a shield the size of a dinner table to his arm, Valerios brandished it at the others. “Observe!” he boomed, his voice echoing metallically behind the massive rectangle. “This is no wooden toy, but an aegis fit for a kingsguard.”

“I thought you were the king?” Caela asked with innocent confusion.

“Aye, I will guard myself for now,” he replied valiantly. “My left hand will be my right-hand-man.”

He looked excessively proud of the quip. Unimpressed, the armourer caught Caela’s eye and raised three talons while mouthing “hours”. They left him to his work.

Rose had also decided to cover his skin - in his own way, of course.

“Zora likes looking at my ink,” he explained. “So I thought I’d get a new one to show her.”

He traced the scarlet flower that had bloomed amidst the vines on his left arm. “It’s a gladiolus. Means ‘little sword’.”

He eyed Lux, who was bartering with a skewered meat vendor across the street, and leaned in conspiratorially. “It’s to commemorate my first ever student,” he told Caela. “Don’t tell him, though. It’ll give him an ego, and this party’s only got room for one of those.” He winked at her.

She laughed, placing a finger on her grey lips. “Don’t worry. Your spot’s safe.”

Freija was having her stones woven through golden lace by a Dwarven jeweller and braided into her hair. “For safety,” she stage-whispered, long lashes flicking as she glanced dramatically around them.

Caela doubted she was at risk. Her friend, dripping in exotic silk and jewellery, was swanning around San Aria like the least subtle honeypot trap conceivable.

The two elves joined Johannes and Hellebore, strolling past rows of sweltering smithies. All of a sudden, the anvils’ drumbeat was drowned out by a low rumble, and the ground began to shake. The people of San Aria threw themselves to the ground, holding their heads as loose items were sent crashing.

After what felt like an age, but had more likely been thirty seconds, the tremors subsided. Caela was glad to see that her friends were unharmed, if not unruffled. She helped Johannes to his feet, looking around with confusion as the largely ambivalent citizens continued about their day.

“Not again,” one shopkeeper grumbled, setting a pile of swords back on a rack. She caught Caela’s eye, and shrugged in the universal signal for ‘what can you do’.

“Visitors, eh?” she said, smoothing her distressed hair. “Had a quake yesterday, too. There’s been one each fortnight for the past couple of months, but we’ve never had them two days in a row. Just goes to show.”

Caela wasn’t sure what it showed the shopkeeper, but it showed her a very uncomfortable picture indeed. She caught the others’ expressions, and saw that they were thinking the same thing.

They needed to find the underground lab, and quickly.

As she scanned the others’ faces, Caela realised that a certain masked one had vanished from view. It took her only a few moments to spot them at the entrance to an alley, tugging along a grubby child by his ear. Sensing trouble, she hurried over to de-escalate the situation, although she couldn’t help but notice the effect that the approach of a large wolf had on the boy. Despite Mene’s polite disposition, he gave the impression that he was merely choosing not to bite one’s head off.

Hellebore, of a similar height to the wolf, was also taking the opportunity to loom. Caela wondered what Hellebore would be like if they could loom over everybody, and suddenly pictured them as tall as Valerios. She shivered.

Freija made a frustrated noise as she examined her bare wrist. “This little orphan stole one of my bangles during the earthquake! They’re a matching set of four!”

“Well, we don’t know for sure that he’s an orphan,” Johannes cut in helpfully. “He could simply be from a broken home.”

“Both of you, shut up!” Hellebore hissed. They returned their attention to the boy, who was trying to wriggle out of their gloved hand. His dirty fingers clutched the golden bangle, but let go when Hellebore pulled on it.

“Found it,” he protested weakly, in what sounded like a recited excuse. He stopped squirming as Hellebore leaned down to address him.

“Alright, teaspoon, you been eating lately?”

They let go of his ear. The boy considered them suspiciously, but made no move to flee.

“He is rather bony…” Johannes began, but Hellebore continued as if the wizard were invisible.

“Talk, kid. This lot might be hams, but I’ve been forking slices since you were a scrap. Now, tell me. You been drinking from a dirty cup?”

The others looked at their companion like they’d grown another head.

“Are you quite alright?” Freija asked, after a delicate pause. “Did you hit your head and miss breakfast?”

She poked at their hood with a nosy finger, but Hellebore wouldn’t be distracted. After a tense staredown, the boy dropped his gaze.

“Mighta.”

“Bet it was around the big pantry. Seen some corkscrews in the cup, right?”

“M’be.”

“What?”

“Maybe.” The boy looked extremely uncomfortable. “Used it to get around, but they shut up all the usual ways in.”

“Why?”

“Got too hot. Even for the corkscrews, I’m tellin’ ya. It was somefin’ exotic. I…”

He clutched his vulture shoulders.

“I see’d it, one time, when I had to run from one of the ‘screws and got lost. It found the ‘screw. I only saw a bit, but…”

Hellebore crouched down. Their painted eyes met the urchin’s. He was shivering like a leaf.

“Vino?” they asked softly.

The boy nodded.

“Buckets.”

Hellebore straightened up and held out a gloved hand. In the palm was one of Johannes’ ‘sweets’. The boy looked at it cautiously, before his eyes grew wide in realisation. Amazingly, though, he didn’t snatch it from their hand until Hellebore tipped their fingers in offering.

“Don’t spend it all in one place,” they said simply. The boy gazed at the mask for a moment, before scurrying back into the alley.

Freija shook her head as if she was still disoriented by the quake.

“I’m sorry, I’m a bit lost,” she asked. “Do you mind explaining your interest in orphans’ dinner plans?”

“We weren’t actually talking about food,” Hellebore said, exasperated. “It’s a code that the local thieves use. He said he used to use the sewers to get around, until the Black Serpents sealed up all the manholes. He said he saw one of them get killed. By a monster.”

Johannes’ eyebrows met in the middle of his wrinkled forehead. “These things are outside the labs now?”

“The quakes!” Caela realised. “Maybe they cracked open a route for the monsters to escape the labs.”

She looked darkly at the others.

“There’s been two in as many days. Either of them could’ve widened that crack, and turned the trickle of monsters into a flood. We need to get down there as soon as possible.”

—

Saddled with a healthy new paranoia, the group reacquired their companions and made their way to the walls of San Aria. A stout gondolier ferried them through the water gate and around to the south-eastern sewage sluice. Despite the smell, the effluence was thankfully only a trickling stream, and they gingerly hopped over it to examine the gate. It seemed an impenetrable barrier. Even as time had rusted the iron grille, it had reinforced it with decades of storm-strewn boats and branches.

Lux slapped the wall of splintered wood.

“Yep, that’s not going anywhere.”

He turned to Johannes. “Professor? Can you do that wall-melting trick again?”

The wizard stroked his silver beard. “Difficult, Master Lux. The shape is rather irregular, and the materials unevenly dispersed. You see, the more-”

Lux headed off the incoming lecture. “Got it - thanks, anyway. Anyone else have any ideas?”

His words met empty air as the others began to spread out along the wall, looking for secret doors in their own idiosyncratic ways. Freija looked down at the water thoughtfully, while Caela glanced up, as if there might be something she could scale to get a better perspective.

“It’s a trick.”

Hellebore had spoken the words, but Lux couldn’t place where from. Like a pale apparition, the familiar mask floated out of the wall of thorns. Hellebore strode forwards, apparently unbothered by the branch that should have blocked their path. Its jagged tip poked impossibly out of their chest, as if they’d been skewered on it. They beckoned him over.

“This section here’s just an illusion. We can get through.”

Lux tried to touch the branch, but his hand passed straight through. Hellebore vanished again, leaving only a floating hand to beckon him inside. He shuffled into the illusion, his questing hands feeling out the shape of a narrow passage carved into the detritus.

From within the blackness there came the scraping of a tinderbox, and Hellebore’s face swam into his vision. Lux couldn’t help but grin at the ridiculousness of it all.

“This feels like a secret den.”

Hellebore let out a rasping chuckle.

“It does.” They cocked their head. “I had one, once. Spent so much time in it that Father threatened to turn my bedroom into another library…”

They seemed to catch themselves reminiscing, and looked away.

“How did you see the illusion?” Lux asked. It had been flawless, even as he’d walked through it.

Hellebore was silent for a moment, then reached behind their mask. They fiddled for a moment, before producing a scrap of dark fabric. They held it to the torchlight, and Lux saw that it was an eyepatch. An intricate rune had been embroidered on the inside face.

“I’ve got both eyes,” Hellebore explained, “but my… the person this belonged to, didn’t.”

They covered one eye of their mask to demonstrate.

“Nicked this from him a while back. It let him see things that were hidden by magic. Pretty useful for a burglar.”

Their voice was strange. Clumsily - a first for Hellebore - they shoved the eyepatch into Lux’s hand.

“You can have it. Or Caela. Or whoever. With how unperceptive you lot are, you probably need the help.”

“Hellebore…” Lux clutched the gift to his chest. “Thank you.”

He returned through the log-jammed sluice gate, and waved at the other investigators.

“Come on in, folks, we’ve got a sewer to explore!”

One at a time, they passed through the illusion and into the tunnel. The team gazed into the darkness, which hung close and clammy, easily swallowing up Hellebore’s lamplight, and listened to the echoes of dripping water.

Lux lit a torch, expanding their circle of illumination.

“Alright, y’all know what time it is.”

No-one responded.

“The Buddy System! Pair up, everyone.”

Reunited again, the four duos inched along the tunnel’s walkway, pressing through the almost tangible smell. Holding their breath had worked for the first thirty feet - sixty for Lux - but, eventually, all had succumbed to the miasma. Combined with the sharp intakes of breath at every sudden noise, it was a very unpleasant experience.

Despite their best efforts to walk quietly, eight sets of footsteps echoed back to them off the rounded tunnel walls. Beneath that, the occasional distant trickle of water or ominous splash. Beneath that… the sound of tiny paws scritching against stone.

Almost as one, the group stopped. The scratching grew gradually louder, slowly but unmistakably approaching their circle of firelight. Despite Valerios’ enormous size in relation to the sound, he raised his shield defensively, hand on the hilt of one of his many swords.

It was almost an anticlimax when a twitching rodent nose poked out of the shadows. Valerios lowered his shield a little, the party breathing a sigh of relief. Their imaginations had run wild in the ominous darkness, but a rat was about the best thing they could hope for.

“It is their home, after all,” Caela said, relieved. The rat snuffled fully into view. “Look at the little thing, it’s even got a hat!”

Rose craned his neck to peer at it. Caela was right - there was something on its head.

“You know what the really funny thing is?” he said, slowly. “It actually is a hat. A tiny flat cap.”

They looked at each other, wondering if the miasma had addled their senses, until a tiny voice addressed them.

“And why not?” The rat squeaked. “I think it’s a touch of class.”

—

“Sure you're okay?” Caela ventured. Rose jumped at the touch of her cold hand, nodding unsteadily.

“It's not the talking animal thing. I worked with your uncle for ages, and Freija's sometimes a badger. Plus, Val talks to his horse, and I'm pretty sure she understands everything he says.”

He squinted at the back of the plump rodent as it led them through the twisting sewer tunnels.

“It's definitely the hat,” he decided. “Talking animals are one thing, but I draw the line at a creature that only wears a jaunty hat.”

The rat, who had introduced himself as Alexander, took no notice. He was busy nattering away at Lux and Hellebore at the head of the group. He spoke with a rough patter, a squeaky parody of the market vendors on the surface.

“Glad I ran into you,” he chuffed. “Usually the sneaky ones know to wait for me at the entrance. Terribly easy to get lost down here without a guide, let alone with these quakes we’ve been having.”

“We’re not assassins,” Lux said haltingly. “But we’re here to help. They said you were having a problem, and we think it might be the same one as us.”

“Here to help!” Alex chortled. “That’d be a first for those jumped-up cutthroats. Me and the Mistress - gods bless her soul - have kept this place neat and tidy for as long as they’ve been here, and what do they do when we need backup? Bugger all, I tell you. Just because a couple of them got eaten. Bunch of crybabies, I say.”

He sniffed derisively, his pointy nose wiggling.

“Mhm,” Lux grunted automatically, letting the stream of consciousness wash over him until a particular word jumped out.

“Sorry - did you say ‘eaten’?”

“That I did,” Alexander replied casually. “That's been the whole problem. It’s these plants that showed up recently. They bite back, you see. You ever made mushy peas?”

Lux nodded, with great trepidation.

“Like that,” Alexander affirmed. “Only this time it's the veggies mushing the people.”

Unconcerned by Lux's disturbed silence, he soldiered on. “What a fuss they made. Never mind the numbers we've lost since it all started, a few months ago. Must be tens of thousands.”

Lux apprehensively scanned the deserted tunnel.

“I had no idea there were that many people down here.”

“There’s a lot more than that, Mr Shiny,” Alexander replied proudly. “We've got numbers on our side, that’s for sure. Why, there've got to be at least ten million rats, not to mention the spiders, cockroaches..”

He was brought up short. The brown-green gradient of the sewer wall had been broken by a tarnished metal door. Around the circular porthole radiated a creeping halo of plant roots. The round door was already cracked open, and Alexander easily squeezed through the gap. They heard his faint voice echo from the room beyond.

“Mistress! Some guests have arrived.”

The would-be guests exchanged uncertain looks before heaving open the ominous door.

It was as if they’d stepped into another world; one filled with all the colour, light, and life that the dingy tunnels had been missing. They were standing in what must have once been a man-made cavern that had been overrun with verdant foliage. Caela breathed in deeply, feeling the humid atmosphere flush the stale air of the sewers from her lungs.

A few sunbeams had somehow made their way down here, diffusing through the greenish glass of a huge round window. The high walls shone with bouquets of glowing fungi and sheets of slick moss.

Caela noticed movement all around her - something more than running water. She peered past the thick ferns on the ground and saw the skittering of hordes of rats. They squeezed through cracks and pipes in the walls, filling the hall with an energetic clamour. Their furry bodies carpeted the floor but separated like an ebb tide, allowing the group passage further inside. As they stepped in, the congregation watched the new arrivals through uncountable black beads. Alexander passed along the central nave, squeaking unintelligibly at a few of his kin.

Under the round window stood a humanoid figure, tending to a gnarled tree sprouting from the far wall. The stranger, a willowy woman with pointed ears, was draped in a white toga, its ragged hem stained green and damp. Her feet were filthy and her nearly-translucent hair hung in unwashed knots, but she otherwise looked the picture of good health.

The woman produced a wide copper blade from her belt and cut a ripe peach from the tree. She knelt to present it to Alexander, who clutched it in his tiny paws with a gruff “Thankee, ma’am.”

Rising, she turned to her guests, offering them an ethereal smile that lit up her pink eyes.

“Greetings, honoured guests,” she said gently, as the chorus of squeaking subsided.

“I am Qitala of San Aria. Please, rest here for a moment.”

—

The party’s host led them from the subterranean chapel into a surprisingly cozy living area. Decades of luxurious items had fallen into the city’s canals, and had evidently been resurrected from their watery graves to furnish this room. It was also, fortunately, mostly free from vermin - although Alexander had stayed by his mistress’ side. Qitala attended to a set of chipped porcelain while the rat tried to make her laugh with his ribald commentary on the state of affairs in the sewers.

Lux had been a little worried when she’d offered to make tea - after all, the local water hardly seemed appealing. Nevertheless, he’d politely accepted, and been quietly relieved when she’d filled the pot full of clear water with nothing but a whispered incantation. Further rites set the water to boiling as she scattered in  a handful of dried leaves.

“You’re very pretty,” Freija observed, lightly tapping their host on the back of her neck. A young shoot sprang into existence, twisting into Qitala’s pale hair and blooming into an extraordinarily pink flower.

Qitala caressed the petals, smiling kindly at Freija. “Thank you. I don’t receive many guests, since my employers tend to keep to themselves. I’m glad to meet a fellow advocate of nature’s favour.”

She turned, finding Rose quietly conversing with Lux. He caught her eye and stood to attention, elbowing Lux to do the same.

“And you,” Qitala said warmly, moving over to place a hand on Rose’s vine-wreathed arm. “You fit in well here. Are you also a disciple of the earth?”

Rose shrugged, the tattooed thorns twisting as his muscles moved.

“Just a guy trying to make something of himself. Or, failing that, make something of the lad here.”

Lux blushed under Qitala’s attention, unsure of where to look or what to say. Her incorruptible aura hummed at his senses, so unusual that he impulsively summoned up his Candlelight, melting it over his eyes to gain new vision - but quickly regretting it, as a flare brighter than any he’d seen almost blinded him. The albino woman radiated so much light that he had to turn, blinking away sunspots.

Qitala gasped at the sight of his powers.

“You have been touched with grace!” she breathed. “This is a blessed day indeed, to be sent such a warrior!”

Lux looked around bashfully, catching sight of Valerios trying not to scrape his head against the ceiling. He jerked a thumb at him.

“Technically, you got two.”

—

While Rose and Valerios were confined to the dampened floor after one too many collisions with the ceiling, the rest of the party perched on mismatched chairs around the room. Johannes allowed The Beast to bound across the furnishings to meet Alexander. The rat was curious about the unnatural familiar, but lost his interest when he discovered it couldn’t talk.

“No fun to have a chinwag with, eh?”

As the tea stewed and darkened, so did the conversation. When Caela finally broached the subject of the situation under the city, Qitala’s face fell, and she shook her head solemnly. She poured out a burbling cup of emerald-green tea for each of her guests as she spoke.

“It all started a few months ago,” she said sadly. “The eastern maintenance station was surrounded by plant soldiers of unnatural design. Those things took root and slaughtered my friends, driving them out of their home - the one place they have always been able to roam freely. It’s horrible. ”

She sipped, holding the porcelain cup in both hands, as her audience listened in worried silence.

“My friends are my eyes and ears across the network. Without them, I am blind in that region, but I dare not lose any more of them trying to reclaim it.”

Her hands gripped the cup tighter as she shivered, pink eyes creasing in pain.

“But I do not need to see, in order to know what is happening there. You have felt the rumbling?”

They nodded.

“I have lived here as long as the city has stood,” she said, quiet but firm. “These tremors are not natural. They have a pulse, like a heartbeat. And I fear this heart beats faster of late.”

The words hung in the air like the steam coming off their cups.

Johannes blew on his. “We have a theory, good lady, that terrible experiments may be being conducted down here - on people as well as animals. Have you or your…”

His eyes flickered to the creatures littering the floor.

“...friends seen that, too?”

“Yes!” Qitala whispered, aghast at the memory. One thin hand clutched her breast. “We have seen them rampaging through our domain, out into the sunlight. Creatures whose earthly blessings had been defiled, for what purpose I cannot imagine. Why should such cruel attention be lavished upon them, only to carelessly let them loose?”

A contemplative silence fell across the assembly. Lux stared into his brimming cup. As his eyes unfocused, he thought he saw the pinprick of distant firelight.

These are dark times, but fear not. You are close to unlocking your potential. Stay the course. Stay the course.

Qitala was looking plaintively at them.

“Were I stronger, I might stay by your side. As it is, I can only point the way, and send you with my blessings.”

Rose flashed her a confident smile.

“Don’t fret. We heroes shall vanquish this sadistic foe, for he will not stand a chance against the bond that we share. We would die for each other, and one of us already has.”

“Speak for yourself, why don’t you?” Freija quipped, but Lux shushed her. His eyes were wide as Rose finished his rehearsed repartee.

“You keep taking care of your friends. We’ll take care of the bad guys.”

—

“Down there, then left-right-left-right. Like you’re marching. After that, go straight on through the gauntlet of plant monsters, and you’ll get to the old filtration station.”

With those sterling words of encouragement from Alexander, the adventurers set off from the sunken chapel. Gone was the fear of the dark; now they practically raced with nervous energy along their instructed path.

Valerios led the pack, his shield a wall of steel. Lux was bursting with Candlelight, an orange steam rising off his body. The voice had been right: something inside him was close to breaking the surface.

Mene bounded alongside a newly-transformed Freija: one monochrome wolf and one in technicolour. Caela kept pace, nocking an arrow even as Hellebore drew their frosted black dagger. Johannes hobbled along with surprising quickness, polishing the surface of his orb with his sleeve.

Then there was Rose, whose ‘drawing of weapons’ had started and ended with removing his shirt. A strand of blond hair bounced across his blazing eyes. He, of everyone, seemed the hungriest for action. He was muttering some form of battle mantra, although Lux was only able to catch a few words.

“-will honour my name, for it is my gift; I will hone my body, for it is my weapon; I will seek adoration, for it is my sole reward; I will-”

Another turn brought them on to the hazardous final leg that Alexander had mentioned. Just as he’d promised, three moundlike figures drifted like icebergs through the water channel, silent and ominous. Lumps of congealed moss and plant matter, each the size of a carriage. As the team approached, the lumps turned to track their movement.

One by one, they uncoiled appendages made from bundled creepers, like plant tendrils unfolding under the light of the sun - but far, far faster.

Rose spread his arms, presenting his own vines to the creatures.

“Oh, good!” he cried. “An even matchup!”

The group scattered as one mound crashed a monstrous arm down upon their previous position. Freija leapt at it, shifting mid-air into the form of a long-limbed monkey. Baring long fangs, she began tearing away at the writhing vegetation.

With an elegant gesture, Johannes sparked a mote of burning light into existence. Poised to hurl it, he met Caela’s reproachful look and sighed, before speaking a few extra words into his orb. Instead of detonating violently in their faces, the spell shot towards the second plant as a narrow stream of flame. The waterlogged creature failed to catch light, but still shrank back as its outer surface was singed away.

Valerios chopped at the third mound like a lumberjack, hewing away its arms as soon as they were regrown. It was so rhythmic he might’ve started whistling as he worked.

Lux inched along the wall towards the monster that Johannes had torched, Candlelight rushing to coat his longsword. At the centre of the blackened circle, he spotted something dense and wriggling. He leapt at the creature, grabbing a handful of slimy weeds.

Not so different from seaweed, he thought, as he hauled himself up by that hand and drove his sword into the bullseye of Johannes’ target. The monster shuddered, then collapsed into bits of inanimate greenery.

As he splashed into the knee-high water, Lux saw Caela level her bow at the creature Freija was grappling. A black-feathered arrow shot forth, tearing straight through the mound and pinning another dark lump to the far wall. Freija leapt gracefully off the mound as it dissolved into mush.

Rose was standing in the water a little ahead of Lux. He delivered a thunderous punch to the final mound, driving his arm in up to the elbow. The blow struck firmly, but he was suddenly tugged forward with a sharp “Oh f-”, disappearing entirely into the mass of plants.

“Save me, Helle!” came his muffled cry.

The thief let out a noise of frustration and leapt at the monster. Almost immediately, they slipped within the wall of waving greenery. A few seconds later their ragged figure burst like a cannonball from the other side, landing on the opposite walkway. Clutching the creature’s heart in one gloved hand, they drove the black dagger into the wriggling mass. The creature’s heartbeat came to a sudden halt as frost crystallised across its surface.

With little difficulty but much complaining, the party rescued Rose from his pile of moss and reassembled on the tunnel walkway, soaked and splattered with shreds of plant matter. Looking very proud of himself, Johannes moved between them, cleaning and drying their sewer-sodden clothes with an incantation.

While they waited for him to finish, the group had the chance to examine their surroundings, and Caela’s sharp eyes quickly located the place Qitala and Alexander had described. It was another round door, this one made from some bronze metal, and similarly unlocked.

Valerios gave Lux a knowing look.

“You see what I mean? You need not lock a door if you have sufficient guardians. Those bankers could learn something.”

“Yes, but we got through their door and this one,” Lux pointed out. “Anyway, I’m not complaining. Fortune’s been on our side so far.”

As if Fortune was telling him not to push his luck, there came a terrific rumbling. From where they stood, it was clear that it was something mechanical.

It was also clear that it was coming from beyond the door.

16. Revelations >>