“Karyx!” grunted Keldon.

He drew on his internal forge of fire. One pulse, then another. The name of fire strengthened his muscles with energy as he rolled the boulder to the side, revealing a stone hatch with a thud.

“Fork me that’s heavy. I really wish Sims warned me ahead of time,” said Keldon, wiping the sweat from his brow.

After all that heavy lifting, his breath was sharp and raggedy and his throat parched. Keldon instinctively opened his invisible backpack, finding himself confused when he couldn’t use his invisible hand to find his invisible water bottle. He slapped himself on the forehead.

“I’m so dumb.”

Moving past his glaring stupidity, he blindly felt inside his backpack for his water bottle. But as he rummaged he was forced to confront the glaring mess he’d made.

Keldon wore a grim expression. He’d rolled over the boulder without thinking and had crushed the wildflowers and shrub that was nearby. How was he supposed to make things look normal once he’d gone down into the hole?

Keldon called upon the name of fire again as his fingertips grew chilly. In a rusted effort of espionage, he moved the boulder over to where it would look as natural as possible.

It, in fact, did not look natural as possible. He’d only made things look even more suspicious as the squashed wildflowers he’d leaned against the boulders drooped to the side.

“Of course that didn’t work Keldon you idiot,” said Keldon.

It really had just been too long since he’d done any proper sneaking. Well, what’s done is done.

Keldon opened the hatch, revealing a passage of thin stone steps, barely wide enough for a single person to squeeze into. However, as he descended into the hatch, a sharp crimson color caught his attention.

“Blood?!’ he thought, jerking back.

“Oh, never mind. Guess I’m still jumpy,”

What he’d thought were stains of blood were instead merely red arrows pointing towards a smooth milky sphere and written instructions that read “touch after entering, -yours truly, Sims.T”

The tension fled his body as he relaxed somewhat. “I’m glad someone thought of something beforehand.”

Keldon clicked the sphere as the stone hatch slammed shut and heavy waves of vibrations rumbled through his fingers from overhead. Shuffling noises and twisted sounds of snapping wood rang out from overhead as a few seconds later, only stillness.

“Hopefully that’ll do it,” thought Keldon.

Even if he wasn’t invisible, he wouldn’t have been able to see his fingers the tunnel was so dark. He blindly stumbled forward in the dark, trusting in Sim’s directions as the tunnel grew shorter and shorter. Eventually, he was forced onto his knees bemoaning how soiled his new clothes would end up. Then, his fingers bumped into a solid in front of him.

“Shit. Now what?” he murmured.

Some kind of wall maybe? The feeling was cold and stiff, refusing to budge even with considerable force. Keldon’s face scrunched up as he jabbed at the rough stone. Finally, his ‘aha’ moment arrived and his fingers came across a patch of loose soil.

As he scratched away at the flakey dirt, however, rancid odors violated his nostrils.

Keldon gagged, jerking back in recoil as he smacked his head against the ceiling above him. He groaned in pain, rubbing his scalp as he scurried away from the wall.

“Shit, that’s right. I was heading into the sewers,” he thought.

Plugging his nose with one hand, he crept back up to the wall. He scratched away at the patch of loose dirt, his fingernail scraped over a tiny smooth surface, no bigger than a marble. He gave it a gentle push.

*click*

Cracks of light spread in the wall in front of him, illuminating the tunnel as brick and mortar fell away, revealing an opening. Keldon burst into a wide smile. He crept forward to get a better look at his surroundings but was blasted with another wave of stench.

“Huoaacghh! It’s like when Bertram got second place in last year’s bean-eating contest,” said Keldon.

He pulled his shirt up over his nose, taking Sims’ slip of paper out of his pocket to orientate himself with his surroundings.

He heaved into his mouth, choking back the bile and swallowing it back down.

“Urgh-, alright. Where am I?” said Keldon with a shudder and unfurling his tiny map.

He looked down from the opening. About ten feet below him there was the river of dark sewage waste as had been shown but strangely enough, it wasn’t the only thing. To his right, on the sidewalk that ran parallel to the sewage river was a shambled shelter. A dirty pink couch with brown stains was surrounded by soiled rags, empty glass bottles, and the crusted underwear.

“Even here in the capital huh?” thought Keldon.

A memory of skulking through sewers with Luther flashed in his mind. An ache squeezed his chest. Keldon shook his head. He was fighting against time here.

He clung to the edge of the opening and began to scale down the wall when suddenly, there came a rattling from beneath him. Keldon whipped around just in time to see brick shoot up and rocket itself towards the back of his head. He swung his head out of the way as the brick slammed into a crevice of the opening, resealing itself into the wall. His eyes widened. One by one, the bricks which had crumbled to the ground levitated, flinging themselves in Keldon’s direction.

He yanked himself off his perch as he slammed his back into the cement with a thud.

“Urrgh… I’m okay. I’m okay,” groaned Keldon, rolling over.

But as Keldon flexed his hand. A slip of paper that should have been in his grip was not. Panic took over as Keldon scrambled to his feet, his eyes darting around. He scoured around him only to find his sole source of navigating the tunnels stuck on a particularly large log of feces and drifting away. Fast.

“No!” he yelled.

He scrambled to his feet, chasing after the piece of paper as it flowed down the river of sewage. His arms snapped out, clawing at the surface of the sewage. But the map slipped through his fingers and drifted away, floating past the oily iron grate and dropping into the dark abyss.

He grasped the iron bars in his hands, looking down into the dark abyss as a heavyweight filled his chest.

Keldon turned around. He swore he could almost hear a laugh from the sewers of Kharburn, taunting him. Above, the final brick snapped up into place, sealing the original entrance into the sewers. Along with the last of his options.

He made a bitter face, pulling his shirt over his nose and letting out a dejected sigh. The delicate plinking of glass against stone echoed in the tunnels as a glass bottle rolled away from him. Keldon stared out into the weaving maze of stench and turns, steeling his determination.

“Well, no way up but forward.”

Keldon dropped low, investigating the earth for scuffs or trails. Eventually, he hit a stroke of luck.

“Footprints!” thought Keldon.

Keldon trailed the prints on the cement walkway with an expression of relief. He snuck around corners and kept to the shadows, hugging the putrid walls as close as he could without having to touch the slick surface. But his luck was cut short as he stumbled upon another trail of footprints, and then another, and another, until soon enough, there were no footprints at all. Only his hopes stamped into a muddied jumble.

His nerves pricked at his scalp. Where to now? He was stuck in a four-way intersection with one of the tunnels leading to a grate with a dead end.

But as he looked around, a streak of dark crimson caught his attention. Painted on the side of the tunnel was a message of bitter scorn.

“You can’t appreciate the sights of the city when you’re crawling in the dirt,” murmured Keldon.

And it wasn’t just one message. There were messages written everywhere. Pacts of vengeance for fallen brothers, Heralds of the end times, and prayers for renewed hope were scrawled big and small all over the tunnel walls. There were plenty of messages, even some in languages he didn’t recognize.

But there was one section of the wall that stood out to Keldon the most. Smeared along the wall was a serpent with two heads and eight eyes that swam through wisps of clouds. Yet, it wasn’t the actual picture that stood out to him, it was the writing that was hidden in the scales of the creature.

“Old Graceus,” said Keldon, running his fingers along the etched painting. “Even in the sewers, there’s culture huh,”

But a thump interrupted his thoughts. And then another.

*thump* *thump-thump* *taptapthump*

Someone was approaching. And fast. But from where?

He waved his hands in front of him. Alright, at least he was still invisible.

Keldon squeezed himself against the wall, his eyes bouncing around to find the source of the noise. Which tunnel were they coming from?

But the noise didn’t come from a connected tunnel, but rather from one of the dead ends. To his right, where the sewage streamed into the dark abyss, a dark figure dropped down behind the grate with a thud. Not a splash, but a thud.

For some strange reason, the river of sewage bent around the figure’s dark black pants. The figure bore a grainy mask with a gnarled cracked horn and small slits for eyeholes. They flicked back their cloak and swirled their left hand in a half-circle. A skill orb shimmered beneath their hand with a wave,

*Activate Skill: Greater Slip*

“A skill user!” thought Keldon.

The dark figure stepped towards the grate and the iron bars seemed to bend around their presence, as they walked through with a casual stride. And as soon as they passed the grate, the bars snapped back into place, the rigidity slapped back into them.

The figure hopped up onto the sidewalk, taking off in a jog around the corner as Keldon’s heart pounded against his chest. There were dozens of different footprints here. How long would it be until someone else came along that he could follow after?

He made up his mind. Keldon turned the corner and kept low to the ground, chasing after the figure into the sewers of Kharburn.