A cracking sound behind me caused me to turn, expecting a third enemy to jump out and attack before we got to safety. But judging by Roknar’s satisfied expression, he was done. After taking another set of teeth from the second dog’s loot bag, I took up position, just in case that last enemy I was expecting would jump at us from the sewer-grate he had just opened.

But, contrary to my expectations, nothing jumped out to attack us and we could slip into the sewers without further incident. The sewers were different from what I had expected and just what I had expected at the same time. Part of me, the slightly scholarly part, had expected something that would fit with what I had read about sewers in antique cities of reality, something cramped, foul smelling and obviously dark, as there wouldn’t be any lighting installed or maintained. The other part, the part that had played video games in the past, had expected a wide tunnel, almost large enough to fit a car into it, with a chest-deep body of water between walkways on either side, with bridges allowing to cross from one side to the other, maybe with secret side-tunnels and the odd monster-rat, illuminated by flickering torches that were regularly changed and maintained, so they wouldn’t burn out.

The sewers in Irminsul were of the regular, video-game variety, something I was rather grateful for. I had no desire to wade in excrement, virtual or otherwise, and had a feeling that, if the programmers had made it realistic with the appropriate texture and smell, I would have either uninstalled the game and never touched it again or decided to try my luck on a sneak-mission through a hostile city, just so I wouldn’t have to go down there.

But no, the grate Roknar had opened allowed us to drop roughly a meter down, landing on a relatively narrow walkway next to a cloudy body of liquid. There was no overly intrusive smell and the walls, ceiling and the walkway itself were giving off a soft light, not bright enough to cast visible shadows, just enough to see.

“Where do we go from here?” I asked Roknar behind me, while looking around, searching for potential threats.

“Give me a moment, I need to seal this.” he answered, closing the grate behind us and, again, using his magic on it. The additional delay made me think that there would be more enemies, causing my to tense up, ready to spring into action in an instant.

But apparently, the designers had some perverse sense of humour, knowing that most gamers would expect the usual number and design, they had broken from it. There was no additional enemy, causing my vigilance to spike even further, a sense of foreboding haunting me. I was expecting anything from zombies leaping out of the foul liquid beside us to soldiers suddenly jumping down from the roads above.

“Good, this is done.” Roknar said behind me, causing me to almost fall into the liquid from being startled.

“So, where to?” I asked, tense.

He placed his hand on the stone beneath us, closing his eyes for a second before answering, “There are signs. We should go this way.” he pointed towards the right. Not having even the slightest clue where we were or should go, I simply went with his suggestion, slowly padding forward, sword in hand.

The sense of foreboding was even stronger now, the slightly strange illumination and the lack of shadows making me feel uneasy.

“We should get over to that tunnel.” Roknar spoke up, pointing to a side-tunnel on the other side of the liquid. Even if it was only virtual, there was no way, not in this world or any other, that I would wade through raw sewage, the idea of respawning was more palatable to me.

“Let’s go look for a bridge.” I answered, peering down the tunnels around us, looking for an indication of one. Sadly, there was only one way to go, either forward or back, so I continued following the path we were on, trying to make a mental map.

Suddenly, I stopped, causing Roknar to almost bump into me. There was a faint, skittering noise nearby, causing me to look at the surroundings closely until I noticed a drainage pipe right above the water-level a few steps in front of me. As I watched it, a set of claws appeared on it and a furry thing crawled out, in a move that I felt should get it in trouble with the laws of physics.

Focusing on it brought up its health-bar and the level-indicator, telling me that it was level two. Now that it had crawled onto the walkway, I was reasonably sure it was supposed to be a rat. Only that it was the size of a small dog and ugly as sin. Whoever had designed the model, they had some great attention to detail, the way the fur was crusted with things I didn’t want to think about, to say nothing of touching them.

But I would likely be forced to, as the rat was skittering towards me, forcing me to deal with it.

Acting similarly to the way I had with the first dog, I waited until it got close before swinging my sword in an attempt to keep it back. My first, rather half-hearted, swing, missed, simply going through it without causing damage. Or maybe it was just bad luck that the system decided to count the attack as a miss, based on attribute-calculations.

Emboldened by my failure, the rat tried to bite my leg, which I quickly pulled back, but as I did, I realised that it gave me an opening and, after pulling it back, I simply swung my leg back forward, in an improvised soccer-kick. Part of me imagined a loud voice calling out that I had scored a goal and that I was now world-champion when the rat was thrown back a few steps, taking some damage in the process and giving me space.

It obviously hadn’t learned anything from the first exchange and tried to get me again, but this time, the numbers came up good for me and I managed to get a solid hit with my sword, before kicking it a second time. This time, it managed to scratch my leg, dealing a small amount of damage, but I was cleary winning the fight.

Roknar was just watching from behind as I repeated the “strike with sword, kick away” routine three more times, the rat not managing to do more than occasionally scratch me, until it finally stopped moving. But while the direct damage of its attacks was miniscule, they had inflicted me with a debuff, dealing a little more damage over the one-minute duration and lowering my endurance a little. Nasty, little bugger that thing. But it gave me sixty EXP, almost getting me my first level-up. I would have to find things to kill, or quests to do, otherwise, I’d never get to level hundred, the current maximum-level. Additionally, I wondered just why I didn’t get the one-handed sword skill, either the presence of the Sergeant had greatly increased the skill-acquisition-rate or there was something else I was missing.

Given that I had a debuff on me, I just waited the few seconds until it despawned, slightly disappointed that there was no loot. But it gave me a moment to look at the messages I had ignored for quite some time now, ever since we escaped the Arena.

New Title: Arsonist

Such pretty, flickering flames, licking on wood, consuming fuel, burning, blazing. There is beauty in the destructive nature of fire and you consider yourself and artist.

Non-magical fires you set burn 25% longer

When selected, this title also increases the duration of magical fires you cause, in addition to increasing the fire-damage you deal by 5%. Your actions have been noticed… Your relationship with the Human Empire is now unfriendly.

The title made me smile, it was the same that I would have started with as a raider, while the box afterwards was not ominous at all. But there was nothing to be done about it, so, with Roknar in tow, I continued my slow progress through the sewers.