Ephin and Beth stared back at the seemingly hundreds of eyes forming a dark wall of pulsating shadow. They were back in the sewers. Back where they had found the beasts that had butchered so many above and below ground. They were now in a stand-off, their tiny lights being the only things keeping the beasts from immediately diving in to devour them both.

Neither Ephin nor Beth wanted to say anything, on the off chance that the sound broke the tense, unspoken truce between the two parties.

Ephin tried to move first. He slid his foot back, as slowly as he could. The soles of the boots he wore were already under the thin layer of water on the stone path, so he tried to keep it that way, to reduce any possible sound made by him moving.

Beth noticed he was inching back, but refused to look away from the monstrosities in the shadows. As she tried to copy him, she realized her feet were stuck. Not physically, however she felt the same fear the man they had met must have felt. Wanting to move, yet frozen in fear.

She lowered a hand to her belt, as slowly and calmly as she could, reaching for another metal slab to bend and explode. Instead, as her hand was halfway to her pouch, an explosion much like one she wanted to cause, rocked the sewers, sending larger waves pushing down the central river and lapping up to Beth and Ephin’s knees.

The light from the explosion lit up an area somewhere behind the mass of rat-spider hybrids.

Both Ephin and Beth heard shouts, voices, but the sea of legs burst out in both directions, many to attack whatever had caused the explosion, and many, that were still watching Ephin and Beth, flooded to attack them instead.

Beth fumbled with the metal card pouch, dropping it and spilling the remaining few across the floor. Thankfully, they were too heavy to be lifted by the water, but they were all now out of Beth’s reach as the creatures descended upon her. Ephin rushed to action, sending out a flurry of glowing fists to beat back the closest beasts to Beth as she scrambled backwards, setting her glove to its electric mode.

“When I say jump, you jump,” Beth said, as she reached where Ephin was standing. She got to her feet and aimed at the ground, near the metal cards. Ephin caught on immediately. “Jump!”

Both she and Ephin leapt into the air and, in the split moment they did, the holy fists dissipated and Beth shot a bolt of electricity at the water covered floor, the soaking spider-rats, and the submerged metal explosives.

Whilst the previous explosion from the other people in the sewers was impressive and rocked where Ephin and Beth had been standing, the resulting chain reaction of the electricity hitting all Beth’s metal slabs at once dwarfed the initial blast.

The slabs blew up all at once, sending flaming chunks of the closest spider-rats shooting out in all directions. The ones that weren’t initially blown up were either electrocuted by the shock wave, crushed by portions of falling street and debris, or ran screeching from the small fires of meaty remains. Both Beth and Ephin were slapped out of the air by the blast, hitting the stone path hard, splashing and rolling to a stop.

Broken pieces of stone scattered around them, cutting and bruising them slightly.

Ephin was the first to his feet, helping to pull Beth up also. He looked across, past the shadows that the remaining rat-spiders clung to and over at a patch of light. Three people stood looking back at them, each of them holding flaming torches in one hand and weapons in another.

One of them waved their torch over their head, waving at Ephin and Beth. Beth waved back with her small everflame and all three of them began waving in earnest.

“Pretty eager to say hi,” Ephin said, “don’t you think?”

“Weird if you ask me,” Beth replied, “almost as if they aren’t…saying hi…”

Beth spun around and started blasting more shock waves with her glove, not at the water but into the shadows. Even more rat-spiders had amassed behind them, filling the sewers in a writhing cluster of legs, bulbous taught skin and snarling jaws.

Ephin fell back in surprise at the number of beasts firing glowing fists up from the ground like fireworks, punching at anything getting too close. At this point, however, it was like fighting the tide.

Both Ephin and Beth continued to back up, back to where they had set off the explosions, before the area started to light up. The three torch-bearing sewer delvers approached from behind them, swinging their torches out in front to fend off the rat-spiders.

“Scared of fire,” the central woman said, “there’s always a weakness.”

Ephin nodded, trying to push the horde back with the assistance of the others.

“We need to go that way,” Ephin said, pointing directly into the mass of legs.

“Well,” the woman replied, “we need to take out as many of these things as possible, so I guess we have a similar heading for a little while.”

“What are you doing down here?” Beth asked.

“The nice big bounty the city watch put out yesterday. Are you not?”

“Let’s assume we are for now,” Beth said.

“Better not, that would mean we’re competition.” One of the men flanking the woman said, swaying his flaming stick back and forth to keep a braver rat-spider back.

“We don’t want your bounty,” Ephin said, “you can have it, don’t worry.”

“Then what are you doing down here?” The woman asked.

“We lost a friend down here, we lost a few actually. We’re here to get them back,” Beth said.

“Nice, I guess you’ll meet them soon then,” the other man said.

“Are you two twins?” Beth asked.

“No, why?” The left one said.

“You’re both just as bad at being polite as each other and your faces don’t help the socializing situation either.”

Both of them turned their attention to Beth, moving from the large rat-spiders for a split second, the creatures taking the opportunity to attempt an assault, but the woman stood her ground and blew on her torch, shooting out a spiraling cloud of flame. Ephin was sure he had seen a fire eater do that in a carnival when he was young.

The closest beasts were charred and set alight instantly, the next closest scattering as much as they could, even with the ones behind them forcing them forwards.

“You, girl, whilst called for, not the time,” the woman said roughly, sounding like she had just downed an entire bottle of a strong spirits.

Beth nodded, eyeing the two men that were shooting glares right back at her. Then she heard a dull thud, followed rapidly by another. The screeching picked up again, drowning out the sound, however, just like when they had been attacked by the torchbearers, the horde of rat-spiders seemed distracted by something elsewhere.

All five of the group stepped back to prepare for whatever was making its way through the rat-spiders. Methodical. Determined. Machine-like.

Hunter’s fist burst through the torso of a rat-spider attempting to escape. Speared on Hunter’s arm, the beast screeched and gnawed and clawed, crumpling up in pain as Hunter grabbed its head and pulled his arm free, through the rest of the creature.

The metal man was covered head to toe in all kinds of organic matter. Some from the sewer, but the smell and look of that was covered by layer upon layer of blood and sinew from the countless rat-spiders Hunter had torn through.

“Hello,” Hunter said, “I noticed you had returned below ground and sought to find you.”

“Hi Hunter,” Beth said, keeping her distance from the reeking robot.

“One of your friends?” The woman said, pointing a flaming stick at Hunter to better shed light on the bodily juices covering him.

“Indeed he is,” Beth said with a grim smile, “time to go find the rest of them. You coming with?" She turned to the three flame wielding bounty hunters, who all shook their heads. The woman first and the men following suit.

“We have more of these creatures to deal with,” she said, “but thank you for helping out a little.”

“Little?” Ephin asked.

“My bounty, my rules.”

The three said their goodbyes and continued down one of the sewer paths that half of the rat-spiders had retreated down, leaving Beth, Ephin and Hunter to start their journey through the dark once more, searching for the right path back to the Brixith Order.

“Perhaps it’s a good thing that the fire is still going,” Ephin remarked, “keeps the creepy things back.”

They had successfully made their way back to the smoke infested headquarters. The remaining rat-spiders seemed less than eager to spread out too far into the sewers, keeping together close to where they had originally been found.

“I hope those people deal with them,” Beth said, “or there is no chance I’m staying in High Morr longer than I need to. Too gross for me.” She turned to Hunter, back to standing at attention. “Speaking of, go wash yourself off. You smell awful.”

“Of course,” Hunter said, nodding, “unfortunately I do not register scents, thank you for informing me of your discomfort.”

As Hunter walked out of the headquarters to go and find a suitable stream to wash off the blood and guts in the sewer, Beth and Ephin discussed their next steps.

“So,” Beth said, “I have the key to whatever or wherever the relic is. This empty book. You need belongings from Iarkspur or Jadon to perform the ritual. How about you go look for those, while I try and figure out this book?”

“Sounds like a plan,” Ephin said, moving to walk down one of the corridors as Beth sat in the mess hall, planning to use the raging fire as light for working with the book. “Once you’re done reading, I’d appreciate a little help searching this whole base for clues, though.”

“Oh, I’d appreciate a little help,” Beth mumbled to herself as she opened up the empty book and mulled over the riddle that led to her possessing it. “We found it before getting frostbit, in the knowledge place. That riddle really sucked and whoever wrote it should be ashamed of themselves.” Beth couldn’t see anything special about any individual pages, even held up in front of the fire, nothing was revealed. She slammed the book shut, looking over the hardback cover. It was plain on the front and back. Whoever made the book put as much effort into it as they did writing the stupid riddle, Beth thought irritably. The spine is nice though. A ship and a shield, like that ruin we found Jackson in. Beth then caught herself, her mind on a string as it connected two dots she hadn’t considered.

“Doom at the helm doesn’t mean the palace,” She said to herself, “it literally means ship. The helm of a ship.”

Excitedly, she studied the spine of the book, running her fingers along the two symbols. The ship was raised ever so slightly and if she felt lower… nothing. The shield was as smooth as the rest of the cover. Narrowing her eyes, she pressed delicately on the ship symbol. She felt a little bit of give.

“Booyah!” She shouted, before looking around, hoping nobody heard. “Booyah,” she whispered to herself again.

Remembering the consistent deadly traps of Jackson’s ruins and A.D.A.M.’s vault, she held the book as far from her as she could, before pressing down on the ship and dropping it, just in case it was another trap and blew up.

The book fell open, Beth’s repeated looks at the empty first page keeping it from opening any further. The book resting on the floor, Beth crawled up to it, too excited to stand. From where the ship was on the cover, ink appeared to be flooding the pages of the book, floating up to the top and filling out the front page. The ink was light, translucent. The pages began to wrinkle up slightly and Beth’s curiosity took control. She dabbed her finger on the page and tasted the liquid. Salty. Seawater. But why? Beth thought as the water stopped spreading and immediately began to freeze over.

In this part of the world, it wasn’t unlikely that the water would freeze, however this far underground and next to a raging fire, it was impossible. Beth grabbed the book in desperation, hoping that she didn’t begin the destruction of their only lead.

“No, no, no, no,” she repeated, trying to prise the pages apart to salvage at least something.

Do you wish to proceed?

The ice wrote across the first page, her thumb getting a sharp ice burn from the embellished writing style.

“Ah damn,” Beth hissed. This is all we have, she thought, and continued out loud with a simple, yet pained, “yes.”

The stinging in her thumb dragged up and out, gradually spread across half of her palm, excruciatingly painful. She could see the ice starting to melt from the book’s surface however.

Do you wish to proceed?

The writing appeared once more.

In agony, Beth pushed on and the ice melted further, her entire hand now screaming in pain as she stayed silent.

Share in the pain I once endured to receive the right to the path of knowledge. Do you wish to proceed?

“In for a thumb, in the whole way,” Beth stammered, trying to suppress her pained whimpers. The rest of the ice fell away from the book, the water following, the drops turning to dust before they hit the ground.

Beth’s entire arm felt like it was on fire. She looked away from the front page she had been so engrossed in, at the hand, and subsequent arm, holding the book up. From just below her shoulder, all the way down to the tips of her fingers, her limb was encased in ice. Tentatively, she tried to move it. It moved just like her normal arm would be expected to move. It was simply made of ice instead of skin and bone now.

She looked at the book, now that the ice had melted away and dropped it on the ground immediately.

Whilst the book was now filled with what looked like extensive notes and writings, every page, even the cover, looked like it was made from human flesh and bone. Her flesh and bone.

Now, Beth allowed herself to scream.