The resulting explosion staggered James backwards into the control room door. Gore and clumps of rat meat flew in every direction as a spray of blood splattered the walls and the lower walkway. After wiping his face, James noticed that the Rat King was still alive. Its lower half was gone, but its upper half was mainly on the upper walkway, claws locked onto the metal grate. James walked over slowly to the dying creature. Its eyes had already turned milky, and its jaw was working open and closed, but no sound was coming out. He wasn't surprised by the pop-up notification.

Congratulations! You have defeated the Sewer Rat King!

A Boss of the Drowned Sewer Dungeon.

Reward - 200 (220) Experience and 10 (11) Free Advantage points

James stood staring at the upper portion of the Rat for a few moments before Rocko interrupted his thoughts. "Now we know." James just nodded.

James arrived to the platform the Rat King started from without getting too much gore on his armour. He cast another Heal Self III due to the damage he took from the Rat King raking his stomach, but that was the only hit he took during the battle. Which was pretty good, considering the Rat King was formidable. He tried to collect his arrows, but the ones he found were damaged. This left him with only five arrows and a promise to figure out a way to carry more. The platform was nothing special other than the glowing blue portal that was so inviting.

"You just have one more Giant Gar to kill," Rocko reminded him.

James nodded, "Just."

"Feel up for some fishing?" Rocko quipped.

"I didn't get the Skill last time."

"I don't think using a dagger and some rope counts as fishing." Rocko corrected him.

James frowned, "I think I will explore that last tunnel before deciding what to do with the Gar."

After watching James rest for almost an hour, Rocko followed along as James led the way down the last tunnel. The tunnel didn't go too far before it ended in a room similar to the chamber where he found the Spider Queen. There was a control room on the left side of the chamber, but there were no spider webs this time. The water was stagnant instead of there being a drain.

James tested every metal grate and moved carefully along the walkway expecting a trap. He checked the stairs leading up to the upper walkway several times before just climbing the outside of the stairs. He could not see into the room, but he could see a red glow in the room through the window. The door was closed but not locked. So James opened the door carefully. The room was empty except for the red glow of a portal.

"Red?" James asked.

"It means that you can't go through it. You have to do something to make it turn blue." Rocko explained.

James looked around the room, "Any ideas?"

"I would say it has something to do with the graffiti you found."

James agreed and headed back towards the last control room for a lantern. Arriving at the body of the Rat King, he decided he would try his hand at fishing again.

The Giant Gar took the bait. It snapped up the haunch of Rat King meat that James dangled in the water. While the Giant Gar was swimming by, James thought it looked a little larger than the last one he fought.

James had the foresight to tie the rope to the metal guard rail and then wrapped it around his waist a couple of times for support. Putting his foot against the railing support bar, he held on to it when the Giant Gar reached the end of his rope.

James was not expecting the metal bar to snap when the rope drew taut, and he was not expecting to be dragged into the water. Any attempt to draw breath was met with a mouthful of sewer water.

'You need to activate your Water Breathing,' Rocko sent him.

James shook his head, reaching for a boot knife. He cut the rope and instantly came to a stop. Swimming toward the walkway, James reached up and grabbed the metal grate. Spitting something out of his mouth that he didn't want to identify, James looked for the retreating Gar. James looked over at Rocko to see him on his back, laughing his ass off.

James caught sight of the Gar heading straight for him before he had time to pull himself out of the water. Trying to throw himself out of the way, James failed, and it was able to latch onto his arm. He had no choice but to activate Water Breathing when the Giant Gar dragged him beneath the water's surface.

The Giant Gar was biting down hard on the arm, and James felt the bone snap, but he didn't relent. Using one PSI Bolt after another, he used all his PSI to kill the bastard that was forcing him to breathe sewer water. Fortunately, using PSI Powers does not require any vocalization, but breathing water requires him to take into his mouth and pass it through his newly formed gills.

Congratulations! You have completed the Kill Quest - Giant Gar 3/3

Reward: 250 Experience (+25 for Dungeon Friend)

James dismissed the notification and crawled out of the water and onto the walkway. He did his best to clear his airways of the sewer's foulness. More than anything, the smell made him heave more than once. Sadly, the contents of his stomach soon joined the water below.

Using a liberal amount of water from his water skin, James washed his face and rinsed out his mouth as best he could. The smell was stuck in his nose, and he knew he would have difficulty clearing it out. He was a distance from the control room with the red portal and was not disposed to move.

James finally made it back to the control room with the red portal. He had stopped along the way to shower with most of his remaining water. He changed his undergarments and put his armour away to dry. The worst was his hair. His new avatar had much longer hair than he was used to, and there were things in it that he really didn't want to touch. Still, after using his helm as a wash basin, he could get most of the unidentifiable stuff and some identifiable things out of his hair. The stink in the area was still strong, but at least it wasn't coming from him.

When James lit the Lantern of Revealing showed that the walls were covered with symbols. There were hundreds of them of different sizes, colours and at different angles.

"Do you recognize these?" James asked.

"Yes. They are the symbols for the different gods." Rocko explained. "I can't tell you the names of each of them, but most I know and some I recognize. Others, I am not too sure about."

James pulled out the parchment he had used to illustrate the graffiti, "What do these have to do with the graffiti?"

"Isn't that what you are supposed to figure out?" Rocko chuckled.

James laid out the five pictures on the table and looked them over. Nothing seemed to stand out to him as he had already looked at these images a few times. Turning the pages around didn't seem to do anything, nor changing their order.

It took them nearly an hour to confirm that the colours were important. Each symbol on the wall was colour and colours, matching the colours on the parchment. Now it was just a matter of figuring out how to extract the image of a symbol from the graffiti.

Another hour passed before. They had their first symbol: Avarum in red. Looking around the room, they found two symbols of Avarum, one red and one green.

"So, do we press it? Touch it? Say it? What?" Rocko asked.

"Saying it won't help since there are colours involved. Who is this Avarum, anyway?"

"The god of Greed. Money. Wealth. Or, more specifically, the love of money." Rocko explained.

"So, selecting this option may reward us with great wealth?" James asked.

Rocko nodded, "Seems like. Shall we keep looking?"

James agreed, and they spent another hour piecing together different coloured pieces of parchment that James had cut up. The second symbol was Sapientia in green.

"The god of Wisdom, Knowledge and good sense. So far, these two have been Major Deities."

Using the lantern, they could find only one symbol for Sapientia, and it was in green. James looked at the clippings still on the table. There were five more colours, but there wasn't enough to make a symbol out of the blue, yellow or brown. But there was enough for orange and purple. Making a decision, James went back to the table and worked on figuring out the last two symbols.

The third symbol was Bona in purple. But as hard as they tried, they could not get a symbol to come together for the colour orange.

"Bona is the god of treasures. But I have heard merchants whisper her name and even gamblers. So, take from that what you will." Rocko offered.

James pointed to the three symbols on the wall. "So we have three symbols. Bona, Sapientia and Avarum. Three different rewards, maybe? Equipment, Experience and Wealth."

Rocko nodded in agreement, "This could be a bonus reward quest. You go through the portal, and you get your reward. After making your choice."

"I am leaning towards either Bona or Sapientia," James confided.

Rocko shook his head, "Sapientia all the way. You need experience if you want to catch up to the other Champions."

James smiled, "A good piece of gear can make all the difference. Especially if it is Rare or higher Rarity."

Rocko frowned, "Agreed, but worst case, you buy it. You can't buy Experience, Attribute Points, Skill Points or Advantage Points."

James thought, "Do you think that is what that would reward, one of those four?"

Rocko shrugged again, "Who can say. I know that the Dungeon can certainly reward any of those four, but which will be the reward. Who can say."

James walked over to his kit and started putting on his armour again. Once he was ready with his sword and shield at the ready, he walked over to the wall, touched the Sapientia symbol, and said his name aloud. The red portal flickered and turned blue, but a pop-up notification blocked James' vision.

Congratulations! You have completed the Puzzle Quest.

Reward: 1000 experience (+100 for Dungeon Friend), +1 to All Attributes (+1 Free Attribute Point for Dungeon Friend), +1 to All Skills (+2 Free Skill points for Dungeon Friend), 50 Free Advantage points (+5 Free Advantage points)

James swore, and Rocko whistled.

"What the hell?"

Rocko shook his head in disbelief, "The difficulty on the Puzzle Quest must have been really high."

"Could you imagine what we would have got if we had selected Bona?" James gasped.

"Don't think of what you could have, be glad for what you do have. Now check your notifications. I threw in a surprise for you."

James eyed Rocko suspiciously, then opened up his notifications.

You have the opportunity to learn a new Skill!

Do you wish to learn FISHING?

YES NO

Intelligence +1

Luck +1

Back Attack +1

Information Gathering +1

Perception +1

Ranged - Short Bow +1

Swimming +1

"Fishing? Really?" James looked at Rocko. "How come I didn't get that earlier?"

Rocko smiled, "You did, but I thought it would be funnier to hold off on you gaining it until the end of the Dungeon. And it was!"

Congratulation! Perception (M) has reached level 10.

You gain the Advantage PSI SENSITIVE. The Advantage allows you to sense the active use of PSI Powers within 4 m of you (excluding your own).

James shared the information with Rocko, "That seems interesting."

Rocko thought about it, "It is almost like Mana Sense, but for PSI. Interesting ability to get. I will have to share it with the others."

James opened his Status Screen and smiled at the increases.

Name: James Gleason Race: Glrick Class: Shadow Knight Specialization: Level: 13 XP to next level: 3867/4000 Armour Rating: 40 Age: 42 Rank: 782 Unarmed Damage: 29 Health: 410 Glrick Sword: 1d6 + 48 Stamina: 145 Bow of Piercing: 2d6 + 45 Mana: 370 Mana Regen/Min 6.17 PSI: 590 PSI Regen/Min 9.83 ATTRIBUTES Unspent Attribute Pts: 26 Strength * 24 Agility 25 Dexterity 18 Endurance 16 Willpower 20 Intelligence * 35 Charm 16 Luck 14 SKILLS Unspent Skill Pts: 14 Analyze 12 Armour – Medium 11 Astral Navigation 8 Back Attack 7 Crit Strike – Sword 7 Evasion (M) 11 Info Gathering 6 Inspect 11 Meditation 8 Melee – Glrick (M) 8 Melee – Knife 2 Melee – Sword 5 Melee – Unarmed 5 Negotiation 2 PSI – Targeted 11 Ranged – Short Bow 4 Perception (M) 11 Res – Mental 2 Res – Debuff 4 Res – Pain 8 Res – Poison 7 Shield 13 Stealth 11 Swimming 4 Unspent Advantage Pts 126

* Modified by an Enchanted Item (+5).

Congratulation! Willpower has reached level 20.

Your chance to resist mind-influencing abilities has improved by 4%.

Mana and PSI generated from this Attribute have increased by 20%.

James leaned against the door table, "I think I am going cross-eyed."

"That was a lot of information. A lot of good stuff, a Skill and an Attribute hit a threshold. You got a big bump in Advantage points, and I am liking your PSI pool. All in all, a delightful day."

"Except for all the shit," James grumbled as he stepped into the portal.