Mythica. Book 2, Chapter 8.

Chapter 8.

“We’re in the sewer proper now, as you can probably smell. It’s not far to where you wanted to go, but it is a tight fit in a couple of places, Dretch whispered to Sabine. Sound carried far in the tunnels, and every clank of gear against the carved stone sewer walls sounded like a loud gong to her. So far, they hadn’t run into any trouble, and they were making slow but steady progress.

The sewer was little more than a standard, squared tunnel that had been carved into the rock. In the center was a shallow trench about a foot and a half deep where the sewage flowed. In some parts, the sewage overflowed the trench and left the men no option but to walk, sometimes up to their shins, in the filthy water.

Outside the battle should be starting soon, but she wouldn’t hear anything while underground. Thankfully, the smell of the sewer didn’t bother her like it did most of the others. An occasional gag was heard at first, adding to the noise they were making, but as others became somewhat accustomed to the smell, the gagging stopped.

Eyes of Undeath was proving not very useful here. Small rats, bugs, and patches of moss and fungus thrived in the filth and overloaded her senses. Spotting a danger would be like trying to spot a firefly’s flickering light in the noontime sun. They entered an older section of the sewer that was narrower, and without as much filth flowing down it.

“This here is a shortcut, part of the old sewer that we bypassed when the new one was dug out about ten years ago. It’s still not a place you’d want to spend your vacation, but we can use it to get almost all the way to the alley you wanted to reach,” Dretch said.

More commotion was heard behind Sabine, and the sound of men grunting and scraping against the narrow sewer walls grew. Looking back, Sabine soon spotted the source. It was Skrix, the was pushing his way past the others and waving toward her to get Sabine’s attention. She had left Skrix about ten people back, next to Orren so he could keep an eye on him.

“Sabine-boss, I scent-seek something. There is danger,” Skrix said.

“Scent what? I don’t know who, or what, you are, but this is a sewer. It always stinks here,” Dretch said.

“Skrix is a verminkin, and he knows the underground areas better than any of us. If he says there’s danger, it would be wise to listen to him,” Sabine told their guide.

“Sabine-boss, I smell something I know, something from the Darkrealm. I smell-sense a drip-killer-thingy,” Skrix said. The verminkin looked scared and his eyes darted around as he looked for the threat that he thought he sensed.

Normally, Sabine had a good idea of what Skrix was talking about. He was picking up common quickly enough, and her Translator of the Fallen would fill in any gaps. The only problem was when he got excited and started using Verminkin slang for describing things, most of that was clan related and the Translator of the Fallen just gave her an understanding of the standard language for any species that had once graced Gnessos’ domain.

“I don’t know what a drip-killer-thingy is Skrix, describe it to me,” she demanded.

“It’s, uh, liquid monster-thingy that drops on you to eat you. There! There it is, move,” Skrix said pushing Sabine and Dretch forward as water poured from the ceiling. Her undead instincts kicked in and it was all she could do to not attack Skrix. Muffled screams distracted her enough that her rage calmed as her horror at what was happening in front of her increased.

Pushing out from cracks in the ceiling was a gelatinous mass. It dropped faster than something that thick should have been able to accomplish. The mass covered the two guardsmen behind Sabine. It would have landed on her and Dretch if Skrix hadn’t intervened. Completely covered, the men tried to scream, their shouts muffled by the slimy mass squirming disturbingly on top of them.

One of the guardsmen behind the engulfed pair reached in to pull his comrade out, only to find he was stuck and being pulled inside the creature that was still taking shape as more of it oozed from the ceiling. The slime pulled itself up the would-be rescuer’s arm and jerked him off his feet, pulling him on top of the others. Wasting no time, the clear slime covered the third victim, whose muffled cries joined the other two.

“Stay back, don’t touch drip-killer-thingy. You can’t stab-smash it, it do no good, only make it mad, not hurt it. Thingy will eat now, and not attack if you don’t get near it,” Skrix warned.

“Can we burn it or something? It’s blocking our path,” Hamilcar said. He was on the other side of the monster and behind him, Sabine could see the familiar glow of Orren’s mana as he furiously scribbled in his compendium.

“Unless you happened to pack a whole lot of lantern oil, I don’t think one torch is going to do much good against that. Even if we could burn it, the smoke would kill us all in the process,” Dretch said.

The victims had stopped moving, either suffocating or succumbing to whatever the gelatinous monster was doing to them. Flesh started to dissolve as the monster began to digest the victims before their eyes. It was slightly translucent, having only a slight blue-green sheen to it that distorted vision. Between the flickering torchlight and the glow of Orren’s mana, they could see some of what had been happening to the guardsmen, they were just helpless to do anything about it.

“Is there another way around that you can guide us through?” Hamilcar asked. Sabine, Dretch, his son, Skrix, and two guardsmen were on this side of the monster, but the bulk of their forces were stuck on the other side.

“Not an easy path, and I would need to be there to remember the twists and turns. Will this thing go away when it’s done?” Dretch asked.

“Eventually,” Orren said. He was done documenting the creature in his compendium and now knew most of its secrets. “Once its fed, it will retreat back into the cracks it poured out of until more victims happen by. Even when it retreats, it will attack again once it senses us passing under it,” Orren advised.

“I’m open to ideas but popping up in the nearest sewer grate is a likely to get us spotted and killed long before we accomplish our goals,” Hamilcar said. Sabine tried to come up with something. Her mana might be able to harm it, but the creature would likely latch onto and engulf her like it did with the others if she tried to attack it up close. Maybe Reckoning’s range enhancement would help, there was little chance it could climb up the chain of her flail before she could drop it.

Sabine stopped herself, that might be it. The curse on Reckoning could be the answer. If anyone tried to grab her weapon, it would cause corruption and decay to spread across their body. There was no reason it shouldn’t work on a monster as well as it did on humanoids.

“Everyone, stay back, I’m going to try something,” Sabine ordered. She walked a few paces closer and got ready to toss Reckoning. The weapon chose that moment to protest, filling her mind with images of battle and trying to drive her into a frenzy. It was outraged she would use it this way, and rebelled against her with all the might it could muster.

This was an old struggle for Sabine, one she had mastered several times already. It pushed feelings of disgust into her mind. How could she take such a powerful weapon and toss something of its magnificence into the filthy slime? She should meet the creature in true battle like a warrior should and show Skelf Hirrag that she was worthy to wield him.

“No, I am master here!” She roared in her mind at the weapon as she tossed it on top of the gelatinous monster.

The creature was thick like jelly, and it took a few seconds for the weapon to sink into it completely. Sabine could feel it start to happen, the curse took effect and corruption began to spread slowly across the monster. After she had defeated the champion of Zalzaran, the god of corruption and decay, she had gained some limited control over those aspects. She had the title Zalzaran’s Bane, and it promised much more as her knowledge of it grew.

Her control over corruption and decay was enough that it allowed her to see the progress of the curse as it took root in the creature. The monster began to react as she watched tendrils of black decay snake out from Reckoning as it moved deeper into the monster. Convulsing, the monster began to push Reckoning through its body, in a few seconds, the flail was spat out of the gelatinous body and clanked on the ground next to it.

The monster had placed the flail right next to its body. Any attempt to retrieve it would leave Sabine in range of its attack. Next, the monster began to push the patches of corruption out, working faster than the curse could spread. This was their only chance to defeat the monster and continue on their way, she couldn’t let it survive.

Her mana reached out; lines of darkness that were only visible to Sabine flowed toward the creature. She could feel the corruption inside it, the curse trying to multiply, but gobs of the corrupted flesh were being spat out just like it had done with Reckoning. Sabine reached out to one of the corrupted areas of the creature, touching it with her mana. She needed to feed it, to encourage it to grow faster.

Reckoning had spread it curse throughout the monster as it had sunk inside, but the monster was huge enough to engulf three men and have room for another three if it could reach them. The curse only affected the small area that Reckoning had touched as it passed through its body. It was a race that the corruption was losing, the creature pushing out small bits of its corrupted body to save the rest.

She could feel the corruption with her mana, and even encourage its growth, but the process was clumsy and something she had only tried a few times before. Frustration mounted, if they couldn’t get past this monster soon, the odds of success would drop to near zero, as would their chance of surviving the battle. Instead of losing herself to the frustration, Sabine harnessed it, using it to spur her focus.

Working with the problem the same way she had worked to master and harness control over her mana, Sabine redoubled her efforts. When her mana touched the spots of corruption inside the monster, she stopped trying to coax it into growing. No, she was the master here and would not nudge the corruption along, she would force it to obey her will.

There was resistance, this was one of the aspects of a god who’s champion she had bested in battle, and she would best the ability granted to her. More corruption was spewed from the creature, but what remained inside finally answered her call as she invoked her title and demanded its obedience. One small patch, about to be expelled linked with Sabine’s mana, feeding off it spur its growth.

As it was pushed outside the body of the monster, the corruption sprouted new roots that dug deeper into the gelatinous body. It was still too slow, and the monster was pushing out the new tendrils of corruption faster than Sabine could force them to grow. It was the mana, she was feeding the corruption only a thin stream of the stuff, a trickle that amounted to a percentage of her mana pool being used every few seconds.

She couldn’t conserve now, she needed to overpower this thing. Pushing her will into the mana forced more and more though her connection with the corruption. A percentage point every few seconds became one a second, then two as the process stabilized. Her work in cultivating her Manipulate Mana ability gave her a 48% efficiency in all her abilities and that efficiency boost meant that each bit of mana she fed the corruption was amplified.

The tendrils of corruption became an explosion as it spread through the mass of the creature like series of veins inside a body. Quivering with effort, the monster tried to redouble its efforts, but Sabine was winning the race. Mana was draining away by the second, but the corruption was about to hit critical mass, and once it did, it would dissolve away this giant gelatinous horror even without her assistance.

By the time her mana pool dropped below 70%, Sabine could feel she was almost there. The corruption had spread throughout the beast, and it was sloughing off large chunks of itself in a futile effort to expel the rot growing inside it. Each chunk that hit the ground turned into a small dark pool of rot, every trace of the creature in each chunk was completely consumed by the curse.

At 62%, Sabine cut off the flow of mana, joining the others as they watched the monster slowly dissolve into a dark and watery pool. She was certain that the visual effects of her mana usage had been hidden, but everyone was looking at her with a mix of fear and awe. It was only then that she realized that she had raised her hands and pointed at the beast as she worked to destroy it.

“This is the result of the curse of Reckoning. Only I can wield this weapon and for any other to even hold it, is to risk this,” Sabine said as she picked up the flail and pointed to the now-dead creature. Let them believe it was her connection to the weapon she was manipulating, not some dark and possibly forbidden magic. She was a warrior first and foremost, not some mage.

“Sabine-boss kill slay the drip-killer-thingy. Nobody every kill-slay one this size by themselves before. It take whole pack of verminkin to gather-burn enough things to kill this kind of monster, not worth effort. Usually better just to scurry-hide from it, or feed it enemy-foe,” Skrix told the group.

“We can gawk at dissolved monsters later; we have a battle to fight. That thing can’t harm you now, let’s go,” Sabine ordered.  The others reluctantly stepped through the dark pool of liquid that had once been the creature. None were harmed as Sabine could sense none of it was left alive, the corruption had done its job thoroughly.

At least the death of the creature as well as the death of the three guardsmen left more than enough dark mana for her to absorb. She only needed small traces of light mana, and given a group this size, more than a few gave off tiny flecks of that energy. She wondered if they were worshipers of Ana-Sett. Not likely, that goddess wasn’t widely followed, but perhaps any faith with the same principles granted the same result as far as mana went.

“Maybe we should just have you offer your flail to our enemies, that would end the fight quickly enough,” Hamilcar joked as he joined her near the front of the column. She would have rather he placed himself further back in the formation, but the men weren’t likely to wander off in this place, especially after what they had just witnessed.

“The curse of Reckoning is bad, but you haven’t seen me wield it in battle yet. I can assure you that is a much more brutal end to our enemies than rotting them slowly, one at a time,” Sabine assured Hamilcar. He didn’t look convinced, but she knew he would be once the battle was joined.