Mai looked up as Andries walked into the company canteen, pausing to look around before spotting her and making his way over to where she was busily slurping away at noodles.

“Morning Mai, I’ve got a special task for you today,” he plonked himself opposite her and took a couple of prawn crackers from her bowl. “A good bit of training for you.”

“That costs me money you know,” she growled, not impressed with his cavalier attitude. She’d had a bad night’s sleep, plagued with dreams that knew hadn’t made sense at the time, but which she couldn’t clearly remember. As a result she was feeling more tired than when she actually went to bed.

“It does,” he crunched down hard on a cracker, “and I do. But this job will be worth it. We’ve had reports that Sewer Company Twenty-Five, the Decemberists, have been losing workers out in a junction tunnel. I was impressed by the way you handled yourself with the fat berg, and thought you’d be up for helping me out.”

Despite her tiredness, she was interested. Slicing up fatbergs was a never-ending task. Even with the hope that she might find something worth selling, it still slipped into mindless tedium. She slapped his hand away as he reached for another cracker.

“So we’re just going to do a patrol?” she asked before cramming every remaining cracker into her mouth as she stared unblinking into his eyes.

“Yeah. Might have to kill some things. Or find that the workers have run away, gone rogue. Or just got lost.”

“Run away? How the Hells do they get lost?”

“Yeah. Doesn’t happen much, but people crack and try to make life away from here. It’s not a great life and they have to live in constant fear of being tracked down by Urbexers and bounty hunters, but they claim at least they’re living free.” He rolled his eyes, clearly not thinking much of free life in a sewer. “And as for getting lost, the Celestial Court sometimes closes off sewers to change the flow, opens up new ones. You’d know that if you actually read the Sewer Worker’s Primer beyond chapter five. Complete it, and you get a new skill.”

He stared morosely at the empty cracker bowl. Mai waited for him to continue. He merely continued to stare. A quick toe punt to the shin brought him back to his senses with a yelp.

HIT! 0.5% DAMAGE

FINE – ASSAULT OF A CITIZEN 10UC

Gritting her teeth at his knowing smirk, she raised a questioning eyebrow.

“Fine! You get a cartographer level one skill. The primer gives you all the basic information you need to know about the sewers and those that complete it are rewarded. It means that you’re able to wander the sewers and build up a map of where you’ve been in greater detail than most people can, and you can then sell any new maps you make.”

“Sell new maps? Why the Hells didn’t I know about this?” Mai leaned forward, all tiredness banished at the idea of being able to map sewers new and old alike and sell the maps.

Having been practically led by the nose by other members of her work party since she'd arrived, she hadn’t really paid much attention to her minimap. Back home she had never needed one either as everywhere was so well signposted and within easy walking distance.

Opening up her minimap she blink-clicked on the app summary, reading that it was only filled in when she actually walked through an area or had a clear line of sight. Well-lit corridors and rooms would automatically populate, but parks or larger areas, as well as those with poor lighting would still remain unmapped. It would mark her direct position as well as a ten-pace diameter. Zooming in she saw that she’d passed a set of rooms three corridors back. For areas further out, the map would be fogged until she closed the distance. Flipping the map, she saw that it mapped upward and downward as well as outward.

“Probably because you didn’t get to chapter two. Ready?”

FIND OUT THE CAUSE OF THE MISSING SEWER WORKERS

DO YOU ACCEPT?

YES/NO

“Give me a couple of secs,” she raised the bowl to her mouth and sucked the noodles in as quickly as possible, ignoring the soup running down her chin. Chewing furiously she looked over and saw disgust written all over his face.

“Wha? Payforitgonnaeait,” she said, scooping a couple of noodles up as they fell from her mouth.

***

“Okay, we’re nearing where the group was sent to work,” Andries whispered. “Be ready to activate your combat skills, while using anything you have that’s passive. No need to worry though, walk in the park!” he flashed her a toothy grin and then his sewer worker clothing suddenly sprouted armoured plates and linked metal rings.

“Hey! How do I get that?”

“You can’t just yet, you have to hit level X in SEWER WORKER and also be involved in at least ten fights. This is called DELVER’S SHIELD. Just take a look on your menu, it’ll be greyed out.”

He waited as she used the search option to take her to the item. It was truly impressive. Less impressive was what she needed to do in order to get it.

Not only did she have to level up to X, she also had to be involved in ten battles against creatures at least two levels above her, defeat those creatures in less than three minutes from the start of the battle and do so using a SPECIALISED weapon.

A quick search told her that a SPECIALISED weapon gave her a ten per cent bonus in all skills related to that specific weapon, but a minus five per cent debuff in other weapons, as well as a minus one per cent in experience gained with those weapons.

Still, she decided that it was worth it. The suit would give her plus fifteen per cent protection against all BLUNT, CRUSH and BITE attacks, plus five per cent against HAZARDS such as gas, acid, acid gas and all the other nasty surprises that the sewers presented them with and had a SOAK of two hundred points.

Achieving it was a passive mission. All she had to do was hit the criteria, and it would be automatically awarded. ‘All’. It gave her something to aim for, however.

“Are you ready? No wonder you’ve not finished the Primer, you read slower than a blind man with no fingers!” Chuckling at his own joke, Andries set off down the sewer, clearly frustrated with her.

Grumbling, she closed the menu and followed in his footsteps. The flow of waste wasn’t too deep here, but she had learned by keeping close to him, she could cut down on the effort needed to push through the liquid.

Using her LARCENY, and SPOT HIDDEN skills she tried to look around the sewer to see if there was anything different.

Nope, still the usual shit-filled tunnel with crappy lighting and strange splashing sounds.

“Do you hear strange splashes?” Andries asked, as if he’d just read her mind.

“Yeah. Splash, then a pause, then another splash. Are they getting closer?”

Mai tilted her head, trying to work out whether the splashes were moving towards or away from them.

“Away I think?” she didn’t know if that was an answer or a question. The acoustics in here made it impossible to tell, but her gut told her it was moving away. She took a little longer then gave a firm nod. “Away.”

“Huh, yeah,” Andries moved off, slower this time. “It’s really regular. What the Hells would make such a noise?”

Not sure I really want to know, Mai thought, but didn’t say as she wasn’t going to give Andries an excuse to rib her. Every splash was interspersed with a regular pause. Without meaning too, Mai counted the pause between each splash to be roughly two seconds. Rather like someone hopping instead of walking normally.

As they proceeded, the splashing got louder and closer.

“We’re catching up to it,” whispered Mai, wincing at the sound of her own voice as it echoed slightly. The splashing stopped.

“Do you want a drum and cymbals as well? Maybe shout it loud enough for the Celestial Court to hear?” hissed Andries.

She didn’t say anything, straining her ears to listen. Had the thing making the noise heard them?

*splash*, *splash*, it was coming towards them.

“Stay behind me,” whispered Andries, twirling his staff as it grew a blade from each end. “Cool eh?” he said as he looked over his shoulder and winked.

He’s enjoying this far too much, but Mai couldn’t help smiling back. Adrenalin started to course through her body as the splashing continued to get louder and closer.

“Still can’t see anything, going to throw a flare,” Andries said, crafting the flare and throwing it as far as he could.

“Clem fucking Fandango!” he swore as the flickering light of the flare revealed the creature before them. Dressed in tattered sewer worker’s clothing, one eye dangling down its cheek, mouth open in a perpetual scream, mould rippling over its face, it hopped towards them, arms stretched out.

“What the fuck is that!” shrieked Mai, ice running through her veins as it took another hop towards them. Hope *splash*, each hop easily covering two paces at a time.

“Jiangshi! It’s a Qi vampire!” Andries twirled his blades before settling into a fighting stance.

“Get your skills up!”

Mai cursed, she’d allowed her fear to freeze her. Activating SEWER COMBAT she added a blade to her own staff, pushing away the nanite pain. Now it was closer, Mai could see a glyph over the Jiangshi, it was three levels higher than her, at least ten lower than Andries.

It’ll be a challenge for me, but not if he tanks, she thought as she tried to push down the fear that constantly tried to keep her frozen.

“It’s got an AURA OF FEAR, fight it or you’ll be PANICKED!” warned Andries.

Mai tried to answer but her tongue was stuck to the top of her mouth. She could only watch as Andries leapt into action, thrusting a blade straight into the jiangshi’s chest before pulling it free and spinning into a rearward thrust that went straight into the first hole.

Shrieking, it leapt through the air towards her ignoring Andries for the moment. Mai felt the very breath in her lungs being sucked out, the shriek being an attack. Feebly she thrust her staff at it, missing by a country mile as the creature bent backward at ninety degrees to avoid the blade.

“Help!” she managed to gasp as the creature came straight back at her, pistoning its rigid hands towards her, nails as long as her thumb darting at her heart. Staggering back, she was able to avoid the attack more through luck than anything else.

A blade appeared from the side, scything the creature’s leg off at the knee. With a shriek it fell into the foul morass swirling around their feet. Another flashy twirl and the creature was pinned to the ground.

“Finish it, I don’t get enough experience to need it,” Andries said, kicking sewage into the creature’s mouth, cutting the shriek off.

Now that it was down, and no longer shrieking, the feeling returned to her limbs and she found herself able to move and think easily.

“That thing is horrible! Thank the Five Gods of the Third Heaven you were here,” she moved closer to it, hefting her weapon, unsure where to strike. “How do I kill it?”

“Place your blade on the middle of its forehead, thrust down, then cut through the nose straight down through its lip. Only way to kill them. Since I have it pinned you should be able to easily kill it.”

Licking her lips, mouth still dry, Mai did as she was told, blade shaking as the adrenalin from the encounter continued to flow through her.

“Take a deep breath, push the fear away, and kill the bastard.”

Mai drove her blade through the creature’s forehead with a loud crunch before pulling the blade down towards its mouth, a sickly green mould pouring out of the wound. As soon as she cut through the top lip, its skull popped open and a pale vapour drifted away.

INSTAKILL!

VAMPIRE KILLER!

VAMPIRE SLAYER 5%

+50 UC!

Mai’s heart leapt as she saw that notification. 50UC for a kill meant she only had to defeat … two hundred more. Two hundred! Her initial jubilation quickly soured.

“Careful, don’t let any of that mould get onto you, it’ll turn you into an egui, a creature with never-ending hunger.”

She flicked her blade, then drove it into the sewage to get the remaining residue off.

“How many more have we got?”

Andries had the grace to look embarrassed. “Apparently twelve. And the one that created them, the Progenitor. I really thought this was just meant to be a bug hunt. Didn’t expect this at all,” he waved a hand at the corpse. “No guarantee that they were all turned though. They could just be normal dead.”

She wasn’t convinced by his tone and could tell that he wasn’t convinced of his own argument either. Besides, how does he even have a count on how many we may face? she thought to herself.

“Don’t you think we should go and get help? That’s a lot to kill.”

“No, this is a good opportunity to get you even more skilled up. We’ll hunt them one-by-one, I’ll tank, you’ll then finish them off when I give you the nod. Craft a helmet, make it with sound-cancelling earplugs.”

Adding a blade to her staff had only cost one per cent BIO-MASS, so she was happy with the thought of spending a couple more on the helmet, especially if it meant she had a little bit more armour on her head.

Don’t fancy those damned fingernails puncturing my face.

She found a nice helmet which would only cost five per cent BIO-MASS, it offered her fifty SOAK points, active noise cancelling, and also resembled a helmet from ancient history, a time lost in myth. Besides, it had a special visor which acted as both protection and respirator.

This visor was carved to resemble a Temple Lion so that when it was opened it looked as though the helmet was snarling and when closed it was staring at you menacingly. The carving of the fur and ears was intricate, making the helmet look almost as if the creature were actually alive.

This was seriously cool. And, at only five per cent BIO-MASS, she couldn’t refuse.

Active noise cancelling was perfect. It meant that she’d be able to hear normally, but that if there was a sudden sound-based attack such as the jiangshi shrieks, her helmet would kick in and protect her from the effects. How well it would protect her waited to be seen.

“Suits you,” he said as she formed it. “Now, let’s go level you up.”