Mai set off early the next morning after the Queen cooked a breakfast so filling that she felt fit to burst at the seams. Despite the fact that the sewer companies worked twenty-four hours a day, it just felt right that she should be sneaking through the streets in what would have been morning in the Upper City.

Aside from the breakfast, she’d also been given a utility belt with two BIO-MASS BOOSTS. It meant easier access to them, and that she wouldn’t have to use a backpack unless she came across anything good in the sewers. She’d been far too preoccupied to look whilst making her way into Excretiaville, but figured that she might as well make the most of her time in the sewers.

“I pray to Buddha and the Five Angels that you don’t need two bottles,” the Queen had said as she passed them over to Mai.

“Better to be safer than sorry,” Mai replied, mouth dry at the thought of having to hunt the mogwai. There was a silver lining in that the quest allowed her to hide from Cullers without staying in one single location. And any Cullers coming after her would also be at risk of the rampaging mogwai.

But it felt as though there was a con as well. Even though the Culling was still proceeding without her, and the number of Cullers was decreasing each hour, it felt as though she wasn’t doing anything to get back to Li.

Passivity rather than pro-activity felt wrong to her. It was as if she was being driven to dive back into the Culling, no matter how much she abhorred killing. Another pro outweighed this in her mind. Whilst she was walking around darkened sewers hunting creatures, viewers would be watching other Cullers. She wouldn’t be climbing up the scoreboard, so there was no incentive for people to watch her.

At least, I hope that’s right, she thought.

Empty streets greeted her no matter which way she turned. The Scavenger Queen had said that she would put the word out that a path was to be cleared. No details, just that her people needed to stay off the streets the quest guideline had marked.

Mai still hadn’t quite worked out who or what the Scavenger Queen was, nor why exactly the woman was forced to disguise herself in that way.

Is she Celestial Court? Banished, maybe? Not that she’d heard of anyone from the Celestial Court ever falling from grace outside of the holodramas. It was a popular trope, and usually saw the exile redeeming themselves by accruing social score points through the judicious application of selfless acts.

Both Li and Mai had often thought that it was just a way of giving anyone below the tenth mile a glimmer of hope that they might actually be able to ascend.

And now I’m trying to ascend in the most insane way, she laughed at that. At least if she knew what she was doing was insane, then she couldn’t actually be insane. Just a teeny bit crazy, maybe.

She came to the edge of the cavern. Excretiaville was criss-crossed by deep rivers of effluent, manually operated punts used to navigate through the city if a person didn’t want to walk. Bridges crossed the rivers near her, but they too were empty.

Walking up to a ladder on the wall, positioned next to a small waterfall where the effluent flowed out of Sewer A294810, she quickly climbed it, walked along the gantry and entered the sewer.

Using the staff she’d formed from a template, Mai stepped down from a crumbling ledge into a slow-moving river. She’d avoided doing so for as long as possible due to the fact that she was going to be walking against the current for many thousands of paces before she reached the end of the guideline.

It didn’t mean that what she was seeking – a horde of mogwai – was at the end of the guideline, just that by the time she reached it the quest should hopefully be over. And slogging for thousands of paces through slow-moving effluent was going to tire her.

Scanning the sides of the sewer, she was surprised to see just how eroded the sidewalks and gantries on either side were.

“I’m not that far from the town,” she murmured, reaching out to run her fingers over the nearest crumbling edge. “These mogwai must really be causing trouble.”

And as if the Gods were listening, shouts rang out from ahead of her. Crouching, bracing herself against the slow current, she took the time to listen and work out where the sound was, and how far way.

Sound seemed to travel differently in the sewers, their acoustics playing tricks on the brain. Sometimes something that was thousands of paces away could sound as near as the person next to you.

After a few seconds, Mai stood. As far as she could tell, the fight was roughly one hundred metres away.

Sewer must curve, I can’t see anything, no point activating my skills yet, they’ll be passive way before I get anywhere near whoever needs my help. Best if I have them ready to go, rely on any passive bonuses I have for now.

Sweat was running down her face by the time she got close enough to see who was fighting whom. It took her breath away. A large smile split her face from ear-to-ear as she saw one of her best friends.

Fat John whirled like one of the famed Dervish, blades moving too quickly for her eyes to even register. Wherever they went, the air filled with the blood of mogwais. Other members of her former company stood with their backs to a smallish fat berg.

Mai didn’t move for a couple of seconds, stunned to see her old crew, but also using the time to assess the risk.

Mogwai, too many to count in the time she had, lunged and snapped at her friends. All of the sewer workers were sporting some sort of injury, and she could see they were tiring. Only a few mogwai bodies drifted in the effluent, the current slowed even more by the fat berg.

None of the combatants had noticed her. Opening up her menu, she selected a shotgun with a full magazine, and a long blade, hissing in pain as the nanites in her body formed the weapons.

Pushing forward, she activated her STEALTH, TUNNEL COMBAT and SEWER COMBAT skills. Fat John continued to fight apart from the other workers, his nano-blades glowing, and an ever-increasing pile of mogwai corpses building up around him.

“Clever bastard,” she muttered. Fat John was sacrificing himself, making himself bait in order to draw as many mogwai away from the rest of the workers as possible. Her respect for him grew, and she could tell by the way he moved that he’d most certainly levelled up as a Mogwai Bane.

With yell, Fat John confirmed that, unleashing SONIC BOOM. It blasted in all directions away from him, shredding any injured mogwai, shattering their bodies, corpses tumbling through the air.

“Good job old man!” She called out as laid her shotgun’s reticle on the nearest mogwai still standing, activated USE SHOTGUN, and fired.

CRITICAL HIT! 20% DAMAGE

BLEED! @5% PER SECOND

INTIMIDATED!

Status effect glyphs appearing over it, it turned to face her, snapping and howling in pain. It was a particularly hideous specimen. Skin, scales and matted fur covered it, in a quilt-like pattern and it undulated as it moved. Too many legs to count propelled it towards her and its maw opened to reveal at least three sets of teeth. Tentacles covered in thick mucous emerged from even further back in its throat as if it was tasting her scent.

Shotgun roaring, Mai blasted it another three times, aiming for its mouth and the critical hit marker centred on the darkest part, ignoring the BIO-MASS depletion messages.

CRITICAL HIT! 26% DAMAGE

BLEED! @4% DAMAGE

PANIC!

HIT! 7% DAMAGE

BLEED! @1%

PANIC!

HIT! 6% DAMAGE

BLEED! @1% PER SECOND

PANIC!

Screeching, it tried to turn tail, only to find that Fat John was now blocking its way as he fought off a trio of mogwai. Although it was suffering from PANIC and needed to get away from Mai, the source of the PANIC, it was faced with another threat, essentially entering a fatal decision loop.

Its health bar was over half-black from the shotgun blasts, and the BLEED status effect had kicked in. Each second saw eleven percent health degeneration. Desperation practically oozed from its pores, along with its lifeblood as it turned again and again, trying to find a way out.

And then it made a decision. As PANICKED as it was, there were only two ways for it to escape. Through the melee of Fat John and its broodmates, or through the person that had hurt it in the first place.

“Shit!”

Mai staggered as the mogwai leaped through the air. Launching herself backward, she opened fire, filling the air with slugs from her shotgun.

HIT! 2%

BLEED @0.5% PER SECOND

HIT! 1%

BLEED @1% PER SECOND

It was moving too fast, she couldn’t aim quickly enough, her shots were barely grazing the demonic creature as it screeched its way through the air. Her next shot missed, and then it was on her.

DAMAGE! 5%

HEALTH 95%

WINDED!

Pain exploded in her chest as it took the full weight of the creature. It must have weighed almost as much as her, and it felt as though a hammer from the Gods had hit her. Tumbling to the ground, she wedged the barrel of her shotgun horizontally into its mouth as three rows of teeth snapped mere finger-widths away from her face.

Hot, dank breath washed over her face, the stench of excrement and rotten flesh making her gag, adding to the problem she already faced with breathing. Frantically, she raised her legs, trying to stop it from gutting her as it constantly kicked at the armour covering her belly.

Cutting at it with her sword, she cursed as she failed to do any damage. It was too long to get a proper swing with, and even sawing against the mogwai’s thick hide was ineffective. Giving up, she re-absorbed it, forming it into a knife instead.

Shotgun arm aching from the effort of keeping the foul creature’s teeth from ripping her face off she activated her DIRTY BOXING and UNARMED COMBAT. It didn’t matter that she was actually armed, as they still conferred certain bonuses.

Both of them involved grappling and wrestling of some sort, which she was currently doing, so any bonus they conferred whilst active was one she was going to take. Passive, they weren’t working for her, so she had nothing to lose.

The skills kicked in immediately. A quick shift of the hips, an arching of the back, and shove upwards saw the mogwai’s head pushed up at an awkward angle. Activating KNIFE FIGHTING, she drove the blade into the nearest critical hit marker.

CRITICAL HIT! 20%

BLEED! @30%

KILL!

MOGWAI BANE 15%

Suddenly limp, the mogwai’s dead weight was too much for her tired muscles to bear. Blood, thicker and hotter than it should be washed over her, splashing over her face, stinging her eyes. Twisting, she tugged and pushed at the same time, rolling the ghastly corpse off her.

“Mai?” Fat John stood beside her, blades glowing as he protected her until she was able to regain her feet. Re-absorbing the knife, she quickly used her hand to clear the mogwai’s blood from her eyes, revealing Fat John’s surprised smile.

Smiling back, Mai reloaded her shotgun with a thought, deciding to keep the shorter knife.

BIOMASS LEVEL

Raising her shotgun, she advanced on the mogwais attacking the other group of workers. The ones that Fat John had been fighting previously lay in the river of waste. She was impressed. He’d been an excellent fighter when she first met him, but now his skills far surpassed anything she’d ever seen. Including the holomyths.

The workers were being attacked by a group of seven mogwai.

“You want to take the ones on the left, I’ll go right?” suggested Fat John.

“On it,” she raised her shotgun as she spoke, sighing as she saw that her USE SHOTGUN was closer to cooldown than she would like. Target boxes dotted all of the mogwai, almost too many to count. She decided to go for the easy ones, heads and legs. Heads for the instakills, legs to cripple and slow them down.

That was just about all the thought she put into her fight. With her USE SHOTGUN active phase rapidly counting down, she laid her sight on the nearest mogwai and fired.

CRITICAL HIT! 23%

CRIPPLED!

BLEED! @3% PER SECOND

With the mogwai collected the way they were, it would have been hard to miss. Her target splashed into the muck as its leg was reduced to shreds of flesh, bone and gristle.

HEADSHOT!

INSTAKILL!

MOGWAI BANE 20%

Even as she laid her reticle onto another target she glanced over to see how Fat John was faring.

Their eyes met, his mouth twitched into a smile, then there was a blur and he was gone, grasped in the arms of one of the largest mogwai she’d ever seen.