“What’s the plan today, Adri?”

The knight knew exactly what she had planned, yet he needed a reminder because he refused to believe she had come up with this idea. Matt had always seen Adriana as the most logical of his friends, yet here she was, suggesting they go roaming the sewer for clues about the kidnapping last year.

“Ah Matthias, my stalwart sidekick, we will be investigating the labyrinth of pipes, aka the sewer!”

Having recently been asked to scout for clues regarding a recent attack, the rogue found herself enjoying the more brain taxing activity. It was not only enjoyable, but addictive. Figuring she could get a similar buzz off answering a year long question that many had forgotten about, she decided to drag the knight along.

“Matthias?”

“Should I stick with Matt?”

“No, I like it actually. What I don’t particularly care for is searching the sewers. Why do we need to do this?”

“We must figure out how the kidnappers stole the princess so as to make sure they can never do it again. We’ve been lucky so far, the sins have held their word that they wouldn’t kidnap Elizabeth, but perhaps the forces at work will reclaim her, and we need to make they are stopped in their tracks.”

“Why did you need me? And why do I need my sword?”

“Simple,” she folded her arms, “your light can guide the way, and we may encounter unwanted visitors. It’s unlikely, but you should always be prepared. Also, Eric has been busy with Blue, Brian has disappearing a lot recently, and I wouldn’t want his fire in the sewers, and Jessica is too ‘busy’ counting down the days until she can hit the bottle.”

The knight shook his head in disbelief, “That’s not how my powers work, but alright, fine. Let’s just get this over with.”

Trailing behind the Rogue, Matthew paid no mind to his surroundings, concentrating solely on what to do when he got back home. ‘Wonder if I should make dinner tonight, since Sarah is going to be late and all. Still can’t believe Eric has a pet slime, but I guess he needed something to do. Sarah can’t believe someone would own a slime, I don’t blame her. Hmm, Matthias is a cool na-‘

The knight’s stream of conscious came to a jolting halt as so he didn’t run into his friend. Though she was fast and steady on her feet, she wasn’t able to push the six-foot teen around.

“Alright Mattias, you lead the way. This could be a long and smelly journey, so I hope you ate light.”

The umber skinned girl had stopped in front of a small building, one that was too small to be mistaken for a house in the city. Taking in a deep breath of the rich, spring air, Matthew burned his surroundings into his mind; this would be his happy place while he traversed the dank sewer.

Heading into the small building and down the ladder, the knight had great difficulty pushing against the blasts of horrendous odors. Making their way down to the basement floor and through an imposing door, the pair looked onward at the vast expanse of pipes.

“So do you have a map? Because I can’t just see ahead with my light.”

The rogue sheepishly pulled out a sheet of paper, handing it to the knight who was astonished by its contents. “Adriana, this is a blank sheet of paper.” Or rather, its lack thereof.

“Yeah about that,” she broke out into a sweat, “I though you could draw a map.”

“You could just ask the queen or a maintenance worker for a map.”

“Right, I wanted to ask for a map of the sewer, but I didn’t want to make the queen aware of what we’re doing.”

“Why is that?” The knight cocked an eyebrow.

“Well ya see, you know how I told you my dad had a bad feeling about Lumina and your dad said the same? Well I’ve been getting that same feeling recently, both around the sewer and around the castle.”

“You think the queen is related to the feeling?” Matthew was piecing together the presentment, wondering if he was reaching the same conclusion.

“Yes, and I think that feeling is Jade’s doing. I’ve been keeping an eye and an ear out for any going-ons around the castle, making sure the princess doesn’t disappear again. Thankfully there hasn’t been a whimper, but I can’t help but wonder.”

“It hardly matters” folding his arms, “what are we going to do if the queen and this Jade guy are in cahoots? If something were to happen to her, we’d probably be on the streets. Anyhow, lets get going, the stink is starting to get to me.”

Walking down the hall of pipes, the fluorescent lights bouncing off the orange cylinders that traveled every which way, the two continued until they reached a dead end.

Skritch. Matt drew a line from the only marking on the paper that read ‘Entrance.’ The knight headed left, the rogue shadowing him. The continued left, passing many forks in the road until the hit a dead end. Skritch skritch. The knight made more markings, noting the dead-end and the forks.

“This is going to be an all-day affair.” The knight sighed as the two backtracked. “You take this fork and tell me what you find, I’ll take the next one. If we split up, we might be able to map out a tiny section before I puke my brains out.”

The rogue split from her partner, inspecting the section, looking for anything noteworthy, but only finding more orange pipes. ‘The more I look at this place, the more obvious it seems Jade must have gotten some help navigating. There’s no way an outsider could have known this area well enough to escape undetected.’

Meeting up with her leader, the two reported having found nothing, checking out the two forks, this time Matthew was first to depart. Their prior find was the same thing: a hall that turned left with the pipes retreated further underground, Matthew’s path taking a wider turn.

“What is that?” Adriana curiosity caused her to speak out loud as she rubbed eyes to make sure she wasn’t hallucinating from the rancid odors. The rogue continued down the hall, the orange pipes quickly gave way to a sickly green that oddly entrancing. The girl was enjoying the new green over the tyrannical orange, but more then that, she breathed in deep, a breath of clean, fresh air.

Kush. The sound had the rogue retract her foot in an instant. The calm raven-haired girl was now in high alert, sharp eyes scrutinizing any movement through the hazy green in front of her, but nothing appeared. After a couple of seconds, she turned her eyes to the ground, putting her foot down on the greenery, hearing that it was simply her footstep. Relieving, she marched on, feeling confident that she was on to something.

‘Grass? Why is there grass in the sewer? How is there grass in the sewer? This must be Jade’s doing. Is this some way to mark where he needs to go? Or is it-‘ another sound in the distance immediately cut off her thoughts, sending her back in to high alert. Instead of going into a battle stance, however, the girl merely stood straight, frozen in place. Listening again, she could hear some kind of growl, as if a beast was down the corridor. ‘Did it hear me? What even is “it”? I can’t see through this fog. Can it see through the fog?!’

Before her thoughts could go on, Adriana narrowly dodged an object flying her way at high speed. Turning her head briefly, she could see it was a giant seed. More seeds came her way, seeds roughly the size of her torso, and as wide as one of her legs, with a sharp point on either end. After about six seeds, the barrage stopped, but now a new sound emerged, as if something were slapping the pipes. This sound grew louder and louder, the rogue retreating.

As she ran back to hopefully find her leader, she looked toward the haze, hoping her attackers would be identifiable, and soon enough, they were. The girl could see two octoplants exiting the green mist, but these octoplants were quite unusual: instead of the normal orange head that looked like an acorn, these were green all around, with a much harder to describe head, much bigger too. Adriana stopped herself when she realized her attackers had refused to progress.

Turning around, she stared at the two plants, one opening its maw to reveal rows of sharp teeth on each petal, a mouth that somehow led to a leaf thin digestive system. That’s when the girl noticed these monsters had a sack not present on normal octoplants, one of which was moving. The plant on the left shot another seed, easily avoided now that the girl could see it being telegraphed.

“Guess you guys don’t like traveling out of your little jungle. I can see why.” Before she gloat longer, Adriana noticed the seeds from behind the plants open. She watched in horror as the seeds spewed out the green haze that decorated the sewer hall ahead.

Thinking quickly, the rogue placed her palm on the sewer pipe to her right, sending as many volts of electricity through it as she could muster. She expected the octoplant to be cunning and unhook itself, crawling after her and fighting her up close. Instead, the scene played out like she would’ve hoped if she were a naïve warrior: the plant was electrocuted, its entire body decoloring into an ugly brown as its head bent over and it presumably died. Without hesitating, she did the same to the pipe on her left, frying the other plant.

The seeds around her finished their spread, but there was hardly any green on the pipes, and the haze was absent entirely. When she felt it was safe to presume the plants died, the rogue analyzed their corpses, discovering interesting bits of information.

“Seems these things have spikes on the tips of their roots.”

“Woah, what happened here?”

Matt’s voice made Adriana hop forward, stumbling on to the grassy terrain in front of her. “Could you not sneak up on me?!”

“Sorry.” The knight picked up his friend, the remorse on his face made it impossible for her to stay mad at him.

“Seems Jade might have been aware that someone would trail him. These things are some weird octoplant that shoots seeds and clings to walls using these spikes on their roots. Their seeds create this grass like material, which they stir around to spread this grassy terraian as far as possible while also creating a haze to make them near invisible.”

“Geez, sorry you had to go it alone.”

“It’s fine. I dragged you here, not the other way around. Let’s keep going, this may be the way.”

The knight took the lead again, the rogue eying the plant cadavers just in case. Once they were out of sight, she let her guard down, focusing on her leader. “Matt, I’ve been meaning to ask you something.”

“Yeah?” He turned his head to face her.

“Sarah told me awhile ago that you were given a change to work for some guy. You’d go to work in a big city in Pyora. Why didn’t you go?”

“She didn’t tell you? Well, it’s because I didn’t want to leave you guys. I know after the princess debacle everything seems better, but I feel like if I left you guys, things…would fall apart.” As he finished, Matthew stopped and looked to the ground.

“Matthew,” the girl leaned on him, determination in her eyes, “you’re the leader. Not just on missions, but in general. If you want to leave, leave. We’ll visit you no matter what, especially because we all want to leave at some point. We’re all just waiting for a sign, which I think really just means we’re waiting for when you and Sarah blow this popsicle stand.”

“I guess I feel like an idiot for saying no and never telling you guys. I’m glad Sarah at least had the courage to push me out.” The knight scratched his forehead in embarrassment.

“By the way, Eric wanted me to ask you if you could maybe not use your light power to tell if we’re lying or not. He says it’s kind of creepy.”

“Creepy? I mean, I guess.” Matthew was taken aback by the request, trying to process the cleric’s fear of his ability. “I promise I won’t then. I trust you guys won’t hold need-to-know information from me.”

“You have our word” the rogue smiled at him.

The pair made their way to a right turn, which led to a split path. Recalling what his sister said, Matthew knocked on the panel, able to finagle it off the wall. Behind the panel: dirt, dirt, and more dirt.

“No! This has to be the panel, but there’s no cave. I doubt there are any other loose panels, so Jade must have filled the hole.” Adriana turned to the knight in defeat, “I’m sorry Matt, this whole thing was a waste.”

“Nah, we know for sure this was Jade’s doing, or someone related to him. This loose panel matches Lucy’s story, and those plants must have been someone’s doing. Besides, we accomplished some personal stuff. Let’s get the hell out of this stink dungeon.”