The Symbiot municipal job was a rat-catching task, and they gave us a specific weapon for it. The sewers carried a faint imitation of the real-world stink a sewer had. I knew the real thing—hot summer air rising from gratings, thick with skunk farts and rotting eggs.
I messily tied my luxurious hair back and sighed. I ended up in my usual work-life ponytail, of course, because existence had a way of forcing irony on us. No way was I gonna splash rotten sewer stank in my hair.
Jake strolled through the fetid water on his cloven, stilt-like legs. Meanwhile, my shoes were bogged down with questionable debris. The middle channel ran knee-deep with slow-moving water, its surface broken by the occasional mysterious ripple. A narrow, foot-wide ledge on either side marked the high-water line. Greenish streaks on the walls showed just how much worse it could get.
“Jake,” I whispered, my voice rasping unpleasantly down the tunnel. “Do you think there might be flesh-eating slimes down here?”
Jake stilled, then turned around to look at me, horror flickering in his glowing red eyes. The sewers were murky, with no light carried between us. Our night vision made up for it. Color faded to shades of gray, but otherwise I could see just fine.
I shivered and gripped my vermin zapper tighter. They’d been issued by a Symbiot NPC, along with cages for the zapped rodents. The zapper itself was a long rod with a prong at the end.
I’d tested it before we climbed into the sewers. When I pulled the trigger, blue electricity snapped between the prongs. Tazery.
After a moment of staring at each other, I waved at him to go ahead. Either there were dangerous slimes, or there weren’t. We had to do the job, anyway. According to the map, we were close to one of the rat nests. The minimap shifted as we descended, updating to reveal a lower complex of tunnels beneath the city.
“We could navigate these tunnels and get close to wherever we wanted. Not that want is a word that fits with sewers,” I whispered. Talking normally down there just felt wrong.
“Could, at the expense of smelling like ass,” Jake muttered back.
He said he’d take the lead. Sucker. I probably should have, being the stronger one of us. At least, I hoped to have that stat on him. Jake, carry me? Not gonna happen. I wouldn’t survive the shame. He already got a level ahead of me while I was gawking at the Grand Market. Never again.
“Aww, the rats are all gone,” Jake groaned, slogging up onto the pitted stone platform at the center. Its surface was dry, stained by age, or by design.
I reminded myself that everything was just a game, even if it didn’t feel that way. None of it was real. Though the smell added to the illusion. I turned and took in the central crossroads. Steel beams traversed the center, and the rats had built a pile of debris in a giant nest at the center of the concrete platform. Four tunnels branched off; one of them we’d taken to get there.
The air smelled like animal musk, thickly overlaid with the stink of detritus washed down the city drainage gratings. The water rippled here and there, making my skin crawl. We’d been walking in that, but nothing that lurked there had revealed itself. Yet.
“I guess we wait for respawn. Look,” I pointed at black smudges on the towering nest. Seared hive paper, burnt wood, and singed wads of wool from torn clothing indicated something had been here recently. “Someone just cleared this nest.”
A sense of distorted time shrouded us. It was maybe five minutes, but it felt like forever in that dank, disgusting place.
The nest repaired itself, debris vanishing and reattaching as if time rewound. I nudged Jake with my elbow, mouthing, Look.
He nodded slowly, holding his vermin zapper up. I paced a few steps away from him, crouched and ready.
I was not ready for the stream of rats that scampered out of the holes in the pile of debris.
“Holy fuck!” I stepped back—my heel hit the edge of the concrete platform.
“Oh, shit,” Jake choked and skittered sideways, slashing his zapper wildly downwards at the swarm.
My HUD blinked. I had a 88% chance of succeeding in an attack with the zapper.
I shook off the surprise and charged forward, pulling the trigger. Lightning arced across the swarm, taking down a handful of them at a time. We could do it if we didn’t get cornered.
Jake stomped, hooves cracking little bones. The nauseating sound didn’t stop the tsunami of rats spilling out of the nest. I twisted to avoid a rat leaping at my leg with its teeth gnashing, bringing the zapper’s contacts down on one as I hopped backwards. A dozen filthy bodies twitched and convulsed, limbs jerking in their final spasm.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
“Fall back!” Jake cried, jumping into the water.
Easily a hundred rodents had left the nest, probably more. My HUD flashed a gross number: too many. I hit the water, but to my horror, they followed, bounding en masse in after us, and I learned right then that rats were excellent swimmers.
I knew impure water was conductive, but in my panic, I tried zapping them anyway. The jolt made my legs twitch, but the rats got most of it. That is, the rats—and something else.
Tiny bubbles broke the surface, rolling like glass beads. One bumped into me and left a sizzling burn in its path. [HP: -1] The balls rolled toward anything that moved.
“Oh, come on,” Jake moaned.
The sewer just got a lot worse.
“Go up! Up to the nest!” I bleated. I shoved the zapper at the wave of rats coming at me, trying to hit the ones at arm’s length to reduce the charge I felt. [HP: -2] It stung worse than licking a nine-volt battery.
Twitching rat bodies floated in the water all around me, stunned by the zapper, floating like grotesque debris. I waded through them and climbed back up on the platform in the center. Jake jumped back to the concrete beside me with a mighty flap of wings. I dropped to a knee and touched the water with my zapper. Rats flailed, spasming, splashing a disgusting spray on us.
The little balls of slime tumbled over the stunned rats. The ones that were still alive frantically swam toward us, trying to get back to the relatively dry nesting ground. Well, this was nothing short of horrific.
The marble-sized blobs rolled upward to the edge—just as, from behind, another wave of rats poured from the nest behind us. This time, there were only a few dozen. I flailed a hand at the new rats and cried, “Jake!”
He charged toward the wave while I fought to keep the slimes from swarming the platform. They wanted bigger prey—namely us.
A few rodents escaped him and bit my ankle. [HP: -2] One scrambled up my back as I zapped the slimes rolling up over the edge.
The little bastard latched onto my ear. I roared, ripped it off—along with a chunk of my ear— and flung it down on the concrete. [HP: -5] A handful of greedy slimes tumbled eagerly toward the rat. I jabbed my zapper at a cluster of ooze beads and let them have a taste of the prod’s electricity.
The slime bubbles popped, splattering me with a stinging rain of acid. [HP: -1] [HP: -2] [HP: -2] [HP: -2] [HP: -1]
Absolute bullshit.
By the end of the chaos, corpses littered the platform and floated in the water. Most were dead. Payment was by the rat, so we picked up the survivors and stuffed them in the cages we were given. My HP got knocked down from 63 to 40.
“A quartz per rat. So stupid,” I muttered angrily to myself. I had fifteen rats in my inventory. Jake had the same, since we planned to split the difference.
I glared at the nest and jabbed my vermin zapper at it, growling, “We’re busting that down. There’d better be some damn treasure in there.”
My clothes were more hole than fabric. My ear burned, still dripping blood on my shoulder, and my ankle throbbed from rat bites. I stood in a puddle of acid, pissed to all hell. All that murder hadn’t soothed my anger.
Then I noticed them—a handful of tiny glowing beads scattered where I’d vaporized most of the slime balls. I bent and reached for one, and it floated to my hand before disappearing into my inventory. Item acquired. Glowing Blue Slime Core. Use to upgrade equipment or as a component in potions and incantations.
I gathered the rest and split the stash in my inventory. Around us, the rat corpses dissolved, some to the acid, others with the despawn timer.
I turned to the nest. Jake eyed it, fists on his hips, his vermin zapper clutched at his side, prongs jutting out behind him.
I strode past him and ripped off a board with an angry roar, flinging it aside. Splinters? More rats? Good. I was in a mood after that. I grabbed another board and swung it like a baseball bat, knocking down more of the structure.
Jake shrugged and joined in. It only took a few minutes to dismantle the nest, with my anger and his diligence. At the bottom of the nest lay a rusty axe, an old boot, a strangely clean-looking sock, and a small pile of gems.
“I could use two of these,” I grumbled, picking up the sock. My leather boots had been eaten away by acid, with barely enough material left to hold the paper-thin soles on my feet. Jake’s cloven hoof nudged the axe toward me. It looked more agile than a wood-chopping axe, lighter, but with a broader blade. The rust was disconcerting. I picked it up, anyway.
I used my board to flip over another, and beneath it, something gold gleamed. Squatting, I squinted at a small throne of bone and gems and a little ring of gold resting beside it. Checking my inventory, I found the throne to be the Rat King’s Throne, and the ring turned out to be the Rat King’s Crown.
I offered the ring to Jake, which he took. “Oh, cool. It reduces spawn time of mounts and minions.”
Thinking of the egg, I suggested a trade, the ring for the throne. They appeared to be of equal value. I’d just handed it over when my HUD started flashing green. [HP: -1]
“Apparently, I have a disease,” I grumbled, reading the description. “Pestilence. My HP will keep going down until I’m cured.”
“That’s fire!” he exclaimed, looking far too excited.
“Um, no,” I replied, touching my wounded ear. “Not fire. I can see my HP dropping every minute. Do you have something for this, Magetech, or am I dying in this shithole?”
“I fix! I fix!” Jake bounced, then a syringe with a long-ass needle appeared in his hand.
I cringed away, showing my teeth. “Don’t you have a bandage with some magical potion or something?”
“Are you afraid of needles?” he asked, stepping closer.
I took an instinctive step back, held up my hand, and lied, “No. I just… That seems unsanitary.” [HP: -1]
“Said the orc,” he scoffed, grabbing my arm.
I yanked it out of his grasp. A tiny part of me was pleased—yes, I was stronger than him. But the other part was at war with itself. I did not like needles, but I needed to survive.
“Half-orc,” I corrected, lamely trying to change the subject.
“Don’t be a baby,” he chided.
I took in a sickening breath of sewer air, closed my eyes, and offered my arm, palm up. “Do it. Quick.”
Jake squeezed my arm and jabbed the needle in. It felt like it hit bone. I did my best not to flinch until he pulled it out, and my HP dropped a point, again. The hazy green warning flashed.
For a split second, I almost ripped his head off.
Then, the next second stretched into what felt like a minute—the flashes stopped. I let out a slow breath. Relief.
“Did it work?” His red eyes were big and hopeful.
“Seems to have,” I admitted, rubbing my arm.
My shoulders slumped as realization set in.
He probably had a lot of needles for every occasion.
Wonderful.
-ARCHIVE-
In video games, have you ever had a low level quest that surprised you?
