“I get that cities have sewers. I get the sewers typically smell. What I don’t understand is why they need to put quests or monsters inside them. We don’t even use the bathroom in the game. Yeah, our bases don’t even have bathrooms. Why do the cities need sewers? It makes no sense.”

  Forum Post by Lars “Stinky” Kaplan

  Year 1, Month 1, Day 10, 07:30

  Torgon, Hyperia and Dusty along with more than two dozen other guild leaders were escorted inside the Baron’s official offices in the center of the city. The stone hall was filled with wooden tables surrounding a large map board. The map depicted the city and the surrounding area. Troop locations were marked with figures and problem zones had small red flags laid on them. The baron thanked them all for coming and then gestured to Sir Malik to lead the meeting.

  The knight eyed everyone in attendance, the dark circles under his eyes making his lack of sleep apparent to all. “Overnight we discovered some major problems. Small attacks occurred across the city at key locations, and three large fires resulted. Most concerning was that one of the kingdom guards was slain. I can see your confusion so I will explain. Cities like Miller’s Crossing have a large guard force from the local population. These guards are backed by a few very high-level guards from the kingdom proper. The wards around the city would have alerted us to the intrusion of a similarly leveled figure and we have discarded the possibility of one of the other guards killing him. Investigators discovered a series of symbols that were burned into the ground then destroyed. It was a magical formation to limit the power of monsters and players. These formations are rare and hard to maintain.”

  Dusty, her eyes bright with interest, interrupted, “What does it take to maintain a formation like that? How much area can it cover?”

  “These formations require life force, and the drain is related to the area involved. Such a small area wouldn’t have killed the people maintaining it. If they were to make a formation to cover the city however, it would require more than a dozen locations and it would kill the people feeding it every couple of hours. The penalties for the deaths would be huge but the fact that someone has access to this at all troubles me greatly. This could upend our plans for defending the city and it might mean that Sir Kelvin is leading his forces into a trap. I’ve messaged him and he has taken this into account. They should be starting their attack on the monsters in a few hours.”

  “I want to ask you all to scout the city and especially the sewers and other areas where infiltrators might be able to sneak their way inside. The blow to the morale of the populace was bad and the actual loss of supplies might be even worse.” Sir Malik grinned wryly, “On the plus side for all of you, this means more quests for scouting, resupply and repair.”

  The baron stood up and spoke, “I have decided to add my own rewards to every quest and effort to defend the city now. My personal treasure vault will be opened to the top five contributing guilds. The king entrusted me with the protection of this city, and I do not intend to fail.”

  Torgon took his turn to rise and speak to the assembled leaders. “We have passes to a large auction in Deep Harbor in two days. My guild intends to spend our funds on anything that could help us with this siege. I would like to invite the other guild leaders present to invest in a bidding fund and submit requests for what items you think would be most beneficial both for the siege and the development of your guilds.”

  Several guild leaders spoke at once, then quieted down at a wave of the hand from Sir Malik. “You can all discuss that after we conclude this meeting, I think it is an excellent opportunity for all of you, and I applaud Torgon’s suggestion. Meanwhile, there are a few more things to address.”

  Sir Malik leaned down and produced a large bag filled with more than a hundred softly glowing stones. “These stones react to damage to the city wards. I have enough for every guild to get several and I am issuing a quest for each guild to take them across the city to ensure the wards are operating everywhere.”

  A knock from outside the chambers sounded, then the Baron’s steward stepped inside. “My Lord, Sir Malik, Guild Leaders. A scout from Risk of Injury has arrived and insists that she has dire news.”

  “Let her in.” The baron commanded.

  The steward opened the door to allow the diminutive figure of Curious Kate to enter. “Sirs, we have found breaks in the sewers, tunnels from outside the city. I came here as soon as we found the first one, but we’ve found at least three more while I was on my way. We also found bodies of goblins, rat beasts and things we can’t identify.”

  “I see.” Sir Malik acknowledged the report. “Our guards and knights aren’t suitable for exploring places like that, perhaps the adventurers in your guilds would like to find all these breaks in our defenses and seal them?”

  Dusty spoke, “Do you have maps of the sewers that you can share with us? It will let us mark any areas that shouldn’t be there and note the locations we need to seal. We can also explore deep into the areas and find out where they’re coming from.”

  The baron stood up once more, his face a thundercloud. “It shall be done immediately. Please, help me save this city.” The guild leaders bowed and began issuing orders to their players that were available. It was going to be a long and dirty day of scouring the sewers for literal and figurative rats.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Allestor and Ovarrix joined the group as they rushed into the sewers. “These smells are delightful.” Allestor wrinkled his nose upon entering the wide and damp passages beneath the city. They carefully avoided the middle of the tunnel with the fast-flowing debris. “I wonder though, we haven’t used the bathroom since we’ve been in this world. Where does this all come from?”

  Dusty leaned close and looked at the flow. “I think most of it is from processing grain, cooking and cleaning. It’s not as pungent as I would have expected from raw untreated sewage.”

  “Focus everyone, we’re here for a reason.” Hyperia shook her head and then looked at the scouts. “Kate, take us to the first opening, everyone else keep scouting. Mark, make sure Steve doesn’t get lost. Everyone is looped into a channel, so update all the guild leaders and teams whenever anything is found. We need to clean this mess up as fast as humanly possible.”

  The sewers featured a channel for water and other things to flow down the middle with walkways on either side. The passages stretched more than ten feet across with ceilings around eight feet high. Sconces lined the walls with unlit torches. Sunlight filtered down from the streets above through grates and drains. The group took advantage of their low-light vision and traveled without the benefit of a visible light source. After a few minutes, they reached a spot where the stonework lay shattered and a large hole could be seen in the earth beside it, leading down.

  “None of us have explored it, we found the passageway, and I traveled immediately to alert all of you. Any messages we tried to send about the holes wouldn’t go through until after one of us physically told everyone about it.” Kate informed them.

  Dusty took her sword out, spent a few seconds stretching, then started climbing down into the passage. The team fanned out behind her as the narrow passage restricted their formation to a single file line. About thirty yards into the passage it opened into a wider chamber, clawed out from the soil and rock.

  “You are entering a basic lair. To clear the lair, you must kill the creature inside. Current kills 0/1 boss. The minimum pain threshold requirement for this lair is 50%”

  A giant mole rat with claws of mixed bone and copper burst from the wall, tackling Dusty. Her force shield went down under the assault of the beast. Freakishly strong and sharp claws tore into her, drawing streaks blood and drawing out a painful cry. Allestor and Ovarrix pushed into the mole rat, attacking it with weapons while Torgon moved to heal Dusty. Force bolts lit the dark room as they sizzled into the side of the boss.

  Shouts, growls and the clang of weapons echoed loudly inside the room. Kate fired off arrows from a short bow at her side when the frenzied melee allowed her a clear shot. Dusty regained her feet and began forcing the mole rat back away from the openings of the chamber. The health of the boss dropped quickly while her own health stabilized. Soon, the creature fell at their feet, broken and oozing blood from dozens of wounds as it breathed its last.

  The boss dropped a couple of silver coins and ingots of copper and tin. The small chest that materialized on its death yielded a basic lair core and a basic writ as well as an adorably ugly baby mole rat.

  “Can I have the baby mole rat? It would be perfect for Digger.” Kate asked in an excited tone.

  “Digger? He’s the one always mining stone and metals right?” Torgon enquired.

  “He’s the guild’s best miner. He’s out working on the fortifications right now.” Kate replied.

  “Sure, take it to him. Make sure he lets us know any bonuses it gives and what he needs in for proper care of the creature.” Torgon motioned for the girl to take the tiny creature and go. Kate picked up the animal delicately then scurried back out of the tunnel, moving at speeds higher than most could accomplish. They warned everyone looking into the tunnels what they discovered and moved out to head to the next point marked on their maps.

  Random giant rats frequently showed up to attack people moving through the dungeons. The random attacks proved a constant hazard, but one that they easily countered by traveling in groups. News filtered in about the other openings. People found dead ends, lairs, and abandoned smuggling rooms. A party from another guild panicked and called for assistance as they were ambushed by a giant alligator. Nearly thirty players took a dozen minutes to kill it at the cost of eight lives.

  “An alligator in the sewers. Where would it even come from? This isn’t the right climate.” Dusty mused aloud as they moved between areas of interest.

  “Probably some pet that escaped from a house or the market. Maybe it ate some growth potions too, they said it was almost thirty feet long.” Hyperia replied.

  A priority message came in from their lead scouting party. “Boss, we have a problem.”

  “Fill us in Mark.” Torgon answered.

  “We lost Steve.”

  “Lost Steve? Like he wandered off?”

  “No, he’s dead, respawning. I’ll start at the beginning. We found this larger area near the northern opening by the river. It’s a bit damp but the opening curved away from the water so it’s not flooding. We investigated and found a few dead goblins and orcs, all with no heads. There were signs of more, lots of bloodstains and obvious fighting, but some of the bodies are missing. There are also extra piles of bones and some seriously decayed and incredibly smelly corpses,” Mark paused for them to digest the information.

  “Monster raiding party in the tunnels, but it sounds like they ran into something else. Something undead. We followed the tunnel to the outside where it emerges in the woods to the northeast of the city. It was covered with tree limbs and pine needles to conceal it. There are teams moving there to seal it off, but we also found a side tunnel. That’s where we lost Steve.”

  “What happened to Steve, do we know?” Ovarrix asked.

  “We don’t. He’s respawned now but can’t communicate except verbally for another fifteen minutes. He also chokes up every time he tries to share information about what happened back at the base.” Mark shared that tidbit and continued. “I have my team posted outside that tunnel and we’ve called for backup from the other guilds and we’re letting you know too. It doesn’t seem related to the monster invasion, but it feels like a threat. None of us have wanted to go in after Steve died.”

  “Thanks for the heads up. We’re moving in your direction, and we’ll figure out whatever the hell it is and how much of a risk it is to us.” Torgon motioned for his team, and they huddled around a map of the sewers to figure the quickest way.