Broken Soul Part 9 (Patreon)

"Cheerful place," Myst muttered as he glanced between the rusty circular disk that should have been covering the shaft that provided access to the sewer, the sludge piled up near the shit stained walls and the dead rats scattered around the dead end alley.

"Try disgusting," Taylor complained, having second thoughts about helping now that she was actually here rather than looking through the eyes of a spirit beast.

"Were you expecting rainbows and puppies?" Myst asked as he used his purification technique on the alley, curious if it worked on filth.

"No, it's just different in person," Taylor admitted as she watched some of the filth right around the hole in the ground vanish, leaving strangely 'clean' spots on the cobblestones. "Do we have an actual plan?"

"Sort of, it mostly involves using my purification technique as we explore," Myst replied as he picked his way toward the hole in the ground, trying not to step in any piles of shit and relieved that Selena's spell kept him from smelling anything in the filthy alley. "How much of the sewers have your spiders managed to explore?"

"No idea," Taylor admitted as she followed Myst over to the hole. "The tunnels under the inner disciple section of the sect are designed to let the filth wash downhill when it rains and have tile and walkways and a decent sense of order, everything else looks like someone just blasted tunnels through the rock, without any real plan or concern about stability."

"Lovely," Myst muttered as he looked at the rusty and filthy covered rungs that descended into the darkness.

"We could always try to find the demons," Taylor suggested, not particularly happy with his plan to go into the sewer.

"I'm considering it…" Myst trailed off as he used his purification technique on the access shaft, causing some of the filth on the metal to vanish and expanding his maximum mana pool by a decent chunk. "Shit."

"What?" Taylor asked.

"I was sort of hoping that I wouldn't get enough from the sludge and we could just call it a wash and leave," Myst admitted.

"No luck?" Taylor asked.

"A couple of feet of corrupted sludge gave me almost as much mana as a minute of draining the corrupted cloud in the dungeon." Myst sighed and focused on cleansing the corruption in the filth clinging to the stone and the iron, a bit disturbed when most of the iron rungs lost bits and pieces where the corruption was the only thing holding the metal together.

"I just lost a spider," Taylor complained as she pulled a spirit stone out of her pocket so that she could make another spirit spider.

"What happened?" Myst asked as he pushed the purification energy deeper into the sewers, wanting a place to stand while he continued purifying everything.

Taylor shivered as she thought about her spider's death. "I was checking out a patch of black tar and it fell over and started twitching then melted."

"Melted?" Myst asked warily as he checked the cloth mask he was using to keep the worst of the spores and or dust out of his lungs once they were in the tunnels.

"Yeah, melted," Taylor complained.

"That's why we have minions," Myst replied as he dropped one of the glow stones he'd found on the goblins into the hole, causing the suspiciously 'clean' rough stone tunnel to be lit up with an eerie green light.

"I reserve the right to say I told you so," Taylor told him as she used the ki in the spirit stone to create a baseball sized spider, causing the stone to dissolve and turn to dust before fading away. She used her linking technique then sent the spirit into the hole, wanting to make sure the stuff they were dealing with was 'safe' or at least unlikely to melt them before they could purify it.

"That's fair," Myst agreed as he watched the spirit beast in the shape of a spider jump between the rungs as it descended down the hole. "How does it look?"

Taylor directed the spider to stop on the last rung and look around, rather happy that she couldn't borrow the spider's sense of smell through the link. "You've got about five feet on either side of the hole that is free of the sludge, you'll probably have to clean things when you're halfway down since it's sort of thick."

"Let's do this before Selena's spell wears off," Myst said, trying to motivate himself to climb down the suspect rungs and into the taint filled sewer.

"That requires actually moving," Taylor pointed out.

Myst tucked the sleeves of his robe into the gloves to keep them out of his way. "I'm aware," he replied as he reached down and tested the first couple of rungs by pulling on them, wanting to make sure they'd support his weight or at least wouldn't fall apart. "They seem solid enough where the sludge wasn't touching them."

"Fantastic, you're still going first," Taylor told him.

"I thought it was supposed to be ladies first," Myst replied as he started climbing down the shaft, carefully testing each of the rungs with one of his feet before putting his full weight on them.

"You're the one with the purification technique," Taylor argued as she tucked her sleeves in her gloves so they wouldn't get in the way.

"That's fair," Myst agreed. He scowled when one of the rungs snapped when he put some of his weight on it. "Watch your step, some of the rungs aren't as sturdy as they look."

"Noted," Taylor replied, not seeing a point in climbing down until Myst had the area under the shaft cleansed.

Myst stopped with his foot on the last rung, being careful to avoid the spider, then pulled on the rung he was holding with his left hand to make sure it wouldn't break on him when he removed his other hand. He concentrated on the sludge that was oozing back over the surprisingly clean section of stone and used his purification technique on the area. He frowned when he realized that his mana was refilling faster than the purification was consuming it, making him almost glad that he didn't have a system telling him how much corruption was in the area.

He stepped down onto the cleaned stone then focused his attention on extending the area that he was cleansing, doing his best not to focus on the random bits of possible loot that were revealed as the sludge boiled away.

Taylor checked her mask then carefully made her way down the shaft, doing her best not to think about the filth that was getting on her robes where they touched the filth covered stone. "We're going to need a couple of dozen hot showers after this. Do you have any magic soap?"

"I've been killing goblins, I'm pretty sure soap isn't on their loot table," Myst replied as he walked back toward the area under the shaft, pushing the corrupted sludge another twenty feet away from the glowing stone.

Taylor finished climbing down then looked around, surprised to find a small collection of spirit stones and bits of jewelry that the sludge hadn't completely consumed. "Do you think the spirit stones are safe?"

Myst tapped one of the spirit stones with his boot, causing it to disintegrate. "I'm going to take that as a no."

"What about the bits of green stone or gold?" Taylor asked, surprised by the amount of gold that had been lost over the years.

"It might be worth having a spirit monkey grab it," Myst replied as he started walking down the rough stone tunnel, trying to ignore the fact that at least half of the wooden support beams were gone while the other half were missing the bottom three feet, making them completely useless for their intended purpose. "At least the top of the tunnel is vaguely arched."

"Should we leave?" Taylor asked warily, more than a bit worried about the roof collapsing on him.

"Probably," Myst replied as he focused on purifying the sludge further down the tunnel, wanting to trigger any collapses at least twenty to thirty feet away from him in case the tunnel wasn't as structurally sound as it looked.

"Probably?" Taylor asked as she had her spider start collecting the jewelry, relieved that it wasn't melting like the spirit stone.

"We're walking around a sewer filled with corrupted sludge, what part of that screams reasonable?" Myst asked as he pulled another glow stone out of his pocket and dropped it on the ground, wanting to make sure he could find the exit.

"The part where it's the best way to get what we need to jump worlds and escape these insane idiots?" Taylor replied as she followed Myst, wishing she had a flashlight because the glowing stones weren't particularly bright.

"Point," Myst admitted as he continued walking down the tunnel, glad that his avatar could burn the excess mana by summoning goblins since there was enough corruption to keep his mana pool topped off despite the way he was pushing his purification technique to expand the range.

0o0o0

Ron pulled his attention away from the technique that he was trying to fix and looked at the girls that were busy tagging the shrinking pile of loot from the goblins. "How do you think they're doing?"

"They're fine, Taylor's spirit spider would be going crazy if they weren't fine…" Selena trailed off as the baseball sized spider on the back of the couch nodded. "Have you been listening this entire time?"

The spider shook its head.

"Just checking in, then?" Selena asked.

The spider nodded.

"Have you found any loot?" Akari asked as she finished writing the tag on the pair of red Converse shoes that let you increase your speed by twenty percent.

The spider did the spider equivalent of a shrug.

"Nothing to write home about?" Ron asked, not surprised that they hadn't found anything particularly good.

The spider shook his head.

"Hopefully you'll get lucky," Ron replied.

The spider nodded then sat down.

"Have you made any progress with the exploding fingers technique?" Selena asked Ron, not seeing a reason to distract Taylor more than they already had while she was in the sewer.

"Exploding fingers?" Amy asked as she walked out of the guest room, having been checking on Peter and Gwen's changing biology.

"One of the techniques that the goblins dropped lets you explosively shoot your fingers at a target. Unfortunately, they couldn't get the regeneration working correctly, which means using the technique will cost you your index fingers."

"No," Amy replied as she walked over to where Akari was sitting and flopped down next to her.

"You didn't even wait until I asked," Ron complained.

"I don't care, I'm not regrowing your fingers if you use a stupid technique when you should know better," Amy stated, trying to avoid the extra work.

"How am I supposed to test the technique without testing it?" Ron complained.

Amy glanced at the floating image of glowing threads over the lap desk, wishing she had a book on ki techniques and designing them that she could use to make sense of what she was seeing. "Does it come with pain reduction?"

"No clue, I'm just sort of looking at patterns and tweaking things," Ron admitted.

Amy shook her head. "On second thought, let's find somewhere you can blow your hands off."

"Really?!" Ron asked excitedly.

"Sure, pain's a good teacher," Amy replied. "And when you're back home you can explain to all of your friends why you're missing fingers."

"Fine, I'll work on something else," Ron complained as he focused on the next technique, figuring he'd run some tests when Myst got back with the regeneration necklace. "This one lets you fart clouds of paralyzation gas."

"If you use that in my room, I'm going to beat you half to death," Selena warned him, trying and mostly failing to say it with a straight face.

"Only half?" Ron asked.

"I don't have the power or knowledge to bring people back from the dead yet, which means I'd have to stop at half dead," Selena admitted then continued explaining when he opened his mouth, "Before you say that I'm overreacting, this is our only safe location and we don't know how long the clouds would last."

Akari looked up from writing another tag. "Other than the disgusting nature of the technique, what's wrong with it?"

"The clouds reek and it's pretty easy to catch yourself in the cloud," Ron admitted, thinking about his 'memory' of having the technique used on him that he'd acquired when he'd used the scroll.

"What else do you have?" Amy asked, curious if he had anything that would be useful.

"There's a technique for turning your hair into a weapon you can control," Ron replied as he pulled the technique up on the lap desk.

"What's wrong with it?" Amy asked.

"It makes your hair grow a hundred times faster, which means your hair grows a couple of inches a day, all of it," Ron admitted.

Amy shook her head. "Pass. Did you find anything interesting?"

Ron gestured at the scroll sitting on the table. "Just a scroll that lets you create corrupted magic crystals that can give people twisted talents or increase their available ki at the cost of their sanity, but I'm saving that for Myst since he has less issues with corruption and the technique floods your body with corrupted ki when you create the crystals."

"Good call," Amy agreed.

"Neat!" Selena exclaimed when she checked the tinfoil hat with her magnifying glass and realized it could solve their problems with the robes that gave them telepathy. "The hat should help us train our mental powers!"

"What's the downside?" Ron asked.

Selena shrugged. "Your powers might cause your head to explode like a watermelon shot out of a cannon when you take the hat off and they surge."

"Might?" Ron asked thoughtfully.

"We should be able to avoid the problem if we knock people out before we take the hat off," Selena suggested.

"I need a newspaper," Amy grumbled, wishing she had one so she could roll it up and hit people for being stupid. "We're not giving people brain damage to avoid brain damage."

Selena shook her head. "I was thinking about using a sleeping spell or some type of tea that would put them to sleep for a couple of hours until their powers stabilized."

"This would work better if we had something that could knock them out of their body, like astral chopsticks or something, then the necklace could just regenerate their heads without worrying about memory loss," Akari mused.

Selena nodded. "Or we could wait until Myst gets back and ask him about using one of the upgrade tiles that work on talents, we might be able to upgrade the control aspect of the talent."

"We should probably wait until tomorrow," Amy told them. "We're obviously running on fumes if we're coming up with such insane ideas."

Akari yawned and scowled at Amy. "I was fine until you reminded me."

"I'm crashing, are you coming?" Amy asked as she stood up and headed for the other guest room.

"Not yet, but we'll get there," Akari said with a smile as she followed Amy.

"This is going to be awesome," Ron said cheerfully, looking forward to being able to juggle buses.

0o0o0

"Are you planning on warning the sect about the lake of sludge?" Taylor asked as she pulled her attention off the small lake of black sludge that Myst was trying to purify and focused on the thumbnail sized mana crystals that were stuck to his skin and arms.

"Not particularly, that would require trying to talk to someone with actual authority and I'd rather avoid the assholes that want to toss us into a meat grinder," Myst replied as he stopped using his purification technique and started brushing the mana gems covering his arms into his bag, not sure how to feel about the mana that was oozing out of his skin and turning into mana crystals because he couldn't burn through his mana faster than the concentrated corruption was refilling his mana pool.

"That doesn't seem very heroic," Taylor complained as she turned her attention back towards the lake of sludge, wondering how deep it was since she couldn't see any stalagmites poking up through the sludge in the cavern one of the tunnels had broken into.

"I'm not a hero, I don't have the patience," Myst admitted as he went back to purifying the sludge in the small lake. "I'd end up breaking some smug asshole's arm when he took a swing at a girl or hit a kid and then I'd get sued or arrested, at which point I'd probably lose my temper at the courts and everyone and things would likely spiral."

"I wish someone had broken Sophia's jaw," Taylor complained.

"Welcome to life," Myst replied as he used his free hand to knock some of the gems covering his chest off before they could fuse together or build up enough that something weird happened. "Do you want a piece of advice?"

"Do I have a choice?" Taylor asked.

"Sure," Myst replied with a smile. "If you don't want the advice, I'll shut up and concentrate on cleansing the sludge."

Taylor shrugged. "Sure, let's hear it."

"Forgiveness is a virtue, revenge is divine," Myst replied with a smile.

Taylor shook her head. "That sounds like a good way to get labeled a villain."

"That depends on the type of revenge. There's nothing illegal about writing your complaints about someone's daughter on a sign and walking in front of their office, provided that you're not on private property and you're not actually lying."

"He'd bury us in a lawsuit," Taylor complained.

"It's not illegal to tell people the truth and threats of legal action on the part of lawyers to keep people silent on crimes is a good way to get disbarred. There's also nothing wrong with filling out a bunch of complaints or passing out fliers at a school board meeting, the location and time should be public record. It's a lot harder to bury things when people are willing to be vocal about it. You should talk to your father, he'd probably have a decent number of ideas."

"He barely did anything when it started," Taylor complained, thinking about when she'd first told him about the bullying.

"Was he in his right mind or was he spiraling?" Myst asked as he stopped purifying the sludge and went back to knocking the crystals off.

"Spiraling," Taylor admitted.

"You can't fix a problem if you don't know about it. If he can't help, take it to the school board or take it to the police directly. Ask the police if there are any masters in the area then explain the situation, they'll probably investigate and if any of the police have children at Winslow they'd probably love the chance to make your principal's life hell," Myst replied cheerfully.

"I can't just claim that a master is involved," Taylor argued.

"So don't," Myst replied as he started knocking the crystals off his legs. "Just ask and let them jump to their own conclusions or talk with Amy, she's a hero and she probably knows people that can look into the situation at your school."

"I don't want to bother her," Taylor admitted.

"We're stuck in another world, she'd probably like something to take her mind off of it," Myst pointed out. "You won't know until you try, she seems pretty reasonable."

"Worth a shot," Taylor admitted, figuring she'd ask once they escaped the sect. "How long do you think it will take to cleanse the rest of the sludge?"

Myst glanced at the rock where he could see a couple of inches of 'clean' rock. "At least a couple of hours."

Taylor sighed. "I should have brought a book."

Myst had his avatar hand him a book on alchemy then handed it to Taylor. "Have fun."

"Thanks," Taylor replied as she grabbed the bag of glow stones from next to the pile of Myst's robes, looking forward to learning how to make magic potions and feeling a bit better about her troubles now that she'd talked about them.