71: The World Beneath (Patreon)

“You? You’re Riyan’s contact…” Vir said, unbelieving.

“Amin. Pleased to meet ya!”

“This seems… awfully lucky for us to run into each other like this, doesn’t it?”

Riyan had said his contact would find Vir, but what were the chances of it happening here, of all places?

“Nah. Riyan said you’d be seeking membership in the Brotherhood, so I figured I’d bump into you sooner or later. I spend a lot of time down here, y’know?”

“But how did you know it was me?” Vir asked. “Just because I saw through your affinities?”

“You had to be. No one else with that kind of power, as far as I’ve seen, and Riyan wouldn't send someone average. Also, you’re wearing makeup.”

Vir raised a brow.

“I can tell. You’re pretty good at it, though. No need to worry about most people finding out.”

The boy’s words were less than comforting to Vir, who relied on his makeup to ensure his safety. He knew his skills were up to scratch. Amin was just highly skilled, which gave him some credibility.

But still…

“I need some proof that you’re Riyan’s contact. For all I know, you could be someone just pretending to be.”

“You always this paranoid, or you just having a bad day?”

“Humor me,” Vir said, refusing to let this one go.

“Fine. Riyan’s a big scary guy, black beard. Always grumpy. And uh, you’re supposed to be a prana scorned Ashborn, and you came to him about a year ago for training. He didn’t tell me anything past that. But if you can see peoples’ affinities, I dunno if you’re really prana scorned or what.”

If the boy knew that much, then he had to be Riyan’s contact. Amin might have been lying about this all being a coincidence, but then again, maybe not.

“You don’t sound convinced,” Amin said.

“I guess I was just expecting someone older. You’re a bit young to be doing this kind of thing, aren’t you?”

“Hey man, I do what I gotta do. People see a kid, they don’t ask questions. Especially someone who looks like an urchin.”

Vir didn’t miss the ‘looks like’ part. Certainly, disguising oneself as a young orphan would let them get away with a lot under the guise of ‘looking for food.’

“How much can I rely on you, Amin? Do you know why I’m here?”

“I mean, it’s not like I’m only Riyan’s agent here in Daha. I work for a buncha people. But I guess I owe Riyan some favors, so you can count on me. I’ll help ya out if I can! And nope, got no clue why you’re here. Care to share?”

“I think it’d be safer for both of us if I didn’t,” Vir said. “For now, I need a guide. You look like you know your way around this place.”

“It’s good to know the sewers. Handy. Why?”

“You know where to find some Jatu?”

“Oh, the Brotherhood initiation mission, eh?”

Vir had to stop himself from rolling his eyes. Did literally everyone know about the initiation task?

“Yeah,” he said.

“Sure, I do. But uh, you’re kinda in the wrong spot. They’re pretty far from here.”

“Can you lead me there?” Vir asked.

“Huh? Oh, yeah… maybe. Gee, I dunno. I’m kinda hungry, and this bread ain’t gonna last me a long time, y’know?”

Vir blinked at the boy. “What?”

“Okay, well maybe I’m not that bad off, but can you blame me?”

“You’re Riyan’s agent. You’re supposed to help me. Isn’t that what you just said? That you owed him some favors?”

“Hey now, I said I’d help, but Riyan never said I had to help for free, did it?”

Vir debated what to do for a moment. He could easily overpower this kid and threaten him, but given how he needed the boy’s cooperation in the future, that would likely be a bad decision. Maybe Amin owed Riyan some favors, but there were so many ways for the kid to make Vir’s life miserable without Riyan being any wiser.

Then again, if he just gave in, Amin would see him as an easy mark, fleecing him in the future, just like the urchins at Saran did.

So he opened his leather coin bag and pulled out a single silver.

“Oh! How generous of you!” Amin’s eyes twinkled with greed as he reached out to grab it from Vir’s hand, but Vir pulled back at the last moment.

“You misunderstand. I know how this game is played, Amin. I’m not a chal, and if you mistake me for one, you’re going to regret it. Now, I don’t mind compensating you, but this is it. This silver is payment for all services you’ll render to me during my stay here in Daha. Do you understand?”

“Fine, fine.” Amin said with a grumble, reaching out for the silver, but Vir once again withheld the money.

“C’mon man! What now?”

“I’ll hand over the silver after you lead me to the Jatu.”

“Man, that’s hurtful. It’s like you can’t even trust me.”

“I want to trust you, Amin. We both work for Riyan. But you need to earn my trust first. I feel like that’s a reasonable ask.”

“Alright, alright. Anyway, I never did get your name.”

“Riyan never told you?” Vir asked.

“Did he tell you mine?” Amin countered.

Fair enough. Riyan must have felt it safer that way. “Neel,” he said.

“Right. Once again, I’m Amin. Pleased to meet ya. Now let’s get going. Sooner we get there, sooner I get my coin.”

“And the sooner I can be out of this horrid place,” Vir said. “How do you even stand the stench?”

Amin laughed, taking the lead down the narrow sewer. “Believe me, I don’t. But you find ways of ignoring it if you spend long enough down here.”

Amin navigated through the tunnels with the ease of a practiced veteran, but Vir didn’t want to rely only on the boy. He continued marking tunnels up with his salve until they came to a set of tunnels that Vir had traversed before.

We’re going back? He thought. It seemed like they were headed right back to the entrance where he’d entered.

Sure enough, another half hour of walking through tunnels that all blended together put them right back at the entrance grate.

“Guessing this is where you entered from, yeah?” Amin said. “You turned the wrong way, Neel. Shoulda turned left. You’d have been there in no time.”

“Really, now?” Vir supposed he had no way of knowing. He followed Amin through the tunnel, passing by the stairs that led to the entrance. “Say, how large are these tunnels, anyway?”

“Huge. Vast. Honestly, even I don’t know how deep they run, even after all the years I’ve spent exploring them.”

“Deep?” Vir asked. “What do you mean?”

“This place is a labyrinth, Neel. One that runs east, west, north, and south… but also down. Far, far down. The sewers are just the first level. There are stairways down here that lead to places much much deeper. And older. Barely anyone even knows they exist, and no one knows who made them. Maybe there was a city here before Daha. Maybe it was made by the gods… who knows?”

“And? What’s down there?” Vir asked.

“Things. Things that don’t want to be found. The guards sometimes come down into the sewers, but nobody ventures down there, Neel. Nobody. You’d best be careful if you ever find yourself in a tunnel that slopes down. Down is dangerous.”

This was all news to Vir, but he doubted he’d ever see what Amin was talking about. His only goal was the castle. The other areas, while interesting, weren’t of use to him.

“These tunnels run everywhere under the city,” Amin continued. “It’s kinda amazing once you figure it all out.”

“Even under the District of Internal Affairs?” Vir asked.

“Even under the castle, but that’s tougher.”

“Tougher,” Vir said, ”but not impossible, I take it?”

“Well, sure, there are ways. Dangerous though. Those deep parts I told you about earlier? The ones where scary things live? Yeah, you gotta go down there to get to the castle. No one in their right mind would try.”

Vir fell silent, contemplating his options. This approach sounded like a risky one, but he wondered how dangerous any animals lurking in these depths really could be. They weren’t in the Ashen Realm, after all. It wasn’t like they’d run into any Ash Beasts here.

“We’re here,” Amin said, at last.

Prana Vision confirmed it. They rounded a bend into a much taller, wider arched tunnel that seemed to serve as a nexus of waterways that ran across the room from one grate to another. Ancient stone walked crossed the canals.

And above all of this hung an entire colony of Jatu—small winged creatures that slept upside down. Vir’s objective.

They were barely a couple of handspans in length, and all of them were currently sleeping.

“Don’t wake them,” Amin whispered, extinguishing his Magic Candle, plunging the two into total darkness. Humans normally fared poorly in such complete lack of light, but Amin didn’t seem to be fazed in the slightest. “They really don’t like light, so I dunno how you’re gonna get one without waking the whole nest up.”

Vir supposed this was another element of the test, but in his case, it could hardly even be called a challenge.

“Stay here,” he told Amin. “And keep your light off.”

“Understood,” the boy whispered back.

The darkness hid him from Amin, but Vir walked several paces away to be sure, before placing a hand onto the ground and sucking prana into his arm.

Activating Dance of the Shadow Demon, he sunk into the realm of shadows. The entire tunnel network was essentially one great shadow, allowing him to appear anywhere within a radius of twenty paces.

This task didn’t require his entire body—just an arm. He located a Jatu sleeping at the very edge of the colony and snaked his arm out beside it.

With an Empowered swipe, he yanked the bird-like animal down into the shadow realm with him.

Instead of appearing next to Amin, he reappeared at the limit of the ability’s range—about twenty paces away, as far from the colony as he could manage.

The captured Jatu woke the instant they reappeared from the shadow… and Vir suddenly understood how these creatures saw.

The entire tunnel flooded with Shadow prana, utterly blinding his Prana Vision. The Jatu shrieked and in his confusion, the bird escaped.

“Hey! Shut it up! Quick!” Amin hissed.

Acting out of reflex and using Prana Vision to track it, Vir grabbed it, securing it again and clamping its mouth. Luckily, it hadn’t woken its friends.

Instead of killing it immediately, Vir took some time to analyze what was happening to Prana Vision. Shadow prana fired off every which way, bouncing off of walls and polluting the area with prana.

In terms of sheer prana output, it was weak, but there were so many motes that it completely blinded him, making him dizzy. What intrigued Vir the most was how these motes of prana bounced back into the Jatu, being reabsorbed.

It’s using Prana to see, isn’t it?

It made him wonder why it had a pair of tiny red eyes, but he wasn’t here to study these creatures.

He tried breaking its neck, but the Jatu’s skeleton was surprisingly durable. So instead, he placed a hand on the damp sewer wall and sucked prana into his arm.

With a quick Empowered jerk of his hand, its neck broke, ending the pings. Luckily, they’d been far enough away not to alert the rest of the colony.

It was the first time he’d successfully used an Empowered attack, and while what he’d done was merely a crippled workaround of the real Talent, he couldn’t deny that it worked.

Vir’s eyes lingered on the dead beast. It bothered him that Prana Vision could be corrupted like this. He’d grown to depend on the ability, and the fact that it could be thwarted meant he needed to be wary of enemies in the future who could do the same.

Vir contemplated removing its eyes, but decided to forego that unpleasant act. Surely the Executor would be happy even if he returned the entire body?

“Amin,” Vir whispered. “It’s done. We can go now.”

“Phew!” Amin replied, reactivating his Magic Candle. “Gave me a scare there when it woke up. How’d you do it? I didn’t even notice you.”

“I have a handy Talent for stuff like this,” Vir said, omitting the details.

It took only a few minutes for them to retrace their steps back to the stairs.

“You’re following me out?” Vir asked.

“Hey, it’s not like I want to be in this stinky place any longer than you do.”

As they approached street level, the guard’s obnoxious snores grew louder and louder. Vir had to rap on the gate for a full minute, shouting at the guard before he woke.

Dance of the Shadow Demon would’ve allowed him to bypass the issue entirely, but after going through so much trouble to hide it from Amin, it’d be foolish to reveal his hand now.

“Ah! It’s you! Stayed ‘ere late just for you, y’know?” he said as he shuffled around for his key. “And I see you found a friend? Sewer rat, no less.”

“Thanks for staying late,” Vir said, tossing him ten coppers, earning him a pointed stare from Amin and a thankful nod from the tired guard.

“Can’t believe you’re so generous to someone like him, but you’re so mean to me.” Amin huffed as they walked through the alley. “What of my payment?”

Vir promptly handed over the promised silver. “I have no issue paying for services rendered. I just don’t like being taken advantage of.”

“Don’t we all?” Amin said, walking off.

“Wait!” Vir called. “How do I find you?”

Amin turned around. “Where do you stay?”

“The Market Square Inn, across from the Brotherhood building.”

“I’ll drop a note,” Amin said, waving to Vir as he sauntered off into another alley. The boy's answer didn't give him any confidence, but he doubted Amin would divulge his home base, even if pushed.

Vir looked down at the bird corpse in his hand.

“Well, guess it’s time to find out my Balar Rank,” he muttered with a grin.

Tomorrow’s gonna be an interesting day.