The sewers, as one might expect, smelled exactly like dead things and shit. If Rilien looked out of place in Darktown, the effect was magnified tenfold here. Still, though his boots might be of fine make, they were functional and watertight, something that was definitely fortunate considering where theyâd ended up. So while they sloshed through stagnant, filthy water as deep as their ankles, none of it seeped in. Oddly, most of the sloshing seemed to be left to other people, as even in these conditions, Rilien made little enough noise that he wasnât heard over everyone else.
Who had deigned to place traps in a sewer passage, he did not know, but he found several anyway, walking in front to better spy the occasional tripwire or pressure plate. He didnât stoop to disable them, considering the terrain, but he at least warned the others of where they were located, so that they could place their feet carefully. Not knowing where exactly Evelina was in the sewer system meant they had to sweep it, at least until Rilien picked up on ambient magic in the area. After that, like some kind of odd bloodhound, he led them to where he sensed it from, coiling and slithering like black oil on the surface of a dank pond. Corrupted, beyond their capacity to repair.
Slogging through shit so early in the day hadn't been on Sparrow's list of things she wanted to do, either. It seemed as if her day was being plunged into the same muck she was currently drudging through, and no amount of breath-holding would quell the wafting bouquet of fecal matter and cankerous mold that surrounded them. She kept her arms swinging in an odd, chicken-fashion to prevent soiling anything besides her nice, new boots. If she'd known ahead of time, perhaps she would've worn clothes she cared nothing about. She had to admit though, it was a nice distraction to the fact that they'd soon have to slaughter another mage-gone-astray, in a dank gutter that overshadowed all of her good deeds.
The area Rilien led them to was a wider, more cavernous one, the terrain a mix of sodden and completely covered in water, which would mean poor footing for those not used to keeping it. Rather than Evelina, however, what they saw first was Walter and Cricket, who had obviously known more exactly where their former caretaker had hidden herself.
"Walter.â It was perhaps strange that the one word, delivered in nothing other than his characteristic monotone, could produce a sort of instantaneous guilt in the adolescent, but it did.
âIâI thought if we warned her about you, she wouldnât be angry. But sheââ
âWalterâŠâ A feminine voice sing-songed the word, perhaps from up the stairs slightly ahead and to their left.
Walterâs eyes went wide, and he grasped Cricketâs upper arm, shifting the smaller boy behind him. âSheâs coming. Run!â The two took off, attempting to mount the stairs, but a figure appeared to be descending them, cutting off the boysâ escape.
It belonged to a woman, her face lined, probably prematurely, with stress, her cheeks hollowed and slightly sunken. Her coloration and build were entirely average for anyone around the area, but there was a malicious light in the way she stared. Rilien knew that wasnât just a metaphorâit was a reflection of the nature of the magic she harbored. âThere you are. Donât run from me, Walter. You know those are the rules.â
Rilien moved swiftly, insinuating himself between the woman and the children, one of his long knives sliding free of its sheath with a soft ringing sound. Electricity crackled along the surface of the steel, the enchantment waking now that it was properly in his hand. "Get back.â His order to the boys was toneless as ever, but they obeyed immediately nonetheless.
âYou play the hero well.â Eveline eyed him speculatively, and then the others as well. âBut I see through you. You lived here, once, but you were never one of us. And now you live in Hightown, up there with the nobles and the filth. Never to look at whatâs below your feet. I should rule Kirkwall! Then my children will have a whole city to play in!â Evelinaâs face and form contorted, bathed in a sickly green light, and no more than a moment later, an abomination stood where once she had been. To her sides, several shades and rage demons appeared from the ground as well, hissing and spitting magmatic saliva and rotten air alike.
Rilien did not hesitate, and sprang for Evelina.
It was Rilien who had darted forward first, shielding the children from who she assumed had been Evelina. An old, withered husk crooning at the head of the staircase. Blabbering about things that made no sense. An empty shell bearing a twisted face, and a well-meaning woman gnawed away by monsters whose sickly-sweet promises had been too great to refuse. She understood that better than anyone, and it made her stomach twist in knots, her mouth swill with bile. She chuffed harshly and unwrapped the mace from her hip. Already, it hissed with heat and spat embers from its flanged fins, mirroring her outrage. It was unfair. All of this. Dirty business fit for the sewers.
She, too, darted forward and nearly fell flat in the mud, slipping in the muck under her feet. She regained her balance, swearing and sweating from heat wafting from her weapon. With Aurora's guidance, she still could not control the measure of magic poured into temporarily enchanting weapons, and at this proximity, the shaft burnt hot against her palms. She gnarled her discomfort into pure energy and planted her feet onto the first staircase, which was relatively drier than the rest of the sludge, and threw herself at the nearest shade, screaming. The sizzling mace swung back behind her head and swept into a large arch focused on the upper portion of its chest, sending her and the shade over the railing and back into the filth.
The satisfying crunch of steel against the shade's face made it worthwhile. It sizzled and crackled in a mess of ash and embers, sweeping up into the air as she passed overhead. She landed shoulder-first and managed to roll back to her feet without kissing muck and grime, another gurgle of rage battling its way from her throat as she stumbled back towards the rage demons.
Next into the fray was Aurora who dashed in low past the two children and directly to the shade on the far end. When she threw her arms back and when she brought them back to her front, they were encased in a thick layer of stone. Her face held a grim edge as she went to work. On her approach, she feinted to the side, which brought the shade's attention there before she broke back to the opposite side, breaking the sightline. Aurora rose up and delivered a heavy uppercut to what could be considered the thing's head, though it required a little hop to reach. Though the onslaught didn't stop there.
Once she reached her feet again, she delivered two more strikes to the demon's midsection before he had the chance to lash out. He brought a horizontal swipe across in an attempt to take her head off, but she leaned heavy to the side. Unfortunately, it threw her off balance, and in the muck of the sewers she lost her footing, and she threatened to topple over. However, her stoneskin hand kept her upright, though partly horizontal, acting as a pillar of some sort. Instead, she swept with her foot, taking the shade's base from it. She pushed herself up and brought her hand in a semi circle, ending in the creature's chest, dispersing it.
She turned just in time to witness a rage demon rear back to belch a stream of lava on to her, but before it could carry it out its intentions, a heavy force picked it up and tossed it to the side. A sidelong glance revealed it to be Pike, standing protectively in front of the children. She spared a nod in acknowledgement before jumping back into the fight.
Rilien had a bit of an uphill battle on his hands, as Evelina had backed up the stairs after his initial lunge resulted in a deep stab wound in her side. Trailing a ribbon of blood, she made to get away from him as quickly as possible launching multiple projectiles at him, as the staircase forced him into a rather narrow path, minimizing his ability to dodge. But he was light on his feet and well-balanced, and so while a fireball managed to catch his sleeve on his way up, he was not seriously injured before he was able to get in close again.
One of the abominationâs arms swept outwards, just clipping his cheekbone as he bent to avoid the worst of it, the thin line of blood trickling down the nearly-alabaster white of his skin, stark if nothing else. Narrowing his eyes, he lunged again, sweeping in low and hamstringing her on the way past, straightening to a stand once he was properly behind her and taking another glancing blast of telekinetic energy to his left shin. Shifting his balance to his other foot, he plunged his dagger into the base of her neck and tore it out the other side, sending her to the ground. Noting that another rage demon approached Sparrow from behind, he drew a smaller knife, this one glistening with ice, and hurled it, striking between what would have been its shoulder blades, freezing it at the core and making it vulnerable to blunt impact. A couple of blows from Sparrowâs mace would probably shatter it.
Sparrow felt, more than heard, the slicing wake of Rilien's dagger hissing beyond her shoulder, and punching into the rage demon skulking at her back. He was backing Evelina back up the staircase, and looked as if he needed no help. Blood pumped through her temples as loudly as drum beats, clamouring and trampling any remaining logical thought as if they were the shoulders of the dead. Her movements were clumsy in the perilous slop, but it did not take her long to take advantage of the terrain and slip under its extended claw and drifting her mace behind her. A wake of destruction hardening the slime it schlepped through, crackling with hoar-frost. Cold enough to numb her hands. Its blueness reflected in her eyes, dancing with the demon's flames, and as she tensed her shoulders and arms, swinging wild and wide, the mace connected with its shoulders and sailed straight through it's neck and torso, sideways.
Unfortunately, its momentum swung her off balance and she plopped onto her side, mace held askew. Her anger sizzled out as if it'd been doused with waterâor shit and muck, probably both. The stench reached her nose once more, and she tasted copper in her mouth. She sucked at her gums to realize she'd bitten her tongue. Fortunately, all the other demons and baddies had been slain, and now all who remained was the withering Evelina, the children, and her friends. Stuck in a sewer, sodden with who-knows-what. Even she admitted that she'd need to bathe. She did not immediately stand, but instead shrugged her shoulders and glanced up at Aurora and Pike, grimacing and flicking clumps of mud from her sopping sleeves. How long would it take to get that out of there? She sighed, âShit. Everywhere.â And then, there was the children: wide-eyed, trembling. Also in shit. Hardly a place for kids.
The last demon was handled not too long thereafter, due to Pike and Aurora's teamwork. Pike used his magic to force the last demon toward Aurora at an impressive clip, who ran toward the demon and punched. With the momentum of her run combined with the demon's own, it slammed against the ground with stunning force, dispersing it instantly. Unfortunately, it lived long enough to make impact with the sewage soaked ground, splashing her with muck and who knew what else. She managed to avoid most of it by turning her head away at the last moment, but even a little bit was far too much for her. She noted Pike bringing his hand to his mouth in an effort to not laugh.
"... Everywhere," Aurora agreed with Sparrow. "Let's... Go somewhere else. Anywhere. I really want to change," she said, trying not to move and spread what was already on her elsewhere.
Quickly as they could, they left the sewers, Pike ushering the children along with them. Before they left Darktown, they had to see children's care, as Aurora nor Pike wished to simply abandon them. "The Templars would let them rot, and that's not what Evelina would want," he said, though no one disagreed. Toward that end, they decided to allow a small charity group that did most of its work in the slums to take kids in, but not before Rilien gave them a few coins.
It was then decided that they would change clothes first, before making their way to Hightown in an attempt to find Emile de Launcet.
Who had deigned to place traps in a sewer passage, he did not know, but he found several anyway, walking in front to better spy the occasional tripwire or pressure plate. He didnât stoop to disable them, considering the terrain, but he at least warned the others of where they were located, so that they could place their feet carefully. Not knowing where exactly Evelina was in the sewer system meant they had to sweep it, at least until Rilien picked up on ambient magic in the area. After that, like some kind of odd bloodhound, he led them to where he sensed it from, coiling and slithering like black oil on the surface of a dank pond. Corrupted, beyond their capacity to repair.
Slogging through shit so early in the day hadn't been on Sparrow's list of things she wanted to do, either. It seemed as if her day was being plunged into the same muck she was currently drudging through, and no amount of breath-holding would quell the wafting bouquet of fecal matter and cankerous mold that surrounded them. She kept her arms swinging in an odd, chicken-fashion to prevent soiling anything besides her nice, new boots. If she'd known ahead of time, perhaps she would've worn clothes she cared nothing about. She had to admit though, it was a nice distraction to the fact that they'd soon have to slaughter another mage-gone-astray, in a dank gutter that overshadowed all of her good deeds.
The area Rilien led them to was a wider, more cavernous one, the terrain a mix of sodden and completely covered in water, which would mean poor footing for those not used to keeping it. Rather than Evelina, however, what they saw first was Walter and Cricket, who had obviously known more exactly where their former caretaker had hidden herself.
"Walter.â It was perhaps strange that the one word, delivered in nothing other than his characteristic monotone, could produce a sort of instantaneous guilt in the adolescent, but it did.
âIâI thought if we warned her about you, she wouldnât be angry. But sheââ
âWalterâŠâ A feminine voice sing-songed the word, perhaps from up the stairs slightly ahead and to their left.
Walterâs eyes went wide, and he grasped Cricketâs upper arm, shifting the smaller boy behind him. âSheâs coming. Run!â The two took off, attempting to mount the stairs, but a figure appeared to be descending them, cutting off the boysâ escape.
It belonged to a woman, her face lined, probably prematurely, with stress, her cheeks hollowed and slightly sunken. Her coloration and build were entirely average for anyone around the area, but there was a malicious light in the way she stared. Rilien knew that wasnât just a metaphorâit was a reflection of the nature of the magic she harbored. âThere you are. Donât run from me, Walter. You know those are the rules.â
Rilien moved swiftly, insinuating himself between the woman and the children, one of his long knives sliding free of its sheath with a soft ringing sound. Electricity crackled along the surface of the steel, the enchantment waking now that it was properly in his hand. "Get back.â His order to the boys was toneless as ever, but they obeyed immediately nonetheless.
âYou play the hero well.â Eveline eyed him speculatively, and then the others as well. âBut I see through you. You lived here, once, but you were never one of us. And now you live in Hightown, up there with the nobles and the filth. Never to look at whatâs below your feet. I should rule Kirkwall! Then my children will have a whole city to play in!â Evelinaâs face and form contorted, bathed in a sickly green light, and no more than a moment later, an abomination stood where once she had been. To her sides, several shades and rage demons appeared from the ground as well, hissing and spitting magmatic saliva and rotten air alike.
Rilien did not hesitate, and sprang for Evelina.
It was Rilien who had darted forward first, shielding the children from who she assumed had been Evelina. An old, withered husk crooning at the head of the staircase. Blabbering about things that made no sense. An empty shell bearing a twisted face, and a well-meaning woman gnawed away by monsters whose sickly-sweet promises had been too great to refuse. She understood that better than anyone, and it made her stomach twist in knots, her mouth swill with bile. She chuffed harshly and unwrapped the mace from her hip. Already, it hissed with heat and spat embers from its flanged fins, mirroring her outrage. It was unfair. All of this. Dirty business fit for the sewers.
She, too, darted forward and nearly fell flat in the mud, slipping in the muck under her feet. She regained her balance, swearing and sweating from heat wafting from her weapon. With Aurora's guidance, she still could not control the measure of magic poured into temporarily enchanting weapons, and at this proximity, the shaft burnt hot against her palms. She gnarled her discomfort into pure energy and planted her feet onto the first staircase, which was relatively drier than the rest of the sludge, and threw herself at the nearest shade, screaming. The sizzling mace swung back behind her head and swept into a large arch focused on the upper portion of its chest, sending her and the shade over the railing and back into the filth.
The satisfying crunch of steel against the shade's face made it worthwhile. It sizzled and crackled in a mess of ash and embers, sweeping up into the air as she passed overhead. She landed shoulder-first and managed to roll back to her feet without kissing muck and grime, another gurgle of rage battling its way from her throat as she stumbled back towards the rage demons.
Next into the fray was Aurora who dashed in low past the two children and directly to the shade on the far end. When she threw her arms back and when she brought them back to her front, they were encased in a thick layer of stone. Her face held a grim edge as she went to work. On her approach, she feinted to the side, which brought the shade's attention there before she broke back to the opposite side, breaking the sightline. Aurora rose up and delivered a heavy uppercut to what could be considered the thing's head, though it required a little hop to reach. Though the onslaught didn't stop there.
Once she reached her feet again, she delivered two more strikes to the demon's midsection before he had the chance to lash out. He brought a horizontal swipe across in an attempt to take her head off, but she leaned heavy to the side. Unfortunately, it threw her off balance, and in the muck of the sewers she lost her footing, and she threatened to topple over. However, her stoneskin hand kept her upright, though partly horizontal, acting as a pillar of some sort. Instead, she swept with her foot, taking the shade's base from it. She pushed herself up and brought her hand in a semi circle, ending in the creature's chest, dispersing it.
She turned just in time to witness a rage demon rear back to belch a stream of lava on to her, but before it could carry it out its intentions, a heavy force picked it up and tossed it to the side. A sidelong glance revealed it to be Pike, standing protectively in front of the children. She spared a nod in acknowledgement before jumping back into the fight.
Rilien had a bit of an uphill battle on his hands, as Evelina had backed up the stairs after his initial lunge resulted in a deep stab wound in her side. Trailing a ribbon of blood, she made to get away from him as quickly as possible launching multiple projectiles at him, as the staircase forced him into a rather narrow path, minimizing his ability to dodge. But he was light on his feet and well-balanced, and so while a fireball managed to catch his sleeve on his way up, he was not seriously injured before he was able to get in close again.
One of the abominationâs arms swept outwards, just clipping his cheekbone as he bent to avoid the worst of it, the thin line of blood trickling down the nearly-alabaster white of his skin, stark if nothing else. Narrowing his eyes, he lunged again, sweeping in low and hamstringing her on the way past, straightening to a stand once he was properly behind her and taking another glancing blast of telekinetic energy to his left shin. Shifting his balance to his other foot, he plunged his dagger into the base of her neck and tore it out the other side, sending her to the ground. Noting that another rage demon approached Sparrow from behind, he drew a smaller knife, this one glistening with ice, and hurled it, striking between what would have been its shoulder blades, freezing it at the core and making it vulnerable to blunt impact. A couple of blows from Sparrowâs mace would probably shatter it.
Sparrow felt, more than heard, the slicing wake of Rilien's dagger hissing beyond her shoulder, and punching into the rage demon skulking at her back. He was backing Evelina back up the staircase, and looked as if he needed no help. Blood pumped through her temples as loudly as drum beats, clamouring and trampling any remaining logical thought as if they were the shoulders of the dead. Her movements were clumsy in the perilous slop, but it did not take her long to take advantage of the terrain and slip under its extended claw and drifting her mace behind her. A wake of destruction hardening the slime it schlepped through, crackling with hoar-frost. Cold enough to numb her hands. Its blueness reflected in her eyes, dancing with the demon's flames, and as she tensed her shoulders and arms, swinging wild and wide, the mace connected with its shoulders and sailed straight through it's neck and torso, sideways.
Unfortunately, its momentum swung her off balance and she plopped onto her side, mace held askew. Her anger sizzled out as if it'd been doused with waterâor shit and muck, probably both. The stench reached her nose once more, and she tasted copper in her mouth. She sucked at her gums to realize she'd bitten her tongue. Fortunately, all the other demons and baddies had been slain, and now all who remained was the withering Evelina, the children, and her friends. Stuck in a sewer, sodden with who-knows-what. Even she admitted that she'd need to bathe. She did not immediately stand, but instead shrugged her shoulders and glanced up at Aurora and Pike, grimacing and flicking clumps of mud from her sopping sleeves. How long would it take to get that out of there? She sighed, âShit. Everywhere.â And then, there was the children: wide-eyed, trembling. Also in shit. Hardly a place for kids.
The last demon was handled not too long thereafter, due to Pike and Aurora's teamwork. Pike used his magic to force the last demon toward Aurora at an impressive clip, who ran toward the demon and punched. With the momentum of her run combined with the demon's own, it slammed against the ground with stunning force, dispersing it instantly. Unfortunately, it lived long enough to make impact with the sewage soaked ground, splashing her with muck and who knew what else. She managed to avoid most of it by turning her head away at the last moment, but even a little bit was far too much for her. She noted Pike bringing his hand to his mouth in an effort to not laugh.
"... Everywhere," Aurora agreed with Sparrow. "Let's... Go somewhere else. Anywhere. I really want to change," she said, trying not to move and spread what was already on her elsewhere.
Quickly as they could, they left the sewers, Pike ushering the children along with them. Before they left Darktown, they had to see children's care, as Aurora nor Pike wished to simply abandon them. "The Templars would let them rot, and that's not what Evelina would want," he said, though no one disagreed. Toward that end, they decided to allow a small charity group that did most of its work in the slums to take kids in, but not before Rilien gave them a few coins.
It was then decided that they would change clothes first, before making their way to Hightown in an attempt to find Emile de Launcet.