The sewer entrance wasn’t declared safe until nearly an hour after the last of the rat corpses had been burned into ashes.

  Even then, “safe” was a generous word. The gate stood open ominously.

  A handful of grim-faced guards worked in silence, hauling carcasses away and dumping them into burn pits.

  While some unsavory types would sell rat meat to unscrupulous butchers the city guard was more concerned that rats would be a source of miasma which could infect people with tainted mana which was considered the source of illness and sickness.

  It was the accepted medical theory that tainted mana seeped into the body the same way water seeped into boots, slow and inevitable.

  Once inside the body, it disrupted the balance of the four humors. Which were blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile. Too much corrupted blood brought fevers and madness.

  Tainted phlegm led to choking sickness and wasting coughs. A black bile imbalance caused melancholy. While yellow bile corruption produced violent tempers, seizures, and in severe cases, spontaneous magical discharges.

  The party waited off to the side resting and preparing for the delve. They cleaned their weapons as best they could and wiped their armor down with oil-soaked rags to prevent rust.

  None of them complained about the smell anymore.

  After a while, you either stopped noticing it or you started gagging again, and none of them were eager to do the latter in front of Doferty who everyone in the party had decided was a huge asshole.

  Finally, though the all-clear was given and they could get on with it.

  “Path’s open,” one of the guards called, not looking particularly happy about it. “Far as we can tell.”

  Doferty grunted. “Even so, stay sharp.”

  He didn’t look at them when he said it, but Eleonora could feel the weight of the unspoken *especially you* hanging in the air. She pretended not to notice and adjusted the strap of her shield.

  He then turned to the party. “All right, time for you lot to stop loafing and go do the job we’re paying you for,” he said, the familiar note of derision back in his voice.

  Any of them could have pointed out that he wasn’t the one actually paying them. But none of them bothered. It wasn’t worth the argument and Doferty looked like the kind of man who’d treat it like one.

  Torchlight flickered against slick stone walls, shadows rippling over the stonework.

  The air was cool and damp, heavy with rot and stagnant water.

  Somewhere deeper inside, unseen currents flowed with a constant, low rush like distant wind through a canyon.

  The sewers tunnels had been hewn with earth magic and reinforced with more non magical masonry giving the tunnel an unnatural symmetry.

  Along the walls, faint lines of carved runes stretched in repeating patterns. Most were dark now, their once-bright inlays cracked or blackened, as if something had burned the magic right out of them.

  Eleonora found herself staring at them.

  “Those supposed to be glowing?” she asked quietly.

  Lucien glanced up from where he walked, staff resting against his shoulder. “Yes.”

  That was all he said for a moment as he looked over to Kavisha.

  Kavisha, walking a few steps ahead, flipped open her notebook and began sketching one of the rune clusters as they passed. “Drain pattern?” she asked without looking back at Lucien.

  Lucien nodded. “Likely. Or an overload. The ambient mana density is…” He paused, brow furrowing slightly. “Exceptionally high for the sewer.”

  “How high is exceptionally high?” Isadora asked.

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  Lucien hesitated. “High enough that I can feel it pressing on my skin.”

  Eleonora grimaced. “Great. That sounds…like totally bad.”

  “It is rarely good,” Lucien said simply not stating that the only time mages felt that was in a dungeon near its core.

  As they continued deeper, they went the more the ambient mana seemed to permeate everything. Every rune they found was burnt out and even those not magically inclined could feel the mana in the air.

  Eleonora swallowed hard as throat became dry even though she took a swig from her canteen.

  Because despite the cool, damp air, heat had built up under her plate armor and sweat was trickling down her back. The padding beneath the steel felt like it was slowly turning into a soaked blanket wrapped around her ribs.

  You’re fine, she told herself.

  You’ve fought worse in training; she murmured to herself.

  She then shifted her grip on her shield.

  “Milady?” Isadora said quietly beside her.

  “I’m fine,” Eleonora said, automatically not wanting Isadora to worry and Kavisha to think she couldn't handle the pressure.

  Isadora didn’t look convinced, but she nodded anyway.

  Nearly a mile in, Kavisha stopped abruptly and signaled for the party to stop causing the party to freeze.

  Eleonora and Isadora moved forward without needing to be told, shields coming up, forming a tight two-person wall that blocked part of the tunnel width. Their shoulders brushed, armor edges clicking softly together as they moved into a tight formation.

  Behind them, Lucien stepped back and angled his staff forward. Faint light visible only to him began to gather along its length as spell circles formed, rotating slowly in layered precision.

  Kavisha slipped sideways into the shadows, one hand already on a dagger.

  Now they waited though the only sound for a moment was water dripping somewhere ahead.

  Then they heard the movement as something ran though the knee-deep water.

  It was accompanied by a low, chattering snarl that echoed down the tunnel.

  Followed by seven shapes that emerged from the darkness.

  The goblins looked like hairless chimpanzees stretched into something more vicious. Their gray-pink skin shone wetly in the torchlight. Long arms ended in filthy, claw-like fingers. Their teeth were too large for their mouths, yellow and jagged.

  Each carried something resembling a weapon—clubs made from scrap metal, broken chair legs, rusted pipe sections, or just heavy rocks tied to cord.

  “Goblins,” Kavisha whispered from the dark. “a large pack”

  Then the goblins saw them and screamed as they charged as a pack, fast and low, feet slapping through shallow sewer water.

  “Hold!” Isadora barked.

  The first goblin slammed into their shield wall.

  Causing the steel to ring from the impact.

  Eleonora felt the impact rattle down her arm into her shoulder, but she held, boots grinding against stone. Isadora shoved forward, forcing the creature off balance.

  “Now!” she cried out and then the two women struck together.

  Eleonora’s sword punched forward, sliding between a goblin's ribs. While Isadora’s blade cut across another goblin’s throat, dropping that one instantly. The other one staggered away, shrieking from the pain.

  Behind them, Lucien’s staff flared as he fired off a spell.

  Sending a compact fireball shooting forward to strike a third goblin square in the face.

  The explosion was small but brutal. The smell of burning hair and flesh filled the air as the creature collapsed, screaming for a moment before its fire seared lungs gave out it chocked to death.

  Two more of the goblins slammed into the shield wall.

  Eleonora grunted as a goblin that tried to bite her shield’s teeth scraped across her shield rim it then tried to climb over her shield and begin clawing at her helmet.

  “Get off!” she shouted, slamming her shield forward.

  Meanwhile, as if from nowhere, Kavisha appeared behind the pack and she drove her dagger into one of the goblin’s lower back, sliding up under the ribs. It shrieked and spun away, still alive, swinging wildly at the air, unable to see its attacker.

  “Hold still!” Kavisha snapped, yanking the blade free.

  The following fight turned into a brutal, close quarters struggle between the party and the remaining goblins.

  It took six long, exhausting minutes before the last one finally died as silence fell again, broken only by heavy breathing and distant running water.

  “Everyone alive?” Kavisha asked, wiping her dagger on a goblin’s ragged loincloth.

  “Yes,” Lucien said calmly.

  “Milady?” Isadora asked, turning slightly.

  Eleonora lowered her sword, chest heaving. “I’m fine. Thanks Isadora.”

  Her maid nodded, her relief obvious but controlled.

  Eleonora looked back at the other two members of the party. “How are you, Kavisha?”

  Kavisha snorted. “I’m good. You don’t need to worry about me, kid.”

  Eleonora huffed. “I am not a kid.”

  That earned a tired chuckle from Lucien and even a faint exhale from Isadora that might have been amusement.

  Kavisha took a moment to stretch, rolling her shoulders. “Alright. Let’s get these things into your storage ring, Eleonora.”

  Eleonora groaned. “Do we have to take all of them?”

  “Yes,” Kavisha said cheerfully. “Proof of kill. Also, there's a bounty. Plus, some alchemist will probably buy a few parts for a potion or two.”

  “…I hate this part,” Eleonora muttered, kneeling beside the first corpse and activating the ring while wondering what in the 9 circles of hell would an alchemist need goblins for.

  One by one, the goblins vanished into the dimensional storage.

  As the last body disappeared, Eleonora stood, wiped her gauntlets on her tabard, and took a slow breath of the foul sewer air.

  “Ready?” Kavisha asked.

  Eleonora nodded.

  “Ready,” she said.