Chương 15: Rotten Drains

Lloyd closed his eyes and stepped fully into the dungeon. And then... Nothing happened to him. No horde of monsters threw itself at him and tore him to pieces. No crash, no flash, no sensation of falling or being transported. Simply — a step. And silence. Complete, absolute silence that lasted exactly one second — and then the world around him changed. The only thing that changed at first — was the smell. It hit immediately, without warning — dense, heavy, rotten.

Not gradually, not as a faint hint — but all at once and at full force, as though someone had flung open a door to an enclosed space where something had been decomposing for a very long time. Lloyd instinctively pressed his hand over his nose — the reflex fired before he had time to think. The smell was disgusting but bearable — right on the edge beyond which nausea begins, but still on this side of it. Warm, damp, with an undertone of rot and something sour that settled on the tongue even through the nose.

He had smelled something like this before — rarely, briefly, in certain parts of the city. Usually when walking past manholes.

"This is very similar to..." Lloyd slowly opened his eyes. Before him was a tunnel. But not that one — not the abandoned concrete tunnel with wet asphalt and dripping water. This one was different. The walls — dark, coated in a thick layer of something slimy, oily, that gleamed in the faint greenish light in uneven patches. Where the light came from — impossible to say. It simply existed — diffused, dim, without a source, without shadows, without direction.

This kind of light doesn't illuminate — it simply keeps complete darkness at bay. It barely allowed him to see a few metres ahead, and beyond that everything sank into a murky greenish haze. The tunnel ceiling was low — Lloyd felt this even without looking up, simply from the way the space pressed down from above. From it hung threads of something dark and wet, swaying barely perceptibly in the completely still air — as though someone invisible had just walked past and brushed against them.

Something squelched underfoot when he took a step. Lloyd looked down.

"A sewer..." His face twisted into a grimace. He was standing ankle-deep in dark sludge — thick, oily, flowing slowly somewhere into the darkness ahead. Bubbles drifted lazily across the surface — one after another, bursting with a quiet smacking sound and leaving small ripples spreading outward. Somewhere deep in the tunnel something gurgled — methodically, unhurriedly, as though the tunnel itself were breathing. The greenish light pulsed barely noticeably, almost imperceptibly — as though alive.

Up close the walls looked even worse than from a distance. The slimy coating covered them in an unbroken layer — dark green near the sludge, almost black higher up. In places pipes jutted from the walls — old, rusty, some of them seeping the same dark liquid that covered the floor. It dripped slowly, heavily, and each drop sent circles spreading across the surface of the puddle below. If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it. The air here was thick.

As though you could reach out and touch it — damp, warm, motionless. Breathing required care, shallow breaths.

"Well. Out of all possible places, I ended up in this disgusting one." Lloyd lifted his foot and looked at his sneaker. The dark sludge had coated the sole and crept slightly up the side. He grimaced and glanced at his jacket sleeve — then brought his nose to the fabric and immediately regretted it.

"This is going to be hard to wash out..." And suddenly a window appeared before him. Violet, semi-transparent, hovering in mid-air — as though someone had cut a rectangle out of space and filled it with soft light. White letters on a violet background. And at the top, in the centre — a bright white symbol. An X. It glowed slightly, a little brighter than the rest of the text, and from it came something — not light, not warmth, but a sensation. A presence. Lloyd stared at it. And then — a voice.

Female, clear, serious. It didn't come from outside — not from the walls, not from the darkness ahead. It came from within, as though something living inside him had decided to speak — calmly, without emotion, as though all of this were completely ordinary. [Unnamed! Welcome to your first dungeon: Rotten Drains.] The dungeon's name glowed green — the same greenish shade as the light around him.

The moment the voice fell silent, the first window quietly dissolved into the air — simply vanished, without sound, without effect. Lloyd hadn't had time to work out why the name glowed green when a second window appeared, and the voice continued without pause: [You have received a Guide: Mippo.] The second window dissolved just as quietly the moment the voice finished its last word. For several seconds Lloyd simply stood there. The sludge gurgled underfoot.

A drop broke loose from the ceiling and landed heavily nearby. Then he slowly blinked.

"Right. Let's take this one step at a time. I think I understand why this is a green category dungeon — and how they're classified. Why I'm Unnamed — I can work that out too." He swallowed.

"Guide. Mippo. Who on earth is that? I spent so much time reading about the dangers waiting for me in the dungeon that I completely forgot to look into the basic things..." He frowned, staring at the spot where the windows had just been. Then something flashed in his eyes — that particular spark that appears when an idea comes to you that takes your breath away.

"What if it's some kind of Divine Relic?! Well, in that case I'm not opposed." Lloyd scratched his chin. The sludge underfoot gurgled softly. The greenish light pulsed.

"And how do I summon this Mippo?" He tried to concentrate — focused on the invisible window, on the word "Guide", tried to feel some kind of internal response. Nothing. The tunnel was silent. Lloyd waited a few more seconds. Then made up his mind. — Mippo, — he said quietly, almost in a whisper. Silence. Only the gurgling of the sludge somewhere ahead and the occasional drop from the ceiling. He raised his voice slightly: — Mippo. Nothing. Lloyd drew air into his lungs. The veins on his forehead swelled.

And he shouted into the darkness of the tunnel — loudly, so that the echo bounced off the slimy walls and rolled forward, fading into the greenish haze: — Appear, Mippo! The echo rolled on. Faded. Lloyd stood, breathing heavily, staring into the darkness ahead. The sludge underfoot rippled faintly from the sound — and went still again. And then — in the green puddle beside him, bubbles began to appear. Slowly at first. One. Then another.

Then several at once — the surface of the sludge swelled and began to churn, and something dark started rising from within it.