FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Chapter length: 2,123 words

Current novel length: 7,762 words

Chapter 3

Not wanting to raise any level of suspicion from a random person, Merrick closes the entrance as he and Arven go on a covert operation in the rancid smelling sewers. "Gods, this smells worse than the farm," Arven said as the smell hits him, and he used his clothing to cover his nose as best as he can.

Merrick also does the same. "It's just as vile as a fresh hide of a troglodyte."

"How do you know what a fresh hide of a troglodyte smells like?" Arven's clothing muffles his voice.

"Let's just say that I've met people that turned out to be very weird while you were away."

"I'll take your word on it. We should find a light source and something to mark our path, so we don't get lost. Don't want to spend any more time here than necessary."

"I can take care of the light." Holding a dagger in his right hand, Merrick casts Light on it, and light begins to flood the immediate area.

"I have bronze coins I can leave behind to form a trail." With the sound of metal impacting the ground, Arven pulls out bronze coins and deposits them individually, forming a trail.

"So should we go left or right, Arven?" Merrick asked when they arrived at a T-intersection.

"Let's go left," Arven said in a tone to end a possible argument.

As they walk, the light from Merrick's dagger unveils several rats, manducating on a pile of filth, that evacuate immediately when the light hits them; much to Merrick's chagrin, some of the rats scurry right between his legs.

"Ugh, I despise rats," he lamented. After walking forty feet away from where they started, the sewer splits again, and it's in three directions.

"Now what?" Merrick asked while he shined what little section of each path he can.

"Throw that dagger down one of these halls. Maybe the light will illuminate something that leads to Sylfinas."

"On it." Merrick throws the dagger down the right hallway, and it lands with a clang; the light reveals that the right hallway just continues further, and nothing interesting shows up. After retrieving the dagger, Merrick throws it again in the left hallway, which is a mirror image as the right. "And now for option C," he spoke as he tosses the dagger over his head down the hallway that continues straight after he went and picked it up. This time the light irradiates a door on the right-hand side of the hallway. "Notice the door, Arven?"

"I do. Let's check it out and determine what's on the other side. Do you need help, or can you make the jump across the contaminated water by yourself?"

Merrick makes a "Hmmm" sound as he analyzes the gap. In actuality, he's trying to subdue his aquaphobia. "I think it's doable."

"Well, I'll go first so I can try to catch you."

"Sounds like a plan." Merrick gives a thumbs up. With a running start, Arven leaps over to the other side; he turns around and observes Merrick's attempt and prepares to help, if necessary. "Ok, Merrick, it's just a simple jump, nothing complicated whatsoever; you've done some exercise since you last met Arven. This should be a breeze," he uttered to himself to psych himself up. "All right! Prepare Arven for the most impressive jump you will ever witness in your life!"

"Ready when you are," Arven responded.

Spinning around like a ballerina, Merrick reverses and saunters in the opposite direction, increasing the distance between him and the gap for a running start, shouting while barreling towards the launch point. Just as he was about to jump, he trips on his shoelace and plummets into the sewer water; he vociferates "shit" before making a splash, gagging and thrashing around while imagining what sort of contents and contaminants pervade the liquid and reliving nightmarish memories.

"Arven barely manages to get out as he laughs, "You're right, I'm impressed."

"Can you hold in that laughter until you pull me out?" Merrick asked in grossed out tone. Arven manages to pull Merrick from the sewer water. "Thanks. That didn't happen, by the way."

"What happened, Merrick?"

"Exactly." With a grimace and saying "gross" like a broken record, Merrick casts Prestidigitation on himself to remove the water and the various sorts of questionable content in it as they make it to the door. Opening the door slowly to remain stealthy, Arven takes a cursory glance inside enough to see a hallway and a lit room forty feet ahead with no guards or other people looking for a fight.

"Looks clear so far, Merrick. Let's go in quietly," Arven whispered. Wanting to remain quiet, they tiptoe so slow that a snail can outrun them in a race to the room; aside from the lit torches, there is nothing else in the room with a path to the left, to the right, to the top left corner, and the top right corner after going upstairs. "Here we go again," he sighed. By ordering him, Merrick investigates the two closest doors by vigorously shaking them.

"Both are locked."

Arven designates their next door to check, "Let's try the door at the top left corner." The door opens without an ounce of resistance; the room it leads to contain a small, wooden, round table with four wooden chairs around it and a pile of dirty dishes. Noticing a lack of contents except for dust and cobwebs, they wonder why the two bookshelves exist in the first place. A door lies straight ahead, and to the right, there is a walkway above the room.

Pointing at the walkway, Merrick offers a proposal, "Looks like the last door leads here. Want to go through that door instead, so we have more of a height advantage?"

"I was thinking the exact same thing," Arven answered, remembering one of his brother's teachings.

After backtracking, they enter the door after climbing the stairs. Arven and Merrick detect a diverging path that goes off to the right on the walkway above the room. Ignoring the forward direction, they look at the diverging route, and it leads ten feet to a door; they find out the hard way that someone locked the door and rigged it to a trap that releases a green cloud.

"Now that we know that whoever runs this place uses traps, watch what you're doing, Merrick," Arven commanded him after barely evading the trap.

"Same to you, Arven." Seeing as they only have one path left, they continue the short hallway to another room. It is a spacious, circular room with armed people populating it; there are other people with a higher rank conversing with the grunts about business. They assume one of the uniforms represent the guards; they are at several doors and various spots on the floor with four on the walkway that Arven and Merrick are on.

"Any signs of Sylfinas?" Merrick whispered.

"Not that I can see," Arven also answered in a whisper.

"Well, what do we do now?"

"Get on the lower level, so we have objects to block lines of sight from these people. As for getting past the guards at the doors, create a distraction."

"Any ideas to cause a distraction?"

Arven shakes his head. "Not really. Option one is I can fight and be a distraction while you sneak through as many doors as possible, but I'm only one individual, and they're more armed than I am; all I have is my sword from the military, and I lack armor and shield.

"How about disguises?"

A light bulb goes off in Arven's head. "That could work. Just need to find the uniforms. Let's try to unlock at least one of the two doors back at the room where we went up the stairs."

Arven and Merrick backtrack to the room with four paths to choose from. Believing one of them contains something important, they go to one of the locked doors, and Arven takes three solid attempts at charging at it before it busts wide open. Inside they find piles of bones, some with chunks of rotten flesh still on them; the smell of decay overwhelms Arven's and Merrick's senses.

"Fortunately for me, I didn't eat anything recently, or else I would throw up right now," Merrick spoke. "Why lock this room if it's just for storing dead bodies? Are they afraid of some necromancer busting in here and steal them for evil purposes?"

"More likely, it's to stop a disease from spreading," Arven answered.

"And now you've doomed us all. The entire humanoid population in Illyria will go extinct because Arven used too much of his strength against the door that he broke it," Merrick said in a joking tone.

"Relax, it's still usable. It will appear awkward, and the lock won't work, but it can still be a barrier, so the entire world doesn't perish." It takes several attempts rearranging, but Arven puts the door back in place to the best of his ability, and he bows; it looks cumbersome, but it'll get the job done. "And the world is safe by yours truly."

"Let me do the honor of opening the next door, Arven; it's the least I can do to reward you for saving the world."

"Knock yourself out, buddy." Yelling, he charges at the next locked door; the impact causes him to bounce back and land on his back while doing nothing to the door. "I didn't mean to literally knock yourself out,"

"Don't worry, I'm good," Merrick said, giving thumbs up and dusted himself off after getting back up. "This is a good time to demonstrate a new trick I've learned while you were away. You might want to cover your ears."

"This'll be interesting." Heeding Merrick's warning seriously, Arven occludes his ears by lodging his fingers.

"Open sesame!" The impact of Merrick's Thunderclap spell blows the door off its hinges; it sails to the other side of the room with a loud crash, but the thunder boom rings out in the room and drowns out the door. Inside the other chamber contains the clothing necessary to disguise themselves and melee and ranged weapons with ammunition. "Jackpot, Arven!"

"Any louder, you would've blown our stealth! Quite the spell you've learned!" Arven shouted due to the ringing in his ears.

"Thanks, but there's still one more trick I need to show before you leave. This spell, if I get lucky, will shock you."

"I'll be looking forward to witnessing it in action, hopefully instead of experiencing it myself." Arven and Merrick start putting on the uniform over their clothing, along with arming themselves more. The uniform is simple in design in that it is a plain dark purple and it comes with a hood and cloak in the same color; there's stiff leather in it as well to add some protection, and it matches the uniform of the guards on the walkway and at the doors. Arven and Merrick now begin to walk back into the heavily guarded room to test their they enter the room, they walk by two groups of three; none of them took any interest in the intruders. One of the groups is having a discussion about a newly acquired Half-Elf and placing bets on how much he'll go for at auction; they also mention a wolf-person's execution because she costs the boss too much money to keep her.

Arven and Merrick choose one of the five doors that is least operated by guards. The guards notice them, but never got suspicious, and the two manage to go on through the doorway into another room with a couple of additional group members inside. The disguise holds up in this room as well when they manage to go into another chamber. This time, a dyad of guards beholds them and approaches.

"May the misfortune of others give you peace," one of the guards greeted them and extended his hand.

"Same to you." Merrick returns the greeting as he shakes the guard's hand.

The guard narrows his eyes. "Unusual response, I expected to hear, "And give you eternal happiness." Memory doesn't recall seeing you anywhere; you must be new recruits. Follow me as I take you to asfagrwgsbsndgsge." With a sickening thud, the dead body collapses mid-speech from Merrick's Shocking Grasp; Arven and Merrick stare at the silent guard, at each other, then at the other guard. That guard runs away, screaming, "Alert! Intruders!" repeatedly.

Not holding back the displeasure in his voice, Arven questions Merrick, "What the hell did you do that for?"

"I uh… panicked." Hearing the alarm bells, they prepare themselves for the upcoming fight.

Don't forget to vote, favorite, comment, and spread the word.