Arc 5: Roar || Chapter 1: Beneath The Streets
When the elves gave me golden eyes to illuminate dark places, I am certain they saw it as a blessing. Too often, it has been a curse.
I’ve heard it said that ignorance is bliss. That, I do believe. Garihelm is a beautiful city, built upon the hundred craggy islands of a lagoon within a bay of the Riven Sea, ancient and elegant, a metropolis of many bridges and soaring cathedrals.
I could have lived a happier life having never seen the labyrinth of dank sewers and moldering catacombs beneath the proud capital of the Accorded Realms. Yet, they are there.
Apparently, the city’s ancient inhabitants had once used the canals for sewage, relying on the rain which fell over the coastlands year round and the deep waters beneath the high streets to process waste. More forward thinking minds had seen the long term problems with this as the city grew, or perhaps had just grown tired of the smell.
Either way, proper sewers had been built beneath the stacked avenues of Garihelm, with clever architecture to carry rain and sea water, sending the detritus of a hundred thousand people far out into the lashing Riven.
Never enough rain to truly clean those festering tunnels. Mud sticks. So does shit.
I stepped through reeking darkness, the coat of black iron rings I wore rattling softly with each step, forming a steady rhythm with my calm breaths. Though I held no torch, the aura in my eyes made them shine with a pale light, forming faint beams which cut the darkness, allowing me to see.
I held my axe in my right hand, the gnarled branch forming its handle grating against my palm as I squeezed it. Small burs and twigs grew from the dark oak, some of them wrapping around the weapon’s head. Alloyed from steel and faerie bronze, the hooked blade held a brassy sheen.
I didn’t wear my red cloak. It would have been a hinderance in these cramped tunnels, so I’d left it with my squire. My head bare, my short, shaggy copper hair matted with sweat and moisture from the damp air — I tried not to think too hard about what might be in that — I focused all my senses forward.
Somewhere in the echoing dark of Garihelm’s sewers, something profane skulked.
Am I the hunter? I wondered. Or the hunted?