IoaUM Chapter 9

A/N: This is all that'll be posted tonight, and all that'll be free until I publish on RR. Thanks for reading!

It took me only a moment to realize what had happened, how the office had changed in the quarter of an hour we’d been in here. All along, the walls had been lightly colonized by green sprouts and moss, but slowly, imperceptibly, that had changed. The greenery had, without me or Jetiza taking specific notice of it, thickened to the point that much of the walls were thickly coated in it. And, now that I paid special attention, there was a different smell in the air. Not the smell of sewage and rot, but the scent of twisted magic, sweetly decaying plants, and unnatural life. Corruption.

“We need to get out–” My panicked exclamation was cut off as a fist of roots surged out of the moss covering the wall and into my stomach. I wheezed in pain as I was thrown out of the office and into the sewage outside, and as filth clogged my nose and soaked my suit, I gagged on my own bile forced up by the strike. With a pained gasp, I threw my head back and out of the waters as I pointed my penlight that I’d somehow kept a hold of. From the wall lumbered a veritable wall of living plants. An oozing shambler.

The shambler had no head to speak of, and the thick trunks of roots, climbing vines, and decaying plant life that made its limbs were each at least two feet thick. Its torso and arms filled the fifteen foot sewer, and I forced myself to my feet, gasping as I rallied my mind to build a mental construct of some sort while my right hand scrabbled to grab my casting rod from its place in my jacket. “Ash me!” I screamed as I realized I’d begun forming a pyromantic evocation, one that could very well explode in my face. With the possibility of methane filling the air, I might kill myself, and I hesitated to complete the spell’s formation.

The shambler, however, had no intent to show mercy or hesitation as it stepped forward, each footfall rumbling the ground beneath me. I cursed to myself as I realized that, in my hesitation, I’d lost the vast bulk of my mental construct and now, I was effectively unarmed. I struggled to keep my balance as I retreated as carefully as I could while frantically creating another mental construct, but it lunged forward with one arm, the limb extending impossibly long to strike me once more as vines reached even further to entrap me in its grasp. I wouldn’t be able to escape in time, and it was all because I’d spent so long in my cozy study.

Before I could give in, though, a flashing blade and glowing body cut through every grasping tendril. Jetiza wielded her short blade skillfully, warding off every attack it made while stepping forward and sending clippings of the shrubbery flying. Once in contact with her blessed true damascus blade, the Corrupted plant life literally screamed in agony and fell away. The oozing shambler retreated for a brief moment, and Jetiza obviously relaxed as she menaced the Corrupted creature.

“Come back!” I shouted as both its arms flowed back into the torso of the shambler. Jetiza listened and leapt backward just in time to evade a single, merged arm whipping through the air almost 30 feet in front of the main body of the shambler. The Blue fell back in a panic as the shambler’s arm whipped repeatedly through the air, grasping at her feet, arms, anything it could reach. 

“With me!” I commanded and I let a grim smile dominate my face as Jetiza leapt back again to stand beside me. I completed my mental construct and shouted, “PAGOMA!” All the liquid coating my body and soaking my clothing burst into gas as I stole all the warmth from the stone around me, the water beneath me, and air underground. Crackling ice surged into and glaciated the supple roots. The entire whipping arm turned to brittle ice and the shambler couldn’t stop itself and its arm from smashing into the stone wall of the sewer. A hail of shards of frozen plants exploded through the sewers, peppering both Jetiza and I with shrapnel, one nearly catching my eye as it zoomed past my face.

The oozing shambler shrieked in rage and worked to create another vine to whip at us. With another shout of “Pagoma!”, I sent another bolt of freezing energy towards the shambler. To my dismay, though, it leaned into a nearby wall and phased out of sight. My spell wasted, I watched the smear of green approach. I didn’t let the shambler get close, and with another concentrated force of will, sent a broader wave of ice that congealed over the creeping vines and moss. Before I could do anything more to stop, damage, or even kill the monster, the green shadow beat a hasty retreat, gathering speed as it moved further down the tunnels away from us.

“Corruption’s toenail, that thing sucks.” Jetiza gasped out, her damascus blade trembling in her hands.

“You injured?” I asked as I patted myself, hardly believing that I was wholly alive and mostly well.

“No. Is it… coming back?”

“Looks like it ran away. Smoke and ash me. Smoke. Ash. Cinder whoever made that thing! They might still be here!” I felt panic and I imagined that I could also feel the touch of Corruption running down my spine.

“What? We beat it, right?”

“But it was smart enough to run. A Corrupted verdant creature like that shouldn’t be smart enough to hide, much less run! So either it’s damnably smart–”

“Or its creator is nearby.” Jetiza’s voice cracked as she spoke. “Let’s get out of here.”

I didn’t deign to answer, instead picking up the single notebook I’d previously carried that hadn’t been lost in the flowing sewage before rushing to the nearest exit point. To her credit, Jetiza gathered what little paper she could find that remained behind me, all while keeping her eyes peeled for any approaching shadows or moss or even a stiff breeze. Her eyes glowed under the influence of her Brand, her slightly charred blade held before her. Too hurried and worried and definitely not scared out of my mind, I hustled to a manhole, though not the one we’d previously left open for this exact reason. 

“Dammit. Jetiza, you first.”

With a glance she realized why I allowed her first escape and nodded before hopping up the ladder, skipping three rungs at a time. Refusing to retain my magical reserves when even a split second’s extra warning would save my life, I pointed my penlight down one path while sending my spectral hand down the other and flaring it to maximum brightness. I looked each way for half a second before turning to look the other way. If I had a moment’s preparation, I could do something about the ashen shambler, but if it got too close before I could prepare a construct, I would be its next source of sustenance. Fortunately, I heard a quick thud above me. I glanced up, and saw that when she reached the top, Jetiza grunted once, and then there was a blue flare of her Brands so bright it nearly blinded me below her. The manhole cover had been removed.

Going up with just one hand was much easier than descending, especially when I no longer cared about my apparel or appearance. I popped out of the top of the sewer, scrabbled for some sort of a handhold, and got out. Jetiza didn’t hesitate to let the massive cover thunk back down into place and we looked at each other. 

As I’d noticed before, Jetiza was a strikingly beautiful woman. Her eyes and hair especially drew me in, and I took a moment to enjoy her frazzled look. Her hair, though pulled back into a tight tail before, had come loose in the rush of combat, and feces, mud, and unidentifiable sludge colored her sleeves, boots, pants, and coat. There was even a smudge of it on one cheek, almost like forgotten foundation that hadn’t been applied across her cheekbone. I couldn’t help it. I giggled at the release of tension, at the sight of the put-together woman coming down off the high of life-threatening action, at the sight of Jetiza’s face finally crumpling at the stench that now demarcated us as sewer people. 

“I’m claiming compensation from somebody for this chicanery. Don’t know who, but someone’s gotta pay.” I joked, looking up at the ever black skies. I imagined I could see the light of the sun peeking through the fogs, but knew it wasn’t so.

Jetiza, unsurprisingly, didn’t enjoy my joke. To my good fortune, though, she didn’t draw on her Brands when she flicked me in the forehead though it set my mind ringing.

“I don’t think you’re involved in all this now.” Jetiza said, the brief moment of levity gone and her face becoming much more somber than it had been. “Even so, I’ll need you to come with me when we go to the nearest Garrison. If you don't, it'll look really bad for you.”

“I know.” I sighed. “I hate to say it, but I need to go back.”

“Great. I’m glad I don’t need to drag you back.”

“You could certainly try.” I scoffed.

“Just like I tried to save your life from the shambler. I don’t know if I can believe even half of the stories about you at this point. Barely got a spell off in there.”

“I’m not a war mage, I’m an investigator and a scholar. I found things and I learned things down there.” I turned my nose up at her insinuation. Even so, my pride stung, because it’d been decades since the last time I’d been overwhelmed so easily. That it was a mere oozing shambler that’d done it added insult to literal injury. 

“Before we go,” Jetiza said, a winning smile filling her fair face, “is there a favor you could do for me?”

“So long as I can do it while sitting here and doing nothing.”

She frowned, putting on a deliberately cute face.

“I did save your life, didn’t I? I don’t merit even a small favor?” As the Blue looked up at me, blinking up through her eyelashes, I remembered how I’d met her the day before. I’d known from the moment I saw her that Jetiza was a woman who knew how to wield her beauty like a weapon. And, regardless of any knowledge I had, I was just a man, and that pout was unfairly fetching.

“Ok. So long as it isn’t unreasonable. What is it?”

“Great!” The pout fell away, and I felt like the ash-born fool I was as she made her request.