Chapter 7: Murky Business
Ghast and Earls slipped through the ceiling of the absurdly spacious sewer before finding out that they had no immediate ground once they got through, and fell into the murky… let’s call it water. Probably for the best.
Ghast’s head popped up almost as soon as it went under. He tried gasping for air, but immediately regretted it.
“Chauncey, I swear you will pay for this idea.â€
The beetle had managed to stay dry and clean in Ghast’s pocket. It was also unimpressed with Ghast’s threat.
Earl came up as well. The bottle in his hand had already been open before they fell and he stared at it, weighing his options.
“Earl, tell me something.â€
Earl had a tear in his eye when he put the bottle down. “Yes, lord Ghast?â€
“Where do these tunnels lead?â€
“To the sewage facility, I guess.â€
“Are there people there?â€
“Dozens, probably.â€
“So we are are essentially trapped?â€
Earl pointed at a dim light in the distance. “There’s also the sewer grates.â€
“Which are probably the first place the mob will look?â€
“Most likely, yes.â€
“I blame you Chauncey.â€
Shadows were moving over the grates. Most likely the mob was trying to find them.
"Well, we can't just keep standing here. Sooner or later they'll come down and I prefer to be gone by then. Where do you think we should go earl?"
"I don't know... the right?"
"The left it is."
Our impossible trio travelled through the sewers for several hours. Ghast had created another little light to help them better see how all the tunnels and corridors looked exactly the same. And to not step into anything too nasty.
"Lord, can I ask you something?"
"What is it earl?"
"How do you do the things you do?"
"By thinking."
"No, I mean, the magic. How do you do it? It's nothing like I've ever seen before."
"Are you serious? In my day, there were at least low level tricksters nearly everywhere. Can't imagine you never having seen anything magical."
"Well, did that mob strike you as people who've seen magic?"
"Come to think of it, not really."
Ghast pondered for a bit.
"Come to think of it, there are a lot of things strange about this world. Where are the other races and the creatures of the dark?"
"The what?"
"You know, the supernatural. Demons, vampires, werewolves and the like."
"Only heard stories about them, fairy tales and such."
"Really? No ghosts and goblins? No fae folk or dwarves? No zombies, dragons, griffins or chimeras? Not even a talking animal?"
"Well we have parrots."
"What are those?"
"They're birds that speak."
"Smart creatures are they?"
"Well, they don't really know what they're saying. Mostly just repeat people in exchange for crackers."
"Oh."
There was some disappointment on Ghast's face. He liked most supernatural creatures. Mostly because they were usually stronger than humans and therefore of more use in his various mines and work camps. That is when they weren't being rivals to his power. Particularly vampires had larger ambitions to try and rule over as many humans as they could. They were easily more troublesome than the rest of the supernatural combined. Werewolves and dragons preferred to just hide out near human settlement and occasionally eat some. Goblins and Kobolds were generally too stupid to conceive of any type of good domination plans. The one that got the furthest, Gnorfff The-Dropped-On-His-Head-As-A-Child, tried to lead his tribe to victory against one the largest human cities on earth. Said city boasted a population of thousands while his tribe consisted of him, his mother and any Goblin he picked up along the way. All six of them. In retrospect, the shortcut had probably been a bad idea.
Now The Fair Folk (they insist on the capitalised T) where a different case altogether. Elves and Dark Elves generally stick to their own and try to ignore humans while their brethren, The Fairies, didn't want to rule as much as they just liked to dick around with humans and any other creature they considered below them. Which was everything. They were a twisted bunch that not even he had much love for. Especially not since the Assault of Bricks, wherein they thought it was funny to move Ghast's castle across the canyon overnight. And then when he tried to put it back 'helped' him by levitating most of the bricks separately and not necessarily in the right direction.
But in his opinion vampires were worse. Not as powerful or chaotic as The Fairies but they made up for it in stubbornness and tenacity. Plus they just wouldn't stay dead. It should be said that Ghast was the only one who held this opinion. While a vampire was definitely not a good creature to have stalking in the vicinity, most people preferred them to the Fair Folk because at least a vampire still treats you like a person. A lesser person, but a person nonetheless. That the vampire likely wants to drink. Ghast was mostly just annoyed that people kept mistaking him for one. Vampires come of course in all shapes and sizes. Sensible since most vampires don't care what a human looks like, only what he or she tastes like. But somehow, when you ask someone about what a vampire would look like, most would come up with the description of a gaunt, tall and thin creature that more or less fits Ghast to a T.
"What happened to them?"
Earl shrugged. "As far as I know, they were never real. Kids' stories."
"Oh, but they were real, earl, they were. In my time the world was filled with them. They were everywhere. Not as plentiful as us, but still quite common."
"Dealt a lot with them?"
"On a constant basis. I even employed some of them." (It should be noted that to Ghast 'employed' was pretty interchangeable with 'enslaved'.)
"And of course, frequently fought them as well. Human wars were nice, but fights involving creatures like those? Those were FUN."
Earl decided to take him at his word.
"So what do you think happened to them?"
"I haven't got the faintest idea. It's certainly strange that they'd all just be gone. Then again, I don't even know how long I was underground. Anything could have happened."
At this point, as if there was a forced need for a conversation to stop, one of the grates opened up. Strange how several hours of time and the complete absence of visual confirmation or tracks does nothing to stop chasers from finding their quarry when convenient.
"There they are!"
"Bollocks."
"Shit."
"You only noticed now?"
"No, I meant we better run Ghast."
"Agreed."
They ran off. Ghast used his magic to erect a side to side wall of...
"SHIT!"
"That should deter them. A bit. I hope."
As they ran on towards the tunnel, ahead of them another grate opened up and people started coming down. Ghast created another wall of...
"CRAP!"
They took a right turn, but even there they had an improbable amount of bad luck as another grate opened. Up went another wall of...
"FECES!"
They turned left, which turned out to be a dead end.
"Well, what do we do now?"
"Let me think."
In the distance, several of their chasers were watching one of the magic walls. They jumped through, only to find others of their group on the other side.
Ghast erected another wall in front of him and Earl, locking them in.
"What are you doing?"
"They can't see through them, it might buy us some time."
"But what do we do now?"
Ghast sighed and moved to lean against the (stone) wall: "I don't know earl, I just don't..." He fell through.
Earl whispered. "Ghast? Ghast where are you?"
On the other side, Ghast was on the floor looking at a faint image of a wall and behind it, a hazy Earl. He saw how Earl touched the wall, but contrary to him couldn't go through. Earl pushed and shoved, but it nothing happened.
Ghast looked around. The walls and and floor were nothing like they were on the other side of the clear wall. For one thing they were clean. There were electric lights strung up on the ceiling and there were a large variety of glowing symbols scribbled around the strange wall Earl desperately tried to get through.
"Curiouser and curiouser."
Behind Earl the mob passed very unhappily through Ghasts last line of defence and descended upon him. He had his back against the wall when Ghast got up, put his arm through it and effortlessly pulled Earl in. The mob crashed against the wall. They started banging against the wall and shouted things that couldn't be heard, but this was unnecessary. It was quite clear what kind of verbal abuse they hurled at the wall.
While pulling Earl in they had both fallen to the ground.
"Ghast?"
"Yes?"
"What just happened?"
"It's a fake wall." Ghast pushed Earl away from him and got up.
"Do you see those glyphs and runes? Those are incantations. One for the fake wall. Another to block sound and another to make it impenetrable to trespassers. Repeated several times."
"Trespassers?"
"Specifically, just those that don’t have a magical nature. Otherwise we'd still be on the other side."
"How come I'm in then?"
"Because, my dear earl, you're with me."
Earl got up as well. "Sounds like someone went through a lot of trouble to keep people out."
"Most likely several people did. I don't know all of those signs and even those I do come from different places." Once again this was an example of how Ghast stood out from most other of his kind. Sorcerers and overlords were mainly content to keep their knowledge to that of their own surroundings as most spells are generally the same, just through the uses of different languages. But Ghast had always had a thirst for knowledge.
“Well, let’s go and see what’s being hidden here.â€
Earl tried to reach into his pocket to take a drink, but found that his supply of various boozes had run dry.
“Excellent idea. Maybe there’s something to drink.â€
They followed the hallway and came into an enormous room. The electric lights continued alongside the walls. In the middle of the room were numerous buildings and there were people walking about. Except they weren’t people. In an uncanny and completely unintentional callback to Ghast and Earl’s earlier conversation, the people here weren’t human. Someone clearly needs to send our writer to a writing class. What? This is just clumsy, that’s what it is.
In any case, there was a large variety of creatures. Pixies were flying around aimlessly. Some dwarves were repairing a broken wall while a Rain Bird was sleeping on top of the opposite building. There were some Goblins standing guard in the front. They were squabbling with each other.
Lord Ghast looked a bit happier: “Now this is more like it.â€
Earl rubbed his eye a bit. He had seen some strange things today, but he drew the line at men with the front legs of a horse and the back end of a fish. Ichthyocentaurs, for the curious. Think mermaid but instead of a horse it’s the lower body of a Hippocampus. Wait what do you mean people nowadays don’t know what those are? Philistines. A hippocampus, of course, is a legendary hybrid of a horse and a fish. Not to be confused with the genus of sea horses. Or the part of the brain.
Clearly there was something missing here, in Earls opinion something bottle shaped.
“What.â€
“Come earl, we must make acquaintances.â€
Ghast strode towards the town with Earl in tow. Once they got close enough the Goblins noticed them and looked up.
Ghast let out a somewhat uncharacteristically jovial: “Greetings, my fellow creatures.â€
The Goblins stared at Ghast. Then at Earl. Then at each other. Then at Ghast again. Then one of them kicked Earl in the shin and they ran off screaming.
“MOTHER…†Earl grabbed his shin in pain.
“Hmm, perhaps you startled them Chauncey.â€
They heard screechy voices coming from the town: “Humans! There’s been a breach!†This was followed by a loud gasp from about a couple of hundred different voices.
It was a gasp of shock and surprise, the type you hear when people see something they’ve never or rarely seen before.
The pixies all descended downwards into the town and the Dwarves also ran inside, screaming.
“Well, they’re a bit rude, aren’t they?â€
Ghast went inside. Earl, still rubbing his shin followed.
They were stared at by all the various inhabitants.
There were some unsubtle whisperings along the lines of:
“Act unnatural.â€
“Pretend to be human.â€
“Watch out, your fangs are showing.â€
Ghast looked at one of the pixies, who had landed and was now awkwardly walking about (awkward both because of their current attitude and because pixies as a whole have pretty weak leg muscles)
“Excuse me miss, could you tell me why you are all acting so strange?â€
The pixie trembled and then fainted.
“Oh dear.â€
Ghast looked around and saw an orc. “You there, orc. You look like a strong one. Maybe you could carry this one to a healer?â€
The orc cast his gaze upwards and whistled. Or at least tried to whistle.
“What are you doing man? Everyone knows orcs can’t whistle. Stop acting so strange.â€
The orc stopped and came over to pick up the pixie. He tried his best to avoid Ghasts gaze and left.
“Alright then, you harpy.â€
A harpy looked around only to notice to its absolute dread that it was the only harpy around.
“Y.. Yes?â€
“What is this place? Why are you hiding here?â€
“Th.. this is just a normal human town. Nothing to hide.â€
“A human town?â€
“Yes.â€
“Filled with goblins, pixies, harpies, orcs, dwarves,...†he looked around, “...centaurs, dryads, vampires (that one said with some disgust), gargoyles, bogeymen, kitsune, gnomes, trolls and a bloody Ichthyocentaur?â€
“I do not know what you are talking about, fellow human.â€
“You realise humans do not have feathers, claws, fangs or rocky or plant-like skin?â€
“Yes.â€
“And you expect me to believe you’re all humans?â€
“What else would we be?â€
“Of course. This is planet earth. A human world. Therefore, we are all human. There are no such things like the things you just said.â€
“See Ghast, I told you.â€
Ghast kept staring at the harpy but pointed towards Earl: “Quiet you.â€
The harpy continued: “Please good sir, I must be on my way.â€
She tried to leave.
“I demand to know what’s going on here.â€
“Please sir, I don’t want any trouble.â€
“There will be if you don’t answer me.â€
The harpy quickly took to the sky, trying to fly off.
“Oh no you don’t.â€
Ghast stretched out his arm and extended a red glow from it, trapping the harpy. All around the crowd gasped again.
“Forgive me if I’m wrong, but I always assumed humans couldn’t fly. What do you think earl?â€
“I uuhh.. no we can’t.â€
“Thought so.â€
He lowered the harpy to eye level.
“Care to try again?â€
He looked at his arm. Chauncey was crawling around on it. "Oh shut up Chauncey, now is not the time. No I don't intend to play nice."
The harpy and all the other inhabitants of the sewer town were sweating. One of the orcs went for a pipe on the ground. Funny how there’s always one. It’s like construction workers can’t clean up after themsElves and nobody else ever bothers. If nothing happened fast, there was going to be trouble. Of the magic versus skull bashing variety.
Luckily for both Ghast and the orc something did.
"Excuse me sir, but would you be so kind to let down that harpy?"
Everyone turned around to the voice. An Elf had arrived at the group. She was pretty much what you'd expect from an Elf. Pointy ears, of course and tall, slender and graceful with long dark hair that no matter what she did, could never be anything but perfect. She could sleep during an earthquake and upon waking up still wouldn't have to do more than perform an entirely useless check in the mirror. Earl noticed how a particle dust was falling down but appeared to shift its course in order to avoid her. While the other inhabitants of the sewer town wore the same type of clothes you'd expect to see at a comic book convention, she was dressed in a modern day business suit.
"And who might you be, Elf?"
"Oh let's not act like that. Seems unbecoming of a gentleman like you." She smiled. It was the most beautiful thing Earl had ever seen. Everything suddenly looked brighter, it was almost as if there was a sun shining through the ceiling. Ghast however squinted his eyes, somewhat annoyed. "My name is Aranel and I am the mayor of this town."
For the first time since awakening, he felt like he had found someone who knew the meaning of respect. Or at the very least wasn't a colossal twat. This could have been helped if he didn't have a ridiculously high standard of what was considered "not a twat". Plus it did better not to immediately offend leadership on the first meeting. There is always plenty of opportunity for that later.
"Very well then, mayor." Ghast released the harpy. The harpy looked at him and then at Aranel. She gave a comforting smile and nodded at the harpy, who then flew off into the embrace of her brethren. Ghast rolled his eyes at this.
"And your name is...?"
"Milady, my name is Lord Ghast." He nodded at his arm. "This here is Chauncey and that over there is the earl."
She looked around. Earl had a stupid grin on his face and waved awkwardly. "Do you got anything to drink?"
"Charmed. You must forgive my citizens lord Ghast, most of them haven't seen a human in a very long time." Her tone became curious, "Let alone one who can use magic."
"They claimed to be humans themselves."
Her look became incredulous. "Seriously people? I told you that would never work! Humans don't have feathers or claws or fangs or rocky skin!"
"Or plant skin," Earl added.
Ghast waved his hands in the air: "That's what I told them!"
She had already turned around and walked half the street away. Ghast followed her.
"Come earl."
Earl hadn't noticed quite as quickly and ran after them.
"Kinda rude, isn't she."
"Those are Elves for you earl, be glad she deigned to talk to us. Or that she's just an Elf. There are worse things."
"Like what?"
"Like The Fair Folk."
"I thought those are Elves?"
Ghast weighed his words: “It is somewhat complicated.â€
“Please tell that earl that we are nothing like them.â€
Ghast weighed his words again: “Well, that is not completely true.â€
But Earl ignored him: “Actually, miss mayor, I’m not an earl, my name IS Earl.â€
Ghast took a beat: “Wait, what?â€