The sewers were paradoxically clean from the rain, and the walls and ceiling dripped clean water. This is what Jasson had decided, even if some drips of the sparkling clean water were thicker than others.
What worried Jasson more was his phone. He kept it as dry as he could, but a single drop could send it haywire. He was shielding it with his backpack full of clothes, so he could use it.
It was a good thing he didn't need to.
The eviscerated remains of a minotaur, minus the hole in the chest, collapsed to the ground. Dockson breathed, steam emanating from his mouth, stepping aside as he shook the blood from his police baton.
"Wow," Jasson said, "Awesome."
"It's not much," Dockson said, taking out his notepad, "Now can I get your statement on this monster?"
"Minotaur," Jasson continued down the tunnel, "Stinking, massive, don't know why it's down here."
"Thank you," Dockson wrote that down, "Now let's proceed."
Jasson rolled his eyes and carefully shone his phone's flashlight from beneath his backpack. He didn't have that much charge left, and he couldn't afford to roast himself accidentally because of some water.
"Let's go," Jasson said, "Remember: if you see a statue, it's going to attack you when you close your eyes. Attack it then."
Dockson scribbled and said, "Another suspicious statement."
"What's suspicious about it?" Jasson said, "It's just a type of monster. What defines suspicious to you?!"
Dockson stop scribbling for a moment, and the tunnel was filled with only the sound of dripping water.
Dockson snapped his notebook shut and said, "Respectfully, that is none of your business."
Jasson paused and raised his eyebrows, but Dockson was a polite stone wall.
All right, Jasson though, Touchy.
Jasson turned the flashlight and let it illuminate the steps ahead. He couldn't see far with it, but the little light did a good enough job keeping him out of the stream running through the middle of the sewer. Now that the storm had passed, there was plenty of space to walk. There wasn't an actual walkway, it was more that the sewer waters had worn away the bottom to the point that the ground was a gentle V shape.
The darkness beyond was still, unmoving, lit only by the occasional storm drain.
A statue was there.
Inches from him, outstretched hand reaching for his face.
Jasson jumped.
"Here's one!" Jasson said, blinking alternate eyes, "This one looks just like the sewer bricks. The last ones I saw looked like marble. Come here, Dockson."
Dockson hurried to Jasson's side, and Jasson couldn't help the smug smirk as Dockson backed up and said, "See, I told you."
"Fascinating," Dockson said, tapping the statue with his baton.
"Now, in order to kill it we need to close our eyes," Jasson said, "it will be flesh in that moment. Then we strike."
"It's made of bricks," Dockson put his baton away and took a karate stance, "I like bricks. They serve as a good warm up every morning."
"What?" Jasson said.
"HiiiiYAA!" Dockson said, raising his hand up and karate chopped the top of the statue.
CRACK-sloush.
The statue split in two and fell apart like an avocado, a shower of dust turning to blood as the creature became flesh inside death.
"Wow," Jasson said, reflexively taking a picture, "Wooow. Dang dude. That's cool."
"Thank you," Dockson said, straightening and taking out his notepad, "Now that you have confirmed your story, your behavior is presently only modestly suspicious."
"What?" Jasson said, "This should vindicate me. It's the reason I came down here."
"Vindication is for a Judge," Dockson said, "Not a lowly man like me."
Jasson paused, then turned away from the corpse. The crystal had been broken in half and lay glittering and green. But he didn't have space in his locker.
"You know, Dockson." Jasson said, starting down the tunnel again, "You should be able to judge innocence for yourself."
"I'm on duty," Dockson said, "My will is not my own. Besides, respectfully, that's none of your business. Now, what's next?"
Jasson frowned and said, "I'm trying to find the location in the picture. You said it would be up stream in the sewers. Do you recognize it?"
"I do not recall it," Dockson said, "I've only been on sewer patrol a handful of times, and the sewers are vast."
"But the guy was here," Jasson said as they came up to a corner, "That means- statue!"
Dockson sprayed the tunnel wall with dust and then blood, the only remaining stone being the glittering crystal.
"Hey," Jasson said, "Could you just…chop off their heads? You keep trashing their earth crystals. That's worth money, you know."
"It's evidence," Dockson said.
"Then stop destroying evidence," Jasson said, "Besides, I'm an adventurer. It's my 'spoils'."
Dockson said, "How much money?"
"Huh?" Jasson said, "Oh, these monsters. I don't know exactly, but I think it's a hundred gold or so per crystal. Depends on the size, but these monsters have disproportionately large crystals."
Dockson nodded and said, "Understood."
Then, with a blur of motion, he beheaded a statue that had been sneaking up on Jasson.
The statue led them deeper, light streaming from the occasional sewer grate. The smell was relatively clean, and they ran across several statues. The water in the middle was running loud enough to make it harder to hear with all the echoes.
Jasson wasn't going to rush ahead. Running into razor fingers was not something Jasson wished to do. He fiddled with his healing crystal and felt the portion of his chest where the holes had been. He'd been skewered once already.
Jasson quintuple checked MADaptation on his phone. It seemed to work fine with the camera open, and Jasson had it on the strongest ability. Dragon's Breath. His experiments over the lake by the Manor built a certain confidence in the feature, and its ability to incinerate anything in one direction. Jasson couldn't use it beside houses, but here in the damp sewer? It was perfect.
Jasson rounded a corner and saw an army of statues before him, lit from several magical lights. Dozens of frozen figures surrounding a platform, arranged in a type of chaotic listening frozen in time. There was a man. The same man as earlier, wearing a blindfold and holding a shield in front of himself. The man stood on a raised portion of stone and held his arm out.
A pressure tugged in his chest. It said 'wait, listen, believe'. Literally. Jasson covered his ears and crumpled to his knees, feeling the world sway around him.
The man spoke, and Jasson felt like he was being pummeled in the chest with every word.
The man said, "Now is the time, friends, to go forth and consume. Destroy! Tear this city down…"
"Now that's a suspicious individual," Dockson said, placing a hand on Jasson's shoulder, "Hey, are you alright? What's wrong?"
Jasson shook his head, and the man paused then took his blindfold off.
"Oh come on!" The man said, "Do you know how hard it is to give these things an order?! They're always running off when I'm not looking. Close your eyes so I can finish!"
"Sorry," Dockson said, closing his eyes, "Is this better?"
"Yes, thank you." the man said, putting his blindfold back on, "Now let me finish. I'll get to you later.
Jasson closed his eyes, a weight tugging them shut. He could resist, but why should he? The will to continue was being practically sucked out of him.
Wait, listen, believe.
Well, Jasson had waited. He had listened. And he genuinely believed the man. They were going to destroy the city.
Jasson pulled out his phone and pointed it roughly in the statues' direction. Then he fought against the underlying command of peace until his finger just brushed against the button.
VOOOOM!
Jasson opened his eyes and saw the statues smouldering before him. Dozens of crystal hearts glittering in the magical light. The man, who was smoking lightly and whose shield was sagging in a melted way, took off his blindfold. He surveyed the army, then locked eyes with Jasson.
"Well," The man said, "That makes my job a lot simpler. Nothing I could have done."
The man seemed to notice his shield and said, "(*&%! That was expensive! Well, time for me to end this!"
The man threw down the shield, polished bronze bubbling from the heat, and it skidded Jasson's way. Jasson glanced at the shield, then when he looked up the man was sprinting away.
"(%^# you, losers!" The man said, "That was my last job for the day, and it's a long weekend!"
Then the figure darted into a small offshoot tunnel at the edge of light, and in the darkness beyond a pair of eyes opened.
Jasson, of course, could not see the eyes because, contrary to popular belief, eyes do not always glow.
Jasson sighed, the pressure gone. What was that? It had felt…wrong. Like when it's late at night but you can't stop scrolling. You know it should be easy to stop, yet the hours just tick away. Hypnotism?
Jasson looked at Dockson, who seemed unaffected. Hypnotism sounded right. He doubted that Dockson was susceptible to that sort of thing.
"Are you alright?" Dockson said, shaking Jasson, "Shall we pursue the suspicious figure?"
"Yeah," Jasson croaked, pushing himself to his feet, "Let's go."
"Acceptable," Dockson wrote something down, "You are no longer the primary suspect. Let's hurry so I can que-"
"Shh!" Jasson said, leaning forward and looking along the walls and floors. Was there another weeping angel? The blast was huge, but that man had stopped a portion of it with his shield.
There it was again. A type of grinding sound. No…not grinding. It was too soft and wet for grinding. It was a…slither.
"Let's move," Jasson said, "There's something else in here. You lead the way."
Jasson sprinted for the opening the man had disappeared into, with Dockson several strides ahead. A hair-raising feeling stole across Jasson's arms and, out of the corner of his eyes, Jasson could see movement. The type of movement that made you focus on the small side tunnel, where anything overly large would find it impossible to follow you. He was almost there. Almost at the entrance.
Jasson tripped, barely stopping himself from falling. And when Jasson got his feet under him again, he looked up only to run face-first into a statue.
"AH!" Jasson scrambled back, then closed his eyes and shot a jet of fire. The air around Jasson blistered, the fire rebounding off the wall and skipping down the tunnel. Jasson screamed and dove for the water running through the sewer, rolling in it until the burning died down. Jasson came out of the thankfully clean water smelling of burnt hair as well as seared dung.
Jasson leveled his phone, which had thankfully stayed dry, at the statue and said, "Dockson! You missed one."
But the statue was still there, facing away slightly. Unmoving, as if guarding the doorway against something deeper in the tunnel. A glistening marble, steaming from the fire. A horrified expression on its face.
Dockson's face.