The tapping rose like the pulse of some titanic insect chewing its way through the bones of the ship. At first it was rhythmic, almost tolerable, like rain on a roof—but then it grew louder, closer, no longer taps but hammer-blows.
Each sound vibrated beneath my boots, setting my teeth on edge, as though the vessel itself had decided to grow a heartbeat of rotting wood and panic. My lungs drew in the thick fog of the deck lanterns, and every breath felt like I was drinking smoke.
I opened my mouth to bark something witty—because of course my instinct in the face of impending death is to crack a joke—but the words drowned in the splintering shriek of wood bursting open beneath us.
They came like worms spilling from a corpse. Pale bodies tore through the deck in a fountain of planks and splinters, their limbs thrashing, their mouths yawning wide to release wet gasps that didn't sound entirely human.
The stench hit me before I could process their shapes—rot, fish guts, and something that reminded me far too vividly of graveyards in summer. Their eyes, if you could call them that, were sealed shut by black cords threaded crudely through their lids. Blind, twitching, yet lurching forward as though my fear itself was their guiding lantern.
Salem was the first to strike, of course. His blade snapped low, the arc precise enough to slice a creature's throat clean before I'd even drawn my dagger. The thing collapsed at his feet with a wet slap, bile pouring from its wound like seawater. And yet more followed, crawling from beneath, clawing the air, guided by the stink of our living breath.
"Lovely," I muttered. "Blind, ugly, and they smell worse than Dunny's laundry. A real party."
"I don't—" Dunny squeaked from behind a barrel, "—I don't smell that bad!" His voice cracked as a creature's hand slapped against the wood near his head. He yelped and ducked lower, fumbling with the barrel lid like it was the only thing keeping him alive.
Nara was shaking, her ears twitching like panicked weather vanes. She lifted her hands, desperate sparks of magic flickering across her palms, and with a half-strangled sob she conjured them—the bunnies. Dozens of them, spectral and twitchy, their long ears glowing faintly as they charged into the swarm. For a heartbeat, hope surged in my chest.
But then the pale monsters tore through them like fog at sunrise. Rabbits popped into nothing, squealing pathetically, and Nara collapsed back with a broken gasp, her eyes wide in disbelief.
The knight, naturally, laughed. Not in terror, not in rage—no, he laughed like this was the greatest entertainment since the invention of theater. Naked as the day he was born, fist raised high, he slammed through one, two, three bodies with grotesque cheer. "Ha! Let them come! The more, the merrier!"
"Speak for yourself," I hissed, my dagger plunging into a chest that felt far too soft. The creature shrieked, a horrible keening note, and bile splattered across my arm as it collapsed.
The ship groaned, wood bowing under the sheer weight of their numbers. Every second more poured through the holes, slapping wet hands across the deck, their bodies steaming as if the fog itself had birthed them. For all our flailing, the tide never stopped. It only rose.
It was then that I realized, with dreadful clarity, that this was not a fight we could win. Not here. Not against something that spawned like maggots from beneath our feet.
"Jump!" I screamed, voice cracking against the din. "Everyone—jump!"
For once, no one argued. Salem didn't even glance back—he simply grabbed Rodrick and hurled himself over the railing in one fluid motion, disappearing into the fog below. Nara hesitated, trembling, until the knight scooped her bodily into his arms and vaulted over with a bellowing laugh. Dunny squealed, clutched the barrel lid like a shield, and toppled after them.
That left me.
I didn't wait. My legs propelled me over the railing, and the world vanished into black and white. Fog swallowed my scream, water rose up like a wall, and then I plunged.
The canal was death. Cold, choking, reeking of iron and oil. The taste of it curled its way into my throat as though it wanted to claim me from the inside. My limbs flailed, the dagger nearly slipping from my grasp. I kicked desperately, breaking surface with a gasp that scalded my throat, coughing and retching as my arms churned against the waves.
Figures splashed nearby—the knight's ridiculous helmet bobbing, Nara clutching him with a panic that nearly drowned them both, Salem dragging Rodrick's limp form with single-minded precision. Dunny flailed like a drowning cat until he found purchase against the side of the canal.
I staggered toward them, my chest heaving, and together we clawed our way onto a low grate half-hidden by slime and shadow. The iron bars groaned under our weight, water sluicing past into the darkness of a tunnel beyond. Salem shoved, his blade wedging between rusted metal, and with a screech the grate gave way.
We tumbled into the sewer.
The shift in setting was a gut punch. Gone was the open air of the canal, foul though it had been. Here the walls pressed close, damp stone dripping slime, the air a thick stew of rot and mold that clawed at the lungs.
The only light came from Nara's trembling sparks, casting shadows that danced like predators across moss-slick walls. Every drip of water echoed until it sounded like we were surrounded by invisible footsteps.
My boots squelched in ankle-deep filth. "Well," I rasped, "this is cozy. Nothing like crawling into hell's armpit after a refreshing swim."
The knight, of course, grinned. "Reminds me of home."
I didn't want to know.
We staggered forward, following the only path the tunnels offered. That's when I saw them again. Symbols scratched into the walls—circles, rays, crude suns scrawled in chalk and blood, marking every surface like a madman's diary. My stomach twisted.
"The Southern Sun Cult," I muttered.
Rodrick coughed blood, his voice rough. "They've claimed the sewers. We should be careful."
"Careful," I echoed. "Right. Because we've been so very cautious thus far."
We moved deeper. The air thickened, the tunnels branching into chambers where pillars loomed half-collapsed. Filth rippled in shallow pools, and each step sent echoes bouncing in impossible directions.
Then I heard it—another sound beneath the dripping. A faint moan.
Shadows shifted. Pale hands clawed from the muck. More of the creatures. Blind, twitching, crawling from the slime as though the sewers themselves had birthed them. My dagger snapped free again, my throat raw.
We fought. Salem silent as ever, his blade slicing arcs that sang against stone. The knight laughed even louder, bellowing each strike like it was a festival. Nara's rabbits flickered weakly, vanishing beneath pale claws, and Dunny squeaked, darting around the place like a circus clown.
Yet something was wrong. Their cries—some of them weren't monstrous at all. The sound that split the air wasn't a guttural roar or the rasp of rot-clogged lungs; it was a voice. A voice cracked with pain, carrying syllables that should never have survived in throats sewn shut.
I staggered mid-swing, my dagger hanging useless in the air as the creature before me shrieked—not in fury, not in hunger, but in agony. The wordless howl broke halfway, catching, and then somehow it shaped itself into something far worse.
"Help… me."
The voice was raw, strangled, dragged through a throat that shouldn't have been capable of sound at all. My hand froze. The pale thing lurched forward, its face inches from mine and yet I saw it, tears—or something like them—leaked from the corners of its sewn together eyes, cutting tiny trails down its ruined cheeks.
"What the hell," I whispered as I pivoted the strike, the words barely escaping the knot in my chest. My lungs burned, my dagger trembled uselessly in my grip. "These...these are people. What happened to them?"
No one answered.
We finished the fight quickly before pressing onward, the tunnels widening into chambers lined with broken arches. The symbols grew thicker, fresher, so bright they might as well have been wet. And then I heard it. A sound that wasn't dripping, wasn't footsteps.
A heartbeat.
Slow. Heavy. The kind of sound you feel in your ribs before your ears.
My skin crawled. My steps slowed. But there was no other path. The tunnels funneled us forward, toward the pulse, toward the inevitable.
At last we reached it.
The chamber before us yawned vast, water ankle-deep, broken pillars jutting from the muck like bones. Arches rose into darkness, etched with the Southern Sun's crude sigils, glowing faintly in the haze.
At the center of it all, rooted like a parasite, was the source.
A mass of crimson flesh, beating, pulsing like a heart. Black sinew spread from it in writhing cords, tethering it to the pillars, to the ceiling, to the very stone around us. Pods clung to its sides—fleshy sacks that twitched with movement inside. The stench was unbearable, a cocktail of blood and brine that made me choke.
Figures in white robes moved around it, their garments marked with blood red suns. Dozens of them, chanting low, their voices blending into a drone that made the walls hum.
And then one figure caught my eye. He didn't wear robes. He wore a lab coat, clean despite the filth, his white hair slicked back with precision. A pair of monocles gleamed over his deep blue eyes, sharp and cold. He stood beneath one of the pods, scalpel in hand, and with surgical care he sliced it open.
From it, one of the pale creatures spilled forth, writhing, gasping. He didn't even flinch. Assistants rushed forward, subduing it and dragging it aside like livestock. Then another man was hauled from the shadows—screaming, kicking, begging. He was stuffed into the open pod, the flesh swallowing him whole. The entrance sealed shut, pulsing with fresh life.
Then the man turned.
His eyes met mine across the chamber, and his lips curved into a smile sharp enough to cut stone.
"Ah," he said, his voice carrying over the chanting like silk over knives. "You must be Cecil."