Dark Places
Follow the story of two professional criminal masterminds as they rob a tavern owner of his groceries. The first story in a series that journeys through Rundell's criminal under-city.
The street urchins ran full tilt, guards not far behind them. They weaved through the crowds, their future freedom at stake. Luckily for them, they were top shelf street urchins. Ones who have been successful at their ventures long enough that hunger wasn’t a limiting factor anymore.
They’d done this before.
They were professionals.
So had and were the guards. But guards wore heavy chainmail, and this is NOT an asset when you’re trying to sprint after street kids. Even ones carrying bags of food.
The two children bolted down an alleyway, and before the guards had a chance to get to the darkened corridor, they’d ducked behind a series of boxes that partially obscured a hole in one of the large buildings flanking the alleyway. The guards weren’t stupid, but they weren’t quick enough to catch the disappearing act, thus demonstrating the importance of regular drilling and cardio if you’re going to fight crime.
“Did you see where they went?” The one guard said to the other, frustration in his voice.
“No. I did not. But this is the second time we’ve chased those rats into this alleyway. They’ve got to have a hideout around here somewhere.” The other guard responded.
“They’re getting bolder. We need to go get Sheriff Ratcliff to flush em out.” The first guard grunted in reply.
There may have been more conversation between the two of them, but this story follows the urchins. Who, it turns out, had discovered a semi-abandoned warehouse owned by a local merchant who, because of hard times, had converted some of his legal operations to running a commodities scam. He didn’t, in fact, have as much grain in his warehouse as he claimed too. This fact is important to a different story.
What’s important here, is that this merchant didn’t believe in a thing called “house keeping” or “regular maintenance” as these things cost money. Two weeks of chipping away at the mortar and carefully removing some bricks created a 13 year old boy sized hole in the wall, and a couple of well placed “aged storage crates abandoned in an alleyway”, created a sufficient deception for the guards not to notice the escape route. No one *likes* digging through trash so it makes pretty good camouflage.
And so into the semi-abandoned warehouse they escaped. And from there, into the sewer system that they called home. Because street urchins will live wherever they are safest from older street urchins, and the city guard - who share a great deal in common with each other when it comes to how they treat younger street urchins.
As Iatr and Klem carefully made their way down the rotting wood stairwell into the basement of the warehouse, they caught a smell they hadn’t experienced before. It was musty and rank. The smell of old moss, mushrooms and something else… more metallic.
“Oi. What’s that stink Klem?” Iatr said to his comrade in small arms. “You take a shit in the warehouse again?”
“That was ONE TIME Iatr. One time! I promised I wouldn’t do that again.” Klem said with the indignity and exasperation of someone who did something really stupid one time, but is pretty over being reminded about it for the uncountableth time.
Iatr laughed with malicious enjoyment, but it’s the kind of malice you’d expect from an older brother who’d help you bury a body if it really came down to it. It was “familial.”
They made their way down to the old sewer outlet in the basement of the dodgy merchant’s warehouse. If he’d been paying attention, he would have had the grates fixed on that outlet long ago. But he hadn’t been paying attention. The warehouse also had a problem with rats. Of the rat variety.
Two lights flared as tinder struck stone and a pair of torches were lit in their sewer sconces. They weren’t real sconces. They were just a piles of loose stones that were arrayed in such a fashion to keep track of the necessary materials to light their torches. These kids were professionals. Or at least they thought they were.
They had nicked nearly a weeks worth of fruit and bread from a vendor in a brazen daylight robbery. Not actually from a vendor, but from a tavern owner’s assistant who had been sent to buy supplies for the bar. Once the food had been loaded into bags and into the back of the wagon, they had snatched the pre-loaded bags from the back of the wagon, after jumping on it when it passed too closely to a retaining wall. Routine is a criminal’s best friend, and the wagon always passed by the wall on its journey back to the bar.
They’d planned the operation for days. And it’d worked. Without many flaws. The guards turning up had been a surprise, but not an unplanned for event.
Klem and Iatr were on top of the world. Their street cred was undoubtedly going to skyrocket once the other cohorts heard of their exploits. They might even get recruited by one of the street level gangs. Moving up in the world. No more sewers for Iatr and Klem.
The smell was getting worse.
“That doesn’t smell like shit Iatr.” Klem said, “It smells like blood.” His voice quavered a bit.
“Naw it doesn’t. It smells like rot. Bloods got more tang to it. More like rust.” Iatr said, sounding more brave than he likely felt, but he was the high status one of the pair and he couldn’t be seen being afraid of nothing.
The two of them paused, sensing something wasn’t right in the world. You need these kinds of senses when you’re a street urchin. Things can quickly change for the worse if you’re not very present with your surroundings.
“Whattttsss that Iatr?” Klem said, pointing his torch down the sewer corridor.
“Its a Mauthe Doog, and it’s coming for you!” Iatr said, mocking Klem and laughing. His heart wasn’t really in the laughter though. That was mostly for appearances. Status does funny things to people.
Something glistened in the distant torchlight, moving towards them. It was black, and shiny. And it looked… damp.
And large.
And then it roared.
Amongst the black, reflected in the firelight, Iatr and Klem got a serious flash of white. Teeth. Comically large teeth for the mouth that they were the residents of. Though comically is not the impression that was left on Iatr and Klem.
Forgetting his higher status, Iatr screamed and dropped the food bag. Klem, being of lower status, just dropped his food bag and ran, being no stranger to cowardice and self preservation in the face of overwhelming danger. Iatr was right behind him.
They bolted down the sewer tunnel, desperately holding onto the torches. Because to be blind in the tunnel at this time would be death to the thing in the darkness behind them.
They retraced their steps, hearing the pounding of feet behind them. Click clack and scraping noises. The panting sound of a ferocious dog of incredible size behind them.
Seeing the marker as he ran by, Klem reached out and slapped the old wooden plank at the side of the sewer wall. A groaning sound began after the old chunk of wood was whacked out of position. Some old bricks began their fated journey down. Iatr barely made it through the trap in time. With a crash and a boom, a section of the sewer wall collapsed inwards, cascading old bricks and mortar downwards with a bang that any army’s sappers would be well proud of.
A howl of pain and rage boomed down the tunnel as whatever *it* was got the full brunt of the street urchins planning for “just such an occasion.”
It pays to be prepared when you live under the streets.
The two burst back into the warehouse basement, quickly scrambling back up the stairs.
“We gotta get out of here!” said Iatr, starting to wheeze. They were experienced runners, but today had called for a lot of exertion and they hadn’t taken the time to eat any of their now lost food.
“We can go ask for refuge at Shamr’s. He’ll want to know about the thing in the sewers.” Klem said, also wheezing.
They climbed through the hole in the warehouse wall, and without pausing, burst out of the alley in a run.
Right into the hands of half a dozen guardsmen and the waiting hands of Sheriff Rat-cliff.
Screaming with indignity, Klem and Iatr were trussed, bound and thrown into the back of a wagon and hauled off to prison.
Sheriff Ratcliff stood there with one of the guards from before.
“They don’t usually come out of their holes so quickly. That was stupid.” He said thoughtfully. He was tugging at one of his moustache whiskers. He was quite proud of those whiskers. He bought expensive moustache grease for them to get this effect. He thought it made him look dignified. Other guards thought it made him look like a rat. It was an unfortunate affectation.
“They have been getting cocky. It was bound to happen, sir.” The guard said, cheerfully. His work wasn’t usually this easy, and he was enjoying the win. The unfortunately named Sheriff Ratcliff stood around for a little while longer, staring into the alleyway, before giving a shrug and then wandering off with the amused guardsman.
Just another day in the life of the Rundellian city watch.
