Chapter 7: Nest Destruction
The central junction announced itself by smell before sight. Rot and copper and something sweetly organic that made my stomach clench. The tunnel widened ahead, torchlight catching ripples on standing water that reached my shins, then my knees, then my waist as the floor sloped downward.
"This is it. Final arena."
The chamber opened before me like a cathedral of filth. Four tunnel mouths fed into a space maybe thirty feet across, ceiling lost in shadow above. The water here was chest-deep in places, shallower near the edges where debris had piled into uneven mounds. And on those mounds—
Six shapes. Grey-green skin, bulging eyes, clawed hands resting in mockery of sleep. The drowners lay scattered across their domain like dogs in a kennel, some curled together, others sprawled alone.
But one shape dominated the center.
Bigger. Much bigger. Where the others were humanoid, this thing was humanoid plus twenty percent, muscles visible beneath skin the color of deep ocean. Alpha variant. The rat-catcher hadn't mentioned this, probably because she'd never gotten close enough to see it clearly.
"Eight total. Three dead behind me, five plus the alpha ahead. Numbers worse than expected."
My hands didn't shake anymore. Somewhere between the first fire trap and the silver dagger kill, the trembling had stopped. Not courage—I was terrified. But terror had crystallized into something useful. Sharp. Focused.
"Fire at the entrance. Force them to come to me one at a time. Same tactic, bigger scale."
I uncorked my second-to-last oil flask and poured it across the chamber entrance, the liquid spreading in dark patterns on the water's surface. The last flask I held ready. The plan was simple: ignite the barrier, make noise, retreat into the tunnel, and butcher anything that followed.
Simple plans worked best when you were scared.
I wedged the torch into a crack, angled to ignite the oil with a single kick. Then I found a loose stone—brick fragment, probably, from ancient construction—and threw it into the chamber.
The splash echoed like thunder.
Six heads rose. Six pairs of eyes caught torchlight and reflected it back like mirrors. Then the screaming started.
I kicked the torch. Fire raced across the oil surface, blue-orange flames dancing three feet high across the chamber mouth. The drowners charged—instinct overriding fear—and hit the wall of fire as a group.
Two pushed through immediately, skin blistering but fury intact. The others hesitated, circling, looking for another way.
"Come on. One at a time. That's the deal."
The first drowner emerged into my tunnel trailing smoke and hatred. My sword met it mid-lunge, blade biting into shoulder meat. Not a killing blow—too shallow. It screamed and slashed, claws raking across my leather padding, and I kicked it back into the second drowner trying to follow.
They tangled. I thrust. The sword found throat. One down.
The second scrambled over its dying packmate, faster than expected. Claws caught my sword arm—not deep, but burning. I dropped the blade on instinct, silver dagger already in my left hand, and drove it upward through the creature's jaw.
[DANGER SENSE: THREAT DETECTED - 3 METERS - RIGHT SIDE]
I spun. Third drowner had found another route—side tunnel I'd missed in the dark. It came low, aiming for legs. I jumped, barely clearing the swipe, and came down with the dagger punching through the top of its skull.
"Three down. Two plus alpha remaining. Fire's dying."
The flames at the chamber entrance had consumed their fuel. Embers guttered on oil-slicked water, casting dying orange light across the junction beyond. Through the smoke, two shapes approached.
And behind them, something much larger stirred.
I retreated deeper into the tunnel, sword recovered but the grip slick with blood—mine and theirs. The two remaining drowners entered single file, cautious now. They'd seen their kin die. They understood the danger of this narrow space.
The first came slow. Testing. I let it close, waiting for the committed lunge.
It never came. Instead, the drowner feinted left, drew my guard, and the second one charged past its companion's flank.
"ADAPTIVE. THEY'RE ADAPTING."
My sword caught the charger across the face—blind luck, not skill—and I felt the blade catch on bone, jar in my grip, and snap.
The cheap steel had given out.
Half a sword remained in my hand. The drowner I'd hit was down, eye socket a ruin, but not dead. The other pressed forward, claws reaching for my throat.
Silver dagger. Only weapon left. I threw myself inside its reach—same desperate move that had worked before—and stabbed. Once. Twice. Three times. The blade punched through ribs, through organs, through whatever passed for a drowner's heart.
The creature died wrapped around me, claws weakly scraping my back through torn leather.
I shoved the corpse away. The half-blinded one was crawling toward the water, trying to escape. I caught it, drove the dagger through the base of its skull, and twisted.
Silence.
"Alpha. Where's the—"
The water exploded.
The alpha drowner burst from the chamber like a launched torpedo, having swum through the junction while I was distracted. It moved faster than anything that size should move, claws extended, mouth open in a shriek that made my bones vibrate.
I threw myself sideways. Not fast enough.
Pain erupted across my ribs—hot, wet, wrong. The alpha's claws had found flesh below my leather padding, raking three deep furrows through muscle. I hit the tunnel wall, bounced off, and somehow stayed standing.
"SURVIVE. MOVE. KILL IT."
The alpha turned for another charge. In the dying torchlight, it looked less like a monster and more like a god of this underground hell. Bigger. Stronger. Faster than me in every way that mattered.
But I had the silver dagger. And I had Danger Sense screaming warnings that let me anticipate its movements by half a heartbeat.
It lunged. I dodged left—wrong direction, Danger Sense correcting me mid-motion—then dove right as claws whistled past my face. The counter-thrust was pure instinct. Silver blade met alpha flesh somewhere around its neck.
Not deep enough. The creature howled and backhanded me across the tunnel.
I flew. Hit water. Went under.
"No. Not like this. NOT LIKE—"
My feet found bottom. I pushed up, gasping, and the alpha was right there, looming over me, claws raised for the killing blow.
The last oil flask was still in my pack.
I grabbed it. Smashed it into the creature's face. Oil splashed across eyes, into mouth, coating that terrible grey-green skin.
Then I grabbed the dying torch from the wall and shoved it against the alpha's head.
Fire erupted. The alpha screamed—different from before, higher, almost human in its agony. It thrashed, burning, claws flailing blindly. One swipe caught my arm, nearly breaking it. Another gouged a chunk from the tunnel wall.
I stabbed. Missed. Stabbed again. Found the eye socket.
The silver dagger sank to the hilt.
The alpha drowner's scream cut off. It twitched once, twice, and collapsed into the water with a splash that seemed impossibly loud.
I stood there, panting, bleeding, surrounded by corpses in chest-deep sewage. The torch had gone out. Darkness pressed in from every direction.
And I started laughing.
Not humor—something closer to hysteria. Relief and terror and triumph all tangled together in my chest, forcing themselves out through my throat in barks that echoed through the empty tunnels.
"I won. I actually won."
[QUEST COMPLETE: CLEAR DROWNER NEST]
[Drowners Eliminated: 8/8 (including Alpha Variant)]
[REWARD: +1,150 GP]
[BONUS: Alpha kill - +200 GP]
[BONUS: Solo completion - +300 GP]
[TOTAL GP: 2,547]
[LEVEL UP: Level 2 → Level 3]
[NEW ABILITIES AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE]
The notifications washed over me in golden waves. I dismissed them with a thought—later, deal with system stuff later—and focused on more immediate concerns.
"Exit. Need to exit. Wounds are bad. Bleeding is bad. Move."
The alpha's clawed hand came off with three hacks from my broken sword. Proof of kill. The Guard Captain would want evidence.
Then I started crawling toward where I remembered the exit being.
Guard's Perspective
We'd been taking bets on whether the kid would come out at all. Sergeant Mikkel had twenty crowns on "eaten by midnight." I'd put ten on "drowns in his own vomit before reaching the nest."
Neither of us expected him to emerge at sunset, covered in blood and worse, holding up a severed monster hand the size of a dinner plate.
"Contract complete," he said. Then he grinned—teeth white against a face painted in filth—and collapsed.
I caught him before he hit the ground. Kid weighed nothing, barely more than my twelve-year-old daughter. But the wounds on his ribs were real, the scratches on his arms were real, and that hand he'd been waving around was very, very real.
"Get the healer," I shouted at Mikkel. "Now."
He just stood there staring at the hand. "Is that... is that from an alpha?"
"HEALER. NOW."
The kid was still breathing. Pulse weak but steady. He'd live, probably. And tomorrow, every guard in Oxenfurt would be talking about the fifteen-year-old who'd soloed a drowner nest that killed four experienced contractors.
I looked down at his unconscious face. Peaceful now, almost innocent.
"What the hell are you, kid?"
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