The sewers stretched like a maze. The tunnels dripped of water. Pipes jutted from the brick walls like ribs, rust bleeding into the trickle that ran down their sides, pooling in the shallow stream beneath Ruben and Corbin's boots. The air was thick with rot, wet stone, and the faint metallic sting of iron.
Their steps were soft but deliberate. The silence pressed long enough that Ruben felt it crawling against his skin, urging him to break it.
He exhaled, "Corbin… what would you do if you took a life?"
Corbin slowed his pace by half a step, glancing at him briefly with an unreadable expression before facing straight ahead again. His hands were buried deep in his pockets, shoulders slightly hunched.
"I've thought of it before," he said. "But then again, I think something like that was always down my path. Like it was in my future no matter what I did."
Ruben frowned. "You mean… as a Paladin?"
Corbin shook his head, his footsteps splashing quietly against the thin waterline. "No. I mean I always ended up doing bad. Eventually I would take it too far one day. Doesn't matter which world I was in, it would have found me."
Ruben's jaw tightened. "I don't think that's true."
Corbin let out a short, humourless breath. "Try convincing my mother of that. She was hard pressed into believing I was evil. She believed I was rotten from the start, it made things easier for her whenever I did something wrong."
"You're not evil." Ruben said, almost stubbornly. "You're just always mad."
That made Corbin sigh. He let the silence linger. "Why did you ask that?"
Ruben shook his head. "I just thought of it after seeing Fionn's reaction to losing his father."
He took a short breath before thinking about something. "I always thought about hurting my dad."
The air shifted with the weight of the confession. Ruben's throat worked as he went on. "I hated him that much. I had so many bad thoughts about him." He swallowed hard. "Then when I finally did kill him, all those thoughts just disappeared. It was like they drained out of me in a second. And then it was just… silence."
Corbin's tone was dry, like the edge of flint against stone. "Probably because you finally did it. You got all those bad thoughts out of your system."
Ruben tilted his head as they descended a set of slick stone steps, dropping to a lower level of the sewer. His voice was steady, but his eyes carried something unsettled. "Maybe. But I never got punished for it. I ended up in the back of a police car and then I died. Next thing I knew, I woke up in that hospital in Branneth, with you."
"I hated him. But there were people that loved and depended on him. People who needed him. I cut all of that short. I left them with nothing. And now I get to keep going. I get another chance. Because of that." His voice cracked with restraint. "And after seeing the way Fionn reacted to the way his dad died, I think I'm starting to realise how bad I feel for acting on that hate."
Corbin's reply came without hesitation, iron-clad in its conviction. "From what you've told me, your father was scum. He hurt you, and your mom. So he just got the ending he deserved. Patricide. He doesn't deserve your guilt."
Ruben nodded once, slowly. But inside, the words were hollowed out. That wasn't what I wanted to hear Corbin. That felt like permission. But there was something else he wanted to hear… to feel.
The silence returned as they walked on, the tunnel stretched wider, the stream thickening into a shallow river that whispered against the walls. The air shifted, cooler now, and their footsteps echoed differently. Ahead, a doorway gaped wide, its iron frame rusted and crooked, the top hinges were gone causing the door to bend unnaturally.
Corbin flicked his eyes towards it. "Already open. Might as well see what's inside."
Together they stepped through, shoes crunching faintly as the tunnel gave way to a vast chamber. The ceiling soared high, ribs of steel curving like the underbelly of a ship. Rows of massive shipping containers sat stacked in neat lines, their dull metal sides streaked with condensation. At the far end, water thundered downward in a wide cascade, a waterfall spilling from the city's edge into unseen depths below.
The spray shimmered faintly in the dim light, and the roar of it swallowed the silence.
Corbin stepped closer, gaze following the torrent. "This must be the bottom of Brumália. Past this… it's just open sea."
Ruben's eyes lingered on the containers. "What do you think's in them?"
"Food. Tech. Supplies for emergencies maybe. Whatever the city doesn't want cluttering up the docks." Corbin's shrug was casual, but his tone was wary. "Just storage."
They walked deeper between the towering steel crates, their shadows long against the dripping walls. Ruben slowed, his nose twitching faintly.
It twitched at the scent of something disgustingly foul in nature, almost familiar too. And it only reminded him of their previous skirmish.
"Wait."
Corbin stopped beside him, all just like last time in the hotel, "What?"
Ruben's head tilted slightly, nostrils flaring as he drew the air in, his expression hardened. "Something's wrong. There's a smell of something rotting." He closed his eyes, tracing it, every nerve sharpening. "It's like a bunch of bad fruit that's gone bad but I think that's just there to mask the bad smell. It's meaty, blood's gone stale too."
It was almost obvious what was inside now.
His hand drifted to the side, fingers brushing the rusted surface of the container to their left. His voice low.
"It's dead bodies."
***
The hinges wailed as Ruben and Corbin pried the container open. The metal door screeched against its rusted teeth, and the air that poured out was thick, wet and sour.
At first, all they saw were apples.
Rotting, collapsing in on themselves, they tumbled forward and spilled onto the concrete floors. Their skins were mottled brown and soft to the touch, collapsing at the slightest pressure.
Flies rose in a sudden black cloud, the air filling with a frenzied drone. Ruben squinted as he waved a hand in front of his face, his other hand already tightening at his side.
"Apples," Corbin muttered, almost baffled, as the fruit rolled past his shoes.
But Ruben's head tilted. He stretched out his palm, and three small dragons shimmered into being, their translucent blue scales catching faint light from the dripping pipes above.
"Clear it," Ruben ordered softly.
The creatures slithered into the container, their claws sharp but nimble. They began dragging the apples, one after another, scattering the collapsing fruit aside with methodical care. The wet thuds echoed as the piles shifted, the stench growing sharper, harder to stomach.
Then something heavy rolled free.
A body.
It slumped face-first onto the concrete with a hollow thud, skin pale and sloughing off in sheets, worms and maggots were writhing in the folds. The stench hit them like a physical blow, rancid and suffocating, as though the air itself had soured. Corbin snapped a hand to his nose and mouth, gagging against the rot.
"Holy shit!" He spat in a muffled tone.
Ruben staggered back half a step, his stomach tightened as another body followed, collapsing in a heap of bones and wasted flesh. "Why would they be here?"
Corbin's eyes were narrowed, sharp even though the disgust. "Human trafficking," he said. "Had to be. No other reason."
Ruben crouched beside the first fallen corpse, his face twisted. The skin was grey, patchy and brittle, bugs were carving lines through it like veins. He swallowed against the bile rising in his throat.
"If the rest look like this… they must have been dead at least a month. Maybe a little longer."
Corbin's tone was cold. "I'd say they could have been forgotten but maybe they were left to rot on purpose."
Ruben pulled his gaze away, his jaw tightening as he gestured. His larger dragon emerged now, pale light rolling across its furred back as it pressed its claws into another container's door.
With a metallic groan, the lock split, and the door creaked open.
The inside looked different.
Boxes of fruit lay broken on the ground, their contents smeared across the floor in old pulp and bruised skins, long since stepped on. But further in, the shapes of ten beds stretched in neat rows, they looked like the type of chairs used for lethal injections.
Ruben and Corbin walked inside, the air heavier with rot, though the stench here was less overpowering than the last. Eight of the beds held bodies.
The corpses were pale but intact, as if death had come only weeks ago. Their faces were slack, skin drawn tight over bone, dust coating them like a second shroud. Only two beds were empty.
Corbin stared for a long moment before speaking. His voice was sharp. "They arrived here alive."
Ruben nodded slowly, eyes darting between rows. "Then what happened to them?"
Corbin stepped closer, gaze narrowing at the still forms. "Whoever was meant to pick them up never came. Just left them here to starve to death and rot."
Ruben's attention caught on their clothing. Every corpse was dressed the same, plain white garments, though time and decay had stained them grey. The uniforms had no embellishments, no individuality. Just a number etched into the left side. 9.
He stepped closer, tracing it with his eyes. "They're all wearing the same thing. A set of white clothes with a number nine on the left side."
Corbin followed his gaze, his voice tight. "So what about the two empty beds?"
Ruben's brows furrowed, mind working. He reached out and pushed lightly against one of the beds. It scraped across the floor with ease. He shook his head. "No. Too easy to move. If two are gone, they either escaped or were taken."
Corbin exhaled, the weight of it heavy in the chamber. "Then if the person terrorizing the city is using an Ego… one of those missing two has to be them."
Ruben's eyes lay lingering on the dead, on the sameness of their uniforms. He nodded slowly.
Corbin's voice echoed against the metal walls as he walked further down the line. "Whoever's responsible for this didn't care about age. Look at them. Young. Old. Middle-aged. Just bodies."
Ruben's chest tightened as he looked again. The truth was there, in the curve of a child's jaw locked in death. It made his teeth clench, fury silent behind his eyes.
Corbin glanced back. "I think we've actually found something. You should send one of your dragons to point Lea and Kade this way."
Ruben nodded faintly, though his mind still ran dark. "If the person attacking the city was one of the two people not in the beds. Then they may still be in the sewers, it's a great cover. No one would think to search this deep. It's been going on for nearly a month, he'd know his way round by now."
Corbin tilted his head. "And what if he's not here anymore? What if it's two people? Maybe this place is just a hub. A quick exit."
Ruben let the silence stretch before nodding again. "Then we keep moving. Check if there's other rooms and other grand exits like this."
Corbin grunted in agreement and moved ahead, his footsteps echoing against the wet floor as he disappeared around a stack of containers. "Write out your note and send it. I'll check ahead."
Ruben stood alone, the bodies silent at his back. His hand slipped into his pocket and drew out a folded scrap of paper. But instead of writing, his eyes lingered on the two empty beds.
Something gnawed at him.
He summoned one of his dragons, its pale shape coiling into the room like smoke. His command was quiet.
The dragons blinked and obeyed. Its claws sank into the two empty beds and picked them up. Ruben's chest was tight.
For some reason he didn't want anyone to find out the two empty beds.
The dragons threw them off into the waterfall leaving them for no one to be found.