Chapter 183: Sector C

Saturday morning found Arthur on an academy transport heading toward the Old South Aqueduct.

Whisperwind rested against his knee, while the Necrotic Dagger sat securely against his left hip in the mount Brunhilda had adjusted for him. He’d tested it twice before leaving campus. It hadn’t shifted.

Across from him, Emily had brought too much food.

She was sorting through a small canvas bag of provisions like they were heading underground for three days instead of one academy practical.

Felix was ignoring both of them. He had the municipal map spread across his knees and already looked irritated.

"The scale changes here," Felix said, tracing a line across the parchment.

Arthur leaned over. "That’s comforting."

"It means two different survey teams made the maps."

Emily looked over from her food. "So which one is right?"

Felix folded the map back up. "We’ll find out underground."

The entrance to the Old South Aqueduct didn’t feel like a wild dungeon. It was ancient city infrastructure. Heavy, moss-covered stone walls curved downward into the earth, blocked off by thick iron maintenance gates. Newer magi-tech ward lamps had been bolted directly onto the ancient masonry, casting a harsh white light over the temporary staging point outside the entrance.

City workers and academy personnel were moving around the perimeter, directing student squads toward different numbered gates. Arthur noticed a second-year student who was already covered in mud despite not having entered the tunnels yet.

He found that concerning.

Professor Vale was standing near the Gate Three checkpoint with a clipboard. He didn’t offer a motivational speech when Arthur’s squad walked up. He checked their names, handed Felix the brass route token for Sector C, and checked that their emergency flare was packed.

Vale’s eyes dropped to the dagger on Arthur’s belt.

"Planning ahead?" Vale asked.

"I occasionally learn," Arthur said.

"Let’s not exaggerate." Vale pointed his pen toward the gate. "Sector C. Don’t drown."

They passed through the heavy iron gate and into the aqueduct.

For the first fifteen minutes, it was almost boring.

Felix clipped a light crystal near the top of his shield while Chloe fixed another to the side of her pack. Their pale glow covered the walkway and the nearest walls, but most of the drainage openings remained black.

Arthur took point a few steps ahead of Felix. He had the better eyes and ears for scouting, while Felix stayed close enough to move past him the moment something actually tried to eat them.

There were no monsters. Just wet stone, running water echoing through the central channels, and old rusted fixtures bolted to the walls.

Arthur kept hearing a faint clicking noise, but the curved stone carried sound terribly. He couldn’t tell whether the source was twenty feet ahead of them or somewhere in a drainage pipe beneath their boots.

He stopped walking.

Everyone froze behind him.

They stood there in the damp dark. Nothing happened. The running water just kept echoing.

Emily eventually leaned closer to him. "You sure?"

Arthur kept listening.

A sharp click came from somewhere behind Felix.

Arthur spun around.

There was nothing there either.

"I already hate this place," Arthur said.

Emily smiled. "You hated it before we got here."

They kept moving. Felix periodically marked their route on the wall with chalk, and Chloe kept comparing the old carved maintenance symbols against their partial map. Arthur watched the drainage openings and the ceiling lines, while Emily grew increasingly annoyed that she hadn’t punched anything yet.

Ten minutes later, they found the first real sign of life.

Deep claw marks scored the stone around a large drainage mouth. Scattered below the opening was a small pile of bones.

Chloe crouched near them while Arthur kept his eyes on the dark tunnel ahead.

"Rats. Some larger tunnel vermin too," Chloe murmured. "Everything’s been picked clean."

Felix pointed his heavy gauntlet toward the iron grate covering the drain. A long strip of pale, translucent shed skin was stuck against the rusted metal.

Something was definitely nesting here.

Arthur heard the clicking again.

This time it was close.

A pale, multi-jointed hand with long, hooked claws briefly curled around the inside edge of the drainage opening.

Then it disappeared back into the dark.

"There," Emily said, shifting her stance.

"Yeah," Arthur said.

Felix raised his shield, stepping to the front of the narrow walkway.

A pale shape dropped from a side opening further down the tunnel.

The creature looked built for the wet dark. It was roughly the size of a large dog, but built incredibly low and long to the ground, with heavy forelimbs meant for clinging to wet stone. It didn’t have visible eyes, just a smooth, pale head that kept snapping left and right, letting out rapid clicks to navigate the space.

It didn’t roar. It just lunged.

Arthur drew Whisperwind and put a standard Mana Quiver arrow clean through its neck.

The creature hit the stone and thrashed.

Two more poured out of the side drains.

Felix stepped up and slammed his shield down, completely blocking the narrow walkway. The first creature crashed into the metal. The second tried to scramble right up the stone wall to climb over Felix’s line.

Emily grabbed it by a hind leg, ripped it off the wall, and slammed it down onto the stone.

Then Arthur heard another click directly to his right. Much closer than the others.

He turned his head. A creature was squeezing out of a narrow, rusted drainage pipe right beside him.

He didn’t try to pull Whisperwind around. The tunnel was too tight, and the monster was already launching itself at him.

Arthur dropped his bow hand, letting Whisperwind fall cleanly against his shoulder retention strap. His right hand crossed his body. The Necrotic Dagger slid out of its new sheath without a single snag.

The pale creature hit him hard enough to drive him backward into the damp wall.

Arthur got his left forearm up just in time to catch it under the jaw, keeping its teeth away from his face. The thing was heavy, its claws scrabbling wildly against his jacket.

Arthur’s first instinct was to shove it off.

He killed that instinct before he wasted time on it. Morwenna had made that lesson painful enough to remember.

Instead of pushing straight back, Arthur turned with the pressure. He shifted his hips, let his shoulder scrape along the wall, and redirected the creature’s lunge past him.

The movements from Silent Knife Technique came naturally at that distance. Arthur kept the dagger close and drove it up behind the creature’s forelimb.

Dark decay spread outward from the wound. The Stalker shrieked, twisted hard, and tore itself off the blade before the damage could spread farther.

Arthur took the half-step of space he had just created, stepped inside its guard, and drove the dagger into its neck.

It was a dirty, brutal kill, but the creature collapsed into the shallow water at his feet and stopped moving.

Arthur kicked the corpse away and looked back down the corridor.

The fight was finishing up. Felix shoved his target back with the shield, giving Emily room to crush its skull against the floor.

The tunnel went quiet except for the running water.

Emily stepped over the bodies and looked down at the dead creature beside Arthur. Then she looked at the dagger in his hand.

"Didn’t get stuck," Emily noted.

Arthur wiped a smear of pale, foul-smelling blood off his sleeve. "Your confidence in me is overwhelming."

Chloe walked over and grabbed his arm, checking the sleeve where the creature’s claws had caught him.

"It’s barely bleeding," Arthur told her.

"No swelling so far," Chloe said, pulling a sterile wipe from her kit to clean the shallow scratches. "Doesn’t look venomous, but tell me if it starts burning or going numb."

Felix was checking the academy-issued monster guide on his phone, comparing the pale corpse against the database.

"Sluice Stalkers," Felix announced. "Known subterranean pack predators. Usually nest around old canals, caves, and underground river systems."

Arthur looked toward the lower flooded channels. An abandoned aqueduct connected to old underground waterways was probably about as good a nest as the Stalkers could ask for.

Felix noted the likely entry route beside the species name, and they moved on.

The aqueduct started getting physically annoying.

The water in the central channel rose until it was shin-deep. Felix complained loudly about it because fighting in moving water screwed with his heavy, planted footing.

Emily almost slipped on a patch of slick algae and immediately straightened up, pretending she hadn’t lost her balance at all.

Arthur saw it. She looked right at him. He wisely decided not to say a word.

A few minutes later, Arthur nearly stepped into a submerged drainage hole he couldn’t see through the murky water. Emily saw it, and a huge grin spread across her face.

They reached a broken walkway where a massive section of the stone path had collapsed into the central channel, leaving only a narrow, slippery lip of masonry against the wall. They had to cross it one at a time.

Arthur went first. The narrow footing wasn’t much trouble for him, and once he reached the other side he secured a rope line for the others. Chloe followed him carefully.

Emily ignored the rope almost completely and crossed fast enough that her boot slipped on the final step, nearly sending her into the water before she caught Arthur’s arm.

Felix stared at the narrow ledge. He hated it.

"If you fall in, I’m not carrying you out," Felix called after her from where he was still waiting to cross.

"You couldn’t carry me," Emily called back.

Felix looked genuinely offended by the challenge, but he refused to test it while standing over dirty water. He kept his mouth shut and carefully edged his way across the stone.

After another ten minutes of cramped, narrow tunnels, they finally reached the large cistern chamber marked on their map.

Arthur peeked out from the tunnel exit and let out a quiet breath.

Space.

The cistern was a massive, high-domed room with old maintenance balconies ringing the upper walls and a mostly drained central basin below.

It was also packed. There were at least eight Sluice Stalkers nested around the lower channels. One was noticeably larger than the others, with thicker pale plating running along its spine.

Arthur looked at the wide-open chamber and the elevated balconies, and immediately liked this dungeon much more.

Emily noticed his expression. "Straight enough for you?"

Arthur looked at the huge room. "Beautiful."

They established their plan in thirty seconds. Felix would hold the main stone staircase, the only choke point the pack had to reach the upper ledge. Emily stayed slightly forward and to the right, ready to intercept anything that tried to climb around the shield. Chloe stayed behind them, watching the side access points and keeping support ready.

Arthur took the elevated maintenance balcony.

He drew Whisperwind, formed a Mana Quiver arrow with a thin, steady pull of mana and released.

The shaft punched cleanly through the nearest Stalker’s neck.

The creature dropped.

The pack erupted.

Arthur drew again, tracking a Stalker scrambling up the curved stone wall. He released, but the creature suddenly jerked sideways in response to a sharp click from the pack leader. The arrow sparked uselessly against the stone.

Three Stalkers rushed the stairs. Felix caught the first two on his shield with a heavy, ringing impact. One tried to slip past his right side, and Emily smashed it bodily off the stone stairs before it could reach the landing.

Felix’s boots slid on the algae-slick stone.

"Back one!"

Emily moved with him immediately. Chloe gave ground behind the shield, while Arthur shifted along the balcony to keep his firing lane. Chloe threw a quick stabilization buff over Felix’s legs to help his footing.

The mature Stalker didn’t bother charging the stairs.

It let out a rapid sequence of clicks, located Arthur’s elevated position, and scrambled straight up the side wall of the cistern, using its hooked claws to scale the ancient masonry terrifyingly fast.

Arthur saw it coming. He got one clear shot.

The arrow slammed into the creature’s thick shoulder plating, breaking off a chunk of pale armor, but it didn’t stop the climb.

The Stalker lunged for the edge of the balcony.

Arthur’s eyes caught the shadow beneath a maintenance balcony along the neighboring wall.

He used Shadow Step.

He vanished before the Stalker’s claws reached him and reappeared on the shadowed ledge across the corner of the cistern.

Arthur turned, brought Whisperwind to full draw, and formed another Mana Quiver arrow.

The larger Stalker was still clinging to the wall, completely exposed.

Arthur put the arrow into the base of its spine.

The creature lost its grip and crashed into the basin below.

Emily finished the last one near the stairs with a heavy kick that sent it rolling down the stone steps.

The cistern went quiet.

Emily walked up to the edge of the stairs, covered in pale monster blood and looking furious because some of it had gotten in her hair. Felix checked the front of his shield for deep scratches. Chloe moved through the group, checking for injuries, while Arthur jogged down to the lower basin to retrieve his usable arrows.

Felix pulled out his knife and started cutting out the usable cores.

"This is an academy practical," Arthur reminded him, pulling an arrow free.

"Cores are still cores," Felix replied, getting to work on the nearest Stalker.

Emily walked past him and kicked one of the dead creatures closer to his boots. "Count faster."

They recovered the usable cores and bagged a few pieces of shed skin for Vale’s report. Arthur checked the physical layout of the chamber against their partial map.

The map showed three branches leaving the cistern.

Arthur counted four.

The extra passage sat behind the remains of an old maintenance railing, dark water running along its floor.

Felix checked the map again.

"That’s not here."

"Helpful map."

Chloe pointed at the assignment sheet in Felix’s hand. "Our objective is literally to update the map."

Felix sighed.

They took a few minutes to drink some water, marked the cistern clearly on their route log, and confirmed everyone was fine. Then Arthur walked up to the newly found branch and listened.

No roars. No clicking. Just the sound of running water somewhere further down in the dark.

Arthur checked the time. They still had a few hours left before their required return window, and Sector C wasn’t cleared yet.

He folded his copy of the map away and looked at the narrow, dark passage.

Emily came up beside him, wiping the last of the monster blood off her cheek. "More tunnel?"

Arthur looked at the low ceiling and the wet walls. "Of course it’s more tunnel."

Felix strapped his shield back onto his arm. Chloe picked up her pack.

They moved on.