March 28, 2026 — 1:35 am

Rain was sitting in the guild tavern trying to decide what to do with his skill point. He already had his plan for the day all set out. He was just finishing his breakfast of eggs and bacon as he flicked through his menus, looking at skills and trying to decide where to invest his last point.

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Velocity is tempting, but I kinda want to save this point in case I need something later. I guess I can just leave it free for now. It isn’t like I don’t have enough skills to practice. What happens when a skill gets to 10, I wonder?

Rain closed out his menus and waved to Khurt as he got up to leave, starting to take his plate over to the counter. Khurt stopped him with a hand and told him to just leave it on the table, thanking him again for cleaning his kitchen the night before. He’d made Rain breakfast for free as a reward for the spotless workspace he had found waiting for him when he opened up the tavern that morning. Gus had apparently explained the arrangement between Rain and Rankin about free lodging to all of the guild employees, but Khurt was so happy with the results that he had thrown in a free breakfast as a special, one-time, personal thank you.

Rain thanked Khurt again for the meal and left the guild, trading his pack for a large basket of torches on his way out. When he had gone to the quest hall earlier that morning, Gus had flagged him down and pushed a quest slip into his hands. The man had seemed a little on edge as he had explained the quest to Rain. Gus had been sweating, so Rain had decided to help him out with the request instead of exploring the city as he had planned. The reward helped with his decision as well, and Rain had accepted the quest to Gus’s relief.

Ten Tel, just for changing out the dead torches in the sewer? Is it really so important that it had Gus on edge like that? Maybe he couldn’t get anyone to take it? There must have been more to it, it felt like he wanted me out of the guild for some reason. He almost choked when I told him I was going to have breakfast first. What is going to happen in the guild today, and why doesn’t Gus want me there? He didn’t even let me ask; he just ran off as soon as I promised I would leave after I ate.

Rain turned upstream when he reached the bottom of the sewer stairs and started to jog along the flowing water. He was being a little careful with his footing in the dim light, but nothing like his former, slow exploration. He knew this section of the tunnel, and he really couldn’t bring himself to be cautious about slimes after the encounter with the dark hounds. The basket of torches had straps to carry it on his back and it was weighing him down quite a bit, but it was manageable.

“Jog jog jog, I hate jogging, this is my jogging song,” Rain huffed and puffed as he moved down the tunnel, making noise deliberately to attract slimes. He wasn’t sure if they had a sense of hearing at all, but there was no harm in it, so he decided to humor himself and make the attempt. He was really feeling out of shape. All the walking he had been doing had convinced him to try to make an effort to improve his fitness a bit so he wasn’t so sore and tired when he went to bed every night.

No cars in this world, and no subway, so my own two legs better be up to it. Fuck I hate jogging.

Rain pulled to a stop as he heard the sound of a slime detaching from the ceiling and plopping to the ground behind him. He had run right under it, too fast for it to land on him. Grinning, he spun and activated refrigerate. The slime died before it had a chance to recover from its fall, large chunks of it freezing and tearing its outer membrane apart. Rain canceled his aura before it froze solid and sat, disregarding the growing puddle creeping towards him. He activated purify with aura focus, the smell of the slime vanishing along with his other senses.

Get wrecked, slime.

He gave it a good 20 seconds before he canceled his aura and opened his eyes. The tunnel was spotless, no sign of the battle remaining other than a single Tel shining from where it lay near the edge of the waterway. Rain smiled, climbing to his feet and collecting it, adding it to his supply.

Mana isn’t even below three quarters. The focus ring was the right choice!

Dusting off the knees of his leather pants unnecessarily, Rain resumed jogging down the tunnel, singing his jogging song. Killing the slime had been easy, trivial even.

I can do this all day! Ok, maybe not. Gah, my knees. Fuck jogging.

Rain continued down the tunnel in this manner, occasionally using detection to look for slimes and Tel whenever his mana got near full. He didn’t find any before he reached the tunnel that he had helped to unclog before. Pausing to rest, Rain listened for any sound of slimes but heard nothing.

Carefully, he stepped down into the ankle-deep flow of water in the side tunnel, crossed it, and climbed up the far side of the channel. He used purify to clean off his shoes, relieved that his boots were water-tight enough to keep his socks dry.

He set a slower pace as he continued down the tunnel, partly out of caution at the unfamiliar section of the waterway, but mostly because he was out of breath from the exercise. He lit a torch from one burning on the wall, seeing that there were no more spots of light off in the distance.

Time to get to work.

Rain looked for sconces on the wall as he walked. He swapped out the exhausted torches with fresh ones as he found them, lighting each one before moving on as the request had indicated. While he was working, Rain was interrupted by a group of three more slimes that had squirmed their way up out of the waterway behind him. He dispatched them easily, though only one of them dropped a Tel. Over the course of the morning, he found several more groups of slimes as he continued replacing torches.

That last group brings it up to fifteen slimes in total today. These things are everywhere around here. They must like the dark sections more than the torchlight. Maybe that is what this quest is for? Light the torches to keep the slimes away?

Rain came to a halt as he reached a large intersection in the waterway. He only had one torch left, the burning one he was holding. Relieved to be done, he swapped it for a dead one on the side of the tunnel and threw the burned out torch into the basket. He hunkered down, waiting for his mana to regenerate.