The Core's Origin

While Simon, Sean, and Jacob were making their way back to Guilone, Ivan was making his way to work in the capital city. He had his brush and scraper, just as always. He stopped by the gathering point with the other aquarii for his region of the city, despite already knowing the section of the sewers he was responsible for for the day.

It was a filthy, stinky job, but it was needed and it paid. Still, Ivan’s wife insisted that he dip in the river before returning home each day, no matter how cold it might be.

There was always more work to be done in the sewers the day after a big rain, and Ivan felt quite fortunate to have a good supervisor who insisted that no one stay in the sewers during a rainfall. He had heard of other aquarii who had been washed away by the suddenly rising water levels during a rain, never to be seen again.

Ivan and his wife had lost friends that way, and even if his supervisor changed, he would never take the risk of staying in the sewers while it was raining.

In addition to his tools, Ivan always carried a club with him. The rats in the sewers were no joke, and he had nearly been swarmed by the beasts on several occasions.

Guilone’s sewers had been built in several layers, and the deepest layer connected to the subterranean river that both provided the city with water, and also carried all of the waste away. Having seen it for himself, Ivan would only allow his wife to collect water from specific fountains in the city, as he did not trust a few of the water sources, no matter what they were told.

Working his way deeper, Ivan had his torch in one hand and his club in the other. His scraper and brush were strapped to his back to stay out of the way in case he ran into one of the swarms of rats.

Having worked as an aquarii for about fifteen years, Ivan was quite familiar with the sewers in his section of the city, having always worked the same region. He had also become rather proficient with his club, though he had never run into some of the beasts that he had heard about from some of his companions. Why would there be snakes or lizards in the sewers? He had enough trouble understanding why rats would be down there, but they were certainly prevalent.

Actually, there seemed to be more rats than normal as Ivan proceeded deeper and deeper underground. Things grew so bad that his progress actually slowed as he dealt with the endless flood of rats attacking him.

While it was difficult to keep track of the time when underground and away from the sun, Ivan estimated that he must have spent a good hour dealing with the rats before arriving in his assigned section for the day.

He proceeded to place his torch so that he could use both hands for his brush and scraper, and then proceeded to dislodge and remove the various blockages obstructing the flow. While he had done so a bit on his way through the sewer, casually cleaning as he went was different from focusing on a section that had been ignored for some time. He would need to spend several days on this deep section to make sure that nothing built up to the point that it made trouble in the future. True clogs were terrible to try to remove, and he would do almost anything to make sure he never again had to dive into a clogged tunnel while tied to a rope to keep from being swept away when the blockage was removed. It had taken weeks for that smell to go away, and the days he had been forced to sleep outside because of it had almost been worse than the initial experience.

As Ivan slowly moved forward while working, he felt that something felt a bit off, though he could not quite place what it was.

He started looking around, trying to find what was making him feel the discomfort, but nothing seemed to be out of place. There was the main tunnel that connected to the river, the various tunnels that fed into it, the side branch the led further down…

Wait, that was the problem. There was no branching tunnel that led further down. Ivan was already in the second lowest section of the sewers, and the only thing further down was the river itself, and that was reached through the main tunnel. Where had this new tunnel appeared from?

Confused, Ivan started working his way towards the unknown tunnel while thinking back to the various reports he had heard from his supervisor. The sewers were indeed always being expanded and worked on to accommodate Guilone’s ever increasing population, but work at these depths was highly unusual and always required larger teams of workers and extensive amounts of time, just due to the transportation of the equipment and materials.

Ivan could not remember anything at all regarding recent work at these depths.

He continued to do his work, and eventually reached the tunnel. Oddly enough, it appeared to be the same age as the rest of the sewer, and even had a flow entering. The only oddity, other than the tunnel’s mere existence, was the fact that Ivan could not see any blockages at all to the flow that trickled down the tunnel.

Curious, and also because this unknown tunnel was in his section of work for the day, Ivan entered the tunnel and started down it.

As always when moving through the sewers, he had his tools strapped to his back, his torch in his left hand, and his club in his right hand, ready to be used.

Even after proceeding a hundred paces down the tunnel, he had still not encountered even a single blockage, which did not make any sense at all. There were always blockages, even if only a few. The fact that the sewers carried nightsoil and dirt from the streets meant that there was always something obstructing the smooth flow to the river beneath the city. Despite that, there was nothing to clean in this tunnel.

At that moment, Ivan’s confusion and questions were erased from his mind, not by a blockage in the tunnel, but by another swarm of rats that approached from the lower reaches of the tunnel. As usual, the deeper the tunnels, the larger the rats.

Hefting his club, Ivan got to work, clearing the rats in a methodical manner that betrayed his years of experience with such things. Each rat was sent into the flow at the center of the tunnel after being killed, preventing the corpses from creating any blockage or obstruction.

The swarm was slightly larger than normal, as was the rats’ size, but Ivan had dealt with such things before, and was unbothered by the ferocious attack.

After several minutes, the swarm was eliminated, and Ivan continued on his way.

As he walked, he started to pass some of the corpses that were drifting down the tunnel in the descending flow. Some of them seemed a bit incomplete, but Ivan just passed that off as him being slightly more aggressive with his club than normal.

Suddenly, Ivan froze. Right in front of his eyes, he watched in amazement and horror as a corpse melted away. His gaze shot to his own feet, terrified at the thought that his own boots might be melted away by some sort of corrosive liquid in the sewer.

Fortunately, Ivan’s feet were fine, and it was only the body of the dead rat that melted away. What was happening? Bodies rotted and decayed, they did not melt away and get washed away by the flow of the sewer. Ivan knew this for a fact, as more than a few blockages he had cleaned over the years in the upper levels had been created by a discarded body that someone had tried to dispose of in an unseen location. People always forgot that the aquarii worked in the sewers and would always find whatever was left there.

Trepidation filled Ivan as he warily proceeded forward, worried that something might change and his boots might start to also melt like the bodies of the rats.

Things continued in this manner for several minutes before something even more shocking occurred; one of the bodies disappeared entirely, but left something behind.

This was not a bit of bone or metal like what Ivan had found in human and animal corpses in the past. He knew that the oddest things could be swallowed, and was used to finding that people had tried to hide coin or other things in their stomachs to avoid theft.

No, what was left behind was a small glowing orb that floated just above the flow in the tunnel.

Ivan froze in place, unwilling to approach the orb, but also unable to go around it without getting closer than he was comfortable with.

Still, Ivan had seen countless disturbing things during his years of working in the sewers, and after a few moments, he forced himself to move forward.

It was clear that the glowing orb was not obstructing the flow in any way, and as Ivan was looking, a bit of something floated down the current and passed right through the ball of light.

Relieved that it was not anything physical, Ivan simply skirted to the side of the tunnel and moved to continue further down.

However, as soon as he was within a pace of the light, it twitched, and then shot towards his head and entered his body.

Everything happened too fast for the man to even react until it was too late. He froze in place, uncertain of how to respond or what to do. He felt his head all around to see if anything had happened to him, but could not feel any pain or injury at all.

He moved on and checked the rest of his body, just in case he had somehow missed something, but still found no injuries.

Feeling relieved, he took a step forward, only to nearly fall on his face.

What was going on? He felt a bit lighter, as though he had suddenly lost a heavy burden that had been weighing him down. The sudden change in weight was drastic enough that Ivan had stumbled and almost fallen right into the sewage flowing past him.

That was not something he ever wanted to experience again, if he could help it.

A few more steps were enough for Ivan to stabilize himself and walk normally once more, though he still could not understand what had caused the sudden change.

He pushed further down the tunnel, and after about fifty more paces, he caught a glimpse of some movement up ahead.

He hefted his club, ready for more rats, as they were about the only thing that one would encounter at these depths.

No, this was no rat. The movement was jerky, and there were no glowing eyes to be seen. It almost seemed like a squished ball of water was up ahead, moving around with little nudges or twitches.

At least it did not seem like anything too dangerous, so Ivan proceeded forward.

He quickly caught a better look at what was moving, though it left him more confused than ever. It really was a ball of greenish water, or some other liquid, that was shifting through the sewage flowing down the tunnel. There did not seem to be any purpose to the movements, as it seemed rather aimless, but Ivan was not about to get closer to something so bizarre.

He stared, uncertain of what he was looking at, or how dangerous it might be. He knew that there were times when what looked to be water could be more deadly than any living creature, and could strip flesh from bones, as he had seen it happen once.

He watched and waited, patiently observing and evaluating this small oddity that seemed to be only about twice the size of his own head.

After several minutes, Ivan caught sight of additional movement deeper in the tunnel, and it quickly became apparent that this was another swarm of rats. It was a bit unusual to have multiple swarms so close together, but it was not the first time for Ivan.

He stepped back a bit to put a safer distance between himself and the odd… creature? Ball? Goo?

The aquarii readied himself for the approaching rats, only to be shocked by what he saw when the rats approached the greenish ball; as soon as the rats were within three to four paces of the ball, it clearly noticed their presence and launched itself at the creatures.

The ball instantly arrived next to a rat, and then moved forward and sucked the rat into its liquid center. Ivan could see the rat trying to swim around and escape, yet before more than two of the other rats could pass by, the captured rat had expired, and Ivan could even see that it was being broken apart and digested by the green liquid ball.

By that time, Ivan had to disregard what he had just witnessed, as the swarm was on him. His club flashed out, and the impact did not merely break the rat’s skull, as had been Ivan’s intention, but simply decapitated the small beast.

Were these rats weaker than normal? Given how easily the club had moved, Ivan almost felt as though he might have gotten stronger, but that did not make any sense at all. People could not instantly grow stronger, and besides, he was already an older man of thirty, which meant that he should not be able to improve his strength any longer.

Even so, with another dozen or so rats still approaching, Ivan could not afford to be distracted, and he simply adjusted and continued on, as was his job.

Just a few seconds later, the rats had been eliminated, and Ivan immediately refocused on the greenish ball, only to see that it had moved a bit closer to him, and also that the rat it had devoured was completely gone.

The ball moved to the nearest corpse, and dragged that inside itself as well. Ivan continued to stare, and the rest of the small bodies drifted away.

After about thirty breaths, the second rat was completely gone from within the ball, and with the rest of the rat corpses gone, it resumed its random movements.

Could it be hunting for food?

Given how quickly it had absorbed two rats, it seemed this odd little ball had quite the voracious appetite.

Nervous about how to proceed, Ivan clenched his club and held it towards the moving ball as he took a step forward. As soon as he was within three steps of the ball, it reacted in the exact same way it had to the presence of the rats; it launched itself towards Ivan.

Already prepared, Ivan’s club met the ball as it was moving, and while it was clearly a bit more viscous that water, it was also clearly a liquid.

The entire thing shattered and exploded, splattering the left side of the tunnel a bit in front of Ivan.

He looked at his club, and saw that it was smoking or steaming a slight bit. Worried, he put the end into the stream of sewage, and it stopped steaming with a tiny hiss.

He looked around at the splatters, and even moved the torch closer, but all he could see was a sheen of liquid and a few small clumps of something still stuck to the wall.

He leaned closer to get a better look, only to see that the liquid seemed to be drying up, and the small clumps of something he could not determine started to disappear, just like the rats’ bodies had earlier.

Once again, when everything was gone, a small glowing orb appeared just above where the last bit of residue had disappeared.

Ivan was already closer than three paces, so as soon as the orb had appeared, it shot towards his head.

This time, slighting anticipating what was happening, Ivan was able to notice that the orb entered his body, and covered him with a slight glow for a single moment.

Feeling that he was understanding what was happening a bit more, Ivan took a hesitant step, but this time, he did not feel any lighter as he moved, and there was no difficulty in moving.

Confused, but simply assuming that he had drawn the wrong conclusions, Ivan took another step, relaxing since it seemed that nothing had changed.

He slammed into the wall of the tunnel.

His casual step had moved more quickly than he had anticipated, and when he moved his left foot to catch himself, that step had also moved more quickly. The effect had repeated, and Ivan had ended up running head-first into the wall of the tunnel.

Wait, first it seemed like he had grown stronger, but this time, he was clearly much faster. Just what was going on?

Still, it seemed quite obvious by now that the glowing orbs were doing something to him, and despite his bashed face and bleeding nose, Ivan started to feel a bit excited.

He had been a rather strong man in his younger days, but had lost much of that as he had gotten older. Still, he had maintained his health and continued to be strong enough to keep working even after many people were unable to continue. Ivan had heard that priests and nobles could live to be even sixty years old, but no one he knew believed such outlandish tales. All of them knew that forty was about as old as a person could live, and with only a maximum of eight years remaining, Ivan had resigned himself to slowing down and growing weaker.

Experiencing the opposite from absorbing a few balls of light was enough to trigger Ivan’s excitement.

Suddenly eager, he started to move down the tunnel much more quickly, hoping to find more rats and… what had that ball been? It had been so strange and slimy as it had slid down the wall of the tunnel after being splattered. Well, slimes they would be then.

With a spring in his step that had not been there since the birth of his second daughter, Ivan practically skipped down the tunnel, ready to start hunting for slimes and rats.

Continuing on his way, Ivan ran into several more swarms of rats, and at least two more slimes, but only one more orb of light. This one did not seem to change much of anything, though it did seem that his hip hurt a bit less as he walked.

After several more encounters, Ivan suddenly froze. If these orbs could improve his speed and strength, he needed to get his sons down into these tunnels. All four of the surviving boys were working various jobs, and Daimen had even succeeded in picking up an apprenticeship with a carpenter, becoming the pride of the family.

If the boys could improve their bodies, it would provide them with a massive advantage, and Ivan wanted all of his grandchildren to be as well taken care of as possible.

This thought sent Ivan scampering upwards. He had already covered plenty of the sewers for the day, and thus there would be no issue with him heading home slightly early.

He just needed to find an excuse to get his sons into the sewers so that he could guide them to the depths to hunt rats and slimes with him…