THE THING IN THE FILTHWAYS
From LowLife, a DUNGEON DEGENERATES ROLEPLAYING GAME.
Turds, trash & body parts bobbed in what passed for water. Rats watched from the shadows. The waste from the clean & orderly Überheim flowed into the Filthways below.
Max & Olaf took a moment to breathe but gagged on the stench that was thick in the air. The dull eyes of the dead-again stared wide & empty.
The stagnant air was humid, septic. Olaf & Max tried not to breathe deep, fearing that something nasty would grow in their lungs.
They had just finished chopping through what seemed like hundreds of the living dead. The already rotting bodies gave way to Olaf’s cleavers like butter, or... like old, rotting meat.
The walls dripped with condensation & a foul mold grew in the cracks. Even with their high ceilings, the tunnels felt controlling, ominous, like the veins of a rotten animal.
The Filthways of Überheim provided a stark contrast to the orderly city they served. “As above, not as below this time.” Noted Max.
“You’re right, but I prefer this to above.” Said Olaf wiping the syruppy, black blood of the living dead off his face.
Max wasn’t comfortable around weapons & didn’t want to stand in front of anything where such confrontation loomed. He had barely gotten over the shock of getting his nice, presentable clothes drenched in the stinking muck.
Max was more than content in staying back & lighting up the stone walls of the sewers with the weird magical light he was able to conjure. His nose trickled blood as he concentrated.
Olaf, on the other hand, lived for the feeling of his blades going through flesh & bone. He was very comfortable with the accompanying mess.
If Olaf swung hard enough & at the right angle he could chop through the bone too. It was extremely satisfying to dismember body after body, it reminded him of his job as a butcher.
He quietly muttered an old butcher’s poem he learned while still an apprentice. “Your blood, my blood, does it matter? It’s all meat. Everything is good, as long as the knives cut.”
“Poetry at a time like this?”
“You look like you’d like poetry.”
“I’m too nervous for poetry.”
As they waded around the corner they came face to face with the thing that had been pulling unwary drunks into the sewers & dismembering them.
The creature was horrible, a mix between a crab, a hairless chimpanzee & a very angry man. The thing made a nauseating blubberous, bubbling sound. It clamped its claws & chewed the air as it waited to engage the two.
“A face that a mother would leave at the edge of the woods.” Said Olaf.
“Poor bastard.”
Max & Olaf braced themselves. Olaf drew a deep breath & charged the beast.
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