City of Fallen Souls: A LitRPG Adventure (UnderVerse Book 3) Jez Cajiao (best color ebook reader txt) 📖

“We can, but isn’t there anywhere else you’d rather we took them?” I asked, unsure. It felt disrespectful to just leave them here.

“Could we leave them here for now, and come back for them later?” Grizz asked, and I nodded.

“That seems like a better idea. give me a minute.” I said, closing my eyes and giving the control center a series of orders. “Okay, once the repairs to the Genesis Chamber are complete, the Servitor will make two coffins for them. When ten Golems are ready, they’ll set off to the Tower, and they’ll bring your men with them.” I looked Augustus in the eyes. “They were heroes, and they deserve to be buried as such.”

“Thank you, Lord Jax,” Augustus said quietly, and the others around me echoed his sentiments.

“Okay, everyone, into the sewer. We need to move it before the sun comes up.” I swallowed my emotions and gestured to the opening as I locked gazes with Oracle, who hovered by my head.

“Are the orders clear enough for the Golems?” I asked, and she nodded.

“You also instructed them to take orders from me. I can link with the control center, and through it to them, easily enough. Don’t worry.”

“Coolio. Okay then, here we go…” I whispered, climbing up into the sewer. “Get them to seal it all up as well as they can after we leave, and make sure the Servitor that stays behind knows that if it can’t fix the Genesis Chamber, it’s orders are to head back to the Tower instead.”

“Will do.” she whispered back, and as I moved deeper into the stinking sewer, the last I saw of the tunnel  was Augustus carefully packing his hat away to keep it from getting filthy, which made me grin.

We moved down ‘stream’ for a few minutes, careful to stay to the sides of the tunnel where it was shallower, while breathing through mouths that twisted at the foul air. I began to worry that I could taste it, it was that thick, when a crack of a lock being snapped from ahead echoed down the tunnel.

A few seconds later, Yen’s voice echoed down to us that the way was clear, and one after another we climbed the rungs to the surface.

When it was my turn, I gagged at the sight of the rungs before me. Those that had climbed ahead of me had left thick… chunks… attached to the rungs from their boots scraping off as they ascended. I had to fight my stomach as I climbed after them; the sight of sweetcorn stuck to a rung an inch from my face as I struggled up the narrow tunnel just made me want to be sick.

I pulled myself up into the alley way a few seconds later. Lydia waited at the opening and reached out to help me up. I grinned at her, shaking my head in mutual disgust at the experience, before looking around.

We were in a narrow alleyway, with maybe three meters between the walls on either side. The filth of the alley would have disgusted me normally, but compared to that sewer… I moved down the alley a little to make sure I was out of sight before summoning a fountain of clean water and calling Bane’s name. He appeared next to me, almost making me add to the filth of the alley. The fucker was getting far stealthier.

By the time the others had made it up and the grate had been returned to cover the tunnel, Bane had finished and I’d refreshed the spell, summoning a second fountain a few feet away and gesturing to the group to make use of them. I plunged my face in first, shaking it to get rid of anything before leaning waaaaay back and rinsing my hands and boots. I looked myself over quickly, then sighed and stepped entirely into the stream. I ended up soaking myself, but the water as it ran down to a nearby drain was filthy, and it needed to be done.

I kept the two fountains going for a few minutes, letting everyone hose themselves down as best they could, before we set off at a jog to the bridge over the river, which was thankfully only a few streets away.

I looked up at the faint shifting in colors that predated the sunrise and swore. Clearly, we’d been in there a lot longer than I’d thought.

“Back!” came the low hiss, and we scrambled to a halt, then backed up as quickly as we could, while Yen frantically gestured us away from the mouth of the alley.

Before we could make it halfway down to the other end, a shout echoed from the street behind us, and a guardsman pointed at us in shock, lifting his torch high to illuminate the party fleeing back into the darkness.

“Stop!” he cried, then turned and shouted toward the bridge before sprinting after us. “Over here!”

“What do we do?” Augustus asked me as we thundered down the alley and out onto the far street. The jingle of armor and shouts of the Guard rose behind us. “I’d rather not kill them just for being guardsmen.” he said, looking at me in a way that meant he still would, if I asked it.

“Fuck,” I muttered, casting about desperately.

The street was starting to fill up, people heading to work, and  suddenly we were surrounded by witnesses!

The merchant quarter obviously wasn’t the same as the industrial quarter, with people working all day and night, but still. I looked from side to side, finding at least a dozen people in sight and I growled in frustration.

“Split up!” I ordered, turning to the right and running. Lydia and Grizz flanked me, while Augustus led two others straight across the street and into another alley. The rest of the Legionnaires and Lydia’s crew scattered off in groups of two or three, taking as many different directions as possible. We ran down