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HC:Pacifist | Ch. 71 - Toilet Diving
🕑 Added 2023-06-20 08:18:08 +0000 UTCHello, everyone!
I hope you have an awesome week ahead of you.
I will host a monthly Q&A on Discord for lit bishops and blue kings today, Saturday, at 8 pm, Portugal time.
Feel free to show up and chat and ask any questions you have about my writing.
Thank you for your very generous support, guys.
**
"Achoo!" Snotty sneezed again. He had to say that the ratan's naming sense was quite descriptive.
He'd met with Gooey's crew a few hours early and had been assigned a guide to show him around their turf. Every single ratan in Gooey's crew seemed to be down with a cold. Roth attributed it to this part of the sewers being slightly cooler than the rest of the underground tunnel complex. The nearness to the river might have something to do with it.
"Achoo!" sneezed Roth. He felt horrible; worse, he didn't have anything but his sleeves to clean his nose. Thanks to his new buddy, he'd received a new debuff.
You've caught a [Cold]. You will occasionally sneeze. Careful! It can interrupt you if you're channeling a skill.
He imagined this was the worst debuff an esper could get. Having one's skills constantly interrupted must be awful. Could there be a skill that gave players a cold or the flu? Roth smirked as he thought about how funny it would be to grab Snotty and throw him into a group of esper players.
"Achoo!" a violent sneeze interrupted his fantasy and made him feel miserable again. At least it was better than the [Fleas] debuff.
Sewers were proving to be quite warm by default. The warm water coming down from the houses above and the heat generated by the decomposing material created a sort of humid heat that made Roth's clothes feel sticky, adding to the discomfort of being down here. Thank goodness that Mario had an AC unit in his lab.
Thanks to the help of his guides and to finding Mario's lab, he quickly finished mapping out the sewers under the slums.
Mario's lab worked like a shortcut. It was located at the center of the sewers under the slums. Over it, there were multiple chambers separated by walls. He saved hours of traveling by descending in an elevator on one side of a wall and climbing up on the other.
That, coupled with the privilege of having local guides showing him every nook and cranny, was helping him complete his map at a fast pace.
"As I was saying, this ladder takes you up to the pipes leading to the Baldwins. Good restaurant this is. It's got some fancy food. Anyway, what you do is as soon as you reach the pipe, is that you make a right, then another right, then straight up, and there's no way you'll miss it."
"And that will get me to the..."
"The man's bathroom, of course. Since you are a gentleman, I indicated you toward the men's bathroom. Obviously. We ratans are creatures of finesse." Roth looked with disgust at the dripping snot falling off Gooey's nose.
"Well, that being the case, I thank you for your assistance. Thank you so much for showing me around your turf."
"Don't mention it, martyr—anything for a friend of the king. Long live Ratatouille, king of ratans." To Roth's relief, Gooey turned and went to sneeze somewhere else.
Roth checked his transformation skills and cooldown timer on the [Miniaturizing] potion. He could have gotten here earlier, but he needed to have these skills on cooldown if he would make anything happen here. When he left Mario's lab, he still had several hours to go before he could use them again, but after exploring the turfs, the twenty hours had finally elapsed.
Roth waited a few minutes for his resilience to ward off the cold debuff. The last thing he needed was a sneeze to give him away and end his spying mission before it started.
Roth climbed up the ladder as high as he could. In his mind, he resembled a nimble monkey thanks to the added speed of the [Alpinist] title. But the last time he thought he looked cool dancing, he was told off by the game's system. Who knew if he was cool anymore? Roth sighed. This game was killing his self-esteem.
Now within reach of the pipes leading to the Baldwins, Roth activated the best Zoomorph form for the job.
Ratan form!
Roth's hair became a dull grey, and his nails grew into sharp claws. His ears became rounder and more prominent. Off his back, a small into a long, sinewy tail. The transformations didn't wholly make him into an animal. If anything, it made him feel like a man putting on a disguise to attend an animal-themed party. The most important was all the bonuses he unlocked from his transformation.
You have reached 150 dexterity.
You have unlocked [Nimble hands]
You have reached 200 dexterity.
You have unlocked [Nimble Feet]
[Nimble Hands] (Stat Bonus)
Bonus description: Your agility makes your hand movements dexterous, granting you the ability to achieve power feats.
Bonus effects: +20% attack speed; +5% Crafting Success
[Nimble Feet] (Stat Bonus)
Bonus description: By practicing your agility, you are capable of explosive bursts of speed and movement.
Bonus effects: +20% to running speed.
By turning into Ratan form, his dexterity immediately skyrocketed past 230! With each point into dexterity adding a 0.2% increase to his movement speed, just the increase in stats alone helped him gain a boost of 39% in movement speed. Unfortunately, his endurance came down, and his [Horse's Gallop] had been downgraded to [Cat's Sprint], costing him 5% of movement speed.
But everything considered, Roth still gained a 54% increase in his running speed, reaching a whopping 198% running speed. Roth set up a stopwatch and darted forward inside the pipes as fast as he could, making a right and then another right. The sewage was now up to his chest; he dove in and swam up the first aperture he spotted.
Coming up, he saw that he was inside a toilet. He squeezed himself out of it. And scanned the room for movement. Nothing. There was no one here. He looked at the stopwatch. It had taken him 90 seconds to dart through the pipes and make it here. He set an alarm that only he could hear to let him know when there were 5 minutes left until the buff expired and another for when there were 2 minutes left.
Dripping, Roth hauled himself out of the toilet and tried remembering what the ratans had told him. He looked up, trying to find a vent. He saw one above. Using a combination of climbing and jumping from one anchor point to the next, Roth reached it.
On the one hand, reaching this high point made it easy for someone coming in to spot him. But on the other hand, using the pathways in the vent would make it easier to avoid detection inside the mob meeting spot from now on.
The vent was conveniently unscrewed and loose, courtesy of his ratan friends. He went in. Now he had to look for a place to eavesdrop on others.
He closed his eyes and leaned his more prominent ratan years against the vent, trying to make out any conversation sounds. He heard several voices to the left. He ran toward the sound. Looking through the grid of the vent, he made out what seemed to be the bar.
There was a Hearth with a dying fire in the corner. There were also what seemed to his miniature form a jungle made up of many giant stool legs. Here and there, people were talking, some of them NPCs, but some players as well. There was a staircase leading up to a second floor. Roth would never be able to hear what people were saying in this noisy place.
He tried to find a way up. Roth darted, rejoicing at the significant increase in agility that this form gave him. He felt like he had wings on his feet. He eventually found an inclination that took him up. That should probably bring him to the second floor. He rushed up while carefully calculating which route he would have to take if he wanted to run back to the bathroom.
Darting through a labyrinth of pipes and air conduits, the distant voices of two people talking became increasingly evident. There were two men in fashionable suits standing guard by a door upstairs. They both chatted while keeping guard. The vent was beside their feet and the bar's noise was far away, so Roth had no trouble hearing their conversation.
"...when I told her it was OK."
"You did well, Louie. Happy wife, happy life."
"I know. The thought of having my inlaws over for three weeks drives me nuts." Roth wasn't expecting the conversation to be about such trivial things. He looked at the stopwatch. He still had 23 minutes left until the buff expired.
The duo kept chatting about marriage and inlaws, making Roth want to pull his hair out. He couldn't believe he had just swam out of a toilet for this! 22 minutes, 20 minutes, 18 minutes. Should he just up and go and try to find someone else? He put his ratan ears against the floor, trying to spot signs of any other conversation inside the restaurant.
"...the boss comes back." Hearing the two men talk of the boss, Roth's ears perked up. They knew the boss! He tried to follow the conversation.
"Lunch with Cpt. Humphrey never lasts too long. He should be here any minute now." Roth took note of the name. The guide he'd bought only spoke of soldiers and had almost no information on captains. This was an excellent start.
After mentioning this lunch, the goons returned to talking about trivial things. Roth's first alarm rang. He only had 5 minutes left.
"That's when..." the duo went dead still.
"Good morning, boys." The voice was surprisingly high-pitched and squeaky, almost like a child speaking.
"Hi, boss."
"How was lunch with the captain, sir?" the change in the tone of voice of the guards was quite different now from when they were talking.
"Same old, same old. I'm going to take my nap. Keep an eye out on the door, will you?"
"Sure thing, boss." Roth heard a door close.
"There it is. 4 pm. Just like clockwork."
"I wish I could get a nap too."
Roth looked at the clock; it was 4 pm. He then checked his alarm. He only had 4 minutes left on his [Miniaturize] buff. He sprinted through the ducts of the air vent, running with all the speed he could muster. He arrived at the bathroom and, through the vent, saw a man in a suit washing his hands.
He faced the mirror and would probably spot Roth if he wasn't careful. Roth looked at the alarm again. There was no time. Roth calculated the jump and jumped straight into one of the toilets below, hoping the man wouldn't see him.
He landed and swam into the pipes. He had less than 2 minutes left. He prayed that the man in the bathroom hadn't seen him.
The man washing his face in the bathroom heard a splash and turned back. Where had that noise come from? There was someone probably in the stalls doing their business. He turned to leave.
*
Roth jumped out of the pipe and grabbed hold of the ladder. He closed his eyes, breathing heavily, and noticed nothing had happened. He had freaked out. He still had 20 seconds to spare. He sighed in relief. He'd made it. He could go to the enemy's lair and come out undetected. The mix of [Ratan Form] and [Miniaturize] was an excellent way of running this undercover mission.
He tried to gather his thoughts. What had he learned? He now knew that the boss of the Gazpachos hung out in the restaurant and had a room or an office there. Two goons guarded the door. The boss took a nap every day at 4 pm. And had a habit of having a business lunch with one of the family captains on... he checked the calendar, Wednesday if it was every week.
This was enough for now. He'd be back as soon as his skills came out of cooldown. It was time to do some exploring.
