Tunnel Rat

Chapter 185: The Road to Bloth

Most sentient creatures curse the route to the City of Blothbezmadan. They joke that trying to get back out was the only thing harder than getting there. It wasn't much of a joke. Each of the routes to the city was worse than the next. Sheer drops that required poorly built winches to lower wagons one by one, caverns filled with hungry beasts, and packs of bandits of any race. If there was a difficulty that a merchant could encounter anywhere in the Under Realms, you could experience it going to Bloth.

Not many laughed at the joke, at best a few wry grimaces, at worse, a few things thrown your way. Probably because not many of the city people (And we use that term loosely) had a sense of humor. They may have started with one, but Bloth ground humor, hope, and kindness into the stinking mud of its streets. Still, there was money to be made there, and with the lure of money came the hope of a better life for some people and overwhelming greed in all the rest. 'If you can make it big in Bloth, you can make it big anywhere.' was another non-joke. It was said a lot, but it was the truth. If someone could grind, trade, and stab their way to prosperity in Blothbezmadan, doing business in any other city would be easy by comparison. But very few could rise to the top of Bloth, and if you didn't have the hard coin, you weren't getting back out. Those few that to the top didn't leave either. Most had done things that would get them quickly hung in most of the Under Realms.

If the people who flocked to Bloth like wounded moths to a putrid flame could have made it to somewhere better, they would have gnawed off limbs to get there.

The Hollows, The Legion of Zilvren, and The Myconian Collective were all better places to live. Even the Slaver City of the Black Dwarves, Dinz-jot, had a better reputation than Bloth. Bloth was where you went when no one else would take you, and you needed a place to hide where even assassins didn't feel safe.

Cazact could at least claim to be successful enough to know how to leave Bloth. He also joked that he was dumb enough to keep coming back. He was known in Bloth as Cazact Dar, the Supplier. That name was a badge of honor, in some ways. A supplier brought things into the city, a very dangerous job. It was dangerous in Bloth, but more danger lurked on the roads to Bloth. Hungry escaped slaves lurked everywhere, life in the caverns making them desperate. Myconian blood slavers were on the prowl for mammals whose blood could enrich the roots of their ancestors. Predators that ate slaves, Myconians, and caravans added their own excitement. Every trip was different and dangerous in new ways. It was why Cazact loved his work. It was never dull.

Boring could be death to Cazact. His race lived for long centuries, and memories piled up on top of other memories, making their minds a hoard of trash that tumbled into madness too quickly. Repeating the same thing, growing bored, becoming jaded with life: these were the things to avoid. Cazact dodged insanity by throwing himself into fear, danger, and the thrill of new things.

Just walking through Bloth was an adventure. Eating in any of the horrible little taverns was risking your life, although it wasn't much of a risk since life was so cheap. If no one were paying to have you killed, most wouldn't expend the energy to end your life.

Two more days of travel, and Cazact would be back in Bloth. This journey had been profitable, but other than the dangers of lurking beasts had been like many other such journeys. Dinz-jot had been in the middle of their faction war, but Cazact had been to three such events and was bored by them. You could only see so many sacrifices dragged to an altar by their entrails before it became commonplace. He was hoping for a raid on his caravan, but the bandits had learned to avoid him. This thrilled the merchants that he led to and from Bloth but was beginning to annoy him.

His prayers for...well, anything...must have been received by some god or another. Two creatures fell from high in the upper cavern, rolling down a series of ledges and inclines, the smaller one fleeing from the larger when it could, diving off a ledge when it couldn't. The larger creature could not catch it, screaming in annoyance each time it escaped and then leaping after it. Neither seemed to worry about the injuries they were taking, or care that a sheer cliff was at the end of the journey. They rolled over the edge together, snarling and screaming. The sound of the two bodies hitting the cavern floor was ugly, including the snapping of bones and a peculiar splashing sound Cazact took his dissection kit and notebook to examine their remains.

When he found that both were still technically alive, he was thrilled. This trip would yield something new after all. He called for chains and a large jar and collected his latest captives. He had no worries that they would both recover. The first was a smallish cheese fiend that had broken every bone in its body. The remarkable thing about it was that it was still conscious and could form words. Truly a genius of their kind. A stout cage and enchanted manacles ensured its captivity. Cazact had his guards waste no time restraining the beast as he knew only too well how fast they could recover. The stream of curses coming from its mouth was genuinely inventive, and Cazact learned two phrases he had never heard before.

The second creature was so curious that he almost paused the caravan for a day to observe it. Its liquid body had splashed over a wide area after the fall but had started immediately reforming. The guards found all its pieces and put them in the large jar he used to transport acidic slugs to Zilvren. The potency of the creature's excretions showed in how fast it could dissolve shovels and fingers. Most curious was how it reformed into a miniature humanoid. The pale little ratkin was amusing as it paced back and forth in the jar and ranted at him in a high, squeaky voice.

The two creatures hated each other and argued continuously during the journey if placed adjacent. A circular argument went on and on as the cheese fiend accused the blob of trying to steal its bones, and the blob shook its fist in anger and accused the fiend of ruining their friendship by rejecting it. But the most fantastic thing Cazact overheard from his captives was when they ranted about their true enemy. The fiend blamed someone named Tallsqueak for ruining its life. The Blob hated an Engineer named Milo for betraying it. Slowly Cazact realized they hated the same creature.

He couldn't wait to get them to his small laboratory in Bloth and begin experimentation to see what new things he could learn. Together they might help him stave off insanity for a decade or even longer.