"The whole city is high on security." Joel mumbled, "How are we going to figure out where we’re supposed to go? Let alone make it to the mountains…"

His voice trailed off, echoing through the darkness as the night passed over them. He and his traveling companion had managed to escape from the detection of the enemy for the time being. They had taken cover up high on top of a flat roof building out in the more industrialized area of the city where their movements might not be heard or seen so well with the well designed structure of each building. The streets were no longer a safe place for even them to move around. Guards were placed at every corner, ready to call for back up at the sign of anything strange. They could not use their air mobility without being detected by the sky lights either.

Joel looked back towards the highway, thinking about the chase that occurred after his encounter with the giant war machine. After another long flee from more armored tanks and police cars up and down the streets, evading shell shots from the heavy cannons and making it through the shower of bullets, the military of Traquo had begun to send in their air forces. The fierce and speedy attack jets allowed to the humans to send in much more precise attacks at the quick demons. Joel and Ryan were beginning to have a hard time evading the planes, and because of Joel’s higher than normal body temperature the humans were able to lock onto him with heat sensitive weapons. They found themselves being flung into the air and being damaged by mass shrapnel with the incoming bombardments of both the land and air sieges combined continuously. The Guardians felt lucky to have kept their bodies through their flight.

"Well I hope they’re happy, man!" Ryan exclaimed, "They’re destroying themselves in the process of getting us!"

Joel looked over himself and said, "If I could just lower my body temperature, they wouldn’t be able to trace us in the air as easily with weapons."

Ryan suddenly flipped his frown into a wide grin and nudged Joel, saying, "Stop thinking of women, man."

Joel chuckled and said, "You know how to turn anything into a joke no matter what."

"This whole city army is a joke!" Ryan exclaimed, "But we’re not killing any of them, and I’m so used to killing anyone in our way when Guardians are in trouble."

"I know. It’d be really easy just to kill them all, but they’re not really bad people." Joel said, "If their leaders weren’t giving them these orders to seek and destroy they’d probably be somewhere else."

Ryan turned around and leaned back against a wall along the top of the building and sighed, "Yeah, I know. Gotta have pride for your own home and all." He looked up to the sky and said, "I’m getting weaker by letting everything walk all over me like this, man."

"Sorry. You don’t have to let me hold you back from what you think you should do." Joel told him, "I just don’t want to see any unnecessary deaths yet until we take out the real problem here."

Ryan chuckled and said, "Don’t worry; I won’t disappoint you, man. I have a heart, too, you know!"

Their attention was drawn away from their conversation as they heard a helicopter approaching near by. It carried a large search light that slithered across the ground and up and down across walls and buildings. There were several of these helicopters flying around the city area in search of the two Guardians in the protection of the shadows. The last time they had been caught under the search lights they had another nearly endless escape from the guard force who were in search for their heads. Joel and Ryan both jumped back and stood against the near wall of the building they stood atop of. As they backed up Joel felt himself bump into an object that was extending out from the wall. He butted forward a bit and felt the space behind him and found what felt like a door handle.

"A door…" Joel thought, "Of course! Why didn’t we think of it before?"

"Don’t make me answer that!" Ryan exclaimed through telepathy.

Joel began to twist and pull at the door handle, but he found that the door had been locked from the inside and would not open for them.

"Hey, help me open this so we can get some real cover." Joel told Ryan.

Joel jumped to the side quickly as Ryan stepped forward.

"Right, right!" Ryan said with a chuckle, "I’m going to miss my chance at the spot light, though, man." He put his hand over the door and began sending his psychic energy waves through the door and into the space behind it, then said, "Nope, no one’s behind the door."

He put his hand down over the handle and turned it as if it was never locked, and Ryan walked proudly through the back door of the building. He pushed the door further open so that Joel could catch it and run in as well. The door closed with a loud clang, but the two still made it before the search light came over them. Even though the building was darker on the inside they could feel that the floor was built out of some form of tile and the walls were well crafted thoroughly with cement and painted down with paint. Their foot steps echoed with every step they took down what seemed to be a long hall.

Joel put his hand up and created a flame in his palm like a candle to light up the small area around them as they searched for a more open and comfortable area to relax in. They passed several doors and a double elevator before they found a light switch for the hall, and they turned on the power without hesitation. The power let out a loud hum as it surged through every light in the hall. The air conditioning system also seemed to turn on through the vents in the hall. It began to feel as if the building was alive and active like when people were passing through during work hours. Joel peered through various door windows on one side of the hall while Ryan checked out the other side of the hall to inspect what kind of building they had intruded upon, and the two found that the floor they stood at was filled with mostly offices and supply rooms of various employees.

"Wait a minute." Joel said, stopping his traveling companion and looking up at the ceiling at a small black mechanism in a corner, "It’s a camera. We’re being watched."

Ryan looked up and waved at the camera with a large smile and said, "Hi guys! Just wait till we get to the break area where the food is!"

As Ryan slid away further down the hall passed the camera’s vision, Joel began following him with his arms over his belly and said, "More food? I don’t know if I’m ready for more yet." He looked up and groaned, then said, "You do know that night security’s going to send people after us now, right?"

Ryan chuckled and shrugged at the idea as the two came across a flight of descending stairs, and as the two began their descent down the path Ryan said, "Ah, let’s just check out the break area and set up camp or something here soon. We can’t go on for the whole night, man."

"You’re right. I am a bit tired now that you mention it." Joel said as they reached the bottom of the spiraling stairs, "Hotels probably won’t let us in with everyone coming after us either."

Ryan felt the surface of the wall in the dark room they entered when they reached the bottom of the stairs and found another light switch. He flipped the power on and the lights in the room lit up one row after another. The lights revealed a large car manufacturing factory. Long car conveyer belts with lines of car parts in assembly lines stretched across all parts of the room that seemed to have a great deal of depth and volume. All of the different parts and mechanics that make up a car were spread through out the factory, ready to be picked up and put together.

Joel stood still as he looked over the unfinished and unpainted artificial creations. Ryan walked up to one of the assembly lines and knocked on the bare steel unpainted car plates for the sake of making some noise and seeing how tough the designs were. The clang echoed throughout the room and repeated for several moments before fading. He looked over to the side and began walking towards a pile of tires near the wall further away. Ryan kicked the pile slightly, then picked it up and looked at it over his head.

"Hey." Joel called out in the echoing atmosphere.

Ryan stopped looking over the tire like a child and dropped it over his head, and he turned to Joel’s attention. He looked around his shoulders and removed the tire from over the top of his mantle, putting it down on the pile again.

"They’re really going to think we’re in here to mess things up if we touch their work." Joel told Ryan, pointing up at the cameras lined up along the walls around the room.

Ryan scratched his head and said, "I guess we could disturb the construction golems if they woke up." He looked up over his side and pointed to a room with a large window over it, revealing a long table and various counters with food items, and said, "Well, there’s our resting spot for now."

As Ryan walked carelessly towards the break room, Joel looked back and gazed deep into the back of the room. He looked over every metallic machine-like object in the area with suspicion and paranoia of getting attacked by another heavy giant robot. He kneeled down and put his ear to the ground, listening for movement from around the area. He could hear the rapid movement of soldiers from the outside, but it sounded as if they were having a hard time trying to get into the factory. He stood up and flicked his hair back slightly, then he turned around and went to join Ryan in the break room for some rest.

Joel entered the smaller room and sighed as he took a seat at the table. He leaned it back against a wall and tilted his head down, covering his eyes with his hair, and took a deep breath.

"They’ll get in eventually. We won’t be here forever." Joel said.

Ryan shook his head with a grin and said, "Don’t worry, man. I have an escape route already set." He walked over towards the refrigerator and took out a can of soda from within and said, "Just relax and regain your strength while we’re here."

As Joel heard Ryan’s words, he fell soundly asleep in the chair. Ryan nodded at the sleeping Guardian and then stepped over towards the counter at the far side of the room. The counter was covered with many different food items, which included various boxes of chocolates, bags of fruit, and left over foods from previous meals by the workers at the factory. Ryan picked up a chocolate bar from one of the boxes, unwrapped it, and took a bite out of it as he scanned the room briefly. He looked up at the vents and followed them around the room, then he shrugged his shoulders and shook his head as they were much too small for either of them to escape through.

"No super spy guy for me." Ryan thought.

He looked out of the room towards the exit and imagined a retreat through the single man doors as an escape after the military had already come in and spotted them in their line of fire. Ryan shook his head again at the thought of another near-suicide death run. He turned his attention back towards Joel and thought for a moment about using him as a shield for escape.

"I could drag him around with me for protection against gun fire, but I’d probably have to smack him a few times behind his neck to activate his core." Ryan thought. He shook his head again and thought, "Nah, that wouldn’t be very nice to the poor ol guy." He looked out into the main work area and noticed a large sewage drain pipe that was wide enough for several people to drop in through, and Ryan thought, "He wouldn’t mind if I took him down there as an escape route, though." He stepped up to Joel and waved his hand over his face, casting a spell over him, and then gave a light chuckle and said, "Heh, an everlasting sleep trance spell. That’ll keep him from complaining."

Ryan picked Joel up in his deepened sleep and tossed him over his shoulder onto his mantle. He carried the unconscious body out of the break room and weaved his way around the larger room of conveyer belts and car parts to where the manhole was located. Ryan placed Joel on the ground next to the lid and opened the hole. He could see nothing more than the few pipe and plumbing in the feint light shown in the tunnel from above. Before climbing down into the hole, Ryan turned his attention to the power switches at the wall near the entrance and reached his arm out towards it. A larger semi-transparent arm figure shot out from his arm, extending towards the switches, and with the motion of his hand the ghostly arm turned the switches off for Ryan, leaving them in the darkness. As the arm completed the task for Ryan it vanished into the darkness.

Ryan picked Joel up again and began his descent down the sewers. He jumped up and began floating down the hole, but as he entered the hole his body had become stuck from the size of his mantle. He struggled for a moment to try fitting his suit through, gritting his teeth while he pushed down, and then he brought a hand up to his forehead and switched his suit out for his common clothes. With a sparkling pop from the suit change, Ryan began falling down the manhole into the sewers as he forgot to hold onto something with his body fitting in the hole. His eyes opened wide in surprise and he let out a quick cry before he crashed into the concrete floor of the tunnel below. His voice echoed through the deep underground, and his behind was sore from the impact on the ground. Ryan looked back at Joel, who was still securely over his shoulder, and found that he was still fast asleep.

He waved his hand towards the entrance, causing the manhole to close, and he thought, "I’m glad my sleep spell works so well that it numbs who ever’s under it." Ryan reached up and lifted one of Joel’s arms and began flicking the hand, and Ryan thought, "Now to light the way through to a better place!"

As if he were clicking on a lighter, Joel’s hand lit up as Ryan flicked at it. The pitch black tunnel dimly lit up and revealed the passages through Traquo’s underground. Ryan looked around and also noticed a swarm of sewer vermin surrounding them, getting ready to attack the two in the dark and not expecting them to light up their way. Once seen the tiny beasts hissed loudly at Ryan and scurried away back into the sewers. The sound of the rodents’ skittering feet hurrying through the damp tunnels echoed louder than Ryan’s falling down the hole. The sounds of small splashes into the sewer water sounded off repeatedly as the rats that could not make it through the cracks in the walls plopped down into the water for cover.

As the rats cleared out of the way, Ryan took in a deep breath. He soon realized how bad it smelled down in the sewers. The stench was over intoxicating even for him. Ryan quickly slapped his free hand over his nose and mouth and puffed up his cheeks with a queasy face. He quickly looked down each path of the sewer tunnels in search for the path up to where he could reach the mountains the safest for his trip up into the cave where Joel had originally been found in.

"Let’s see, the mountains are on the west side of the city." Ryan thought, "We came in somewhere around the west, about south west to be exact." He shook his head, "If we’d known that this was gonna happen we wouldn’t have spent all this time and trouble getting mixed up in fighting so soon!" He began walking down the left tunnel of the underground trail as he thought, "But now they know we’re around, so I can’t fool them with my mind magic so easily anymore."

The flame from Joel’s hand glittered brightly and lit the area around Ryan as he traveled down the tunnels. The poor condition and welfare of the city and failure to do a better job at cleaning the sewer system of Traquo had created an ideal habitat for some monsters to move into. Ryan could hear the occasional groan and growl from different creatures echoing through the large pipes. He could already see some of the smaller monsters in the shallow wastes in the center of the path. There were snake-like creatures which swam about the sewage that had tiny legs to paddle them along as they moved. They slithered up and down in the thick waters in a wavy motion. Among those creatures were various forms of insects with a number of different legs. Some creatures in the dirty atmosphere also seemed as if they were mutated horribly due to their habitat. All together the monsters were posing no threat to Ryan and his comrade because their attention was focused on feasting on the sewage of the underground, but the sounds of their constant squealing and hissing at each other as they fought for their food was annoying to Ryan.

"Its times like these I wish I was asleep, too." Ryan thought.

He looked up ahead and noticed three children playing in the muddy drains of the underground. They were picking up the rotten products of waste and throwing it at each other in a playful fashion. Ryan decided that he would sneak up and inspect the children quietly and find out where they had come from along with other information that me could use, and with the great stealth of his soft footwear he made his approach towards the youths at play. The squeals of the children grew louder as they became more rapidly active in the near dark of the tunnel. Sludge was flinging everywhere in sight, and Ryan had to make several quick evasive maneuvers to avoid having his suit ruined and dirtied. He jumped up with an "Erp!" onto his left foot as one blob flew towards him, then he flipped over towards the side, keeping a tight grasp onto the sleeping Joel as he turned upside down onto his right hand. When Ryan found a safe opening outside the children’s fun he bounced back onto his feet, wobbling slightly from holding onto his friend.

Ryan noticed an unusual movement in the grime that the kids were playing in. A giant serpent’s body was circling about them down under the trash that was hardly noticeable in the mess. Ryan turned away for a moment and placed Joel down on the floor against the sewer walls, and then he turned back towards the children and unsheathed his weapon.

"Out of the crap, kids!" Ryan alerted them.

The three boys quieted down for a moment and looked in Ryan’s direction. They noticed Ryan’s weapon at hand and began screaming out loud. The children picked up more sludge from where they played and began throwing it rapidly towards Ryan. In his surprise, Ryan was not able to dodge the incoming mess in time, and his suit was partially covered by sewage. He wiped his face off and then parts of his suit in total disgust, and he sighed without hope in his mind.

The boys began cheering at their success, but their success was cut short as the giant monster surrounding them began to wrap its coil around them like a snake. Long spiny spikes lined up along the outside of its body all the way down towards its end. The body lifted the children up slightly and the head of the monster emerged from below the garbage. It had several rows of teeth going both horizontally and vertically, and two long fangs extended out from the sides of its mouth that seemed to bend in towards its mouth as if it were a reinforcing grip for holding its prey.

Ryan shook his head quickly, coming to his senses in the situation, and said, "I guess I’m too late. Well, it’s better now than never!"

He jumped up towards the monster’s head, aiming for the area right below it to decapitate its head off, but as he flew through the air at his target another similar monster emerged from under them. Ryan lost his mid-air velocity and dropped down towards the ground as the second monster quickly rose up from below him. He turned his body around and landed on his left hand, bouncing off onto his feet as he hit the sludge below. Ryan twitched and shivered after making contact with the underground mess, but he then stood ready in his proper battle position.

With great speed Ryan shot himself over to the other side of the tunnel, behind the first monster, and jumped up at the giant snake-like creature again. He grabbed onto its body in a tight bear hug and began to tug backwards. The serpent began to struggle violently back and forth, trying to get Ryan off of it, but Ryan did not let go or give up. Eventually he was able to force the monster down towards the surface where he hurled its head into the sewer walls. Ryan kicked the monster to ensure that it would stay down and out of the action, and he turned around to face the children at the one remaining monster that posed a threat to them. The children were still tightly wrapped around the body of the first monster, and the second monster only seemed to be moving in on the three kids in a happy fashion. The monster opened its sharp mouth, revealing its many teeth inside, and Ryan jumped up towards the monster another time. This time he swung his Masamura sword through the creature’s body and quickly spun around and kicked its head off to the side. All together the body fell apart limply, releasing the three children.

"It figures there’d be a monster like that!’ Ryan said with a big grin on his face, feeling highly egotistical at the time, "One long body and a head on either side. No wonder it wanted all three of you!"

He stood tall and proud over the three youths and put his sword away. He looked down at them as they once again stood still together with widened eyes and looks of grief, and they began to let out sudden loud screams for help and ran away on their letting legs.

"Help! It’s the giant blue space monster guy from the moon! He’s come to take us away with his razor sharp chopping fist!" they cried down the tunnels.

Ryan was left in the dust and mud as the children ran down the dark tunnels. He scratched his head in confusion as he stood back and watched them get away, and then he turned back around to pick Joel up again for further travel. There were several small creatures that had gathered around over Joel’s body as he lay there asleep. Ryan gave a brief shiver and look of disgust and began shooting them off one at a time with small energy beams from the tips of his fingers.

"Eww, man! Nasty little things!" Ryan exclaimed in a loud tone. He then remembered where he was and covered his mouth, then whispered, "Oh yeah! I almost forgot!" Ryan ran over to Joel’s side and picked him up, putting him over his shoulder again, and thought, "It’s a good thing the monsters didn’t bite him, or else he’d be up and awake again." He started walking down the halls in the direction the children ran off in and thought, "If the kids ran this way then there must be something significant or special they’re running to for help."

Ryan nodded to his own thoughts and began traveling down the long winding sewer tunnels. He kept a close ear up and listened for any near or far sounds echoing through the underground from the three kids or anyone else. Knowing how kids naturally acted in groups while running away or while sneaking around, Ryan was able to keep track of where they had run out to with ease from the whispers in the air and the shushing going between each other. He soon found himself passing through barrels and kegs lined along the underground walls and old fashion oil lamps to light the forthcoming rooms. The area he had entered was an underground hide out for the poor people of Traquo who could not keep up with the new situation that the city had come under.

The poor, raggedy clothed people of the city looked up at Ryan with both dirty, offended looks as well as looks of hopes and wishes. In this area there was no river of sludge and sewage, and the city folk, once rich and prosperous, were forced to sleep on the cold and damp stone floor with only their skin as cushioning. Ryan stepped up in the middle of the area and looked back at everyone with the same wide grin on his face as he had before, but he soon realized that it was not the best idea to look like a care-free joker in his surroundings. He dropped his grin slightly and lowered Joel down onto the ground in front of him and batted his chest with his left fist.

"Me og bring’um food!" Ryan told them in a caveman-like nature in jest after his hit his chest.

The scattered crowd around them looked up at Ryan quietly, and then a man who seemed crazy ran up to Ryan’s side and tugged at Joel’s arm tightly.

"At this point I don’t care if he’s a human! I’m starving, damn it!" the man exclaimed.

The other citizens of Traquo around them gasped in distaste and displeasure as the man brought Joel’s arm closer to his face, and they began to whisper things back and forth between each other.

"Maybe that wasn’t the brightest idea." Ryan thought, "Oh well, he’ll live. I’d be more worried about the human once Joel’s blood comes in contact with him, though." He shrugged at the man, who was then looking up greedily at Ryan before he took a bite, and said, "Go for it, man."

The stranger let out a loud grunt like a wild animal and chewed into Joel’s arm. He tried biting through Joel’s tough skin, but he was not making much success in a quick fashion. Joel began to churn and mumble slightly as his body felt the teeth trying to dig through his skin. The surface of his skin grew red from the crunching of his blood veins inside his arm, and as the man’s rabid teeth finally punctured through Joel’s arm the blood began running out onto his skin. The unnaturally high temperature of his blood began searing the man’s body, causing him to quickly snap back and let go in burning pain. At the same time Joel’s eyes widened up as he felt the teeth sink into his arm, and he pulled his arm away, letting out a brief cry, and began blowing on it to stop it from hurting.

As Joel’s healing system kicked in and patched up his arm, he jumped onto his feet and cried out, "What do you think you’re doing to me?"

Ryan raised his hands up into the air for a moment and said, "I’ll admit, that was pretty bad of me to let happen!"

"You’re the demons!" the man cried as he rubbed his body where the blood spilled onto.

The crowd around them began to stir in displeasure again even more as they started to remember what happened in their city long ago. Some of the citizens fled for cover while others stood around to wait for something more to happen.

"Wait a minute." Joel blurted out suddenly. He looked around the area and said, "How’d I end up here?" He looked up at Ryan and asked, "Where is this?"

Ryan shook his head at Joel and said, "Just a nifty little place I found underground. You said you wanted to help save this city, right?" He pointed out all the people around him, "Well, here they are if you want to ask them where to start, man."

Joel stood up straight and cleared his throat, then said, "Well then, umm…" he stuttered briefly on the note, and then said, "Take me to your leader?"

Ryan hit his fists together and exclaimed, "Now you’re thinking like me!"

The two began searching around the underground village together, ignoring the Traquo residence as they began to ignore the guardians. The air became thick and black from the dark smoke emitting from the oil lamps as the two moved deeper in through the random inhabited passages. The barrels that were placed along the sides of the halls seemed to be misplaced and knocked over as well as if someone went through and pushed them over in a blind rage or if the people were just careless about it after they were done with what the container used to hold. The two checked inside each container to see what they used to hold inside them and found the remanence of food rations in each of them.

"At least they’re not eating and drinking the garbage in the sewers." Ryan said as they passed along further.

"A limited supply and they don’t have the benefit of electricity or electronics down here." Joel said.

"Man once had to live on gut and instinct alone without all this new age stuff, man." Ryan explained, "Some say that it’s bound to collapse on everyone eventually and force the people of the world to relive their lives as cavemen again like their first ancestors. Then you have what you saw in the Old World with castles and villages."

Joel nodded at Ryan and said, "Only this city wasn’t put to ruin from technology. Just bad politics."

Ryan nodded back, then shrugged and exclaimed, "I wouldn’t let the world run out of technology anyway, man. I’ll keep it going myself if I have to!"

Inside one of the rooms they were passing they noticed a lone man sitting on the ground with a large sheet of paper in front of him. His clothes were dark and dirtied city clothes just like everyone else’s, and his hair was long, shaggy, and dark brown. Two iron golems stood outside the room as if they were protecting the man from strangers. Upon closer inspection of the man he appeared to be looking over a map of the city above and was plotting out directions on it to somewhere. Ryan walked by the golems and next to the man and tapped his shoulder a few times, and the man stopped what he was doing and cringed slightly at the feeling.

"Oh bother. I could have sworn I made the golems right this time!" the man sighed. He turned around to look at Ryan and Joel and began crawling back over his map against the wall and asked, "Who are you? What do you want from me?"

"Don’t worry, man. We’re just looking for some information on what happened to this city exactly. My friend here’s dying to know." Ryan told him.

"What? Me? Nothing’s wrong here!" the man said with a slight laughter, indicating his uneasiness.

Joel looked back with a plain face in disbelief, hinting at the poor wrecks in the other tunnels.

"Ah, come on. You can’t fool us! Don’t make me brain drain you, man!" Ryan exclaimed with a grin.

"B,brain drain?" the man stuttered with a few more sudden giggles, "D, do you w, work for the m, military?"

Joel shook his head and told the man, "No, they’re after us, actually. My name’s Joel and my friend’s name is Ryan. We’re travelers, you might say."

"Travelers, y, you say?" the man stuttered once more, "W, why would the m, military be after you?"

"It’s a long story." Joel shortly mentioned, looking away innocently, "Let’s just say it was an accident that made a lot of people mad."

"So what are you, a cartographer or something?" Ryan asked him as he looked over the map of Traquo.

"I, I, I’m Byron, t, the map ap, p, praiser." The man told the two in a happier tone.

"Map appraiser?" Ryan mumbled to himself quietly, "Now… what’s the difference between…?"

Joel stepped up and picked the map up and said, "But this is just a map of Traquo. You can’t identify it any more than that, can you?"

Byron shook his head and said, "N, no, that’s not it. I’m t, trying to plan an e, escape route for my older brother." He kneeled down to the map and pointed out the plotted course and locations and told them, "I, I want to d, dig from here to t, this building there w, with these golems."

"Dig underground?" Joel asked curiously, "I knew that didn’t look like a path for a city stroll."

Ryan stepped up behind Byron and pulled his head slightly up and back and said, "Hey, stop stuttering, man. It’s annoying, and you know we’re not here to take you away!"

Joel looked up at Ryan in embarrassment, and Byron exclaimed, "S, sorry! S, stuttering is a p, personal p, problem!"

Ryan let go of Byron and shrugged with a grin, then said, "Ah, ah, ah, alright then, man. Have it your way."

Joel reached over and hit Ryan’s leg and said, "Don’t mock the guy!" Joel turned back to Byron and said, "This seems like a really long dig that extends across all of Traquo. Do you have a map that includes the sewer pipe routes that we can travel through?"

Byron stood up and walked back into the shadows and pulled out a bag. From the bag he retrieved a transparent chart of lines, and he placed the chart over the Traquo map. Ryan stepped back and leaned against the wall behind Joel and Byron and observed the map from affair while he summoned an orb of energy to his finger tip and twirled it around to pass the time away.

Joel nodded at Byron and said, "Yeah, with this map we can make it there much easier and safer." He pointed at a tunnel line near the end location of Byron’s map and said, "If we moved there we could probably climb out of the sewers in a safe location and make it into the building without needing to dig. We could use the golems as a decoy instead to throw off any guards that could be there."

"Golems are tough creatures!" Ryan exclaimed, "I doubt many things could break golems like these."

"Y, you really think so? Thank you!" Byron exclaimed. He suddenly turned away and sighed again and said, "B, but the place must be c, crawling in high s, security. L, lots of people have tried to s, save my brother before me and f, failed."

Ryan perked up in interest suddenly and stepped up, asking, "Really? What makes this brother of yours so special, man?"

Byron turned to Ryan and said, "W, well he helped an escaped co, convict from the local j, jail out of the city. T, they say it was r, really a m, monster he befriended, though. H, he’s seen as a local he, hero, though."

"A hero for helping a convict out from the city?" Joel asked. He then thought to himself, "There were lots of people of different races that could have been seen as monsters in the prison."

"A, actually it was after he w, was arrested and sent to jail f, for helping the monster in m, manslaughter." Byron told them.

"Yup, that’s me alright." Joel thought to himself.

"M, my brother, Dirk, h, he tried getting out of j, jail after T, Traquo became this w, way." Byron explained, "He w, wanted to take down the n, new mayor and help us r, regain our homes. T, the new mayor is the s, source of the p, problem. My brother c, couldn’t get close to h, him, though."

"Dirk, is it?" Ryan asked. He looked over at Joel and asked, "Hey man, isn’t that one of the guys who helped you out before?"

Joel nodded at him and replied, "Yeah, he was. I’m surprised that he’s still alive after what happened."

Byron fell back in surprise and began crawling away to the back of the room again and cried, "Y, you mean that y, you’re the boy Dirk t, talked about finding in the m, mountains?"

"I’m afraid so." Joel told him, "I remember how he smashed up his car on the way out of the hospital. He gave me my sword and sheath, and we came into a swarm of police who were there to block our escape. We ended up needing to get out of the car and fight out way out."

"And for a human who has no fighting experience at all, he must have had a lot of gut to put up a fight against all of them!" Ryan said.

The man began quivering and whining even louder, and Joel stepped up to him, extending his hand, and said, "We’re here to help get this city back, too. Let’s work together."

Byron gave quick looks between Joel and Ryan. After seeing their welcoming and inviting looks he began to quiet down, and he nodded to the proposal. He took Joel’s hand and was helped up to his feet. He shook a bit, but he was able to maintain a confident balance. Byron retrieved the maps from the ground, then walked back to the corner and picked up his bag.

"Great, let’s do this!" Ryan exclaimed.

The three nodded, and then they left the room.

Byron turned to the two golems and commanded, "Golems, come with me!"

The dark eyes of the monsters began to light up and their bodies became active. Their slow, rusty bodies started to move and follow Byron as the three advanced through the underground city of waste and down the sewer tunnels again.

"You don’t stutter so much when you’re confident, Byron." Joel told the man.

"T, thanks." Byron replied.

"Just out of curiosity, who is the new mayor?" Ryan asked.

Byron’s face flared up in contempt as he thought of the name, and he told them, "A hard name to say. An old family friend of ours. The new mayor’s name is Luke

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