>[1] Hide in the stalagmites! But… the lantern… (What do you do with it?) [Roll.]

  >[2] Just keep moving forward, down the presumable borehole. Nothing's wrong.

  >[3] Just head backwards to find the continuance of the sewer tunnel. Nothing's wrong.

  >[4] Respond to the vwooping. (How?) [Potential roll.]

  >[5] Write-in.

  You dearly wish the sound were anything other than a "vwoop". It's not the sort of thing you can be reasonably frightened by— not if you're a daring adventuress, anyhow. And you are!

  So you don't bolt. You snatch the lantern from Madrigal. You consider tossing the lantern, but your premonition of the following wet splat (or worse, the algae dispersing through the water) wards you off it. Instead, you place the lantern down among the stalagmites to your left, pause warily— the shadows it throws up are unsettling— and back away.

  You turn around. Madrigal's gone. Or— damnit! Madrigal emerges silently from within the opposing set of stalagmites. You jump and pretend not to. (Something's seriously gotten into Madrigal. She ought to be raking you over the coals for that, but she's just quiet.)

  You join her.

  "I don't like tight spaces," Madrigal signs. You hadn't said anything. "Or the dark. Don't like either."

  "Oh," you sign back.

  "That's all it is."

  "Oh."

  "I'm fine."

  "Did I say you weren't?" You were thinking it, obviously, but that's not at all the same thing. "Geez. Maybe you are jumpy."

  Madrigal looks sullenly ahead. You rise to peek over the stalagmites. Nothing. You sink:

  Vwoop?

  Vwoop.

  There again, as stupid as ever. It wouldn't be so bad if you had a name to the enemy, a face, a location— something you could mull over, something palpable. But no! Of course not. You're in your own personal hell bubble, where there's nothing at all to see or say or—

  Well, you have a map. But you've finished the map. You could filigree the edges, you suppose, but that'd be taking a whetstone to shark teeth. It's perfect as is.

  Well… You write your initials on the corner: "C.F."

  ?Do the full initials. C.F.F..?

  ?And remind me what that's short for. I have an idea. ‘Can’t Find Fu—’?

  You have another idea of what to do! Thank God.

  You write "vwoop," very carefully, on the map— far away from where you are. You think more. You draw a happy face next to it.

  Brilliant. You've now just got to stare at it, very hard, and that'll make it happen.

  ?Okay, I can't— this is really a flabbergasting level of intelligence for you, Charlie. I'm impressed.?

  ?Be advised that it won't work, though.?

  You wish Richard would shut up. You're trying to concentrate on this.

  ?It won't. You should stop. Your eyes are going to fall out if you keep that up.?

  ?It might work if it were a natural phenomenon, or a pure trick of the mind. It'd have a small chance if it were an animal.?

  ?But you're not omnipotent. You can't manipulate people.?

  Okay? That's fine? People don't vwoop.

  ?They're on the ceiling.?

  You close your eyes. You open your eyes. You look, very carefully, up at the ceiling.

  You just about make out two dark shapes before ducking back— as the shapes begin to rustle, detach, and drop interminably to the floor— as if through water. (Or, well, as though affected by the water. You tend to forget.)

  They stand— or unfurl, more like. They're tall and only seem to get taller. Their arms are too long for their bodies and their bodies too long and thin for their heads, which're human-shaped, with high cheekbones and strong jaws: handsome, you think, were it not for the sharp lipless teeth, and the slit nose, and the fine mist of scales, and the fins (bent rakishly on one, cut short and jagged on the other), and the frilly neck-ruff of gills, and— you don't need to go on. The Rake is peachy orange, daubed with purple; Mr. Self-Mutilation is green.

  They are dressed in tee-shirts and denim pants three sizes too short. They have slide whistles in loops around their necks. (Madrigal swears.) Their webbed hands are neon with gel-based paint.

  It's fish. Two fish. You're still in the Fen, after all, this is where they're supposed to be. Maybe they live in the sewer. (They probably live in the sewer.) Or maybe they're just here to spray some murals and wreak some havoc. Or maybe they saw you and and you're somewhere you're not supposed to be and they're after you and they'll find you and they'll tie your hands and feet and cut open your throat and put a lamprey on it so as you bleed out the lamprey gets fatter and fatter and more you—

  You do not have a good impression of fish.

  "??????????????," says Mr. Self-Mutilation. "?????????????," says The Rake, back. If they've noticed you, they haven't let on.

  The Rake points to the opposite side of the tunnel, to the light coming off the lantern. "??????????paper," he says. "?????."

  Mr. Self-Mutilation jingles the bangles on his denim pants. He seems nervous.

  The Rake rolls his eyes. (The eyes! Fish eyes are eerily humanlike. In your opinion, it makes them creepier.) "Hello?" he says.

  It's perfectly understandable, if accented.

  You don't move.

  "Hello? Who's here?"

  >[1] Write-in.

  You glance over to Madrigal, who crouches, one knee up, in the shadows. She's riveted— no amount of discreet gesturing will get her attention.

  You kick her.

  This provokes quite a lot of things in rapid succession: she flinches, she blanches, her hand twitches towards the spear on her back. Only after she resorts to violence does she consider rational thought: her hand relaxes, she says "Oh, fuck off, Charlotte," she looks toward you. (You didn't say it was an enlightened thought.)

  "You were occupied," you sign primly.

  "Yes. I was occupied. If you didn't notice."

  "What was it about—" you gesture to your neck. (If there is a sign for "slide whistle," you can't think of it.)

  "It's the— it's the vwoop. The vwoop."

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  You have to process this. "That was a slide…"

  "Right? You pull up, it goes— it goes 'vwooop?' Yeah?"

  If you're going to be completely honest, it's been over a decade since you last heard a slide whistle. "Er, yes."

  "That's what. Now—"

  "Who's here?" The Rake repeats, louder.

  You can see it in Madrigal's bearing— she's gripping at a stalagmite, tensing her neck and jaw, steadying herself. She's going to do something brave/stupid. She's going to stand up and say something, or— God— is she going to charge them? She wouldn't. But she's got things to prove—

  Well, you don't rightly give a damn. You're not about to let some lowborn harlot snatch your time in the limelight.

  ?That's right, Charlie. You deserve better.?

  You stand abruptly, open your mouth, and say…

  "People."

  ?Oh, come on.?

  "Yah, numbnuts, we got that." Mr. SM picks at a gap in his teeth. (Do they grow back like a shark's? You can't remember.) "You put the fookin' fear of the Patrons in us, ya did—"

  In your peripheral vision, Madrigal stands. Your next words are said on pure instinct and that's why you can't be blamed for them. "Lampreys."

  "What's that?"

  They also all tumble out on top of each other. "They're- you're- you- you're not gonna, uh- lampreys- you're not gonna- are you gonna kill us?"

  ?I can't be blamed for this.?

  The fish stare.

  "And feed us to lampreys?" you add after a beat.

  "I'm very sorry," Madrigal says, stamping on your toes (it doesn't work, your boots are sturdy). "She's ????????????????—"

  But it's too late.

  "Keh-heh-heh-heh-heh!"

  Mr. SM is laughing. You fume. Madrigal looks half-annoyed, half-relieved, half-smug. Yes, she does; shut up Richard; you can feel him about to tell you what half plus half adds up to, but the fact of the matter is, you don't actually care, and if he weren't listening to everything you were thinking, it wouldn't ever matter—

  The Rake is righteous. "Typical mutie," he scoffs. "Barges in, thinks it owns the place—"

  "Keh-heh— yah, muties, we've come to kill ya. Gonna rip out yer eyeballs and eat em raw—"

  "—breaks its light—throws a hissy fit—and it thinks we're the murderers! Me an' Mikey—"

  Mikey/Mr. SM is having a ball. "—gonna stitch yer legs together an make a tail fer you— gonna make a mask outta yer face and wear it to a weddin'—"

  "—when all it ever does is kill everything— kill my granpa, kill my uncle, kill my—"

  "—and yah, course we're gonna feed you to lampreys, look at all these lampreys we've got, Don uses em for leg warmers—"

  "Okay!" Madrigal says. "Okay! We're sorry! Sorry!"

  She applies her entire body weight to your toes. It begins to hurt. "Er," you say. "Yes. Sorry."

  "See! Very sorry! Now, if we could just start over. Ahem. I'm Madrigal, and this is Charlotte, um—"

  >[A1] Screw whatever Madrigal tries to say: you are *not* parleying with fish, and will express as much. Vigorously.

  >[A2] You don't care what you'll say so much as that you're the one saying it— not Madrigal. Battle it out with her for control of the conversation. [Roll.]

  >[A3] If she wants to talk with *fish,* let her. You have significantly better things to do. Like not do that. Silent treatment.

  >[A4] Oh, you'll let Madrigal talk. You'll just passive-aggressively undermine her at every turn, like a proper well-bred lady.

  >[A5] Just, like, be normal. [Roll.]

  >[A6] Write-in.

  >[B1] Anything in particular you'd like to bring up? [Write-in. If nothing's proposed, it'll be QM fiat.]

  “Charlotte Fawkins," you break in, and— in a stroke of inspiration— curtsey. "Pleased to meet you, Messrs…?"

  "Keh!" Mr. SM says to The Rake. "Where's this one from?"

  "Don," The Rake says— a complete non-sequitur until you realize he's talking to you. "And this is Mikey. Smile, Mikey, dontcha?"

  Mr. SM/Mikey grins, and for the first time you see his teeth in full. You shudder. You'd been expecting white and sharkish, and indeed some are… but they're few and far between among metal replicas (glinting green), ivory castings (flaking), a tooth of coral(?), at least a handful of gnarled animal fangs, and so on. Sutured in with dark magicks, you'd bet. And/or stitches.

  ?…I'll accept it if 'magick' has the k on the end. That's fine.?

  ?That's… cute, of you.?

  You don't think dark magicks are any laughing matter, personally, so you find that— you find that offensive.

  ?It wasn't meant to be.?

  ?Charlie.?

  "All gen-oo-ine," Don/The Rake explicates.

  You're at somewhat of a loss for words. "Very nice," says Madrigal. "An extremely unique application of ???????, uh, I must say. Never seen— teeth."

  Mikey struggles to enunciate with his mouth open. "Eill fookin show y' teef—"

  "Uh, before," Madrigal continues heroically. "What brings you two to the— sewers?"

  "Mayhem," Don says, at the same time Mikey does. They strike each other's open palms. (A violent primitive custom?)

  "…Okay…" Madrigal shifts to her other foot. "…Meaning…"

  "Striking out against the establishment, mutie." Don folds his long, long arms. "An' this is a beacon of the establishment. You see the fookin' murals?"

  "No," Madrigal says.

  "Mosaics," you correct.

  "They're shitty. That's how you know these're humie sewers."

  "We're also stealing shit," Mikey adds. "If we find any shit."

  You tilt your head. "Find a snake?"

  The fish glance at each other. "N-o." "Nah."

  ?Well, they know something, clearly.?

  "You sure? I feel like snake fangs would be pretty good—" You touch your gums.

  Mikey recoils, his gills flaring. "Fookin filthy mutie. I'm not puttin a snake in my mouth. Freak."

  "Charlotte here," Madrigal says, "isn't accustomed to—"

  "Yeh. Where's it from?"

  "Um, I don't actually know, uh, Mikey." She nudges you. "Where're you from? Just tell them."

  You flex the fingers of your right hand, then the fingers of your left. "Mutie?" you say.

  Don grins, now. (His teeth are normal.) "Yeah, mutie. That's you."

  "It is her," Madrigal says, to you more than the fish. "We don't have to rehash this. Look, where are you guys headed? Maybe we can…"

  "I'm not a mutie," you spit. "I don't even know what that means, but it's wrong."

  "Means yer a mutie," Mikey says. "Duh."

  "Used to be a humie, now you're a mutie. Simple as."

  "I am not. And anyhow—" you rise onto your toes— "you're fish, so."

  "Ah-h-h-h." Don draws back, slipping partially into the darkness. "Watch the mutie's true colors, wontcha? Always come out eventually. It's just quick."

  "She's not— look, she's from the West, or— she's ignorant, okay? She's ignorant, she doesn't mean anything by it—"

  "You sure you didn't find a snake?" you say. "Positive?"

  "Doesn't mean anything? It comes here, asks us if we're findin snakes, puttin snakes in our mouths— calls us fish—"

  "Deeply, deeply ignorant." Madrigal nods. "Yes. I'm extraordinarily sorry."

  Once again, she stamps very hard on your foot. You hesitate.

  >[ID: 3/11]

  >[1] Apologize. Make amends. Find out what the fish— er, the fish-type people, er— what Don and Mikey (may or may not) know. [Lose ID.]

  >[2] Stick to your vaguely racist guns. Sever ties with the fish— or force Madrigal to distance herself, maybe literally, at least for the time being. [Regain ID.]

  >[3] Write-in.