Thirty-One: The Sewers

Resolve dropped in her chest like a pebble into dark water. Lilith decided to go down.

The Little White Dragon weighed her choices like seeds in her palm; curiosity flickered like a lantern in fog. She had to slip under the array and see.

But she needed the circle intact, like a spiderweb no hand should tear. Enter the sewers, yet leave the array whole.

She could use another house’s drain or the street’s system—did Morris even have those?—but dread pricked like thorns.

Lilith wasn’t sure she wouldn’t get lost.

She knew nothing about Morris’s sewers. In her mind, they coiled like the city’s intestines, damp and hard to walk.

She trusted her knack for getting lost, a talent that drifted like smoke. If she went in elsewhere, she might never find the array again.

But how to enter without harming the circle?

Her usual blood‑drop trick was useless; the Void Sect wouldn’t set a friendly latch that opened for a single drop.

They had no reason to go down. If she were them, she’d seal every path too.

It was a wall under her feet, not a door. Even White Dragon blood couldn’t call a door out of stone.

She needed another road.

If this were open air, she had ways. But this was Morris; no glimpse of the Star Canvas, no constellations she hadn’t resonated with.

So she had frost magic, the Shattered Ark, and the string of gemstones that chimed softly against her collarbone.

The phantoms and Taint from her human days sat useless and silent; she hadn’t planned to touch them anyway.

Her path split into two thin reeds in muddy water: brutalize the array, or find another way into the sewers.

Right—the kitchen! The thought snapped like a twig, and she smacked her forehead.

She left the bathroom and found the kitchen. The space pinched in like a narrow box, tighter than the bathroom, but roomy enough for a small dragon.

She swept the cabinet with a small hand. Dust lay like ash, thin and recent; someone had used this place.

She didn’t come to read the Void Sect’s daily habits. She was hunting a thread.

She crossed to the sink. In the basin, a small array gleamed, exactly as she’d expected.

She couldn’t read it clearly. It felt like the bathroom’s mark—same bones, different skin.

As she’d guessed, Morris, a city without grain to mill, still dressed every house with a kitchen, stage props in an empty theater.

Every kitchen linked to the sewers too. The logic knotted like tangled hair; she was baffled.

Forget it. Maybe Vampires had tea, not blood, in their veins. That fit their taste, bitter and prim.

The Little White Dragon drew the Shattered Ark. Work weighed on her arms like iron.

The kitchen pipe ran straight to the sewers, but she couldn’t crawl through bamboo‑thin metal.

She was a dragon, not a cat; even cats wouldn’t squeeze through something that skinny.

A flicker of guilt ticked for Morris’s repair crew, then dimmed. She had to go down; only one path remained.

She raised the Shattered Ark. The blade bit the floor under the sink, neat as ice cracking.

To find the sewer, she nicked a pipe and fed it snow forged from her Star Energy, a pale trail to point the way.

She wriggled beneath the basin, carving a tunnel just big enough for a small dragon. She crawled in, four limbs scraping like a salamander in clay.

She struggled downward along the pipe maze, every motion slow as syrup. Luckily, her body was small.

If she had to cut a channel wide enough for Nidhogg, she’d rather die. This Broken Sword wasn’t a miner’s pick.

Even carving for herself was no easy feast. She tiptoed through the bones of the house, wary of collapse, and the care drained her.

She’d never thought digging could grind her this hard. Given another chance, she’d take a proper manhole, even if it meant getting lost.

Did Morris even have manhole covers? It never rained; maybe no one designed them at all.

She pushed the thought aside like an annoying fly and focused on dirt and stone, chewing through the task like a tough root.

Her effort wasn’t wasted. Just as doubt pooled in her chest, a rotten tide of stench slapped her face.

She never dreamed a reek this vile would spark joy. Maybe she was losing it; madness pecked like a crow.

With a final cut, she shoved the heavy stone bricks down. They fell like teeth knocked from a jaw.

She followed, hauled herself out by both arms, and spilled into the channel.

“Ugh. So foul.” Disgust climbed her throat like ivy. She clamped a hand over her nose.

A dragon’s sharp nose was a curse here, too bright a lantern in a stink‑soaked cave. Road dust had toughened her, but hours in a sewer frayed her temper.

“Quick and clean, then.” She tugged her coat’s collar up, burying half her face, a flimsy rampart against a filthy tide.

A mere windcoat couldn’t dam that smell. With a pinched brow, she started her search.

First, she needed to move under the array, just a little. Study it from below, read the painting from its back.

No more dithering. She stepped out fast, urgency tapping like rain on a drum.

She couldn’t stand this cursed sewer for another breath, a cat forced into a bath.