The tunnel walls fly past as you slide down toward the sewers. The smell is overwhelming, but it’s a fate much better than being devoured by the demons burrowing into the basement. Your parents are close behind you with Ranger in the rear who is blasting the tunnel closed with her blaster.

You emerge into the sewer and into knee-deep water. At the far end of the tunnel is a maintenance door. Your parents splash land into the water and Ranger falls in. They clean themselves off and Ranger stalks over to the maintenance door. She aims the blaster toward the lock and a brief hum melts through it. She pushes open the door and beckons you to follow.

The maintenance room is filled with junk and reports, but little else. Ranger slams the door shut behind you and projects a holo map onto the desk. The area around you lights up in the same grid patter as before with small arrows on the ground showing you the exits.

Ranger puts her blaster onto the table and asks for yours.

“They’re pretty much useless now,” she says.

Pulling the trigger only makes the laser blaster cough and splutter. There’s just enough energy to emit heat and light, but not enough to do any real damage to the demons who were sure to be on the way.

“Your watch should still be showing you the locations of any demons near to our location, so it should be easy enough for us to sneak past them in order to make our way to the surface,” Ranger says.

Your parents, still waterlogged and confused, fidget about in their pajamas. Your dad is looking around the room and opens up a small cabinet. There’s pickaxes, shovels, safety helmets, and a changes of clothes for your entire family. It could make them into a semi-formidable force if things got hot in the sewers.

Ranger is still wringing out her long, red hair from the sewer water. She catches a pickaxe tossed to her by your dad and gives it a few swings. The metal head of the axe whooshes through the hair with each swing.

“So where are you from?” your mother asks her.

“I’m from a world far, far away,” Ranger says. “It’s a world where we’re born only to be trained to prepare for a single day in our lives. Today is this day and we have found the chosen one who will rescue us from the evil of the demonic forces that plague our world.”

“I figured you were from out West,” your dad says trying to swing a pickaxe as hard as Ranger only to bury it into the room’s wall. “Sorry,” he says.

“If we’re going to save the world,” Ranger says removing the pickaxe from the wall with one clean motion, “we have to escape these sewers and regroup with our forces on the outskirts of the town.” She goes back to the map and studies it briefly. “The way I see it, we can sneak or we can fight. Either way, I’ll follow your lead.”

Let’s fight our way out | We can sneak out of here

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