The sewers of Lost Angeles weren’t just a network of tunnels, they were a world beneath the world, an underground labyrinth stretching far beyond what anyone truly understood.

  And they had been walking through it for hours.

  The air was thick, humid, and heavy with rot, but it wasn’t the smell of ordinary waste, no, this was something else. Something older. Deeper. The kind of decay that didn’t come from just garbage and runoff, but from things that had been buried, forgotten, and left to fester.

  The walls were slick with moisture, covered in veins of bioluminescent moss that pulsed in faint blues and sickly greens, casting an eerie glow along the tunnel paths. The brickwork was ancient, clearly pre-Collapse construction, but warped, twisted in ways that defied logic. Pipes ran alongside them, hissing steam, dripping strange, viscous fluids, some of which shimmered with residual alchemical runoff.

  And yet, despite it all… they hadn’t run into anything.

  Yet.

  Which was almost worse.

  Ciel wasn’t one to complain about a lack of monsters, but even she could feel it, the tension crawling up their spines, the air too still, too expectant.

  Something was watching them.

  Something had been watching them for hours.

  But it was waiting.

  Still, in true mercenary fashion, they handled the situation in the only way they knew how.

  With cocky bravado and poorly-timed jokes.

  Veyra stretched her arms behind her head, her voice carrying too loud in the oppressive silence. "So, anyone wanna place bets on what eats us first? I’m thinking something with tentacles. Maybe a half-melted sewer beast."

  Miri, skipping ahead without a care in the world, grinned. “Oh, I hope so. I’ve always wanted to see one of the sewer sirens up close.”

  Sylva, who had been leading the group with dagger in hand, rolled her eyes. "Sewer sirens aren’t real."

  Miri gasped dramatically. “Oh, Syl, sweet summer child, you have no idea what’s real down here.”

  Gorrug, carrying Skrimp under one arm like a squirming football, grunted. "If it tries to eat us, I shall eat it first."

  Ciel snorted, adjusting the goggles perched on her head. "Right, because I’m sure sewer monsters taste delicious."

  Raze, who had been silent up until now, exhaled through his nose, his voice low and rough. "It’s too quiet."

  Ciel turned toward him, smirking. “Aw, big guy, you miss the sound of things screaming?”

  Raze’s storm-gray eyes flicked to her, unimpressed. "No. I miss knowing where the enemy is."

  That sobered them slightly.

  Because he was right.

  This wasn’t just an empty sewer system, there were things down here, things they hadn’t seen yet, things that were letting them pass.

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  Which meant one thing.

  They weren’t in the killing zone yet.

  Ciel rolled her shoulders, gripping her revolvers a little tighter. “Well, I dunno about you guys, but I’m kinda glad we haven’t run into the whole 'living barrier' part of this yet.”

  Sylva shot her a sharp look. "Don’t say that."

  Ciel blinked. “Say what?”

  Sylva turned back toward the path ahead. "You know exactly what."

  Miri giggled.

  And somewhere, in the distant, distant tunnels of the sewer ahead of them…

  Something shifted.

  The moment the sound shifted ahead of them, the air changed.

  Not in the obvious, tangible way of a breeze through an underground tunnel, no, this was something deeper, something invisible but suffocating.

  The sewers had been too quiet for too long.

  And now, as they turned a curve in the tunnel, the passage ahead of them widened into an open chamber.

  It was a drainage junction, an intersection where the tunnels merged, with crumbling platforms raised above the water, old pipes stretching like metal veins along the walls, and in the middle—

  A heap of trash.

  It wasn’t just any trash. This was deliberate. Built. Piles of discarded waste, old-world relics stacked into a mound, their forms barely recognizable under decades of grime and decay.

  A nest.

  And something was inside it.

  Something big.

  Ciel stopped in her tracks, gripping the handles of her revolvers, her golden-violet eyes locked on the heap.

  Raze, beside her, tensed, his greatsword shifting slightly on his back.

  Then, from within the rotting mountain of waste, something stirred.

  A growl. A gurgling, wet, deep sound, like laughter heard from the bottom of a swamp.

  Then, it spoke.

  "Who’s stomping around my home?"

  The massive heap of garbage shifted, trembled, then rose.

  What emerged from it was not human.

  A hulking, grime-covered creature, its form barely distinguishable from the trash itself. Its skin was thick, leathery, covered in patches of moss and decay, as if it had been born from the filth itself.

  Its eyes—yellow, glowing, sunken deep beneath a heavy, furrowed brow— locked onto them with a slow, measured intelligence.

  Its mouth stretched into something resembling a grin, jagged teeth revealed beneath the thick layers of sludge and overgrown hair.

  “Well, well, well. Fresh faces.” The creature’s voice was gravelly, gurgling, thick with amusement.

  Sylva’s crimson eyes sharpened, her daggers flicking to her hands. “Uh… It’s talking.”

  Miri clapped her hands, delighted. “Oh, how wonderful! A sewer guardian!”

  Ciel, slowly, holstered one of her revolvers, lifting a hand. “Hey, big guy, we’re just passing through—”

  “That so?” the beast rumbled, stepping fully from its nest.

  It was huge. At least eight feet tall, broad and hunched, its long clawed fingers twitching. There was something off about its proportions, something that suggested it had once been something else before the sewers changed it.

  Then—another sound.

  High-pitched. Chittering. Laughing.

  Ciel turned her head just in time to see movement from one of the pipes.

  Something red scurried out.

  It was smaller, wiry, but no less disturbing.

  A thin, lanky figure, covered in patches of bristling, crimson fur, its limbs just a little too long, its fingers tipped in ragged, curling claws. Its mouth stretched wide, its teeth small, sharp, meant for tearing.

  Its large, black eyes blinked once, twice—

  Then it tilted its head, grinning with far too many teeth.

  “Oh wow, wow, wow! New friends! New friends in the tunnels!” It scuttled forward, its movements jittery, unnatural, the way something moves when it hasn’t quite figured out how a body should work.

  Ciel swallowed.

  Raze’s fingers tightened around his weapon.

  Gorrug, staring at the trash beast and its jittery red companion, finally spoke.

  “What in the dead gods’ name am I looking at?”

  The bigger one chuckled, deep and gurgling.

  The smaller one tittered, voice high and shrill.

  “I’m the Collector,” the big one rumbled, gesturing a massive, clawed hand toward his filth-ridden domain. “This is my home. And this here—”

  He gestured to the smaller one, who immediately twitched excitedly.

  “Oh! Oh! I introduce myself! Okay, okay, I do it now!” The thing bounced on its haunches, clicking its claws together.

  “I’m Red! I’m Red and I love to play!”

  Miri beamed. “I like them.”

  Veyra muttered, “I fucking hate them.”

  Ciel, still processing, held up a finger.

  “So just so I’m clear—”

  The Collector leaned forward, unblinking.

  “We’re gonna have to fight our way through you, aren’t we?”

  The creatures grinned.

  The sewers shuddered.

  And then—the tunnels came alive.