Dishonored

Chapter Three: Sewers of Dunwall

Slosh-slosh-slosh, the shallow water was cold on his feet as Corvo trudged his way toward the open sewer grate, and after ducking down to peer inside, he found another piece of paper nailed to the interior wall. The note ripped a little when he tore it down, but it was too dark to read the words inside the tunnel, meaning that he had to lean back out into the sunlight in order to see what it said.

Some of us didn't think you'd make it.

However, if you're reading this, you did.

Samuel is waiting beyond the east drains to the bay.

He will bring you to us.

When he had first discovered the unlocked door and note inside his cell, Corvo had suspected that it was some kind of a trap. For all he knew, it could have been a plot from the Lord Regent to have him killed for trying to escape… which made no sense, due to the fact that he was already supposed to be executed tomorrow. And now that he was out of prison, making him run through the sewers in order to meet someone seemed like an awful lot of trouble to go through just to kill him.

However, the time for dwelling on such things was over, as an alarm began to blare from within Coldridge Prison, meaning that his escape had already been discovered. The former Lord Protector doubted that the interrogator would have been able to tell the others what happened, so they must have discovered the guard in his cell… probably when his friends had come around to give Corvo Attano another beating.

"Hey, there he is!" A voice yelled from above. "He's down there! Hey, you, stop!"

"Shit." Corvo grumbled, scrambling back into the sewer grate.

The funniest part about all this, was if he hadn't stopped to read that note, the guards would never have seen where he went, and the former Lord Protector would have been home free. Of course, now he had to run, since any second the guards would reach the shallow creek, entering the sewer grate mere moments after. The tunnel was cramped and hard to walk through, even crouched down, but once beyond the drain, and into a main segment of Dunwall's sewers, it opened up into a series of normal size corridors.

Well-lit corridors, on top of that, with work lights having been installed all throughout the sewers and city streets alike as a way to keep citizens and workers safe… and all thanks to the seemingly inexhaustible supply of whale-oil. This glowing blueish-whitish substance was harvested from the large sea creatures, and used to power all manner of technology across the Empire. Yes, whale-oil had improved life everywhere, but right now Corvo was only hindered by it, since the work lights limited places where he could hide in the shadows.

There was no way of knowing how many guards had been sent after him, so the former Lord Protector ducked into the first shadowy place that he could find, which turned out to just barely be large enough to conceal him… as long as he sucked in his stomach. As suspected, the guards were only seconds behind, running down the corridor in single file, and thankfully bypassing him completely… except for the last one.

As the very last guard was running by, Corvo leapt from the shadows, wrapping his arms around the man's neck as they fell to the ground, and using his legs to keep the guard's arms pinned to his sides, so that he couldn't grab his weapons. The man flailed around, kicking his feet and thrashing his free himself, but Corvo's grip on his neck was taking its toll. Gradually, the guard's movements slowed down, becoming weaker until stopping completely when the man's eyes closed.

"Sweet dreams, kid." He said, moving off of him. "Now, let's see what you have."

Still recognizing that these guards were only doing their jobs, the former Lord Protector had no intention of killing him, or any of his friends unless absolutely necessary… but that didn't mean he was above taking their weapons or supplies. Turns out that the man had been issued a pistol, along with a few extra bullets, meaning both that the others were probably carrying them as well… and that Corvo's escape was not being taken lightly.

It was only a matter of time before the guards realized that they were no longer chasing him, so he needed to come up with a plan, but this was hard to do now that he had lost sight of the guards; their footsteps echoing from everywhere at once as they frantically searched for him. In this kind of situation, normally the guards would have given up, or at least waited for reinforcements… however, with Hiram giving the orders in Dunwall, it was likely that failure was not an option for them.

Trying to stay low and in the shadows while moving into another corridor, movement caught his eye up ahead as the guards were moving right toward him. They were no longer running, which gave Corvo a couple seconds to figure out how to get himself out of this one… and if not for those precious seconds, he might not have noticed the set of pipes that were running along the ceiling.

When the guards came slowly walking through that part of the corridor, they didn't notice that their target was right above them, wrapping his hands and legs around the pipes, hugging close to the metal so not to be noticed, and his plan was working… until the bolts on one of the pipe's rusty fittings broke off. One of the guards was smacked in the head with a loud clang as the pipe bent downward, knocking him out cold as Corvo fell to the floor, and now the others were turning to see what happened.

"What the hell?!" One of them exclaimed. "Hey… is this him?"

No matter how great of a fighter someone was, taking on an entire squad of guards was never a good idea, even though there were only four of them left now that two of them had been taken out. So the former Lord Protector let go of the pipe with the intent of trying to somehow roll away from the guards who were now reaching for their pistols, but to his surprise the pipe flew back upward to its rightful place, catching another guard in the chin on its way upward.

Bang! The guard's pistol went off as the pipe knocked him off his feet, causing one of the others to double over and collapse, having been shot in the chest… and although there was no way for anyone to have ever planned for something like that to happen, the odds didn't seem so bad now. The two remaining guards were so shocked by what happened, that Corvo was able to kick the feet out from under one of them, kicking him in the face after he fell to the floor.

The last guard, however, was able to draw his sword, swinging it down toward Corvo, but just barely missing the former Lord Protector's face when he tilted it to the side. It probably would have been smarter for him to use his pistol, but the man was most likely too worried about accidently hitting his friends… allowing Corvo to grab onto his wrist, and bring his foot up into the guard's face.

"'I'm sorry about this, boys, I really am." Corvo said, getting to his feet. "I know you're just doing your duty, but I can't go back to prison."

Hoping that sparing their lives would be enough to convince them to give up the chase, the former Lord Protector stepped over them in order to continue his way down the latest corridor. As far as he knew, he was still heading east, but since he obviously couldn't see the sun, nor had he ever felt the need to explore the sewers of Dunwall before, Corvo was mostly going by guesswork. Guesswork that seemed to pay off when he suddenly found himself ducking through a narrow passage into sunlight once again… but this was not the exit.

After his eyes adjusted to the light, he saw that he wasn't outside, instead that the sun was beaming in through a large hole in the ceiling high up above… maybe an old well, or a grating that someone had left open. Either way, it was too high up for him to reach, so he started across this vast chamber, looking for a way to keep heading east toward the drains at the bay… when he froze in place after noticing some of this room's other features.

There were bodies; slumped and tossed about, lying in unnatural positions as if they had fallen from a great height, and worst of all, they had shown signs of being eaten. All over each corpse, there were hundreds of tiny bite marks, with some only being recently gnawed, while others had been stripped down to the bone. With another look up at the hole in the ceiling, Corvo realized that this was a dumping ground for victims of the Rat Plague… but plague or not, it had become common knowledge that bodies lying around tended to attract…

"Corvo Attano!" A voice yelled from behind. "Stop right there, or I will shoot you dead, sir!"

Trying to turn around without making any noise of his own, the former Lord Protector saw that one of the guards had resumed pursuit, but instead of trying to fight or escape, Corvo put his finger up to his lips in a gesture for the man to be quiet. Of course, the guard didn't understand, instead walking forward, continuing to very loudly announce that there was no escape from Coldridge Prison, and that he was going to return Corvo back to his cell personally.

Still trying to make the guard understand the danger they were in, the former Lord Protector continued to put his finger to his lips, and drag a thumb across his own throat, trying to get this guard to be quiet for both their sakes. This place wasn't some ordinary chamber, nor was it simply a dumping ground… it was a feeding chamber, and thanks to the guard who just wouldn't shut his mouth… it was feeding time.

Drawn by the movement and noise, something started to flow out of some of the nearby drains, and at first it appeared to be a single, flowing substance that moved across the ground like water… only it wasn't water. It was rats; huge, plague carrying rats, over a hundred of them, all moving together with the goal of having a feast. Some of the rats stopped at the corpses, content to eat the remaining meat as they covered them like a swarm of bees… but the majority continued forward.

"Run!" Corvo yelled, taking off in the other direction. "Run for your life, man!"

Bang! Starting to back away from the swarm, the guard fired his pistol, killing several rats before starting to run… but his attack on them had taken too long, and then his screams started as the rats flowed over him like an ocean wave, climbing up and covering every inch of his body as their tiny teeth and claws sunk into him. There was no way for Corvo to help him, since even more rats were coming while the screaming guard fell over, so he ran… using this time to escape down the far corridor, and continuing to head east toward whoever this Samuel person was.