The sewers of Vanwakhan were… well, they were the sewers of a major city. While La Sable itself was a young nation, the site of the city itself had been in use for millennia, and as with any such site what the sewers mostly consisted of were… well, the parts of Vanwakhan that had sunk into the mud and earth either from flooding, subsidence, or simply the foundations of the city being slowly devoured by the abyss deep within the bowels of the world, below even the tunnels of The King Below.

They walked along what had once been streets but now which now ran with the refuse of the current streets above. Every so often, there were be a sudden load of… debris as someone above drained a chamber pot, or some accumulation collapsed and released it's dammed and damned runoff down below. So far, none of those had dropped directly on top of their heads, but statistically it was only a matter of time.

The city of Vanwakhan relied on having holes along the edges of its streets to act as places for runoff to flow to, an ancient and time-honored construction standard. Occasionally, some light would filter down as the sun came down at just the right angle. Beyond those few slivers, the sewers were dark and hot its putrid contents decomposed.

Those same contents meant they couldn't bring torches for light, which was a had idea anyway since it would force one arm to keep the torch aloft. It is said that in the time of myth, humans glowed with a silver light their souls so that it was never truly dark around them. It sounded really convenient, but as with true pyromancy, sorcery, miracles and bonfires, this was lost some time between myth and legend. Fortunately, over the millennia, people had found solutions.

On each other their waists was a small lantern shaped like a human skull. The lanterns were filled with prism stones, which cast their weak illumination around them. While a torch would have been far brighter—and could have been used as a weapon in itself—it would not have been wise to do so in the sewers, which could contain pockets of flammable gas. And while humans might have lost their silver glow—although Maria wasn't sure if that had ever been tree to begin with—as expected of those who had been down in the dark, made men by the dark, and are undone by the dark, in the dark their eyes were opened, and they could see very well. Thanks to this, they were able to traverse the dark sewers unafraid of accidentally stepping on… well, anything obvious.

The sewers were also not empty. Of course not. There were of course rats of all sizes, from the small ones whose backs only came up to Maria's knee to the powerful ones that were about the size of her carriage. Both kinds were ones she was familiar with, because they'd also had them in Yharnam, though perhaps with fewer pus-filled boils. She had expected the rats to be the unintelligent kind usually found in the wild, and indeed there were many of those, attacking her and Katarina on sight, seeking to tear them apart, gnaw them open, devour their flesh, and if the rat was lucky consume their Dark Souls and ascend the lofty pillar of thought. The high-pitched cries, the plodding pace, the way the rats reared up before they rushed forward to attack with their jaws… it had all reminded her of pleasant, early days as a hunter under her Master's tutelage, back before she had learned knowledge and scholarship led to madness, before she had committed her sins.

A small, sentimental part of her that thought fondly of those early, naïve days—and had obviously forgotten how sewers smelled—had wanted to share that simple experience with her squire. It had been a small drop of blood in a cup of water, something that they could have enjoyed. After all, killing rats was easy! Just don't get in front of them, roll away when they charged, and then one-two-three they were dead and you were eing filled by their blood echoes—or souls in this case. It would have been a fun, easy learning experience!

It was here that Maria learned that while Katarina was a very skilled swordswoman whose ingrained training had become so instinctual that she could parry swords with her blade without thinking about it—which was really the only way Katarina could be expected to do it without straining herself—all of that poise, skill, composure and muscle memory—

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!-!-!-!-!" Katarina cried, swinging her sword wildly all around her… at least until she ran out of stamina, at which she started panting, hands on her knees to keep herself up, only to go back to wild swinging. "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!-!-!-!-!"

—went away in the presence of giant rats… who, to be fair, had no swords to parry, so in hindsight Maria really should have foreseen this.

"My squire, the rats are gone, you can stop panicking now," Maria said, her saber in hand. even though she had flicked it to get rid of the blood and… other things that had been on the rats, she was not going to sheath it until she'd managed to give it a god wipe, and she only had three rags on her.

"Aaaaaaaaaaa—eh? Oh, thank you so much!" Katarina sighed in relief, her blade almost touching the ground before she recalled what she was standing on. She gave the sword a quickly glance before putting it back in its sheath, which… well, she was going to have to clean up her own equipment anyway. "I—"

Katarina cut off as she found Maria glaring almost directly into her face. "What," the knight said, "was that shameful display?"

"Huh?"

"Don't 'huh' me, squire Katarina Claes!" Maria snapped.

"Wait, you're full naming me? Ah, I'm in trouble, aren't I? Please don't take away Shana's dessert!"

The absurdity of the reminder pierced Maria's fog of… it wasn't rage, but neither was it merely disappointment, and it reminded her of exactly what sort of idiot she was talking to. She took a deep breath—and immediately regretted it, because while her nose might be number, if it was thick enough she could taste the smell on her tongue—and very quickly let it out. Regaining her calm, she gave Katarina a more controlled glare. "You panicked," she said, "when you saw the rats."

For the first time in her life, Maria saw Katarina shudder. "They were so gross," her squire said.

"Very understandable," Maria said. "So why did you not use your sword to strike them instead of flailing around like as if… I have no words to describe what you were doing."

"Indescribable?" Katarina suggested helpfully, then winced and leaned back as Maria glared. "I'm sorry! That's just what I always did when I saw rats trying to nibble on my crops! I made lots of noise and waved around my arms to scare them away!"

"You realize that they only came back, right?" Maria said.

"No, I only had to scare them once a year and they'd leave me crops alone," Katarina said. "Our gardener Old Tom told me if I was louder and scary the rats would be too scared to eat my crops and I wouldn't have to worry about them that year."

Maria gave her a flat look. "Katarina, when you do that with dogs, does it work?"

"Uh, no?"

"Then why would you think it would work with rats?"

"Because Old Tom said so! I figured he'd know what he was talking about, you don't become the head gardener for nothing!"

"Katarina, this Old Tom was clearly killing the rats trying to eat your crops and not telling you."

Katarina opened her mouth, then paused. Then she spat out the no doubt wile taste that had built up on her tongue. "Ptua! Gah! You know that makes sense…"

Maria sighed. "My squire, consider this important training. By the time we leave this sewers, you will know how to kill your own rats."

"Eh? Do I have to?"

Maria looked her straight in the eye. "You taught the children in my manor how to farm, did you not?"

"Yup! Taught them everything I knew!" Katarina said proudly.

"Did you teach them how to protect their crops from rats?"

Katarina paused. Her expression became horrified. "No… ah, those poor veggies! They'll get eaten by rats!"

On that day, Katarina took her first life.

"Stay away from my veggies!"

Prism Stone Lantern
A lantern shaped like a skull and filled with prism stones, meant to give light where it is unwise to bring fire while leaving both hands free to hold weapons.

The torch, however, provides a stronger source of light.

Humanity was born of the dark, made strong by the dark, undone by the dark.

Fear the old dark.