Josef didn't understand how such a hideous noise could exist. A horrid symphony of gurgling, squealing, and mewling echoed throughout the entirety of the tunnel. It was as if all the rejected noises for an underworld soundtrack had been collected together and set on loop. Josef plugged his ears and pushed aside fleeting images of his goo-sac.

John dug his paddle into the sewer muck and yelled out, "I should've known! The gujai are congregating! I've never seen anything like this, not in all my days."

Josef peered ahead and saw what appeared to be a least fifty towering mounds of squirming gujai fish. Somehow they'd managed to self-organize themselves into mid-stream pyramids. Josef could barely see the water itself due to the immense number of gujai swarming together.

John gripped his oar and ground his cracked lips together like wheat at a mill. "I'll see us through this. Hold tight, you two."

Claudius was stretching and he motioned for Josef to do the same. "Limber up, Josef. We're about to get tossed like scallions. No sense in snapping a key ligament." Claudius swirled his hips in a clockwise circle. Josef touched his toes and tapped into his well-honed rage for all things gujai.

"My old pa would cry if he saw a sight like this," murmured John.

"Should we try and slow down a bit?" offered Claudius as Hilgooth began to rumble. Josef was vibrating. The gujai in the holdspace were beginning to catch air.

"No can do!" cried out John. "Every sewerman worth a pint of slewslog knows that during mating season the sewer becomes a toxic bubble bath. If poor Hilgooth here could speak, she'd tell you right now her hull is being nibbled to bits by the noxious mating-piss pouring off these gujai piles."

"Why stacked like so?" Josef asked as he took in the unseemly sight of the towering mounds. The piles of gujai rose a couple of feet up from the face of the water, the fish squirming in every direction.

"It's how these blighted monsters mate," replied John, glancing back at Josef. "They build these pyramids to keep their eggs away from the toxic water. Their mucus-coatings congeal together and form a speed ramp of sorts for one lucky gujai to slick up on."

John then raised a closed fist into the air and popped it open as if imitating a firework. "That lucky gujai then releases its seed into the nest of eggs perched on top. Even in the sewer, life blossoms."

Josef made a face, his hands gripping Hilgooth's railing as the entire craft started to shake.

"Incredible and disgusting," murmured Claudius.

"Your Ba'ha training is worth nothing down here," cackled John. "This is the real shit — entry in ten seconds! We're going to run these gujai rapids like a needle through a watermelon."

It sounded to Josef like they were about to go over a waterfall. The smell was absolutely atrocious and the roar of the storm water crashing against the piles of gujai was deafening. Josef crouched next to Hilgooth's railing. Claudius followed suit.

"Five seconds!" shouted John as he scooped his oar this way and that, doing his best to hold their trajectory steady. "I wish I could say Hilgooth's been through worse, but I'll tell ya how it is. If we get stuck, our lives are forfeit."

Josef watched John's oar as it dipped in and out of the sewer water like a painter's brush. Hilgooth veered this way and that as the entire vessel rollicked with the flow of the sewer water. They were approaching the first set of gujai mounds. Josef's heart was pounding and he could see that Claudius's teal skin had become at least three shades closer to white. Josef breathed in, but he didn't relax.

"Here we go!" John roared as Hilgooth slid up on her starboard side, bucking up and then crashing down against the sewer water. They'd just clipped the first pyramid and a round of nerve-scrambling gujai screams hissed out behind them.

Josef quickly realized that this wasn't going to be a straight shot. They were in a gauntlet of fish-meat. Hilgooth careened off the next pile as well, but John was able to right their course with a deftly placed prodding of his oar. Sewer sprayed from every direction, a portion of it slopping against Josef's shoulder. Immediately it began to sizzle while Josef frantically tried to wipe himself clean.

Hilgooth was flying all over the place, ramming against pile after pile. Sludge spewed and splatted everywhere and all of the crew raised their hands to their faces in desperate attempts to keep the filthy muck from at least their mouths, if not their eyes. The spacing between the gujai mounds was just barely wide enough for Hilgooth to filter through, but the sewer wasn't sparing her frame. As they progressed through the gauntlet, new rattlings and jumblings echoed up from Hilgooth's hull.

"Take us to the side and let us off!" hollered Claudius.

"No can do, I'm afraid," John yelled back. "Like I said, if we sit still for more than a few moments the gujai's mating toxins will tear into Hilgooth's hull like gulls at an apple core. The best we can do is keep going and then, after that, go some more."

Josef wobbled. All of a sudden it felt like they were sinking as Hilgooth nosedived into a mid-rapid eddy only to jut upward, sending her prow skyward and scattering sewer slime everywhere.  And then suddenly they were weightless and staring at the red cobblestone ceiling.

In that brief second, a thousand coarse gujai gurgles echoed throughout the entire tunnel. Josef caught a glimpse of Claudius clutching his rucksack and screaming like he'd just been denied access to the afterlife.

Reaching her apex, Hilgooth then began her descent, slamming back into the sewer sludge and crashing into a deftly arranged trifecta of Gujai mounds where, shaken and altogether broken, she and her whimpering charges came to an abrupt state of rest.

Josef started to count the seconds until Hilgooth's floor gave out. All he could hear was rushing water, the slapping of gujai tails, and Claudius wailing to himself. Hilgooth lurched, groaned. Josef looked to John for guidance. And then the hail started. Or what sounded like hail.

"This is what I feared," said John. "Do you hear that sound? That's sewer-rain. Rain from the underworld coming up to tap on poor Hilgooth's bowels."

They all listened as the toxic, gujai-infected sewer water began to pepper Hilgooth's hull like an underwater hail storm.

"In the old sewerman poems they say it sounds like a brief winter storm coming up from a deep well. I can see now they've done well with that one, done quite well. Cheers!" John said as he strode over to his tin of slewslog and took a mighty slurp from his two cupped hands. "Pa," he cried out, "I'll be with ye soon!"

"We can swim for it, can't we?" pleaded Claudius, his eyes blinking madly in shock.

"It'll sizzle you up," explained John "There's a reason those gujai have their mucus-coatings. Anyways, I would never abandon Hilgooth. My father would find me in the afterlife only to throttle me."

Josef looked around. They were right in the middle of the sewer line. Hilgooth was wedged between three enormous mounds of teaming gujai, but still in the sewer water's flow.

"Can't we pry out of here?" Josef pleaded.

But John shook his head and held up his smashed oar for all to see. "I know you haven't been long in this world, young Josef, and you've already had your first taste of slewslog, but it's time to dip in again. Death's visor this stuff is. It'll shroud your eyes from what's about to unfold."

Josef didn't know what to do. He looked from Claudius to John and then back again. Neither of them seemed to have a plan. Claudius was tapping his gills and muttering to himself and John was gorging himself on his self-made sewer juice. He felt a knot of fear twist in his stomach. After John had picked them up, he'd felt a ridiculously small glimmer of hope that they'd make it to The Crow Meadow in time, but now even that small glimmer seemed to be collapsing in on itself.

He pulled his hands through his hair and modulated his breathing as Claudius had taught him. He needed to think or else they were about to have another opportunity to test out Yolplay's Theory of Gujai Teleportation. But what could they do? John's oar was smashed and Hilgooth was stuck between three gujai mounds.

A small-scale explosion blasted through Hilgooth's floorboards as a directed fizz of sewer sprayed into the hull.

"Hilgooth!" cried out John as he dove to cover the leek, smothering it with his belly. From his own cloak he ribbed off a shred of cloth and jammed it into the newly-formed hole.

But another leek and then another began burst through and started to fizz. John roared and leveraged his entire vocabulary to curse the gujai (but never the sewer itself). He ripped more shreds from his cloak and set to work plugging the holes.

Josef watched as Claudius muttered under his breath. The last time he'd seen Claudius go into his brain like this he'd been contemplating ethics. He now seemed to be brainmoling away at maximum speed.

"Hibojam? Gormulch? Newtjuice? No, no, no. Eolo's Tears? Not a chance. I can feel it. It's so simple." Claudius was pressing his webbed hand into his forehead while his gills quivered like reeds in a windstorm. "It's right there. Why can't I just, ugh."

Josef started. He took a step forward and gripped Claudius by his shoulders. "The slewslog."

"What? I'm trying to save us, Josef. Let me think."

"No! Listen to me, Claudius. I'm speaking in complete sentences now so you have to pay attention."

It was true. Claudius was impressed. "I'm listening."

"The slewslog. It heals damage from the sewer water, right? Couldn't we use it against the gujai?"

Claudius stared at his goo-drinker. He was trying so hard. "Good try, Josef, but a little slewslog isn't going to bother the gujai."

Josef wilted, but then rose. "Well then let's add in some teethbreeze then." Claudius had tumbled into another brainmoling session, but upon hearing the word 'teethbreeze' he was suddenly jolted back. Josef continued, "Isn't that what's in the paste you made for my bites?"

It was Claudius's turn to grab Josef by the shoulders. "Josef, my dear goo-drinker, I think your neocortex has officially blossomed. If we combine the teethbreeze with the slewslog—" Claudius quickly ripped open his herb pouch and removed the entire wad of golden moss.

"John!" Claudius screamed. "Away from the slewslog! We're requisitioning it to save Hilgooth. Alchemy is afoot!" But John didn't hear him. He was too busy ramming another rag piece into a newly sprung leak with grim satisfaction. His victory was short-lived, however, as another leak blasted up behind him.

Josef watched as Claudius shredded the entire mass of teethbreeze into the palm of his hand. The sound of Hilgooth's hull being corroded by the gujai's toxins pounded in his ears. Another leak blasted up from Hilgooth's boards. John dove towards the new fountain of sewer spewing into his vessel.

Claudius pushed his arms out. "Stand back everyone." Carrying the teethbreeze in the palm of his hand like a religious offering, Claudius strode over to the tin can of Slewslog. John finished plugging the hole just in time to see Claudius fling a pile of shredded golden moss into his batch of slewslog.

Even over the roar of the Hilgooth's hull being decimated, Josef could hear John's warble of terror and rage. He'd just seen is holy sewer ferment desanctified before his very eyes.

Josef could only look on as John stood to his feet and turned like an automaton towards Claudius. The sewerman then sprinted and dove straight into Claudius's chest.

"What the—" Claudius howled as he was suddenly overtaken by the sewerman.

"Stop it!" Josef yelled at the top of his lungs, trying to make himself heard, but Claudius and John were deep in struggle, rolling around on the deck.

"John, please," gasped Claudius. "I'm just trying—" But then Claudius yelped as John's blue-glowing teeth bit into his fanned Sea Gwell ear.

It occurred to Josef that he should intervene, immediately, but he found himself taken in by the sight of golden mist wavering up from the tin can of slewslog. Claudius had seen it as well and was gesturing wildly at it.

"The Teethbreeze! It's working!" That was all Claudius managed to say before John wrapped his grimy hands around his throat. They tumbled again along the floor, Claudius spinning himself on top of John and hissing in his face. "Stop it! Just stop it! I'm trying to save us." Claudius then quickly turned to Josef. "Next we need an amplifier! We need to kick it up another notch."

"An amplifer? What do you mean!" shouted Josef as another spout of sewer water blasted up through Hilgooth's boards. John cried out in dismay and pushed himself off of Claudius to save Hilgooth once again. Momentarily separated from John, Claudius flung himself towards his herb pouches.

"Keep him off me," Claudius ordered Josef as he peered into his pouch. Josef shimmed himself between the two of them, feeling that his life was now forfeit twice over. But John was busy bandaging another leak spouting up from Hilgooth's floorboards.

"Do you remember the concoction you breathed in when you first left your goo-sac, Josef?" asked Claudius.

"The one that healed my throat? What's that going to do? We're about to drown!" Josef stared incredulously at Claudius. He was tempted to step aside and let John dive tackle him again.

"As I said," replied Claudius calmly, holding up the vial of merrycherry between his fingers. "We need an amplifier. This merrycherry here is just that. With your throat, it amplified the gormulch. It amplifies whatever is already present. Now we're going to amplify our slewslog-teethbreeze concoction."

John, as if sensing their intentions, cast himself wide in front of his tin can. "I won't let you ruin my last hope any further, fishman!" he spat out, his lower lip quivering. His clothes were absolutely shredded from using them to plug the numerous holes Hilgooth now bore.

"It's over, John. Your slewslog is no longer fit for your belly," Claudius said, taking a step closer to the tin can John guarded.

John peered over his shoulder. A brilliant golden mist was billowing up from his tin can. His head dropped; his shoulders slumped. He let himself fall to the floor. "I never thought I would go out like this," he wailed while smashing his fists against Hilgooth's floorboards. Another spurting leak, as if summoned, broke through and fizzed next to John's face, coating him in another layer of sewer slop.

Claudius wasted no time. "Get ready, Josef. I'll need your help." Josef watched as Claudius removed the stopper and dumped the entire vial of merrycherry into the simmering mess. Instantly a layer of foam bubbled up on the slewslog's surface.

"Wait for it," said Claudius, waving for Josef to crouch down next to the can with him. Josef followed Claudius's lead and gripped the tin can's handles. The amount of foam was doubling every second.

Claudius looked at Josef. "There are three piles. We only need to cause one to collapse to get Hilgooth back into the flow." Josef glanced back at John and saw that he was still on the floor, his arms crossed over his chest. He hadn't even moved to plug the last hole.

The foam reached the brim of the tin can. "Now!" Claudius cried out. Josef grunted as they raised the peculiar brew up and over Hilgooth's railing, dumping the transfigured slewslog with its golden mist and foam onto the nearest pile of gujai. 

John rose up off the floor only to whisper, "This is the end,"  and then collapsed back down.

"Just plug the damn hole, John!" Claudius yelled as he and Josef finished dumping the last dregs onto the pile of gujai.

Josef stood stunned as he looked at the mound below them. Where the slewslog mixture had landed there now was only a graveyard of fish bones. The gujai were writhing and throwing themselves like high-flying salmon in every direction in desperate attempts to get away the fizzing slewslog. Hilgooth lurched at a precipitous angle.

The horrendous cries of dissolving gujai forced Josef to cover his ears. Hands blocking out the noise, Josef looked down and saw that where the slewslog mixture had landed there now was only a simmering graveyard of fish bones.

Another leak suddenly ruptured through Hilgooth's hull. Josef reached down and grabbed John's broken oar. He ran over to one of the undamaged piles of gujai, shoving the broken oar into their fish pile and began to lever them free. But it was like pushing against muskeg, the oar almost disappeared, until it caught.

Claudius hysterically ripped more shreds from John's clothes to plug the holes. John, on the other hand, lay motionless in the coffin as Claudius tore at his cloak.

"Let her bleed out, fishman. A few more seconds of this and we'll be nestled warm and snug in the sewer's belly. You'll be reunited with your gujai brothers and sisters soon enough."

Josef summoned every bit of strength he could muster and wrenched down on the jammed oar. He heard the crunch of fish skulls; he heard John muttering his sewerfolk death rites; he heard the gujai's brain-curdling shrieks — but most all, he heard Claudius beside him, whispering, "Cover your mouth, Josef."