Josef stared at both of them for three full seconds.

Claudius shooed him forward. "Onward, goo-drinker! Charge into the darkness! We're going to break all of the records!"

Josef sighed and continued on. The staircase continued its spiralling descent. The Ba'ha Grotto's 164 hour record suddenly seemed immensely impressive. He'd been alive for only a handful of hours and he'd already faced massive amounts of treachery.

He still wanted to know what John and Claudius had whispered about, but he had a much bigger problem on his hands. Chiefly, the continuation of his embittered existence. Still, it was worth trying.

Josef began to whisper to himself.

"What are you doing, Josef," said Claudius, flapping down the stairs behind him. "Are you whispering to yourself? What are you whispering about?"

Josef turned, the torchlight illuminating a mischievous grin. "See how it feels?"

Claudius stopped and slapped his forehead while John gave a throaty laugh.

"We're not plotting anything, my dear goo-drinker—"

"Only plotting for your safety," clarified John. "Henga are—"

Claudius booted John in the shin. "Sewerman, I command you to shut your face."

"Ah ha!" said Josef, casting the torch above his head victoriously. "I see. Henga, you say."

"Henga," John whispered, shivering as he repeated the name. Josef looked back to see him twist his face into a monstrous contortion.

Claudius sighed, "Damn it all, John. You might as well have just shovelled a handful of sootpilf into his mouth."

"Henga," repeated Josef. "Sootpilf." He'd heard the second word before, but this 'henga' word was new. Based on John's depiction, it was most likely a creature, a nefarious one at that.

"Does a henga live down here?"

"That was the precise question I was asking the sewerman," Claudius said. "It was also the precise question I didn't want you thinking about."

"My neocortex blossomed, Claudius. You said it yourself. I don't understand why you keep fretting about overloading me," asked Josef, a tad exasperated. But his attention returned to the staircase. It had ended, abruptly. A solid wall now loomed up from around the bend. Josef threw the torchlight all over the wall. He couldn't see any keyhole.

"My adventure has reached a dead-end," Josef stated flatly while giving the wall a kick. John didn't say anything as his shredded black cloak flapped around his waist.

Josef watched the sewerman as he crouched down and gently touched his forehead to the stone wall. Josef exchanged a look with Claudius and then they both cleared their throats. But John upheld a solemn hand without giving them the slightest look. He began to mutter fervently under his breath. Josef watched as his face winced as if he were receiving a series of invisible blows.

Claudius leaned in close to John's ear and whispered, "Are you trying to remember where you left the key?" John ignored him and continued muttering passionately to himself.

Josef kept his distance, sensing the sewerman needed his space. He had no idea how long this would take, or what he was even trying to accomplish. Was the door living? Was he trying to convince it to cooperate and open?

Claudius tapped Josef on the shoulder. "You mentioned an object…something the crows gave you?"

"Yes," said Josef, remembering their conversation back in the lower sewers. It all came back to him. He still didn't know how much he should say, but he did his best: "I was given an object during the feldspeaking. I can still see it, I can still feel it vibrating away in my consciousness. Does this have something with me being a goo-drinker?"

Claudius didn't blink, but he nodded his head. "No, Josef, I'm going to give you a quick piece of advice." Claudius leaned closer. "Goo-drinkers are absolutely hated in some parts of this world. As John said earlier, they cause a ruckus. The Lush Heap is already one big ruckus. Most people are just trying to get by, or con their neighbours, but mostly just trying to get by, while others, quite literally, want to hunt you down and annihilate you."

"Perhaps we should've started with the henga," Josef said dryly.

"Excellent point. Nevertheless, here we are." Claudius checked on John but he was still muttering away. His gaze returned to Josef's face, and then focused on his sprig of chin hairs. "You're young, Josef. I'm trying to give you the best guidance I can. I don't want you to get any strange ideas into your head about being a goo-drinker. Izzblum's Guide to Drinkers of Goo is explicit on this point. Goo-drinkers are extremely suggestible and extremely corruptible. There is no singular way forward. But there are ways forward."

All Josef could do was shake his head. Claudius and his damned book. Briefly Josef imagined using it as kindling for a nice warm fire.

"I'm not trying to be something special, Claudius," Josef said finally, watching the Sea Gwell's reaction as the torchlight cast dappled orange waves over his teal face.

Claudius tilted his head to the side. "How are you so sure?"

Before Josef could respond a burst of blue light flooded into the stairwell. Josef jerked his head around in surprise as John rose up from his knnes. The stone wall blocking their way had vanished. There'd been no grating sound, nothing testifying to the fact it'd moved at all.

"Impressive," Claudius cooed.

John slicked his hand back through his grey locks. He was sweating profusely.

"Did we just witness some sewer sorcery?" Claudius asked, appraising John anew.

But John shook his head and simply gestured them forward. "A penitent feldling, that's all."

"I need to get me some of this penitence," Claudius trilled out as they stepped through the doorway and into a small cave room filled with blue light.Goodbye sewers, thought Josef with a grin.

The cave room they'd stepped into was slightly bigger than a typical house. Josef looked all around, appreciating the change of scenery. A large pool of light-blue and glowing water had collected in the middle of the cavern's floor, while tufts of blue-glowing mushrooms grew all around the pond's ledge. Josef noted John's teeth were of a similar hue and wondered if there was a connection. But then the gentle trickling of running water could be heard and Josef quickly scanned and counted five different streams flowing down from the cavern walls and into the blue pond water.

"What did you do to make the wall disappear?" Josef asked John.

"We're in Mal's feld now," he replied. "A treacherous place for many, but for a feldling it is home. I made a supplication and it was granted."

Josef listened. The felds seemed so strange to him. Did every feld have some kind of overseeing deity? He had more questions, but his main priority remained becoming ratified. They needed to hurry.

John ushered them forward. "We're very close," he said, walking carefully but quickly around the outside of the pool and towards its exit. "Purification pools," he explained as he hustled along. "There are many small caverns dedicated to these pools. Buckets of sewer water are combined with the ocean's salt water and then purified by these miniature sewerbreeze mushrooms."

"Miniature?" asked Josef, wondering what the non-miniature versions looked like. The mushrooms circling the pond were already the size of large stumps.

"Just you wait, Josef lad" John said, cackling as he sped forward down a lightly-worn path. Claudius sprinted after him and Josef followed. John's shortcut through the winding staircase had allowed him to catch his breath, very briefly, but he was still exhausted.

The water from the pond exited the cavernous room through a manufactured channel two feet wide. Josef heard its trickling as he ran beside it, trying his best to keep up with Claudius and John. Dark-grey and jagged cave walls enclosed them on all sides. I'm still alive, I'm still alive, he kept telling himself.

He could also still feel a slight tug from the seedling nestled in his mind. He needed to know more about that as well. It wasn't distressing but it nevertheless felt strange, as if someone had permanently placed their hands atop his shoulders.

As they neared the exit of the small tunnel they sped down, numerous shouts and calls began to arise and increase in volume. Josef looked to John but the sewerman didn't slow down. The voices became even louder, and after a few more seconds of running they were close to entering a new tunnel, one similar in design to a typical sewer channel but without the red cobblestones; instead, rugged cave walls, moist and dripping, bulged and hulked out at odd angles.

Josef stepped forward and turned to his left, following John's lead.

He took immediate step back. His breath caught.

Instantly and everywhere there were people, sewerfolk shouting and waving. After coursing through sewer tunnels and meadows for so long, it felt extremely jarring, even eerie, to be suddenly shunted into a lively throng of buzzing life. It'd been so long since he'd seen people just going about their daily business. It was both strange and enthralling.

And now here they were — sewerfolk walking, talking, grumbling, hawking wares, bartering, and raising fists in the air. One stall was selling what appeared to be smoked gujai, another sold bone trinkets, while still another sold vials filled with odd-coloured liquids. Josef felt his eyes widen as he tried to take it all in. He wanted to stop and savour everything but he knew they had to hurry.

His gaze then drifted over to the water, which while not appearing fantastic, did a have a much healthier look to it than anything in the upper or lower sewers. Josef still wouldn't drink it, but 'putrid' was no longer a word adequately describing it.

John then waved at two fishermen sitting cross-legged next to the sewer line.

"John?" said one, "Your clothes? Where's Hilgooth?"

"No time, I'm afraid," John replied hastily. "We have to get to Mal immediately."

Both the fishermen started to ask more questions but John sped past them. Josef had so many questions as well but he pushed them aside as they ducked and dove through the crowd of sewerfolk. He knew they were running out of time. If it wasn't for the feldspeaking, they'd probably would've already had an audience with the much-regaled Mal.

They continued to sprint along with John giving thrifty greetings to many of the sewerfolk they passed. One man yelled out John's name while standing in a barge similar to Hilgooth and holding up the biggest gujai Josef had ever seen. He felt his spine condense just looking at the gujai's slippery mucus-coating.

John, however, gave the acquaintance a rounding cheer. "That's Riles. Never met a better sewer fisherman in all my days." John then looked back at Claudius with a wide grin. "You best steer clear of him, fishman!"

Claudius hissed but didn't take the bait. Josef could tell the Sea Gwell was just as enamoured by all of the unfolding sights as he was. It also occurred to Josef that Claudius had never been here either, as far as he knew, and so for the first time they were on somewhat equal footing — he no longer solely the student, Claudius no longer solely the teacher. Josef, of course, would never dare give Claudius the joy of hearing him refer to Claudius as his teacher. The Sea Gwell's head and gills would double in size.

John shouted for sewerfolk to clear a path. The air still possessed that unmistakable electric charge denoting a Moonsneeze was afoot. Up ahead, at the end of the tunnel, Josef could see a lush darkness filled with glittering lights.

They sped on towards the tunnel's end and then, all at once, the cave ceiling retreated and it was like they'd walked into an infinite night sky. Josef wanted to look at everything at once.

A massive underground lake blossomed into view. Growing up from the lake itself were giant bulbous mushrooms, each the size of a two-story building. They were all slowly moving, pulsing, like jellyfish unearthed from the sea. Each of their tops was violet in colour while streaks of lime green ran down from their peaks to their frilled gills underneath.

For a second, Josef was completely lost for words. "How…how are those even possible?"

"Living down in these parts requires a kind of cunning most upworlders could never dream of," John replied slowly.

"Where did you find those things?" Josef asked, still overwhelmed, breathless.

"Those things are mushrooms and we didn't find them anywhere. We grew them," John replied, smiling as he spoke. "They turn this sewer into something livable. That particular breed is called sewerbreeze."

Just as Josef's mind worked at making sense of this new discovery, the city of Gangdrup revealed itself from behind the pulsing sewerbreeze mushrooms. It bordered the entire lake and was built up from the shore, extending itself far up to the distant heights of the cavern walls. It was like the entire city was constructed around the inside of a massive bowl with the lake cradled within its very bottommost portion. Brilliant orange lights flashed and flickered from every building.

Scanning around the lake's rim, Josef could easily count over two hundred barges, each with their own swaying lanterns, sailing or parked at various docks. The water was so calm and every building had a slightly green cast to it. John explained it was from a moss they'd cultivated to help purify the air.

Claudius whistled. "Gangdrup. I never imagined." But then he quickly turned to John. "So where is the aforementioned Mal? My goo-drinker needs to be ratified, double pronto."

John pointed to a bustling crowd of sewerfolk walking along a stone promenade bordering the lake. "This way, you luggards. We have to run around the outside of this lake to get to the other side. That's where the magic happens. Do you still have that contract, fishman?"

Claudius removed the water-stained piece of parchment from his rucksack and waved it in front of John's pale face. "Good as yours as soon as you see us to the ruler of your Feld."

John nodded and began to move forward, but suddenly he stopped and turned. Someone was calling his name. Josef looked and saw it was Riles, the fisherman with the hulking gujai.

"I can see you're in a rush, John," Riles shouted from his vessel, "and when I see the man who never rushes, rushing, I know something is up. Do you and your upworlders need a lift?"

"Yes!" screamed Josef, barely able to contain himself. "Please yes, take us to the other side."

"You heard the lad," said John, waving Riles over. "We'll gladly take a ride."

Riles nodded and spun his barge closer to the promenade. "The crowds are thick tonight with Moonsneeze. Mal is milking every drop from Lancel. The harpist is on his fifth rendition of The Sewers Belong to Us."

If there was an extra oar, Josef would've already been paddling along with Riles, but there wasn't, and so he counted every stroke and prayed Moonsneeze would last. He tried to picture the moons' positions, to divine how much time he'd left, but it was impossible. Instead, he contented himself by staring at the hairs on his arm. He prayed the electric feeling in the air would last. The absolute terror of the unknown seemed to be sitting beside him, whispering about how all things end.

But he could do nothing but wait. And so he gave himself over to watching the slow pulsings of the towering sewerbreeze mushrooms. He let himself breath along with them while peering forward, searching among the torchlight in the distance for a hint about what awaited him on the far shore.

"Breathing is good," Claudius said. "Breathing is good."