ic A Filthy Business

[Supercape]

A Filthy Business

 

Everybody - well, nearly everybody - in the Trailer Park was getting sick. Nasuea, fatigue, purple blotches on the skin, and the violent ejection of bodily fluid (with bits in) from both ends of the body. It was not a pleasant sight. It was far from a pleasant smell. 

 

And Huckleberry Sin knew just why, and just who to call. 

 

Huckleberry Sin was an almost-teen (who knew his real age) rapscallion of the trailer park, with ragged clothes, ragged hair, and a knack for evading even the most vexed (and many had been vexed) trailer park residents, with his agility, wit and speed. 

 

"Luke, Luke! Its the Water!"

 

He paused, gasping for breath, right before Luke Landers. Huckleberry was not as fast as normal - his skin was sweaty and pallid. He was coming down with whatever the rest of the park were experiencing. 

 

"At least, I think its the water... something is bubbling up from the ground. Something nasty!" he said. 

 

Even the prospect of illness didnt keep the cheeky grin from his face when he said the word nasty. 

[Nerdzul]

While Luke was no longer living at the park, he did definitely kept in touch with the happenings at home, plus visited his parents' trailer whenever he got the chance, or his mom made one of her renowned home-made pancakes.

 

A strange sickness spreading among his people was definitely not something he could ignore. Of course it should  have been the city's responsibility to look into this, but more often than not, the authorities tended to ignore the happenings in Soutshide and this was one of those cases. He had to take care of this somehow. Until that day though, he has had no luck, after all a disease was not something that could be fought with claws and fangs and the thought of Gabriel, his little 'bro, sick in bed made him restless.

 

In fact, when Huck found him, the young man was just outside his family trailer, pacing anxiously.

 

"The water?" the young man echoed Huck's words. "Really?"

 

Huck's finding was a stroke of luck and definitely a welcome one.

 

"You're a frekin' life saver." He smiled at the kid and ruffled the hair on his head.

 

"Show me, ok?" He nodded, perhaps he could do something about this after all.

[Supercape]

GM

 

Huckleberry was more than happy to lead Luke through the detritus of the trailer park (both the non-human and human detritus). Once he crawled through a few rusted and abandoned trailers, Luke soon got to the source of the problem. 

 

The problem kind of crawled up your nose. 

 

Or, more accurately, hammered up your noise with the force of a cannon. 

 

Even the rats were avoiding this. 

 

Fetid, purple-green water (if it was water) was bubbling up from beneath one of the rusted trailers. It oozed, it seeped, and even the most resilient grasses had decided to give up around it. A few suspicious fungi had tried to feed, and with some success.

 

"There you go!" said Huckleberry, proudly, holding his nose. 

 

On closer inspection, it looked like the bubbling waters were coming from below - and below, it seemed there was a ruined sewer. With a stout nose and stout stomach, one could plow through the muck and it to the broken tunnels underneath the trailer park. 

[Nerdzul]

"Awesome..." Luke remarked dryly. The stench would be powerful enough on his own, but his enhanced senses made it so much worse. He could already feel the noxious effects in his stomach.

"Good job man..." Ne gave Huck a playful pat on the back and tossed him a few crumpled dollar bills he had in his pocket.

 

"I'll take it from here..."

 

"Time to go..."  He certainly wasn't looking forward to a stroll in the sewers, but he needed to get to the bottom of this.

 

He found some place to hide his sneakers, they were new and definitely not going to survive a dive in the muck while his skin was bulletproof anyway, and then walked ahead into the darkness.

 

Edited September 15 by Nerdzul

[Supercape]

GM

 

Huckleberry gave a huge and cheeky grin that would not have looked out of place on an evil mastermind. "Enjoy!" he said, held his nose and scampered off. Luke could feel Huck chuckling as he left. 

 

The sneakers safely (ish - this was a trailer park after all) placed under a rusted and probably hazardous oven from what looked like the 19th century, Luke could feel the sodden ground under his feet. He would surely get some kind of fungal infection or rash after this escapade, and quite possibly blood poisoning if there was any crack in his skin...

 

The hole in the ground led downwards at a horrible sloop. Mud - earth and poisonous water mixed together - made him slip and slide. If it was not for him amazing dragon vision - able to penetrate the solid darkness - he surely would have taken a tumble. Less helpful was his amazing dragon nose, which informed him of the amazing assortment of toxic chemicals that swirled the air. 

 

Eventually he reached a sewer. Broken, chipped masonry, a torrent of horrible water. The sewer looked ancient - a century or two old, forgotten, in a state of disrepair.

 

And the smell of rats, and rat excrement. And... something else. Something alive, and something that produced its own flavour of turd. 

 

 

[Nerdzul]

The walk in the darkness of the sewer was unpleasant to say the least, every step on the slimy step on the floor made him reconsider the idea of sacrificing his sneakers, it was too late unfortunately though to change his mind. Although to be honest his self-inflicted lack of shoes was not the worst deal during the navigation in the muck, his skin was impervious to harm, but his nose certainly wasn't and he could feel his stomach churning during the whole ordeal. It would take a million showers (and much likely a dragon-fire based decontamination of everything he was wearing) to fully erase the scent.

 

Plus, while being in the dark was no issue, since the young man had started assuming his native form more frequently, he had found out that cramped tunnels underground where could not easily transform without collapsing ton of earth on top of him made him feel on edge. 

 

It was worth it though, to protect his people at the Trailer park, at least assuming that this trek was not for nothing and that he could find the source of the mysterious malady.

 

Speaking of which... Given the assault toward his nostril he could not be sure, but he could swear that there was a new scent in the air, one that felt out of place.

 

He slowed his pace, trying his best to make as little noise as possible and forced himself to sniff the air for the source of whatever new scent had piqued his attention.

Edited September 15 by Nerdzul

[Supercape]

GM

 

The sludge wrapped itself Luke's legs. If not for his amazing strength, it would have surely have slowed his progress. As it was, he could stomp through the knee high filth with ease, even against the slow flow. 

 

His clothes, however, would need some kind of super-cleaning chemical to ever be admitted to polite society again. Or, in truth, to any society at all bar the silage farmers annual convention. 

 

Ahead, Luke could see the flashes of torchlight and the sound of voices....

 

~ Continued in A Small Problem... ~