Collecting Wolfgang''s stuff – mostly manuscripts and a few musical instruments – was done in only a few minutes. Now, they only had to leave the city unnoticed. It was time to re-enter the sewers. If only there was another way to escape! Like just walking out. However, it was a well-known fact, that for an escape you either went through the sewers or participated in an awesome car chase.


    Unfortunately, Prof was freshly out of cars, and it didn''t look like getting horses or other riding animals would be easy. No chance to be road-mobile. Not, that his [Riding] was high enough for a high-speed chase. It was strange. He had 70% in the Skill, but for as long as he was on Arkadia, he have never ridden any animal. It could be said, his knowledge was purely theoretical. Even so, he was certain, how to sit on a horse, how to steer it, how to apply the brakes, and every other thing one had to do to a horse for it to move in the approximately right direction around the desired speed.


    Weird.


    Back on the streets, the riot was still ongoing. If anything, it was gaining speed and noise. More and more bands and lone bards were playing their favorite music, whipping their fans into a fury. With a few of the musicians also using magic – sound and music – the aim was clear to Prof: outplay the competition, and buff their own fans. The side with the loudest music and the best sound- and music mages would be able to support the frontline the most and would win the battle of the bands.


    Probably.


    Prof didn''t exactly understand, what the problem was in the first place. Music was music. Bashing each other''s heads in just because they liked a different kind of music was not "excellent" in his books. If it was about politics, he may have understood it, after all, every party in history thought, the other parties were of the devil''s making, and the adherents should be burned at the stakes.


    But music?


    Prof shook his head and helped Wolfgang lower the retrieved gear into the sewers. He was a foreigner, after all, what the locals did should not concern him.


    “I’m sorry for all those merchants and home-owners, though…” he told Wolfgang


    “Why?”


    “Their stalls and furniture were destroyed for the barricades. Probably their merchandise too.”


    “Oh, you misunderstand. No one would destroy other people''s stuff. That wouldn''t be excellent! The wood was either volunteered by the owners, or they are participating themselves. Where would it lead, if we just set fire to uninvolved people''s stuff?!? That would be just an expression of wanton destruction with complete disregard for others'' property! Banditism! Anarchism! Criminalism!"


    “And it wouldn’t be excellent.”


    “Exactly!”


    So, the Greenskins were extremely polite and excellent to each other even during a riot. Good for them.


    “So, no plundering, pillaging, and arson even in times of war?"


    “You know, that is a tricky question. Civilians usually don’t have anything to fear from a Greenskin army, as long as they don’t resist. We only acquire the means of the enemy state or nobles. Assuming, we are not talking about those Elves.”


    Oh, yes, Greenskins and Elves weren''t on good terms. Prof could understand the Elves, they thought of themselves as the supreme species after all, but what the Greenskins had against them – besides not agreeing, that the Elves were a supreme species – he didn''t know. Probably something like the Elves'' unwillingness to forgo wearing red or calling some ancient ruler''s Warhog a common swine. It had to be some extremely important thing like that.


    Not long after re-entering the sewers, they came upon a huge cavern, with larger tunnels going in the four cardinal directions on the bottom, and a large number of smaller drains entering higher up. The smaller drains deposited "fluids" into the collection point which was the cavern, while the larger tunnels drained it away. The cavern''s bottom was flooded by… "water"…, but it was too… "opaque"… to gauge its depth. Having only candles to illuminate didn''t help much either.


    For some strange reason, Prof expected an altar to a blood god or the base of a secret cabal of evil-doers to be located in the cavern – most likely without the sludge at the bottom. What better place for a hideout (clean and cozy) for gangs, sects, and cults than the collection area for the sewers? Not counting the Re-Education Brigades, probably no one ever came down here, after all!


    His expectations weren’t met, however. What greeted them wasn’t the goat-headed leader of a cult or a thief (those had a very nice headquarters above ground), but darkness and stench. A stench so thick, it could be called solid. Prof even felt some resistance as he stepped forward. It may have been the sludge on the ground, though.


    Since the sewers – and that included the cavern too – were well-maintained, it was obvious, the cleaning brigades would need means to cross the subterranean lake of questionable fluids. In this case, the means consisted of bridges, set in a cross pattern, meeting in the middle. At least they wouldn''t need to swim. That would spell the end of everything they wore – not even the undisputed Supreme Grandmaster of [Washing] would be able to salvage the soiled gear.


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    It would have been marginally funny if Prof or Wolfgang lost their footing and took a dive in the lake of sewer, but an Agility (or was it Dexterity?) of 18 and 15 was obviously high enough to navigate a meter-wide, dry bridge. They didn''t even have to concentrate all that hard. How surprising. The other thing that did not happen, even if was somewhat expected, was a fabled random encounter. No horrible sewer monster surfaced from the muck to harass them with tentacles, eat them alive or drag them under.


    After all, no self-respecting city, even a medieval one, would tolerate sewer monsters in their well-maintained sewers with easy access to the surface. At least for long. Residents eaten alive by random monsters inside the city were bad for business. Probably.


    Or inconvenient at least.


    After navigating the cavern, it still took them more than an hour to exit the city proper. Without Prof’s Mental Map, they probably would have continued until the end of the sewers. It was nice to know, where they were in relation to everything else. Even underground. What an ultimate Cheat Power!


    The only thing Prof now needed was a RADAR feature for the map. With an IFF add-on. And high-resolution real-time mapping of the whole continent. Plus floating tags with names and Levels of everything in the visual range.


    He wasn’t greedy. Not at all! If he remembered correctly, those Perks had only a sum cost of barely fifty points!


    Not, that he could buy new Perks after he finalized his new self. Every new Perk was a “gift” from the Administrator – or the System, but he assumed, the latter was directed by the former. As gifts, he probably would get a new pair of socks or some marginally useful gadget, not what he really wanted or needed. Gifts had that bad habit, after all.


    Finding the monument, that was set as the meeting place, was almost trivial. The maintenance exit was only a few hundred meters from it, even without the map, only someone with less than 20% or so in [Navigation] could miss it. Well, since it was actually visible from the exit, the person in question would have needed a very low Perception to miss it, to begin with. Even in the dark.


    Luckily, Prof was very good in [Navigation] and had a slightly above-average Perception. When the average was ten, eleven counted as above average, no? That the Greenskins were excellent enough to plant a few torches around the monument dispersed every last point of doubt, where they had to go.


    Naturally, the rest of the band was already there, sitting on the ground and quietly playing a song. If Prof was not mistaken, it was a Waiting Song – Greenskins had songs and music for every conceivable occasion, so why not for waiting? Prof once wondered, if Greenskins did everything with background music, how would Papa Greenskin and Mama Greenskin accomplish it, when they wanted to have a good time? He decided he didn''t really want to know.


    Surprisingly, the strike team around Bianca was there too.


    “Hey, Bianca! How comes, you are already here? I would think, skulking through the city and packing would take more time.”


    “Ewww, Prof, you stink! Did you take a bath in a cesspit or what?!?” Bianca was grimacing.


    “Yeah, almost. So, you did a good time?"


    “Yeah, at first we were trying to be stealthy, but, well Binky doesn’t do stealth well. At one of the barricades, a very nice Hobgoblin told us to just go in the open, no one would bother tourists and folks, who don’t participate in the riot. It was true! There were even street vendors selling food and drinks to every side and the onlookers!”


    “WHAT?!?”


    “Of course, there would be onlookers and street vendors, my friend!” Wolfgang clarified “How else would the general populace know, who won? How would they build an opinion about the arguments presented?”


    “And the street vendors?”


    “I assume, rioting is hard work. It wouldn''t be excellent if you would go hungry or thirsty and had to go home for nourishment. That would probably put an end to a riot, without a clear conclusion. Leaving the onlookers without nourishment would be even less excellent."


    “You do riots that often? The system looks to run quite smoothly.”


    “Riots? No, never. We do have a system in place though for disagreements. The craftspeople in question would agree to a time and place where they present their point of view. Even friends and family could participate.”


    “A brawl?”


    “No! Both sides craft something, while the other side’s friends and family try to hinder him. Who finishes a better piece and could present it to the onlookers win.”


    It was more or less a brawl with an added task, after all. Prof refrained to comment on other people’s strange traditions.


    “So, you went to the inn without problems? Could you get everything?” he asked Bianca


    “Yeah, we didn''t encounter any problems. A few people even volunteered to look after Binky while we were packing. I think they ended up feeding him Gremlins in the end, though. At least, he was munching on something, when we got back. As for the gear… Well, we got the towels and the soap, as you told us, but we had to leave the camping gear behind…"


    “The camping gear? Even the tent? WHY?!? We just bought all that crap! It wasn’t even used once!”


    “Well… It was heavy, and we couldn’t pack all the stuff onto Binky. Your books took up most of the place. If you remember, we told you, we would need a few mules to move everything!”


    “Yeah, I remember. But mules cost money to buy and even more money to stable them. We didn’t plan to leave in a hurry!”


    “Anyways, Prof, Mister Wolfgang. As I told you, we got the towels and the soap. Please use them! You still stink!”