Thirstfall - Memory of a Returnee-Chapter 16: The Gold Mine of Filth
I pause halfway to the door.
The System’s hint about [Hadal Notoriety] is still burning in my mind. The old man is tagged as "Unknown," yet the System rewards me just for impressing him. This isn’t just a tavern; it’s a testbed. And I just realized I’m leaving money on the table.
I turn around and walk back to the counter. The bartender is drying a glass, humming a tune that hasn’t been popular for ten years.
"Forget something, kid?" he asks, not looking up.
"Work," I say, leaning against the scarred wood. "I’m broke. My gear is trash. Do you have anything for me?"
I glance meaningfully at the ventilation grate near the floor. A thick, viscous drop of blue sludge—depleted OXI—drips from the metal slats and sizzles faintly on the stone floor. It’s a sign this system hasn’t been flushed since the city was built.
But I don’t point that out. Not yet. If I ask for the vault, he’ll think I’m a thief. I need him to offer it to me. I need to aim low so he feels obligated to aim high.
"I can clean your latrines," I offer, letting a tone of desperate humility seep into my voice. "Scrub the floors. Haul the waste. Whatever you need."
The old man stops polishing. He looks at me, his eyes narrowing, dissecting me. He sees the tattered gray rags stained with black blood, the pale skin of a Rank F... but he also sees how I stand. How I hold myself even when begging.
"You don’t look like a latrine cleaner," he grunts, suspicion lining his brow. "You have the eyes of someone who hunts, not someone who scrubs."
"I have the body of a Rank F who just arrived," I counter, lifting my trembling hand. "Hunger doesn’t have pride, old man. I need the Scales."
He stares at me for a long moment, the gears turning behind his clouded eyes. He’s looking for a lie, for the arrogance of a rookie. He finds neither.
Then, he shakes his head, a small, nostalgic smile playing on his lips.
"Currents shift when you least expect it," he murmurs, almost to himself. "A minnow today, a leviathan tomorrow."
I don’t hesitate. I know the counter-sign.
"But the Abyss always remembers," I reply, holding his gaze. "A First Expansion proverb. My father used to say it."
The effect is immediate.
The rag in his hand drops to the counter with a wet thud.
The old man freezes. The cynicism that coated his eyes like armor cracks and falls away, replaced by a raw, haunted look of recognition. He stares at me, his pupils dilating, as if he isn’t seeing a skinny rookie anymore, but a ghost from the trenches standing in his bar.
He swallows hard, his hand trembling slightly as it hovers over the wood. The air between us shifts from customer and merchant to something heavier.
"You know your history," he whispers, his voice losing its gruff edge, sounding suddenly hollow.
He frowns, looking at my hands, then at the latrine door. The idea of a man who knows the Old Proverbs scrubbing toilets clearly offends his sense of dignity. My gamble paid off.
"I’m not wasting a sharp eye on shit-duty," he grunts.
He reaches under the counter and tosses me a heavy iron key.
"The exhaust fans in the basement. They’re clogging up. The air down here is getting stale, and customers are complaining about headaches."
Bingo.
I catch the key. Exhaust fans run on pure OXI cores. You don’t let a starving stranger near your power source unless you trust him completely.
"I can do that," I say, pocketing the key.
"It’s messy work," he warns, his voice gruff but lacking the earlier hostility. "Grease, soot, residue. But I’ll pay fifty Scales if you get it running smooth."
"Deal."
I walk behind the counter to the trapdoor he points out. He thinks he’s doing me a favor. He thinks he’s giving the ’poor veteran’ a dignified job out of pity.
He has no idea.
I descend the creaky wooden stairs into the basement. It’s dark, smelling of mold, malt, and old onion. The hum of the great ventilation turbines fills the room, vibrating through the soles of my boots.
I approach the main intake. It’s disgusting.
The filters are caked in layers of crystallized blue sludge. It’s not mold. It’s OXI Precipitate—fuel that hasn’t fully burned during the recycling process.
I run a finger through the goo. It’s thick, potent, and volatile.
"Decades," I whisper. "This hasn’t been cleaned in decades."
I think back to the future I came from. Four years from now, a Guild called Silver Flow will "discover" the Rune of Purification. They will charge a fortune to clean these systems, monopolizing the service and becoming billionaires overnight.
They claimed it was complex, proprietary magic.
It isn’t. It’s high-school chemistry applied to mana.
I look at the clogged filter. I don’t need a rag. I need a catalyst.
I look around. No tools. Just the jagged edge of a metal grate.
I sigh. "Fragile body, don’t fail me."
I press my thumb against the sharp metal and slice.
I Wince.
Blood wells up, bright red and vital.
[System Alert: Minor Injury.]
[OXI: 804 -> 794]
"Ten OXI for a scratch?" I mutter. "Damn Rank F physiology."
I don’t waste the blood. I press my bleeding thumb against the metal casing of the turbine and begin to draw.
Not a random doodle. A specific, geometric sequence.
The Rune of Condensation.
The moment the circle closes, the magic takes hold.
HISS.
The room temperature drops ten degrees instantly. The rune glows a violent crimson, reacting chemically with the blue sludge. The reaction is aggressive. The "grime" on the filters doesn’t vanish; it contracts.
The physics of the rune forces the scattered OXI residue to bind together, pulling every microscopic particle of wasted fuel into a single point of mass. The blue slime ripples, hardens, and then—clatter.
A small handful of crystallized gemstones fall from the filters onto the stone floor.
Shards.
I kneel and pick them up. They hum with power.
"One, two... six."
I frown, weighing the six jagged crystals in my hand. "Only six Shards? Decades of buildup and only six hundred Scales? The atmospheric density in this era is worse than I remember."
But then, the air in front of me shatters into golden text.
DING.
[System Alert: Hidden Achievement Unlocked!]
[Title: Rune Pioneer (Chemistry)]
[Condition: First user to successfully deploy a Condensation Rune in the E-Rank Zone.]
[Reward: +12.5 Shards (High Purity)]
[...]
[Anomaly Detected - Ranking Divergence]
[Recalculating Reward based on Difficulty Curve...]
[...]
What’s going on?
[Achievement by Rank-F User in E-Zone — Hazard Bonus 100% Applied]
[New Reward: 25 Shards (High Purity)]
A heavy, spectral pouch materializes in my inventory space. I blink, then a grin splits my face.
"A pioneer bonus plus a handicap multiplier for this trash body in a high-rank zone?" I chuckle, weighing the pouch. "I’ll take it."
6 from the grime. 25 from the System.
31 Shards total.
I just made 3,100 Scales in thirty seconds.
"What the hell, old man?" I whisper, looking up at the ceiling. "You’ve been sitting on a gold mine of filth."
The turbines, now perfectly clean, spin up with a silent, powerful hum. The air in the basement instantly clears, becoming crisp and sweet.
Job done.
I check my inventory. Richer than I’ve ever been in this timeline.
I climb back up the stairs.
The bartender is wiping the counter. He sees me emerge after less than five minutes and frowns, disappointment etched into his wrinkles.
"Giving up already?" he asks. "I told you it was tough work. The grease cakes on hard."
I toss the key onto the counter. It clatters loudly.
"Done," I say.
He blinks. "Done? You went down there to look and came back?"
"I went down there and cleaned it."
"In five minutes?" He scoffs, crossing his arms. "Don’t lie to me, kid. I know what that grime is like. It takes a chisel to get it off."
"Check for yourself."
I turn to leave.
The bartender hesitates. He looks at the key, then at the vent on the wall.
The air blowing out of it isn’t the usual wheeze. It’s a strong, steady breeze. And it smells... clean. Like the sea surface.
He rushes out from behind the counter, opening the trapdoor. He peers into the darkness.
He freezes.
The turbines are spinning so fast they are a blur. The metal casing is shining like it was installed yesterday. There isn’t a speck of blue dust anywhere.
He slowly stands up, his mouth slightly open. He looks at me like I just performed a miracle.
[Hadal Notoriety: +7]
He clears his throat, struggling to find his voice.
"I... The payment," he stammers, fumbling for his pouch. "Fifty Scales. I promised."
I stop at the door and look back over my shoulder. I don’t want his fifty Scales. I want his influence. I want the mystery.
I offer him a crooked, knowing grin.
"Keep it," I say. "Put it on my tab."
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