After entering the manhole Thea covered her nose, the scent hanging here was thick. It wasn't the normal scent of shit and piss, the scent hanging here was the scent of death.
"I thought shooting off into space would keep them safe from animals like this." Thea remarked whilst looking at claw marks on the wall.
"I don't think this was an animal, the marks are too deep yet straight to be made with claws. This was made with a weapon of some kind."
It was like someone had made artificial claws using knives.
"Why do you think it smells like death down here?"
"I have no idea, these are sewers but I heard that a lot of people disappear in Atlantis maybe, if this is where they go then we know what happened to them."
We walked in the direction of the guy we were following and found something weird. There were cogs lying on the ground here.
They were thin and bloodied, the only problem was that if they were used to wound someone they would've definitely been bent yet they were as straight as can be.
We followed the trail that that man seemingly left behind. The farther we went the more the stink of death became prominent.
The trail led to a door. "Why would they place a door in the sewers? Even if it didn't smell like death nobody would want to live in the sewers."
Thea was right, it was strange. I went to the door to open it, little did I know that it would be both the best and worst decision of my entire life.
When the door opened the first thing Thea did was puke, we had found the source of the smell.
Beyond the door was what looked to be some kind of workshop. It had cages and a pile of torsos with a hole where a heart should be.
The bodies belonged to multiple races and they ranged from an adult corpse to the small corpse of a baby.
The only living people in this workshop was a man who was working on a body. That body belonged to the man we were following and the mystery of the bloody gears was solved. The man we were following wasn't a man. He was some sick kind of machine made with the body parts of living creatures.
There was a second living being in here. A girl, no older than fifteen, sitting in a cage were she could barely move her body.
After seeing this I was angry, the image of my dead mother and sisters flashing before my eyes. I may have ... accepted the death of my father since I was able to talk to him but my mom and sisters were another fact, I had pushed those emotions down and seeing all those mutilated bodies brought them back.
The elements were moving around me in torrents. It was strong enough to bring the man out of his concentration.
He turned around. "Oh, a few volunteers to become dolls. Yes, yes, but Dollmaker, you must never trust them until they have become your friends."
His voice was hoarse and it was obvious that he had gone insane a long time ago.
"Now now, don't be scared, I won't hurt you. I will make you my friend, oh, yes yes."
The little girl was cowering, she seemed to have seen this happen multiple times.
Those things, he seemed to call them dolls, started to move. "How is he doing that, are they voice activated or something?"
"Thea, I think he's got an ability or is using magic. see that one there, the cogs in him aren't turning yet he's still able to move perfectly fine."
I started to move, attacking all of them yet I didn't have any effect, if you cut off the head they just kept moving, their limbs also didn't seem to be an important part of their bodies.
I tried to move towards the man himself, The Dollmaker he was called, but the amount of puppets was too great.
When I threw a knife a puppet would just take the hit.
I never thought I would have difficulties with a horde of dispensable minions but when you can't kill them there's nothing you can do.
It was obvious that we wouldn't be able to stop him.
My license, which was just an electronic bracelet that doubled as a watch, made a noise.
'The Dollmaker detected. Warning, mission difficulty has risen from E to Demigod level. retreat immediately.'
I quickly freed the girl and we ran, moving as fast as we could.
When we emerged our bracelets said something else.
'Sending for reinforcements of at least Demigod level, sending messages to the Atlantean council, City going into lockdown until further notice, go to the tower and debrief to the Demigod level hero when they arrive.'
Oh boy, we got ourselves in a lot of trouble.