*Malcom POV*
*Location: Gotham City, New Jersey*
*Date: January 1st, 2002*
Exiting the building, I began flipping a coin in the air as I got a map out, and Wallace followed behind me. Speaking of which, who names their kid Wallace, Wallace, sounds like a construction company that gave up at the start for one reason or another.
"So, Wallace, where'd you say you work at, more specifically, where the sewer entrance you were talking about is?"
He leaned over my shoulder, looking over the old map I found, still in pretty good condition. The problem was that a few locations were off or no longer there entirely, like the old Gotham Theatre, been replaced with a decent restaurant, not five stars, but decent enough for the time I found myself in.
"Yeah, should be right about here, near the northeast docks, right about here." He said, pointing to the edge of the map.
Nodding, I stopped flipping my coin, a nice little quarter covered in old blood, my blood. A nice little magical artifact I cooked up to save on cab fare, one that I had to spend some time recovering from, not just wrapping my bandages up but also mana/stamina-wise.
"NEPO, NEPO, ROOD FO SRELLEVART"
"EHT ERAF I ERFFO SI SHAC, EMAN ROUY ECIRP."
Instantly, a blue portal opened up and a price hung over, '$1.25', pretty cheap, but hey, it didn't just take cash, it also took an unseen price. It would drain a bit of my stamina, but nowhere near the first time I made this neat little coin. Ruffling through my pockets, I got a couple of coins out and tossed them into the portal, which instantly turned green, ready to be entered and used.
"All right, all good to go." I said as I began walking through, noticing the wide-eyed surprise crystal clear on Wallace.
"Wh-Wh-What just happened, what is that?!" He said, pointing at the portal, now shaking and a bit afraid, if I was being honest, well, it looked like it to me.
"You came for a Magician Wallace, a magic man for a supernatural problem, don't worry shouldn't be too disorienting, even for first-timers, saves on cab fare."
With that said, I took a step inside and was instantly right at the edge of the docks, right where the sewer entrance was. That was also when I started to feel my skin tingle, something I don't normally feel that often, something that I only feel around the more...supernatural parts of Gotham. Felt like Phantom Skin syndrome, my own version of Phantom Limb syndrome. Then Wallace stepped through, nearly falling to the ground and nearly stumbling into the open sea. Luckily, I was here and caught him by the scruff of his collar.
"Careful now, don't want you to get yourself all wet, who knows what this thing is doing to the local water."
Before he could answer, he leaned down over the water and began puking his guts out, getting what I'm guessing is a combination of his breakfast, lunch, and dinner all at once. I'm not ashamed to say I didn't chuckle a little bit, not loud enough for him to hear, but still. Reminded me of the first time I used the dman thing, took me out for about five minutes, I think, before I was all good to go. Luckily for him, though, he looked a bit stronger than I as he slowly got up, grabbing a napkin out of his coat and wiping it all off.
Once he was all done, I helped get him up as I put the coin away, not needing the gate anymore, nor wanting to be charged again for keeping it open too long. God knows that happened a few too many times. I could also feel a bit of my strength leaving my body, weakening me for a bit, but hopefully not before I find out where this thing is taking the homeless.
"You alright, Wallace?"
"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine, just uh...just need to catch my breath, that's all, not used to whatever that was." He said, shaking his head as we began walking toward the sewer entrance, well, the ladder portion of it anyway.
As we climbed down it, I began smelling something, something truly foul, something that stank of magic. Alongside every other foul smell you could imagine, I nearly had to stop myself from gagging, but it looked like Wallace was fine.
"Ya, alright down there, Mr...Huh, I don't think I ever got your name."
As I reached the final step, I dusted myself off, preparing for the grimy journey ahead, now regretting my choice in white trench coats. Oh well, in my chosen profession, you had to get your hands dirty every once in a while.
"Sorry about that, I get... absorbed into these things, the names Malcom, no last name."
As he got down, he had a quizzical look on his face, probably weirded out by that little tidbit, but well, this work would always be strange.
"Well, Malcom, I don't suppose you'd tell me what kind of strange we're dealing with?"
Hearing that, I got out a match, no lighter, and sprinkled a bit of magic on it, lighting it up and getting a better view of this place. Looking around, I could smell both the stank of magic and the sewers themselves. Like it was calling out to me for some reason, like it knew what I was and what I was doing here.
"Well, if my hunch is right, we're dealing with a...well, parasite can be a good word to describe them, these things feed off of fear, fear gives them power, and all that crap."
"In your case, though, this one seems to be doing far more, taking people and doing who knows what with them, and your...condition as well, seems to like you or something."
Honestly, when you took a look at this place, you'd hardly think it was a sewer, well, an active one anyway, a bit too clean for one. It looked like it was brand new, like none of the disgust of the city ever made it this far; hell, there was only a trickle of water going down, definitely not enough to make whatever the hell I was smelling.
"Huh, well, at least one person likes it, speaking of which, any-any chance you could help out with it after this is all done?"
I shrugged my shoulders as I got a sharpie out and made a wide circle on the side of the sewer wall, painting a few alchemical symbols. Mostly superficial stuff, nothing that actually impacted my little magiical ritual, but rather guided my spell to a specific location, gave it an intended target. No, the spell itself was going to help see if my little theory was right, that this little section of reality was being well corrupted by The Corruption, but I just had to be sure because I didn't know for a fact it wasn't another entity at work.
"Sorry, but until I know just what being is doing all this, I can't really tell you and even then...I'm sorry to say, but it could be unrelated to it as well."
He chuckles a bit as I finish the last bits of my spell and begin channeling a tiny bit of mana into it, letting my large-scale identify spell see if it can find something, anything, and tell me what I was dealing with.
"Well...at least you're honest about it. None of the doctors I've seen gave me a straight answer, either, just said more testing and all that."
"Sorry to hear that. Hopefully, I can help a tiny bit, but if not, maybe I can at least make it less itchy and painful."
I think he smiled, and I looked over my shoulder to see if I was right, only to be met with disgust as a new smell entered the cave. The classic foul stench from the city's garbage and other...unpleasantness, and I nearly gag on it. Looking back at the circle, I saw a new symbol appear where the circle once was, a pile of garbage and various insects all over it, every disgusting thing you could imagine all in one place, and letting out a stench that could kill.
I quickly wiped it away, sending away the magic and foul stench, being replaced by the usual stuff that, at this point, I was pretty much useless.
"Looks like we're dealing with The Corruption, nasty piece of work that one, loves places like this, or anywhere that invokes a feeling of disgust, revulsion, or even the toxicness of a person."
"Either way, this may get both complicated and...disgusting depending on what we're dealing with."
"Either way, we need to go further in, or well, if ya want I-" He stopped me before I could finish as he held up his hand.
"I appreciate the offer, Malcom, but I-I-I need to see if these people are ok, most of this city gave up on them, I don't want to be one of them."
I smiled underneath my bandages, knowing that even if this guy wasn't Waylon Jones, he certainly had his attitude. I knew that certain versions of Killer Croc took care of the homeless, made sure they had a place to sleep, and defended them when needed, or at least that's mostly what I assumed. Even then, I wasn't sure if this guy was truly the Killer Croc of this reality. This was mostly guesswork, I knew Bruce Wayne was a big name here and that his parents died when he was 8, so the possibility of him being Batman is extremmly high.
Same as other DC stuff, this world had a Superman up in Metropolis, an Aquaman and Wonder Woman doing Diplomatic work, alongside all the other major names. That and this world did have a Justice Society, all retired and current whereabouts unknown, which was fair enough; they deserved the rest, and if they wanted back in the game, well, I would talk to them then. Assuming I wanted to get involved in all that stuff, the only reason I would is if those entities decided to play a larger role in this universe.
What if The Spiral decided Batman needed a thousand more Jokers, what if The Buried decided it didn't like the man in the Sky, what if Aquaman became The Vast new avatar? A million different ways it could go wrong, that could change this world, make it worse, and give them all the power.
Walking further into the sewers, that foul stench just got worse and worse over time, with more magic stinking the place up, and more flies appearing out of nowhere. Somehow there and not at the same time, sometimes covering the walls with their bodies and the ground with their corpses. Yet the crunch they made whenever I took a step forward, it-it-it didn't sound natural, sounded more like glass but far softer.
Both Wallace and I nearly puked seeing this all. A couple of my makeshift candles nearly went out, the flames turning from orange to a strange, disgusting green color. A sign of the fact that I was getting closer, closer to whatever anchor allowed The Corruption to lurk here. One of my few advantages when it came to these creatures was that they couldn't fully come to this plan, not without a grand ritual; the others would stop at nothing to see it fail.
"Wh-Wh-What the hell is that?!" Wallace yelled in horror as we reached what seemed like a dead end, but upon closer inspection, it was something else, something far more foul.
It was a mass of moving garbage, doing everything it could to block the rest of the passageway.
"I take it you all never came this far in for some reason?" I say equally as disgusted at this thing, but composing myself to remain calm.
"No-No-No, this place wasn't here before, it was just the same all the way through, I-I-I don't understand, why, why is it here now?"
I just sighed as I got out the same Sharpie I've been using all night and drew two things, one small circle and a smaller triangle inside of it. A bit less complicated than the scrying circle, but it was meant to break the hold The Corruption had on this part of reality, to help lead me to where the center of this foul act was.
"Because whatevers causing it, knows we here."