"We're here." Toad announced.

Ramirez gripped the sides of the little boat for balance, the softly lapping water causing the wooden hull of the boat to knock gently against the waiting doc. He was using the word dock generously of course since it was not so much a dock as a stone landing at the base of the canal. Maverick stepped out of the boat and Ramirez looked up into the darkness an uneasy feeling rising in his chest.

He had just gotten used to the noise and bustle of second city, but now the world around them was silent and dark. Great monolithic pillars stretched up into the darkness, and without the glow of lanterns from second city, the ceiling was lost in shadow. Behind them, the echo of second city was still present as a sort of indistinct white noise.

The ghost of the city. Ramirez thought, and then shook himself.

What was with the morbid thoughts all of a sudden.

Toad leaned against his steering pole , "Never understood why you came down here." In the half darkness and quiet his voice sounded hollow and eerie, and when his voice broke the silence Ramirez winced, like someone was talking loudly in the middle of a church ceremony. Toad glanced over at Ramirez, his one visible eye glittering darkly from under his hood, "She's the only person I know who will even come this far. Most of your regular people don't venture down to church row. Not unless they don't want to come back up."

Ramirez's heart skipped a beat, and his face went numb,

Maverick huffed, "Stop being a dipshit, toad." She looked over at Ramirez, "no one has ever gone missing on church row, I promise."

He nodded, but the bastard had definitely gotten to him.

Toad raised a hand in farewell as he pushed himself back from the dock, "Suit yourselves. You couldn't pay me to go down there." He cackled rather darkly, "Take care of yourselves, if you can."

Ramirez felt another shiver run up his spine as he watched the porter's lantern recede into the distance.

The sloshing of water receded and then died away leaving the two of them standing on the maw of.... Complete blackness. Ramirez found himself wanting to do literally anything else but keep going, but even as he thought that, Maverick was clambering her way up the next few stairs. It didn't occur to him to let her go alone, partially for her safety and partially for his. He would rather walk into the mouth of hell with her at his back than wait here alone.

And that was a face.

He caught up with her at the top of the stairs squinting into the darkness where indistinct black shapes hunched. As his eyes worked to adjust, he thought he saw the distant flickering of light.

"Where are we."

"This is the OutDark."

"Do you guys have any names that don't sound like dystopian cyberpunk fantasy?" He muttered trying to brighten the atmosphere with levity, though his efforts guttered like the dim flickering of a candle.

"You have to give us a little fun." She said stepping into the dark."

"So Why is it that no one lives here." Ramirez wondered keeping his voice low.

Maverick turned to look at him, and without the glowing blacklight, the skin of her head and face was back to normal, her blacklight tattoo invisible, "Whoever said that no one lived here."

That caused another sharp spike of concern to run up his spine.

Maverick turned back into the dark, "No part of Second city is without its denizens, not even third city and church row." She motioned a hand to the darkness around her, "The Outdark attracts a strange sort of person, which is why no one else has bothered to move into this space. I would keep your weapon handy."

Ramirez swallowed hard letting his hand hover over his sidearm.

"What do you mean, strange."

"Its no surprise that most of second city is comprised of the homeless population. Drugs and poor mental health are some of the biggest issues you are going to witness, but even then second city was designed and maintained by people with some measure of common sense. They still use currency, and they still know how to run businesses. Its just most of the time, their habits or behavior make it almost impossible for them to get jobs up top." She waved a hand to the darkness around them, "Here is a bit different. This place attracts people who have gone.... Over the edge."

Ramirez certainly didn't like how that sounded.

"For some reason people who have really lost it are attracted to the solitude and the dark. There are no communities here because Outdark people are kind of loners, or so wrapped up in delusions or hallucinations that they don't know what they are anymore..... then of course there are the fleshmen."

Ramirez gave her a look, "Can you guys seriously stop making everything so damn scary. The Outdark and the fleshmen. I am would be literally shitting my pants right now if it were not for my well developed and perfectly functional sphincter muscles."

"Good to know you regularly practice your kegel exercises."

"Shut up."

She grinned at him from the half-darkness, and he would have smiled back if it weren't for the shadow he saw flickering at the edge of his vision.

"What exactly are the fleshmen then?" he said lowering his hand to the butt of his gun eyes darting around in the darkness.

Maverick's voice was low when she spoke, "There is a certain class of men who.... Well they like hurting people, for fun."

"We talking like serial killers?"

"It sounds bad when you put it like that, but I guess that's sort of the case. People go missing in the Outdark all the time, and their bodies are rarely found so we can't be sure, but I have a feeling that there are men out here who use the opportunity of the Outdark to fulfill some of their more violent fantasies. Its an easy source of prey considering that a lot of the people in the Outdark are already without family or friends anyway, and their mental health has collapsed to the a point that's beyond much help except for the professional kind which they aren't going to get out here."

Ramirez glanced back over his shoulder towards second city, "I thought you said social workers came down here all the time."

She laughed, "Sure they do, but not to the outdark." Something skittered through the darkness and Ramirez turned on his toes to peer into the blackness but saw nothing. He had broken out in a cold sweat now, and could feel thin lines of water rolling down his back to absorb into his shirt.

"You know people with mental illness are overrepresented in victim populations." Maverick was saying, "Well here that statistic is even worse. The Flesh men pray on the Outdarkers with some regularity."

Ramirez turned in a slow circle as they walked, "And you... you lived out here."

"In the Outdark? No." She laughed, "Not on your life. I passed through sometimes of course since it's the most direct rout to second city."

Even thinking about the idea made Ramirez's jaw clench, thinking about a young Maverick in her teens slipping through the outdark where the "fleshmen" plied their craft, She would have been all alone then, young and vulnerable and.... And.

The image in his head was just too horrific.

How she managed to survive and.... In one relative piece was incredible. Looking at her now he couldn't help but worry there were other things about her past she was withholding. Perhaps bottling up, maybe things she wouldn't tell him because she didn't want to relive them. it was hard to imagine her growing up here and NOT having secrets to keep.

"black.... Black.... Black the dark one comes back." Less than a second from holster to hand and Ramirez was pointing the muzzle of his gun into the dark.

Well he realized, not completely dark. There was a source of extremely dim ambient light which seemed to illuminate part of the Outdark in faded bubbles of light. Standing, or more accurately crouching in one of these pools was a man. He was almost completely hairless, and mostly naked except for a cloth tied around his waist. His body was incredibly thin, the bones of his pelvis looking as if they were trying to tear their way out of his skin, but even so, the man possessed an abundance of long, lean muscle stretched taught across his hairless chest and wiry limbs."

Maverick held out a hand, "Don't, he won't try anything."

Ramirez did not lower his gun, "Estás desquiciada mujer!" His hands didn't tremble as he held the gun locked on the crouching man, who had an eerily Gollum quality about him. "Who is this guy anyway? Do you know him?"

"I am better, the better predator." The man cackled

Maverick continued to hold up her hand to hold him back, "Bastard doesn't have a name, they just call him the Rhymer, but don't worry he won't hurt us. We aren't his type."

"Well who is his type?"

"The men the men the men of flesh, like them warm and like them fresh." The Rhymer cackled shifting from one foot to the other with immense glee.

Ramirez felt suddenly very nauseous, "The hell is that supposed to mean."

Maverick reached out, grabbing the barrel of his gun and forcing it down though she didn't make him holster it, "Calm down, Ramirez. I owe the Rhymer my life on a couple of occasions, though I admit it isn't out of the goodness of his heart."

The man giggled.

"What do you mean?"

She motioned around her, "this is his territory, the path that leads to first and second city is his hunting ground. And don't let him fool you, he may act insane, but he isn't." Ramirez turned back around to look at the man who suddenly stood, straightening into a normal posture.

He frowned at maverick, "Done ruining my fun?'

She snorted, "let me pass."

"The black one waits, waits and hates." He responded before skittering off into the darkness. Before Ramirez knew it the man had vanished into the black.

"The fuck was that." He demanded.

"Rhymer is.... An odd case. I'm not sure if he's an OUtdarker or a fleshman, but his primary prey is other fleshmen if he is. I think he likes the challenge, and he won't hurt us, because we will attract the attention of his prey."

Ramirez swallowed "So he's using us like bait."

She nodded, "Sort of like an anglerfish."

"Fan-fricking-tastic." He grumbled, keeping close to her shoulder as she led him off into the dark, through rubble and past nondescript dark buildings hunched in blackness. He didn't dare think what might be lurking in there, and on more than one occasion Ramirez though he heard the shuffling of feet somewhere in the dark. The more he saw of this place, the more he imagined Maverick growing up here, the more nauseous he became.

He wanted to hug her, but knew she didn't like hugs all that much.

How was she ok?

At all?

"Almost there." Maverick muttered

Ramirez found that he liked that pronouncement even less than he liked being here. She pointed ahead but he saw nothing but darkness.

"Just a little further."

And then an eruption of scuttling in the dark. Someone shouted and then there was a loud meaty thud. Ramirez leaped out of his skin and drew his weapon, but eh couldn't find where the noise was coming from. He spun in a tight circle, but Maverick grabbed him by the arm and hauled him forward.

"Die die die, trapped like a fly." He heard echoing behind him as they ran the last few yards, squeezing themselves into a narrow dark tunnel. It was almost completely dark now, and he was blind. He hated every moment of it expecting to feel someone grab him from behind. He kept his gun at the ready as Maverick hauled him forward so scared his entire body was tingling and shaking. But soon maverick slowed and the darkness dissipated until a dim sort of diffused light was again illuminating their path. They stood on a tall bridge over a vast black chasm. White, blue fog filled the void below them, and stalagmites jutted upwards alongside pillars as they stood.

"Mother shit! What the hell was that?'

"that is why we don't shoot the Rhymer." Maverick said, grabbing him by the hand, "calm down, we are almost there."

Almost there sounded like somewhere he didn't want to be, but he continued to follow her downward into the dark. They walked through what seemed to be an endless maze of tunnels, until eventually they squeezed through one last opening, stepping out into, what Ramirez could only describe was a city street lost in time. Cracked pavement stood before them, and the faded yellow paint of the center line was still visible. Crumbling sidewalks ran in front of the crumbling facades of large steepled buildings their once white points crumbling away with time.

But that wasn't what he noticed first.

As Ramirez stepped out onto the street, he became acutely aware of a feeling. A horrible overwhelming feeling of oppressive darkness. The fear that had plagued him since their first steps into the Outdark flared hot inside him lancing inward through his skin and down to his very bones. His heart began to race and he felt like he was choking.

Like a great invisible hand had taken hold of them.

In the near darkness Maverick's face had gone white. Her lips moved softly, and her voice was barely audible as she made her pronouncement.

"It's here."