12 The door to freedom

The ladder lead up to a ledge overlooking the room, and pausing for a while to calm down his nerves, Finn managed to see the conclusion of the battle downstairs. As expected, the rat came out on top and started its feast.

Slightly grossed out, he looked around for a way forward and was happy to see a passage leading further up. Following it up a few steps and around another corner he arrived at another door. Dreading being forced to return down to the murky waters, he tried opening it. Nothing, the door was locked.

Unlike the heavy metal doors down in the sewers, this door was wood, and although it didn't open, Finn decided to use brute force to break it open. Putting his weight into some heavy kicks at the middle of the door, he heard it creak as it warped inward a little to absorb the force. Putting his stuff on the floor to the side, he took a running start and body slammed the door. There was a cracking sound coming from the wood near the hinges.

Pausing to rub his sore shoulder, Finn crouched down to examine the hinges. It seemed that the door was meant to keep people out of the sewers because both hinges where on his side of the door. Noticing they were accessible, he excitedly grabbed his dagger and worked on detaching the door from the hinge. A few screws later and a broken tip on his dagger, he had managed to remove one hinge. The other was too tightly stuck so it was back to kicking the door down.

With the force no longer spread over two locations, the increased load caused the wood around the remaining hinge to splinter and crack. A few more kicks and another body slam finally resulted in it crashing down into what was another small room.

The air in the room smelled fresher than below, and seeing another door, Finn picked up his stuff and rushed over to try it. Finding it unlocked, he let out a sigh of relief. Opening it slightly he saw a starry night sky up above, slightly hidden behind the clouds and the smoke rising from nearby chimneys. The door seemed to open up into some back alley between two buildings. The fishy smell of the sea was a welcome change after what he had been through.

'This must be near the harbor, Finn thought. Although he hadn't been to this part of the city, he knew it was part of the poorer part of town. The area was known to have an abundance of unsavory characters due to the thriving smuggling business, and Finn didn't have the energy to deal with any more danger at the moment.

Exhausted from hours of running through tunnels and sewers, fighting off over-sized vermin with nothing but a pouch of jerky to eat, Finn shut the door and slumped down against it in the small room.

Getting up only after wiping some tears of relief away and eating the last of his meat jerky, he tried to prop the broken door back up into its frame. Succeeding by jamming bits of splintered wood between it and the frame, he decided to sleep before dealing with the outside world and his newfound freedom. He drank some more water using the blue magic stick and sat down with his back against the door to the outside.

Feeling safe with the rats and other monsters unable to climb the ladder he used to get up, and leaning against the door which opened inwards, he fell asleep confident that he would wake up if anyone tried to open one of the doors.