Merelda points in the direction of Him with her newly coiled whip.
"We best keep together! Move people! Follow Him for now! Just keep your wits about you and try to stay away
from the watch! And for the goddess's sake if you see a hole in the ground that might be what we are looking
for, shout out!"
Merelda starts running after Him keeping her eyes open for anything that might help their situation at all.
"Ah, then t'is the stuff of heroes we are about! This is what I am born for by The Dawnflower's silky bosom! Surely fate will reward us for a good deed," Him calls back, imbueing the last sentence with more than a touch of sarcasm.
Lililinda starts, looks up from the comatose guards, and realizes everyone is running off. "Wha- wait for me!"
Running and puffing her way through yet another unknown part of town, Merelda turns to Kirzon and asks a question.
"Are all...Keleshite so....annoyingly smug?...Or is...it just...this one?"
Running east the wooden planks of the docks turns into a stone paved lane. As you pass by a number of warehouses, shops and other businesses you notice that the shouting has stopped and quickly move to navigate towards where you last think the shout was heard.
You travel about two hundred feet down the lane when you Merelda calls for Him to stop. About fifty feet away she points off to the side in the direction of a couple of warehouses. Separating the two buildings you see dark alley roughly fifteen wide. In the alley, you notice someone laying face down on the ground. The person does not seem to be moving nor do you see anyone else around this person.
Merelda will cast light on a copper coin and toss it into the alley close to the body.
She will move in closer if things look clear, whip in hand.
"I see the Quadiran rushes forward and suddenly the guard appears as he is leaning over a corpse," Him mutters as he rushes forward, to check on the fallen person, wary of a trick, but not prepared to allow paranoia to prevent the possibility of saving a life.
Scimitar in hand, but concealed in his cloak he approaches looking for signs of injury, or treachery.
Merelda tosses the coin around the body just a little after Him also reaches the body. With the light source it is easy enough to see the pool of blood forming around the body. The man is dressed in a seafaring uniform of some sort.
Turning over the body you see he has suffered various wounds, but of most interest are the three bolts you find buried in his upper torso. Nearby the body you see a hand ax.
"I can't tell. Are those small-sized bolts? While I hate to admit it, but Lililinda may have been right about
them continuing to be up to no good. Spread out and look for clues to where they went."
Merelda heads deeper into the alley, on hunch.
"This could be the work of our cultists, do we try to follow?"
Merelda, a smirk of relief on her face activates her Ioun torch, and lets it hover in lazy circles over her head.
Looking back over her shoulder at the group in a dramatic pose of whip on hip and skin-tight thigh-high boots, she
turns on her toes and points at the grate near her feet.
"Here we go! Looks like the captain got himself taken out because he was blocking their exit? Probably pissing
in the corner of the alley after a night's carousing."
"Ah, finally some fortune, well spotted Merelda. Do we leave the body, it could draw the watch's attention and I am not sure we want that now? It may be a little disrespectful, but we could drag him down below for the time being perhaps?" Him says, frowning down at the corpse.
"Good idea Him. That will work assuming we can get the grate open. Nicias! Come help me with this.
Do you have any acid handy if we need to melt these bars?"
Moving to the grate again she looks for a handle/latch/switch/hinge to see how to open the grate at all.
Or if it is just a brute force kind of thing.
"Kirzon! Please try and orient yourself now to see if you can place us on the map were we will be once
we get down there."
'Merelda! Did you just say please? You haven't done that since you were a child!'
"Maybe in normal circumstances, but there may now be certain guard s with an entirely unreasonable grudge against us, no? I would prefer not to taken the chance of getting stuck between a rock and a guard's mace," Him says, taking a grip upon the dead man's coat and beginning to slowly drag him towards the grate,
"May the Lady care for your soul, my unfortunate friend."
There is no lever that you can spot. It looks like you'll need to use good ole brute force to pick this one up.
"Good training if nothing else," Him says, squatting down and straining his scrawny arms, to his astonishment the grate shifts and he manages to pull it clear, "slowly but surely!"
Merelda smiles.
"Good job Him! You are stronger than you look."
She then drops her lit coin down the grate opening to get a look of where they are going. Her Ioun Torch is
still floating around over her head slowly and casting moving shadows on the edge of everybody's vision.
The grate although heavy lifts easily enough off the drain. Taking off the grate you look down and from Merelda's ioun torch you see a ladder heading down a shaft. As the coin drops you see the shaft is about 20 foot long and then it opens up into a room below that is about 20 ft high. The coin lands in a puddle on the stone floor below.
Also it seems that the ladder only goes as far as the length of the shaft.
Merelda squints at the group.
"I used my rope on the witch and forgot to retrieve it. Probably diseased by now anyway. Anybody else have some?"
"Not me sadly. I could probably drop down with minimal pain if need be, or we could try to throw stuff down to cushion our falls, bedrolls perhaps?" The Keleshite says, looking down at the drop dubiously.
"I do have my hammock, if I tied that to the last rung we could climb down it to lessen the drop."
Looking doubtfully at the dead sailor, Merelda looks around again.
"There is the body I guess...But let's worry about that as a last resort. Does anybody have a magical solution possibly?"
Innis offers her rope to the group and they make their preparations to descend. She taps Him'Wazir with his wand of armor as he requests and activates her own protection then looks down into the dark pit and sighs an equal measure of challenge and opportunity before her if fortune provides...
Innis uses a Blessing of the Faithful to channel Calistria's gaze upon which now lingers on Him'Wazir
She also draws upon her power of luck and holds it close
Merelda casts Protection From Evil on Him just before he descends.
Having insured the rope is secure and received protections from his new allies Him says,
"Twice blessed, surely now I am invinsible?" And adds, wearing a wicked half smile, "Ah hubris my old friend, never again."
He descends careful to keep his weight on the rope rather than trust a ladder that has been in a sewer for The Dawnflower knows how long. Once he exits the shaft he pauses scanning the room, and if he sees nothing of note continues, struggling to make progress on the rope with his pitiful physique, but eventually managing to progress and leaping down the last ten feet landing scimitar drawn and whirling about searching for potential threats in the light of Merelda's coin.
Merelda silently checks the body of the dead sailor for anything of value or use while Him is climbing down.
Innis climbs down the ladder while maintaining a grip on the rope and waits for the all clear as Him'Wzir makes the final descent "Remember what is given can be taken away. Your blood has been up since the night's...activities have began I would see it tempered with caution and wisdom."
Lililinda has been staring like a haunted war veteran for a few minutes now. The fact that she would need to crawl into a sewer with her good dress on must have finally sunk in.
She wrings at the wand in her hands, her breathing growing quick and shallow. She emits a nearly inaudible high, thin noise.
Lililinda jumps at being addressed directly, answering a little too loudly "YES! Yes, it can be cleaned and mended, magically! I can do this! Just, just give me a moment..."
She takes a few deep breaths, slips the wand into her bag, shifts the bag onto her back, and, before she can have second thoughts, quickly starts down the ladder.
Before climbing down Him ties a series of knots along the last thirty feet of rope, reducing the length to twenty feet knotted. This done, with a somewhat brittle smile, he allows Kirzon to drape Boros over his shoulders, gets protective blessings from Merelda and Innis and carefully descends.
Dropping the last ten feet, he stoops, to allow Boros off, draws his scimitar and spins looking for danger.
"How deep is it, Him?" Lililinda calls down, looking decidedly green.
"Forty feet, the shaft is twenty and this chamber seems to be about the same height again," Him calls back up, scanning the shadows.