Neva's sighed at Rutter's talk of "after everyone being in bed" and she said "I don't even want to know." She waved him off with an I'm-not-listening gesture.
"All I know is that the stores won't be open until Moonday and so I'll plan to go then. Until then, I'm going to write another prayer and thank Pharasma for not giving me kids of my own. I'd just have to sit up all night worrying even more than I already do when they're out at all hours, drinking and 'shopping' and who knows what else they get up to when I'm not watching. I mean, really, it's enough..."
Her voice trailed off as she walked into another room and shut the door behind her.
Neva awoke on Sunday morning still worrying a bit about her companions. She had had a nightmare about trying to drag Felgar and Rutter to safety while strange, bony hands were grasping at their feet and hers.
Finishing her ablutions, she asked for a way to avoid such a fate and Pharasma answered her prayers.
Contented and refreshed, she made a few notes about the power of faith and slipped the parchment carefully into the pouch on her belt.
Raliscar wakes that Sunday morning and enjoys his usual cup of nearly boiling hot coffee. As Felgar comes in, Raliscar sits up and waves his cousin over, offering him a small cup of the same. "Here ye go, Runt! I fixed it up the same way ye like yer women: rich an' bitter! BWAHAHA!" He slaps his knee and leans back in the simple wooden chair, taking another satisfied sip from his cup, "Aaaahhh. 'Rich and bitter.' Hehe. I been thinkin' o' that all mornin'."
---
Later, when most of the group is gathered together, Raliscar brings up their plans for the following morning, "Felgar, are yerself or any o' you others needin' anything from the shops t'morrow that ye know of? I kin pick it up while I'm out or any o' yerselves are welcome ta tag along too if ye'd prefer. 'Company ain't a bad thing, less o' course it's sour' as our grandpap used ta say." He playfully elbows Felgar in the gut and shakes his head at the memory, knowing full well that his grandfather only ever said that particular phrase when his grandmother was in a particularly naggy mood.
Having come in late the night before, Rutter sleeps in in the morning. As people begin stirring, he manages to mutter, "On the table, gimme money when I'm up," before rolling over and pulling the tattered blanket over his head.
Ha, ha, ha! Rich n' Bitter. That be grande, Ral! Good joe, cous, and yes, I recall Pappy usin' those words.
He slaps 15 gp on the table.
Get me three Rutt! I'll be headin' to the docks with me cuz.
Neva tried to keep everyone quiet while Rutter slept. After putting her 5gp on the table, she took the blanch and started a fire.
She tended the flames so that everyone could apply the blanch as needed. The process reminded her of preparing tools for child birth.
Or surgery, she thought, and she began worrying again about the mysterious Doctors.
She whispered to the others. "I'll be ready to go this afternoon, once Rutter's awake. If you all want to."
"Well, I'd've liked some high boots ta go tromping through these sewers, but I kin make due wi' silverin' these bolts if ye all feel we need ta hop to it."
Vyshael nods, "I just need an hour to study my spellbook and I should be ready to go... and, of course, some time to treat some arrows and my blade."
Rutter gets up around noon and collects his money. He digs around under his cot and finds his chain shirt and changes for the trip into the sewers.
After everyone has gathered the appropriate materials, and suited up for the not-so-pleasant excursion into the underbelly of the city, you make your way to where Eries had said you would find the lair. As you arrive, you are aware she is standing not far off from the opening into the sewers, watching it nervously. She holds her hands together in a prayer-like fashion, pleadingly, as if asking to remember her request of not killing.
The opening is a bent and damaged sluice gate, with a bar or two missing, flowing out from under a bridge-like section of road. it flows in the open only briefly, before passing through another similar gate on the other side, only this one is not as damaged.
[ooc]Dwarves with darkvision up front.[\ooc]
Neva grimaced at the sluice gates. "Ugh. I guess we should figure out a way past those gates before all of us clamber down there."
She looked hopefully at Felgar and Rutter.
Can ya open it, Rut? Or, d'ya be needin' me arms or axe?
"I can carry the light. Will you cast it on this mace?" Rutter holds up his silver mace, and then enters the sewer. Once everyone's followed, he lets Felgar lead the way ahead.
"Lead on, Runt!" Raliscar offers Eries a nod before he slips through the busted sluice gate behind the others.
Vyshael nods, "No problem.", and casts the cantrip. "It'll need to be renewed every 50 minutes or so," he explains.
You all make your entrance between the orange-speckled rusted bars to climb down into the flowing filth of the Korvosan sewers. The smell on this nice spring day is certainly retch-worthy, but you manage to keep it from stopping you on the path to your goal. The tunnel itself is like a wide low hallway, with two thin ledges running along the sides, and a steady stream of... well a steady stream flowing through the middle. The depth is low enough that even Rutter could walk the bottom and only be waist deep. It heads off into the darkness for a fair clip, making a couple turns, but nothing to warrant marking to avoid getting lost down here.
Through the disgustingly visible haze of noxious sewer reek, the flow of unmentionable slop through the sewer tunnel’s filth-slick channel unexpectedly forks. Most continues on its expected path, but a small stream of ooze diverts off through a wide cleft in the moldy masonry wall. The man-sized crack cuts deep into the rock behind the wall, and wisps of thin white smoke issue forth.
As they passed the rusty bars, Neva said a prayer over Felgar, imbuing his breastplate with magical protection. "Guard this stout dwarf's heart, Lady"
Felgar glances over his shoulder and smiles broadly at neva.
Thanks, mi'Lady!
He hefts his axe in both hands and proceeds to the fork, and peers in.
Any preference?
"Follow the signs of life." Rutter suggests, nodding his head toward the cleft with the smoke emerging.
Vyshael says, "Let's see if these elven eyes let me see anything that you don't...", and peers down the hallway with Felgar.
The flow of sewer filth oozes into this rough-hewn stone cave, pooling near its center before continuing through a crude channel in the western wall where the dancing light of a decent sized fire can be seen. Fat black mushrooms and other disgusting fungus grow thick around the pool of slime. A low alcove is cut into the east wall just north of the diverted stream, filled with moldering hay, filthy furs, and tiny bones.
Vyshael whispers, "We need to be careful. That big one looks like a shrieker, and it'll alert everyone if it senses movement or light near it."
"Alright. We can try the other way. Unless Neva has that silence spell on her."
"How much movement would set it off, do ye think? Would say, a deftly an' expertly aimmed bolt piercin' through the fetid air be enough ta wake the overgrown mushroom?"
Vyshael says, "If you can destroy it cleanly with something so swift as a bolt, it shouldn't have a chance to shriek.. though it looks rather large and I'd worry we might not get enough of it with a bolt to prevent the noise."
Vyshael knows enough about it to know that it is not sentient, so killing it would just jostle it all the same. The shrieking is a release of gasses based off of nearby vibrations or light causing a reaction on the surface of the plant to retract the membranes that hold the gasses in.
Neva shook her head regretfully at Rutter's suggestion about the silence spell.
Vyshael says, "I would say we should try the other hallway first, at least. Either that or we rush past the shrieker but then leave behind a reason that it would have been triggered...." He then shrugs and adds, "..though I'm not carrying a housecat in any of my pouches."
Raliscar glumly lowers his crossbow as Vyshael advises its ineffectiveness. "Can any o' you others call animals or other critters to your side? We could do like Vyshael suggests an' hide 'round the corner then send a mouse or somesuch on ahead to make the thing scream. The bigger rats might think it just a false alarm." He pauses and glances behind back toward the main sewer, "Unless we want to turn 'round an' keep going through the sewers proper in the hopes o' findin' another entrance into the rats' den?"
Just be poihntin' me in one direction, and we'll be gettin' on.
"Let's check the other way first. Even if we have to come back and set it off, though, our first intent here is supposed to be reason, anyway. It'll seem less suspicious if we're not sneaking about."
Vyshael nods, "That was my thought, also, that we're better off going the way that doesn't alert everyone first." He then points directly at the shrieker and says, "But before we move on, everyone be on the lookout for a mushroom like that large purple one, just in case there are more."
"Sounds like rats - the normal kind - through there to the north."
Fine then, let's have at it.