At the third alley, Vera stops at Amelia's objection. "It's okay. We'll check it out for you."
Nodding at Elio, Vera heads down the alley, looking around warily.
Gar swipes the grime of dirt and sewage from his armor for the third time as he climbs to his knees. "I count 22 sewer rats, but no supernatural killers.". He follows close beside Vera, sword drawn in the dark alley.
In the third of the alleys, having found nothing of interest in the previous two...
The noise and confusion of the city are left behind as two alleys come together here to open into a remote courtyard, surrounded on all sides by mostly vacant, three-storey buildings. A few trees grow along the edges providing shade for a stone bench that sits beneath one of them. To the west, a thick cascade of withered vines grows upon a wall, mostly obscuring a n archway beneath them. Just barely visible beyond the vines is a gate of iron bars and at its arched top is a rusted iron plaque bearing a hammer and plumb bob sigil - the symbol of the sewagers and ironmongers guild... matching the key from Old Bill's cart.
"Hold on just a second, sweethearts. Lookie here...seems like we might have a match after all. We can use that key and see exactly what's waiting in there for us. I'm sure it'll be a big problem, but that's what we are here for, ain't it," Frill chuckles as she waits for the opinions of the others.
"No time like the present!"
Vera takes a moment to examine the gates for anything particularly dangerous before proceeding.
She places the key into the keyhole, and then turns it.
"Oh, heading straight in are we?" Elliomander asks as Vera draws the key. He draws his trusty firearm and gently blows across the barrels to get rid of any dust that might have settled inside.
"Ladies... Impulsive." Gar breathes toward Elliomander as he takes a brisque stride to catch up with Vera. "Well, you're the brains of this here operation, Ms. Marshall. If you think we ought t'take a look, I'm game. But don't go bargin' inta dark corners and shadowed places, now. Gotta exercise caution, lest we end up like Old Bill." Gar unsheathes his sword and casts a light spell upon it, daring to see into the unseen.
Grimy steps descend rapidly to one of the old drainage tunnels that run beneath the city. This tunnel’s brick walls are coated with years of grime up to the high water marks left here long ago, and the floor is several inches deep in collected filth and detritus. Though slightly muddy, the tunnel is largely dry now - there are no light sources, but in the wan illumination coming through the lock-gate, it is obvious that the centre of the tunnel is punctuated periodically by large iron grates providing further drainage for storm runoff.
...and when Gar sets his sword ablaze with light, an alcove to one side can be seen. The back wall of this brick alcove is stamped with the plumb bob and hammer of the Guild of Sewagers and Ironmongers. Shelves, littered with various dust-covered items, have been built above the high water mark on each side wall, and hooks protrude from the wall beneath them.
Frill carefully looks through the dusty items, hoping that something important would be there. "They put these shelves high for a purpose...Mama bets that one of these items will help us!"
Perception
"I can see in the dark..." Elliomander offers. "I'm going to poke around a little bit while you look around here..."
With that he draws his cloak and disappears out of the light. He quietly makes his way a hundred and twenty feet down the tunnel before returning to the group. Along the way he searches for turns, more alcoves, and any hidden doors (or traps).
Mama Frill, searching through the long abandoned items on the shelves, finds a small trove of things - a small metal coffer, a tattered old book of children’s fairy tales, a few articles of soiled and grubby children’s clothing, and a pair of rusty old butcher’s knives, stained brown with what looks suspiciously like dried and aged blood...
...and, whilst she searches through these dreadful items, Elliomander explores - heading some twenty feet along the tunnel before the echoing sound of something large clattering to the floor, in the darkness some distance ahead of him, gives him reason to pause.
"This looks like grisly trophies to Ma-....," Frill announced, before stopping abruptly at the sound ahead of the group. She quickly cast Ice Armor on herself.
Elliomander pauses for only a moment before abandoning his poor excuse for a hiding spot and retreating back to his associates. "There's something else down here," he reports, "around the first bend; it sounds fairly large..."
"Hopin' them waterlines don't mean we're about t'get flooded," Gar remarks, moving to stand by Elliomander and closer to their secretive visitor. "Just had this armor polished."
...and whatever it is that made the noise down the tunnel - after a minute or two of waiting, it shows no sign of moving in the direction of the group. Indeed, after the first clattering echoes that suggested something was moving in the darkness, there has been no sound.
Vera pokes through the trophies with Frill, looking for anything of added interest to our investigation.
But at the sound of something clanging down the tunnel ahead, she draws her rapier and moves into the tunnel, just as Eliomander returns and reports in. Nodding, Vera takes out a sunrod and strikes it on the ground, holding it in her left hand. The alchemical torch glows brightly, illuminating the gloom.
Turning their attention to the noise from along the tunnel, the group cautiously make their way into the darkness... and, after a hundred feet (give or take), find the likely cause of the clattering sound - a wooden signboard has fallen to the floor from where it hung from the wall by an old bolt (now rusted through). The sign is stencilled with faded lettering that simply says, 'Tunnel 34 West, East Terminus' and has clearly hung here since the days of the guild’s use. Why it would suddenly choose this moment to give way and fall is not readily apparent... until it is examined further and the charcoal writing, written in a very child-like script, is noticed...
Bloody Jack Carver went down to the Larder,
Taking some Children to Play.
He read them some Books and then hung them from Hooks,
And left them to age for a day.
Searching the semi-solid muck around where the signboard fell, the group find an arrow drawn in the grime pointing further down the tunnel as a well as a small piece of charcoal — obviously used to write the message.
Perception
"Now, it appears one of our tiny friends is up to meanness again. Look at these little footprints leading to and from that grate over there! It's just creepy, if you ask Mama."
Gar nods in silence, his grip tightening around his weapon's hilt as he regards the darkened portal leading ever further into the darkened bowels of Castorhage. "Looks like th'rabbit hole just keeps on spiraling. This critter coulda confronted us up the tunnel. Instead, it's lurin' us 'nto its den." He sighs as he wipes his filthy gray hair from his brow. "I am not lookin' forward t'this.."
Elliomander exhales sharply and shakes his head. Without saying a word he readies his gun and follows Gar into the probable trap...
"More childlike footprints... and they lead to that drain..."
Rapier in hand, Vera creeps toward the drain and looks down into it, holding her sunrod above her head so as not to dazzle her eyes.
Attempting pursuit down the shaft, a squeeze that Gar can barely make anyway, proves fruitless as it leads to sewer pipes only a few feet in diameter where, with fetid water pooling, the group cannot safely follow...
"Well, at least we learned something," Elliomander comments, "something little and creepy is using these old sewer tunnels..."
With the shaft proving to be impossible to navigate, the group decide to follow the main tunnel in the direction that the small charcoal arrow indicates. Continuing into the darkness, with Gar's sword piercing the gloom, the investigators head onwards... until, after two or three hundred feet of unremarkable brickwork, the tunnel walls are broken by a low, 5-foot-high opening on either side. In addition, a drain grate in the centre of the tunnel has been removed to reveal the open pit leading to the sewers below... a foul stench wafts from this pit.
Vera wrinkles her nose at the stench of sewage.
Perception
"Ooo wee, that stink is coming from everywhere...not just the main sewer pit, but all the side tunnels, too! Makes Mama wonder if something nasty has been stashed in the tunnels, too? Anyone have any sturdy gloves, cause searching is gonna be nasty?!"
Gar frowns at the thought. "Diggin' through raw sewage? I'd rather be back in the In-Be--"
The ice-cold flicker of remembrance lures Gar back to the rimy woods of the In-Between, and the fel creatures that lurk within its snow-laden, shadowed groves.
"...We've done worse," he finishes quickly.
Raising her sunrod to shine some light into the gaps, Vera looks into the openings in the tunnel walls.
As Vera starts to shine her light around, she is suddenly taken aback by a filthy creature jumping from the pit... its head twists on its neck and its tongue flicks at Vera. A grey-skinned, hunched-over wretch with long, tentacle-like arms ending in splayed, spiny claws — it scuttles away on all fours in an awkward crablike gait.
Chokers walk with a disturbing, almost comical gait due to their extremely limber legs. Weighing only 35 pounds and standing no taller than a halfling, chokers have no problem skittering across walls and ceilings, often lodging themselves into shadowy corners, tunnel intersections, walls, or staircases. A choker will attempt to grasp creatures of almost any size, but prefers lone prey of its size or smaller.
"A choker! Be careful-- they can blend into the shadows and will attack unaware prey... it may be trying to lure us deeper!"
She scans the darkness for more of them.
"I think it's just the one!"
She closes to the creature and stabs it.
"Wait! Look at that--!"
Frill casts Barkskin on herself, preparing for whatever was to come, choker or nay of its friends.
dammit, I should have been ready for that
Elliomander positions his finger on his trigger and prepares to fire at anything else that comes out of the shadows...
"Woah, easy! Just take it easy, alright!" Gar cautions his allies against abrupt movements that might trigger the creature into aggression. The fact that this "choker" hadn't tried to remove his nose was a good sign, at least.
"We ain't here t'harm ya...Do ya understand? We just lost somethin' and come to lay claim to it."
As Vera rushes after the fleeing choker, she is suddenly aware of movement above her... tucked into a crevice above the sewer pit and previously concealed, a second choker grabs at her...
...and now, from the northern tunnel, a third misshapen beast starts to scuttle along the walls towards the group...
Elliomander is more prepared this time and as soon as the creature moves he fires...
,
Elliomander's shot, normally so devastatingly accurate, ricochets against the ceiling of the tunnel... fragments of stone shower down upon those below it - with a couple of large items of debris falling into the sewer pit. From the length of time that it takes for the sound of the rubble to hit the bottom of the pit, it seems that the drop is well over twenty feet...
...and the thunderous noise of the firearm, echo-ing around inside the confines of the sewers, reverberates all the way to the entrance of the tunnel...
Mama Frill, standing to the rear of the building melee, casts a spell upon herself...
"Argh! Stupid move, Marshall! You knew they're ambush predators..." Vera castigates herself.
Putting her back to the northern wall of the chamber, she takes a moment to study the movements of the choker that had been hiding in the crevice, and then skewers it.
Turning back on itself, the choker that had run from the pit charges at Vera... tucking itself low, it barrels right into Vera and, wrapping its tenticular arms around her, pushes the investigator towards the sewage pit...
...and, as the choker in the ceiling moves back into the crevasse, another of the small beasts runs at Elliomander.
Frill casts Produce Flame and a fistful of fire appears in her left hand. She tosses a handful at e closest visible target.
RTA into melee
Damage
Possible RTA crit
Damage
Elliomander steps back from the cloaker that attacked him, charges a round as he loads it, and fires...