Your preparations finished, you head out into the streets of Bannerhold with one of Turick's security team. She shows you a discrete place to enter the sewers and you carefully find your way to near Beaumont's manor. The sewers are tight, dark, and rank, only about 5 ft wide by 5 ft tall, just barely large enough to be serviced by a human semi-comfortably. You suspect that somewhere near where you now stand is the secret sewer entrance/exit communicating with Beaumont's.
"Khaz, would you hold this?" Melia asks. She thrusts the bird cage into his hands.
Turning, Melia whispers a brief prayer to Ostara. In response, light blossoms in a pebble she collected as they were entering the sewers. She holds it up. "Let's see what there is to see," she says, and begins inspecting the place.
With sharp eyes, Melia spots cracks between some of the wall stones that are a little too wide and defined, indicating a hidden section of wall that can swing inward. She also spots the tiny, hidden lever near the ceiling.
Kazador took the bird cage and held it up, looking at it as the curiosity that it was.
"Good eyes." He said, as she spotted the hidden entrance and the lever. "It feels good to be getting a move on." He added, cage in hand.
"Agreed. I'm no good at traps, though. Hal?"
"I can give it a go." Hal agrees. "I've got a little somethin' ta help, but it doesn't last long, and I don't wanna cast it if I'm gunna be leaving' me body here."
With wonderful perspicacity and arcane sight, Hal determines that an Alarm spell covers this entrance.
"Makes sense," Melia says. "Who wants things wandering into your house from the sewers?"
"Uh ... can we turn it off?"
"Aye, I'm sure we can." Raising his hammer, he approached and did his best to allow them a safe entrance.
Kazador dispels the alarm spell! The way in through the tunnel looks clear.
"Okay, so now Hal is going to ... uh, occupy this thrush, and go see what there is to see. Right?"
Melia helps him get comfortable.
Hal nods to Kazador, then hands out some strangely shaped bottles. "Deoderiser. Reckon we'll need it when we head out. Well, time to see if I've lost the knack for this."
Carefully Hal reaches out with his gloves and very gently tweaks the lever, wincing a little in anticipation.
"Try not ta let me drown, hey." he sighs, and heads over to the thrush, reaching under his robe to pull out a small bundle that turns out to be a hazy sleeping dragon. "Remember. If we wanna talk, it's gunna hafta be through this hallus. Mel can see it 'n' talk ta it as well, but that'll prolly only work when I'm within a couple dozen yards. Also, I really, strongly recommend not lettin' it inta y'r dreams, 'less you love dreamin' about baked goods."
A grumbled response comes from the no longer sleeping form *I told ya, I'm not a hallucination*
"I've nay idea how your magic works." Kazador said. "But I wish ye good luck with yer...bird. And I'll keep it in mind to nay let it in me dreams."
Hal-the-thrush perks up and looks ready to scout.
Melia sees to it that Hal is comfortably arranged. My, what a strange turn my life's taken, she thinks to herself. Somehow back when I was just an anthropology student in university, I never had to stand around in fetid sewers guarding a vacant body while they pilot a thrush through somebody's basement.
With the door open the the thrush blurs into a whir of wings, though one that moves more slowly than normal in the cramped confines of the sewer. And, perhaps, just a little less straight than one might expect.
The dragon yawns, blue sparks crackling in an unhinged mouth, then settles back down. *He's swearing* he informs the others. A moment later *He says ta tell ya that he's not swearing, 'cos some of the letters are different. But he's thinking the swears, so I reckon it counts.*
Hal the thrush moves forward through the tunnel to investigate and comes to a door at the end of the tunnel. It is shut but does not appear to have a latch. Hal the thrush pushes and pushes with all his diminutive might and FINALLY gets the door to swing away from him a crack, revealing a dark cellar full of root vegetables and barrels.
Thrush-Hal gives a mournful chirp, then shuts the hell up 'Food means rats. Rats mean cats. Careful now old man, just cos you'd live through bein' et doesn't mean ya wouldn't have ta suffer.'
Images flashed through his mind, memories of a bird still alive after being 'played' with by a spoiled indoor cat for a good fifteen minutes.
'Careful. Calm, quiet. Look for traps, look for ambushes. Hell, a decent sized spider is a threat at this point.'
After thirty seconds of observation the thrush quickly poked its head through and back to take a glimpsed look, waited another eighty rapid heartbeats, and flew through.
Bird-Hal looks at the door and surmises, but isn't sure, that there is no trap but that there is another alarm spell on this. It must ping someone, probably inaudibly. But diminutive thrushes get a pass on alarm spells.
With a quick flutter Bird-Hal travels back far enough to alert the team, then reverses course to head through the door.
Hal returns, notifies the crew, then heads back to the door, through it, and into the basement. There he sees vegetables hung up, containers of food, and stairs up to a wooden door.
There is a hidden trapdoor in the ceiling of this basement. It does not look particularly easy to access from this side but it does suggest someone wanted an easy path, from somewhere, to the basement and the secret door.
Quickly even for a small agile bird Hal heads back into range.
The dragon stares up at Mel "He's talking again. Y'know, all this telepathy sure does make me think about how great those cookies were. Can't stop thinking about them. The crisp way they crumbled as you bit them, the way the dough... Huh - what's the word for dough when it's cooked?"
After a few seconds of dreamy thought the dragon continues "Oh. He says there's a trapdoor up ahead in the vegetable room, and he thinks you'll wanna see, or something. What's your favourite cookie?"
Message 'delivered' Hal makes his way back to the basement stairs and carefully heads up.
"I guess we head in, then." She hesitates a bit. "I guess we just sort of make Hal as comfortable as possible and, uh, leave him here. I hope there aren't any gigantic snakes in this sewer."
She props Hal up against the wall with his hands crossed over his belly, then heads cautiously after the thrush.
Mel immediately spots the trap door in the ceiling. "Hmm," she says, peering intently at it for a moment, then tilts her head to listen for any signs of occupancy on the other side of it.
"Can't you, I dunno, put him in a bag or something?" the dragon asks as they start to move. "Also, don't forget that [ia]Alarm[/i] on the way. Someone's gunna need ta dispel that."
"Oh, yes," Melia says, skidding to a halt. "Err ..."
"Turion, ye got this?" Kazador asked, knowing that the elf was by far the better of the two when it came to the arcane arts. If the elf wasn't ready, he would step in, but it was better to leave it to Turion if at all possible.
Turion dispels the alarm on the secret cellar door and in you go! Mel very quickly finds the trapdoor leading from the ceiling into the cellar.
[ooc]Stealth check from Kazador, the likely limiting factor.
You head upstairs and find the basement door latched. Perhaps a tiny thrush can squeeze under the door?
Turion dispels the alarm and you head into the basement pantry without too much trouble. You soon spot the trapdoor leading down from above pointed out by Hal.
”Right. Can’t live here. Let’s go down and see what’s before us.”
Hal looks for the widest possible gap, then does his best to squeeze under...
Mel hears some occasional sounds of people walking and speaking but it sounds a little muffled and indirect. Her sharp ears are able to distinguish that the space above the trapdoor is empty but that she is hearing sounds from elsewhere in the house pass through the walls, bounce around that empty space, and come down through the trapdoor.
Hal squeezes under the door and comes out into the kitchen. There is a teenage boy tending a stove fire lazily, some counters with food laid out, and two doors leading out of the kitchen.
Hal freezes motionless, doing his best to look around for thrush-sized problems; not just cats, there were spiders big enough to end his current body.
Hal spots a cat sleeping in the corner near the warmth of the stove, which indeed has a chimney Hal could fly up. Both doors look like they swing open when pushed either direction so Hal could probably squeeze through without too much trouble, as long as he kept being stealthy.
"Sounds like the other side is unoccupied," Melia says. "Let's get this door open."
Melia hauls a crate of vegetables under the trap door, steps up, places her palms flat on the trap door and pushes steadily but firmly up.
Hal stares at the cat out of his right eye, instincts making it hard to move at all. Eventually he very, very carefully heads for the door furthest from the furry carnivore.
Kazador was about to go move the crates, when Melia shocked him by easily hauling them away herself. He hadn't taken her as being that physically strong, but apparently she was full of surprises. While she said that the other side was unoccupied, he still kept his hammer at the ready.
Mel pushes open the trapdoor and reveals an empty, unlit, shaft that goes up about fourteen feet, ending in an apparent dead end, as far as can be seen from down here with very little light.
Hal determines that the trapdoor heads up to the second floor, somewhere near what would likely be some private rooms based on his recollection of the plans.
Hal learns quickly that thrushes do not move smoothly. Every bobbing, jerking hop makes his tiny heart pound harder as he makes his way to the door...