Psotheos takes a handkerchief from the Colonel. Folding it into a triangle, he ties it across the bridge of his nose so that a good portion of his face is hidden. He nods in understanding to Colonel Geoffrey’s final instructions.
When Dalton starts to cough blood, Psotheos turns his attention down the tunnels, listening for anything that could be attracted to the group’s sounds.
Arjax starts to cough violently as well, although not as much blood comes up.
After removing the handkerchief from his face, Psotheos spits the blood into it. He doesn’t want blood to go into the stinking water, fearful of monsters that grow frenzied with blood.
Gabriel glances down at the water, his thoughts slowly working to piece together random bits of knowledge. "No... they... couldn't have...?" He leans down and looks more closely at the water, then grimaces. "No... Goddess, please let me be wrong..." Gabriel stops for a moment, utterly terrified of the idea that had just occurred to him as the final piece slides into place, something the large bull had mentioned earlier when Gabriel had asked him about their trip in the tunnel. 'Nutter of an anti-paladin rambling on about purging the city' or something to that affect. He looks up to the group, his eyes wide and rapidly changing color, and his tail stock still behind him and very much -out- of the water.
Bjorkus stops his strong pace when he notices one of their number has stopped moving.
"What's wrong? Don't tell me you're gettin' sick too Horns", the bull rumbles.
"You see somethin'?"
Gabriel jumps when he hears Bjorkus' voice interrupt his thoughts. His tail behind him twitches rapidly, but noticeably avoids going anywhere near the water if it can. "The sewer system... is lined through out the city... I... I remember that. In the battle on the wall I saw one of the pipes... I think... a while back an engineer of the army was marveling about them or something and I recalled the discussion. One of the most impressive sewer system known..."
Gabriel looks down to the dirty water they were trudging through to get to their destination. "An entire system laced through the city... probably with a lot of control over where it goes I'd imagine. Do you know what Geoffrey told me was the easiest way to take a stationary force? Their water supply. Why would they let us in so easily? Why let us take the outer walls? Why let us take part of their supplies, their water, when they'll need all they could to survive a siege. That wall should have been... should have been ten times harder to take down... they wanted us here... with their peasants..."
Gabriel was full on rambling now, and he was walking back and forth, quite literally pacing in the water. "And an anti-paladin... Bringers of death, chaos and disease! Its too much of a coincidence that one is ranting about purging the city, too much...."
He turns to Bjorkus again and walks right up to the bull. His eyes are wide, both with fury and fear, and with surprising strength of one his size he grasps at the bulls chain mail and pulls him close. "Whatever it is that's screwing with us, whatever-" He jabs a finger in Daltons direction fiercely, "Is making him sick... I...!" He releases Bjrokus and stumbles away, his eyes falling back down to the water running around their feet, "I think it's in the water."
As if on cue, Gabriel bends over and starts coughing violently. His frantic burst of energy, his yelling, his panicked state all worked against him in such enclosed quarters.
"Purging the city? What are you talking about, Gabriel? What purge?"
Gabriel nods to Bjorkus, latching onto something else to focus on for the moment, "They encountered an anti-paladin in the tunnels. I was curious, at what Sir Geoffrey said, about them maybe not surviving without their help. Bjorkus told me... an anti-paladin who couldn't die ranting about 'cleansing' the city..."
The wheels in the big bull's simple mind visibly turn as he processes the rapid-fire information presented.
"That's crazy. You think they're gunna poison the whole city or somethin'? Why go through all the trouble?"
The minotaur pulls his hoof from the sewage with a loud *sluuurrp*.
"It's just the s!*$ smell gettin' to ya. I don't like it much either."
"What kinda resistance did you run into takin' the walls?" the bull rumbles as he adjusts the trinket dangling from his belt to reduce the danger of mid-combat collisions.
"Seein' that your men are all in one piece, I figure we had it rougher."
Toramin looks up from his letters. Shaking his head, the dwarf replies, "Not all of them are in one piece. More than a few died. Like Nathaniel Mern, he ended up splattered by some monstrous captain. Whose name I cannot recall. He almost killed Gabriel too. It's what comes when soldiers don't follow orders. Soldiers cannot afford to do whatever they like. For when they do, they create opportunities for their brothers and sisters-in-arms to die. In any case, what was so rough about walking down a tunnel?"
"They weren't as empty as the Colonel hoped. There was some kinda super-soldier down there. One of those angel-blooded types - a big one", the minotaur explains rubbing his scruffy bovine chin as he does.
"We cut him down easily enough but that wasn't the end of it. I buried my axe in his guts and he just laughed it off, like it was nothing", Bjorkus says patting his own furry rippling musculature to show the location. "I swear he was possesed or somethin'. Geoffrey said he was an anti-paladin."
Gabriel looks up from the small notes he was making at the end of each of Toramin's letters. He was no where near as eloquent as his dwarven friend, but he hoped that he could relay just how sorry he was for their deaths and how grateful he was for their service with a few simpler words.
He only heard half of what Bjorkus said, entirely missing the part about angel-blooded types (not that he would have put two and two together anyway). "Anti-paladins? I'm... honestly surprised." He says, glancing up from his own smaller make shift table beside Toramin's much sturdier one. He looks at where Bjrokus had pointed and his eyes widen a little. "Possessed? I honestly don't know enough about demons or devils to know much about that. Do you think he was possessed because he was hard to take down?"
The quill snaps in the Stonelord blunt fingers.
"By Torag's heavy, hair sack! A antipaladin! I didn't know they even existed. And it was an Aasimar. Perversity! Filth!"
Toramin's is huffing and grinding his teeth as he work himself up. Then abruptly, he stops.
"Wait. What? What do you mean you he couldn't die?"
"To be fair, Toramin, it's really not that much more of a twist then a tiefling like me becoming a paladin." He stands and pats the dwarf on the soldier, then stretches. "Unless you think that because someone hundreds of years ago in my family dallied with a demon makes my choice perverse as well. Not all Aasimar's are kind..."
He pauses for a moment, then shakes off such thoughts, "I learned that lesson personally..."
Bjorkus's bovine visage twists in a frown of frustration.
"Look, if I hit you in the gut with my fist, you're goin' down. If I nail you in the gut with my axe, you're dead. It's that simple."
"Even with his innards hangin' out he started choking Geoffrey so I dropped my weapon and started wrestlin' with him. He was bleeding like a stuck pig and still as strong as an ox. He managed to throw me off but I grabbed him again and hold him still long 'nuff for the elf to open up a ground under him."
"You... wrestled him into a grave? And then buried him or something? Did that really work?" Gabriel tilts his head to the side as he absorbs this information. Someone who couldn't die. That was a scary thought. It sounds like they dealt with him, but how?
"Uh, not really. There was lava and this cold stuff... The hole the elf opened up was full of lava. We sorta buried him in lava."
The bull hesitates realizing the story probably sounded crazy.
"And he still wouldn't die."
"Wait, lava? I... but..." Gabriel is at a loss for words for a couple seconds, looking down to the ground as his mind tried to wrap around this. He briefly wondered if he was still at his desk thing, napping, and was drooling on the letters he was supposed to add too. When he doesn't wake up, the tiefling glances up to Bjorkus again and tilts his head to the side, "So... how did you... know he was still alive? Was he trying to escape or something?"
"What do you mean it is not much different than you being a paladin? It's precisely opposite in fact. That's why they put the 'anti' in front of 'paladin'. You are a human. He is a human. You serve the goodly gods. He worships demons and eats babies. Very different . . ."
Toramin sounds very confused that Gabriel doesn't think he is much different from an antipaladin.
"Did that captain thwack you too hard?"
"Lava? Why was there lava in the tunnel? I'm sure I would have noticed volcanic activity. I am a dwarf after all."
"He was talkin' still - mostly threatenin'. I think he woulda got out and made good on those threats if his flesh wasn't burnin' off as quickly as it was growin' back. After he figured out he wasn't gettin' out he started barginin'", the bull adds with a snort.
"He mentioned something about a purge but we ignored him and Geoffrey agreed we should move on. He was just desperate to get free. Can't say I blame 'im. Burning for eternity sounds pretty rough."
"Now about that lava?"
Gabriel was glad he hadn't witnessed such a horrid sight, even if the idea of Geoffrey fighting an anti-paladin without his aid did bother him a little. At least the monster was dealt with. "Lava?"
"I don't know what it was doin' down there", the bull says with a shrug of his brawny shoulders.
"But there there sure as hell was a stream of lava down there and it was plenty hot", he explains pointing to a patch of recently healed healed flesh along one bulging pectoral. The area is bare and hairless from the burns.
"So in all probability, the reason why there was lava in the tunnel, the same lava you used to trap him, is the antipaladin himself. Did that strike none of you as incredibly convenient? That the same person who presented you a seemingly insurmountable problem also provided you a tidy solution to that very problem? It sounds to me that that antipaladin ended up exactly where he had planned to end up. The question is: why? What could he possibly have to gain from being trapped outside the city in terrible torture? That sounds like an important question to ask. There are spells that can compel the truth. Perhaps someone should be using them on this baby-eating monster? To the best of my -- limited -- knowledge antipaladins are not proof against such magic. I'm surprised that Colenel Geoffrey has not authorized their use. Little of this story makes sense."
Bjorkus shrugs, "He didn't seem like the talkin' sort and we were in a rush."
"Well, we have a few hours now. It seems rather relevant to our current goals. You cannot build a castle if you never pick up a single stone. Why don't we see if one of the priests can use his or her prayers to get the truth from him. About why he was in this tunnel and whether or not this purge has anything to do with his immortality. There are too many coincidences here for my liking. We can get the truth . . . with the Colonel's permission of course."
"Toramin, we only had about an hour and a half, and we don't have nearly that much anymore with all these letters." He pats the desk with the letters, "There's no guarantee we could get answers ourselves, but even if we could, we need to move now. We can't wait, or we risk running into a much more heavily defended position then we do now. If you really think its important, suggest it to Sir Geoffrey before we go down. Otherwise, its time."
"I think it to be of vital importance, Gabriel. Could you do me a favor, lad? Please, could you run to Colonel Geoffrey and tell him that I have noticed some irregularities with the reports concerning the antipaladin. These irregularities may hold some clue to the conspiracy against him and Andril. Ask him for permission to interview the wretch with the assistance of a priest who can use truth magic. I would ask him myself, but I have one more letter to write. More importantly, I think he will find you more persuasive than he would me. He is a good man, but I couldn't even convince him to hold to military discipline in a wartime situation. My voice, in this, may do more harm than good. Harm that we can hardly afford."
After making his request, Toramin picks up a second quill and begins to compose a more personal letter.
The minotaur shrugs again.
"We've only got an hour and the Colonel didn't think it was important before, he's not gunna think so now. Stop worryin' 'bout one crazy aasimar. We've got bigger things on our plate."
"They... I don't know why they'd risk poisoning their own citizens, but its a brilliant trap. The army is massive. We have supply lines, but one of the things an army always go through faster then anything else is water. Not even healing magic is in such demand. Everyone needs to drink it during the day. its a bloody requirement. So what will happen when our army starts drinking ours? Or even goes near it?" Gabriel frowns down at the water they were trekking through, "Its unhealthy to move through this stuff, that's for certain, but unless there were something truly fowl in it then it should be affecting anyone quickly enough to cause them to cough up blood. What I don't understand is... they'd... so many people will die if they do this... and our army surely has ways against it, right? I hope I'm wrong. I hope I'm just a rambling nutter..."
"Well, there's certainly one way to find out - they'll die of disease or they won't." Dalton left it at that. He didn't like thinking about having some fatal infection, and, at this point, he didn't see what good chit chatting about it would do. Besides, his throat was sore, and his head ached. This is the last of these sorts of fool's errands, Geoffrey, believe you me...
Bjorkus looks down at the muck suspiciously but not entirely convinced.
"We don't got much of a choice regardless. We've got to get through these sewers. We'll bring up the danger to the Colonel once we're outta here. In the meantime, keep movin' or I'm gunna knock your ass out and carry you."
"There is a simple way to see if the water has been fouled magically. Master Dalton, do you detect anything magical in that foul slurry?"
Toramin will also turn his detect evil on and keep it on. He suspects it will help him detect any traces of truly evil rituals and might also alert them to hidden assassins.
"Ugh ... to think about it more than I must by my nose, but very well. Give me a moment to concentrate."
Lindale also detects magic at the suggestion of Toramin.
As the party trudges along, Dalton and Arjax both seem to stabilize. They continue to cough here and there, but it doesn't seem to be getting any worse. You round the corner to get to the next ring of tunnels, and Bjorkus manages to see a tiny, dark, cloaked figure hanging from the ceiling. It's extremely well hidden, but you noticed the changing shadows around it and picked it up. You can see it's alive via its' slow breathing, whatever it is.
As subtly as the brawny bull can manage it, he tries to get Dalton's attention and point the critter out.
"What do you think that is?" he says in a low rumble.
As Bjorkus leans back to whisper his discovery, several party members at once notice a humanoid in the water near them. This scaly humanoid has a long, fish-like tail. Its arms and legs end in webbed claws, and its piscine head features a toothy maw. It treads water there, head cocked curiously and a sadistic, inhuman smile on its face.
Bjorkus, you know this fish humanoid is called a Sahuagin, and they are a ravenous and cruel race, and often when they get injured they go into a frenzy. However, there is something very disturbingly off about this Sahuagin; It has an extra pair of arms.
Bjorkus glances toward the fishman without trying to look like he's staring. What were sahuagin doing down here? The bull clutches his new weapon tightly suddenly anticipating trouble.
"This feels like a trap", he rumbles.