As the crowd around you panics and runs back and forth, confusion reigns. You get knocked about a few times by scared people running from the magic in the streets.
Zayva glances up at the mushrooms and sees several small puffs of smoke that accompany blooms of darkness at random intervals along the catwalks. They make effective distractions, but Zayva catches the eye of one of the drow who threw the devices creating the darkness. She only gets a glimpse of his face, but she's certain it's one of the drow who were tailing them. Her sharp eyes even catch the first identifying feature any of them had been able to discern - a small scar in the shape of a half-circle above the drow's right eyebrow. In an instant, he's gone.
Alec and Alaria are able to keep up with Siri fairly easily. Alec's fingers fumble with the lock, and he looks like he's about to give up on it when Alaria assists him by holding the mechanism still and steadying him. With a deep breath, Alec attacks the lock again and it pops off, allowing you to remove the grating covering the maintenance entrance to that part of the street's sewer.
Stopping her chant Siri hurries forward and clambers down into the sewer, her expression apologetic as she slides past the others anxious to be hidden so she can resume her less vulnerable form while they descend.
Muhoro waits for the others to climb down, before he joins them, taking a last look around before he drops the cover back over the hole.
Perception:
Assuming she has time to resuming her eidolon Siri takes a couple of deep calming breaths looking rather panicked, as she calms she pats Alec on the shoulder giving him an appreciative smile,
"Sorry, sorry, it was supposed to work a little differently in my head. I hope I have not made things harder for us. But at least if we are followed down here we ought to be able to force a confrontation.."
Zayva slipped down into the sewer with her nose scrunched. The moment she landed, she pointed over her right eye. "Half circle." The sooner she said something the less likely she would forget.
"One... of our tail. Right here," still pointing at the spot, "A half circle. He was throwing the darkness devices."
Siri quirks a brow,
"A tattoo? Or a scar maybe?"
"It was a scar. I'm sure of it."
"Now where to?", Muhoro asks the group at large, while keeping his eye on the manhole cover.
"I think the best course is to head in the approximate direction of the compound and then seek an entrance."
You find yourselves standing on the dry, sidewalk-like pathway attached to the waterworks. Just three feet from where you stand, a rushing current of sludge carries the waste of the city toward its eventual desposal site. The tunnel you stand in runs parallel to the street and appears to go underneath the Noble houses you were walking past earlier. It wasn't your planned method of ingress, but it looks like it might work to get into the Noble House from below if you travel a bit further that way.
Drawing her weapons again Siri begins moving towards House Lito, she scans the darkness carefully wary of just what might choose to live in such places, or be placed there as a guard in this terrible city.
When the grate is closed behind you, blocking access from the street, you're plunged into darkness again. You can only see ahead of you to the limits of your darkvision. Overhead you can hear the muffled sounds of the city's activity, and to your right is the sound of moving water. In the moving water you catch a strange note - it sounds like something is interrupting the flow somewhat a little bit further down the tunnel, though the sound is difficult to place exactly.
You follow Siri a short distance in the direction of House Lito. By your estimation, you're probably underneath their main outer courtyard when the tunnel reaches a T-intersection. To your left is the direction of the actual noble house - to your right, a dark tunnel. The sound you heard earlier in the tunnel is close by in that direction.
"Do we... go check it out?" Zayva kept her voice down, but she did look down the dark tunnel. She was curious as to what made the sound.
Beldrek looks down the tunnel to the right to locate the source of the noise.
As you move to the T-intersection and look to your right, Beldrek and Zayva see what looks like a body in the underground river serving as Chaulnazeen's sewer. It's a drow male, and looks sodden.
To your left, you see the path continue on for another 40 or so feet before ending in a wall. The river flows from beneath that wall and there are two ladders leading up on either side, with a small foot-bridge between.
Zayva moved towards the body, checking on his condition. If he was still alive, perhaps he could be persuaded to be an ally.
The drow is dead.
Well, it had been worth at least checking out. "Do you think... he made them mad? Or... did they kill him just to kill him?" She looked back at the others, "How often do you think they come down here?"
"I think the sewer is a convenient way of disposing of unwanted ..things. This fellow probably did something to someone to end up here."
Muhoro will also pat down the body for anything useful.
Looking faintly queasy Siri says,
"We should see if we can identify the cause of his death, if he died in the vicinity we might end up facing whatever killed him. Can anyone tell?"
Zayva, already down that way moved closer to take a look as the cause of death.
It's easy to see that his throat has been slashed by a serrated edge. There's no sign of the murder weapon on his person, but he appears to be dressed in servant's garb, perhaps a member of the kitchen staff. His eyes are wide and fixed in an expression of blank terror.
"His throat is slashed. He upset someone. Possibly his master." Zayva moved away from the body not wanting to stay near it much longer.
"It is distasteful, but could we use his uniform, I do not know if anyone has any means of disguising their form? And I would think it more likely his Mistress from what I have seen of these terrible creatures," Siri says, looking to her companions.
As Siri makes her suggestion, she looks closer at the body and realizes that the uniform is sodden and hopelessly ruined by its constant immersion in the water.
Zayva, you notice a small silver chain around the drow's neck. You can't tell what's on the chain, as it goes beneath the man's shirt.
She paused, and returned to the body, curiosity overcoming her want to move away. "What's this?" Reaching for the silver chain, she lifted it from beneath the shirt to reveal what was hidden.
It appears to be a small amulet depicting a tree on a hill, with the sun shining behind it.
"Hmmm...I wonder how I missed that after searching his body? Could it be a house symbol? I hear that some of the houses give their servants medallions so all know who's chattel they are."
You don't recognize the tree symbol. It doesn't look drow-like, strangely - mostly because it depicts the sun, the hated enemy of all drow.
"Lets take it and move on!"
Muhoro pockets the locket quickly and leads the party in the other direction, following the sewer tunnel until it reaches the dead end. There are two ladders here - one on your side of the sewer-river, one on the other side. The gap is about 10 feet across - jumpable, but you'd probably prefer a running start.
The trapdoors that the ladders lead up to don't appear to be locked.
"Well lets look out the one on this side first, then check the other side. No sense getting wet if we do not have too!"
Siri casts detect magic and scans the ladder and trapdoors, suspicious of anything too convenient.
You detect a magic aura on both trapdoors. Focusing on the auras further, you can tell that it is abjuration magic.
"Somekind of abjuration magic on the trapdoors, but I can't make out anything more, can any of you?2
Spellcraft:
"I think it is a hold Portal spell that keeps these hatches secure."
Zayva activated Detect magic and focused on the trapdoors.
"Is it?"
"Hmmm, we need knock to get these open, the spell I mean. Does anyone have it? Otherwise it will take brute force and that would likely be very loud, unless someone can cast silence?"
Alec cunningly removes the hinge from the grate covering the sewer entrance and silently lowers it to the floor - it's heavy.
Above, all is dark - but your infernal vision shows you that you are near where two walls meet at a corner. Beyond that you can't see much without sticking your head up or something.
You're inside the walls of House Lito's compound, in the tucked-away far left corner from the main gate, designed for maintenance access. The central structure of House Lito, a tower constructed from a worked stalagmite, lies across the courtyard from where you poke your head up. There are windows with light coming out of them on various levels of the Noble House, which you can see is actually taller than it looks from the street. Through cunning engineering, you can see that the tower does not end at the cavern's ceiling, but instead continues further up into the rock, in a hollowed-out section constructed for it. The tower rests at the exact center of the courtyard, which contains what appears to be a statue garden of drow females in heroic postures.
The statues are dotted about the courtyard in seemingly random configuration, about 10-15 feet away from each other on average to allow for copious viewing room. You also see stone benches here or there.
On the walls surrounding the courtyard you can see guards on the alert - but their focus is directed outward, not inward. On the main floor of the courtyard are a few guards stationed near the main entrance.