Triel looks around as well. "Could go either way, really..."
...this search might not get us anywhere. I might need to summon you directly, Vindir.
"If I were speaking to her, I do not believe her being fearful would cause me any sort of disadvantage," Jonathan says, giving a shrug. As they look around the room, Jonathan examines the walls and the bottles of wine, searching for hidden compartments or passages that might be unlocked. "If there is some sort of passage, it would be easily concealed by these bottles..."
While Jonathan doesn't find anything that he'd call a secret passage, he does find a grate that seems to lead down in to the floor, easily large enough for a person of average size to move through. Scrapes and scuffs around the edge of the grate seem to show that it's been moved recently.
Triel sighs and glances at Elek. "Elek, this might be a bit surprising, but I'm going to need you to step back for a bit."
She glances around the cellar to make sure no one else is around, then closes her eyes. Her breathing steadies, and she turns her senses inward...
It's time. Vindir, come out.
When she opens her eyes again, the colour of her eyes has shifted from their usual red colour to a pale blue. She takes a few steps forward, a pale blue glow outlining her before she abruptly turns on her heel and starts walking in one direction.
Curiously, as she turns, something steps away from her and walks in the opposite direction of her--a tall, pale blue elven man, shirtless and bearing a ghostly scythe. A nasty gash runs from his belly to his chest. His features look strikingly similar to Triel's.
The spirit groans and stretches, like he's trying to get used to being fully materialized in the world. "Ah, I didn't realize that spirits could get cramps," he says. "Your head is rather full, sister."
"Yes, well, I need most of what's in my head to function." Triel smirks. "If you need me to move something, you should have told me earlier."
"At any rate, Vindir, Elek." She motions between the spirit & the crusader. "Elek, Vindir."
"Greetings Sir Kardforgató," the ghostly drow says, bowing his head slightly. "Thank you for helping my sister. She could use some more friends sometimes. There are precious few who we would dare trust in our homeland."
Aramus moves down with Jonathan and Zalika, and arrives just after Vindir's manifestation. He sees the introduction between Elek and the pale blue elven man and steps up himself, grinning widely. "Well, Triel's been a good friend of mine in the time I've known her, so any brother of hers is a friend as well. I'm Aramus." The big man steps forward and sticks his hand out in greeting.
Presumably after something awkward, he moves to the grate and looks at it with a hairy eye. "So... do we go down?" Unless anyone stops him, Aramus squats down, grips the bars, and heaves.
Triel turns and her smirk is immediately replaced by a cringe. "Ah... I was hoping to keep it a surprise until later. But yes, this is Vindir--my twin brother, and my guardian shade."
"Interesting," Jonathan remarks, not saying much more about the phantom Triel has summoned into being, even if his face seems to be full of questions. "This grate has clearly been moved recently, as the floor has been scuffed. Now, I suppose the real question becomes whether the Captain was using the grate to leave the home, or if someone was using it in order to enter. The easiest way to figure this out, I would imagine, is to figure out where it leads." With that, he steps aside to allow Aramus to drag the grate away. "Precisely; we go down." Assuming the grate moves, Jonathan hops down into the hole in the floor and scans the area.
With the grate still loose, it's easy for Aramus to lift the grate up and reveal the tunnel going down. As Jonathan drops down, it immediately becomes obvious that this is a small drainage tunnel, leading off in one direction.
Triel turns to Vindir. "Vindir, could you perhaps turn incorporeal and follow us?"
"Easily." The specter fades out a bit, becoming more hazy and incorporeal.
"Good. Let's go."
Triel moves to follow Jonathan down the grate.
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Aramus waits until the others enter the opening, and then drops down behind them. Thank you once more, Sarenrae, for giving me my own personal sunlight in my eyes, to see even in dark places.
Once everyone has entered the tunnel, Jonathan looks down the tunnel. "While I doubt we will find others down here, I will travel ahead and scout the area. Once I am far enough ahead, I will give you all a signal to follow; you will be far enough to impede my scouting, but close enough that if the need arises you are present." Jonathan then drops low to the ground and continues down the tunnel, and after about forty-five feet he signals for the others to follow him. He waits a moment to make sure the party has noticed him, and then continues farther in, looking for clues as to who might have passed through the area or where it might be going.
Zalika falls into line alongside everyone else, although she tries to be closer to the front, the more to deal less damage to her allies with her uncontrollable fire magic.
The party heads down the tunnel. A slight odor reaches their noses and it becomes clear that this drainage tunnel empties into the sprawling sewers below the streets. Ahead they find the cramped tunnel opens up high enough for them to walk properly, with a stone ledge along each edge and slightly off-color water running down the middle of the tunnel. There seems to be nothing here at the moment, and there's no sign of any recent passage.
Zalika frowns at the odor increasing as she walks further in. "Not to be a buzzkill or anything, but do we have to investigate further into what appears to be a sewer. The stink alone would take me ages to get out of my clothes"
"I intend to, yes," Jonathan says, shrugging. "I am not a man to leave a job half-finished. If the Captain is guilty, and the evidence of such a thing lies beneath the city streets, would you not rather find it than turn back?" Jonathan looks around, and his shoulders droop a bit. "However, I am not seeing any signs of recent passage; I suppose it is possible this tunnel was used for his mistress to enter the manor unnoticed. But... I would expect such a mistress to desire a pleasant smell about her, given what she would likely be coming to the manor to do. The scent of sewage is not very alluring, now is it?" He turns back around, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword. "I will not force you to continue, but I do believe there is something worth learning down here."
"I intend to keep going. This isn't the first time we've had to slog through the muck to survive." Triel shoots Zalika a quick glare before moving to follow Jonathan again.
"Oh, come now. Think of it as an adventure of sorts. A mind-widening experience for the eyes and the nose! There's beauty to be had even here, you know." Aramus grins and claps Zalika on the shoulder. "Why, these sewers are actually quite an important part of the city, if you think about it..." And the hotspur begins to chat up some of the history of the system, what little he knows--after all, most visitors to the city don't spend much time in its (almost literal) bowels.
Triel starts looking around for anything out of the ordinary. Vindir does the same.
"Fine, I'll tag along, I take my responsibilities too seriously to be giving them up so easily at this early stage" Zalika responds, peering ahead in the dim night, trying to spot what might be lying ahead.
At first there seems to be no sign of any passage in the tunnel, but then Elek notices some recent (relatively speaking) scuff marks heading upstream from where they are and a broken bit of stone that seems to have been damaged recently.
"It is hard to say, but given it is the only sign of recent travel it may behoove us to follow it." Jonathan heads forward again, waving the others up behind him after he moves a bit farther up. "As our large friend has noted, much happens beneath the streets of Absalom. We would not be the first to find something strange or unusual that lurked beneath the city streets."
The group elects to follow the scant signs of passage, heading upstream and into the tunnels. The air is heavy, but there's enough light from Elek's stone to keep them from stumbling around in the dark. They only walk for a few minutes before they come to another split, with the water flowing into the large path from two separate directions.
"Well, there's really no telling just what might live down here." Aramus gives a shrug. "Lots of rumors, but it's hard to say what's true and what's made up. I've heard of everything from aboleth spies to Aroden himself skulking about in the sewers."
Triel only glances over to where Elek points briefly before doing a double take.
"...huh."
"It could be some sort of beast... or some way of marking a trail." Jonathan inspects it just as Elek points it out, running his hands across the gash in the stone. "If they are leaving some sort of trail, we ought to follow it. If such a creature gashed these out in something such as anger, leading to the Captain's house... why would it enter, or why would its defeat or victory not be evident? I believe it is far more likely that this is intended for others to follow."
Triel takes a look at the markings, wondering if they came from some sort of demon.
While looking at the marks, it's nearly impossible to recognize where they came from just based on marks on stone, but Elik does notice that they seem less scuffed and more... melted out once he looks at them closely.
Triel ponders Elek's question.