Aisling can't hear antying over the noise of her walking through ths sludge. She looks puzzled whtn Nyxara suddenly points her bow in the otehr direction. "What's wrong?"
"We're being followed." Nyxra tersely replies, her bow still readied and an arrow nocked.
A splashing sound echoes down the sewer, moving swiftly away - though Nyxra gets a brief glimpse of a small figure, and Vantine notes that it has a disproportionately large head, though it swiftly moves out of her ability to see it.
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"What do you think it was?" Vantine tensely whispers.
"I was warm and asleep and safe and dry not one hour ago... This rebellion is looking less appealing by the day... If you are telling me naked, big-headed monsters stalk the city just below the surface I swear to Shelyn..." The Raven grumbles from the front of the line. He had not stopped pouting since being so rudely awakened and thrown to the freezing streets.
Vantine notes The Raven as one who venerate Shelyn, and adds another checkmark to her mental scorecard for him.
"Let's keep going. I don't want to chase anything we see down here around through this muck."
The Ravens continue trudging through the muck for another half an hour before they arrive at a fork in the sewer. One path leads west and north, towards the bay, whilst the other turns east, beginning to curve south just at the edges of Nyxra's vision. The eastern tunnel has a bit of dry walkway on its right side, while the other would require continued slogging through crap. On the wall nearby is a ladder up to the surface, though there isn't any light shining through the cover.
Jessibel's mood is turning foul. Part of her thinks the others are playing a joke on her with the whole 'something's following us' bit...similar to the 'I hear pipe music' malarkey they pulled beneath the Fair Fortune Livery. Deciding to let the others deal with the probably nonexistent follower, Jessibel climbs the ladder and tries to open whatever seal is at the top.
While Vantine waits for Jessibel to get the way out opened, she stares as hard as she can back down the tunnel, trying to make out more about whatever is following them.
Jessibel pushes up on the manhole cover... but it's far, far heavier than it should be. Almost as though there's something on top of it weighing it down...
"No exit here," Jessi announces as she descends the ladder. "It felt like there was something really heavy blocking the cover."
"Did it budge at all, my little chikadee? Mayhaps someone stronger could clear the way."
"Feel free to try yourself, but I pushed really hard!" the bard tells her mentor.
"I will give it a try. Not because I doubt you, my dear, but because I wish to escape." The Raven attempts to flee up the ladder.
When Vantine realizes the problem, snow atop the cover, she groans miserably.
"We're going to have to go all the way back aren't we?"
Like Jessibel, the Raven cannot seem to budge the manhole-cover.
"Let's keep heading east and look for another ladder or tunnel leading north," Jessibel suggests. She renews the light spell on her rapier, uncertain of how long the group's been skulking through the sewers.
"East it is." The Raven says as he dismounts the ladder. He had been hoping to find a way out should they be in need of one. With any luck there will be another open way out nearby.
"...of course. Would've been too easy otherwise." Nyxra sighs.
The Ravens continue to move eastwards this time, ascending gratefully up the dry walkway that lines the narrow corridors that make up the sewers. There are even little bridges over what sewage slides in from the small grates on the walls. Awfully considerate, all things told.
After almost half an hour, though, something interrupts their travels - a lit torch outside of a small, crude door. A pale skinned goblin stands outside of it, straightening in shock when he sees them. He dashes inside, slamming the door shut behind him, shouting something in his native language.
"...the f@*!?" Nyxra raises her bow!
"Huh. My sister told me there are goblins in the sewers of Westcrown, but I never knew we had them here! Aren't goblins supposed to be able to see in the dark? So what use have they for a torch, unless...they're meeting with a surface dweller!"
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Aisling shrugs. "I supppose you get goblins everywhere, a bit like rats. What do we want' to do? It looks like we've lost the elment of surprise."
Vantine is very surprised as well.
"Should we knock? That would be a start. Then we go from there?"
Vantine also wonders if this might explain the figure they saw following them earlier...
The Raven shrugs. "We could use a guide down here."
"They might work for nice food?"
"They might also make good witnesses for the prosecution if we get caught...or if the little creeps choose to betray us!" Jessibel points out.
"I doubt the denizens of the literal underbelly of the city are eager to parley with Thrune for any reason, my dear." The Raven approaches the door and kocks. "Uh, hello? We are in need of a guide. We have coin." He hefts his coinpurse with a shink shink sound.
As he approaches the door, the Raven spies a crude drawing on the doorframe that seems strangely familiar, though he cannot immediately place his finger on it. It is etched into the frame right beneath the torch.
From behind them, a high-pitched voice echoes down the hall. "We don't want any of youse, longshanks!" The group turns and Vantine sees a goblin, as pale as the first, with two others, their bows drawn and pointed at the Ravens. The one who spoke has truly tremendous ears, though one is missing a significant chunk from it. His two companions are women, one with scraggly dark hair, and the other with tattoos. Nyxra can barely make them out in the dim light at the edges of the spell, and the humans cannot see them at all.
"Why're youse down here, longshankses?" The center one asks. "This is our home."
The Raven slowly turns the direction the voices are coming from. "I told you, good fellow. We are simple, weary travelers, looking for a guide." The Raven pauses for a moment, as if thinking, then continues. "Well, that is not entirely true. We are troublemakers searching for a way to rescue our friends who are unjustly imprisoned by Thrune. Troublemakers, but we do not intend to cause trouble for you, and we can pay."
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Aisling blinks in surpires as her friends suggest trying to talk with the goblins, and emven more when the goblins seem to want to talk rather than to shoot. She takes a look at the symobol scratched into the door, and her surprise goes all the way up to amaezement.
"Wait. You gob- I mean, you gusys worship Sarenrae? The Dawnflower?" She tries to think like a gobling for a moment. "The brithg-burning-sun-goddess-lady?"
She hods up her holy symbol, hoping that the goblins can see it in the dark. "I follow Iomedae, also sun-goddess-friend. We aren't here to distrub your home. We're here exploring. Mabye you can show us around?"
The goblin responds. "You bring trouble to us, then?" He says something in his native tongue, and the other two goblins giggle. "We don't want no troubles with the up-devils."
Before the Ravens can respond, the makeshift door opens, and a female goblin with red-dyed scraggly hair steps out, looking up at the Raven and Aisling. She shouts something to the other goblins, and they lower their bows, approaching more closely.
This new arrival wears a smattering of rags and dirty robes, with a curved scimitar on one hip and a silver symbol of Sarenrae - clearly not of goblin make - tied onto her belt. She speaks. "Sorry, longshankses. We must be careful... no one likes us, 'specially since Harlan died."
"I'm Grooka Suntalker, Priest-Chief of the Sunseekers. You," she points at Aisling, "be a priestess, too, yes? A goodly one, not one of those devil-priests."
Jessibel watched and listened dumbfounded. What little she knew of Sarenrae and her church seemed to confirm that these goblins were indeed her followers, but...Come on! Goblins!
Still, the others seemed willing to give this a shot. "We're looking for a way back up to the city streets," she tells Grooka. "Preferably somewhere north of here, so you and your people can live in peace without becoming involved."
"Harlan?"
Nyxra's curiosity shoots through the roof. "He was--he was one of the Sarenite priests from before the Night of Ashes!"
Vantine doesn't know much at all about goblins, but it's enough to be quite shocked to find a little Sarenite church among them. She simply reaffirms what others have already said.
"We're just passing through, looking for a way out. We're not here to take anything."
The Raven sheaths his dagger and makes an exaggerated bow. "People call me the Raven. Well, I call me the Raven. You can too, if you wish. And these." He rights himself and makes a sweeping gesture that takes in the ladies. "Are my compatriots. We are no devil worshipers." With a flick of his wrist, the silvered dagger he purchased earlier in the week appears in his hand. He offers it hilt-first to the priestess for her inspection. "Quite the opposite, in fact."
"You want to go up?" The priest-chief's lips turn downwards. "Go back up the way you came down, then?" She says, puzzled.
At Nyxra's statement G&%!a nods rapidly. "Harlan was my teacher!" She puffs her chest at this, clearly proud of the fact. "He taught songs and prayers!"
"The ways up be blocked." The male goblin says, stepping into the sword- and torchlight. "Snows." The other two goblins remain quiet, watching the Silver Ravens warily.
Grooka waves her hand at the goblin. "Longear's right. No way up, no no no." She looks at Aisling again, before looking quizzically at the Raven. "It's shiny, but..." After a moment, Longear says something in Goblin.
"Oh! I see..." She rubs her chin slightly. "You too big to come into our home - sorry. But if you want help, we can try."
Nyxra crouches down and looks Grooka in the eye. "Did... have you seen another elf that looks like me? Dark skin, dark hair? She also worshiped Sarenrae."
"I'm Grooka Suntalker, Priest-Chief of the Sunseekers. You," she points at Aisling, "be a priestess, too, yes? A goodly one, not one of those devil-priests."
Aisling smiles. "I'm pleased to meet you, Grooka. I am Aisling, priest of Iomedae. I'm definitnely NOT a devil priest, no. And neither are my frineds. We're looking for a way to get into the prison outside town, without anyone seeing us. We thought these sweweres might help us get there."
The two goblins look at Nyxra, then at one another, than back to Nyxra, before shaking their heads in what is almost comical unison.
Grooka bobs her head at Aisling. "Prison? Mm... talk about it? Might be we know a way to get nearby, but not the name that you use."
"It's the place where salt is made, near the gate going out of the wall to the sea? It is also used as a prison now."
Jessibel grimaces when her friends trust the goblins with the true details of their rescue mission. That seems like a really bad idea to her.
Or maybe she's just worried that she's dressed in armor that happens to be the favorite colors of the Church of Asmodeus. She keeps her mouth shut and tries not to look like a devil priestess.
Nyxra sighs in disappointment. "Dammit..."
Jessibel puts her hand on Nyxra's shoulder and tells her, "Don't give up hope. We'll find out what happened to your mother."
The small part of her brain still worried how the goblins might view her thinks, A priestess of Asmodeus would never be so sympathetic.
The goblin priestess looks at her tribe, chattering at them in their native language. Longear goes into their warren, and the group hears distant discussions from within, too.
"Oh! Where the water makes especially yummy pickles. Yes, we know the place." She gestures at the sewage, absently taking a file out of a pouch and beginning to clean her jagged teeth. She turns back to the door, throwing it open and shouting something into it.
After a few moments, another goblin exits, this one a female with a large scar across her bald pate, along with Longear.
Grooka introduces her. "This be Pukka, she knows that part of the sewers best." A few moments of Goblin chatter later, Grooka returns her gaze to the Ravens.
"Uh, she says that the closest way up near there is near where the mushrooms that tastes like knucklefish eyeballs grow." Grooka smiles up at the Ravens, delighted in being of some help.
"If it is not prying, what brings you fine folk to dwell in the sewers?"