FSE

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Marge had spent her day well by the time the sun was going down. She returned not only with a map of the sewer system drawn to scale, but with another map of the city above to correlate with it. It had cost Kreet another gold coin to get it, and yet another for the notarized deed transfer of the Shining Skink.

Somewhere in the back of her mind she wondered if it would hold up legally for a kobold to own property in the Royal City, but considering the state of the building it would be surprising if anyone actually cared enough.

She hadn't been idle either. The three of them had returned to the horse and ponies and sold them. In fact they had gotten more than they'd paid for them, and at least her money had increased a little. Then she went shopping.

Sigmundurr had suggested a torch, but she had enough sense to know that open flame and sewer gas didn't mix well. Besides, she was a Cleric of the Lord of Light. If she knew no other spells, she could at least create light! But she did purchase a staff that would act as a storage system for her light spell so that she didn't have to maintain it while underground. While such things were often associated with mages, all magic wielders knew the value of a good staff of light!

Ropes would surely be handy, so they stocked up on those, and Sigmundurr traded in his sword for a wickedly heavy hammer at her request. It would serve well as a weapon, but in what she anticipated she would find, it might have other uses.

There would likely be other equipment that she would need, but she just wasn't experienced enough in this sort of thing to know what to get. She suggested a short bow and arrow for Kallid, but he knew he wouldn't be able to wield them well enough to be helpful without months of experience. But he did happily bring them back to the Shining Skink to begin practicing in the small courtyard behind the building.

"I won't be any good at it yet, but someday I will be!" he declared proudly, and Kreet realized again how much she really had fallen for the little guy. She had no doubt of his sincerity, and she paid special attention to him that night, so that in the morning all three were in a good mood.

They finished a light breakfast Marge provided, then were off. Unfortunately the map indicated there simply weren't many entrances. There was one within the Slum region, but Kreet sensed it was important to see the working sewers and exactly where they stopped and the malfunctioning Slum system began. It took a good hour to leave the slums behind and get back into the more prosperous regions.

"Well, it did rain last night. That surely will help keep the smell tolerable at least," Kallid noted hopefully.

"We'll see soon enough. See that big drain under the bridge? That's where we go in."

They had reached one of several small rivers that ran through the city, with an ancient stone bridge across it. The river was running swiftly and Kreet cautioned them all to be careful - it could well drown them if they fell into it. Fortunately the outflow from the sewer into it looked pretty mild. There were some steps leading off the bridge down to the dark mouth of the sewer, and they proceeded cautiously towards it.

Though they had to wade through it for a few paces, tied to each other with a rope, it sooned widened out and on both sides of the main sewer was a path that was at least somewhat shallower. At other times the paths on the sides were likely dry, but as Kallid had predicted, the rains were keeping the water relatively clean - as long as you didn't look too closely.

Behind them, the outflow sounded like a minor waterfall and they had to yell to be heard, but as they proceeded further in, the noise lightened up. The slightly bluish glow of the staff worked well, but the sewer didn't run straight, so it seemed they could never see much ahead of them.

"Okay. I memorized the first few turns, but I need to check the map out again soon," Kreet said, looking around. "Can we find somewhere dry?"

"I don't see anything," Sigmundurr said, his voice booming in the now-quieting space. "You'll just have to be careful not to get it wet."

She nodded, and withdrew the sewer map from her pack, opening it carefully.

"Okay, so we go that way," she determined, pointing to her right. "Then we turn to the left at the next bend and that should get us near where the main path to the slum area is. From there it's pretty much a straight line on the main path."

She'd just put the map safely back in her pack when the first attack came. An albino alligator, it even gave Sigmundurr a fright with it's ferociousness even though it was quite small and he easily dispatched it with a blow from his hammer.

"Okay," he said as they watched the carcass flow downstream, "that's probably just as well. It'll keep us on our guard. We're not alone down here. Also the bigger things will come from the center channel or overhead. So don't neglect to look up sometimes too, okay?"

Kreet thought it weird to be taking warnings from Sigmundurr, but he'd prowled such places more than she had in her adult life. The roof of the sewer wasn't far overhead - just slightly beyond Sigmundurr's head in fact - but she flashed her eyes along its length anyway. While she and Kallid didn't need the light, Sigmundurr did - and they needed Sigmundurr!

Fortunately they didn't encounter anything worse than the albino alligators, and Sigmundurr prevented them from getting anywhere close to Kreet or Kallid. It also helped that they hadn't attacked in any sort of coordinated way. They just seemed to thrash about blindly and randomly, but were fierce when they detected something.

Finally they arrived at one of the duly-marked Cloaca Maxima locations on the map. The space opened up into a larger area where different channels joined together. But Kreet soon realized there was a problem. The channel they needed to follow into the area of the slums was significantly higher than where they stood. She also noticed there was no outflow from it. But the immediate concern was how they could climb up to it. None were terribly good at climbing, though Kallid almost managed to get his talons to hold his weight as he tried to scale the slippery sides.

"Damn," Kreet fumed. "It's not even that high! But I can't for the life of me figure out how we're going to get up there!"

"Maybe if we climb onto each other's shoulders?" Kallid suggested, but Kreet didn't think it would get them quite high enough.

Sigmundurr had his back to the two kobolds, watching for stray alligators. He turned back and looked overhead. The ceiling was a dome-shaped stone block construction, but it afforded nothing to attach a rope to - even if they could get up to it or get a lucky rope toss.

"Hold on," he said, dispatching another white maw that was getting a little too close.

"Kallid, take your pack off," he said, assuring himself that the remaining gators weren't close enough for any immediate threat for a few minutes anyway.

The little kobold did so, cocking his head to one side in curiosity as he handed it to Kreet. Sigmundurr spat on his hands and squatted. "Okay, get ready."

Kallid didn't understand until he was in the air. Kreet did, but only a millisecond before Sigmundurr had grabbed Kallid by an arm and a leg and fairly tossed him fully through the opening above. Kreet saw the bulging eyes and unintelligible burble her mate let loose as he was briefly and unexpectedly airborne.

"AAAAAAA!!!" came the voice from above. "Damn it Sig! You could have at least warned me first! I nearly soiled myself!"

"Bah. You or Kreet would have come up with some reason not to, and we'd be stuck here for an hour. Besides, you're in the right place for soiling yourself anyway."

Kallid's head emerged above them, looking none too happy.

"Well, don't just gawk at us. Here, catch this rope!" Sig said, tossing a rope up to Kallid and then resuming his guard duty behind Kreet.

"You okay Kally?" Kreet asked, trying her best not to giggle.

"Yeah. I guess. Hold on, there's a stone jutting from the side I should be able to wrap this around. I think it'll even hold Sig. If I don't 'accidentally' let it slip!"

A few more minutes and they were in the main channel towards the slums. It was dry as a bone. The channel that should have been free flowing with water held nothing but hard-as-rock mud. It wasn't even slightly smelly and could have been made from some sort of concrete.

"One thing's for sure, this channel hasn't worked for a long, long time!"

Kallid looked at Kreet. "You know - to be this dry, especially after a rainfall, it's like ALL the holes into it must be plugged up. How likely is that?"

"Not likely at all."

"Kreet, I think it was sealed up on purpose."

Sigmundurr spoke up then. "You think there's, like, something in here that they sealed it up to prevent it getting out?"

"Every little gutter?" Kreet said, shaking her head. "No, I don't think that makes sense. Look, we're not far enough in to see why or how it was sealed up yet. This is just the main channel and it doesn't have any direct drains - that comes further on according to the map., But if it was sealed up purposely, the only reason I can think of is that someone wanted the sewers to stop working. Maybe wanted to create a slum!"

"Well, maybe," Sigmundurr said. "I know you're thinking of Big Jake and his group. But that's a lot of guesswork when we haven't even found out what the problem is yet. Let's go on further in. We'll know soon enough."