The Sewer

Year: 1491, Month: Tarsakh, Date: 23rd

We awake with the dawn as usual having had a good rest (most of us at least, but we'll get to that shortly). We decided to set no watch, but either through luck or the Harper's protection, we seem to have made it safely through the night.  Although it appears deserted, the Harper's house in Yartar seems to be a safe sanctuary.

Leotard must have partied far too hard on the Grand Dame, and investigated far too little.  He has been vomiting most of the night all over the Harper's garden, and on into the morning.  He's still far too drunk to stand up! We have to leave him behind whilst we go and investigate the Sewers Lady Atallia showed us last night.  If only he was an elf or a dwarf he would have been able to hold his drink.  On the upside though, at least he's already living up to the affectionate moniker I appended to his name, and we've only known him a couple of days.  Tyr must be giving me some powers of foresight.

 

We set off, minus Leo who is in no fit state to explore below Yartar, and return to the alley where Lady Atallia showed us the sewer entrance that she leads her marks to.  I try lifting the grate but can't make it move.  On closer inspection, there seems to be a mechanism hidden around the side of the grate.  Celery checks for traps, but is certain there is nothing there, so Enya triggers the mechanism, and the grate moves slightly.  Everyone jumps back, but after waiting a couple of minutes nothing happens, so I lift the grate fully.  The hole is dark below, and I can see nothing.  I ask Celery to provide light to my shield, and then without further thought I leap down.

It's a sewer and pretty grim.  The walls and floor are covered in slime, the place completely stinks, and moving around is quite treacherous.  Imagine.  I'm not sure either Chello or Celery will like it down here, but I beckon everyone down.

Enya looks around the corner and sees a dozen strange humanoid creatures in the distance.  They have human like bodies, and fish like heads, but Enya says she has no idea what they are.  I hear a loud sigh escape from the Tabaxi, who goes on to explain to us, in a manner very similar to some of the Clerics in my Temple when I didn't understand what they were teaching, that they sound like Kua-toa - degenerate, evil, fish like humanoids.  Chello starts lecturing us that at the height of Illithid empire the mind flayers enslaved the kua-toa for 1000's of years until they were abandoned.  They worship anything that shows them power, or failing that make up their own gods.  The most revered of their gods is Blibdoolpoolp who is the ...  Chello drones on for a while longer, but I block out her noise...eventually the buzzing noise in my ears ceases, and in an exasperated tone I hear Chello say she will deal with them

I've documented the encounter and ensuing fight with the Kua-toa separately in the next couple of pages so I can review later with Hlam and my other teachers, but will continue with our exploration of the Sewers here. 

Once I have my breath back, we investigate the nearest grate.  It looks like it goes down 30 feet then disappears off.  Looking down the second grate, it appears to do the same.  Chello chirps up that these look like the overflow for the sewars.

We continue investigating, and follow Enya.  Enya spots a cave, and moves towards it.  As she moves into the cave, a large, hairy creature, with a huge toothy maw, and many tentacles, leaps out at her.

Chello reacts the quickest and a streak of light comes out of her outstretched palm and strikes the Creature.  Lights sparkle and twinkle where the light struck the creature.  A spiritual cat's claw materialises behind the creature, and digs the sharp, extended claws into the poor creatures back.  The spiritual claws withdraw, pulling out tufts of the creature's fur, and dripping with it's blood.

Two tentacles whip out to strike at Enya, but she parries one with her staff, and the other glances off her shoulder as she twists her body to avoid the attack.  The creature follows the tentacle attacks, with a bite but only comes away with a mouthful of Enya's cloak.  As Celery closes the distance to the creature, she calls on Lathandar to aid her, and a flame like radiance descends on the creature, but the creature seems not to notice.

A burst of red energy shoots the short distance from Enya to the creature, striking the mass of matted, dirty fur and explodes in flame.  The creature is on fire, but is fighting on, hurt, but it doesn't seem to have slowed it down.  Enya mutters a few more words, and inscribes an intricate pattern with her fingers.  A moment later, a dire hound appears at the side of the creature and immediately bites it.  The creature is unable to react quickly enough, and the hound closes its jaws on a tentacle and shakes its head vigourously from side to side, ripping the tentacle from the creature, and covering itself in the blood that gushes from the large wound.

I leap across the sewage channel and rush to engage the creature.  I swing an overhead strike downwards onto the creatures head, calling on the glory of Tyr.  I feel my weapon infusing with the power of Tyr and I smite the creature down with one well timed blow.   As I clean my blade, Celery says a prayer to the poor creature.  I think of asking Chello what she thinks the creature was, but think better of it, as I'm not yet ready for another lecture.

As we look around, we see a few Kua-toa corpses, and various broken objects lying around, but nothing of interest.  Celery retrieves a pincer staff from one of the dead Kua-toa and pokes about a pool in the cave.  She feels there might be something at the bottom of the pool, but no idea what it might be.  She puts the staff down, and puts her hand into the pool, and grasps something and pulls it out, revealing an ordinary looking longsword, now a bit rusty and damaged.  

Enya explores a second pool, but finds nothing.  I take off my gauntlet, and feel around and find a small sack with some hard objects in it.  When I take it and take a look inside, there are a few gold and silver coins.  I dry my hands, before putting my gauntlet back on.

Celery finds two potions in a corner - Chello says they're magic potions, and thinks they are potions of Waterbreathing, whilst searching the 3rd of the four pools.  She fishes out a rotten hand crossbow.  We don't find anything in the last pool.  Celery says she's feeling a little queasy.

We ask Chello to check the grate at the end of one of the passageways.  She says there's a grate, but there's no hinges.  I shout have you checked for hidden triggers.  Chello shouts there are none.  I walk round and search myself, but can't find anything.

We find a room off one passageway that looks like it was once used as an office.   There are 4 wheels, 2 on the walls and 2 on the floor.  Chello says these are controls for the inlets and drainage in the sewers.  Celery says sarcastically, "I could have guessed", but Chello seems not to notice.  The wheels look like they have been used recently.  There were labels by the wheels, but these have long since worn away.  We go back and check the last passageway but it ends, with the sewage flowing beneath it.

We all make our way back to the office, and decide to try the wheels.  The two wheels on the walls seem to open the sewers to allow sewage in, and the two on the floor allow the sewage out.

We go back to the grates, and try to open one of them, But even with four of us trying we can't move them.  There are gaps between the gratings, wide enough for Chello to get through, so we lower her down on a rope.  She shouts back it goes on straight as far as she can see.  We lower Enya down too, and she says it also goes straight as far as she can see.

We feel inspired to give up on that route, and recheck the passageway where the sewage flows under the end wall under the arched passageway.  Celery puts her hands in and finds what feels to her to be another sewer grate.  She feels around it and finds a paddle mechanism which she activates.  This causes a stone wall to raise a few feet from the wall blocking off the water, and revealing a domed grate between the raised stone wall and the end of the passageway.

I climb down and open the grate - there is a quiet sound of air being released.  As  I turn to Celery to see if she knew what the sound was, there is a loud clap of thunder which  drives us all back 10 feet.

We pick ourselves up back off the floor, and Celery makes a prayer to Lathandar which heals our scrapes and bruises.  We then make our way back to the grate to investigate where it leads to.