yes?'
'Oh. Why didn't you say so?' Meloon swung his axe one more time to ward off the sewyrms clambering up the pile, then reached around with his left arm, grabbed her around the waist, and held her high up on his torso. 'That high enough, milady Harsard?'
'Fine.' She muttered a few arcane syllables, breathing deep and thinking of a dragon's head, and a radiant cone of color flashed from her outstretched hands. The brief illumination showed her a deep cavity that used to be a cellar or tunnel, its entirety choked with the green sewyrms. All of them hissed in pain, though most fell unconscious, stunned by the clashing spray of color.
She leaned back against Meloon's shoulder and chest and said, 'The few that are still moving are blind and more easily dispatched now. Promise to never underestimate me again and you can call me Elra.'
'Done, Elra,' the blond man said as he set her down at the edge of the cavity. 'You didn't mention you were a wizard.'
'I'm not,' she said. 'I don't tell many people about my hidden talents, given how most feel about magic since the Spellplague. And I'm a sorcerer, not a wizard.'
'Doesn't matter to me-for friends or a fight,' Meloon said. 'We're still striding. That's what matters.'
Laraelra smiled, but that vanished when a scream echoed toward them. Before Laraelra could give him an order, Meloon shouldered his way through the loose rubble pile, widening the opening. The two of them clambered up and over into the cavity, haunted by the sounds of their breathing, the hiss of a few sewyrms, and the echoing screams. Laraelra grabbed one of the torches and brought it to light their way.
Meloon's first steps sank ankle-deep into mud. What lizards they found were soon beheaded and shoved out of the way.
'What is this?' Meloon whispered. 'Where are we?'
Laraelra said, 'There are a lot of hidden cellars, tunnels, and old foundations-beneath the northern wards, some of which have been mapped, others not so much. Many places here are decades older than the city around them. As long as they never interfered with the sewers, the Lords and the Cellarers and Plumbers' Guild turned a blind eye to them all. The money that buys these places also buys secrets.'
'I can't tell where the screams are coming from,' he said, his knuckles white around his axe haft.
'Just up ahead and to the right,' Laraelra replied, pointing ahead to an obvious intersection of tunnels. 'After a few trips down here, you learn to ignore the echoes and focus on the sources of sounds. Now let's go quietly.'
Meloon swept a protective arm to keep her back as he moved ahead. Laraelra bumped into him when he stopped. They stood on the edge of a drop well beyond their torchlight, blackness yawning before them. The pavement fell away here, the walls looking slightly melted, rippling from brickwork to smooth flow-stone. Laraelra could see a tunnel entrance outlined indirectly by flickering torchlight far below her and to her right. A woman's ragged gasps and whimpers of pain grew to another anguished scream. The screams echoed up from the depths, along with the murmur of a man's voice.
'Wizards!' The man's spit of disgust and phlegm resounded through the darkness. 'You all think you're better than us, but they can't get secrets out of you with magic, so they call on Granek. Wizardry or no, without fingers, you'll be naught but a hard-coin girl after we're done, if you don't yield your secrets.'
Laraelra and Meloon paused high above, sharing a look of horror and revulsion as they listened.
'Tell Granek what he wants to know, and we'll stop. For now. Resist, and we'll do worse to your hip than we're doing to your knee.'
The woman's ragged sobs and panicked breathing were audible even where Meloon and Laraelra stood far above them. Laraelra hugged herself, her eyes tearing up at hearing the utter hatred in the man's rough voice. She knew people could be cruel, but she'd never heard it so plain. Fear, anger, and her breakfast all warred in the pit of her stomach and she gulped to hold it down.
Meloon paced and smashed the butt of his axe against the wall, loosening stone fragments to clatter down into the blackness. In the firelight, Laraelra could see the anger in his clenched jaw and knew his imaginary target was the torturer down below in the gloom.
'Well?' the man asked, but there was only a long pause. A hollow laugh, a moist crunch, and a deafening scream followed.
Laraelra and Meloon both jumped in shock. Meloon's face shifted to stern resolve. 'Can't we help her?'
She nodded, and whispered, 'Let's see if there's a way down.'
Laraelra grabbed a stone from the floor, cupped it in her left hand, and whispered at it. In a whirl of sparkles, the stone glowed with a steady blue light. She tossed the stone down into the abyss, and it dropped more than five people's heights before it rattled to a stop. The pale azure light revealed a shattered and nebulous system of tunnels, many of which had melted or collapsed together on at least two levels. Her stone's light merged with the outer edges of their torchlight, showing them at least a drop of at least thirty feet.
'No way we can get down there without ropes and hooks.' Meloon groaned.
'No,' Laraelra said, 'but that doesn't mean we can't guess who's doing this.'
Laraelra handed her torch to Meloon and pulled a scroll tube out of her belt pouch. She opened the tube and pulled out the parchments within it, flipping through them until she found what she sought. She explained, 'My father keeps detailed maps of every sewer connection and tunnel he knows of down here, and he notes who owns the properties above them as well. I've made copies for whenever I need to come down here.'
She squinted at the map and motioned for Meloon to bring the light closer.
'If I'm reading this right, we're beneath Kulzar's Alley and Rook's Alley,' she muttered, deep in thought. 'There's a block of three conjoined buildings up there.'
'So who do we go fight?' Meloon asked.
Laraelra stared at the map, then folded it back up sharply. 'No one. We can't do anything.'
'Who owns this block?' Meloon asked. 'We can't let them get away with this!'
'We have to,' Laraelra said. 'The block is owned by the Neverembers.''
'The Open Lord?'
'I doubt it. Lord Dagult wouldn't do this. Even if he would, he's got far more secure locations in Castle Waterdeep or beneath the palace.' Laraelra thought aloud, 'We could go to the Watch, but who will they believer The Open Lord or the daughter of a paranoid guildmaster and her hired sellsword?'
'I don't care,' Meloon said. 'I need to help that woman. Nobody deserves that-servant, coin-girl, or peasant. And if we have to go the palace and confront the Open Lord, well…'
'No,' Laraelra said. 'Lord Dagult's too busy with the city. His son Renaer manages all his properties, allegedly. Let's go pay a visit to and get some answers from Lord Neverember the Younger. Unless you'd like to stay down here a while longer?'
'No,' Meloon said coldly. 'My axe and I want words with Renaer Neverember.'
CHAPTER 3
Whether a lord knows in his castle what hap or no, his sovereignty makes demands of him for it nonetheless, and any who wouldst gainsay that deserves neither loyalty nor obeisance.
9 Nightal, Year of the Ageless One (1479 DR)
'Milord?'
'Yes, Madrak?'
'Apologies at interrupting your breakfast, but you have unexpected callers.'
Renaer looked up from his trencher of fried eggs and potatoes and stared at the white-haired halfling whose face barely cleared the table top. Renaer swallowed and said, 'Anyone who knows me would not call on me before mid-morn. Who is it?'
