Robin gagged, the stench of the dead monster at his feet somehow even worse than the deadly aroma the thing had emitted while still alive. It wasn’t the first of the creatures they had encountered in the sewers of the undercity, but he devoutly hoped it would be the last.

His nose couldn’t take much more of this.

‘Tuvyux,’ Jhess sounded stuffed as she blocked her nose. The rogue spat. ‘Almost worse dead than alive.’

‘Almost,’ said Drev drily. The mage was tending to his left arm. One of the tuvyux’s barbed tentacles had slashed it open.

‘Alcohol,’ Savra snapped. ‘We need to clean these wounds and fast. If we don’t, there’s a nasty fever that can develop. Even with my blessings it might take root. The tuvyux is particularly noxious.’

‘What do you expect from something that lives among, delights in, and feeds on offal?’ Jhess looked sour but she was applying a splash of rum to her wounds with great goodwill.

‘Twas no great thing to dispatch,’ Khavren said, but even the knight bore wounds from the encounter.

And not even Khavren was so arrogant to ignore Savra’s medical advice. Robin watched with amusement as the knight splashed his cuts with the sacramental wine he carried. It probably wasn’t but it seemed sacrilegious.

‘Can you do anything about the smell?’ Jhess asked.

‘Sorry,’ Robin grimaced. ‘Not until I’ve cleaned everyone. The mucus that thing leaves behind with its touch is pernicious.’

And it was. The thick green slime coated nearly everyone in splatters or great swathes of noxious crud. The stuff was dense, too. It took three times as long to clear away with [Legerdemain] than it did to clear up normal filth from tromping through the sewers.

‘We have to be near the deeper caverns, right?’ Jhess asked without much animation in her voice. ‘I would very much like to get out of the sewers.’

‘There’s an entrance to the tunnels leading deeper into the undercity somewhere nearby,’ Robin assured her. ‘Half the sewer channels we’re passing now are natural stone, not brick. We’re close.’

‘Not close enough,’ the rogue muttered.

‘We’ll find the way soon enough,’ Savra said, her eyes going distant, ‘though we should be very wary when we do. A strange danger lurks in the shadows.’

‘Danger always lurks in the shadows,’ Khavren said stoutly. ‘Whatever it is, we shall vanquish it! As we did this foul creature.’ He nudged the dead and stinking tuvyux with the toe of his boot.

The boot Robin had just cleaned with [Legerdemain] not two minutes ago.

‘If you make a mess of yourself after I’ve expended my magical energies cleaning you, I’ll not bother in the future,’ Robin—as Marq—said tartly.

Unfortunately, in this case it was a bit of an empty threat. Punishing Khavren would punish the rest of them just as much. Not only would they all have to bear the stench of the knight, but the smell was likely to draw all manner of unwanted creatures to them.

More encounters like the last were not something Robin was looking forward to. The experience points were no doubt nice enough, but they were burning through their stamina and stored magical energies at a ferocious rate. There was no way they could keep up this kind of pace. Either they’d end up making camp three times a day to recover, which was madness, or they’d run into something tougher than they could handle while running on dregs. And that was a recipe for death.

Robin would prefer to skip that meal for as long as possible, thank you.

‘I think we should go that way,’ he said once he had finished cleaning everyone up. ‘There is less brick and the ground is sloping downward more than along the other pathways.’

They were in a junction of sorts. Several channels and their accompanying tunnels met here. Plenty of detritus washed this far down and caught along the more irregular stone surfaces that were plentiful this far down. No wonder the tuvyux had been attracted to the place.

Khavren looked thoughtful. Savra rolled her eyes behind the knight’s back. As their ostensible leader, he always made a great show of considering the ‘counsel’ of the rest of them before pompously announcing ‘his’ decision.

‘We will go that way,’ he decided, pointing down the same tunnel Robin had suggested.

Savra conjured a fresh magelight and sent it down the passageway in front of them. Light was easy for her. She had a control over the cantrip Robin hadn’t even seen in Lantha.

Something was calling to Robin from these depths. He wasn’t sure what it was, but he felt an undeniable connection and the feeling grew as he drew nearer to…whatever it was. He didn’t think it was related to the quest prompts he received from his interface, though he wasn’t sure what else it might be. He didn’t have any extra sensory powers like Savra, yet.

Robin had resolved early on to acquire several spying abilities like scrying. Divinations were just too useful and the information one could acquire was often necessary for truly successful illusions and tricks. He was going to ask Savra if there were any such spells she would be willing and able to teach him but he hadn’t yet found a good time.

They were fairly occupied in staying alive, after all.

Plus there was the whole quest thing, dealing with his new adventuring party and how they were all getting along (or not, in the case of Khavren), and the ever-looming threat of Zahn’s displeasure. With Wulfram always hovering over Robin’s shoulder, it was very hard to forget that last bit.

The Guildmagister had eyes everywhere.

The constant, low-level pulse of anxiety from Rerebos probably wasn’t helping his mood either. The little dragon was flitting about overhead, scouting ahead and generally reinforcing Robin’s illusion of greater knowledge of the undercity than he actually had by reporting back the peculiarities of the local geography.

He had missed the tuvyux, however. The thing had been submerged in a pile of refuse and Rerebos flitted high enough out of reach he didn’t disturb the thing when he passed through on his initial investigation of the way.

Robin had sent several reassuring pulses along their empathic link when he felt a small stab of guilt from the little dragon.

Savra’s magelight danced ahead of them, spilling brilliant light in gold and white across their path. After only a few paces, all trace of brickwork vanished. The walls were rough stone, with only a few trace marks that spoke of tools adjusting or widening the tunnel and carving the channel for runoff.

Khavren led the way with Savra close behind to provide light. It was not the most efficient option. The knight was loud and not nearly so sharp-eyed as Jhess or even Robin. He often missed signs that could have averted ambush or attack. Though they had yet to suffer any egregious harm from the practice.

It was a far cry from the smooth efficiency of the Sisters Sharp. But they probably had rough days in the beginning as well.

Drev followed behind Savra with Jhess next to him. Robin and Wulfram brought up the rear. The hulking ‘porter’ at least was a formidable rear-guard, and Robin took care to shroud their back with periodic [Visual Phantasm]s of shadows. It would block line of sight at least, if anything were tailing them and considering an attack.

They had been walking for several minutes when Robin felt a pulse of excitement from Rerebos. The little dragon fluttered above his head, keeping to the shadows.

Even with Robin’s ability to see in the dark, he had trouble spotting his familiar. Rerebos was very good at hiding. The bard continued walking as if he’d seen nothing, however. He didn’t want to give Rerebos away to anyone else in the party, though he suspected Wulfram was sharp enough of eye to spot the little dragon.

Which said a lot about his skill level. It was both reassuring and slightly worrying. Reassuring because the giant of a man was down here and theoretically on their side. Slightly worrying because that theoretically could go away too easily for Robin’s liking.

Plus he was Zahn’s eyes and ears.

‘There’s a cavern up ahead,’ Rerebos hissed in his own language. ‘You should get there on your slow mammal legs in less than five minutes.’

‘Thank you,’ Robin hissed back, as quietly as he could. ‘Any sign of unfriendlies?’

‘I didn’t go in. I thought it better to come back and warn you as soon as possible.’

Ha! The little dragon was not quite so fearless as he pretended to be. That was fine with Robin. He much preferred a live familiar that was overly cautious to a reckless one that ended up dead because he didn’t look before he leapt. Or flew.

‘Did you smell anything?’ Robin pressed. The encounter with the tuvyux was still very much at the forefront of his mind.

‘No.’ Rerebos’s voice was slightly snippy. ‘Not taste, nor hear, nor feel. As I said, I returned as soon as I spotted the cavern entrance.’

‘Fair enough,’ the bard conceded.

Thankfully, Wulfram either didn’t notice or didn’t care to comment on Robin’s walking alone whilst strangely hissing at the shadows.

Before Robin and Rerebos could discuss the matter any further, however, the party arrived at the end of the tunnel.

‘We’ve got something!’ Khavren said, excitement in his voice.

‘It’s probably a simple cavern,’ Jhess said. ‘Though we’d already know by now if you’d let me scout ahead.’

The rogue wasn’t one to stop when there were obstacles in the way of what she wanted, and she really wanted to survive. Her doing what she was good at—and what Khavren was poor at—would help accomplish that.

Her verbal jab fell on deaf ears. Khavren was signalling that they should head in quietly and in a defensive formation. Robin sent a pulse of wariness to Rerebos to encourage the little dragon to hang back.

If Khavren wanted to take the lead, then by all means let him bear the brunt of any surprise attacks.

They filed into the cavern. It was large and thick with both stalactites and stalagmites. The spears of stone made it hard to see just how large the place was, or even what might be ahead of them along the pathway through.

‘I’ve got a bad feeling about this,’ Robin muttered to no one in particular.

There was a rustling above their heads. It sounded strangely familiar to Robin for some reason. Then the shadows moved.

They were under attack!