A man in ordinary street clothes was walking down the tunnels of old Pliranto. Again and again he glanced over his shoulder, but never did he see or hear anyone. He was not imagining things however, because not far behind followed a shadow.

Nannade had been tailing the man the entire morning. Or what she believed to be morning. She had spent two or three days underground by now. Gracia graciously gave her shelter and bed, although her composure and behaviour spoke more and more of fear and nervousness when around the crolachan girl, that much Nannade could tell. Some people were just able to pick up on Ssil’s presence, even if they could never put a finger on it.

The man however was unnerved simply by the feeling of being observed. Which he was. Shadows clung to Nannade’s green felt cloak, a simple modification of her teacher’s Embracing Shadows spell, but not almighty. She needed to stay out of bright light for the shadows to not be blown away, so she kept her distance from the man's lantern. She knew the man she was following was somehow affiliated with the cult surrounding the Lord of the Tunnels, because he had come out of the same tunnels that the gang known as the Carpet-Drenchers would deliver abducted people and returned without them. The cult was most likely using them as sacrifices to their Lord. They needed funds and resources to continue their rituals, and one of those resources were “offerings” Nannade could piece together from reports of other inhabitants down here, that those chosen to sustain the Lord were picked by the gangs and then delivered to the cult via specific tunnels inaccessible to anyone but the cult. She just needed to find out where they ran.Many of these tunnels were dead ends that Nannade suspected to be secured and protected by magic means. She hadn’t come across any mediums or arcanists, but members of a cult or religion could do without either to cast the “Miracles” of their gods.

In the end, cults were just religions who made up for their tiny memberships – most commonly less than two hundred – with increased devotion, service and sacrifice. Blood and life were suitable sacrifices for that. Offer a spirit an entire chicken or goat, and it might just manifest strongly enough for even a mundane person to see and interact with. Not unlike what happened in the glade during the festivals.

Now this particular man was again walking making his way to the tunnel, coming from a tightly locked building, carrying a big backpack filled almost to the bursting point, hurrying and scurrying down various alleys and bends, but with the Serpent’s gift, Nannade had no problems tracking the man. His warmth shone like a lone candle in the dark tunnels.

She followed him down several bends, until he arrived at the furthest point Nannade had ever been into these parts of the tunnel network. He cleared a corner and she had to hurry to not lose him around the next bend.

As she arrived at the bend he had disappeared around, she stared down a long, dark tunnel, probably fifty to seventy feet long, with no sign of warmth around. He could not have made it all the way to the end of the tunnel during the time she had lost sight of him. She took out her own light-vial, twisted the glass plug to turn its light on, and started following the man’s footprints, blowing the shadows away doing so.

The floor in the tunnels this far away from the ruins consisted mainly of wet, compacted soil, but she could still see where his boots had left a slight imprint. The warmth had had no opportunity to sink in. She tracked his prints to around one third down the tunnel, where they disappeared. He had not turned into any specific direction and neither floor, walls nor ceiling seemed to hide any sort of secret doors. Nannade decided to mark the spot by cutting a notch into the walls at around ankle-height. Nobody should notice them there. She was about to turn around, go back to Gracia’s house when she decided to keep going down the tunnel.

It was not very far until she hit the dead end as she expected, but there was something peculiar about it. The soil in front of it had no footprints and seemed rather loose, butthe walls were smooth and compacted, as if created rather than excavated with tools. She wanted to test something. She took a step back and kicked the wall of soil with all her might. It budged. Not dented in, not compacted, it budged. There was a hollow space behind it.

Nannade decided to dig using her throwing knives. Their broad, strong blades were perfect for such a task. The wall of soil was barely twenty inches thick. Behind it, the light of her vial revealed a large and open space, once maybe a well-kept lawn, but now a barren open space. A paved road led to a broad building, mostly covered in soil, but the entrance with its flanking columns was excavated. She got closer and read the inscription chiselled into the stone above the entrance. It was a bath house.

She went inside and after a small ante room with a sort of teller, found herself in a large welcoming area. Mosaics lined the walls and ceilings and to both left and right doors lead to equally large rooms with rotten piles of wood littering the floor, some of the boards implied that they had once been part of cabinets or shelves. The inscriptions of the walls designated left to be the area for women, right the area for men. The two wings seemed to be identical in layout. She checked both of them. Some rooms contained large basins, which at one point must have been filled with water for the guests, others seemed to be just for sitting. Nannade had read once that the old Pliranti liked their saunas, hot rooms where people would endure the heat and humidity to steel their bodies against hardships, even if they only ever lived in the comfort and luxury of their cities.

Nannade explored the dilapidated building. The ceiling seemed to be intact and holding well except for at one place in the left wing, where the ceiling had collapsed and soil flooded the room. At other points, the floor had crumbled and revealed the circulation system for hot air below. She imagined the people of old bathing amidst the colourful walls and pristine waters, not ashamed of their naked bodies, and she made herself no illusions that her own kind wouldhave been allowed in here. Not just because nobody liked shed fur in their bathing water, but because her kind was literally regarded as demi-humans in the old empire. Half a person, only worth half as much as a human. Two crolachans were required to challenge testimony of a human in court, two crolachans needed to prove their credit-worthiness to the banks to open an account, and many other such cases. It ran deep. And now it was gone, the term soon vanished from living memory.

She also found a drainage system, that connected to old Pliranto’s sewer system. The sewers below the bath house were a dead end, and the only way out was also blocked by a wall of soil. Like the one before, Nannade quickly exposed and took down this disguise as well and found herself in the sewers connected to the rest of the city.

She quickly realized that this is where the cultists must have set up their temple. Below even the ruins of old Pliranto, they could move freely, emerging at any point in the ruins as they wished, concealed my magic. She quickly got to re-erecting the wall that blocked the bath off from the sewers.

She thought about it for a moment. If she set up a base in the bath house, she would have direct and exclusive access to the cultists. An opportunity to study the cult without them noticing. She would just have to move some supplies over to the bath house so she could stay there.

She quickly got to taking her stuff from Gracia’s home. It would be a waste of the rent she had paid, but it was safer for Gracia this way. Nannade informed her that she was leaving, not telling her where. She also looked for Aaka. She had left her jar some time ago and occasionally, Nannade would see a gleaming point from the corner of her eyes. The spider was undoubtedly watching her from time to time, but also following her own will. Nannade was sure the spider would follow her sooner or later.

After she had returned to the bath house, she had the weird desire to start making the place more homely, dusting off some areas, getting rid of the rotting wood, freeing the mosaics from dust and dirt, as if she would stay here for a long time rather than a few days. She instead focussed on what was important: re-concealing the place to make sure the cult did not find their little oversight. After she had rebuilt the facade, she got back to more long-term needs. She knew she would also need more food and water in this place. And she also knew that some of the houses in the ruins must be some kind of supply storage for the cult, the man with the backpack had shown her as much. Maybe one of them had food and water.

She went out back into the city, squeezing through a tiny hole she had constructed and concealed in the shadows to allow herself easy and secret access to her new base of operations. She was about to get her lockpicks to work on one of the storage houses, when a group of Carpet-Drenchers called out to her.

“Oi, you, kitty-girl. We’ve been looking for you.” one of them called out to her and got closer. Nannade tensed up, but made sure to make no wrong movements just yet. “The Don will receive you soon, come with me!”