Poiniard momentarily forgot about Mheren's night vision while he fumbled in his pack for a torch and tinderbox. "I'll have it lit in a second," he said, telling himself he wasn't hearing things splashing about further up the tunnels.

Shespi tried not to gag as she searched around in the darkness. "This muck is just horrible," she said, putting a hand over her nose.

"Try not to think about it," Mheren said coolly. She stood to one side, and with her elvensight was peering down the tunnel. "It looks like we're going to be wading in it for a while. The tunnel is filled with it as far as I can see."

"What CAN you see?" Shespi asked, trying to peer into the gloom.

"The tunnel goes straight for some forty feet or more, then it looks like it makes a sharp turn to the right."

Shespi shuddered again at the slime coating her feet and legs. "This stuff feels like its sticking to me!"

"You're just imagining things, Shespi. Try not to think about it," Mheren said, though she had been having similar, disgusting thoughts herself.

Shespi did the only thing she could in the darkness- she drew her knife and clenched it as hard as she could. "Curse it all, Poiniard, haven't you got that torch lit, yet?"

"Just about," he said. There was a spark of light, in which the two humans momentarily got a glimpse of their companions and their surroundings. Poiniard struck steel to flint again, in an effort to get his torch lit. Everything was damp and saturated with the repulsive water, but with a few more tries he finally got a fire going. His torch spluttered in fits, and the light was pale and seemed weaker than he'd hoped. Poiniard pulled a second torch from his pack, passed the flame to it, then handed it to Shespi.

"Now we're ready," he said, drawing his sword and turning to face the tunnel. To the very limits of their torchlight, they could see the sewer was half-full of the stagnant, murky water.

"We're going to have to stoop, but it looks like we can make it through," Mheren said.

"Let's get going, then," Shespi said, grimacing.

The elf woman nodded and led the way into the sewers, holding Monarchal before her. Shespi followed immediately behind, bearing her torch, and Poiniard brought up the rear. They soon reached the point where the tunnel turned sharply to the right, and Mheren peered around the corner.

"More of the same. About forty feet, then a turn to the left."

"It looks like it might be a bit of an uphill slope," Shespi said hopefully.

"You might be right," Mheren agreed. "I can't really tell until we try it."

The three intrepid adventurers rounded the next corner and continued their flight through Culhaven's sewers. They found the stagnant water finally began to recede somewhat. The tunnel became taller as well, so they could finally walk upright without ducking their heads. They noticed the tunnel becoming warmer and drier.

"The muck is not so deep here," Shespi said. "It barely comes up to my knees, now." The red-haired thief tried vainly to wring some of the water from the skirts of her gown, but quickly gave it up. She grimaced at the black stains left on her thighs by the muck. She tried scrubbing some of it off, but to no avail- all she managed to do was to further coat her hands with the dark, muddy grime. "We need to find someplace dry, so we can rest a moment."

Mheren glanced over at Shespi, out of the corner of her eye. "Not used to getting dirty, My Lady?"

Shespi glared at the elf-maiden. Mheren looked even more bedraggled than she did, covered in stinking mud nearly from head to toe. The swordswoman's hair was plastered to her head from when she'd fallen completely into the mud when the ladder had broken, and Mheren's dress- designed for fashionable masqued balls rather than climbing about in sewers- looked as if it was on the verge of falling apart. But the elf didn't seem bothered. She was about to reply with a scathing insult when they heard a noise in the tunnel behind them.

"Did you hear that?" Shespi asked. "It sounded like a door slamming."

Mheren scowled. "I heard it too. Come on, we've got to keep moving."

Poiniard suddenly felt a tingle shoot up his sword arm. "What the-" he said, then stopped in amazement. "Look there, he said. "Where the slime does not cover the walls of the tunnel, it looks like runes carved into the stone. Rows of them. What do you make of this?"

"Old Sturothi, by the looks of it," Mheren said in wonder. "These tunnels must be older than anyone imagined if the sorcerer-kings have left their marks in them."

The mention of that ancient and legendary race sent chills down Poiniard's spine. "What do you think they say?"

"It's a warning!" Shespi blurted out. "Don't read them, or touch them!"

The others looked at her, puzzled. "Shespi, can you read what is written there?" Mheren asked.

Shespi shook her head. "No, but if those truly are draconic glyphs, they could be dangerous. The Guild has always said these tunnels are off limits. The Dark Lady feared they were laden with traps. The sorcerer-kings often used magic runes to guard their burial chambers. Any one of those glyphs could be a trap."

Poiniard narrowed his eyes. Despite Shespi's fervent warning, he was intrigued by the ancient letters, and dared a closer inspection. Wyrding hummed silently in his hand- or was he just imagining things? "What Shespi said makes sense, but some of these runes look familiar to me, somehow. This one seems to indicate a barrier," he said, with a distant look in his eyes.

Suddenly, they heard the grating of metal on stone. It seemed to be coming from above the ceiling.

"A trap!" Shespi called out, looking around frantically. Looking up, they could see that an entire section of the ceiling above them had slowly begun to descend, threatening to crush them all, or drown them in the muck. "Get moving! Go!"

They all turned to hurry down the tunnel, carefully watching the descending ceiling, when Mheren stopped abruptly and looked down at the dark waters clinging to her calves. "I just stepped on something," she said, alarmed. "And it moved!"

Then, the water erupted around them. A great slimy bulk heaved itself from the water, knocking Mheren aside as it rose. It was a carrion beast, a tombworm, some monster of the forgotten era of the sorcerer-kings. How long it had lain there, not even a wizard could guess. It was mottled purple and green and grey, a great leech with legs. Its back was covered with a segmented carapace, dripping slime and crusted with knob-like barnacles. It rose up like a thick serpent, and it gave off a powerful stench that washed over the three adventurers like a wave. Its large, puckered mouth was ringed with sharp teeth, and its twin mandibles clacked as they open and shut, like some hungry insect or sea beast. Around its fanged maw were eight writhing tentacles, each as long as a man's arm, and tipped with a fleshy pad that glistened with poison. It lashed out at Shespi and coiled one of its tentacles around her bare neck.

"It stings!" Shespi cried, dropping her torch into the water as the rubbery appendage began to tighten its grip.

Mheren managed to struggle to her feet. Leaning against the wall for support, she swung her sword, trying to keep the creature at bay, even as it tightened its grip on Shespi. The redhead suddenly went completely rigid, whether through fear or some venom in the creature's limbs. Slowly, the crawling thing began to slither off down the tunnel, back the way they had come, drawing the paralyzed Shespi closer to its maw as it went.

"We've got to save her!" Poiniard shouted.

Mheren nodded, but could not help glancing upward. "If we go back to save her, we'll be stuck on the other side when this trap closes. Our only hope of escaping is to go on."

Poiniard hesitated. "We can't leave her to be eaten by that thing."

"If we stay here and argue about it, we'll be crushed." The ceiling continued to grind its way lower, while the crawling thing splashed further away from them, dragging the helpless Shespi with it.