Baldur's Gate grew from a fishing village supported greatly by the explorer Balduran's gold: our founder. But what is oft overlooked is that before that fishing village was a ruin to build upon. Whether the past occupants evacuated by migration, natural disaster or war is lost to the ages; in practice the Undercity is myth, unreachable, hidden. (And very distinct from the far more recent place, if equally mythical to Dukes' daughters, known as the Undercellar.) In day-to-day life we do not talk about its existence. But histories show that it is no fable, though the archaeology is lost to the ages. I had read superstitions about ghosts in it that murdered people to prevent its rediscovery, but I'd thought of that as fairy tales. Down by the shrine to Ilmater sunken into the ground are some old foundations that are supposed to date back to that time; I visited them several times in the past. I therefore know the Undercity of Baldur's Gate as much as it can be thought to be known.
It was not enough, and Dynaheir's magelight bobbed dimly around us while we examined the library of the ducal palace, in an extremely secret operation indeed. If Sarevok was sleeping within this building at that moment we should never have dared: but the chambers a Grand Duke could use were vacant tonight. Sauriram had been against the risk, for reasons that vague mysticism was not worth the danger. Bhaal died; before that his worship was unheard of in Baldur's Gate. But Sarevok had chosen this city and there must be some reason for it.
Books and records are ill-guarded in times of war. We turned through Baldur's Gate's oldest histories; in glass cases and below preservation spells were those few remaining parchments of Balduran himself, in the same writing as the logbook from the ship. Balduran had voiced little or nothing on religion in his known lifetime, but one of the early elected Dukes had been fanatically devoted to Amaunator. Cohrvale was his name, and I knew he was primarily famous for banning gods and temples he considered unsavoury from the city. After him a climate of religious tolerance took the city; Umberlee never could be banned from a seaport, and as many temples had gold and no inclinations for human sacrifice were welcomed to build and help Baldur's Gate to expand. Imoen searched Cohrvale's own collected writings for mentions of those religions he banned; Dynaheir traced through older religious texts; and I looked back through architectural maps of the city.
"Bhaal's on a list here," Imoen said, throwing her volume to a small group of those we would take away. The hope that Sarevok would fly into irrational rage at the audacity of the theft from his palace bore some resemblance to strategy. "Gods I Hate, by Cohrvale the Censorious Cowpat: or else, entitled Everything In The World But Me."
I stifled a giggle; Dynaheir gave a librarian's stern glare above her own dusty volume. It wasn't as if Imoen didn't read as quickly as her. I traced over the early city plan, this one for the walls of fifty years after Balduran's disappearance. Though farmland and the early docks were mapped as the homes of the small population of the time, the northern walls had been chosen to be placed about where they stood today; city expansions had been largely eastwards. That implied, then, that they had used the foundations of the older city, and that the Undercity had a similar northern wall; it was almost impossible to extend any further north because of harsh, cragged rock that should have changed little over the centuries. Curved lines marked a structure within the city not too far south of that border, and I bent close to read small lettering.
Stream of Tears. There wasn't a stream in that place any more; not under any other name, though no doubt there were several wells that drew from groundwater. Lacrima, lacrimosa, dakryma, taehher were expected variants of a name like that. I turned forward to a more recent map of the ground in the northern part of the city; the elevations made it look as if there could have been an older bed. That was the area where Gist kept his strange estate, where I'd heard gossip that he liked to keep a lot of humanlike statues in a ballroom permanently kept cold as ice. Then if that had been a water source for the Undercity of old, no wonder they could have built older walls by it.
Dynaheir spoke. "It is written here by this Tyrran of old that the former peoples were guilty of great abominations and murders in their heresies, and therefore their city was razed to only a bare rock and a place upon which to spread fish nets."
"A biased text," I grumbled; people like to invent tales that natural disasters were caused by impious behaviour, mostly to make themselves feel less worried that the same would happen to them, and one always finds that overblown rhetoric about some defunct historical location. But still: murders. "Make sure you try the Umberlant works. That might be the oldest religion here."
"Oh. Creepy," Imoen mused. "Umberlee's icky. Bet she and Bhaal'd've gotten on real well." She paused. "Ooh. This one's good.
"Inne ye viewe of dragonnes and grate beastes unknown," she read, trying to pronounce the archaic lettering and spelling, "ye scente of deth did walk unto ye waters and didst flay at will. One of those funny-looking fs, it is. These were smitten with justice ytself an twere for best we did build wall above ye ftronghold of deth. I write no more lest foolish minds become fmitten to inquire of power..."
Walls; old water sources by them; Felonius Gist's manor in the city's north. "...Walking," I muttered, and traced back through the lines of the old map with its stream. We'd faced enough walking dead abominations. We'd faced... Today it had all gone according to Sauriram's plan. Simple confidence-tricking, pretending authority to remove the rye stored to a different location; add to it by a false messenger rushing to the Iron Throne guards instructing them to catch up to the thieves at a specified location; and have the battle at the place of our choosing. Playing with gold and flaming swords. I am the Duke's daughter; a bearer of Balduran's sword; but most importantly the friend of Imoen the Pink... Could never lose sight of the goal. Sarevok knew now that we lived.
Dynaheir tensed, and signalled for quiet. Then we were out of time; the architectural tome, Imoen's book, an archive of the Flaming Fists, the selection already gathered fumbled into our packs. Footsteps could be clearly heard now. From the layout of the corridors, the matcher must have already glimpsed the light— "Leave it!" I whispered to Dynaheir. As the sounds drew closer, it was time to bluff.
"Hello? Gosh, you scared me!" I said, poking my head out of the door to see a pair of palace guards. "Guillaim wanted an answer to a question about precedent by tomorrow, about the 1097 skirmish with Alaric, and I'm afraid I let it get the better of me..." Guillaim was still the Dukes' archivist; stand-offish, but good at what he did. He'd several apprentices I'd met before; two of them scorning me as a rank amateur, the other two nicer. "Everything is all right, isn't it, officers?"
They came closer. "Who're you? It's well after curfew," the first said. I didn't recognise them as palace guards; but palace guards blended into each other in their uniforms. Trimmings can change a face considerably.
"I'm still rather new here; I'm afraid I don't know who you are, either. Could you come closer, sir?" They carried their own dark lantern, which sent unclear flickers of light across their faces.
"You'll have to come with us," the same guard said. "Guillaim or not, you must know the rules."
They were close enough; I pulled the door suddenly inward; Dynaheir flung sleep-sand in the air and uttered an incantation with a curiously dark voice, and I brought the hilt of Balduran's sword against the temple of the first while he wavered against her spell.
Definitely past time to go. We dragged the soldiers to the deepest part of the bookshelves, closing the door and darkening all lights. Outside, Garrick had watched invisible in case of a distraction; we left quickly through the quietened streets.
"Follow me hither," Dynaheir said; she raised her right hand for a cantrip, and it was a sewer grate she lifted for us. She descended into the grime and stench without even seeming to mind. It's useful that Baldur's Gate has a plumbing system; but does that mean one has to explore it? Below the rusty iron walls of the wide pipe lay a constant flow of green slime that soaked our boots and the ends of breeches and robes. Touching the steps of the ladder was bad enough, walking amidst the stench and the...substances was still worse; I wrapped my cloak to cover my nose and mouth, for all the good that would do. There was the classic dilemma whether to breathe through one's mouth to lessen the stench but feel as if one swallowed it with each breath, or through one's nose for the full benefit of the sense of smell. Further conversations with Dynaheir were to be...put off, whilst I tramped miserably onward.
"Thou should pay heed to the surroundings," Dynaheir cautioned dourly. "All manner of footpads and cutpurses have sought succour here of late; they are discerned through habit of attempting to kill all who approach. Furthermore there are other creatures." Her eyes glowed faintly with what was likely an infravision spell; she led, stepping with apparent unconcern through the disgusting waste water. Very little light from the city passed through the sewer gratings and to me she was a dim shadow to follow, the iron walls discernible by the occasional fleck of silver that reflected from the gratings above and the footing a careful job. Any thief's supposed to be able to walk in darkness. Likely we'd come below the markets in the city centre, then I thought there'd been a left turn.
"Other creatures, indeed," Garrick echoed.
"—So, what other creatures?" Imoen asked; but Dynaheir came to a sudden stop, ordering silence.
"Many legs," she said, her voice level, "'tis but one." She must have cast some spell for keenness of hearing as well as magesight. "Hold..."
Then the carrion crawler came into view, shamefully pale in the darkness, the giant white worm with the horrifying wet mouth at one end. I drew blade, hoping that the fight wouldn't splash too much slime upon us; but then Dynaheir cast her spell. Six red missiles flew gracefully from her hands, each hitting heavily to the creature's head; it perished. We gingerly picked our way around its body.
"—Nice, Dyna," Imoen said. "You can help me with my magic, right? It'll be just like old times!"
"As it lies in me to do so," Dynaheir said. "Thou hast advanced greatly since the last, Imoen. Few students of magery indeed should have achieved so much within so short a time; the student may have become the teacher." There was the sound of water rushing; we had to step to the sides of the sewer, for the volume of water rose and managed to soak us further. It ran above the sides of my boots and into them.
"You were the only real tutor I had since I was a kid," Imoen said, "and aside from that—it's the Bhaal thing, it's got to be." Her voice took on the same hysterical hinge as in my mind when I tried to think of dead gods and consequences. "I'm more powerful because the god of murder's magic's backing me up. I got new abilities to kill people." Her boots splashed in the mud; but I stood close to her anyway.
"...Calm thyself," Dynaheir said gently. "By my observations, Imoen, thou art intelligent and most quick to grasp concept. By thine own history, thou sought instruction and to master the spells of others of thy own initiative. Do not be so fast to lay aside thy credit."
Imoen gave a jerky nod. "And you think I have to use all the powers I've got against Sarevok. The...lesser evil."
"Neither of you are evil," Garrick interjected; it was kind of him. Confessing Tevanie's existence to Sauriram had been easy; confessing murder to Dynaheir would be dreadful.
"Hold thy peace, Imoen." Dynaheir signalled for another halt; we had stepped far from where we had entered, and I was not sure if I could have repeated all our turns amidst the grimy tunnels from memory. "I hear...many."
I could hear moist, sucking noises; something like wind whistling through the bones of a corpse; incoherent howls as if of zombies; bubblings and spewings of acid.
"Remain back," Dynaheir said. This time her casting took longer, in which the strange noises came ineluctably closer toward us; she finished, and a sweet wind swept through the air and cleansed the scent from us. It smelt as if we stood in a lady's boudoir rather than the grim sewers, and I wondered why she hadn't troubled to do it before. "I cast it upon both sides, Imoen, for the noxious gases in here are a dreadful danger of far greater effect than expected."
Then she began to move her hands in the pattern of the fireball I recognised from Imoen and Edwin, and the world in front of us exploded in a searing red inferno. Dynaheir the invoker was grimly satisfied.
The iron walls had been seared and blackened by the force of the fireball combined with gases; buckled, even, for a range between the two walls of sweet wind she had erected. On the suddenly-dried ground were a number of shadowed remains in ash: I saw the shape of another carrion crawler, the black outline of a very large corpse scorched into the pipe's floor, several round and burned shapes like the remains of slimes we had killed in the past, ashed shadows of things that had likely already died.
"They ought not to have come so close to our refuge," Dynaheir said. "I thought that I had dealt with such things sufficiently. Come."
Further ahead, the pipes changed to stone, and there was a small alcove reached by another ladder. It appeared long locked and sealed, a useless door to some forgotten machinery; but I could tell that some sort of illusion lay over it by the subtle inconsistencies of overlap at the edges. Dynaheir stepped forward; but behind us came a voice. It creaked like the hinges of a gate drowned below foul water.
"It has been a search...and you have slain my sewerkin."
Dynaheir turned, fire in her hands; I was surprised to see that Garrick had summoned something of the same power to hold in reserve. "Show thyself, creature, and explain thy presence. Thy kin were foul enough!"
The shape...reared from the sludge; slowly forming to the shape of a rough, squat golem; dripping.
"I am Schlumpsha, King of the Sewer," it spoke, blackness opening somewhere not where a face would normally be. "Schlumpsha is the leftover creature of a wizard long dead...and I sniff out the scent of fate."
"Then thou may leave this place before I shall ensure that the fate of thy kin is repeated on thee," Dynaheir said. Imoen stood beside her, ready with an incantation.
"I do not talk to thee, witch," the creature addressed. I'd want to kill it on general principles: slime, talking, constantly reforming itself, smelling like the middle of a paralysing cloud. But...it was not right to kill on general principles. "Here in these stony hallways where the drip of water mingles with the gurgling of the dead: a name has been whispered in the ears of assassins. There is a death foretold."
"Everyone dies, sewer-scum," Imoen pointed out.
"Can you die...if you are the slime itself?" The creature was suddenly closer, far closer. It could swim and dissolve into the sewer water without any sign of what it was; it could reform itself all too quickly. "Long enough living and the threads of fate become visible to the naked eye. You are a child of books. The other sweet-fleshed girl is a child of histories. Your deaths are so...tempting."
Garrick sang missiles into its body. Nothing happened; Imoen and I drew back from the wicked slime, which still spoke.
"From whence were you born?" I demanded. "Is there death foretold in the Undercity?"
"There is a city of the dead in the waters that lie even below this place, murderer. Unreachable for me...and either way the death is planned by the gods themselves. But I can no longer restrain my own hungers..."
It launched itself upon Imoen. She cried out, her skin reddening; I flung myself to her and felt the acid on my skin. Missiles flew from Dynaheir's hands and Garrick's voice; they were absorbed within it as if this creature was a demon like Aec'Letec. Dynaheir began a different chant; the sewer-stuff lingered on my hands, and its substance turned toward me.
Balduran's sword, Imoen had said, was useful against shapeshifters; the Burning Earth might have set the sewer vapours on fire. Schlumpsha hissed; that at least caused him pain. The liquid reared up from the water around me in incomprehensible shapes, changing each moment the sword struck. Imoen was safe, back now. "Make 'em vulnerable," she said, beginning the long spell. In her turn Dynaheir chanted something I didn't know.
First white shielding erupted around pieces of the slime, and it seemed part of it was imprisoned, for it foamed and boiled in the base of a pale sphere. Next Imoen's spell finished, and that yellow beam flowed into the sewerkin's slime. Garrick saw the magic she'd cast and aimed his own spell: this time, the slime sizzled.
From its slime-voice came further noise. "Balduran...once..." Missiles from all three casters bit into it. The sword broke the liquid to shreds that began to fall once more into the liquid miasma still in our boots. Dynaheir raised her hands and gestured; her sphere closed upon what it contained, transmuting it to smaller and smaller and finally collapsing as inert substance.
"Does this happen a lot?" Imoen said pointedly.
"Thou shouldst have seen the ogre-mage and his pets," Dynaheir said. At last she gestured above, and we followed her to the space she indicated. It was a small room, stone-walled, with remains of metal tools and devices about it and neatly stacked in a corner. There was weaponry too heavy for Garrick to wield resting in a corner; sacks and blankets spread out as clean mats; a pair of magical books and a box of spell components; two bedrolls on opposing sides of the alcove. It was far cleaner than one would have expected of the location; Dynaheir had been here some time. She'd come with Minsc and Branwen. A hamster squeaked, turning alone in an endless wheel.
Dynaheir spoke again; "This underground is a haunt of malefactors; but that one sought thee in particular. Thy very presence promotes seekers."
"Can he sense it?" Imoen asked. "No—I know he can. If he's close. Gotta keep renewing the scrying protections." Golden-eyed Sarevok—
"'Tis best we properly consolidate the knowledge from these tomes," Dynaheir said. She slipped off her soaked boots and sat, cross-legged, on a thick red blanket; the three of us followed her example.
Bhaal-worship by the waters, the stench of death and a slayer walking the city; the Stream of Tears— In the history of the Dead Three it explains the symbol, that for each murder a tear is shed and that is why there were golden tears about the grinning skull. City plans; a ghost city; Flaming Fist rumours and accounts of undead vanquished in their earliest days. We laid out our stolen books for that which we needed—
"Chaos will be sown in their passage," Imoen recited. Dynaheir watched us, quietly, cautiously.
—