A mighty blow shook the door and the latch, briefly echoing from the stone walls.
Minsc drew his sword. "Never fear! When evil knocks, justice --"
Lidia rushed towards the door, leaning forward against it. "Stall them!"
Another blow reverberated through the wood and her body, rattling her teeth.
In a moment, Minsc and Anomen were on either side of her, holding the door in place. She listened closely to the voices on the other side and timed the barrage of kicks. There had to be at least five of them, she guessed.
"As Boo was saying," Minsc said, not deterred by this sudden development, "when evil knocks, justice is waiting at the door, ready to serve butt-kicking for supper!" He turned to Anomen. "But first we shall need to find you a battle cry."
Anomen began protesting, "I should hardly think--"
"It is not about thinking! It is a shouted turn of phrase that strikes fear into all evildoers!"
"As in, 'No, they're over there'?" Lidia said.
Another series of kicks shook the door. The last one cracked the wood.
"I have raised such cries on each occasion that battle was joined, all in service to the Order," Anomen said. "They shall serve me in good stead."
No one could say that with a straight face, she was certain of that. She looked at Anomen's face for a moment. Torm's beard, he was serious.
Another crack of breaking wood, and a boot appeared through the bottom of the door, stuck in place.
"Sebire!" Lidia shouted. "We're out of time!"
The priestess handed off the boy to one of the women and the beastmaster's key to Hendak, then rushed towards them.
Hendak stood in front of the far side of the room, and dragged the key along the concrete with his free hand, muttering to himself, "The spot is somewhere -- "
Sebire turned towards their door and extended her fingers. "Vita, mortis, careo!"
Gray smoke emanated from her fingertips, rolled forward, stretched itself into a long plume, and wrapped itself around the stuck boot before dissipating. A voice on the other side of the door gave a horrible scream of pain. The boot withdrew from the door.
Lidia stepped back and drew her shortsword. "We'll hold them off."
Sebire said, "Come with us instead. Darker dangers still lie ahead, and where we go they will not follow."
"There it is!" Hendak shouted. A flash of blue light emanated from his fist. The outline of a door appeared, then emptied itself of the wall, leaving only a void where the outline used to be. He held his hand to the spot, the key glowing inside of it.
"Go!" Sebire shouted.
Celyce stood aside and held aloft her light stone, which bravely glowed pale against the deepening shadows. The prisoners went through the doorway and were swallowed up by the darkness, but their noises still drifted in. They were passing through but lingering nearby, not daring to wander too far.
After all the others had filed out, Hendak, Sebire, Anomen, Minsc, and Lidia followed. Celyce stayed put.
Lidia rested her hand on the girl's arm, saying, "Come with me. I don't want the guards to find you here."
Celyce gave a small smile and put the light stone into Lidia's hand. It flickered out as she let go. She pulled a small vial from her pocket, no bigger than her thumb. In one smooth motion with her free hand, she removed the stopper and downed the liquid inside. She instantly disappeared from sight.
Before Lidia could parse what happened, a loud crack filled the room. The door was beginning to splinter. The head of an axe appeared inside of it. She ducked through the portal, and it closed behind her.
Hendak held his torch aloft, moving it aside just as quickly from a stream of dripping water.
They found themselves in a long concrete hallway, upon a smooth floor with two ditches on each side..Behind them, the only marker of the spot they'd left were two looping C's crudely scratched into the wall. Making this mark had been no easy task, by the look of it. The entire tunnel was fashioned with that same smooth concrete that only hardened with time; not a crack was in sight. They had descended deep into the city's old, mighty bones.
Lidia looked around and tried to guess what this place was. The scent of sewage and salt from the river harbors was especially strong here. Algae coated the walls in large patches. And everywhere -- the ditches on the side of the walkway, the ceilings overhead, trenches spilling down the walls -- everywhere was the sound and motion of water.
"Are we in the sewers?" she asked, to no one in particular.
"Once, but no longer," Sebire said. She chanted, "Praeses, alia, fero!" Her hand glowed brightly, lighting everything about her. She ordered everyone forward, and began leading the group down a path of similar-looking tunnels that seemed familiar to her nonetheless.
As the group walked, Lidia carefully noted their route, mentally marking out what spots along the way had cairns, piles of refuse, and markings on the wall. She also gleaned a few more hushed, hurried details. This place was now mostly a storm drain, pouring excess water into the sea somewhere far away; many nooks and crannies served as hideouts for Athkatla's lost, forgotten, and unsavory residents. Most of the city's material refuse actually traveled below this place, down to great furnaces in the darkest depths.
After fifteen minutes or so, Lidia found herself walking next to Hendak and just behind Sebire. All were looking out the corner of their eye for the usual suspects: slimes, mutant rats, sewer snakes, and criminals either brave or foolish enough to brave them all. So far nothing had appeared. The water ran quickly enough here to discourage slimes, for one thing.
Lidia finally asked about something that had been bothering her. "Hendak, where's Ganthet?"
"Gone," he said. "Taken in the dead of night, while the rest of us slept."
"Did you hear or see anything?"
"I awoke to hear two voices I knew not, but I saw nothing and there was no light."
She turned this over in her mind, but she knew Ganthet's predicament would have to wait.
Sebire's steps slowed. Many of the escapees clung to each other more closely, the children now carried by the adults, all peering around them in anticipation of some threat. Their voices were tighter and lower.
Lidia moved to the front of the group. "Everything all right?" she asked Sebire, keeping her voice low.
"I've gone this route a number of times, but always with Ganthet. Something tells me to go there" -- here she pointed down the dark tunnel -- "but I don't remember it that way. A number of the others are convinced they went this way when they were taken. No good will come whether we move forward or turn aside."
Lidia rubbed the light stone in her pocket, clearing her mind. She didn't feel the pull that Sebire described. She called out to Minsc and Anomen, and they moved up from the back. "We're going to investigate," she said. "There's something strange ahead."
She didn't fully unveil the stone, but held it forward inside her first and let the light pour through the cracks in her hand, making it easier to see without blinding them in the dark.
They traveled down thirty feet or so down the silent, watery tunnel, going slowly so that they wouldn't lose their footing. Their noses had become accustomed to the tunnel smell, but as they made their way forward, the fumes grew overwhelming.
"Cover your nose, Boo!" Minsc said. "This is a den of stinking evil, and no mistake!"
"I do not fear what lies ahead, but I doubt we can withstand it without help," Anomen said in between coughs.
Both men's eyes were red and running. She herself was fine, except for needing to draw deeper breaths. She tried to think of anything that could prevent non-magical poisoning, and came up empty. Even Zone of Sweet Air wouldn't do the trick here.
"Both of you, fall back and warn the others," Lidia said. Anomen immediately complied, retreating to where Sebire and the others waited, while Minsc seemed to hesitate.
"Boo won't make it. Go!"
Minsc finally turned back without any further protest, mightily coughing the whole way. Thankfully, he seemed to need no further help as he withdrew.
She wondered whether he had hesitated out of loyalty or whether that strange pull Sebire described was also affecting him. She considered going back herself; all that seemed to be here was noxious fumes from scraps of ancient waste. But the source of this pull had to be found and dealt with, or else the others risked being drawn into a trap.
She looked towards the source of the smell. There was a space on her left that swallowed the light.
She came closer, and found the spot: a giant tunnel that seemed to be partially melting, dwarfing her in height and width. It seemed to be constructed entirely of brown muck. Only one place reflected the light back to her: a sword stuck in the mud at the entrance.
She drew closer to study it. It was buried deep, with only two feet of the blade and the hilt sticking out. The hilt was most unusual, too; the pommel was carved into the shape of the claw, and it had a brass snake curving its way around the grip.
"You're alive! You're alive!" A reedy voice issued from the sword.
Lidia jumped back and drew her own blade, momentarily startled.
The same voice again came from the stuck sword: "Haha! C'mon, missy, is this even a contest? You need at least two extra feet of stabbing action!"
She cautiously approached it. "How'd you get here?"
"My former owner died, and these slimy little hands put me in the ground and left me here! Take me with you! Please, pretty please?"
"How do I know you aren't cursed? Or that you'll betray me to whatever's down that hole?"
"I don't know what you are expecting, but as a sword, I'm pretty one-dimensional in what I want. I wanna kill something, not just sit here! And you look like you've got a decent swing."
Its personality notwithstanding, this was a good sword. She hoped she wouldn't regret this.
She sheathed her blade and drew the talking sword out, admiring how the muck seemed to roll off its five-foot blade without a trace. She passed the sword from hand to hand; she detected no change in her grip, emotions, or state of mind. But even If this thing wasn't cursed, it was still alerting anyone nearby with ears.
"Can we go kill something now, huh?" The sword sounded almost manic.
"Pipe down and I'll consider it."
She stepped off the concrete walkway into the mouth of the tunnel, and immediately sank into the ground, almost up to the top of her boots. Every step forward was a laborious effort. She spotted something and stopped.
She lowered the light. In front of her was a skeleton, its arms and legs still covered in rotting flesh, its skull completely clean. The top of its head was cracked open.