Jaheira swore to herself as she narrowly avoided sliding into a small pile of unknown refuse below the earth.
In some ways, she thought, she had only herself to blame. When she had asked Yoshimo what he thought Mae'Var did with his castoffs, he had been most obliging. Mae'Var was one of many influential people with too much money, he said, who tended to throw things away to leave for others to pick up. He had personally benefited from this careless attitude more than once.
But when Jaheira had asked Yoshimo where the discards went, he'd pointed her not towards the relatively clean storm drains below Athkatla, but the honest-to-gods sewers — narrow conduits about three feet wide that took the city's waste and funneled it to great furnaces even further below.
Usually, one had to ask for an invitation down here, then wait for the pipe to clear. Jaheira could traverse the sewers on her own, however, by transforming into a mustard jelly, a shapeless yellow-brown translucent slime that often lived in dank depths like these and had no need for air. Luckily, this was a relatively simple form: mustard jellies were intelligent creatures without limbs and often one of the first that druids could learn to assume.
With a thought, she oozed forward with the leading edge of her now-formless body over the encrusted remnants of human and animal refuse along of side of the pipe, thanking Silvanus and every other god she could think of that these creatures didn't come with a nose. She was alone in the darkness, following a path Yoshimo had relayed to her. Because this environment was toxic to humans, he could not join her this time, though she doubted he had been eager to try.
Suddenly, she felt a gap in the pipe below her and followed it down. With the few senses she could still access, she instantly knew where this gap led must be the place she sought: it was much drier with a draft, and nothing on her membrane now registered as potential food.
With a thought, she resumed her normal form, drawing a clean breath as soon as possible, then gagging when the smell left on her from the sewers hit her.
She was standing in a clean-walled oblong tunnel that cleared just above her head, carved out from the bedrock. Perhaps it was an access or side tunnel, used once to store food and supplies for whoever had laid the city's foundation.
Now, however, it was a home. Light danced on the wall from around a bend in the tunnel, and with it drifted the sound of a multitude of high, yipping little voices and the smell of wet dog.
Jaheira followed this tunnel, readying herself for trouble.
She came upon a small den of five or six kobolds, humanoids who stood around two feet tall. They called to mind miniature dragons with their long snouts, reddish-brown scaly skin, and small horns perched on their head. They all wore tattered red-orange garments and carried small, makeshift spears, likely to defend the clutch of eight large, speckled eggs at the end of the cave.
As soon as their large gold eyes caught sight of Jaheira, most of them started crowding around her knees, chattering in their language and brandishing their weapons. A spear jabbed her thigh without piercing it. They were not attacking her — at least, not yet — but telling her that she was outnumbered and would not hesitate to defend their home.
The kobolds' leader, who stood head and shoulders above his fellows, gripped a twisted stick that served him as a staff. He was shrouded in a robe and hood that was dirty around the edges but still a bright red. He raised a hand, and they retreated a step or two back. They circled her, lowering their spears to what they thought would be an ideal angle of attack.
The leader stamped the end of his staff on the rock and addressed her in halting Common: "Here you come to domain of Crragtail. You come for why? Speak or fall on blades!"
Jaheira gave a polite bow. "Great Crragtail, I did not come here to hurt you or your people. I came only to get information, and I will pay gold for it."
At the mention of gold, Crragtail's scaly, three-fingered hand stroked his chin thoughtfully, but then he stamped the end of the staff again. "No tall mans come here unless Crragtail says. Surface come to hunt and smack with sword and club! We go into light and hero put smack down! Why believe?"
The ring of kobolds around her started snarling. She felt another light jab from the spear, this time in her back.
"If I wished to harm you," Jaheira replied, "I would not have come alone. I would have brought friends, who know I am here. If I do not return, they will come for me — and bring swords with them."
She tried again: "All I need are the answers I seek. I will give you gold and then be on my way."
Crragtail considered this, then stamped the end of his staff. The ring of spears retreated, and the kobolds stood back at ease.
"What you need?" the shaman said. "Speak quick."
"I am looking for a sword that the Shadow Thieves may have thrown away," Jaheira said. "All I know is that it has a curse. Have you seen such a thing come through here?"
"Leather mans come through here, drop things in cave, yes," the shaman said. "That is how Crragtail gets Stick of Many Foods, Throne of Comfy, or Pipe That Smell Not Quite So Much."
He reached into the folds of his robe and withdrew a small corncob pipe, showing it in his hand. This pipe was in decent condition, true, but it had the beginnings of black-and-white mold around the edges.
"But no cursed swords, oh no," he continued. "Crragtail not seen swords here for long, long time."
Suddenly, one of the kobold warriors, shorter and thinner than the others, started yipping in his tongue, though Jaheira caught the Common word for "sword."
The shaman tilted his reptilian head, talons clutching around the staff. "Yukyuk says he see sword in cave during snowtime. He run because he hears mans yelling at Yukyuk. He comes back later and sword is gone."
So the sword — if Crragtail meant the one she sought — could have been missing since Hammer or Alturiak, the only time snow ever came to Amn. Four months ago at most.
She wondered how the Enlightened Ones knew Lilarcor hadn't left Athkatla altogether or why they were confident she could track this sword down with the little information she had.
But she had more now, which was better than nothing. She thanked Crragtail and Yukyuk and counted fifty gold into the shaman's palm.
"Crragtail not so angry now as he was at mans before," he remarked. "People of Gaknulak have been ready for fights after mans with no eyes came to Crragtail's realm."
Jaheira said her farewells and returned to the cave entrance, to the edge of safety that Crragtail had likely carved out for his people. Though chittering, hostile dragonling people were at her back, an endless deluge of waste was ahead, and she'd have to cross it one more time.
Holding her breath, she transformed back into a mustard jelly and made her way back to the surface.