Tasya's Story

You stay far ahead of the guards, eventually their lamp light becomes so dim behind you can't really see it anymore. Pushing on, the tunnel remains virtually strait. Your full force exertion is beginning to catch up to you. You can hear Mischa's heavy breathing as well.

Your adrenaline keeps you moving fast, but you feel Mischa lagging a bit and you can hear her getting winded. Still, your relentless focus on keeping ahead forces Mischa to do her best to keep up.

Soon your pace comes to a quick still when the tunnel leads to an area that is similar to the area under the Inn. There is a rope ladder leading upward, nearly identical to the one you climbed down at the Resting Dragon. But, the tunnel also veers to the right of the ladder and continues on with an upward slope. From that direction you can smell the occasional, faint but familiar smell of ocean air mixed with a putrid smell of sewage.

Seeing the ladder, Tasya scrambles up the ropes and tries the trap door above. She really doesn't want to head off toward the sewer if she can help it.

You hurry up the ladder, as fast as you can with the torch in one hand. The ladder leads up to a thin trap door. You push on it. It doesn't budge. It looks like it should be flimsy, but it is unnaturally sturdy. You cannot move it.

"Uh...Tas...I think I can see some light back down the tunnel," Mischa calls up to you urgently. "How are you making out up there? We got to get moving."

Tasya scampers back down the rope ladder and sets it on fire to distract anyone still following them to possibly believe they went up and wanted to make it more difficult for their pursuers to climb up after them. She sighs and rolls her eyes, then takes off toward the stench.

Holding the torch to the ladder, the rope quickly catches fire and starts to burn. With it ignited you turn toward the stench and take off. Mischa follows. The tunnel veers off to the right with an upward slope. As you proceed, the stench gets stronger and occasionally, on a breeze, the smell of salt water displaces the horrible smell. Soon, you see a opening at the end of the tunnel. It looks rough and make-shift. Quickly you head toward it. At the edge of the opening is another torch holder on the wall with a torch within and flint hanging from it. Also wrapped up neatly on a iron rod banged into the wall is another rope ladder. It just sits on the ring; it is not secured to anything, but you notice it has iron rings on one end. It looks fairly heavy.

You peer into the rough opening and see a large curving round sewer drain pipe, made of brick. To the left it slopes very steeply upward and to the right it continues downward around a bend. Gravity causes putrid sewage to flow down its base. Its round walls look slimy and slippery. The occasional smell of ocean air clearly wafts from the right.

You can tell that it would take some skill to navigate the sewage pipe without slipping. You believe you have a good shot at it with your acrobatic prowess, but you are concerned how well Mischa would do, especially in her winded state.

Tasya contemplates the situation. She gauges her ideas between tying Mischa to her rope and heading through the sewer tunnel and looking for a place that the rope ladder may be attached somehow to allow them to climb or lower to a different level. She looks at Mischa. "Got any ideas?" She asks.

Mischa shrugs. "Well...going back is not a great option." She warily peers into the sewer tunnel grimacing due to the horrid smell. "I guess we have little choice but to try the pipe. I mean, it's either go ahead and get out of here before the Rajahadraja's guards give up on the burning ladder and decide to check this way, or set up some kind of ambush if they do."

Petawing takes a sniff as you and Mischa peer into the sewer pipe. "Yuck, yuck smell. Not good wet, wet." adds Petalwing.

When the fresh smell of sea air--wafting in from the right--occasionally displaces sewer stench, you can also hear the sound of waves crashing from the same direction. Judging by some light of day shining from beyond the pipes curves, you don't think its very far to the end of the pipe.

Tasya ties one end of her rope around Mischa like a harness and winds several coils about herself and secures it. "I don't like this any more than either of you, but it seems the only real option." She tells them, grabbing up the weighed rope ladder and going through the hole into the slippery sewer pipe. "Here goes nothing."

Tasya moves up the tunnel toward the sea air and tries to hold her breath when she can against the stench.

With Mischa secured to your rope like a harness, you hold your breath and and move through the hole to slide down into the sewer pipe, while carrying the heavy ladder and securing Mischa's way as well.

Luckily there is enough light shining in from what you presume to be the end of the sewer pipe. Because you are not able to keep holding on to the torch, nor would it be safe for Mischa to attempt it.

Your agility easily allows to you use the otherwise treacherous slippery footing of the pipe to your advantage. As your acrobatic prowess combined with gravity allows you to control your descent down the curving pipe's slope, you deliberately shift the weight of the ladder to keep your balance steady. Putrid sewer water flows and splashes, covering your feet up to your shins.

When you maneuver around the pipe's bend you do see its end. The slope then gets steeper and it's hard to keep the rate of Mischa's descent slow. Gravity forces your party to pick up pace.

Ahead, about 4 feet before the end of the pipe, you spot two iron rods protruding upward from the pipe's floor. Flowing filth flows between and around the rods just before it drops into the space beyond the pipe.

In your descent, you know you and Mischa will have just one chance to grab the iron rods. If you fail, gravity will force your party to fall down with the sewer water into into the space beyond the pipe. If you succeed, you can slide the ladder's iron rings over the rods and have a secure way to climb down.

...

As you maneuver close to the rods, you succeed and manage to grab hold of one, and then use your legs to secure yourself to it. Then you pull on Mischa's rope to slow her down enough that she can grab the other rod.

You slip the ladder's rings over the rods and peer out into the space beyond the pipe before dropping the ladder down.

You see that the pipe opens to a vast gorge between two large rocky cliffs that have arches and pillars carved into them. Sailing between the rocks, soon to sail under the pipe you peer out of, is a 40 foot ship.

The boat comes close enough that you can see that the ship has the most peculiar crew on deck. There's a number of humans. Most looks frail and not very much like sailors. There is a human woman at the tiller, a Racasta, (OOC: in the setting of Mystara, Tabaxi cat people are called Racasta), a Sindhi monk, and a goblin. The ship itself looks like a slave ship, with cages and pillory above deck. But this is NO crew of slavers. If anything, it is a group of slaves who escaped on their captor’s ship.

"Hold tight little one." Tasya says to Petalwing. She wraps a foot around one of the two outer ropes of the ladder, like she would do on the high wire and shouts, "HO THERE UNKNOWN VESSEL!"

With the air of a sailor, or possibly a pirate, the Racasta calls up to you. "Ahoy there!"

"Could you assist us?!" Taysa calls back. "We've reached the end of our rope and terrible men are after us!"