3-1: Beneath the Streets

As the party emerges cautiously from the basement into the evening, Ishi in the lead, the sun is setting once more on the city of Grayhaven. The bustle of evening activity seems more energetic than usual: more people on the street, which makes it easier for the adventurers to blend in and proceed through the Waterfront to the sewer entrance in the Market District. The Grayhaven Guard presence is light - most of the security seems to have gone to the harbor and the gates - and the few pairs of guards on patrol that Ishi spots are easily identified and avoided. You see a few broadsheets posted that proclaim you as Wanted by the Duke, but more than that, you see posters proclaiming the Queen's Fair: a festival that the city is preparing to hold in a few days. This explains the aura of excitement and anticipation in the air as you enter the Market District, where shoppers and vendors alike chatter about the upcoming celebration.



Arriving at a grand-but-somewhat disused sewer entrance, Elysia easily picks the lock on the gate and the party slips through. Descending the stairs, you see that this part of the sewer was built for ease of access and maintenance: the stairs are wide enough for a work crew to descend with tools to clear obstructions or tunnel collapses and lug in sledges bearing masonry to rebuild walls and supports. The contrast between the streets above and the sewers below is stark: the sound of the crowds above dulls as the party proceeds. While the stench of the sewer is an assault on the sense of smell, but it's actually not so bad, at first. It's not that dissimilar to the smell in the tannery's basement, after all. It's just a bit stronger, which is a testament to the engineering that keeps water flowing through the underground tunnels to keep the waste matter of the nation's capital moving.

Soon the party reaches another locked door - an ominous sign: is it to keep especially determined people out, or to keep something in? Once again, the lock is trivial for Elysia to open, and now the party enters the sewer proper. Here, the sewer is a well-mortared stone tunnel that proceeds in five directions. Each tunnel has a central channel with flowing water with a walkway on one side or the other. Every several paces, there is a sloped chute perhaps a foot wide for effluence to pour/slide down into the channel. These are easily stepped over. Here, by the entrance, the air is thick but not overwhelming and the walls are dry. Orienting themselves, they decide which way to go.

The initial excitement of evading guards and entering this new environment slowly gives way to the determined tedium of routine: Ishi and Elowin lead the party down passages, pausing at every intersection for Eozindra to take out the map and inspect it with Adran's glowing gear. She's able to give general directions, and sometimes this leads the party into a sewer tunnel that dead-ends, and the party has to backtrack. Morik finds that Jeffery does enjoy little nibbles of jerky, though only when the druid tears them off by hand for the newt. In the moments when the banter dies down, the only sound is the drip of moisture, the gurgle of the water and sewage in the channel, and the soft clicking footsteps of Adran's construct companion.

After an hour, though, the party has made some significant progress. Part of that is reflected in the walls themselves: at a couple of points, the character of the sewer changed, as the newer construction gave way to much older tunnels that slope slightly downwards, made of different stone, with the tunnel walls less rounded and more rectilinear. The whole tunnel is narrower, with both the walkway and the channel narrower. The refuse chutes are vertical holes, resulting in a much worse smell and treacherous footing (Difficult terrain). Still, the party continues.

As the party slips and slithers through the slime in the latest direction that Ishi and Elowin have chosen, there is a burbling in the channel, and a motion against the current that instantly has everyone on high alert. There is something swimming in the sewage, moving toward the party! In addition, Elysia thinks an intrusive thought, not her own: a sense of eagerness/anticipation, and an image - a memory - of tearing apart a giant rat and eating it messily. How will you taste? comes the overpowering thought in her head.

Everyone, please roll initiative.

ROUND ONE

The backed-up sewage roils and undulates as some large mass moves against the current. Then the submerged shape rolls over, itself resembling a giant, glistening turd...but then a pair of eyes appear and rise up out of the reek, dripping fecal matter...but the eyes keep rising, and you see that they are not side-by-side, but rather the eyes are set one above the other. The eyes continue to rise, embedded in a flap of foul flesh, and more eyes are revealed as the flap is lifted out of the ooze. At the same moment, a seam appears in the giant dung, and it splits open, revealing jagged, filthy teeth in a very large mouth. Two long appendages fling foul sewage across the party as burst up out of the slimy channel. You all have heard about these creatures, though none of you had ever encountered one before now: this surely is an otyugh!



You all have initiative on this monster; what do you do in round one?