4.1 Footway Robbery - A Giant Nose

[Interovegas]

Divergence from 4. Footway Robbery - Waelass

[26.2.343]

Zwiche breaks off from the party in search of the source of the odor. He turns towards the clockwise orientation of the circle towards where the smell is more potent. As he passes by the elderly man with two buckets the diminshed old soul spits at the ground after the giant.

Old Man-[Imperial]: "My wife would 'ave hung me by manhood 'till it snapped off and bled me to death if she were alive to see me back under the Imperial boot. Something none of you mercenary thugs would have the stomach for."

Around the bend Zwiche catches a glimpse of a sluice and vaulted aqueduct.

[Zwiche]

Zwiche grits his teeth. The man spits upon his very honor, but Zwiche knows that a confrontation at this time would prove disastrous. He ignores the insult, and walks up to the aqueduct.

[Interovegas]

The giant cautiously walks up two flights of narrow stairways that bring him to the top of the aqueduct. He easily confirms the foul smell in the air emanates at least in part from the behind the sluice. The gate is operated by a nearby winch and chain that a man of Zwiche's strength could easily handle by himself. In the aqueduct channel there is a thin layer of reflective residue atop the regular stains and tell tale signs of medieval sewage. The channel leads out to the outer wall where presumably the sewage is dumped directly onto the ground or into some pond.

[Zwiche]

Grateful that none are here to watch his disgusting journey, Zwiche cranks the winch. He makes sure that the sluice won't drop back down behind him before he steps into the water and starts wading up the channel. He draws both his sword and axe, ready to face whatever lurks in the dark.

[Interovegas]

Zwiche turns the chain and cranks open the sluice gate. A new wave of putrid sewage stench washes over Zwiche. He holds back his nausea and steps forwards. The darkness ahead is impenetrable even for the low light attuned eyes of a truil. He grabs up a torch in a nearby holster and lights it at one of the street lights down below. He stows one of his weapons and proceeds into sewer.

Low cielings limit Zwiche's mobility. He continues forwards hunched over for several minutes. He does his best to avoid the toilet drains above. Finally, he hears the echoes of soft thuds and metal from deep in the sewer. He moves a couple steps closer with increased caution and his best attempt at stealth. Zwiche arrives at a short stairway that connects the sewage canal a square room with three other exit corridors. The echoes continue at the same pace and level of volume.

[Zwiche]

Keeping his axe ahead of him, Zwiche takes a moment in the room. He wipes the muck from his trousers as best he can, and shuffles up to each exit door in turn. Unable to detect from where the echoes come, he picks one corridor at random, scraping a mark into the scummy stone wall to track his passage.

[Interovegas]

Zwiche takes the left passage. He comes around the bend to a locked iron bar gate. It appears the passage is a connector to another ring of sewage channels. Zwiche sticks his head against the bars to see as much as he can without causing a commotion. There is a current of warm air soft blowing against his face and out the way he came. More importantly, Zwiche sees corpses piled up and soaking in channel on the other side of the bars, lots of corpses.

[Zwiche]

Zwiche narrows his eyes, squinting as he tries to discern more details of the dead. Are they civilians? Confederate defenders, dumped here after the battle? He quickly fiddles with the lock, checking if perhaps it could be easily broken, or if there are other weak points on the gate. Rusty bars, weakened hinges, crumbling mortar where it attaches to the wall, and the like.

[Interovegas]

Zwiche has neither the knowledge nor the esoteric training to manipulate the lock. He reckons he might be able to bend the bars and create an opening. To make a large enough gap for a man of his size to slip through will take a substantial amount of time and cause a significant amount of noise.

[Zwiche]

Deciding against causing a scene right now, he decides to head back down the hall and explore the middle passage.

[Interovegas]

Zwiche turns back around towards the the other passages. As he turns the bend back to the junction he hears distinct moving plates of metal armor loud and nearby. The noise must be just at the junction ahead but from the sound of the echoes its fleeing. Perhaps the source of the noise was warned by the reflection of Zwiche's torch off the stone walls.

[Zwiche]

A chance for glory! Even hidden in this flightless dungeon, Zwiche can't help but feel his heart pumping. A chase!

He runs after the noise, his axe hungry for blood.

[Interovegas]

[Zwiche-1d (Run): 10,4,2,1 Result: Failure]
[Zwiche (Hearing Difficulty 3): 2,2 Result: Failure]

Zwiche runs! His instincts scream to pursue. The low cielings and cramped halls impede him but he will not be dissuaded! The junction room is empty but he can hear the trailing echoes of the mystery escaping down the right hall. He gives frantic pursuit for a four more minutes. Neither his quarry nor he seem to slow. In fact the source of the noise seems to be gaining distance from Zwiche (reasonable given the cramped conditions and Zwiche's unfamiliarity with these old passages). Zwiche turns another corner and freezes in place as he is confronted with a startling sight. Rows upon rows of skeletons laid out along the passage of another sewer channel. Sinews and the stain of flesh still fresh upon them. He looks up from the appalling sight to try and track his target. He listens and looks down both sides of the channel he's entered but cannot locate the next place to go. He takes another moment to check the ground for tracks and laments that he has no skill in tracking.

[Zwiche]

"By Rangmut, what is this!? What monster haunts these halls?"

He decides to squeeze his way down the final, and third passageway.

[Interovegas]

Zwiche returns to the junction and explores the middle passageway. This one ascends towards a higher ring of sewers. He doesn't explore too much further before finding a similar sluice. However, there is no winch on the inside of the sewer.

[Zwiche]

Gritting his teeth, Zwiche realizes that he has no choice. He cannot return to Captain Fringe without some information, as dangerous as it must be. He walks back to the skeleton hall. The stench of the sewers assaults his lungs as he takes a deep breath, then begins walking forward, avoiding the corpses as gingerly as he can.

[Interovegas]

Zwiche arbitrarily takes the left path in the grisly hall of bones. The only noise are the distant faint thuds of deposits into the sewers from homes above. The path leads the giant to yet another junction. He has gathered a rough notion of the construction of the sewers. The passages must be built as ascending concentric rings like the city itself, in this way the pull of gravity helps move the sewage to aqueducts at the city's edge. It is far more interesting, and perhaps terrifying, that there must be at least two hundred skeletons arranged this way with no end in sight. These roughly extracted skeletons are even stood upright against corners of the junction room. The faint breeze that Zwiche felt through the bars of the left passage at the outer junction is stronger and warmer now. Zwiche knows with certainty that some source of warmth deeper within the tunnel system is causing these air currents.

[Zwiche]

This interesting discovery in his pocket, Zwiche cannot help but feel drawn deeper into the tunnels. What could this source of heat be? He continues into the tunnels, trying to move towards the breeze, following the warm air.

[Interovegas]

Zwiche journeys further into the foreboding warmth. Further into the unknown. He travels down the middle junction path and after another ten minutes seems to have left the sewer altogether. The stone is still damp from the everpresent humidity but the style of the cut has an artistic intent behind it. The cieling is vaulted another two feet and there are two extinguished iron torches holstered along the wall. A short flight of five steps leads up to two iron gates. Zwiche steps up closer to examine the gate, fully expecting it to present another dead end like before. Yet, when bends down to check the condition of the lock he realizes the gate is ever so slightly ajar. The lock itself appears intact, and there is a faint silver-green residue on the handle. Beyond the gate is the beginning of what looks to be a catacomb. A dark passage leads off beyond Zwiche's vision.

[Zwiche]

Zwiche recognizes the danger ahead of him. He knows that there is a limit to glory-seeking and that no one would cheer his name were he to die alone in a dark, musty catacomb. He grabs one of the iron torches, as proof of his exploration, and shuffles his way back to the light, marking his passage as he goes.

Once he returns to the light, he does his best to wash clean before heading to the market, to try and find Captain Fringe.

[Interovegas]

As Zwiche returns the way he came, getting lost a few times along his return, he makes a grim observation. He has not heard or seen a single living thing in these sewers beyond that mystery noise.

Eventually Zwiche finds his way out of the sewer and to the nearest well. He splashes multiple buckets of water over his body to wash away the bulk of the sewer smell. He realizes his footwear is beyond saving (and may want to be rid of them for the permanent stench instilled in them by the sewer).

He finds his way to market in the early hours of night.

[Divergence Ended]

[Return to 4.1 Footway Robber - Waelass]