Session 5

“This is the place,” Seknafret said as she led the group to the location Joneel had given her. According to the convicted thug-for-hire, Bralen Root kept an office of sorts in the sewers, and this manhole in Shark Street was the nearest access point he knew about.

Ebyn studied the roofline, eyes narrowed. “Let me send Hoot aloft to see if there are any sentries about.”

The shadar-kai wizard placed a hand on Seknafret’s shoulder, closed his eyes, and transferred his vision to the fey beast as it took wing. Hoot performed a few lazy circles over the area in a widening spiral but as far as Ebyn could tell, there was nothing out of the ordinary to report.

“All clear,” he said, then opened his eyes and called Hoot back.

“No-one watching tells me he has the sewer grate rigged,” Xalen said. “I’ll check it.”

The young rogue approached the manhole and crouched beside it. He poked around with his tools and found a thin wire attached to the metal grate. With teeth clenched, Xalen unhooked the wire, careful to keep the tension on the metal filament steady and tied it off against a rusty bolt in the rim. He signalled the others over when he was done.

“Try to avoid this bolt here,” Xalen said pointing at the bolt and looking meaningfully at Brabara.

Brabara noticed his gaze. “What? Yes, it’s gonna be a tight squeeze for me, ha ha, very funny.”

“Just don’t tear the wire,” Xalen repeated then scrambled down the metal rungs of the ladder.

They climbed down one by one, with Ebyn climbing last, replacing the manhole cover as he did so. Seknafret set the tip of her staff alight once everyone had reached the bottom. The glow was barely bright enough to overcome the gloom, but it was better than nothing.

She shuddered. “Let’s get moving,” she said with a wistful glance up at the faint circle of sky above them. It seemed a long way off at that moment.

Seknafret never enjoyed being below ground, and in a sewer tunnel no less, but the recent rains had done a lot to clear out any accumulated filth so at least the smell wasn’t too bad.

“This way,” she said, indicating north. “At the first intersection turn right.”

Brabara took the lead, with Xalen at the rear. They walked for about a hundred paces before the tunnel split into two, each path continuing into darkness at an angle. A sturdy wooden plank was set across the deep-water channel allowing them to cross from one side of the tunnel to the other and continue along the left branch. About fifty paces later they reached another intersection, where their tunnel merged with another.

“Which way now?” Whispered Brabara.

“Continue around the corner to the south-east,” Seknafret said. “If I haven’t messed up the directions we should reach a cistern in about sixty yards.”

The four of them continued moving through the darkened sewer. Rats and other rodents skittered away as the light from Seknafret’s staff exposed them. The constant drip, drip, drip of water threatened to lull everyone into a stupor as it echoed all around them.

Up ahead the tunnel opened out into a wide circular chamber where three of the city’s sewer tunnels converged.

“Looks like we’re on track,” Brabara said as she entered the large underground chamber.

A deep pool of water filled the bottom of the cistern. The ceiling was domed and made from the same stone bricks that lined the walls of the tunnels. A rusted metal walkway bolted to walls of the cistern created small arched bridges that spanned the three tunnel openings.

“Now where?” Brabara said.

Before Seknafret could answer, a sudden jet of water rose from the darkness below to strike Brabara solidly in the chest. Were it not for her firm grip on the metal railing she might have tipped over and sunk with the weight of her armour.

The water gushed again, a second solid jet shaped like a fist, struck out at Ebyn. Brabara saw the attack coming and just managed to shove the wizard aside. The blow struck air and dissipated in a cold mist.

“Water elemental,” Ebyn managed as he regained his feet.

Now that the moment of surprise had passed, the group could see their attacker. Xalen loosed magical arrows, while Brabara used her glaive to great effect restricting the elemental’s movement. Seknafret and Ebyn peppered the creature with bolts of fire and shards of ice. In seconds the battle was over and the dark pool of water at the base of the cistern was still again.

Brabara was breathing hard. “What was that doing here?” she managed between gasps.

“I dare say it was alerting our target,” Seknafret said. “I reckon people in the streets above us could have heard that ruckus.”

“You’re right. There’s no sense in tiptoeing any longer,” Brabara said. “Which way now?”

Seknafret pointed down the nearest of the tunnels. “That one. No more than twenty paces.”

Brabara charged down the sewer with Seknafret hot on her heels.

“That’s far enough!” a gravelly voice shouted from up ahead.

The flickering glow of torchlight spilled into the sewer tunnel from a smaller opening in the wall to the right. A sizable figure stood in that doorway, the light creating an impressive silhouette.

Brabara continued her charge.

The large man moved back into the room allowing a pair of smaller figures to step out and squeeze off a couple of heavy crossbow bolts before ducking back again.

The thick, steel tipped darts punched into Brabara’s chest causing her charge to falter. Her armour saved her from being impaled by the bolts, but the force of the blow stopped her in her tracks.

Seknafret weaved around Brabara’s heaving form and came to a stop just outside the opening. She pressed up against the wall to catch her breath a moment before risking a quick glance inside. Four figures, the brute who yelled the warning, the two archers, and a smaller man, dressed in fine clothes. Bralen Root himself based on Joneel’s description.

A rage burned inside her.

This was the man who arranged the attack on her friends. The man who’d turned her life upside down with likely no more thought than he gave to deciding what shoes to wear each day.

Seknafret spoke a series of arcane words as she tossed a pinch of phosphorus into the room. A searing wall of fire sprang up around the four men, the intense heat of the flames directed inward.

She stood in the doorway, waiting for the screams of agony that would burn away the guilt and sorrow she felt after the loss of her friends.

Nothing came.

Instead, she was knocked off her feet by another pair of heavy crossbow bolts. Unlike Brabara, Seknafret didn’t have heavy armour to protect her, and the force of the bolts sent her stumbling back into the water, the pain making it impossible to maintain her focus on the spell.

The flames vanished as quickly as they’d come.

Brabara stepped into the doorway, glaive in hand.

Small flames licked on most of the furniture in the room, all save a circular patch surrounding the well-dressed man who pushed a pair of metal rimmed spectacles up on the bridge of his nose.

“Kill them,” he said and stepped out of the room through a doorway in the far wall.

The brute stepped forward, sword at the ready. “Right you are, boss.”

Xalen leaned out and extended his hand to help Seknafret climb out of the water.

“Thank you,” she said and tried to pat herself dry, the pain from her injuries causing a wince.

Xalen looked her up and down, noting the blood staining her clothes. “You should heal yourself.”

Seknafret nodded. “I will. Go, help Brabara.”

Ebyn stepped up beside her. “How many?”

“Four,” Seknafret said. “Root, and three guards.”

Ebyn nodded and moved down to the opening.

Brabara and the brute were exchanging blows like a pair of common street thugs. No artifice, no finesse, just raw power and strength. Had even one of those blows landed on Ebyn he would surely have been cut in half.

h Ebyn and Xalen hovered behind Brabara’s shoulder looking for an opening where they might squeeze a shot through, be it arrow or firebolt, but the two warriors kept the doorway impressively blocked and the opportunities were few and far between.

ehow, Brabara managed to land a blow that knocked her opponent down. She wasted no time in capitalizing on his predicament and swept down with her glaive in a series of brutal cuts.

The man tried to avoid the blows, but Brabara was relentless. With a final flourish, she brought the haft of her weapon around and struck him solidly in the temple. He went limp, and his sword slipped from his hand.

Brabara swept into the room and turned toward the nearest of the two crossbowmen.

Xalen, Ebyn, and Seknafret followed soon after and the two remaining guards soon found themselves facing four opponents.

The crossbowmen dropped their weapons and raised their hands. Neither one seemed ready to die defending their boss and stood meekly while Brabara attached manacles to their outstretched arms.

“Stay here,” the big warrior said in a voice reminiscent of one she used when training new recruits.

The two men cowered and fell to their knees.

Xalen held his bow at the ready as Brabara opened the door Bralen Root had gone through.

They found the man standing behind a chair to a desk covered in various papers. Despite the obvious outcome of the battle outside, the well-dressed man seemed unconcerned by Brabara’s entrance, or by Xalen’s drawn arrow aimed toward him.

“Well done,” Bralen Root began, his voice as oily as his demeanour. “The men outside are not without skills. I appear to need a new protection detail. Perhaps I could interest you in that job?”

Brabara snarled. “The only thing we’re interested in is answers.”

“Very well,” the man said. “Ask your questions. I give you this one chance at finding your answers.”

“Or what?” said Xalen.

Bralen looked at the young rogue flatly but said nothing.

Ebyn entered the room and began casting; a spell that would allow him to read the man’s thoughts and keep track of him if he tried to escape. The magic reached out but somehow couldn’t establish any kind of grip on Bralen Root’s mind.

Bralen Root smiled, as if he knew what Ebyn had attempted. “One chance, I said. Don’t waste it.”

Ebyn glanced around the room. There were no other visible exits, both Brabara and Xalen were no more than one step away from the man, and Seknafret stood covering the doorway. There appeared to be no way for this man to escape, yet his attitude was that of a person entirely in control of his situation.

“There’s nowhere for you to go,” Ebyn insisted. “Your men are dead or incapacitated and you are surrounded. You are not in any kind of position to make demands.”

Bralen sighed. “Is that so?” he said with just a hint of disappointment. “Oh well.”

The man disappeared.

Xalen loosed the arrow and Brabara sliced with her glaive at the spot the man had been standing a heartbeat earlier. The glaive cut only air, and the arrow struck the wall behind.

Bralen Root had gone.

“Fuck!” Seknafret screamed.

The others all turned to face her; this was the first time anyone had seen her lose her composure.

“Are you hurt?” Brabara asked, looking Seknafret over.

“Not anymore,” she said. “Just pissed off. This man had information about who arranged the attack on me and my friends. And now he’s gone.”

Ebyn looked around the room. “There are a lot of papers and ledgers here. Perhaps you will find something usable among them.”

Seknafret gave the room a cursory glance. “I hope so,” she said and started searching.

Ebyn, Seknafret, and Xalen went through Bralen Root’s office with excruciating care, while Brabara stood watch over the two crossbowmen. She asked them what they knew about Bralen’s business dealings, but the pair claimed only to have been hired on as guards.

The wire on the sewer grate, and the water elemental in the cistern were a clear indication of how careful the fixer could be. So, the trio searching the office took great care to locate and disarm any other surprises that he might have left behind.

There were three such traps, each of which would have set the office and all its contents alight in an explosion of fire. The first was attached to one of the books on the bookshelf by the door. The second triggered by the opening of the drawer in the desk, and the third by simply sitting on the chair.

Paranoid didn’t begin to describe the man.

Once these traps were disarmed and they were certain there were no others, the real search began. Documents, books, and even the contents of Bralen Root’s trash were laid out, arranged by date, and catalogued, before being stuffed into a bag of holding Seknafret had with her.

As it became clear that the search was coming to an end, Brabara stepped in.

“What are we going to do about them?” Brabara said, indicating the two manacled men.

Seknafret raised an eyebrow. “Arrest them, of course.”

Brabara scoffed. “On what charge?”

“Well, um, they did attack us.”

“Only after we attacked them, and ignored a warning to stay back,” Brabara pointed out.

“But they worked for the horrible man who arranged the deaths of my friends,” Seknafret pleaded. “Perhaps one or both of them might even have been part of the crew who attacked us.”

“Do you have any evidence to support that?” Brabara asked.

“Not yet, but maybe in these ledgers there might…” Seknafret began.

Brabara cut her off. “If you don’t have evidence now, we can’t arrest them now, and as bad as Bralen Root might be, working for that horrible man isn’t a crime. We have to let them go.”

“Surely there must be something we can charge them with,” Ebyn said.

Brabara shook her head. “I will not compromise my integrity, Ebyn, and while we all sympathise with Seknafret’s situation, I hope you understand why we have to release them.”

Seknafret nodded. “You’re right, Brabara. I am sorry to have even considered it.”

Brabara looked at Seknafret and smiled. “Thank you.”

Brabara returned to stand before the two men, took the key from her pouch and unlocked the manacles. The pair shifted uncertainly as they rubbed at their wrists.

“What’s, this?” the taller of the two asked.

“You waitin’ for us to go for our weapons so you can kill us?” the other man said, his voice trembling.

Brabara shook her head. “Nothing like that. You are free to go, but if you do try and grab a weapon, it’ll go badly for you. Just stand up and walk away. Trust me, you don’t want me to see either of you down in these sewers again. Understood?”

The men’s eyes widened, and they looked at each other for a moment, then scrambled to their feet and ran away.

The group waited for several minutes to make sure the men didn’t decide to come back for their weapons before retracing their path to the sewer grate where they’d first entered.

Night had fallen by the time the four of them clambered out of the manhole and Seknafret took a deep breath of the cool night air, happy to have sky overhead again instead of oppressive stone.

---

It took Seknafret a day or so, with Ebyn’s help, to break Bralen Root’s cypher and then another few days to sift through the mounds of copious notes. For all that the man was a criminal he kept meticulous records, no doubt hoping that it would be useful insurance in the event he was ever double-crossed.

The notes allowed them to piece together what happened.

A noble named Jerot Galgin had hired Bralen Root to arrange the kidnapping of “a dark-skinned woman from the desert”. While it did not mention her by name, the address where she was staying was there, and the dates of the engagement matched the timing of the attack.

Seknafret explained what she’d found to the others.

Brabara’s eyes widened upon hearing the noble’s name. “Jerot Galgin?”

“That’s right. Do you know him?”

Brabara’s hands clenched into fists. “Galgin was the one who put up the contract on my mother,” Brabara hissed. “He got Tiny sent away for nothing.”

“This Galgin fellow isn’t shy of stirring up trouble,” Xalen said. “But why would he want to take you, Sekna? Did you wrong him in some way?”

Seknafret shrugged. “As far as I know I’ve never met the man. It’s possible he could have been at one or more of the dinners I attended before the attack, but I don’t recall that we were ever introduced.”

“And there’s no way my mum would know him,” Brabara insisted. “She didn’t move in those kinds of circles.”

“We have to take this to the captain,” Seknafret said. “This man’s name has come up twice, we need to talk to him directly.”

---

“I know of the family,” Kevori said once Brabara and Seknafret finished outlining everything they’d found. “But I haven’t met the man personally. From what I’ve heard he tends to keep to himself. Something of a black sheep I understand.”

“We’d like to talk to him ourselves,” Brabara said. “Whatever his position might be, he knows things that we need to get the answers for. At the very least we have hard evidence of a conspiracy to kidnap Seknafret.”

Kevori sighed. “You both know it doesn’t work like that.”

Seknafret’s face reddened. “So, he just gets away with it?”

“Of course not,” Kevori said. “Whatever he is involved with, it doesn’t sound like it would be good for the city. We can’t allow visiting foreign dignitaries to be attacked in their beds, that kind of thing is bad for business. I’ll run this up the flagpole framed as an attack on the city’s good name. I am sure Lord Neverember will agree to let you guys pursue it.”

“You expect us to just trust the system?” Brabara spat. “That’s exactly how Tiny got himself jailed.”

Kevori seemed hurt by that. “Come on, you two. You know me, we’ve been friends for more than a year, and while I might be captain, I am not one of them. So no, I am not asking you to trust the system. I am asking you to trust me.”

Brabara lowered her head. “I’m sorry, Kevori. You’re right, and I – ah, we – do trust you, right, Sekna?”

Seknafret nodded. “Of course.”

Kevori eyed them both for a long moment. “Promise me that you will do nothing until you hear from me. If you come at the nobility half-cocked, you’ll cause them to circle the wagons, and you don’t want that. My brother was murdered, and those noble bastards responsible got off with a slap on the wrist because he acted alone.”

Brabara nodded. “Understood.”

“I will tell you the moment I hear anything,” Kevori assured them.