Blackstaff Tower

CHAPTER 2

9 Nightal, Year of the Ageless One (1479 DR)

Laraelra Harsard knew she needed help and needed it quickly. She looked over the assembled crowds milling around Heroes' Garden. Over the past few decades, each ward seemed to adopt its own unofficial gathering places for swords for hire, where Caravan Court, the White Bull, and Virgin's Square once sufficed for mercenary hiring. The snow-covered hillocks of the garden were already soiled from foot traffic, even though it was barely past sunup. Laraelra wove her way around the statues of heroes of Waterdeep's past. Scanning the crowds, she noticed someone had knocked the right foot off of Lhestyn's statue. Above a skinny man in black leathers, the outstretched stone arms of Lords Oth Ranerl, Tanar Hunabar, and Cyrin Kormallis held only broken blades or sword pommels. Laraelra moved deeper into the Heroes' Garden, searching for strong-backed hirelings but only finding jokesters had stolen the head of Rarkul Ulmaster for the fifth time that year.

If more people respected what it takes to work stone, Laraelra thought, they'd not be so quick to ruin it.

Laraelra had dressed for the weather and the task ahead of her. Her heavy woolen cloak covered her oiled leather tunic, pants, and her sealskin boots-necessities for mucking about the sewers. The black color of her clothes made her seem even paler in the morning cold. Despite her thick garments, Laraelra hugged herself to stay warm. As she rounded the back-to-back statues of Mirt the Merciless and Durnan the Wanderer, she patted their knees and thought, Milords, help me find men of your mettle before it's too late. Then she spotted the largest group of sellswords in the Garden-or more properly, they spotted her.

"Right here, Milady Harsard!" A stylish young bravo rushed ahead of the pack, his spotless purple cloak flaring behind him. He swept off his large feathered hat and bowed before her.

Behind him thundered a muscled tree stump of a young braggart, his first beard coming in thin patches and barely covering his pimples. "Ignore that fool. I'm your man, Laraelra!" To prove his point, he kicked the bowing man over on his way to intercept Laraelra.

"Hardly," she replied, striding past with a twitch of one arched eyebrow. Laraelra pulled her cloak closer to ward off the breeze and the light snow on it. Scanning the crowd, she looked for men at least her height, then winnowed down candidates by how strong or capable they seemed.

Finally, she approached one man leaning against the statue of some centaur hero. The contented young man was more interested in his roll of sausage and onion than in catching her eye. Blond hair avalanched across his shoulders and brow. Until she got close to him, Laraelra did not see the few days' growth of pale blond beard on his face. When she stopped in front of him, the man was in mid-bite, though he smiled close-mouthed at her around the steaming food.

"You'll do," Laraelra said, "assuming you can focus on a task as much as your meal."

She smiled as the man hurriedly chewed, swallowed, and then choked and coughed in surprise. He stood two hands taller than

Laraelra, his shoulders twice hers, and his arms were as large as her legs. Strapped to his back was a great-axe, much-abused but serviceable, like the dagger pommels she saw in his boots. Despite the cold, his cloak was open, exposing well-worn leather armor over a broad chest.

She pressed three silver pieces into his hand and said, "You'll get that much every bell you have to accompany me today, if that's acceptable to you."

The man nodded and coughed a few more times while he tucked the coins into his boot.

Laraelra motioned for him to follow, then turned her back and headed for the copse of trees at the southern end of the Heroes' Garden. "You'll want to finish that before we enter the sewers, I wager."

She half-expected him to stop walking once she mentioned the sewers, but the young man gamely followed her without hesitation.

Laraelra extracted a ring of keys from her belt pouch as she approached the stone hut that covered a sewer shaft among the trees. After she unlocked the access shaft and cracked the door, she turned to her companion. "In case you didn't know, I am Laraelra Harsard. And you are…?"

A broad, beaming smile spread over the man's massive jaw. "Meloon Wardragon, at your service, mistress. What'll need doing this morning?"

Laraelra grabbed a torch off the wall inside the access hut, and lit it as she talked. I am investigating a problem for the Cellarers and Plumbers' Guild down in the sewers. I simply need you in case anything or anyone tries anything untoward." She raised her eyebrows as she looked Meloon up and down. "You'll be a snug fit in some of the tunnels, so you might want to unbelt that axe of yours ahead of time. Never hurts to be prepared, after all."

Meloon nodded and pulled his axe free while Laraelra descended the rung ladder in the floor shaft.

"Just curious, mistress, but why choose me when all those other swords wanted your attention?" Meloon asked. He wrinkled his nose a bit at the overwhelming smell wafting up the shaft, but sighed and took a few deep breaths to acclimate himself to the odor.

The shaft and tunnel beneath Laraelra added a hollow echo to her words. "Most of those bravos up there dressed to impress and would balk at a morning spent in the sewers. Those who weren't dandies were trying to impress me and get in good with my father. I'd rather have someone who's more attentive to the job at hand. Besides, your boots were already covered with dung, so you're obviously someone who worries more about the work than appearance." Laraelra stepped off the rung ladder to the side of the tunnel before she looked up to see Meloon clambering down. "At least it's warmer down here than it is out on the streets. Wetter, but warmer."

Meloon said, "My father used to say, 'Never trust a man what's not got a little stuff on his boots. If a man's worried about where he's stepping, he's not working hard enough.' Glad to see that wisdom's alive in Waterdeep."

Meloon stepped onto the side ledge that lined the central sluice, and his left boot slipped in slime and slid sideways into the muck. Meloon sighed, looked up at Laraelra, and shrugged, a sheepish grin on his face. Laraelra wrinkled her nose as she smiled at him, then she turned and moved a bit up the path to allow him to shake the offal from his boot.

The pair stood at an intersection of three tunnels, all equally foul in appearance and stench. Walled all around in stone, the passages were twice as far across as Meloon's broad arm span, though the tunnel behind them leading southeast was smaller than the others. Laraelra spotted light flickering at an oval tunnel entrance outside of their torchlight long before she heard the voice.

"If ye and yer new lad're done exchangin' pleasantries, we've need of a strong back, lass!" A gravely voice echoed up the tunnel.

Laraelra darted forward with her torch."Harug, is Dorn still all right?" she called out.

"No, he's far from that, lass," Harug replied. "He's trapped under rubble in a puddle of rising filth."

Laraelra and Meloon moved to the left side of the passage, as the ledge continued only on that side. They turned into the lit entrance of the smaller tunnel, the close confines of which concentrated the stench. The light of their torch merged with that of two others, and they could see the situation.

Part of the side wall had collapsed inward, though the ceiling arch overhead remained intact due to support pillars on both sides of the collapse. Sewage flowed out of the gap in the wall, cascading atop the pile of loosened stones and dirt. A makeshift shield of rocks kept most of it from splashing onto the two dwarves. The mobile one worked to move rocks while the other laid still, his legs trapped beneath the fall.

"About time ye made it back, lass," Harug snapped. "It's getting deeper around me nephew there, and I can't stop the flow long enough to redirect it."

The old dwarf seemed exhausted, his shoulders sagging, but he kept moving, barely facing them before he returned to repairing the crude screen that kept the worst of the sewage off his fallen companion. He kept darting glances up at the dark recess that had opened in the wall above him.

Laraelra's eyebrows arched in surprise and anger, and she felt a flare of heat flush across her face. "Why aren't Parkleth and Narlam here helping you clear rubble?"

Harug turned and shot her a knowing look.

"Those tluiners just left you here?" she said. "Oh, when I get my hands on those parharding wastes of air!"

"How 'bout me first, Elra?" The trapped dwarf opened his eyes briefly and chuckled. "The cowardly bigots can wait."

Her temper cooled, and she dashed toward her old friends. "To be sure, Dorn."

Laraelra knelt by her friend, brushing some mud away from his eyes. She hoped her face didn't betray how concerned she was about the gash on his forehead or the muck rising around him. To hide her worry, she talked over her shoulder at the other men. "Meloon Wardragon, meet Harug Shieldsunder, the most cantankerous dwarf in the city and one of our guild's best tunnel workers. The muddier one here is Dorn Strongcroft, his vastly more pleasant nephew. How can we help?"

"Move yer skinny self out of our way and get the lad to brace his back against that pile," Harug said. "If he can lift that main pair o' rocks for a trice, we should be able to pull Dorn free without the whole thing crushing all of us. Can ye do that, lad?"

"Aye," Meloon said, as he leaned his axe against the wall and ledge. He stepped over and straddled the fallen dwarf, making sure his footing was secure. He squatted and reached behind his back to grab the two largest rocks. He nodded at Laraelra and Harug, who grabbed the groaning Dorn by the arms. The three of them nodded in unison, and on the third nod, Meloon grimaced and lifted, using his legs and arms to pull the weight of the pile off of the dwarf. Rocks and sluice water, now free of the temporary dam, engulfed the tall man, and he gasped at both the stench and the cold water as it soaked him from head to foot.

Laraelra and Harug yanked Dorn free of the rubble, the wet muck making a sucking noise as he slid free. The dwarf himself only made a perfunctory grunt, then his head lolled back as he passed out. Laraelra and Harug pulled Dorn more than three body lengths away from the collapse and up onto the ledge before they stopped.

Sighing in relief, Laraelra called back, "Meloon, you can let go now," and heard him groan as he lowered his burden. The rocks and dirt rumbled slightly as they settled into the space where Dorn once lay. More rocks tumbled from the broken wall, widening the dark gap.

Laraelra focused on Dorn, whose crushed, mud-encrusted legs were twisted unnaturally. She shuddered, remembering the far-lesser pain of a twisted ankle, and she thanked Tymora that

Dorn had fallen unconscious from the pain. She needed to keep his wounds clean and determine if any bones broke through his skin. She closed her eyes, focused on the image of a sunbeam becoming a rainbow, and summoned her power. She opened her eyes and spread her fingers in a fan over his legs. The mud shimmered and separated, the water flowing away and the dirt and offal falling off of Dorn's legs in chunks. After a breath or two, she relaxed, not seeing any blood staining his now-dry clothes.

Within the piles around Dorn's legs, Harug spotted the glint of one gold and one silver ring, and he snatched those up. "Delvarin's daubles," he grunted at the sorceress, pocketing the jewelry.

She replied, "You're better off using that digger's treasure to pay a cleric to heal him, Harug, or he'll never walk again. Now why did you send a runner to the guildhouse claiming you needed protection down here instead of a pump crew and an engineer?"

"Fixits always come later, lass. I figured you'd have to bring somebody big enough to help do that more quickly." Harug thumbed toward Meloon, who was busy coughing and wiping the worst of the muck off of his face, arms, and torso. "Oh, and to deal with those, too."

Harug picked up a rock and threw it past Meloon's shoulder to strike a lettuce green mottled lizard in the snout as it appeared atop the pile of rubble. The mastiff-sized lizard's response was a hiss and snap of its jaws, and Meloon punched it in the nose, forcing it back into the darkness. Meloon peered into the wall cavity and said, "There's a lot of noise and movement back here, folks. I think it's a lot more of these things."

Laraelra stood, squaring her shoulders and facing the old dwarf. "Harug," she said, "strap Dorn to a board and get him to safety. We'll take care of those things. When you've heard it's clear, I want you down here to rebuild that wall. Father may favor Rodalun for the engineering jobs, but I don't trust that drunken sot to do it right. Besides, I don't want any others-especially my father- knowing about this breach in the tunnels."

"Finally," Harug chuckled, "I'm glad ye respect dwarves, even if some other Cellarers don't. Thanks, Elra lass." Harug clapped a thick calloused hand over hers and looked in her eyes. Softly, he said, "We owes ye both, lass, that we does."

Laraelra felt the solemnity of the dwarf's promise, and she knew her longtime friend Harug now pledged his life to hers.

Harug's eyes snapped toward Meloon. "Watch them sewyrms, lad. Them lizards're stubborn, but their bite's only half as bad as their tail lash."

Meloon smiled and said, "Thanks!" He stepped over to retrieve his axe, keeping himself between the lizard and Laraelra. In that moment, two sewyrms hopped atop the rubble pile and a third splashed into the sewer stream behind the rocks. Laraelra had to reassess her initial impression of Meloon. She watched his eyes and ears catch everything moving around him and plan his attack accordingly. Sweeping the great-axe as he spun back around, Meloon beheaded one lizard as it leaped at him. The second lashed its scaled tail over its body like a scorpion, slapping the warrior's arm and drawing blood. Meloon grunted and lopped off the lizard's tail on the return swing of his axe. That creature screeched in pain and leaped back into the darkness, out of reach.

Laraelra watched Meloon's axe slide in his grasp from all the water and filth covering him. She stepped closer and cast her spell again. Water and offal slid off of Meloon, his clothes, and axe.

He shook his head and said, "Who did that? I'm grateful, but…"

While many still feared magic since the Spellplague, Laraelra reveled in her small and growing sorceries. Even with her paltry few spells, she knew how to winnow down the opposition from lizards at least. Behind Meloon's massive back, Laraelra said, "If you'd move to one side, I'll do more than help dry you off. I can make this battle a lot simpler."

"A skinny little thing like you? A sword's weight could knock you over." Meloon chuckled.

"Don't forget who's paying you," she said, and she tried to push by him, but Meloon swept her back with his left arm.

"Unless you've a fireball or two in your sleeves, you'd best leave the fight to me. That's what you're paying me for." Meloon swung his axe up and cleanly decapitated another lizard.

The lizards hissed loudly. Three more leaped atop the pile as the survivor jumped down into the sewer stream alongside. The tunnel filled with splashing and hissing sounds loud enough to drown out the near-constant dripping.

"Meloon!" Laraelra said. "We can't pick them off one by one. Pick me up!"

"Hardly time for that, though I'll be happy to oblige later, milady." Meloon smirked as he shoved the great-axe into the rubble pile, reducing it in height but also dislodging and knocking all three sewyrms back behind it.

"Hold me up so I can see into the cavity, fool!" She punched Meloon in the side in frustration. "I'll disable most of them with a spell, instead of us getting overwhelmed by them. Then we can both take care of the stragglers, yes?"

"Oh. Why didn't you say so?" Meloon swung his axe one more time to ward off the sewyrms clambering up the pile, then reached around with his left arm, grabbed her around the waist, and held her high up on his torso. "That high enough, milady Harsard?"

"Fine." She muttered a few arcane syllables, breathing deep and thinking of a dragon's head, and a radiant cone of color flashed from her outstretched hands. The brief illumination showed her a deep cavity that used to be a cellar or tunnel, its entirety choked with the green sewyrms. All of them hissed in pain, though most fell unconscious, stunned by the clashing spray of color.

She leaned back against Meloon's shoulder and chest and said, "The few that are still moving are blind and more easily dispatched now. Promise to never underestimate me again and you can call me Elra."

"Done, Elra," the blond man said as he set her down at the edge of the cavity. "You didn't mention you were a wizard."

"I'm not," she said. "I don't tell many people about my hidden talents, given how most feel about magic since the Spellplague. And I'm a sorcerer, not a wizard."

"Doesn't matter to me-for friends or a fight," Meloon said. "We're still striding. That's what matters."

Laraelra smiled, but that vanished when a scream echoed toward them. Before Laraelra could give him an order, Meloon shouldered his way through the loose rubble pile, widening the opening. The two of them clambered up and over into the cavity, haunted by the sounds of their breathing, the hiss of a few sewyrms, and the echoing screams. Laraelra grabbed one of the torches and brought it to light their way.

Meloon's first steps sank ankle-deep into mud. What lizards they found were soon beheaded and shoved out of the way.

"What is this?" Meloon whispered. "Where are we?"

Laraelra said, "There are a lot of hidden cellars, tunnels, and old foundations-beneath the northern wards, some of which have been mapped, others not so much. Many places here are decades older than the city around them. As long as they never interfered with the sewers, the Lords and the Cellarers and Plumbers' Guild turned a blind eye to them all. The money that buys these places also buys secrets."

"I can't tell where the screams are coming from," he said, his knuckles white around his axe haft.

"Just up ahead and to the right," Laraelra replied, pointing ahead to an obvious intersection of tunnels. "After a few trips down here, you learn to ignore the echoes and focus on the sources of sounds. Now let's go quietly."

Meloon swept a protective arm to keep her back as he moved ahead. Laraelra bumped into him when he stopped. They stood on the edge of a drop well beyond their torchlight, blackness yawning before them. The pavement fell away here, the walls looking slightly melted, rippling from brickwork to smooth flow-stone. Laraelra could see a tunnel entrance outlined indirectly by flickering torchlight far below her and to her right. A woman's ragged gasps and whimpers of pain grew to another anguished scream. The screams echoed up from the depths, along with the murmur of a man's voice.

"Wizards!" The man's spit of disgust and phlegm resounded through the darkness. "You all think you're better than us, but they can't get secrets out of you with magic, so they call on Granek. Wizardry or no, without fingers, you'll be naught but a hard-coin girl after we're done, if you don't yield your secrets."

Laraelra and Meloon paused high above, sharing a look of horror and revulsion as they listened.

"Tell Granek what he wants to know, and we'll stop. For now. Resist, and we'll do worse to your hip than we're doing to your knee."

The woman's ragged sobs and panicked breathing were audible even where Meloon and Laraelra stood far above them. Laraelra hugged herself, her eyes tearing up at hearing the utter hatred in the man's rough voice. She knew people could be cruel, but she'd never heard it so plain. Fear, anger, and her breakfast all warred in the pit of her stomach and she gulped to hold it down.

Meloon paced and smashed the butt of his axe against the wall, loosening stone fragments to clatter down into the blackness. In the firelight, Laraelra could see the anger in his clenched jaw and knew his imaginary target was the torturer down below in the gloom.

"Well?" the man asked, but there was only a long pause. A hollow laugh, a moist crunch, and a deafening scream followed.

Laraelra and Meloon both jumped in shock. Meloon's face shifted to stern resolve. "Can't we help her?"

She nodded, and whispered, "Let's see if there's a way down."

Laraelra grabbed a stone from the floor, cupped it in her left hand, and whispered at it. In a whirl of sparkles, the stone glowed with a steady blue light. She tossed the stone down into the abyss, and it dropped more than five people's heights before it rattled to a stop. The pale azure light revealed a shattered and nebulous system of tunnels, many of which had melted or collapsed together on at least two levels. Her stone's light merged with the outer edges of their torchlight, showing them at least a drop of at least thirty feet.

"No way we can get down there without ropes and hooks." Meloon groaned.

"No," Laraelra said, "but that doesn't mean we can't guess who's doing this."

Laraelra handed her torch to Meloon and pulled a scroll tube out of her belt pouch. She opened the tube and pulled out the parchments within it, flipping through them until she found what she sought. She explained, "My father keeps detailed maps of every sewer connection and tunnel he knows of down here, and he notes who owns the properties above them as well. I've made copies for whenever I need to come down here."

She squinted at the map and motioned for Meloon to bring the light closer.

"If I'm reading this right, we're beneath Kulzar's Alley and Rook's Alley," she muttered, deep in thought. "There's a block of three conjoined buildings up there."

"So who do we go fight?" Meloon asked.

Laraelra stared at the map, then folded it back up sharply. "No one. We can't do anything."

"Who owns this block?" Meloon asked. "We can't let them get away with this!"

"We have to," Laraelra said. "The block is owned by the Neverembers.''

"The Open Lord?"

"I doubt it. Lord Dagult wouldn't do this. Even if he would, he's got far more secure locations in Castle Waterdeep or beneath the palace." Laraelra thought aloud, "We could go to the Watch, but who will they believer The Open Lord or the daughter of a paranoid guildmaster and her hired sellsword?"

"I don't care," Meloon said. "I need to help that woman. Nobody deserves that-servant, coin-girl, or peasant. And if we have to go the palace and confront the Open Lord, well…"

"No," Laraelra said. "Lord Dagult's too busy with the city. His son Renaer manages all his properties, allegedly. Let's go pay a visit to and get some answers from Lord Neverember the Younger. Unless you'd like to stay down here a while longer?"

"No," Meloon said coldly. "My axe and I want words with Renaer Neverember."