Wealday, Sarenith 15 (late morning)

We descended into the sewers shortly before dawn. There was no one around—unsurprising since normal people aren’t up this early—so we were able to get in without having to wave our letter around in front of some city official.

Believe it or not, sewers are a topic of conversation in the Church, though one that mostly takes place from an engineering and public health standpoint. Proper sewer design is important in separating waste from, say, drinking water, which helps prevent the spread of diseases both mundane and supernatural. What they don’t discuss in detail is the realities of being down in one, which is that they are disgusting. Fortunately for us we tend to plan ahead, and were covered by a spell that surrounds us all with a layer of clean, breathable air. This protected us from noxious fumes, harmful gases and even let us breathe freely underwater if needed. But most important? It got rid of the smell.

But it was still an unpleasant experience, because it’s a sewer, and sewers are filled with sewage.

About an hour of working our way through the labyrinth with only my hand-drawn map as a guide, we came across our first dead body. Well, not our first, obviously, but our first down here. They were dressed like a city maintenance worker, which was not unusual, but what was unusual was the large hole in their forehead. Mind flayers are known for their ability to suck the brains out of their victims’ skulls if they manage to get a firm grip with their tentacles. Just in case there was any doubt about us being in the right general area, or what we were up against.

I marked the location on the map so we could inform the city, and pressed on. An hour later, we saw this translucent barrier ahead of us with what looked like objects suspended in the air behind it.

Viktor and I exchanged glances, then said to the others, quietly, “gelatinous cube”. We backed away slowly, and looked for another route.

This was safer, but also a lot longer because now we had to take detours that weren’t on my map. But we eventually worked our way back to that sewer line and were rewarded with faint, phosphorescent mold that someone had tracked in along the walkway. This mold was, from what we could tell, a byproduct of the heavy metal pollution from the Forge. A few minutes later, we saw where the sewer line intersected a natural cavern that was filled with the stuff, and we knew we were in the right place.

We entered the cavern and followed the passage to the next chamber, which was lined with a different, yellow mold with numerous giant mushrooms growing out of it. I’d describe the as “swaying in the breeze”, only there was no breeze. They swayed anyway.

Viktor knows more about fungi than I do—I’m not going to ask—and said these things emitted a piercing, screeching sound when they sensed vibrations. That sounded like a natural alarm to us, so Snagsby used a spell to silence the area and I started slicing them up. This kicked up a huge cloud of spores or whatever it is that comes from mold, which would have been bad if it hadn’t been for our magical protection, and instead was just annoying.

Beyond that was a natural passage with a ledge forming a sort of overlook. This seemed like a good place for an ambush, so I opened myself up to the auras around me and sensed the taint up there right away. We snuck up on the ledge and heard something being poured down the shaft. Suspecting it to be oil—again, can’t smell the fumes through this spell—Snagsby conjured a flame to set it alight before it could reach us and we let it burn out. Then we scrambled up and confronted the defenders: more drow.

Legend says that when the Starstone struck the world and plunged it into the Age of Darkness, most of the elves fled through some portal to another dimension. Those that opted to stay on Golarion instead of flee dove down into the Darklands, and were tainted by Rovagug’s influence into a twisted culture of demon worshipers, eventually becoming the dark elves we know today. I don’t know how much truth there is to that legend, but it’s a good story and I see no reason to doubt it.

Why were there drow here? Don’t know, and don’t care. That they were here at all was concern enough. But, we needed to know more about what we were walking into, so I took one of the survivors back to the mushroom cave to have a little talk. I just got finished tying them up before my friends called out an alarm. Something about a snake with a woman’s head.

I rushed forward in time to see them engaged with…well…a giant snake with a woman’s head. She exerted a mental push on me as I met her gaze, but I was able to shrug it off. Some of the others weren’t so lucky, and it was up to Sera, Viktor, and I to take it down while our friends got in our way, because that is what we needed right now.

As we closed in for killing blows, it said, “I could have killed you all before you even knew I was here! I was trying to be nice!”

What?

Obviously, I had missed something, because I hadn’t been there for the start of this skirmish. So I asked for an explanation. “What was that about her trying to be nice to us, but we still attacked her?” I asked.

“I cast a spell that put a bane on her,” Viore said.

I met eyes with Viktor. He was thinking the same thing I was. “I would have considered that a hostile act, too,” he said.

This one is going to stick with me because we were definitely in the wrong here. Lesson learned, I hoped, about not starting fights we don’t need to have.