Steven Schend: Blackstaff Tower

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?"