Anthology - Once Around the Realms

"Not wishing to sound trite," Volo said with a grimace, "but you'll never get away with this."

"I think I will," the doppelganger replied, reassuming the Khelben form right before Volo's eyes. "Tomorrow you and your friend will be taken to a waiting boat at Skullport, taken out to sea, and dumped. You'll drown, your bodies swept out to sea, and all that sort of stuff. Your fat friend will meet a similar fate. If we don't catch him first, the gems will exert their influence. He will find himself drawn to the sea with the new day, and then his life will be snuffed out at the exact same moment as you breathe your last breath. Bound in life, bound in death."

Hlaavin grabbed his cloak and, with a flourish, threw it over his shoulder. "But tonight," Hlaavin said, "I feel like doing the town, and as what better person than old Blackstaff himself?"

"Aren't you afraid of running into the real thing?" Volo queried. "This is his home stomping ground, after all."

"As the fates would have it," the doppelganger replied, "he's out of town. Do you know what the beauty of it is? He is in Suzail for a meeting with Vangerdahast. Isn't that wonderful? But don't worry. I'll be back in plenty of time to give you and your little friend a proper sendoff."

As he went up the cellar stairs, he called back down. "And don't even think of trying anything. I'm sending a guard down to baby-sit. Ta-ta."

In less time than it took for Volo to re-upright himself to a sitting position, he was rejoined by the 'young lady' who had been there when he first came around.

"Sorry to take you away from your fun," Volo commented.

"No problem," the tart/doppelganger replied. "I was about due for a break, anyway."

Within a few moments, Shurleen regained consciousness and made eye contact with Volo. He tried to reassure her nonverbally but feared that he was doing a poor job of it since he himself thought that they were very probably doomed.

The music and frivolity of upstairs was interrupted by a pair of raucous voices.

"This is that festhall I told you about! Ain't it great!"

"Wow! Look at all the good-looking girls!"

Passepout and Curtis! Volo thought, then quickly tried to clear his mind in case their guard was listening in on his thoughts.

She/it wasn't.

"I guess the fleet's in," she/it commented. "I hate it when they get rowdy."

A great commotion quickly commenced above, the sound of running feet and doors slamming.

"Fire! Fire!"

"What in the…" the guard asked out loud, climbing up the stairs to take a peek, whereupon she/it was immediately hit over the head and fell down the stairs, coming to an unconscious rest on the cellar floor between Volo and Shurleen, legs and frock all akimbo.

Her body was quickly followed by the heroic figures of Passepout and Curtis.

"We saw you being taken down the alley and decided to follow. We waited until Khelben left to make our move," the rescuers explained.

"That wasn't Khelben," Volo corrected. "It was a doppelganger, and this is all part of an insidious plot by the Unseen."

The thespian and beachcomber quickly undid the bonds of their friends and surveyed the cellar scene.

"We can't get out upstairs," Curtis announced. "The girls, uh, things were barring the door."

"How about there?" Passepout asked, pointing to a loose sewer grate in the corner.

Volo quickly surveyed the room and decided that no other options presented themselves.

"Sounds good to me," the master traveler replied.

Shurleen, her bonds undone and her gag removed, commented, "Well, I guess it isn't everyone who gets taken to a bards' club and given a tour of the Waterdeep sewer system by the master traveler of all Faerun."

The rapid approach of footsteps to the cellar entrance hastened their resolve, and the four travelers dropped themselves down the sewer pipe, Volo last, replacing the grate to cover their tracks.

SEWER amp; UNDERMOUNTAIN or A Ghost Gives A Chance

The drop down the sewer pipe was longer than any of them imagined it would be. The pipe was •slick and situated at a slight tilt so that their fall was soon replaced by a slide, complete with a network of turns, hooks, and drops that threatened to make them dizzy.

After what seemed like hours but was really only minutes, the pipe disappeared beneath them and the four escapees from the festhall formerly known as the Hanging Lantern were deposited into an underground canal about ten feet around, and filled with about three feet of water. The distinctive odors of garbage and excrement wafted around them.

"Someone should package that ride for a fair," Passepout pointed out. "They would make a fortune, provided they supplied each customer with a nose clip to compensate for the smell."

"I can just hear my little braddah saying, 'Oh, let's do it again!' " Curtis replied.

"You have a brother?" Shurleen asked.

"Several," Curtis replied. "I'm sure you'll meet them soon."

"Wonderful," Passepout interjected, rolling his eyes.

Volo concurred with the thespian's sentiments, if not his comments.

"We can't stop now!" Volo said. "We have to get out of this sewer, then out of Waterdeep, and back to Suzail to tell Khelben and the War Wizards about Hlaavin's insidious plot."

"Quickly, this way!" Passepout said, for no other reason than to get them moving again, and it was the way the water was flowing.

The other three looked at each other and, seeing no better alternatives, shrugged in agreement and followed the path prescribed by Passepout.

As they walked, the water level continued to go down and the water itself became clearer and cleaner. The travelers were soon able to cleanse themselves of the sewerage residue. Eventually the water was no more than a trickle that escaped through various cracks and grates, clouds of mist wafting upward. The air cleared, and the four companion's clothes dried on their backs, as the under- ground sewer canal took on more of the appearance of a tunnel, complete with forks, stairs upward and downward, and a requisite amount of dead ends.

Their footsteps on the paved floors echoed through the tunnels, and they also began to hear various frightening noises in the distance, the owners of which none of them hoped to run into.

After two rest stops, the group stopped for a third time, this time at a juncture point that went off in five directions in addition to the one from whence they came.

"Undermountain," Volo murmured, louder than he had intended.

"Say what?" Passepout asked.

"Undermountain," the master traveler repeated. "Elminster called it the largest mass grave in all Faerun today."

"Wonderful," Passepout replied in his familiar sarcastic manner.

Volo walked around the brick-and-mortar-walled chamber, examining the passageways out as he filled in the rest of the group on a few more details. He wished that he had his magics at his disposal to help him find a way out. He concentrated for a moment to see if they had returned, accepted that they hadn't, and once again began his tour guide spiel.

"It was constructed and designed by Halaster Blackcloak. Only one of his apprentices ever made it out alive. That was Jhesiyra Kestellharp, who later went on to Myth Drannor and adopted the moniker of the Magister."

"Wonderful," Passepout repeated.

"Meaning no offense, Mister Volo," Curtis interrupted, "the history lesson is nice and all, but do you have any idea of a way of finding the way out?

"Many have tried," Volo continued, taking a torch down from the wall. "No one knows how far down it goes, or how far the network of tunnels stretches. Rumor has it that Halaster, a master of illusion, weaved an enchantment so that travelers could lose their way, thinking that they were going up when instead they were traveling farther down into the bowels of Mt. Waterdeep, down to the deepest levels of Undermountain."