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tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today
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Nod. "Avoid me with the Sleep, despite the ears." She's mostly accepted that one, it's mostly just Sleep that hurts. "I have quite a number of Color Sprays left for the day, so if I can get close to something it's typically out of the fight. And Acid Splash for distances, of course, I assume you two have options as well." She turns to Mika. "Yourself?"

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"Oh, I'm not a wizard."

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Anton gestures to the maps.

"Our entry point is the sewer tunnel off 44 Stone's End in Midland. We need to head a couple thousand feet southwest and sixty feet down. I've got a route down lined up. The main things we need to watch out for on the way are animals and goblins. If we're unlucky one of the fungi will think us a snack. Don't waste your color sprays on them, they're immune. Same with the undead, if any of Matei's old servants are still around."

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"But surely you survive somehow out on the streets. Anything we should watch for, try to set you up for?"

And a nod to Anton. "The flaws of touching minds. My friend here is hard to fool, so if it comes buzzing in all alarmed, there's something dangerous that we're missing." Probably. Now that it's heard that, at least.

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"I'm good at slipping away, easy to not notice. Got a good weight behind my sword too. I don't need much else."

He pauses. "Well, we should all wear masks, the sewers are full of bad air."

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"Distractions are good, then? Ghost Sound is a handy spell. And masks are most definitely worth the fabric, if we're down there. Stones don't exactly need to breathe, my friend can't help us with that."

She's already offered to take basically no loot here, she's not going to also buy them all masks. ...or buy the students masks, Mika probably has one already.

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"Good point, let's pick some up on the way to Stone's End. We should probably get going soon anyway... after we review the route one more time. Just to be sure."

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The party makes their way across the city. Anton and Julio pick up masks at a dingy clothing shop. Mika grabs some gear from his apartment. It's a little later in the day when they find the entrance, all the way down near the bottom of Midland.

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"Alright, this is the place." Anton gestures at a tunnel entrance down the alley. "Mika, you first."

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He draws his sword. "Could I get a light?"

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Julio mutters and touches Mika's sword. It glows like a torch.

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Sun-blinded fools. It's not even that dark, there should be no need to broadcast their presence everywhere.

Oh well. What does she see down the tunnel? Even with a Light, she can see farther in the dark than a human can with a torch. Even half-nobility is enough for that.

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The tunnel slopes downward at an incline for about twenty feet. The end is visible; it opens up to a ledge near flowing water. The air in the tunnel does not smell nice.

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"Down a bit over your Ray of Frost's reach to a ledge. Watch your step there, you don't want to fall in the water. You might want more than one light source for the three of you."

Mika will have to discover the scent himself. She's not going in first.

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As expected, the tunnel leads into a sewer. It's filthy and the further they go the more mazelike it gets. Anton thinks he hears some rats but it's hard to tell over the noise of the water. This is a lot of flowing water, for a sewer.

After what must be thirty minutes feet of sloping tunnels (and of doubling back constantly to check their route) they enter a large cylindrical room. Water and sewage flows down into a large hole in the ground. There's a rusted metal ladder.

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Mika grabs the rungs and waves his glowing sword, trying to get a better look. "I can't tell if there's a floor down there. Just looks like water!"

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"There should be a square room about twenty-five feet down—"

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"Can you stop waving that around? I can't see down with that between me and the floor, you're just making sure anything down there knows we're coming. Back off and let me look."

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Grumble grumble. He sheaths the sword.

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Now that she can actually look down without a blinding light cutting through her vision twice a second, what does she see?

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Water pours down the side of the stone cylinder. She can just barely see the bottom, at the edge of her vision. It looks like a roiling pool of darkness. There are small cracks in the walls at regular intervals, next to the ladder.

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"There's not a square room twenty-five feet down. I see something more like sixty feet off. Hold a moment."

She snaps for her shadow-blob. "Down thirty feet, back up, then down fifty and back up. If you see something, buzz and come back."

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Her shadow-familiar floats down thirty feet and comes back up silent. At thirty-five feet it tinkles like a small bell and zooms back up.

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"There's something down there, just out of my sight. My friend here can't tell us what, though."

...ugh. Fine, maybe Light will come in handy here.

"Stick your Light on the dead firefly you power it with and drop it in there, I'm not climbing down and trying to describe things while hanging from the ladder."

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He'll cast light on a small rock and drop it down the hole.

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