Her past two decades were dedicated to Ulon.

Mother always said truly understanding the secrets would take a proper drow a century, but they aren't exactly proper drow, and they probably don't have a century. (Of course, if Mother knew how long they did have, she never told Tencednil.) That just meant they had to try harder, though. Learn faster, be better, stay focused like the servants instead of seeing for themselves like a noble can. And Mother said it was working! At only two decades old, she was seeing things in all the right ways!

Two weeks ago, she woke with the dawn, felt for Ulon in her prayers, and found something else there. At first she thought it was her birthright as a noble finally coming in. But when Mother saw her cast a Detect Magic with her hands, her smile collapsed like its guide thread had snapped.

One week ago, Mother finally deigned to inform Tencednil she was a sorcerer, and that Ulon's favor almost never fell on a drow already able to cast. If she ever wanted to cast through the circle and pentagon, she would need to prove herself more than any noble in the last at least three millenia.

Yesterday, she started looking for some way to create that proof.

The morning bell rings.

Korvosa's streets know many things, and she's always had a feel for where to find whispers. Who around here is looking for some newly-released Academae students to get in trouble for them? Who among the students might want aid from a newblooded sorcerer and her blinding, stupefying lights? Where can she go to show that in the hands of a drow (fine, half-drow), even sorcery can be mighty?

Well, most of the students have spread out throughout the city, clustering around the Academae and its affiliate businesses. There's a couple of them trying to buy muscle in a shady dockside bar. Someone goes briefly invisible as the round a corner on a busy street. A small group sends a couple of imps in the sky scattering away with rays of frost. Take your pick.

She's been in shady dockside bars as a purchaser of muscle. The servants might think providing muscle is a peasant job, but Mother said it's how new drow houses start. Tencednil, as a (half-)drow without a house to back her, might as well follow that path.

As far as she can tell, her one and only spell is debilitating for anyone right nearby, and she cast it five times in a row yesterday before running dry. She may not be a wizard, but she's pretty sure that's impressive. Also, as of a couple days ago, one of her spells went wrong she demonstrated a drow's natural understanding of spellcraft when she cast it into a shadow, which peeled off and has been following her around ever since. It can't talk, but it's buzzed a warning at her a few times when she was about to fall. Maybe it will be useful in other ways, and if it breaks she can probably make a new one tomorrow.

(Also she's not exactly asking for much right now. Surely there's someone who needs a sorcerer.)

There's two students at a corner table in the Rusted Anchor, arguing with a burly Shoanti man. Parchment is spread across the table–at a glace it appears to mostly be maps and blueprints.

She can't lurk in the shadows, but that's not the only way to direct attention away from oneself. She will look around for a place to sit, entirely inconspicuously happening to find herself near enough to the argument to hear what they're discussing.

...mostly inconspicuously. Nudging a chair out of her way wasn't supposed to be quite that loud. Maybe nobody noticed?

"A third. There's one of me and two of you."

"It's our maps and our plans, without us you have no share at all. A quarter."

"Without me you'll be dead, weak boy."

"I'll have you know I passed two tests of Str—"

"Shut it, Anton. We've got a watcher." He looks at Tencednil. "Hey! Elf! You got a problem?"

No point in pretending now. As students at the Academae, they must be worth at least something... She turns to them slowly.

"I couldn't help but overhear, you're so loud. Just how minimal a sum are you squabbling over? I was considering doing some charity work to test my new spell, and you sound like you might be in need. And with such debate over a third or a quarter, a fourth person who plans to give out her own share based on actual contribution might solve your problems."

That's not even a lie! Unless the numbers are impressive. A bit of money really is less important than a reputation for trustworthiness, it's far harder to backstab someone who's already watching you.

"If you don't want a share of the loot, you're welcome to come along."

"We don't even know if there is any—" He sighs. "We've the blueprint to one of Florel Matei's old boltholes. He was assistant professor at the Hall of Whsipers some fifty-odd years back... but he's mostly known now for moonlighting as a murderer and a necrophile. They hanged him in '64 but never found his spellbook, or his headband, or anything else really."

"Well, I wasn't expecting much, so a risk of nothing is a risk I'd take. And a headband for cunning or a spellbook wouldn't do me much good, so you can trust me there." She nods to the silent one. "Call it quarters all around, I distribute anything I can't use from my share among the rest of you depending on how much we actually did need you instead of holding out for an Abadaran price splitting?"

The large man chuckles. "See boys, even the elf knows sense."

"What they're not telling you is that this place is buried sixty feet beneath the earth, and the only way in is down through the sewers and the Vaults. Probably the only reason one can hope it hasn't been robbed already."

"Well, that and the illusory wall covering the entrance. But we have the map."

She snaps, and a floating mass of shadowy spheres peels out of her shadow and floats up to eye level.

"This little one sees through most illusions like they're not there, and I know the Academae teaches summoning enough to get to bats. Surely you're not claiming a strictly visual illusion has kept anything actually valuable hidden for decades."

Well, alright, it seems to see through the few minor illusions she's been able to test with. They don't need to know that, though, now do they.

"The door's made of stone, flush to the wall, and swings it inward. Our friend here claims he can get arcane locks open reliably."

"I've done it before. 'tis not that hard."

"So you two would need to find another good lockbreaker or someone who can cast a good Knock, if you wanted it without his help. He would need someone who remembers Florel's habits well enough to track down his bolthole, now that he knows it's behind an illusion. That might get pricy, but there's two of you and one of him. Sounds like either of you walking away would put the other in a bad place, no? So we go all four of us, we see what actually doesn't work when we try it, and we work out the shares when we know what we needed."

Ulon doesn't teach general goodwill or fairness to anyone you deal with. He does teach that you should never leave someone who can hurt you, wants to hurt you, and doesn't have a reason not to. Apparently some Academae students are not so well taught.

He pauses for a moment, before nodding.

"Alright. I'm Julio, my colleague is Anton, and our lockbreaker is Mika."

"Tencednil."

And if she tries to be subtle here, they'll just miss it, won't they. There's no point risking death to avoid sounding stupid, and if they need to make choices in a few seconds it is risking death to know this little.

"And when someone jumps us on the way, where do you need to be? Am I watching for a Grease or expecting a Sleep, perhaps?"

"I've got mage armor, sleep, and cause fear today. Anton has mage armor, floating disk, and ear-piercing scream."

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?"

"Oh, I'm not a wizard."

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."

"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.

"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."

"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.

"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."

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

"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.

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.

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!"

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

"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."

Grumble grumble. He sheaths the sword.

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

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.

"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."

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.

"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."

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

It falls, illuminating the walls as it goes. At thirty-five feet down Tencednil can make out a square hole in the wall, about four feet on each side. It quickly widens into a room, but she can't make out the interior from this angle.

At forty-five feet she can see another hole, shaped identically to the last one. At sixty feet the rock impacts the water. Strange things are shadowed on the wall, and the light goes out.

"No platform, but we might be able to do the necessary acrobatics. Do you know which of the holes we need to take?"

To the familiar: "You could see into that top hole, it's not an illusion? Was there anything moving inside?"

The familiar rings a light tone, then a dark one. Yes, No.

"Top hole is real, at least, and maybe safe. Do I need to check the bottom one or the water?"

"No. If we're in the right place it's the top one we want."

In that case, she will wait and follow behind Mika. No reason she should be the first tasty meat bag anything lurking here jumps on.

They climb down the ladder, one-by-one, with Mika leading. The square hole is about a foot away from the ladder. Everyone makes it across fine. It leads into a small square room with three exits. Anton consults the map and they continue onward.

They're no longer adjacent to the sewage, and the terrible smell slowly fades away. As they move deeper, the stone brick walls become old and cracked. The tunnels grow longer and stranger, winding back on each other. The maze is long.

Twenty more minutes deep, at a four-way crossroads, Tencednil feels her familiar become alarmed.

Oh dear. Is there anything visible in the nearest 30 feet?

"Ware! Something is off here." ("Nudge me towards the closest.")

Her familiar nudges left. With it's help, she can make out—

Two goblins, sneaking towards them. A moment passes. "They zees us!"

Getting the first strike in in combat is really no different from getting ahead of whoever you're talking to in a conversation, when you know what you're doing. If you know what the idiots are about to look for, it's not hard to get there first. By the time they've realized she's talking about them, Tencednil is already in motion.

A shift of her weight, a minor twist, and they're in range. Color Spray.

The goblins have just started to charge, and then they're stunned! and blinded! and unconscious!

The others can hear two thuds as both bodies hit the ground.

Mika had started to run, but he skids to a stop to avoid the blinding light. "Looks like that got 'em."

He walks over and slits their throats. "Ehh, they've nothing good, just shoddy gear and a few pinch."

Perfect. A good introduction, and getting both of them is at least a bit impressive. Probably.

"Alas. If these things are coming from behind, we may want earlier warning next time — do either of you have familiars with functioning senses that can be looking behind as we walk ahead? My friend here can, but it's best up close."

"I've got a bonded item. Anton's familiar is back in our dorm doing... other things." He looks relieved, probably because the goblins are dead.

"Well, my friend here might provide us some earlier warning if it's looking back as well." The light does technically reach farther than its object sense. Slightly. Ten extra feet will not be relevant, and even that is asking a bit much of it, but they make do with the tools they have. 

('Other things', hmm? As long as it's not going to be her problem.)

The maze continues. Anton guides them through another ten minutes of winding passages, then through a trapdoor and down a twenty-foot ladder. The stone cobbles and bricks have faded almost completely, replaced with tunneled cave walls. This place is less of a classic maze but no less strange for it, with tunnels of every shape, many going nowhere at all.

Eventually, they hear a soft rumbling in the distance.

"We're getting close. That's got to be the river, and in the caves past it is our illusory wall."

The tunnels widen into a cavern, with a river splitting it into thirds. The water is murky, but it doesn't smell like the sewage from before. There's a few plants on the dirt at the edges of the river. The sound of insects can be heard faintly.

Mika looks around as they cross the cavern. "Seems like we're about ta be getting wet."

"Don't remind me."

"I don't suppose you thought to bring Prestidigitation? This really should be only momentary."

"Yes, I have it, it's just unpleasant to think about."

And this is why you want silk. Clothing which catches all the water that falls on it and hugs it close rather than letting it slide to where it's wanted is foolish.

Still, they do have to go through one way or another if they want to get there. She can handle being a bit wet.

They cross the river, twice. Julio and Anton throw their packs across first, presumably to avoid damaging their spellbooks. The water reaches to Tencednil's chest at it's highest. Julio cleans everyone off.

The cavern splits into caves and crevices. At this point, nothing looks artificial. It's only five minutes in when Anton stops by an unremarkable wall in the middle of a long cave.

"I think this is it." He moves his hand across the wall, leaning against it. "Should be around here somewh—" His fingers pass through, six feet above them.

"Ah. Mika, help me up?"

Mika grabs Anton by the waist and lifts him. His body slowly vanishes into the wall without so much as a ripple.

"Alright, there's tunnels here! This must be it." His hands appear through the wall. "Julio, grab on, I'll lift you up."

Julio climbs up, looking uncomfortable the whole time.

"Want me to help you up?" He asks Tencednil.

She could use the help, and it doesn't sound like there's anything ambushing them up there.

"Please."

She'll still send the shadow ahead just in case, of course.

Her familiar flies ahead. Nothing comes through their empathic link.

Mika lifts her up and through the illusory wall. He climbs up after her.

The other side is a crossroads. The stone appears to be unworked, but Tencednil knows it wouldn't naturally form such a shape.

"The door supposedly looks indistinguishable from the rest of the walls. Julio, Tencednil, fan out and look with detect magic. We're looking for abjuration, but I doubt there's anything else here."

She's... not great... at identifying spell schools, but she can Detect just fine, and if she doesn't wait the ten seconds nobody will know.

Cantrip time it is!

About sixteen feet down the left hallway, part of the stone is magical! It is indeed otherwise indistinguishable from the rest of the stone, which flows like the walls of a natural cave.

The magic aura is around six feet high and three feet wide.

As soon as she gets an aura located, she ceases her focus on the cantrip. "Aura over here. This would be the Arcane Lock you were looking for?"

The others run over. "Indeed," Julio says, "this is abjuration. Mika, you're up."

Mika grunts, and pulls out a dagger and a small hammer. "This'll take a few minutes."

He holds his ear up to the door and starts tapping the stone in regular intervals with the tip of the dagger.

She lurks ominously over Julio's shoulder. The shadow will float in closer, to hopefully provide a quick warning if something goes wrong.

Over the next minute, Mika's tapping accelerates. If Tencednil listens very closely, she can hear the sound of the stone start to change subtly with each tap, before he suddenly pauses.

"Got 'er figured out, just a little bit longer." He goes slower this time, but very precise. After a couple more minutes, there's a sound of fire crackling and the wall shifts suddenly.

He puts away his tools and starts to push on the door. "Ughh... she's heavy."

The door opens into a small stone room, with a hide carpet on the floor. An old wooden desk and chair are in the corner to the party's left. Two open doorways are in the far corners of the room.

The stench of rotting flesh fills the air.

Julio covers his face and groans. "That's nasty. What—"

A zombie shambles out of the right corner door.

Groan...

Well, zombies aren't a great target for Color Spray. She signs <Up> to the shadow and takes aim for an Acid Splash, once things are clear enough for that to not be entirely hopeless.

...It doesn't know sign, does it. Hopefully it figured out not to be in front of the zombies in its own.

Her familiar flies up, of its own accord.

A second zombie comes out the same door. They lurch towards the party.

A beam of grey light emanates from Anton's finger and strikes the wall, missing the first zombie.

Julio flings a glob of acid, which hits the first zombie in the chest and sizzles.

Ooh, Disrupt Undead. Clever wizard. She would rather have her more general-use cantrips, but the appeal of preparation is shiny.

Speaking of those more general cantrips, can her Acid Splash get anywhere? Deep breath, calm down, and... launch!

...wow that is an unhappy zombie. Acid to the cranium is as effective on the undead as on the living! And stumbling into the blob with its eye is not going to help it with that.

Mika cuts the first zombie's broken head clean off. The body collapses to the ground with a thud.

The remaining zombie cracks its fist into the side of Mika's head. He stumbles backwards.

Anton casts disrupt undead, again. It misses, again.

Julio's acid splash burns the zombie's shoulder. It turns to face him.

Zombies, unfortunately, aren't smart enough to be distracted from attacking the nearby living with a cleverly chosen sound. She's stuck aiming around the human who got himself in arm's reach of a zombie, because apparently nobody here has heard of basic competence. 

Oh well. Acid Splash if she can, then she'll edge backwards to make sure it couldn't get to her even if it charged straight towards her.

...apparently she cannot successfully Splash this one. Hopefully the humans have better luck next time around.

Mika slashes the zombie's midsection. The sword seems to slide along its skin without particularly injuring it.

The zombie takes a wide shot at Julio, who dodges backward, arms flailing!

Anton casts disrupt undead, and cannot aim to save his life. It fizzles against the wall.

Julio's acid splash also goes wide this time.

Well, her aim is better than Anton's, for as much as that's worth. 

Not much better, though. That will be another whiff. "Try getting back from it this time! They're bad at chasing!"

Mika misses his swing, and doubles back a few paces.

The zombie slams Julio square in the face. His body crumples to the ground.

"Damn it, Julio!" He steps back and trips on Julio's cloak. Disrupt undead goes wide.

Idiot humans who can't avoid something that moves slower than they do while they attack and cannot run! Is not being near it really that difficult! 

Augh, now they're going to have a real issue soon. Unless she can get this finished quickly? Acid Splash...

Hit this time! It's easier when she doesn't have to aim around a person. Of course, when they don't hit anywhere important, cantrips are not known for being destructive, and hers is no exception. It's singed a bit.

Mika steps back another few paces, pulls a dagger off his belt, and flings it at the zombie. The dagger embeds at the base of its skull.

The zombie stumbles, for a moment.

Roar! It spins around and lunges, slamming itself into Mika's chest. They both go tumbling to the ground. Mika does not get up.

Anton's disrupt undead is aimed well, for a zombie that isn't on the floor. Miss.

At least he used a weapon that affects rotten flesh this time. Have another Acid Splash, because unlike Anton, she has decent aim. And then she will edge back down the corridor they came in through, because at the rate this is going she would rather be prepared to run away if it turns out to be needed.

The zombie, now upright, leaps at Anton and slams his head into the wall. He slumps to the ground.

Every! Single! Time! Another Splash, which only hits because the idiot thing ran into it, and even then it's just a graze, then retreat farther into the passage. And she'll call the shadow blob over to the entrance to the passage. Hopefully the zombie will grab for it instead of finishing the wizards off.

And apparently it can throw itself at the zombie while doing so? Neat, she's never seen it that aggressive. It didn't do anything useful, but maybe it drew attention better.

The zombie slams the annoying flying black thing into the wall! Tencednil's empathic link with her familiar ceases to exist.

Shadows: not known for durability. It got the zombie where she wanted it, though. Acid Splash! And this time, a clean hit, right in the rotting muscle fiber it was using to attack.

The zombie stumbles and falls to the ground with a thud.

The lair is eerily silent.

...A victory! That was... closer than she hoped... but she won!

...she gains nothing by killing her allies here, she needs the students alive to read the map and she needs Mika alive if she wants to survive next time something like this happens. And no necromancy professor is going to have two zombies as his only defense. She rushes in and looks around. Who's going to die within the next minute without treatment? She doesn't really know what she's doing, but she can try to staunch bleeding.

Anton sounds the worst out of everyone, his breathing is very erratic. Mika has bad looking bruises on his face and chest.

She will attempt to get Anton a little more stable, then. And if this involves tearing open his upper body clothing and getting a look at anything he might have on him, she's not going to object, but him not dying is urgent right now.

Anton has a backpack with some fancy-looking books, a sealed vial of ink, a pen, soap, a half-empty waterskin, two meals worth of trail rations, and twelve silver shields.

Those books look interesting...

Wait. No. She was stabilizing him. Books are not important right now! ...and that's about five seconds wasted. Oops.

She spends another ten or fifteen seconds trying to make sure he's at least not actively choking on blood or anything. At that point, he looks pretty stable, though that may not be due to anything she did.

With that finished, she has some time, and she can't wake the others with any of the spells she has available. May as well satisfy her curiosity! Does a Detect Magic spot any auras on any of the three of them?

A wand on the floor next to Julio and a stoppered vial in Mika's belt pouch have magical auras. She can't discern the school of magic for either.

He was using that wand to cast his spells, so it's probably his bonded item. Assuming he wasn't lying about that.

...she'll leave it. 

The vial might be important, but if it's a healing potion she would rather not know until she's finished her investigations here. She drops the Detect and takes a look at the books. Are any of them recognizably Common or Elvish?

The books are all in Common. Anton's backpack has:

Elemental Fundamentals V: Sound

Second-Order Evocative Interactions

Principals of Elementary Thaumaturgy, Second Edition

The Book of Magic, Fourteenth Edition

and two untitled books, one of which is probably his spellbook.

If the stamps on the inner covers of Elemental Fundamentals V: Sound and Second-Order Evocative Interactions are to be believed, they were checked out from the Acadamae library.

Disappointingly normal, for someone whose familiar is off doing unspecified suspicious things! And he worships an ascended human, but at least one of the respectable ones. Nethys may be mad but at least he's interesting.

Oh well. Maybe it actually isn't doing anything suspicious, or they haven't taken the evidence of it with them into the sewers.

What does Julio have on him? She'll look closely and then a give him brief pat-down, but she's not going to tear any clothing that isn't already torn.

Julio has a similar kit to Anton: books, writing utensils, ink, some food and water, a compass, and thirty one silver shields.

Less books than Anton: two unlabeled, Recognizing Charms and Compulsions, and Dungeoneering For The Busy Wizard.

Boring boring boring. Maybe they really are just what they said they were. That's kind of disappointing. For the best.

Over to Mika! He's the one who might have a potion, so she can even justify this one. That's a lot of money if she's right, though. What does he have?

Mika's backpack is quite full! She finds four cylinders of chalk, a flint and steel, two unlit torches, a grappling hook, a spool of rope, six pitons, soap, an iron pot, a hammer, four meals worth of rations, two waterskins (one full, one around half empty), a set of thieves’ tools, a pouch with one hundred and twelve silver shields, and some other assorted junk.

In his belt pouch is the magic vial (red), two more vials (one black and one clear), three daggers, and four pinch.

At least someone here was actually prepared. The nonmagic vials are interesting, but she has no particular way to identify them. Instead... she casts her Detect Magic again, points it at the vials (and the wand while she's at it), and... concentrates. And focuses. And focuses some more.

It takes her about twenty seconds to identify the wand's school (faint universal) and another twenty for the vial's school (faint conjuration).

Universal is exactly what she would expect from a bonded item without further enchantment. The potion is probably a healing potion? Right school, at least. Does she need to use it now? 

...no, they seem pretty safe for the moment. They'll take a while to recover, but there's no need to steal the choice from Mika when he'll probably be able to express an opinion soon enough. She puts everyone's gear back together, closes up the pouches, and repositions people until they should be able to breathe clearly and won't hurt themselves when they get up, as long as they do it without straining anything.

And then she sits and gets back to her slow experimentation with understanding Detect Magic's feedback. She's been at this for most of the past week, she can do it for another few hours here.

After an hour, Anton slowly wakes up with a long groan.

"Ughhh, my head, what..." He opens his eyes and looks around. "Ah, fuck. They got us good. Did anyone die?"

"Not yet. Stay down, you'll go right back to bleeding out internally if you do anything too forceful. We might be able to get out if nothing jumps us, but I wouldn't want to bet on it. 

"I don't suppose you had any plans for what to do if one of you was wounded? Is your familiar anywhere useful where you might be able to signal someone to pay for a channel, maybe?"

Also, while she's looking around again, she may as well check the zombie corpses. She would have picked up any magic on them, but maybe they have something less interesting?

"We've got money to pay for a channel, but not nearly enough to get someone all the way down here. Not that they could even find this place, without the map."

He pauses and concentrates for a moment. "I can't reach my familiar, we're too far away."

The zombie corpses have nothing but the moldering clothes they were wearing.

Unsurprising.

"I expected no less. Do either of you have Infernal Healing in your spellbooks? None of you are likely to die in the next few days, and you should all recover within the week with good care, but I can't exactly provide that down here."

"We've both got it but neither of us have it prepared. Julio can cast it from his wand, if he wakes up. He usually keeps the devil blood is in his coat's inner pocket."

"I'll check that the vial is still whole. If it is, we can wait a few hours and hope he wakes up. If not..."

She sighs.

"I'll try to get out myself, buy some, and find my way back. Hopefully it doesn't come to that, I wouldn't bet on you three all making it out alive if it does."

"That's... fine with me..." He shuts his eyes and rests.

Does Julio have an unbroken vial in his pocket, if she goes over and checks?

That he does. It contains a red liquid, darker than human blood.

Oh good. Time to wait! And if Mika wakes up first, she can ask him if he wants to use the potion on Julio to get this all done quickly, but potions are expensive enough that he probably won't. Still, this is much better than waiting for them to heal naturally.

A little over an hour later, Mika awakens and looks around.

"Owwwwww. This might be the worst I've ever taken it. We all still kickin?"

"None of you are dead yet. When Julio finds his way back to this side of Desna's domain, he has an Infernal Healing for one of you. And then we can wait for one if the wizards to prepare, because neither of them even left an open space this morning. Unless you have something in your pocket, of course."

"O-Okay... wait for the wizard..." His eyes drift shut.

Either he missed the reference or he doesn't want the potion used. She wasn't exactly subtle there, but he's not at his best either. Waiting for the wizard it is. 

Another hour sitting here! She should bring a book of her own next time she does something like this, it didn't seem worth the weight when she thought this was going to be quick.

An hour passes. Julio does not wake up. The others are still alive, but don't seem to be getting any better. They might have fallen asleep.

Well it's not like she has anything to be doing. If he doesn't wake up for another few hours, she'll ask Mika again, but until then, she continues her cantrip refining.

Two hours later, Julio finally stirs awake.

"O-Oh." He sits up slowly. "What happened?"

"You suffered the expected result of preparing absolutely no spells that could harm the undead while venturing into a necromancer's hideout. And apparently you're the only one here with any ability to heal today. If you would get one of yourself and Anton back up, perhaps we can finish this quest of yours after sleeping."

Julio grabs his wand off the ground and stands up shakily.

"You look fine. I'll get Mika up, I don't think we're getting out of here without him."

Julio limps over and casts what is presumably infernal healing on Mika. By the time the spell wears off he looks much better, if not perfectly healthy.

He stands up. "Ah. Shit. That went poorly."

"You can say that again."

"Alright. We should find what we came here for and get out. I wouldn't touch anything in a wizard's lair without knowing it ain't magic first, and I don't got the magic-vision."

Julio walks over to Anton and shakes him awake.

He takes a moment to get his bearings, and then stands up and leans against a wall. "We're looking for books, spell components, coins, and wondrous items if we're lucky."

"How sure are you there are no other zombies in there? If anything at all is in there, hasn't come out yet, and does when we investigate, you two will both die."

"If there were other zombies in here they'd have attacked us by now. It's been hours." He pauses. "–and Matei was fourth circle, earliest you can make intelligent undead as a wizard is sixth."

"Unless these two got loose, and most of them are still stuck in with the rest of his things. Or he set an audible Alarm and anything nearby hears it. Or he left a Glyph of Warding with a summon behind as well. If there are magic items in there, I can't tell them and traps apart with a Detect unless we get very lucky. If you want to take the risk, it's you two who can't run."

"There's only two other rooms in this place, and the zombies came from one of them. It's not a whole crypt... look if you don't want to explore, his desk's in here. We can at least see what it has."

Matei's desk and chair are in the bottom left corner of the room. A dried-up inkwell, a pen, and some papers sit atop it.

"Fine, it's your heads."

Detect Magic! Again! (...sigh.) Anything magical in the desk?

The desk has two compartments. She can detect eight magic auras.

The first has a red book titled in an unknown language written in a script she doesn't recognize, a book titled Serving Your Hunger in Common, eight black gemstones of varying shape, a clear crystal cut as a dodecahedron, and a few dozen old mint gold sails. The books are magical.

The second has a green book and a grey book (both titled in a different unknown language), a silver dagger, and a ring. The books and ring are magical.

"Definitely some magic here, but this looks complicated. It'll take me time to even have a guess what they do. If there are spells, though, they're only on the items or the books. Maybe he wasn't that trap-prone. I'll sweep the other rooms for magic as well. 

"What languages do you all know? I don't recognize some of these books, and one of them might be a spellbook but there are three here."

While they're processing that, she swings her Detect cone around, letting it play over the contents of the other two rooms for long enough to see the individual auras resolve into place.

"I know Common, Draconic, Infernal, and a little Thassilonian."

"Common, Infernal, and Ignan for me."

The left room has a bed, a nightstand, and a dresser. She detects one magical aura in this room, emanating from within the dresser.

The right room has a ritual circle drawn in fading blood, three meat hooks chained to the ceiling, and the bones of two human skeletons spread across the circle. She doesn't detect any magical auras in this room.