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, it'll be a little bit longer." He goes slower this time, but very precise. After two more minutes, there's the 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 right 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.