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ShortQuests -- Pocket Sized Adventures! An all-new collection of digest-sized D&D adventures designed for 1-2 game sessions.

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 9872123" data-attributes="member: 508">ADVENTURE 16: DOWN THE DRAINPC Roster: Adrielle, human/merfolk scout 4                     Brendan Conaill, human monk 4                     Kruz Taszan, changeling rogue 4                     Shiroko, snow fox hengeyokai wu jen 4NPC Roster:Hoppy, mongrelfolk adept 4Game Session Date: 28 February 2026 - - -Hoppy climbed back up the ladder from the sewers and through the hidden trap door in the floor of the room in which he, Brendan, and Kruz slept in Mrs. Geshuku's boardinghouse.  He'd been feeding leftover food scraps to the allied "sinborn" - mongrelfolk who, like him, had been born with the mixed features of a variety of humanoid races - who lived in the rooms directly below.  "Uh, excuse me," he said to his two roommates, "but there's something you should know."They gathered Adrielle and Shiroko with them, so Hoppy could tell the whole team all at once.  "The ones rooming below us say there have been a lot of mongrelfolk gathering together in the sewers, training with a small group of humans on how to fight with weapons, pick pockets, and open locks.  They think the humans are forming a new thieves guild, headquartered in the sewers.""That makes sense," agreed Shiroko.  "That would allow them access to all parts of the city without being spotted.  And I don't know about the humans, but nobody's going to particularly notice if a mongrelfolk smells like the sewers.  No offense, Hoppy.""None taken," the sinborn adept assured her."The Silent Sodality's not going to like this," guessed Kruz.  "A rival thieves guild popping up in their territory?  No, they're not going to like that at all."The changeling rogue was absolutely right.  When he and Brendan went to report in to the Silent Sodality about Hoppy's findings, they received direct orders to check it out themselves and, if there was indeed a fledgling thieves guild operating in the sewers on their turf, they were to wipe them all out to the last man.  "Just don't mention the Silent Sodality at all," they were told, for as far as most of Port Duralia was aware, the Silent Sodality was a philanthropic organization, dedicated to doing good works for the people of the city.  If any of the new guild members were to survive the attack, it wouldn't do for them to know who had been behind it - and why.Brendan opted to swing by an alchemist's shop on the way back to the Geshuku boardinghouse.  "I'm almost out of antitoxin," he told Kruz."I swear, you're practically addicted to that stuff," the changeling scoffed.Returning to the boardinghouse, the five got their gear together and slipped, one by one, through the trap door on the floor of the men's lodging room.  Two of the mongrelfolk living below offered to take them to where they'd seen the new sinborn recruits being trained by the human rogues.  But they also apologized to the heroes, admitting they were unwilling to join them in battle, should it come to that.  Shiroko soothed their concerns, telling them the heroes were all grateful for the warning the sinborn had provided the group.  "We'll take it from there, once you lead us to this new group," she reassured them.  But now that she was down in the sewers, there were a few things the wu jen wished to attend to before moving on: a prestidigitation spell cast upon her upper lip, to bring forth the scent of cherry  blossoms (to mask the stench from the polluted waters of the sewers), another such spell on her kimono to keep it clean, and a light spell upon her kimono, to provide her a means of vision in the subterranean darkness.  Adrielle activated a sunrod for the same reason, and then the group indicated for the two sinborn scouts to lead the way.Brendan downed a vial of antitoxin as they traveled.  Kruz just shook his head in disbelief and followed in the monk's wake."They congregate just ahead," one of the sinborn scouts told them in a quiet voice several minutes later, after they'd traversed several sewer tunnels and crossed over several junction points.  Adrielle popped a piece of gum into her mouth, one she'd purchased from the gnome peddler Aenus Feysputter which provided her the effects of a spider climb spell as long as the flavor held.  The heroes heard clacking sounds ahead over the roar of a waterfall, and the two mismatched scouts bowed their heads and turned back the way they came, telling the group to follow the noise to find the newly-formed guild of thieves.As the group traveled toward the sounds ahead, they approached a door on the left of the passageway they were traveling.  Kruz checked it for traps, saw none, and cautiously tried opening it.  It opened with a slight squeak of rusty hinges, and inside he saw nothing more ominous than sewer-workers' equipment: shovels, picks, and gaffs - long poles with a hook at one end, useful for dragging floating corpses from the sewer waters.  On a whim, Kruz took one of the gaffs, with the offhand idea of using it to see how deep the sewer waters were, for even with their illumination, the waters were too murky to discern their depths.Brendan and Adrielle had advanced further while Kruz raided the storage room, and they saw a stone bridge leading south, while just ahead, someone had placed a wooden plank across a narrow offshoot of water coming from the north, as a makeshift bridge to cross the water safely.  But Adrielle, looking back at the others to see if they were following, saw something floating beneath the stone bridge, which raised up nearly five feet above the sewer tunnels.  She hissed quietly back to the group, pointing beneath the bridge.  The others moved to catch up, looking beneath the bridge to see what it was Adrielle had spotted.  It looked to Shiroko like nothing more than a floating log, but Brendan - who had pulled his skull mask over his face at the beginning of their excursion and thus could see perfectly well even in absolute darkness - saw the eyes protruding above the water level and realized it was a crocodile.Brendan quickly retraced his steps, catching up to Hoppy and the others and warning them about the crocodile - who, apparently, did not realize he'd been spotted for what he was, and continued floating towards the group at the speed of the sewer water's sluggish current.  "Get up onto the stone bride," Brendan hissed to the others.  "He won't be able to get to you there."  They hurried to comply, and the monk turned to follow them, but he wasn't quick enough in following his own advice, and the crocodile, once drifting within striking range, lashed out with his powerful tail, darting forward over the edge of the water to bite down hard upon Brendan's leg and drag him into the filthy sewer water.Brendan had enough advance warning to take in a deep breath before he was pulled under, and tried his best to wrest his leg free from the reptile's crushing bite, to no avail.  The crocodile brought him to the bottom, holding him in place and apparently waiting for him to drown.Up on the bridge, Kruz and the women had been looking forwards toward the clacking sounds, which were coming from further east.  There was a faint glimmer of light coming from that direction - they must be getting close.  But Hoppy had been looking back at Brendan when the crocodile struck, and saw the monk get pulled below the filthy waters.  Without hesitation, the mongrelfolk adept cast a touch of fatigue spell on his rat familiar, Scruffy, so he could go apply it to the crocodile while Hoppy healed Brendan as needed.  Then he leapt off the side of the bridge, landing in the water with a splash that got the attention of the other three heroes.Scruffy dove from his master's shoulder - where he normally rode when the group traveled - and swam down to the crocodile, activating the spell he held with a mere contact with the reptile's scaly skin.  Unfortunately, while the spell discharged upon contact, it failed to have any perceptible effect upon the crocodile, who was still keeping Brendan pinned down below the water, despite his struggles and attempts to free himself.  Hoppy, through his bullywug eye, which saw perfectly well in the darkness of the sewer waters, could see Brendan wasn't overly hurt and that getting him freed from the reptile's grip was of the higher importance.  So he did something he seldom did: joined in battle himself.  Pulling his wooden club from inside his robes, he struck at the crocodile, trying to get him to release his hold upon the monk.Adrielle figured Brendan, Hoppy, and Scruffy were more than enough to handle a single crocodile and continued on with their primary goal of finding and slaying the fledgling thieves guild headquartering in the sewers.  She crossed back over the stone bridge and continued her way to the east, climbing up the stone wall as she did so.  Shiroko and Kruz advanced on a parallel course, which led them to a triangular area directly across from a wide pipe spilling water down into the sewer water below.  A fine mist spread out from this cascade, and the hengeyokai wrinkled her nose, hoping her prestidigitation spell would continue to keep her kimono clean.But that wasn't all she saw.  To the north of the massive sewer pipe, she saw a pair of humans in leather armor - much like that worn by Adrielle and Kruz - with their backs turned to her.  Each held a short sword in hand, and was demonstrating combat moves to a group of five mongrelfolk facing her way.  Fortunately for the wu jen, their attention was focused upon their weapon instructors, so she evaded their notice.  The dim lighting in which they trained, she saw, was the result of a pair of giant fire beetles kept in iron-banded cages hung on opposite walls.  Shiroko looked to the north, where Adrielle and Kruz were advancing around a corner that would lead to the group, but they were currently out of view of the training session.  She tried signaling to them, but they weren't looking her way.  Fortunately, Adrielle saw the two rogues before she could see any of the mongrelfolk trainees, and she hurriedly stuffed her sunrod back into the haversack, extinguishing its light before either of the two rogues noticed the extra illumination approaching from the north.Back in the water behind the stone bridge, the three had taken to making full-out attacks on the crocodile to get him to release Brendan.  The monk had given up his struggles to free himself and was whacking the reptile with his fists, while Hoppy used his club and Scruffy bit the reptile with his sharp incisors.  Eventually, they managed to inflict enough damage to the beast it decided its potential meal wasn't worth the cost, and it released Brendan, to swim off below water down a channel leading north.  None of the others gave chase, and Brendan swam to the surface to grab some much-needed air.  He was somewhat surprised to see the sewer water was only about five feet deep - had he not been being held down in place by the crocodile, all he'd have needed to do was stand up to prevent himself from drowning.  They pulled themselves up onto the stone walkway alongside the sewer waters, and Hoppy insisted upon casting one of his healing spells upon the monk's leg, where it had been bitten by the crocodile.Adrielle thought she saw a silhouette of a snake in the mist surrounding the sewer pipe spill-out as she approached the corner, but then her attention was focused upon the human weapon trainer standing directly below her, oblivious to the woman perched on the wall 15 feet above him.  The scout had converted Galrich's fang to its longspear configuration and stabbed down at him, piercing the tip of her weapon through the top of his skull.  He died instantly, falling lifelessly to the floor as soon as she pulled the spear-tip from the top of his head.  His partner spun around and saw Shiroko and Kruz across the pool of sewer water, assuming the changeling rogue with his light crossbow had been responsible for her partner's death, for she failed to see Adrielle up in the shadows 15 feet above her.  "Intruders!" she called to the mongrelfolk.  "Warn the others!"Kruz shot his crossbow at the female rogue, catching her in the arm as movement in his peripheral vision caught his eye.  Looking over at the mist, he saw the snakelike form, and was convinced it was a cobra, based on the hood flaring out from the top of the swaying figure.  But any thoughts as to why a giant cobra would be living in the sewers were dropped when he saw what the mongrelfolk were doing: while four of them backed away, cowering, along the back wall, one of the braver ones opened a door in the side wall of the area in which they'd been training...with wooden practice swords, if the changeling was seeing things correctly.  Once the door was open, he could see two figures in the room beyond, one of whom dashed further into the complex of rooms while the other ran outside on all fours to join the mongrelfolk, revealing itself to be a dire rat.Shiroko cast an animate water spell on the sewer water before her, using a wu jen trick to extend it to twice its normal duration.  The humanoid form created by her spell climbed up out of the rest of the sewer water and attacked the female human rogue, slamming at her with an appendage made of hardened liquid.  Then Adrielle converted Galrich's fang to its trident form and stabbed down at the rogue while her attention was focused upon the little sludge-water thing, catching her with all three of her weapon's prongs.Unable to reach Adrielle with the blade of her short sword while the scout was perched up on the wall, the rogue pulled a throwing dagger from her belt and sent it flying up Adrielle's way.  It caught her in the stomach, but most of its speed was slowed by the thickness of the leather armor she wore; she flicked it away contemptuously with her hand.  Kruz shot at the rogue again and missed, but then got caught up in an attack he hadn't seen coming: the "cobra" - actually the flared tentacle-tip of a three-legged otyugh whose body was mostly submerged below the surface of the sewer water - slammed forward and caught the changeling in a constricting grip.Shiroko, standing in front and to the side of Kruz, missed the otyugh's attack on her companion as she focused upon casting a still ice knife spell on the female rogue fighting Adrielle, who was still being attacked by the animate water from her previous spell.  She dodged the sludge-thing's next attack, dropping low to grab up the throwing dagger from her slain partner's belt and throwing it at Adrielle, her own having landed too far away from her for an easy retrieval.Brendan came running along the path Adrielle had taken, Hoppy limping behind him with Scruffy once more in place on his shoulder.  The three of them were dripping with sewer water, but Brendan has retrieved the quarterstaff he'd dropped when fighting off the crocodile.  As they approached, they saw Kruz entangled in the thick tentacle of an otyugh - a creature Brendan had only heard tales about, but never seen for himself - the changeling rogue struggling in vain to free himself and being crushed even tighter for his efforts.  But then Shiroko noticed the otyugh and cast a new spell she'd recently mastered: fire shuriken, using another wu jen trick to turn the fire to cold flames.  The shuriken went leaping from her hand to strike the fat torso of the otyugh, and then she redirected her animate water to leap back into the sewers and strike at the tentacled monstrosity, seeing rescuing Kruz as higher in importance than taking down the last of the human rogues who'd been training the mongrelfolk in weapons combat.But the dire rat noticed the hengeyokai's spellcasting and went running straight for her, diving without hesitation into the filthy waters of the sewer and swimming across to where she stood.  There was a brief rippling through its body as it raised a forelimb onto the ledge to pull itself up, and as it did so, Shiroko could see its entire body had changed slightly: while still holding the features of a dire rat - head, fur, tail - it now had a humanoid shape.  Several things snapped at once into her brain: this was a wererat in its hybrid form; the mongrelfolk were likely willing to work for the human-led thieves guild if there was a possibility they might be granted the gift of lycanthropy themselves (and thus attaining the "smoothskin" bodies every sinborn coveted); and there was a good possibility this wererat setup was the same one responsible for the mongrelfolk wererat they'd fought in the city dump many months back - the one with the spidery features upon its mongrelfolk face.  But more importantly, the wererat was dripping wet with sewer water and approaching her, and she did not want the filthy thing even touching her clothes, let alone biting her with its wicked teeth!Adrielle had seen Kruz's plight and leaped down to the stone platform upon which the training had been taking place, pulling her still-active sunrod from her haversack to give her better illumination.  (Her merfolk body granted her low-light vision, adapted for life below the ocean surfaces, but she enjoyed no such advantage in her borrowed human form.)  She then stabbed at the otyugh with her trident, ignoring the female rogue for the moment, as she seemed to be on her last legs.  The otyugh, for its part, crushed Kruz even tighter in its tentacle, while another appendage went swinging to try to grab up Adrielle and add her to its collection of future meals.  Luckily, she dodged the blow and avoided being caught up in the otyugh's grasp.Brendan was fast approaching the training ledge, and the female rogue instructor, hearing the padding of his feet on the stone around the corner, stepped forward to meet this new threat.  But she had ignored Adrielle in doing so, thinking the scout was now fully engaged in helping fight off the otyugh.  She was correct on that front, but she had also ignored the animate water from Shiroko's earlier spell, and it kicked a leg out at her ankles as she passed, causing her to fall face-forward and crack her head on the corner of the stone wall.  She blacked out immediately, blood pouring from the open wound in her scalp.But now new reinforcements came pouring out of the door the mongrelfolk had opened, and through which the wererat in animal form had come running.  These were three more human rogues, clad in leather armor.  They ran in front of the cowering mongrelfolk, looked about to assess the situation, and the one in the back started issuing commands.  "Get the woman!" he called, pointing to Adrielle, the closest foe within sight, for Brendan and Hoppy were still around the corner, Shiroko was across the far side of the sewer pool, and Kruz was seemingly already taken care of by their otyugh ally.  Then he followed his own advice and brought a light crossbow up and pointed it at Adrielle, firing at the scout.  Fortunately for her, the bolt went wide, whirring just above her right shoulder.  The other two launched their throwing daggers her way, one of them catching her in the shoulder, while Adrielle spun in place and pierced the nearest one straight through the stomach with the tines of her trident, killing him instantly.  The five mongrelfolk just cowered in the back, upset at all the real bloodshed occurring before them.  It was one thing to learn about fighting techniques, but another to see them applied against their trainers so effectively.Shiroko cast an ice blast spell at the midpoint between the otyugh and wererat, hoping to catch them both on the explosion of ice shards, and then stepped back, headed back towards the stone bridge she'd crossed earlier to avoid the crocodile.  The wererat pulled himself up out of the water and advanced; he was unarmed, but had sharp teeth and claws and seemed willing to put them to good use on the hengeyokai's flesh.A pair of doors opened up before Brendan as he ran forward, revealing another pair of wererats in hybrid form.  (Adrielle had been walking along the wall above the doors when she passed, and hadn't even noticed them.)  But the wererats, alerted by the sounds of combat outside their little guild headquarters, lashed out at the monk as he passed.  His reflexes from many years of street skirmishes kicked in, allowing him to dodge their claws as he raced past without losing his balance.  Seeing the otyugh ahead, he pulled the spiked chain he wore bandoleer-style around his torso and started swinging one end of it to build up momentum before sending it crashing into the otyugh, right at the base of the tentacle holding Kruz.  The otyugh swiped at Brendan with another tentacle, but the young monk easily avoided it.Kruz realized, as Brendan had realized earlier in fighting the crocodile underwater, that all of his attempts to wrest himself free from the much stronger foe were going to be wasted, and that the best defense was a strong offense.  With that thought in mind, he pulled out his luck blade and used it to hack away at the otyugh's pungent flesh.Shiroko saw the two wererats about to follow after Brendan and try to attack him from behind, and hurriedly cast a hail of stone spell directly above them.  The falling rocks collapsed down upon the hybrid ratmen, slaying them instantly, the rocks covering their bodies sufficiently to prevent her from seeing what their true forms were, human or sinborn.  But then she had no more time for such musings, for the wererat hybrid had caught up to her and was snapping at her with its wicked incisors.  She barely managed to avoid its attacks, but avoid them she did, no doubt spurred on by an extreme distaste for getting her spotless kimono dirty from the filthy sewer-beast's touch.Another dire rat exited the door behind the human rogue giving the orders - apparently the leader of this new thieves guild.  He shot at Adrielle again - and missed again - and then looked back at the cowering mongrelfolk.  "What are you doing, you worthless animals?  Use your weapons - attack them!  Anyone slaying an attacker will get an immediate blessing!"  That was enough to get the hesitant sinborn gripping their wooden practice swords, steeling their resolve, and limping forward to attack.Shiroko's still-active animated blob of vaguely humanoid sewer water attacked one of the human rogues, and then Adreille finished him off with her trident.  The mongrelfolk proved to be fairly worthless opponents, but when three of them went simultaneously for Brendan, he was only able to fend off two of their attacks, the third catching him in the gut, poking him hard but failing to break the skin.  He, in turn, bashed in the head of one of the sinborn attacking him, using his spiked chain.  And then Hoppy and Scruffy finally got to the scene, the sinborn adept's mismatched legs making him move significantly slower than a normal person, let alone the speedy monk he'd been following.The otyugh had been hurt fairly badly by this time and decided it would be easier just to drown his one meal.  With that thought, it backed away into a deeper part of the pool of sewer water spilling out of the massive pipe overhead, submerging its entire body below the fetid waters.  Kruz took in a deep breath before going under but pressed on with his attacks, knowing full well the others would be unable to aid him any further - at last when it came to spells - if they couldn't even see the otyugh anymore.  His luck blade stabbed deep into the otyugh's bloated torso, and he felt a shiver run through its body as it went through a death spasm.  The tentacle crushing his ribcage loosened its grip in death, and the changeling swam up to the surface, gasping for breath.He found himself in an air-filled chamber, pitch black, but directly underneath the cascading waters coming from the pipe overhead.  Activating the birthmark on his chest, he pulled the gemstone on the end of the necklace to his eye and got a brief look about in the absolute darkness, thanks to the brief true seeing it provided.  He saw, to his amazement, that this was apparently the new guild's treasury, for the open chamber held a number of crates, barrels, bags, and chests.  Then his necklace reverted back to a birthmark on his feyborn skin, and he vowed he'd have to find his way back here after all of the combat was over.Shiroko cast a coldflame foxfire spell and directed the pair of glowing orbs straight into the wererat's face, backing up even further away from the lycanthrope seeking her blood.  It shrieked as the cold orbs hit him, then snapped at the wu jen with its teeth, once again missing.  At the same time, her animate water slammed a pseudofist into one of the mongrelfolk trainees, while the other dire rat - likely also a wererat in animal form - snapped its teeth at Hoppy.  The leader pulled out a rapier from his belt and went after Brendan, then had to dodge an incoming attack from Adrielle's three-pronged weapon.  And the remaining mongrelfolk swung their wooden blades around, dealing little damage to anyone but helping them to feel like they were aiding in the resistance of their secret organization.Brendan killed another sinborn with a wicked blow to the throat, using every bit of dirty fighting techniques he'd picked up from a life in the streets.  And Shiroko slew her attacker with a charge from her wand of magic missiles, nodding in satisfaction as he died on the ledge before her, reverting to a mongrelfolk's misshapen form upon its death.  That reinforced her suspicions about why these sinborn were serving the humans.Another mongrelfolk died at the striking limbs of the animate sludge-water, as Brendan suffered a bite from the dire rat.  The rat's mouth was filthy with disease, but the monk felt like he could overcome anything along that front.  But he had a more difficult time avoiding the guild leader's flashing rapier, which he wielded with a lot more accuracy than he did his crossbow.  Adrielle slew another mongrelfolk with her trident, while Hoppy called for his fellow sinborn to reject the "easy way out" by looking to lycanthropy as a means of attaining "smoothskins" for themselves.  "We were born mongrelfolk in this life," he argued, "and we must persevere in these misshapen forms during this lifetime, for the opportunity to be born into a smoothskin form in our next life, once our previous sins have been washed away."  But his words got him nowhere; the mongrelfolk had all seen a way to become a smoothskin and had leaped at the chance, and none was willing to give it up just yet.  They struck at the heroes with their practice swords, one slicing into Hoppy for the crime of saying things they didn't want to hear.Brendan used an open-hand strike to crush the skull of the dire rat attacking him - and sure enough, it reverted to mongrelfolk form upon its death -  while Kruz pulled himself out of the sewer water and onto the platform, stabbing another mongrelfolk through the throat with his luck blade and killing him outright.  Shiroko had run back to the triangular ledge where she'd stood when she first saw the training session going on, and - not willing to try to jump across the open sewer water and risk a plunge into the filthy wetness, cast a second coldflame foxfire spell, sending the orbs to crash into the leader's body.  Her animate water slammed the leader's knees, then collapsed into a puddle of filthy water, the duration of its false life having finally expired.  Faced now with more opponents than he'd been up against a  moment before, the guildmaster stabbed at Kruz with his rapier - but then was cut down by a final strike by Adrielle's trident."No!" cried the last remaining mongrelfolk as his leader slumped lifelessly to the floor.  He pulled open the man's mouth and stuck his own wrist up against it, crying, "You promised!  You promised to grant me the blessing!"  He paid no attention to the heroes surrounding him, desperate to gain the "curse" of lycanthropy from the natural wererat who had started up this fledgling thieves guild."I hate to point this out," said Brendan, winding his spiked chain back into place around his torso, "but you're the last one standing of this new guild of yours."  The sinborn, finding the guildmaster no longer capable of granting him smoothskin status, looked about him and saw it was true: he was the last one still alive.  But then realization hit, and he blurted out, "No, there's still--" before thinking better of it and clamping his mouth shut."There's still who?" demanded Brendan, as Kruz held the tip of his luck blade to the mongrelfolk's throat.  "How many, and where do we find them?"  It didn't take much in the way of threats for the mongrelfolk to spill everything he knew, in part because he knew there was no way he could outfight or escape these five who had taken out the rest of his group, and in part out of jealousy of the three remaining sinborn who had already been granted the gift of lycanthropy.  They were in cages to the south, awaiting their first transformations on the night of the full moon; the newly-bitten were often dangerous during their first transformations, being little more than ravenous beasts with little intellect remaining until they reverted back the following morning.  Experience had taught the guildmaster the newly afflicted were better off kept confined until such time as they could better understand - and control - their transformations."Thank you for the information," replied Adrielle.  "Best of luck in your next life."  And with that, she brought the tines of her trident stabbing into the sinborn's malformed face, slaying him instantly.  "I hope you come back as a hagfish," she remarked, conjuring up the image of the ugliest thing she could think of.Hoppy applied healing spells to those who needed them, and then Brendan led the group south, following the slain mongrelfolk's directions as to where the caged afflicted lycanthropes-to-be were being kept.  He took a moment to drink down a potion of mage armor and apply a vial of oil of shillelagh to his quarterstaff once arriving at the indicated door.  Then, opening the door, he was surprised to see a sort of impromptu meeting hall, with a wooden table in the middle of the room and six mismatched chairs spaced equally around it.  "That little bugger," he swore.  "He lied to us!""Or," suggested Shiroko, walking to the far side of the room, "there's a secret doorway leading to the cells."  Sure enough, after less than a minute examining the back wall with the aid her own glowing kimono, she found the hidden lever which caused a section of the wall to swing open.Kruz stood in the middle of the doorway of the door Brendan had opened, his crossbow loaded and ready to fire.  Shiroko stood in the doorway she'd just activated, and the others, standing on either side of the central table, could see past her lithe form into the room beyond.  A dark-haired human woman wearing a bandana over her head, large, loop earrings in each ear, and a tight-fitting bodice with multicolored skirts, looked up from her seat behind a small table, on which she'd been dealing out a set of cards.  A puzzled expression crossed her face, but she didn't seem overly concerned at the intrusion.  "May I help you?" she asked."We're, uh, here to deal with the mongrelfolk afflicted with the curse of lycanthropy," stammered Shiroko, not having expected to see such a nonchalant guard looking over the three sinborn in cages behind her."'Deal with?'" repeated the woman.  "That sounds potentially ominous.  'Deal with' how, exactly?""Kill," replied Brendan, stepping up behind Shiroko.  "Like we killed the rest of the thieves guild making their headquarters in the sewers.  You'd do well to surrender, if you know what's good for you."  Behind her, the three sinborn - two males and a female, all in separate cages along the back wall - started howling in protest about the slaying of their comrades."Hmm, I don't think so," replied the young woman pleasantly.  "Here's a counter-offer, though: how about you surrender to me?  I promise to kill you in such a manner as to be as painless as possible."Shiroko had, by this point, noted there were no light sources in the room; the only illumination was that of her light-infused kimono, and the light from Adrielle's sunrod spilling in from behind her.  "She's a wererat," she surmised aloud, figuring she could see just fine in the dark even in her human form.  Perhaps she was a natural lycanthrope, like the guildmaster?  But Kruz came to a different conclusion: it didn't matter whether she was a wererat or not, she'd proposed killing all five of them, so it would probably be in the group's best interest to take her down as quickly as possible.  He aimed his crossbow, sending the bolt flying over Shiroko's right shoulder and straight at the woman guarding the cells.The woman, seemingly anticipating the move, merely leaned back and allowed the bolt to fly harmlessly over her head - only to strike the female mongrelfolk in the cage behind her.  "Ow!" she screeched, as the woman sprang up from her chair, which toppled to the floor behind her.Shiroko, all out of combat spells for the day, had her wand of magic missiles out and raised, and she fired off a blast at the dark-haired woman with the unnatural confidence.  Adrielle pushed her way past Shiroko and stabbed at the woman with her trident, but she missed with her initial thrust.  Then the woman uttered a few arcane syllables, and was no longer visible anywhere in the room."Teleport?" asked Shiroko to the room at large as she stepped forward, looking about her.  "Or invisibility?"  Either was possible, but they both indicated their foe was an arcane spellcaster of some sort.  Brendan entered the room behind the wu jen, threatening the caged sinborn with his quarterstaff, which was easily able to reach any of them through the iron bars of their cages.  "Well?" he asked.  "Which is it?"  None of the mongrelfolk offered up an answer.On a sudden impulse, Hoppy steeped forward into the room and grabbed up the woman's deck of cards, tossing them into the room.  If she were invisible, he reasoned, they might "bounce" off her and reveal her location.  But there were too many cards to track all at once, and his ploy failed to give the group any further information about the woman's current whereabouts.Kruz came forward to stand in the secret doorway, as Shiroko held her wand out before her, ready to activate with a command word.  Adrielle held her trident before her as she advanced further into the room, senses straining to try to tell if the woman was still there in the room with them.  She got her answer soon enough, as the woman suddenly popped back into visibility as she grabbed the scout by the shoulders, calling out in a hideous cackle, "Surprise, sweetie!"  Adrielle felt a numbness travel through her body, but fought off the intended effect.  However, the whole group could now see what it was they were facing: not a young human woman at all, but a hideous hag with green skin, matted hair, and a bent posture.  Gone were the earrings, the bandana, the human clothing; the green hag wore tattered rags around her waist, and her dangling dugs swung freely."Gaaah!" shrieked Adrielle as she pulled herself away from the hag's grasp.  Kruz sent a crossbow bolt flying her way, and Shiroko fired off a change from her magic wand.  Then Adrielle got hold of her revulsion and fully entered combat mode, stabbing at the hideous crone with her trident.  All three attacks struck true, and the hag merely smiled at her foes, as if to say, "Is that all you've got?"  And then, with another cackle, she was once again gone from view."Spread out!" commanded Brendan as he swung his quarterstaff at the place in which she'd been standing a mere moment ago.  "She's likely still here, somewhere!"  Kruz and Shiroko readied crossbow and wand, respectively, but didn't know where to shoot.  Adrielle swung her trident in a sideways arc, not expecting to do any damage but hoping to at least bump into some invisible resistance and give them all an indication of where their unseen foe was standing at the moment.  But she met no such resistance.There was the sudden sound of sharp claws clicking on the stone floor, heading along the diagonal wall straight for Kruz.  The rogue instinctively fired his crossbow, to no effect, and Brendan attacked the area just in front of the changeling, expecting to hit the invisible hag but missing as well.  Shiroko was the first to suspect the whole thing had been a ruse - a ghost sound spell, most likely - and warned the others of her suspicions.  Adrielle swung her trident around in another arc, seeking the invisible hag, but she was too far to the north, by the furthest cage.  Instead, the hag popped back into view gripping Brendan's shoulders, giving him a wet kiss on the cheek for luck.  It worked, as the monk felt a weakness travel across his body, such that his quarterstaff seemed to instantly double in weight, and he himself felt like he weighed twice as much as normal.  The green hag, Jezebella, cackled in delight at the success of her ploy.Brendan staggered away from the hag, more disturbed by her kiss than he'd been at the bite of the dire rat earlier, and swung awkwardly at her with his quarterstaff.  With the magical weakness encompassing his body, he was not the least bit surprised to see his blow fail to land.  But Kruz shot her again with his crossbow, and Shiroko's wand fired off another unerring magic missile.  Adrielle stabbed at the hag with her trident, but the hag was a lot more dexterous than she looked, and she avoided the scout's attack.  Then she struck out at Brendan again, hoping a second dose of her magical weakness would drop him to his knees, too feeble to even support his own weight.  And then she'd be down to a mere four foes, and following the same strategy she'd whittle down her enemies until they were all lying helplessly at her feet.But Brendan, now knowing exactly what the hag's strength-draining touch felt like, refused to allow it to diminish him any further.  Gritting his teeth, he wrested his body away from the surprised hag - she honestly didn't think he had the willpower to resist her draining touch!That ended out being the turning point in the battle for Jezebella.  Brendan was nowhere near his full strength, but he managed to connect with his next strike, and Kruz kept firing away with his crossbow; Shiroko's wand of magic missiles was a guaranteed hit each time (Jezebella had made a mental point to take out Shiroko next); and Adrielle got her a few times with her trident.  Before long, she lay dead on the floor, the three astonished mongrelfolk in the cages along the back wall not having expected such an outcome.  But one of them had the presence of mind to try out a tactic that could possibly save the lives of the three afflicted lycanthropes.  "Good job!" he cried aloud.  "You have saved us from the horribly wererats who abused us and made us their prisoners!  Now, if you would only free us, we can warn others of our kind to stay away from the sewers, lest they suffer a similar fate..."Brendan wasn't buying it.  "Oh, we'll free you all right," he promised, steeling his feeble strength to stab the end of his quarterstaff at the sinborn's skull.  As Adrielle and Kruz both had weapons capable of reaching the mongrelfolk inside their cages, it was quite literally like shooting fish in a barrel."Well, that's that," observed Adrielle after the last mongrelfolk was slain."That's almost that," countered Kruz.  "Let me tell you all about the treasure horde I discovered, after slaying the otyugh...."After collecting the nascent guild's accumulated treasure, the group returned to the boardinghouse for some much-needed showers. - - -The group had a fun time sending their PCs this adventure, and I had a fun time writing it, as I was able to piece together some plot threads from previous adventures and link together some sewer monsters so they'd be up against something different from the last time they went fighting in the sewers.  (They were all hoping not to run into any more meenlocks, for one thing.)  Joe had to work again, so his father Dan ran both Kruz and Brendan, something that's almost becoming the norm. - - -T-shirt worn: MY "DAD: Cleverly disguised as a responsible adult" shirt, with Groucho nose-mustache glasses on the "A" in "DAD" - a secret indication that somebody in the adventure (the green hag) was not as appearances would indicate.</blockquote>

Verification