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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 2761116" data-attributes="member: 143">Chapter 504The storm had intensified somewhat, the icy rain off the Alamirs now falling in a continuous stream that ran down the streets of the city, draining steadily down the sides of the caldera before ultimately trailing off through the city’s drains into the river chasm in the center.  Down by the lowest tier of the city, Lava Avenue was awash in puddles of water that in some places were up to a foot deep.  This lowest tier of the city had suffered particular damage in the disaster that had reshaped Cauldron, and with the draining of the lake a number of buildings, now perched precariously over the river chasm, had been condemned as unsafe.  At places, the remnants of once-busy docks trailed out over the darkness, over fast-moving waters below that were starting a tumultuous descent down the side of the mountain.  The street was still navigable, but the quakes had caused damage here as well, and street repair was being postponed until the structures that could support citizens of the town were restored to a safe condition.  The streets were all but deserted, even the Watch not in evidence on this particularly unpleasant night.  But even if there had been more of the town’s inhabitants out in the predawn hours, it was unlikely that they would have seen the dark figures that made their way stealthily through the town.  The first was a slender, nimble figure, the robe that flapped around her form like a flap of discarded gray fabric dancing in the wind.  The pale flesh protruding from the sleeves and hem was almost completely invisible in the near-darkness.  The second, following close behind, was more bulky and ponderous, but likewise its neutral gray skin was nearly translucent, a shade in the night.  This one was hunched over, its arms wrapped around a cumbersome burden that it clutched close against its body.  To the Chosen, even the darkness of the city in the depths of the stormy night seemed bright to eyes that had known only the dark reaches of the Underdark.  The rain and wind were bewildering in their intensity, the great open space above the caldera strange and terrifying to one who had always known the tight confines of a cavern roof above.  But she was driven by a fanaticism that allowed her to push all of those fearful distractions to the back of her mind.  She knew her destination from the careful descriptions provided by her scouts, and even though the last of her grimlocks were likely already destroyed by the invaders into the Cairn of the Fade, she at least would prove worthy of the ordeal placed before her by the powers of her universe.It rose up out of the night, ahead, a massive rectangular shape.  The massive cistern lay on the chasm side of Lava Avenue, upon a broad shelf of jutting stone that had once supported a pleasant park, Before.  The landscape was still reassuringly green during sunny days, but now, in the depths of the night, the trees formed dark shadows with bare branches that resembled grasping claws.  The Chosen saw these and shuddered, consumed with apocalyptic visions of death and destruction.   The collapse of the volcano’s rim and the loss of the lake had presented a problem for Cauldron; the city’s water supply was dependent upon that resource, and many of the city’s wells had gone dry once the water had found a way to exit its former confines and pour down the volcano toward the lowlands and the yet more distant sea.  The cistern was the first step in providing the city with a new water supply, a stopgap until new wells, pumps, and pipes could be put into place.  It had been created in just a few days, both through combined labor and the intervention of Beorna of Helm, who’d cast a dozen stone shape spells over several days to form the stone gathered from the wreckage of the city into a rectangular container fifty feet long, twenty feet across, and up to eight feet deep.  The cistern was filled by a simple pumping system that used collapsible leather buckets attached to a winch and pulley assembly, drawing up river water from its rapid course to an open pipe that fed the container.  That assembly had been safely stored now, and with the rains continuing to fill the already awash cistern it was unlikely it would have to be used anytime soon. The cistern had been partly built into the ground, so that its lip was only about five feet above the level of the surrounding street.  A simple wooden platform had been set up to abut it, and a spillway installed on one of the narrow sides, so that water could be drawn from it easily into barrels or other large containers.  The Chosen and her companion made their way up to the platform.  Water trickled out over the edges as rain continued to fall into it, the droplets splattering across the flat plane like tiny spiders crawling over a stone floor.  The cistern held sixty thousand gallons of water; enough to meet the needs of three thousand people on an average day, slightly more than the current population of the town. “And so we fulfill our destiny,” the Chosen said, clicking her tongue to signal to her companion.  The scarred grimlock acolyte came forward carrying his heavy burden.  The gnomish variant on the decanter of endless water itself could have solved Cauldron’s water issues, had it not been infected with the corruptive influence of the Vanishing.  As it was, it was the perfect vessel for the completion of the Chosen’s twisted plans.  The grimlock strained with the weight of his burden as he lifted it up to the lip of the cistern.  The little keg itself wasn’t very heavy, but several large paving stones had been attached to it with thin but durable elastic lines.  At the bottom of the cistern, it would appear to just be a large rock to anyone not actually within the huge container. A clanking noise that sounded distinctly over the noise of the storm drew the attention of the medusa around.  She turned to see the dwarf paladin standing in the street, the rain sloughing off of his metal skin.  “Yield, or die,” he said, his hand tightening on the hilt of his sword.</blockquote>

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