Lately pretty much nothing had been able to turn Corvin's stomach, and he wasn't terribly surprised to learn that this was no exception to the new rule. He supposed he'd always had a pretty good one—the first time they'd both seen a charred dead body, Donny had puked his guts out on the Coast, but Corvin had been fine to run all the way back to Kirkwall for help. Not for the dead bodies, of course—for the one among them that wasn't quite so dead.
Maybe it came of being raised in a place that didn't smell too much better than this.
He led the way through the sewer tunnel, occasionally sidestepping something that looked particularly rank, but runoff rainwater mostly did its job in washing the worst of things into the deeper trough at the center of the passage, where it was eventually carried to places he'd really rather not think about ever. There was still enough light coming in from the grates overhead to occasionally illuminate their way, but Vito's magelight was a much more consistent, welcome aid to vision.
If the hints they'd heard so far were correct, there was every reason to suspect that parts of this passage were trapped, so Corvin kept his eyes moving, looking for tripwires in particular, as they were the easiest kind of mechanism to set up on short notice and in a place like this. He couldn't imagine anyone wanting to stay here long enough to install a pressure plate, but magic was always an option too, so he wasn't going to be stupid and careless.
"Which way do we want from here, exactly?" he asked, pausing at an intersection. It seemed pretty systematic down here: north-south tunnels met east-west ones, and they were pretty much all arrow-straight. He had a pretty good sense of direction most of the time, but it was a lot harder without being able to see the sky.
Evie spun on her heel, taking a look down all four tunnels, even the one that they had come down moments ago. Her facial expressions were hidden by the scarf pulled up over her nose and mouth, but it was still obvious she was just as flummoxed as Corvin was. "Dunno..." she said, eyes lingering on the left-hand tunnel, "They all look the same to me. Any of them particularly look like they've seen more foot traffic then the others?" she asked over her shoulder and directed the query to Lia.
"I remember when my assignments took me to faraway forests," she said instead. "Snow-capped peaks, vast deserts... now I get why Dad needed to get out of Kirkwall so often." Lia wasn't unfamiliar with Darktown or Kirkwall's sewers, Corvin knew, but she'd barely been old enough to serve with the Argent Lions back in the city, and when she did start the scouts were more often employed on the coast, where they had more room to operate.
"We should go this way, by the way," she added, turning them east, her eyes rarely leaving the ground in front of her feet. "This has to be dwarven." She pointed to a print in a disgusting bit of something, the shape of the foot too wide to be human or elven. "Suppose that means we need to pick up the pace. Just watch your feet, we know Kotter doesn't want to be followed."
"This should be interesting." Vito's murmur from the back was just loud enough to pick up on, and then a field of very slightly purple-tinted translucency appeared in front of Corvin. "I'm no barrier expert, by the by. That's more likely to slow something than stop something."
Corvin took the warning for what it was and hefted his own metal kite shield on his arm, leaving his sword at his hip for now. It'd just take up space if he held it, and he really didn't want to assume that this was going to turn into a bloodbath or anything. He wasn't sure exactly how it was going to go instead, but that was for figuring out later.
Bearing Lia's advice in mind, he quickened his steps, hustling them down the passage at a shuffling jog, not wanting anyone to lose their footing on the slick stones down here.
"Whoa, whoa, hold up," he said abruptly, holding up his free hand to repeat the signal and drawing to a stop himself. "Tripwire. Careful over it."
Vito's magelight had hit it just the right way—he could've easily missed the thin length of metal twine otherwise. The trap was quite crude besides that, though, and clearly rigged up in a hurry. That too seemed to suggest they were headed in the right direction.
Carefully, Corvin stepped over the wire, taking a couple of steps forward to give the others more room to do the same.
He snapped his shield up by reflex when his foot caught on the second, more cleverly-concealed wire, and it was probably only that which saved him injury: the twin arrows launched by the trap hit Vito's barrier at nearly the same time. It deflected the first, but the second punched straight through, smacking into the metal face of the shield with a clang.
"Oh for—" Another look proved that there was a third wire in the sequence. Fortunately he hadn't triggered that one. He wasn't sure if it was the sewer rat or the crime gang that had fashioned all of these—probably a bit of both, Kotter's agents building on what was already there to make it harder to follow them than it already was just to navigate.
Lia rose slightly from the crouch she'd dropped into when Corvin set off the trap, making herself a smaller target in case any of the arrows came her way, but nothing did. She scooped up one of the fallen arrows, perhaps examining its quality, but apparently found it less than remarkable, for she tossed it aside where it was no threat to anyone.
"Probably better to just ease through rather than try to disarm these," she decided. She would know how to get that done, but it would take time they didn't have to do it safely, and if the Untouchables planned to come back through this way, they'd either have to do it themselves or suffer the consequences.
Lia led the way herself past the third tripwire, but hadn't made it more than a few steps before finding yet another trap, this time in the form of a pressure plate well concealed beneath her feet. The result of stepping on it was a sudden cascading stream of fire flung down from above her, spanning the entire width of the hall. She was caught by it a little, enough that her right sleeve caught alight, and she was forced to roll forward to smother it in the muck.
It was hard to see through the constant flames to where Lia was now cut off from them, but she seemed to be all right, though more than a little disgusted. Anything she thought to immediately say, however, was cut off by the deadly whistling of a crossbow bolt that narrowly missed her, flew through the flames, and nearly hit the rest of them.
"Ambush!" she called back to them. "I've got no cover."
A jet of water flew over Corvin's shoulder, aimed for the source of the flames. It wasn't enough to extinguish them immediately by a long shot, and the contact hissed and steamed, adding spoke and droplets of scalding water to the mix. With some time, it would probably douse the cloak of flame between Lia and the rest, but considering her predicament, that may well be time they lacked.
Corvin didn't wait for the smoke to clear or the flames to gutter out—he just went. Pulling in a quick breath, he held it and plunged through the dying sheet of fire and hissing water, unflinching even as some of the latter fell into his face and scalded his cheeks and brow.
The trigger of another crossbow sounded just as he reached Lia, reaching forward with his empty hand and gripping her firmly by the shoulder to pull her back and pivot himself forward into the space she occupied, leading with the shield. Desperation and close timing made his deflection less than ideal; the bolt and its immediate successor clanged into the metal face of the shield hard enough to jar his arm, and he hissed on the exhale, releasing his friend and drawing his sword.
The walkway was narrow, but the angles were a disadvantage—they were coming up on an intersection in the passage, and there seemed to be enemies positioned both to the right and left ahead, giving their bolts and arrows a lot of places to come from relative to what his shield could protect from.
"We've got to get up there—now. Evie, take the right with Vito. We'll go left. Don't let anything get our backs." At range, two of them were near useless with the kit they had, so the only way to do this was to take the fight to the ambushers.
Corvin advanced at a jog that verged on a run, narrowly knocking another bolt out of the air with his sword.
"You got me?" He heard Evie ask Vito. Unlike himself, her kit didn't include a shield and she was unlikely to dodge all the bolts shot at her without a little intervention. It didn't sound like she waited for his answer however as metal scratched on metal, the unmistakable sound of her estoc leaving its sheath.
Her footsteps, still behind him, added to his. Her pace was quicker by the sound of it, perhaps in order to try and use her smaller frame and agility to avoid some of the the bolts. Still, they were on a narrow walkway, and there weren't many places for her to go, and eventually a bolt leveled itself in her direction.
A gust of wind buffeted Corvin's back near the split, knocking the bolt enough askew that it glanced off Evie's shoulder sideways instead of point-first. "Not the best with shields, Amatrice," Vito reminded her, but their progress forward seemed to allow him to cast more offensively, too, and a swell of filthy water rose up from the channel cut into the passage and doused the first visible ambushers, sending several of them reeling back in some combination of surprise and disgust.
Vito chuckled softly, saying something under his breath that was difficult to hear over the din but sounded suspiciously like how's that for fighting dirty?
Lia kept close behind Corvin as he made a swift advance, close enough that her arm was actually in contact with his back most of the way. Bolts and arrows kept coming in, but at one point Lia found an opening to shoot back, sending an arrow right over Corvin's shoulder no more than a foot from his left ear. It sailed forward and thudded into the upper body of the nearest of the ambushers, sending him staggering backwards with a loud, pained cry. Lia ducked back down behind Corvin's cover.
"Leave him for me," she said roughly, her tone some mix of a foul mood and the need to be heard clearly. There were several more at least positioned farther back, but Lia was already replacing her bow with her dagger, intending to deal with this first one herself.
Corvin wasn't about to question it. Lia knew exactly what she was doing, and he trusted her besides. Lengthening his stride, he accelerated, shield forward, and ducked around the arrow-stricken ambusher. That put him on a pretty clear path to the others, and he took it with a fleet, almost reckless stride, heedless of the slippage of his boots on the wet stone beneath him.
They got the idea pretty quickly, abandoning their crossbows and drawing melee weapons. The first didn't get her own shield up in enough time, and Corvin slammed into her, leading with his own. She lost her footing, falling into the filthy water behind her, and he swung the shield in enough time to intercept the next blow, aimed high.
The one that cut low, from the dwarf in the trio, was more of a problem; he had to parry at an awkward angle, softening the hit instead of turning it back entirely. Kicking out, he staved off the follow-up just long enough to slam the rim of the shield into the human man's chin, sending him reeling a few steps back.
A fluid, powerful stroke disarmed him, and the second blow from the shield knocked him cold, toppling him like a sack of stones. By then the dwarf had recovered, and the woman was pulling herself from the muck, swearing in a florid blend of the trade tongue and native Orlesian, only some of which Corvin understood.
He got the gist, though, and grinned.
"Well I think that's at least third-date kind of stuff, and I don't even know your name yet." She lunged for him, and the clang of the parry was accompanied by the ring of his laughter.
The distant clash of other weapons was a different sort of ring, no doubt caused by Evie contending with some of the foes on the other side of the passage. The hum and rush of magic was there underneath it, too, blasting water and air the obvious cue as to Vito's contribution. From the fact that the grunts of pain were in unfamiliar voices, it seemed likely that they were holding their own.
He figured he should finish things as soon as he could, then. Staving off another blow from the woman, he turned into the dwarf's axe, letting his armor absorb the brunt of the damage. It hit hard enough that there was sure to be an impressive splotch on his ribcage tomorrow, but that was hardly unbearable. With a flourish of his sword, he slid the blade between the axe's haft and head, twisting suddenly enough to disarm and delivering another solid hit with the shield, taking its wielder out of the fight.
Angry as she was, the remaining fighter was almost trivially-easy to deal with: he tripped her as she charged, bringing himself down with her as she fell, knee planted on her back. The shield bludgeoned her until she was out, too, but none of them was dead.
As he preferred it.
Of course, not one of them was in a position to do much talking, either, but Corvin figured Lia had that under control.
Maybe it came of being raised in a place that didn't smell too much better than this.
He led the way through the sewer tunnel, occasionally sidestepping something that looked particularly rank, but runoff rainwater mostly did its job in washing the worst of things into the deeper trough at the center of the passage, where it was eventually carried to places he'd really rather not think about ever. There was still enough light coming in from the grates overhead to occasionally illuminate their way, but Vito's magelight was a much more consistent, welcome aid to vision.
If the hints they'd heard so far were correct, there was every reason to suspect that parts of this passage were trapped, so Corvin kept his eyes moving, looking for tripwires in particular, as they were the easiest kind of mechanism to set up on short notice and in a place like this. He couldn't imagine anyone wanting to stay here long enough to install a pressure plate, but magic was always an option too, so he wasn't going to be stupid and careless.
"Which way do we want from here, exactly?" he asked, pausing at an intersection. It seemed pretty systematic down here: north-south tunnels met east-west ones, and they were pretty much all arrow-straight. He had a pretty good sense of direction most of the time, but it was a lot harder without being able to see the sky.
Evie spun on her heel, taking a look down all four tunnels, even the one that they had come down moments ago. Her facial expressions were hidden by the scarf pulled up over her nose and mouth, but it was still obvious she was just as flummoxed as Corvin was. "Dunno..." she said, eyes lingering on the left-hand tunnel, "They all look the same to me. Any of them particularly look like they've seen more foot traffic then the others?" she asked over her shoulder and directed the query to Lia.
"I remember when my assignments took me to faraway forests," she said instead. "Snow-capped peaks, vast deserts... now I get why Dad needed to get out of Kirkwall so often." Lia wasn't unfamiliar with Darktown or Kirkwall's sewers, Corvin knew, but she'd barely been old enough to serve with the Argent Lions back in the city, and when she did start the scouts were more often employed on the coast, where they had more room to operate.
"We should go this way, by the way," she added, turning them east, her eyes rarely leaving the ground in front of her feet. "This has to be dwarven." She pointed to a print in a disgusting bit of something, the shape of the foot too wide to be human or elven. "Suppose that means we need to pick up the pace. Just watch your feet, we know Kotter doesn't want to be followed."
"This should be interesting." Vito's murmur from the back was just loud enough to pick up on, and then a field of very slightly purple-tinted translucency appeared in front of Corvin. "I'm no barrier expert, by the by. That's more likely to slow something than stop something."
Corvin took the warning for what it was and hefted his own metal kite shield on his arm, leaving his sword at his hip for now. It'd just take up space if he held it, and he really didn't want to assume that this was going to turn into a bloodbath or anything. He wasn't sure exactly how it was going to go instead, but that was for figuring out later.
Bearing Lia's advice in mind, he quickened his steps, hustling them down the passage at a shuffling jog, not wanting anyone to lose their footing on the slick stones down here.
"Whoa, whoa, hold up," he said abruptly, holding up his free hand to repeat the signal and drawing to a stop himself. "Tripwire. Careful over it."
Vito's magelight had hit it just the right way—he could've easily missed the thin length of metal twine otherwise. The trap was quite crude besides that, though, and clearly rigged up in a hurry. That too seemed to suggest they were headed in the right direction.
Carefully, Corvin stepped over the wire, taking a couple of steps forward to give the others more room to do the same.
He snapped his shield up by reflex when his foot caught on the second, more cleverly-concealed wire, and it was probably only that which saved him injury: the twin arrows launched by the trap hit Vito's barrier at nearly the same time. It deflected the first, but the second punched straight through, smacking into the metal face of the shield with a clang.
"Oh for—" Another look proved that there was a third wire in the sequence. Fortunately he hadn't triggered that one. He wasn't sure if it was the sewer rat or the crime gang that had fashioned all of these—probably a bit of both, Kotter's agents building on what was already there to make it harder to follow them than it already was just to navigate.
Lia rose slightly from the crouch she'd dropped into when Corvin set off the trap, making herself a smaller target in case any of the arrows came her way, but nothing did. She scooped up one of the fallen arrows, perhaps examining its quality, but apparently found it less than remarkable, for she tossed it aside where it was no threat to anyone.
"Probably better to just ease through rather than try to disarm these," she decided. She would know how to get that done, but it would take time they didn't have to do it safely, and if the Untouchables planned to come back through this way, they'd either have to do it themselves or suffer the consequences.
Lia led the way herself past the third tripwire, but hadn't made it more than a few steps before finding yet another trap, this time in the form of a pressure plate well concealed beneath her feet. The result of stepping on it was a sudden cascading stream of fire flung down from above her, spanning the entire width of the hall. She was caught by it a little, enough that her right sleeve caught alight, and she was forced to roll forward to smother it in the muck.
It was hard to see through the constant flames to where Lia was now cut off from them, but she seemed to be all right, though more than a little disgusted. Anything she thought to immediately say, however, was cut off by the deadly whistling of a crossbow bolt that narrowly missed her, flew through the flames, and nearly hit the rest of them.
"Ambush!" she called back to them. "I've got no cover."
A jet of water flew over Corvin's shoulder, aimed for the source of the flames. It wasn't enough to extinguish them immediately by a long shot, and the contact hissed and steamed, adding spoke and droplets of scalding water to the mix. With some time, it would probably douse the cloak of flame between Lia and the rest, but considering her predicament, that may well be time they lacked.
Corvin didn't wait for the smoke to clear or the flames to gutter out—he just went. Pulling in a quick breath, he held it and plunged through the dying sheet of fire and hissing water, unflinching even as some of the latter fell into his face and scalded his cheeks and brow.
The trigger of another crossbow sounded just as he reached Lia, reaching forward with his empty hand and gripping her firmly by the shoulder to pull her back and pivot himself forward into the space she occupied, leading with the shield. Desperation and close timing made his deflection less than ideal; the bolt and its immediate successor clanged into the metal face of the shield hard enough to jar his arm, and he hissed on the exhale, releasing his friend and drawing his sword.
The walkway was narrow, but the angles were a disadvantage—they were coming up on an intersection in the passage, and there seemed to be enemies positioned both to the right and left ahead, giving their bolts and arrows a lot of places to come from relative to what his shield could protect from.
"We've got to get up there—now. Evie, take the right with Vito. We'll go left. Don't let anything get our backs." At range, two of them were near useless with the kit they had, so the only way to do this was to take the fight to the ambushers.
Corvin advanced at a jog that verged on a run, narrowly knocking another bolt out of the air with his sword.
"You got me?" He heard Evie ask Vito. Unlike himself, her kit didn't include a shield and she was unlikely to dodge all the bolts shot at her without a little intervention. It didn't sound like she waited for his answer however as metal scratched on metal, the unmistakable sound of her estoc leaving its sheath.
Her footsteps, still behind him, added to his. Her pace was quicker by the sound of it, perhaps in order to try and use her smaller frame and agility to avoid some of the the bolts. Still, they were on a narrow walkway, and there weren't many places for her to go, and eventually a bolt leveled itself in her direction.
A gust of wind buffeted Corvin's back near the split, knocking the bolt enough askew that it glanced off Evie's shoulder sideways instead of point-first. "Not the best with shields, Amatrice," Vito reminded her, but their progress forward seemed to allow him to cast more offensively, too, and a swell of filthy water rose up from the channel cut into the passage and doused the first visible ambushers, sending several of them reeling back in some combination of surprise and disgust.
Vito chuckled softly, saying something under his breath that was difficult to hear over the din but sounded suspiciously like how's that for fighting dirty?
Lia kept close behind Corvin as he made a swift advance, close enough that her arm was actually in contact with his back most of the way. Bolts and arrows kept coming in, but at one point Lia found an opening to shoot back, sending an arrow right over Corvin's shoulder no more than a foot from his left ear. It sailed forward and thudded into the upper body of the nearest of the ambushers, sending him staggering backwards with a loud, pained cry. Lia ducked back down behind Corvin's cover.
"Leave him for me," she said roughly, her tone some mix of a foul mood and the need to be heard clearly. There were several more at least positioned farther back, but Lia was already replacing her bow with her dagger, intending to deal with this first one herself.
Corvin wasn't about to question it. Lia knew exactly what she was doing, and he trusted her besides. Lengthening his stride, he accelerated, shield forward, and ducked around the arrow-stricken ambusher. That put him on a pretty clear path to the others, and he took it with a fleet, almost reckless stride, heedless of the slippage of his boots on the wet stone beneath him.
They got the idea pretty quickly, abandoning their crossbows and drawing melee weapons. The first didn't get her own shield up in enough time, and Corvin slammed into her, leading with his own. She lost her footing, falling into the filthy water behind her, and he swung the shield in enough time to intercept the next blow, aimed high.
The one that cut low, from the dwarf in the trio, was more of a problem; he had to parry at an awkward angle, softening the hit instead of turning it back entirely. Kicking out, he staved off the follow-up just long enough to slam the rim of the shield into the human man's chin, sending him reeling a few steps back.
A fluid, powerful stroke disarmed him, and the second blow from the shield knocked him cold, toppling him like a sack of stones. By then the dwarf had recovered, and the woman was pulling herself from the muck, swearing in a florid blend of the trade tongue and native Orlesian, only some of which Corvin understood.
He got the gist, though, and grinned.
"Well I think that's at least third-date kind of stuff, and I don't even know your name yet." She lunged for him, and the clang of the parry was accompanied by the ring of his laughter.
The distant clash of other weapons was a different sort of ring, no doubt caused by Evie contending with some of the foes on the other side of the passage. The hum and rush of magic was there underneath it, too, blasting water and air the obvious cue as to Vito's contribution. From the fact that the grunts of pain were in unfamiliar voices, it seemed likely that they were holding their own.
He figured he should finish things as soon as he could, then. Staving off another blow from the woman, he turned into the dwarf's axe, letting his armor absorb the brunt of the damage. It hit hard enough that there was sure to be an impressive splotch on his ribcage tomorrow, but that was hardly unbearable. With a flourish of his sword, he slid the blade between the axe's haft and head, twisting suddenly enough to disarm and delivering another solid hit with the shield, taking its wielder out of the fight.
Angry as she was, the remaining fighter was almost trivially-easy to deal with: he tripped her as she charged, bringing himself down with her as she fell, knee planted on her back. The shield bludgeoned her until she was out, too, but none of them was dead.
As he preferred it.
Of course, not one of them was in a position to do much talking, either, but Corvin figured Lia had that under control.