Fabien suspected that somewhere beneath the city the ancient catacombs of the Necropolis had been breached, allowing something (or someone) to move through the sewers. The Lay Curators were given a simple task: investigate the disturbance, destroy any undead they found, and determine whether a route existed between the sewers and the catacombs.
The company began at the wine merchant's cellar, descending through the collapsed tunnel and into the foul darkness below Ptolus. They had not gone far before the tunnels erupted into violence. At a junction, a pack of enormous, starving rats came shrieking from the darkness, their hunger having driven them to a ferocity that caught the adventurers completely off guard.
Flint and Lúthien were both brought down beneath snapping teeth and claws, leaving Torvax alone on his feet (Bragman the Bold was away on important 'culinary business' and so had not accompanied the team). Once again, the Grailwarden's strange combination of wizardry and practical brutality saved the day. His spell of Sleep dropped the beasts into unconsciousness, allowing him to finish them with his blade before dragging his companions back from the brink.
Bruised and bloodied, the company retreated to the wine merchant's cellar to bind their wounds and gather what remained of their courage.
Their second venture into the sewers proved more fruitful. In the filth and mud they discovered the unmistakable tracks of a boat dragged from one watercourse to another, a strange clue in a place where boats had no obvious business being. Following the trail led them to a concealed door, and beyond it another passage ending at a second door which could only be opened from the other side.
The party suspected they had found part of a hidden route beneath the city. Returning to the surface, they traced its likely position to an old, apparently abandoned house nearby. Yet Flint noticed something that the others might easily have missed: the lock on the front door was new, and more importantly, well oiled. The house might look dead, but someone was still using it.
It took Flint several attempts, but eventually the lock yielded to his quick fingers. Inside they found a building in a state of spectacular decay. Rat droppings and bird filth covered the floors, mould crawled across walls and ceilings, and the whole place had the air of somewhere long abandoned by respectable people. Yet the Curators had learned enough already to be suspicious of appearances. They searched the rooms carefully, recovering a handful of useful possessions overlooked by whatever thieves had passed through before them.
Upstairs they found their first real clue: in a wash bucket lay a collection of newer, filthy clothes which appeared to belong to a mortician. Whatever the house's true purpose, its occupants were dealing with the dead.
The search continued through the upper rooms, most of which yielded little beyond decay. In one bedroom Lúthien discovered that even an ancient elf's grace has its limits when confronted with rotten floorboards. His considerable weight in armour sent the boards collapsing beneath him, but his elven reflexes saved him from what might otherwise have been an undignified end.
Another room proved rather more dangerous. Torvax cleared away a mass of webs with blasts of Firebolt, only to disturb a swarm of spiders concealed within the fireplace. They poured over Flint in a living black mass. Torvax once again called upon Sleep, buying his companion precious seconds, and Flint answered with the sort of precision for which he had earned his name, skewering the creatures one after another upon his rapier. One particularly fortunate thrust turned the fight into a memorable victory.
The party eventually descended into the wine cellar beneath the house. There they found shattered bottles, empty storage bins and, lying in the centre of the room, the corpse of an armoured warrior. His plate was battered and torn, his sword lay beside him and his shield covered his legs. The body had clearly been dead for weeks. As Lúthien and Flint examined the remains, something stirred within the ruined armour. A mass of rot grubs crawled from the corpse, spilling towards the adventurers. Once again, Torvax's Sleep spell proved invaluable, and once again the company survived by the narrowest of margins. Among the wreckage Torvax even managed to salvage a respectable bottle of wine, proving that not every discovery beneath Ptolus need be horrible.
Behind a secret door, Flint discovered a hidden chamber that had been converted into crude living quarters. Ten beds lined the walls, each with a locker, while a long table, dirty dishes and a still-warm cookstove suggested that the occupants had not gone far. They were not alone for long. A lone thug was discovered and quickly subdued, and the unfortunate fellow (who called himself Sid "Vicious") proved considerably less vicious under interrogation.
He did, however, reveal enough to transform the investigation. His gang used a ladder in the house's well to enter the sewer network, and from there they travelled through a tunnel beneath the Necropolis. The passage opened near a statue within the cemetery, close to a private tomb where the gang entertained wealthy guests. Worse still, they had been plundering corpses from the Necropolis for their mysterious master. Sid was terrified of the man. Eventually, with sufficient 'persuasion', he surrendered a name: Eli Darkmantle.
The company's investigation then led to a small private chamber, remarkably comfortable compared with the squalid barracks outside. It appeared to belong to someone important. There was a proper bed, a wardrobe and a table illuminated by three magical candles that burned without consuming themselves. A fine oilskin coat hung among the belongings, while a chest contained silver and several jars of what appeared to be embalming fluid.
But it was the books that truly caught the adventurers' attention. One was a grotesque volume of illustrated erotic poetry concerning the dead. The other was a treatise on the rat god and its minions, containing a curious page of simple Common words translated into Goblin - commands such as stop, fight, lift and come. Whoever lived here had interests considerably darker than those of an ordinary undertaker.
Beyond a barred door the party encountered the guardians Sid had warned them about: skeletons. These undead defenders were quickly destroyed, revealing a hidden laboratory beyond. The room was filled with the tools of a grisly trade, including alchemical equipment, embalming materials and apparatus apparently intended for experiments upon corpses. The necromancer himself was nowhere to be found. Perhaps he had fled. Perhaps he was elsewhere in the city. Perhaps, as Torvax suggested, he had simply gone shopping.
Whatever the truth, the party did not leave empty-handed. They searched the laboratory and gathered what they could, including a strange book lying open upon the worktable: Ye Secret of Ye Philosopher's Stone. Its author was uncredited, but the book appeared valuable to the right buyer. Nearby were several curious golden objects including a human skull, an apple, a rose and five small discs and, most interesting of all, a spellbook.
The Lay Curators had begun their investigation looking for undead in a sewer. They had found a hidden house, a gang of corpse thieves, a secret route beneath the Necropolis, a possible necromancer and a man named Eli Darkmantle. And somewhere beneath Ptolus, there was a tunnel leading into the darkness. They had only just begun to follow it...
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