The 'Switchback,' as this particular Riverbend neighborhood was called, was more or less exactly what Vito expected it to be. The whole area was in a similar state of shoddy repair to the rest of the district—roofs missing shingles and patched with straw, crumbling foundations, and buckled cobblestone alleyways narrow and reeking. But there was nevertheless a certain order to it: the streets were clear, mostly free of refuse and debris, the uneven windows in poorly-made frames were clean. A few flower boxes supported wilting blooms or herbs.
There was nothing well-to-do about the place, but the sense of pride and community was there. Subtle, hard to detect, but present. If the Captain was to be believed, it was a criminal organization that provided at least some of this unity, and Vito had no difficulty believing that at all.
He had seen it before.
There were a few people out and about; late morning as it was, though, most had already settled into whatever their work would be for the day. The echo of a forgehammmer rang down the street; a few merchants reclined under their awnings, already done with most of their business after the morning grocery runs. Rough-looking men and women loitered on a few of the corners, apparently preoccupied with dice or cards, but Vito knew them for eyes and ears, probably with a direct line to someone who could pass the information up to the area's boss.
"It is almost like being home." He grinned. "I think we'll want to be careful with our words, yes?"
Lia's hand didn't linger on the hilt of her dagger, but the keen-eyed could notice that it never wandered far from it, either. This was not the Alienage nor the Harbor District; being an elf or an Argent Lion would afford her and Corvin few advantages here. Still, it was a step up from being a city guard.
"We shouldn't split up, either," she advised. "No need to make ourselves any more vulnerable than we have to. And there's a foul mood here today besides."
"Glad I wasn't just imagining it," Evie noted. Her eyes had been drifting to their flanks ever since they entered the neighborhood. Fortunately, she too kept her hands away from her weapons, and even decided to forgo her helmet this time.
Still, her body language was rigid, and her shoulders were stiff. "I second not splitting up too," she said, glancing back at them for the moment, before returning to their vigil.
In contrast to the overt wariness of Vito's other two companions, Corvin looked as at-ease as ever, apparently unconcerned with the tense mood, though from his lack of surprise at their words, clearly not oblivious to it.
"We need to know where in the sewers this fellow is, right? Bad mood or not, I think that's going to take some asking." He did frown slightly then. "Probably better not to pick someone at random though. What d'you think, Vito?"
"I think we need to find the kind of person who doesn't mind talking to an outsider." Or who might not yet know how to pick one out of a crowd. There was a sort he had in mind, but it might be as much a matter of luck as anything. Still, the first thing to do was find a sewer entrance, or an area nearby one. Chances were, the average person here didn't know much about what was going on—they could be as charming as they liked, but it would be a waste if their target didn't have the information they wanted.
Val Royeaux had a decent infrastructure for these things, but in places as old and worn down as this, it was obviously not in peak condition. What had once been efficient channels cut into the sides of the streets, funneling runoff into grated openings, was now interrupted by uneven ground, bucked by years of alternating heat and cold, broken cobblestones, weeds sprouting from the cracks, and general neglect. Some of the water had come to rest in still, stagnant pools, the smell nearly enough to wrinkle his nose.
But Vito had grown up in worse slums than these. He followed the street, pausing only to glance over each grate for hints of tampering. A few were rusted or missing a few bars, but not enough to admit a person. All were still relatively secure in their housing.
It wasn't until he rounded a corner that they struck pay dirt, so to speak. Just what he'd been looking for. A cluster of three young children, somewhere between seven and twelve, were crouched in front of another grate, peering down or cocking their ears as though listening for something very particular.
"I'd be surprised if they don't know anything."
Lia approached first, squatting next to them, propping her elbows on her knees. "What're you kids doing?" she asked.
The one nearest her, a small boy who had to be the youngest of the group, shifted away from her by about a foot, little eyes quickly sweeping her up and down. "Papa says I'm not supposed to talk to you."
"No?" Her eyebrows lifted. "And why's that?"
"You're an elf," the child replied. "Papa says your kind are dirty."
Lia didn't react much, only looking as though she'd just smelled something foul. They were next to a sewer grate, after all. "Ah. Well, I'd bet a silver your papa's gone longer than I have without a bath. You too, for that matter." The child had no reply to that, instead turning his gaze on the others in the group of strangers, and examining them as well.
Vito, well aware of his obvious foreign-ness, glanced for a moment at Evie, but had second thoughts almost immediately. Antivan he may be, but he was willing to bet he still knew better how to speak to a child of this sort than someone raised to nobility.
So he too crouched, on the other side of Lia, for once not too worried about dragging his sleeves through muck. He'd worn more fitted ones for this, though the tunic to which they belonged was only slightly less vivid in its colors than usual. He leaned a little further forward, the better to make eye contact with the kid around his companion, and arched a thick brow.
"Rat hunting, eh?" He smirked in a knowing sort of way, and jerked his chin at the grate. "Probably didn't let you come with, right?" It was just a guess, but it was an educated one.
The boy's eyes widened fractionally, but he nodded. "Papa says I can't go till I'm big. But I know that place just as good as Thom does!"
Vito hummed, bobbing his head in an agreeable way. "I think your papa is forgetting that brains are just as important as being big." Propping an elbow on his knee and his chin in his hand, he continued very seriously. "Are they doing it right down there, you think?"
The child's little face scrunched in thought, but after a while he shook his head. "The rat's got the place all rigged up, I bet. They went down from the big entrance by Kerwen's."
Extrapolating the likely implications, Vito stroked his goatee. "I bet lots of people know that one, including the rat." He paused a moment, as if in consideration. "Which entrance would you have used?"
The boy hesitated, his eyes flicking between the four of them. Vito didn't push any harder, keeping his expression open and friendly. He wouldn't get an answer if he applied too much pressure.
"Why're you askin'?"
Vito shrugged, a loose motion with no particular urgency. "We've got a rat to hunt, too." From one of his sleeves, he produced a silver coin, palming it, then holding it halfway out towards the boy between his thumb and forefinger.
This seemed to be an acceptable motivation at least. No doubt the bribe helped. After a moment more thought, the boy snatched the coin as though it might disappear at any moment. "I'd use the one behind the cathouse. Rat used to be sweet on one of the girls there."
It certainly stood to reason that this mysterious fellow wouldn't trap a passage he intended to use. Perhaps he still did.
Corvin's eyebrows were somewhere up near his hairline; he'd grinned through much of the exchange between Vito and the boy. "Looks like we've got an in," he remarked with a vaguely-perplexed smile. "What say we take it before our window of opportunity gets shut in our faces, eh?"
"A most apt suggestion, Mattone." Vito pushed himself back into a stand with his hands on his knees, then dusted himself off a bit by reflex. As promised, the day was apparently going to include an expedition into the sewers. How lovely.
Finding the 'cathouse' in a neighborhood of this size was at least partially a matter of asking around, and he was sure they made an unfortunately-memorable group of inquirers, at that. It was difficult to imagine that none of the Switchback's more criminally-inclined had not observed at least part of their progress; he honestly wouldn't be surprised if the boy they'd spoken to had immediately told just such a person about the conversation. It was just good business sense, after all—he might find himself with another few coppers for the trouble.
Having once been such a child, Vito knew the stupid ones rarely survived all that long.
Still, even in a neighborhood like this, there were plenty of people apathetic enough to point them in the right general direction without batting an eyelash at the picture they made, and the four of them had just entered what he suspected was the right block when a pair of shadows detached themselves from the close alley walls and blocked their way forward.
Ah. This would be the other shoe falling, then. Kotter ran an efficient operation, it seemed.
The first was a dwarf, young, female, with more than enough brawn to make up for her lack of height, while the other was an older human man, at least fifty, with greasy long hair and a full beard, the type that looked like he'd been in this sort of life forever. It came as no surprise that Kotter's outfit attracted more of his own kind, as they were very likely to share some of his experiences and relate to him in a way they never could with a Val Royeaux local.
But neither of them spoke at first, perhaps hoping their message would come across nonverbally, and while it did, the effect was negligible. Lia crossed her arms. "We're going this way. Move."
"I'd advise you go the other way," the dwarf responded, "straight back home. The Untouchables know why you're here. Kotter only wants to gut one person today, but if you force the issue he has no problem making it five."
"Gruesome," Corvin observed, though he didn't sound particularly threatened. "Thanks for the advice; I do like my guts best inside my body." He shrugged a little. "But... we're still going this way, if you'll excuse us." He took a step forward as if to emphasize the point, looking for all the world as though he fully intended to keep walking right into the pair of them.
Whether it was merely the utter boldness of this move, the strangeness, the elf's considerable build, or something else, they both shifted out of his way. "Fuckin' knife-ear," the man muttered, but it sounded more like confusion than vitriol.
For his part, Corvin gave a careless little salute in response, a clear indication he'd heard the words and was ignoring them as surely as the warning.
Vito just barely resisted the urge to laugh at the looks on their faces, managing only to constrain his mirth into a light chuckle. There was something to be said for a sense of self-possession so robust as that. He and the others followed the path their warrior friend blazed for them, and they were harassed no further on their way to the brothel.
As their erstwhile informant had promised, there was a grate set into the alley behind the building. It smelled exactly as he expected it to, considering that a large residential building disposed of waste here. Rank.
"I suppose I should be grateful a city of this size has a consistently-functional sewer system at all." The observation did not stop him from wrinkling his nose. Thank the Maker he'd worn boots and trousers today. The idea of anything down there soaking into the hem of a robe was nauseating.
Glancing around briefly, Vito observed no watchers. So he reached for a gentle application of a telekinetic spell and used it to shift the grate aside, so as to not need to touch it. It scraped with a dull rumble over the broken cobblestones next to it, before coming to a stop a few feet back. "All right then. Who would like the honors?"
"Can't be any worse than Darktown," Corvin observed, moving up to the exposed gap in the street and peering down to confirm the distance. "Bit of a jump, but the end looks pretty clear, actually." It certainly stank regardless, but it was a degree better than the alternative.
Lowering himself down, Corvin disappeared a moment later. It took a couple seconds, but he called back up. "Bit slick on the landing; rain I guess. I'll stand close so no one falls."
"Rain... right." Lia finished tugging on a pair of leather gloves, full-fingered rather than the open style she seemed to prefer. She was also prepared enough to have a cloth mask she could pull up and fasten over her mouth and nostrils. She lowered herself through the opening after Corvin.
"That's what I'm telling myself, anyway," Evie replied, as if saying it would make it true. She too had already pulled up her scarf around her nose and mouth, and had ever since Vito began to move the grate. She stared at the gap for a moment, internally struggling and before sighing and resigning herself to her fate. "Never saw myself in this position a year ago," she muttered before following behind Lia.
"Well I certainly hope not." Vito, without a scarf or any other such protection against the stench, was simply going to have to make do.
He lowered himself as far as he could before dropping the rest of the way, landing and immediately steadying himself as his left foot threatened to slip out from beneath the rest of him. Fortunately, Corvin was present as promised, and a hand on the sturdy elf's shoulder was more than enough to keep him upright.
The sewer was as ripe and dank as expected; it took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the gloom, punctuated only occasionally by shafts of weak light from grates in the street. And better to keep away from those, lest something be deposited through the slats at an inopportune time.
"Best be on the lookout for these traps, then." Soft purple light bloomed over his hand, and he sent it to move ahead of the group, hopefully a little bit of warning before they stumbled across something deadly.
There was nothing well-to-do about the place, but the sense of pride and community was there. Subtle, hard to detect, but present. If the Captain was to be believed, it was a criminal organization that provided at least some of this unity, and Vito had no difficulty believing that at all.
He had seen it before.
There were a few people out and about; late morning as it was, though, most had already settled into whatever their work would be for the day. The echo of a forgehammmer rang down the street; a few merchants reclined under their awnings, already done with most of their business after the morning grocery runs. Rough-looking men and women loitered on a few of the corners, apparently preoccupied with dice or cards, but Vito knew them for eyes and ears, probably with a direct line to someone who could pass the information up to the area's boss.
"It is almost like being home." He grinned. "I think we'll want to be careful with our words, yes?"
Lia's hand didn't linger on the hilt of her dagger, but the keen-eyed could notice that it never wandered far from it, either. This was not the Alienage nor the Harbor District; being an elf or an Argent Lion would afford her and Corvin few advantages here. Still, it was a step up from being a city guard.
"We shouldn't split up, either," she advised. "No need to make ourselves any more vulnerable than we have to. And there's a foul mood here today besides."
"Glad I wasn't just imagining it," Evie noted. Her eyes had been drifting to their flanks ever since they entered the neighborhood. Fortunately, she too kept her hands away from her weapons, and even decided to forgo her helmet this time.
Still, her body language was rigid, and her shoulders were stiff. "I second not splitting up too," she said, glancing back at them for the moment, before returning to their vigil.
In contrast to the overt wariness of Vito's other two companions, Corvin looked as at-ease as ever, apparently unconcerned with the tense mood, though from his lack of surprise at their words, clearly not oblivious to it.
"We need to know where in the sewers this fellow is, right? Bad mood or not, I think that's going to take some asking." He did frown slightly then. "Probably better not to pick someone at random though. What d'you think, Vito?"
"I think we need to find the kind of person who doesn't mind talking to an outsider." Or who might not yet know how to pick one out of a crowd. There was a sort he had in mind, but it might be as much a matter of luck as anything. Still, the first thing to do was find a sewer entrance, or an area nearby one. Chances were, the average person here didn't know much about what was going on—they could be as charming as they liked, but it would be a waste if their target didn't have the information they wanted.
Val Royeaux had a decent infrastructure for these things, but in places as old and worn down as this, it was obviously not in peak condition. What had once been efficient channels cut into the sides of the streets, funneling runoff into grated openings, was now interrupted by uneven ground, bucked by years of alternating heat and cold, broken cobblestones, weeds sprouting from the cracks, and general neglect. Some of the water had come to rest in still, stagnant pools, the smell nearly enough to wrinkle his nose.
But Vito had grown up in worse slums than these. He followed the street, pausing only to glance over each grate for hints of tampering. A few were rusted or missing a few bars, but not enough to admit a person. All were still relatively secure in their housing.
It wasn't until he rounded a corner that they struck pay dirt, so to speak. Just what he'd been looking for. A cluster of three young children, somewhere between seven and twelve, were crouched in front of another grate, peering down or cocking their ears as though listening for something very particular.
"I'd be surprised if they don't know anything."
Lia approached first, squatting next to them, propping her elbows on her knees. "What're you kids doing?" she asked.
The one nearest her, a small boy who had to be the youngest of the group, shifted away from her by about a foot, little eyes quickly sweeping her up and down. "Papa says I'm not supposed to talk to you."
"No?" Her eyebrows lifted. "And why's that?"
"You're an elf," the child replied. "Papa says your kind are dirty."
Lia didn't react much, only looking as though she'd just smelled something foul. They were next to a sewer grate, after all. "Ah. Well, I'd bet a silver your papa's gone longer than I have without a bath. You too, for that matter." The child had no reply to that, instead turning his gaze on the others in the group of strangers, and examining them as well.
Vito, well aware of his obvious foreign-ness, glanced for a moment at Evie, but had second thoughts almost immediately. Antivan he may be, but he was willing to bet he still knew better how to speak to a child of this sort than someone raised to nobility.
So he too crouched, on the other side of Lia, for once not too worried about dragging his sleeves through muck. He'd worn more fitted ones for this, though the tunic to which they belonged was only slightly less vivid in its colors than usual. He leaned a little further forward, the better to make eye contact with the kid around his companion, and arched a thick brow.
"Rat hunting, eh?" He smirked in a knowing sort of way, and jerked his chin at the grate. "Probably didn't let you come with, right?" It was just a guess, but it was an educated one.
The boy's eyes widened fractionally, but he nodded. "Papa says I can't go till I'm big. But I know that place just as good as Thom does!"
Vito hummed, bobbing his head in an agreeable way. "I think your papa is forgetting that brains are just as important as being big." Propping an elbow on his knee and his chin in his hand, he continued very seriously. "Are they doing it right down there, you think?"
The child's little face scrunched in thought, but after a while he shook his head. "The rat's got the place all rigged up, I bet. They went down from the big entrance by Kerwen's."
Extrapolating the likely implications, Vito stroked his goatee. "I bet lots of people know that one, including the rat." He paused a moment, as if in consideration. "Which entrance would you have used?"
The boy hesitated, his eyes flicking between the four of them. Vito didn't push any harder, keeping his expression open and friendly. He wouldn't get an answer if he applied too much pressure.
"Why're you askin'?"
Vito shrugged, a loose motion with no particular urgency. "We've got a rat to hunt, too." From one of his sleeves, he produced a silver coin, palming it, then holding it halfway out towards the boy between his thumb and forefinger.
This seemed to be an acceptable motivation at least. No doubt the bribe helped. After a moment more thought, the boy snatched the coin as though it might disappear at any moment. "I'd use the one behind the cathouse. Rat used to be sweet on one of the girls there."
It certainly stood to reason that this mysterious fellow wouldn't trap a passage he intended to use. Perhaps he still did.
Corvin's eyebrows were somewhere up near his hairline; he'd grinned through much of the exchange between Vito and the boy. "Looks like we've got an in," he remarked with a vaguely-perplexed smile. "What say we take it before our window of opportunity gets shut in our faces, eh?"
"A most apt suggestion, Mattone." Vito pushed himself back into a stand with his hands on his knees, then dusted himself off a bit by reflex. As promised, the day was apparently going to include an expedition into the sewers. How lovely.
Finding the 'cathouse' in a neighborhood of this size was at least partially a matter of asking around, and he was sure they made an unfortunately-memorable group of inquirers, at that. It was difficult to imagine that none of the Switchback's more criminally-inclined had not observed at least part of their progress; he honestly wouldn't be surprised if the boy they'd spoken to had immediately told just such a person about the conversation. It was just good business sense, after all—he might find himself with another few coppers for the trouble.
Having once been such a child, Vito knew the stupid ones rarely survived all that long.
Still, even in a neighborhood like this, there were plenty of people apathetic enough to point them in the right general direction without batting an eyelash at the picture they made, and the four of them had just entered what he suspected was the right block when a pair of shadows detached themselves from the close alley walls and blocked their way forward.
Ah. This would be the other shoe falling, then. Kotter ran an efficient operation, it seemed.
The first was a dwarf, young, female, with more than enough brawn to make up for her lack of height, while the other was an older human man, at least fifty, with greasy long hair and a full beard, the type that looked like he'd been in this sort of life forever. It came as no surprise that Kotter's outfit attracted more of his own kind, as they were very likely to share some of his experiences and relate to him in a way they never could with a Val Royeaux local.
But neither of them spoke at first, perhaps hoping their message would come across nonverbally, and while it did, the effect was negligible. Lia crossed her arms. "We're going this way. Move."
"I'd advise you go the other way," the dwarf responded, "straight back home. The Untouchables know why you're here. Kotter only wants to gut one person today, but if you force the issue he has no problem making it five."
"Gruesome," Corvin observed, though he didn't sound particularly threatened. "Thanks for the advice; I do like my guts best inside my body." He shrugged a little. "But... we're still going this way, if you'll excuse us." He took a step forward as if to emphasize the point, looking for all the world as though he fully intended to keep walking right into the pair of them.
Whether it was merely the utter boldness of this move, the strangeness, the elf's considerable build, or something else, they both shifted out of his way. "Fuckin' knife-ear," the man muttered, but it sounded more like confusion than vitriol.
For his part, Corvin gave a careless little salute in response, a clear indication he'd heard the words and was ignoring them as surely as the warning.
Vito just barely resisted the urge to laugh at the looks on their faces, managing only to constrain his mirth into a light chuckle. There was something to be said for a sense of self-possession so robust as that. He and the others followed the path their warrior friend blazed for them, and they were harassed no further on their way to the brothel.
As their erstwhile informant had promised, there was a grate set into the alley behind the building. It smelled exactly as he expected it to, considering that a large residential building disposed of waste here. Rank.
"I suppose I should be grateful a city of this size has a consistently-functional sewer system at all." The observation did not stop him from wrinkling his nose. Thank the Maker he'd worn boots and trousers today. The idea of anything down there soaking into the hem of a robe was nauseating.
Glancing around briefly, Vito observed no watchers. So he reached for a gentle application of a telekinetic spell and used it to shift the grate aside, so as to not need to touch it. It scraped with a dull rumble over the broken cobblestones next to it, before coming to a stop a few feet back. "All right then. Who would like the honors?"
"Can't be any worse than Darktown," Corvin observed, moving up to the exposed gap in the street and peering down to confirm the distance. "Bit of a jump, but the end looks pretty clear, actually." It certainly stank regardless, but it was a degree better than the alternative.
Lowering himself down, Corvin disappeared a moment later. It took a couple seconds, but he called back up. "Bit slick on the landing; rain I guess. I'll stand close so no one falls."
"Rain... right." Lia finished tugging on a pair of leather gloves, full-fingered rather than the open style she seemed to prefer. She was also prepared enough to have a cloth mask she could pull up and fasten over her mouth and nostrils. She lowered herself through the opening after Corvin.
"That's what I'm telling myself, anyway," Evie replied, as if saying it would make it true. She too had already pulled up her scarf around her nose and mouth, and had ever since Vito began to move the grate. She stared at the gap for a moment, internally struggling and before sighing and resigning herself to her fate. "Never saw myself in this position a year ago," she muttered before following behind Lia.
"Well I certainly hope not." Vito, without a scarf or any other such protection against the stench, was simply going to have to make do.
He lowered himself as far as he could before dropping the rest of the way, landing and immediately steadying himself as his left foot threatened to slip out from beneath the rest of him. Fortunately, Corvin was present as promised, and a hand on the sturdy elf's shoulder was more than enough to keep him upright.
The sewer was as ripe and dank as expected; it took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the gloom, punctuated only occasionally by shafts of weak light from grates in the street. And better to keep away from those, lest something be deposited through the slats at an inopportune time.
"Best be on the lookout for these traps, then." Soft purple light bloomed over his hand, and he sent it to move ahead of the group, hopefully a little bit of warning before they stumbled across something deadly.