[coronatiger]

Ilzo lifted up his sack, and I reminded Va’lyndra to repair the door. Once that was done, I started moving towards the stairs, but Leopold heard footsteps and hushed us. “We must hide in the office!” Leopold whispered. We entered the room I had opened for Va’lyndra and closed the door. Va’lyndra put her ear to the door, and Leopold put his to the floor. Va’lyndra whispered that a guard was checking the rooms. She wanted us to leave through the window. I countered that we could leave through the floor, so we’d get out through the storage room and close everything behind us. Leopold told us to keep our cool.

We waited for ten minutes, and then Va’lyndra asked if we should go. Leopold replied that we should go out the way we came in, so I led the way to the stairs. I suddenly remembered that the office had been locked when we entered, so I returned to lock it up again. It only took me a few seconds, and then we descended the stairs.

Leopold checked the door and opened it cautiously. There was nobody in the downstairs corridor, so we skulked to the furniture storage. The floor creaked behind me, under the weight of Ilzo and Neriel. Ilzo was the last to enter the storage room, and bumped the sack into the door, making it slam against the wall. “Quickly!” I hissed at him, and closed the door as soon as he entered. I locked the door while Ilzo practically jumped down the hole in the floor; he put down his load carefully first, though.

Va’lyndra and I lowered Neriel into the tunnel, where Ilzo waited. We heard footsteps in the corridor, and Ilzo whispered, “Drop him! I’ll catch!” Not quite as flustered, Va’lyndra and I took our time, making sure we were quiet. I followed into the tunnel, and Va’lyndra closed the floor above us. Leopold told us to change into sewer clothes.

To get Neriel down the sewer shoot, I climbed first, and had the sack behind, resting against me so it would slide down slowly and controlled. The others came after. Leopold closed up the tunnel so potential investigators wouldn’t find it.

Va’lyndra was reeling from the effort of shaping so much wood. These last few weeks, since I began sleeping with Laurus, really, I’ve had serious doubts about the wisdom of visiting him, but now I saw that it had paid off. If Va’lyndra was this tired, now, I couldn’t imagine how exhausted she would be if she had had to open all those locks I picked herself. I offered to carry her, but she refused. I think she thought I was coming on to her, but that was not the case. She’s as straight as a nail, so if I wanted to have a chance with her, I would need to change into Fabian first. Not that I’d ever do that. I was going to remain celibate until I saw Olivia again. Va’lyndra did allow me to carry her backpack, though.

When we passed the metal bars under the border of the cathedral district, Leopold shaped the stone around the bars to remove the signs that we had tampered with it. We moved through the sewers and found the shoot leading to the tunnel we had spent much time preparing last month. I began to climb with Neriel balanced on my back. I had almost reached Leopold and Va’lyndra, who had climbed before me, when Neriel began to stir. Neither elbow prods nor threats of another punch to the skull worked, but I didn’t dare follow through with the threats in case I killed our prisoner. Balancing a struggling prisoner on my back while climbing up a slippery slope of sewage wasn’t easy, but I managed.

Leopold hushed us when Ilzo and I got up, for someone had opened their hatch on the other side of the tunnel, and was emptying their night pots. We waited in silence for a few minutes, and then we exited our tunnel on the other side. Leopold closed it up after us. While climbing down the shoot from our tunnel, my dexterity boost wore off, but fortunately, Neriel’s struggling wasn’t that much of a problem, going down, when I just had to prevent him from sliding past me.

We wrapped Surkalpi in Neriel’s extra clothes that Va’lyndra had brought, for it would shine as bright as the sun otherwise. Olivia’s lantern was another of those things I had sent with her. The main sewer channel was so straight, those with night vision could see the entrance halfway across town. Neriel complained louder and louder through the gag, and we opened the sack to show him Leopold’s knife. That didn’t help at all. He just became even more frantic. Va’lyndra proposed that Ilzo choked him until he passed out, so Ilzo sat down on him and told him to stop making a ruckus, or he’d make him stop. That made Neriel shut up, but Ilzo choked him anyway. At the entrance, we stripped off our sewer clothes for the last time, and Va’lyndra hosed us off as best she could. She suggested taking a breather before venturing out through the slums. Neriel woke again before the half-hour she wanted was up. Ilzo choked him again. It seemed he had found a good technique for making a defenseless person pass out. Ilzo hefted out prisoner over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, but I didn’t think they looked like anything but what they were: Someone carrying a prisoner in a large sack.

Va’lyndra scouted ahead, and was the only one not to be spotted when Ilzo kicked over a stack of barrels that began rumbling down the street, waking everyone. Ilzo just kept walking as if nothing was wrong. I was beginning to panic, but Leopold’s calm demeanor relaxed me. I had my balaclava on, anyway, so I wouldn’t be recognized. I forced myself to walk normally, instead of my signature sashaying. One person opened a hatch and yelled at Ilzo for disturbing their sleep, but most people just took a glance at the huge orc who was clearly up to no good, and decided they didn’t want anything to do with him. Least of all provoke him.

Leopold noticed a light approaching from the side, and led us down an alley in the other direction. Losing the guards made us also lose track of Va’lyndra, but we decided to head for the farm where our horses were stabled. We hoped Va’lyndra would find her own way there, but then Ilzo spotted her, waving at us, so we regrouped and Leopold explained about the guards. Va’lyndra went ahead again, but didn’t range as far away as before.

We reached the farm without further incidents. I picked the lock of a side door on the barn, and we opened the barred main door from the inside so we could take our horses out. We loaded up and tried to tie Neriel to Lightfoot, but we just couldn’t get him balanced, so I moved my luggage to Lightfoot, and took the sack with Neriel in front of Marvin’s saddle where I could make sure he didn’t fall off.

We rode into the night rather slowly. We didn’t want to risk injury to the horses in the dark. At the crack of dawn, we noticed a farmer going out to his fields. Not long after, we found a small cluster of trees where we considered camping. Leopold thought we should continue until we were a little more tired; we had had a restful day before the break-in, so we could keep going a little longer.

We made another attempt at balancing Neriel on Marvin. It worked better this time, and we put luggage over him, to hide the human-shape-in-a-sack. The camouflage wasn’t great, so Va’lyndra put some branches on top. That made it better, but we still shouldn’t let anyone get a close look, so we agreed that Leopold and Ilzo should ride between Marvin and the people we would meet on the roads.

It had been a while since I rode Lightfoot except during practice and performance, and it felt kind of odd to use him for transportation. Marvin was my adventuring horse, the one I rode on our travels, while Lightfoot was my show horse who just tagged along on adventures with my acrobatics equipment, just in case.

Va’lyndra rode in front as usual. When we met people coming in the other direction, I immediately realized that Leopold had forgotten his task. Ilzo did a good enough job getting in the way so those folks shouldn’t see Neriel, but once we’d put the travelers behind us, we stopped and I tied Marvin’s lead rope to Leopold’s saddle. I could ride interference much better than the gnome anyway, I had just assumed that since Marvin was my horse, I should lead him. We usually take care of our own animals when we travel, except when Olivia helps out. I miss her so much!

We stopped around noon to rest the horses, and ourselves. Ilzo offered to keep watch so the rest of us could get some sleep. I thanked him for the sacrifice.

After a couple of hours, we continued. Ilzo and I masterfully blocked Neriel from view from everyone we met. We kept riding until it began to get dark. Then we began to look for an isolated spot where we could camp. We were unlucky, for we had just entered a more densely populated area, and it took us two hours to find a suitable thicket. We prepared our camp as best we could and agreed that we had to keep watch during the night, because of Neriel. I was to have the last watch, after Va’lyndra, Leopold and Ilzo.