"You're kidding me, aren't you?" asked Derick, looking at the sewage tunnel with obvious disbelief. Pothax rolled up his pants and looked up at Derick. "Nope." He stepped into the knee deep foul water, and started into the tunnel. Derick gaped at him.

"Oh, come on, Derick," said Rades with a good nature slap on the back. "A little dirty water never hurt anyone," he said and with that he stepped into the water, slipped on a stone and landed on his back.

"Watch it! It's slippery!" shouted Pothax from inside the tunnel.

"Now he tells me," grumbled Rades, standing up and looking at his ruined clothes. "This is disgusting!"

"Oh, come on, Rades," mimicked Derick. "A little dirty water never hurt anyone."

The sewer had been built during the Last Vormian Dynasty and the supports had rotted until the tunnel had collapsed in areas. The stench from refuse, old and new, and worse was almost overwhelming, and many of them had to swallow back vomit. Dillard was not faring well, he was constantly staggering from nausea, and had dumped the contents of his stomach when a rotted corpse had surfaced beside him. Rats skittered between the rocks, occasionally stopping to stare at the strange parade of beleaguered warriors.

"We're here," shouted Pothax, stopping suddenly under the eerie light streaming from a heavy iron grate above him.

"Finally," groaned Dillard, leaning against the slimy wall.

"Could someone give me some help?" asked Pothax, barely budging the heavy grate. "The thing's damn heavy and I can barely reach it!"

Blackaxe and Carlo splashed through the sewage and the three slowly lifted the grate, and slid it aside.

"Dillard, you and Waytorn go up first, we'll hand up everyone else to you," ordered Wynic.

It took seven of the cutthroats to haul Blackaxe, with all his armour, up out of hole. "Well, I'm hungry. How about the rest of you?" he asked. Dillard turned and choked back more vomit. "I'll take that as a no," said Blackaxe.

"How about a Stornium shis-ka-bob?" asked a burly minotaur, coming around a corner. "Charge!" he roared fiercely.

"Guard Blackaxe's flanks," Wynic ordered. "Blackaxe take that axe and ram it down their throats," he yelled, drawing both swords.

A troop of forty minotaurs charged around the corner drawing scimitars, and longswords.

"Derick, Victoria," yelled Wynic, engaging a minotaur. "Go to the back of our ranks and shoot at their flanks!" The archeress retreated to the back to join Derick with his crossbow. The two began to thin the minotaur's ranks out.

Wynic was faced with a minotaur carrying a weapon the assassin couldn't name. It was a shortsword with a short whip attached to the tip. Wynic had learned quickly that it was better to dodge the strange weapon than parry it. When he had first parried it, the whip had snapped out and grabbed his arm. The minotaur, having caught him would then stab at the assassin. So Wynic dodged and stabbed since he couldn't get close enough to slash at the minotaur.

Dropping his shortsword, he drew a Stornium Star and finished the job with a flick of the wrist. The fallen minotaur was immediately replaced with another swinging two scimitars. Wynic picked up his shortsword and brought it and the bastardsword down on the minotaur's shoulders. The minotaur moved to block the assassin's attack with his scimitars. At the last possible moment however, Wynic curved his swing and brought it in just underneath the minotaurs arm, piercing the chain mail and killing the minotaur. Wynic's shortsword was stuck.

A minotaur with a Goban jumped forward to replace his comrade. Abandoning the shortsword, Wynic gripped the bastardsword with both hands and deflected the minotaur's swing. The minotaur made a game stab at him, but the assassin remembered Redhawk telling him that game stabs can be used to your advantage. He grabbed the Goban's harpoon tip with his gloved hand, and jerked it away from the minotaur. The beast, now defenseless, fled only to be shot with a crossbow bolt.

Waytorn charged forward flanked by two cutthroats. The minotaur's wore chain mail, which had too many small holes to be a good defense against Waytorn's rapier, so the King Culprit charge quickly began to rout the minotaurs.

The remaining six fled when they realized how few were left. Victoria shot three rapidly with her arrows and Derick got another with his crossbow. Carlo and Rades tackled another and Sardias stabbed it through the throat. Wynic got the last one with a dagger in the back.

The assassin looked around at their surroundings to get a bearings on where they were. They were in the warehouse district where most of the buildings had been boarded up. "Blackaxe, break down that door," he pointed at the door to an abandoned warehouse. "We'll hide them in there. The rest of you clean up this mess," he ordered. "Pothax, Waytorn, come with me."

The three scaled the wall of a building to look around. "Where do you think Kobalix is?" he asked, looking at Pothax.

"I only saw him at the eastern gate during my spy mission here."

"Where would you go, Waytorn?"

"To the highest tower overlooking the lake. That's the best lookout and usually the most defensible," Waytorn answered, nervously scratching his scarred face.

Wynic looked around and spotted the highest tower to the west. "We go west then."

"Is this tall enough?" asked Rades loudly.

"Shhish!" hissed Sardias. She pointed at the minotaur guards around the tower.

"Sorry."

"It's the tallest one," agreed Waytorn with a nod.

"How do we get in?" asked one of the cutthroats. "Without being seen that is," he added.

"Your cutthroats aren't exactly professionals, are they, Waytorn?" said Pothax, taking a grappling hook and rope from his pack.

"They're not assassins or burglars, Pothax," grinned Waytorn, "but they're excellent killers."

With practiced ease, Pothax threw the hook and rope up to the window above. With a quick tug, the hook opened and caught on the window sill. Pulling the rope tight, he began climbing up. He disappeared through the window and a moment later waved for Wynic and the rest to follow.

The assassin pulled himself over the window sill with Pothax's help. "Thanks," he grunted, leaning against the granite wall and looking down at Dillard, Blackaxe and the remaining cutthroats. "Dillard, Blackaxe! Take those fifteen cutthroats and go to that mine. Then steal a boat and go to the opposite side of this tower. We'll meet you there," he yelled. "Okay," he said, turning back to the rest, "Let's start climbing."

"The boat leaks a bit, but it will work. Mind you, we might have to bail water out a couple times," reported Dillard, returning with four cutthroats.

"Are there any guards?" asked Blackaxe.

"One, he's sleeping."

"Send a cutthroat in there and make sure he doesn't ever wake up," grinned Blackaxe. "The rest of us will get the boat in the water."

"How will we get by the guards at that collapsed wall there?" pointed a cutthroat. The makeshift port Kobalix's men had constructed was nothing but a collapsed wall. The cove had been dammed at the entrance so the water level had risen up so it had reached the citadel. Kobalix had placed fifty guards there since it was the only weakness in the citadel's structure, having forgotten about the sewers.

"Do you have a flint and steel?" asked Dillard.

"Yes, but this is no time for a smoke-"

"Well, then, go use it, we need a big distraction," he ordered with a smile.

The cutthroat grinned and walked away with thoughts of arson.

"Looks like Dillard needed a distraction," laughed Rades, pointing at a wall of smoke to the east. "I think he got carried away!"

Victoria looked out the window at the commotion outside. Kobalix's men were panicking. "Wynic," she said, "look at them, they look like-how much black dirt do you think there is inside this citadel?"

A huge fireball explosion went up in the sky like a second sun, followed by two smaller ones.

"Does that answer your question?" asked Wynic, increasing his pace. "Don't worry about it. Pothax said they weren't mining the black dirt, because the mine is too dangerous."

"Where is Pothax anyway?" asked Derick suddenly.

"I sent him ahead to find out what room Kobalix is in."

"This is too easy, Wynic," reported Pothax. "He's on the top floor, no guards and he's sleeping!"

"You're right, that does sound too good to be true. You suspect a trap?" said Wynic thoughtfully.

"There's more. The door is a fake, I inspected it, and there's a wall behind it."

"How do you know that Kobalix is in the room, much less asleep?" demanded Carlo.

"He was talking in his sleep. He keeps saying stuff like 'my world, my world, my crown, my crown'. He's obsessed with conquering the world," explained Pothax.

"He is," said Waytorn. "He wants it all, even the crime world."

"Well don't you want the entire crimeworld?" protested Sardias.

"I'm quite content with not being able to even count all that I have. I do have problems when someone starts poaching my territory."

"We're getting off topic here!" said Victoria. "How are we going to get in there if there's no door?"

"Give me five minutes," said Waytorn, and went back down the steps.

"There's a secret stairway inside the outer wall. It leads up to the top floor. I thought these walls were unusually thick, even for a citadel," said Waytorn when he returned. "We have to back down several floors to get to the stairway."

"General Sardias," said Rades. "I really think you should add stair climbing to our training," he said, following Waytorn back down the stairs.