To think, all around the city were houses with passages underground. An entire labyrinth of criminals beneath the city. I frowned and hoped that the thief I had questioned had given me accurate information about where to find the leader; the man called Rypan.

I crept down into the tunnel. Finding the villain should be a simple task. Simple, if not for the goons that I was sure to meet along the way. The tricky part would be keeping the noise at a minimum, for the tunnels were sure to echo. However, I soon discovered that it may not be as difficult as I first thought.



Shouts and clanging soon surrounded me. And why not? There was no reason for them to be on alert. However, I could not rely on them mistaking any noise I made for the general commotion of the tunnels.

Peeking into the first room that branched from the hallway, I saw several rogues sitting around in a crude stone tavern. As they sang (if you’d call it that) they waved their mugs of ale in the air, slopping the liquid onto the floor. After a while, one of them waved a hand in the air quickly.

“Quiet down, quiet down!” he shouted. He raised his ale to the air and proclaimed. “A toast! To the defeat of the king, and the death of the Knights of Tarlea!”

“To the death of Tarlea!” many of the man and women drunkenly echoed.

With that, they all drained their ales. I felt like striking at them, seeing how many I could defeat. Chances were that if they were not part of the raid on my home, they had been involved in an attack on someone else’s home. However, fighting them would not solve any problems for me. I had defeated several of Rypan’s goons before, and nothing changed. Rypan himself; it was his defeat that would bring an end to the underworld.