Through a breach in a stone wall, the two entered the underground city's sewers.
The sewer walls were broken and jagged, the exposed masonry covered in web-like cracks.
The earthquake several months earlier had sunk this district dozens of meters, separating it from the main city.
The sewers had consequently been abandoned, with neither sewage flowing through them nor filth piling up. A stale smell hung in the air, but it was not pungent.
The passage was wide enough for them to walk side by side. Stone arches lined both sides, and cast-iron maintenance ladders led up to the surface at intervals along the ceiling.
The sludge on the ground had hardened, and there were no footprints on it.
Balin packed his climbing equipment into his backpack, while Renato put the Crown of Intellect back on and unfastened his safety harness.
The circlet felt cool against his forehead, and the sluggishness in his thoughts dissipated.
"We need to go up." Balin walked a few steps down the passage and found a sewer cover. "Otherwise, we won't know exactly where we are."
The markings on the map were inaccurate, and their planned route had turned out to be a dead end.
The Dwarf muttered about the Duergar's unreliability, but Renato disagreed. Setting prejudice aside, these Duergar were just as shrewd as surface Dwarves and were unlikely to do something as pointless as deliberately marking a map incorrectly.
More likely, the tunnel they had been following the map to find had already collapsed. The geological structure remained unstable after the earthquake, and along the way, they had heard several small cave-ins.
In the end, they had been forced to try another direction, exploring and digging as they went before finally entering this district.
The ruins Renato now stood in were what the