Michael was lucky, the man that was running for the stairs tripped on an uneven bit of stone and by the time the Penitent had reached him he decided to fight rather than be stabbed in the back. He drew a shortsword and leapt toward Michael who didn’t slow, but instead twisted his body so that the shield on his back would absorb the blow as he slammed his shoulder into the man, knocking him back onto the ground. He drew the elven dagger from his waist and drove it quickly into the man’s chest. He stood, panting for a few seconds and looked around seeing Bayle holding up a hand toward him and a finger to his mouth. They stayed quiet for a few moments, but there was no sound of footsteps approaching, or any indication that they’d been heard.Bayle nodded, and gestured for Michael to come closer.Aside from them everyone else was on the ground coughing and recovering from the methane poisoning they’d experienced in the sewer tunnel. Michael held up a hand and started to heal them. He couldn’t remove the poison itself from them, but he could recover the tearing in their lungs and rupturing of the capillaries in their noses. He kept it up for several straight minutes until the toxin had worked its way through their systems.As he did that, Bayle dragged the corpses of the guards they’d killed to the sewer entrance and tossed them inside. He then lifted the sewer door itself and closed it. It wouldn’t stand up to close inspection, but at a glance it would suffice. After that he muttered something under his breath and the bloodstains left by their struggle were cleared from the ground and his clothes. He then moved over to Michael and cleared the blood off of him as well. Bayle wasn’t a mage, but he seemed to have picked up a number of very useful little spells.He looked at the rest of them as they recovered.“Easy parts done. Now we need to get to the side gate before anyone raises the alarm. We need to move fast, I wasn’t expecting (...)