The padlocks on the houses did not pose any sort of obstacle to Nannade’s deft hands, and so, she was able to rummage through the houses unhindered. As she had suspected, they were indeed storage, at least most of them – Nannade came across one or two alchemical laboratories, most likely for producing drugs or phony potions. The stored wares varied, some were illegal or stolen goods like pelts, books on magic, weapons and other stuff, other were simply things of necessity like food or wine. Nannade thought about helping herself, but everything that wasn’t coin or food would weigh her down more than it was worth anyway. However, she did not find ominous substances and ingredients for rituals, not even infused chalk and crayons. She did find rock salt, which was often used in spells and rituals, but just as often as it was used in any ordinary kitchen. She came to the conclusion that the cult had to have a second storage down in the sewers where only they had access, not even using the ruins as an intermediate storage.

She decided to get herself a small crate of potatoes, a bag of dried fish, some rock salt and a cask of water. She could purify the ingredients with magic if need be, lighting a fire in a cave seemed like a bad idea. The other houses seemed to have access to some kind of ventilation system, but she wasn’t going to take any chances in the confined bath house. She would have to make two tours to get it all to her hideout, so she was at twice the danger to be detected.

She had gotten the food back to the bath house and was returning for the cask when she noticed that the padlock on the door was missing and the door leaned open.

She pushed the door open ever so slightly to peek inside. On the wall the shadow of a single person, was walking from crate to crate and barrel to barrel, checking and inspecting. It was not the man she was tailing earlier, but a woman, more Nannade could not tell. She might have noticed that someone opened them. Just to be sure, Nannade closed the door and jammed her dagger through the latch to block it. Shortly after, she heard rattling and banging at the door and horrible curses screamed from the inside. People would soon find her here, then the cult would know someone was onto them, if Telliduso or his thugs had not already reported it to them. She had only one choice: to take the woman inside as a captive. She could be of use as an informant, if she cooperated. But first Nannade needed to prepare some things.

Rope and some hastily written down spells were quickly found and with them, Nannade ran back to the house, hoping no one had beaten her to it.

The door was no longer rattling, but the dagger was still there. She pulled the dagger out, slipped inside and with a few quick movements, put the woman’s face to the floorboards. Nannade tied the woman’s hands behind her back, a gag in her mouth and a cloth over her eyes. With the rope held tightly and the dagger pressed against the woman’s back, they made their way to the bath house. Nannade’s prisoner was quiet and compliant so far.

The furnace room was repurposed to a prison cell, the stone of the door frame transmuted into a grate to keep the woman inside. Finally, Nannade allowed herself to actually inspect her new prisoner. She was on the older side, but not elderly or frail. She also wore fine clothing, almost as if she was going out for a festive occasion. The woman understood scholarian and cintezzian, but mostly she spoke in verbose old imperial. She made many threats and threw many curses at Nannade, most of them revolving around “the worms in the fake city” and “the glorious eternal will rise again”, she barely spoke of the Lord of the Tunnels and after Nannade had asked her about him several times, she refused to speak at all. She was obviously a member of the cult. Nannade wondered, how soon the others would notice her absence. She decided to return to the storage, to get her cask of water and a bit more supplies. She now had the woman to feed as well. Then, finally, she would be able to begin her investigation.