The Crocodile Behind the Wrong Door

Winning the Glow Pools entrance did not make the sewer easy to find. Blastbelle knew the old route was somewhere behind rock and rubble, but she had never entered from this side. The Glow Pools did not offer neat corners or obvious doors. It offered polluted water, broken stone, low pockets of space, and three likely places where an old entrance might be hidden. So the party guessed. Maine tested one area with Mage Hand, pushing around the stones and feeling for a gap. Something rumbled beneath the water. Dhaz saw movement near the rocks but could not tell what waited there. That was enough for the plan to become very simple: stand back and let Blastbelle blast it open. The explosion worked. It just did not open the sewer. A giant crocodile erupted from the disturbed water instead, turning the wrong guess into another fight before the party had even reached the stash path. It hit Maine first, biting and battering him down with terrifying speed. Ash rushed in, striking and retreating with monk precision, trying to keep the creature from turning the whole search into a feeding frenzy. Then the crocodile went for Jonah. It caught him hard, and the tail strike that followed nearly killed him outright. Jonah survived because Maine's earlier Aid had raised his maximum endurance just enough to keep death from closing around him completely. Without that spell, the wrong rubble pile would have become a grave. The party answered with everything they could spare. Victor marked the beast. Nick struck it with lightning. Blastbelle poured fire into it. Ash kept hitting and, when Jonah dropped, used healing to drag him back from the edge. The crocodile absorbed all of it with ugly momentum, proof that the Glow Pools were dangerous even when no faction agent was standing in the way. Dhaz ended it. He lined up his crossbow and put the shot squarely into the crocodile's eye. The creature dropped into the muck, finally still, leaving the party exhausted, injured, and staring at the wrong entrance. Blastbelle made the problem plain. That was not the one. The fight had bought them nothing except survival and information. The sewer remained hidden. The water was not safe enough for a long pause. Things still moved beneath the surface. Dhaz confirmed the vial taken from the Graven Scourge thug was Boost, useful but addictive, and the party was left deciding how much more healing they could spend before guessing again. The old stash was close. But the Glow Pools had already taken payment.