"So you don't know who old Faceless is. Too bad," Olive sighed.

"She didn't say that, Olive," Alias replied. "She said the Faceless concealed his features from her. But an old wyrm like you can see with more than her eyes, can't you, Mistinarperadnacles?"

"So true," the dragon said. "Is that the second secret you wish me to reveal?"

Alias hesitated, sensing a trick on the dragon's part. Mist had no love for her. Vengeance might still override her desire for a peaceful death.

"We don't need her to answer that," Victor declared. "All we need to do is destroy these masks-" The young lord yanked a mask from the tree rack. "Victor, no!" Alias shouted. "It could be a trap!"

"Oh, yes," Mist said. "Did I fail to mention the masks must be removed from the rack in a particular order?"

With a shocked look, Victor set the mask back on the tree rack, but it was too late. The floor began to shake as all around the cavern hidden gears and levers of massive proportions began to turn and move. A panel in the workbench slid open and the tree rack containing the masks dropped down into it. An iron gate dropped down over the alcove where the gem-laden amphoras were kept. Larger grates dropped over the walls with the sea chests and weaponry.

Mist laughed. "Oh, dear. It does not look like we shall be able to complete our little transaction after all. Ah, well. I have no regrets, knowing this will be your end. Die well, Alias of the Inner Sea. And fond good-byes to you, Mistress Ruskettle, Champion. Lord Victor, it was a pleasure dealing with you." The dragon skull sank back into the pool.

The level of water in the pool began to rise until it poured over the edge, splashing to the floor. "This doesn't sound good," Olive whispered.

The sound of the gears grinding stopped and there was a moment of relative silence. Then they all heard it: the sound of rushing water, as loud as the ocean itself.

Vast amounts of water began pouring down on the adventurers from the ceiling, extinguishing Olive's lantern. The force of the flow was enough to knock Olive off her feet. Dragonbait grabbed the halfling by her cloak and helped her stand upright.

"We've got to get across the bridge!" Alias shouted. She sheathed her sword and snagged Victor's arm, pulling him toward the stairs to the bridge. Dragonbait splashed behind her with the halfling in tow.

The stairs had become a rushing cascade of water, and Dragonbait's flaming sword was their only light now. The swordswoman was forced to press her hands against both sides of the narrow corridor in order to keep herself upright. She could feel Victor, Dragonbait, and Olive bumping into her from behind. As Alias touched down on the last step, she felt it shift beneath her feet. With a sickening dread, the swordswoman tried planting her feet more firmly on the slick stone, but to no avail.

A wave of water crashed down from the ceiling above the stair, knocking all the adventures off their feet and carrying them at a breakneck speed down the corridor toward the bridge and the sewer.

First Alias could hear the water plunging down into the sewer. Then there was a sense of weightlessness as the current shot her out across the chasm of the sewer. Just as she took a great gulp of air, she had a glimpse of light-Dragonbait's flaming sword. Finally, there came the flesh-bruising impact of her body against the fetid sewer water below.

Alias's lungs were screaming for air before she managed to break the surface and take a gulp of the foul air. The water was flowing faster, fed by the stream from the Faceless's water trap, carrying her with it.

"Dragonbait!" Alias screamed. "Victor! Olive!"

She spotted the paladin first, still clutching his flaming sword. Olive bobbed alongside him. "Where's Victor?" she shouted. "Here," the nobleman called from just behind her.

Alias strained to face the young lord's direction, relieved to see that he seemed to know how to stay afloat. Her chain mail shirt made treading water tiring enough. She didn't think she could manage helping a fully grown man as well.

"Try to stay close to the near wall," the swordswoman shouted to the others. "There have to be some side passages we can-"

Alias gasped. Something large had pushed against her, and she knew what it had to be.

The quelzarn's head broke the water just beside Drag-' onbait, attracted perhaps by the light from the paladin's sword. The sea serpent's teeth gleamed in the flaming light.

Alias screamed the paladin's name in his own tongue. The quelzarn dived down, taking the saurial with it. The sewer darkened, but a dim light shone beneath the water's surface.

The female warrior took a deep breath and plunged beneath the surface, heading for the light. As long as it shone she knew Dragonbait had not yet been swallowed.

The foul water stung her eyes, and visibility below the surface wasn't more than a few feet, but that was enough to detect a great shadow looming before her. Alias grabbed the monster's fin and hung on with all her might as it wriggled and writhed beneath her. With her arms aching from the strain, the swordswoman pulled herself along the length of the fin, making for the quelzarn's head. Just when the fire in her lungs grew too intense to bear, the creature broke the surface of the water again, and Alias was able to gasp for air. A dark stain seemed to be flowing from the light beneath the surface. Alias was sure it was blood, but whether the saurial's or the sea serpent's she could not tell. The creature looped backward on itself, and Alias had a clear glimpse of Dragonbait. The saurial had one clawed foot jammed against the beast's lower gum and one hand tbrust between two needlelike teeth of the upper jaw so that the monster could not snap its jaw shut and swallow its prey. Blood poured from the paladin's foot and hand as well as from a gash in his thigh. With his flaming sword the paladin was lacerating the monster's upper palate.

Alias pulled her dagger from her boot and launched herself at the quelzarn's head. She managed to catch the fin beside its gill. She could still not reach the beast's eyes, so she tore a V-shaped gash into the flesh behind the gill. Then she began pulling back on the flesh, stripping it away like whale blubber.

The beast breached from the water with a shriek and slammed itself and the swordswoman against the sewer wall, dislodging the saurial in its mouth and the human woman at its gill.?.

Alias wasn't sure what happened in the moments she was stunned, but when she next opened her eyes, Dragonbait, his hands clenched in her hair, was holding her head out of the water. The saurial was a powerful swimmer, and he was towing the swordswoman toward a side sewer where Olive and Victor stood shouting.

The side sewer was eight feet in diameter; the water level in it was only two feet high, so the adventurers' could work their way against the current. The halfling and the nobleman helped pull the warriors inside. They moved down the tunnel about ten feet, but had to stop to catch their breath and tend to their wounds.

Dragonbait, after first assuring himself that Alias had suffered no life-threatening injury, handed his weapon to the swordswoman and turned his attention to the wounds the quelzarn had given him.

As the scent of the paladin's prayer filled the air, a great roar blasted down the tunnel. The quelzarn thrust its head a few feet into the side passage. Victor, who stood directly in its path, fumbled in the tangles of his cloak, trying, Olive thought, to reach his sword in its scabbard.

The halfling was sure the young lord was about to become the last of the Dhostar line when the quelzarn slid back out of the tunnel and disappeared.

Victor gulped and backed farther from the tunnel exit. "That was too close for comfort," the nobleman said. "If the tide were in and the water higher, it would have come in after us for sure," he said.