1.3 Sanctuary - the Dungeon Town

Following the road down past the black lake, you encounter little in the way of traffic other than the occasional fisherman sat on the banks of the the lake in the gloom trying their hand at finding some food. You do see one or two who have caught fish and their catch looks less than appetising. Slimy black fish with bulbous heads and a single eye on a stalk. You reckon you'd rather fight it than fry it up and eat it.

You start to approach the outskirts of the small gloomy town in the Devouring Dark's belly. The first shacks are hastily thrown together out of what looks like driftwood but you soon come to realise that this is just the flotsam remaining from what the dungeon digested and spat back out. Various 'citizens' mill around and you can see that this is a cut-throats paradise. Lawless and ungoverned with an uneasy peace barely holding between the residents, most of whom seem to be a collection of either jaded adventurers or monsters of the more acceptable variety - Kobolds, a spattering of Orcs and some Goblins - all thrown together by the circumstances of having been devoured by a more malevolent enemy.

Buildings become much more solidly constructed the further you venture into the town. The tower you saw from a distance looms over everything, positioned at the far end of the town. More immediately though, two things grab your attention. The first is a wooden sign with the words "Welcome to Sanctuary. Crossbow free town." scratched into it. The second is more dramatic. A resounding crash sees a halfling come flying head first through a window to your right and sprawl bleeding at your feet. Looking to see from whence he came you see a tavern, complete with garish brightly lit signage reading "The No Escape Inn".

The Halfling stirs, shakes his head and dusts himself down. Looking back up at the window which he just flew through he smiles, stands up, produces a stick from his pocket and draws a line in the dust of the street where he landed.

He shouts back in through the jagged window "Ten and a half yards if I'm not mistaken". A huge cheer erupts from inside the tavern.

"Somewhere safe to stay? You're not serious are ye. You're in the bowels of a bloody great dungeon. If there's anywhere safe here I'd be surprised, although Sanctuary is as safe as it gets I suppose. Seems the bastard can't get us here. We're like a cancer in it's gut. The No Escape would do you fine, and they'll take your money soon as anyone elses."

As you enter the Inn, you are surprised to note that even as you cross the threshold there is already a glazier repairing the broken window. Your new found Halfling friend seems to pay close attention to exactly how much putty is being applied to the panes and briefly. Once inside the Inn, your attention is drawn to the somewhat shaky clientele, many of which are standing round a board with names and distances marked on it.

Your new friend turns to you. "Nice to meet you chaps. I'm Rolf the Helmet. So called because I prefer to take the blow square on the bare cranium and sarcasm is a popular trait in Sanctuary. Anyway, fella that runs this gaff is called Morthil Harker. He'll see you right."

He points to a large burly man ladeling soup into a wooden bowl. The man looks up and grunts at you.

"Which soup you after? Mushroom Soup or Mushroom Surprise Soup?"

Morthil eyes you all warily while absent-mindedly stirring the ladel. "What's this about a box? Lot's of boxes pass through these parts. Some valuable, some not so. What's so special about this box?"

He returns to stirring the soup then looks up again. "You could try Tord. Anything vaguely of interest usually comes to his attention, whether it wants to or not. You'll have seen his tower at the end of town."

"Certainly, I always like a customer who asks about our food which is all sourced locally. That's both an ethical decision on our part and a practical one, seeing as we're in the bowels of a huge living dungeon which kind of makes external trade problematic. Oh, but I nearly forgot, you want to know about the Mushroom Surprise soup? Well it's the same as the Mushroom soup except the surprise is that there isn't any mushroom in it. Bread with that?"