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?"

Morthil serves the soup, eyeing you warily. You can tell that despite returning to the bar, he's left one ear behind at your table. He turns to two of his staff behind the bar and nods. They immediately head out of the door into the gloom without a backwards glance. Morthil's eyes return to your table, but now he has a smirk on his lips.

The two staff members advance into the street, nodding to a third man, who gravitates towards them. The slip quietly into a side street a block up from the Inn. You lose sight of them as they round the corner into the alley.

As you stand deciding what to do, you hear a man cry for help from the alleyway.

Inish+

As you step into the alleyway, you realis that the ambush is better prepared than you think and all three thugs can strike out before any of you can respond. Auskan, Xanxus and Haguk are all targeted as they are first into the alleyway. Both Xanxus and Haguk dodge the spear thrusts aimed at them, however Auskan takes the full force.

Botchit the Thug bends in three as Haguk strikes him. He falls to the ground as dead as dead can be. A small spattering of blood coats Haguk's face.

Xanxus smites the thug nearest him with consumate ease, causing a huge gash to open up in his side. He throws his head back to roar his approval then turns to see Blackstar's new magic armor, nodding his approval.

Auskan strikes out with his spear but misses. It would appear these thugs have armour on under their clothes and the spear bounces off.

Domitius and his minion overwhelm a the strongest looking thug, leaving him a bloodied pulp on the ground.

The thug looks nervously around him, weighing up his options for escape. Seeing that there are none, his shoulders visibly slump forwards. "I don't know about no box. Nothing specific anyway. But if there be an item that someone is seeking then there be a chance that it's magical. And if it's magical then it might just get us out of here. Morthil didn't want you finding it before he did."

The Thug looks smug now. I'd say Morthil gone to speak to Tord. Up at his tower. Telling him about the magic item you seek. Good luck taking him on. The tower is frightening enough never mind the man.

He spits on the ground at your feet.

You drag the thug inside the Inn to confront Morthil Harker. Harker's usual space behind the bar is empty. The door to the rear cellar swings gently as if he's only just made his exit. The thug yells out "Flee Morthil, they know...." and struggles to break free. You can hear the slapping of footsteps on flagstoned steps behind the door. Harker doesn't sound like an athlete, that's for sure, big man though he may be.

You become aware of an immediate silence in the bar as the inn's patrons loom menacingly behind you, blocking your exit.

Domitius shouts down the stairs to the cellar but receives no reply. Instead he hears the solid, definite sound of stone sliding across stone.

The crowd mutter amongst themselves. Nobody seems willing to step forward immediately and press the issue but it's clear that the slightest wrong move on your part will result in the throng regaining their collective spirit.

The kitchen is full of all of the kind of things you'd expect from a quality inn but there are a significant volume of mushrooms. More mushrooms than you've seen in storage before anywhere in your life.

As you head out of the back of the bar area, the path to the back cellar is clear. A hatch sits at an angle in the wall and it has been flung open with some force. Beyond it is a flight of stone slabbed stairs down into the cellar. You can see down into the cellar and it is filled with the kind of things you'd expect an Inn cellar to be filled with. Wine bottles, ale barrels and a number of empty crates. Intriguingly though, there is a paving slab in the cellar floor which has been lifter out of position and placed on it's nearest neighbour, leaving a small 5ft square black opening, from which a rope ladder appears to descend.

Auskan can hear little in the immediate vicinity of the entrance, however he can just about hear the panting exertions of a fast running, slightly overweight man fading into the distance with every second.

The passageway ahead quickly opens out into a hollowed out cavern before narrowing to another passageway. The cavern floor is soft mud and the trail of footprints from the cavern edge where you stand leads to a prone and cowering Morthil Harker who is pleading for mercy. However, you seem to be the least of his concerns as he is lying at the feet of four fairly bulky Drow, who appear to have emerged from the opposite passageway and immediately encountered Harker. He turns to you with begging eyes. "Help me for goodness sake. Don't leave me to these spawn of the earth!".

The frontmost Drow looks at Harker then at you. "It appears we have a common prey. We can either fight over him or we can cut him in half and each take our share. We'd prefer the top half if that's ok with you."

The lead drow looks at Domitius, surprised to find one of his own people chasing a barman down a tunnel.

"I don't think you really seek the barman, and we definitely do not seek you. I think I know what you seek. This tunnel extends for about 1 mile north of here where it exits into a tower. I suspect that the item you seek is at the top of that tower, as all things valuable seem to be. Now if you will excuse us we have business with this errm 'Gentleman'."

The drow grab Harker by the collar and start dragging him in the direction from whence you came. "I think we need some soup and a long chat. Or a short bloody chat. Either suits us."

As they recede from sight, you set off up the tunnel. The tunnel continues for about a mile before ending at a set of vertical iron ladders, leading straight up to a metal trapdoor. From beyond the trapdoor you can hear the sound of multiple things moving slowly across the floor. Whatever it is has either very hard boots on or very bony feet.

As the trap door opens, not without a considerable squeal, the footsteps above stop. You find yourself looking into a 5 foot square black hole as the room above seems to be in total darkness and now curiously still. Nothing approaches the opening. You'd almost swear that the tunnel your standing in got dimmer. Like the room above swallowed some of the light.

There is an almost pregnant pause after Xanxus speaks. Nothing moves, not even a sound beyond the dark opening. And then a spinning silver coin flies trough the hatch and ends spinning on the floor. As it settles you can see that one side has a wolf motif while the flip side has a single letter in relief. The letter F.

A voice hisses from above. "Xanxussss? Isssss thaaaaat youssssss?"

As you stand there, a black amorphous shape falls through the hatch above and sprawls, almost flat like some kind of thick, black silk cape on the floor. The it rises up, filling out to be the shape of a large caped man, 6'5" if he's an inch. His face is hooded and can't be discerned but simply looking into the gaping maw where a face should be is enough to leave you feeling like your soul is being tugged out through your eyes.

"No Mage keeps me in his basement. I seek not obey."

He turns to Xanxus. "You still disemboweling them the old way I hope?"

Auskan hears nothing that would alert him to the presence of others. The Drow seem to have headed on their way and the denizens of the bar seem to be little keen on following the innkeep into the dark unknown.

Fearghal tilts his black maw of a face towards you. "I came to kill him, no mistake. The Dungeon wants the wizard dead. But I've been stalking him for days. Not many mortal men impress me, but he's got an entire library full of skeleton librarians. You've got to respect that."

"So why do you seek him. I'm not sure I want him dying now I sort of know him. I hope we ain't gonna disagree on this one?"