A Dirty Business [Adventure] [Closed]

There are a thousand reasons not to venture into the sewers beneath Waterdeep. The foul-smelling guts of the City of Splendours are perpetually clogged with the nightmarish runoff from its many residents and their bizarre predilections. The semi-animate sludge from a thousand wizards’ labs, the few residents so monstrous and hateful that they could not find acceptance on the City’s open streets, and the natural ecology that has sprung up around such horrors all combine to make the sewers the kind of space that any right-thinking individual would go through extreme lengths to try and avoid.

But, then, adventurers have never been known as right-thinking types, have they?

And there are a few reasons why one might have to venture into such a space.

For instance, in the pursuit of justice!

Or coin. Justice pays well.



It is a hot, humid night when the City Watch gather Stephen, Hylid and Artemis together. The Watchman – a lanky soul by the name of Sandy – has used a crowbar to lever up the cover and open a space down into the darkness of the City’s fetid innards. Steam rises in discomforting plumes from the gaping wound in the street, and he leans against a nearby wall, crowbar slung over his shoulder as the City does its best to carry on around them, ignoring the work that its protectors do to set things right.

The Watchman’s pale blue eyes take in the assembled trio, and he lights up a hand-rolled cigarette to add his own noxious fumes to those he has unleashed from the winding layers of sludge beneath their feet.

“Watedeep’d like to thank ye for ye service.” He drawls, jerking his thumb to the fine manor house behind them – or, more accurately, the wall surrounding it upon which he rests.

“Her Ladyship’s place was robbed last night, and this grating was open when we got around to investigating. Sloppy, but thieves usually are. I’d bet your right legs that they headed that way.” He nods down the street, “Because the other way takes ‘em into finer places. But I ain’t bettin’ my right leg and having a poke down there meself. Neither are any of the other lads, so that’s where you lot come in. See if you can’t figure out what these idjits are up to. If they ain’t got themselves et by whatever else is down there already, aight?”

It isn’t really a question. Sandy doesn’t seem like the sort who does well with asking too many questions. But there’s quite the motley crew assembled here; a private investigator, a foreigner from distant lands (which is arguably the natural state in Waterdeep), and a warforged of prodigious height.

Between the three of them, they might just have a chance of surviving the rats – though from the way that Sandy looks at them, it doesn’t look like the watchman is willing to put a great deal of money on that supposition.

(Word Count: 490 - please don't forget to note your prepared spells if applicable in your first post taskytony Aafuuu  3personal5me )