Journal of Rollo Lavius 2

Entry #372 - The City of Pool

(G372 06/10/2018 via Roll20 - AP, JF(GM)) WA47

DAY 409 (17th Tarsakh)(April) cont...

And so we left the cavern and continued to follow the trail left by the troglodyte army. We arrived at a much smaller cavern that had a total of eight tunnels leading into it.

There was a door in one corner and a gravestone in the other. On the stone were strange runes, but Fenrir could translate them and told us that they said;

''

Posterity will ne'er survey

a Nobler grave than this:

Here lie the bones of Cassleray:

Stop, traveller, and piss!

''

Well, I wasn't going to, but Fenrir did. He said he felt a shiver run down his spine when he did so as some minor magical benefit was bestowed on him.

The door, meanwhile, was made from ironbound rock slabs. There was a hatch in it, but Fenrir used his ring of Knock. I listened at the door and could here something lurking within, so instead of just barging in Fenrir knocked.

The hatch opened and a crude earthen face looked at us, blinking in the light of our lanterns. 'Overworlders is it?' he said in Undercommon. 'What do you want?'

Well, it turned out this was an inn called the 'Eight Ways'. The man at the door was actually a 'slyth', a fairly gentle race native to the Underdark. He was the doorman, the place was run by an elderly dark elf couple. They didn't get much pass through trade, but today it was quite 'busy' apparently as there was another man in the common room and a group of five dwarves.

We got some drinks and sat at a table. Fenrir, smooth tongued as ever went and talked to the man and learned he was called 'Veets the Spelunker'. He looked a rugged sort and Fenrir detected a lot of magic on him. This area of the Underdark we were in at the moment was called the 'Darklands' he told us and he was exploring the area for his own reasons. I think he was mapping out the entire Underdark for his own amusement.

The dwarves were suspicious of us to begin with. They were on a mission from their town somewhere above this area called 'Boatmurdered'. They were looking for another group of dwarves that had gone missing while escorting a hunting party of men that had come down from the surface.

Fenrir talked with Veets some more, then hired him to take us to the troglodyte city. It was a few hours away, through one of the tunnels at 'Eight Ways'.

It took a few gold coins to get past the gate and into the Foreign Quarter. Here I should explain a little of where we now were. The troglodyte city was called 'The Pool of Organs' or just 'Pool' for short. The troglodytes of this city were called 'Pudlians'. The city was organised into seven districts, six for each of the Pudlian tribes and one at the entrance were non-Pudlians were allowed to come to trade. They distrusted all other races, but especially other lizard races and any other non-Pudlian troglodyte was killed on sight.

The smell in the Foreign Quarter was so bad that it made Veddic bring up his lunch. It was a haphazard and chaotic place, with the troglodyte warriors that guarded the main entrance the nearest thing to a town watch. They were only interested in squeezing coins out of visitors though and shining strange red and blue lamps in peoples faces for reasons I am still not clear on.

The Quarter was not overly large, no more than fifty buildings and it only took half an hour to see it all. A dark, gloomy, stinking place full of filth and strange looking Underdark races. I saw my first Derro, Koa-toa and Grimlock!