Into the Undercity - 1
The Blancmange & Thistle hotel was once known for its excellent and expansive wine cellar. However in their hubris, their blind ambition, they just couldn't stop at mere excellence. They expanded it, and dug too deep, knocking a hole clean into the Troikan undercity*. At first it was just an annoying blunder by lazy contractors but after an incident where a visiting VIP was kidnapped (and rescued, at no small cost to the management) by disturbed living dead with aspirations of class mobility, their cellar's reputation and fixtures were ruined.
Hotel management, after a couple of failed attempts at fumigation and unsure how to utilise their "flooded" basement (they never mention with what), have been convinced to let a local rag & bone man send his work crews down there to "sort it out". Both sides are evasive on particulars, but Ghoul Dada, the rag & bone man, is certainly paying the hotel to house his crews in the currently-useless basement and the hotel are apparently leaving him to it. The only interest the hotel have shown so far has been in the form of a single mandrill guard set to make sure no more "floods" happen.
The crews are made up of whatever tourists and vagrants Ghoul can convince to work on the promise of free board and a big payout if they just bring back a little insignificant human skull he's sure is right under the hotel. With two expeditions completed there is still no skull and very little sign of where it might be, however the safety record is, so far, impeccable.
Both Ghoul and the crews have been fortunate. No deaths, no drama, and no spectacular hauls of wealth that might attract attention to what they're really doing down there. But even so, the slighted VIP has made sure everyone in her circle knows the truth and it will only continue to filter down through the social strata. Eventually gossip will reach those hungry enough to dig around in the dirt of Troika's undercity for a speculative payday.
- How long will Ghoul's monopoly last?
- Is the hotel totally oblivious to the scale of their discovery**?
- How long until someone gets that sweet, sweet skull payday?
*The "undercity" is formed of the buried streets and basements of Troika's past. It is accepted as fact that there is an equal and opposite Anti-Troika growing and burying this, our own, Troika in turn. Populated by our anti-selves living their anti-lives.
**Entries into the undercity are similar to natural caves in that most of them are underwhelming and shallow. This one, however, has no end in sight.