This is Undertown

Given a long enough timeline even the poor establish order. The ditchers that I had become aware of a hundred years previous had established their own structure in what was politely known as "Undertown". Subsistence living is a lot like farming, except your "crops" are the leftovers polite society tosses away and your "harvest" (lots of "quotes" today, if you catch my "drift") is when a bunch of scraps and crap thats useable gets dropped close by.  There is also actual farming of disgusting mushrooms and other vegetables that actually grow in crap (like actual crap not just a way of saying junk), also vermin tend to be culled for meat (and sometimes sold up above under a different name and fanciful description which is hilarious).

My arrival from a storm drain smelling like shit was actually how a lot of similar adorned people end up in Undertown (though not from escaping some god creature of the sewers).  Life was rough in Dunlok and you were just a couple bad decisions away from being tossed to live with the poor (for some a fate worse than death itself). My ribs were hurting, I could tell they were probably broken, I smelled like shit and I was still shackled (another common feature of new arrivals to Undertown, as it was a haven of convicts). I wasn't exactly having a good "day".

"A new arrival to the good life!" A shorty called me out to the assorted fisherman. I shuddered to think what kind of fish they pulled out of the water considering where it came from. I was clutching my ribs and my shackled jangled a little to loudly for my liking.

"Shut up Tillory you'll scare the fish." Tillory gave a sidewise glance to the angry fisherman and ran up to me.

"So you running from someone private or government?" Oh yeah run away slaves, another standard occupant of Undertown, sometime in the hundred years since my last visit Slavery was introduced with a vengeance back to Ronerawth.

"Neither I actually fell down into the sewers on accident."

"Sure right buddy thats what everyone says, this is all a big mistake and any second now your servants will descend and rescue you from the clutches of poverty." His clothes were far too big for his body, and fancy, well they were fancy before grime, and living life shorty ruined them.  He almost looked like a tiny butler, come tho show me the wonders of the world.

"Yes exactly like that, do you guys happen to have someplace..."

"To cut the shackles you stumbled your way into in the dark?"

"Exactly."

""Right this way good sir." Tillory was fairly polite and made little observations about the people we passed, the shanty area I arrived in was considered the "docks" of Undertown, despite no one down there actually owning a boat, or there being an actual dock.  The shanties and homes had been constructed of cast offs from the previous mine structure and when the palace had been renovated (apparently emperor's tend to just take over and literally toss the previous belongings from the palace down below, when the most recent one had taken over his cascade of items killed over fifity people). This mixture of rich items next to broken mining wood made for an interesting mix.  Tillory eventually lead me to undercity proper which was right next to the stone pillar that upheld the palace, I could see that some of the shanties here resembeled actual buildings, including one that housed the "Mayor" of undertown.  I'll go more into him later, possibly tomorrow. Tillory left me at a building with a crude anvil sketched outside of it and a man who looked as old as I had a few days earlier standing beside a forge weilding a hammer almost the size of him. He was mostly naked just ratty underware covering what was left of his genitals.  His frame looked like one lean muscle probably from years of working a forge.

"Another runaway slave? He smells awful." Surpringly the old man didn't have much of an old man voice, it was more quiet and almost melodic.

"Born in shit, but he's got some pretty shackles." Tillory bowed and stepped away to go do whatever the little man did when he wasn't escorting people around.  I was surprised he didn't ask for money, but figured  he looked at me and realized you can't get blood from a stone.

"Sit down son, this will take a moment, why don't you tell me the story of how you got to Undertown, I could use a good laugh." I sat at a little stool and he peered over the wrist manacles currently locked on me.

"It's funny what you remember from your youth..." And on into the night I spun my tale...