thread for town and related levels

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This is old material for (public) reference and for me to link to soon (on another thread I'm working on).

The Town

There's a town. It seems neither ancient or new. It has a distinctive accent, but not its own dialect. And there is nothing wrong with the town.

The town is not atop a mountain but is significantly elevated relative to the surrounding countryside.

The town is well-defined by its walls.

There is no superstition or law about activity outside the walls, but there are no significant structures out there. A few old images of the town, such as the tapestry in the burgomaster's house, depict it as somehow more vertical than one might expect. These images may be the remains of a tradition that knew something the present citizens do not know.

The town has taverns and stores and private houses, and they have cellars. Roots, barrels, the things you find in cellars. It has a good number of cellars.

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The Cellars

Some of the cellars have cellars and the air gets quite cool down there. Some people go a little ways down to store their food and drink. Some of them are linked to other cellars directly below-ground by passages that a man or a child could easily pass through. A couple of these passages are used in poor weather or, even in better weather, to facilitate the occasional rendezvous.

Some of them seem to go deeper. No one is really sure where the cellars end. There is nowhere to go but down, and no particular reason to go past where the last of the apples and wine are stored. No reason to poke around in quiet, dark passages. Likely just more roots and some cold stone at the bottom. The air feels fairly fresh, considering.

If you listen to the children of the Town, you might hear a bit of rhyme.

Hey-oh, one, two,

Hey-oh, three, four

Momma left the cellar door

Open, she can't talk no more

***

Mary had a fella

Handsome as a lord

They went down a-kissing

Where the vegetables are stored

Mary came back home again

Her fella stayed down deep

And you went off to kiss him

When your momma was asleep

But no one listens to the burgomaster's children when they play, always by daylight, at being the creature that comes up from the root cellar. No one but an old, old woman who remembers hearing something in the night, long ago, when she was barely old enough to speak. Something she thought was her mother coming in to dry her tears, but it wasn't her mother at all.

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The Empties

They are below the lowest cellars in use, but do not seem different, except for containing very little of interest.  There is really nothing there at all to worry about. Maybe some curious souls have poked their noses into these chambers in recent decades, but if so, they have left no trace of their visits. These chambers are cool and silent. The upper world begins to feel quite distant.  

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Down Deep

There is no hard border between this area and The Empties. But you will know when you are there, because someone else may be there, too. 

No one wants to know about this place, so no one comes here, so no one calls it Down Deep. Only you call it Down Deep, now that you are here.

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Posted the above in fanzine draft thread on March 7, 2021.