Hook
Mind–numbing spores are seeping out of every drain along Weaver’s Row. The city council has issued a quarantine for the whole district. Guard Captain Uryen has already sent over a dozen guards into the fetid sewers, but none have returned. A reward awaits any brave mercenaries who venture below and put a stop to these spores!
Introduction
A bleak early morning like most in the port city of Vilheim, a steady and thick rain falls from the sickly canopy of purple overcast to be gargled and swallowed by the grates dotting the approach to Weaver's Row.
You had heard a fair few murmurs about the lockdown that happened not two days ago in the Zhematy district, with no answers given to the growing demands as to why good working folk are being kept away from the docks. It may have been a curious streak to you, a genuine wish to give aid the all-too-persecuted Zhematy folk or the promise of decent gold that had compelled you to follow the notice that had been pasted up near you in a hurry late last night, but follow you did.
All around the narrow avenues you are flanked by old wattle-and-daub tenements heaving with extensions that jut out at violent angles and adorned with the labyrinth murals customary of Zhematy diaspora culture. A couple of wagons that held the last of the emergency rations have been overturned and re-used as a makeshift guard post and you see about half a dozen Zhematy men and women making exasperated pleas to the sentries posted up front. As you draw near, the sentries see you by your weapons and equipment and step aside without much acknowledgement or fanfare.
Behind them you see Captain Uryen who hails you, her face covered in the many thick wooden piercings denoting her foreign cultural heritage as a Monastery Orc that clack in rhythm to her voice.
"I thank you for coming, truly - I was getting a little nervous that nobody would take up an unsanctioned call to action so quickly."
"It's the rainwater, you see, when it comes up from the drains, brings up some kind of fungal contaminant. Addles the brain, so it seems, among other things..." She gestures to two guards milling over a body in a filthy white sheet
"The task is to find and stem the source of this contaminant, whatever it is. Obviously there's a blockage that's causing the water to come up as well but that's not the concern apparently, not for the Lord Commander anyway. I'd been tasked with a patrol to sort it out quickly but of the good dozen that got sent down, none have come back."
"Commander wants this business sorted by nightfall or he sends in the Pigsmokers and they're gonna make a complete mess of this - there's innocent folks that's forced to take residence down there and tensions are high as it is. This needs a delicate, quick hand, can't say it's not going to be risky, but you have it on mine and the good Councilor Eleaena that the 300 gold reward is genuine.
On the approach to the left of you are a half-dozen strong squad of Infernal Agnatics, better known colloquially as Pigsmokers. They glare at you with wordless contempt through helmets styled in the visage of a pig as the ignition flames of their thermic lances lick the gloom.