The Snail is enormous, & after formalities have been observed you pull on the factions colours. The Blues rider is in the stall beside you staring daggers over the partition. An attendant stablehand boosts you up and into the saddle high on the back of the snails shell.

“Now” says the druid, are you ready to be sanctified? He holds up his medicine bag & rattles it at you. Then he takes out the ceremonial drug paraphenalia. "Brace yourself for the 'Lag'?"

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“The Blues must love it. Maybe an outsider like you can break our losing streak”.

“I better introduce you to your Nautilus, Sun-of-the-Dark. He can be a skittish beastey and I wouldn’t want him to devour you by accident. It’d take bloody hours”. You are maybe 60 percent sure this is a joke.

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The druid is delighted with your decision and escorts you back to meet the head of the faction that you will represent. The Red & Green. Their head-woman looks relieved. “Don’t worry about titles. Just call me Mai”. She is a stately drow of advanced age. 

“Bad bloody luck” she says referring to the stricken rider. “It is the curse of the Red & Green and no mistake. We haven’t won this race since back in the Summer of the One and Fifty Garlands”. Decades past.

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You ask him when that will be and he responds “oh, no more than three days time. Come now. But if you are in a hurry it occurs to me that we are suddenly a rider short for the next race".

"If you would be willing to wear the Red & Green of the Lady Plane-O-The-Yew-Trees then you could get into the winners enclosure that much sooner."

"What say you? Will you risk the lag? Will you ride the Nautilus?”

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You slip on past & head towards the far end of the chamber where you know the exit lies - however an ancient drow stops you. His matted hair, irascible smile and officious manner mark him out as the chief druid at this event.

He says “I’m afraid that access to that part of the chamber is forbidden for now - that's the winners enclosure. It is now sanctified and made ready for the riders. It must be preserved in that state until the end of all the races.”

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But as you watch, one, wearing livery of green and red chevrons suddenly spasms, and issuing a deep & resonating bellow of distress, slides very very slowly off his mount. His body almost flows like a liquid, undulating over the curves of the snails massive shell, until coming to a rest on the ground. He has had a bad reaction.

Some riders find the union with the divine achieved in such rituals to be so overpowering that they simply cannot cope with it.

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The riders have all received their ritual drugs and have achieved the appropriate connection with the spiritual plane in order to participate.

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Making your way to the crowd you see they are preparing for the next race. Four snails are being made ready - each one representing a different faction.

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There is also a barred and padlocked gate to your right. A sign in lurid red paint reads “NO ENTRY”.

Giving the crowd your attention you see they are gathered around several gigantic Nautilus snails, each the size of a horse and each bearing a rider dressed in different bright livery. It’s a ritual snail race. Part sporting fixture, part religious ceremony. There will be a Druid somewhere nearby, acting as chief officiant, referee and opiate wrangler.

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There is also a barred and padlocked gate to your right. A sign in lurid red paint reads “NO ENTRY”.

Giving the crowd your attention you see they are gathered around several gigantic Nautilus snails, each the size of a horse and each bearing a rider dressed in different bright livery. It’s a ritual snail race. Part sporting fixture, part religious ceremony. There will be a Druid somewhere nearby, acting as chief officiant, referee and opiate wrangler.

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The tunnel, its wall floor and ceiling covered in ancient cracked tiles, slopes gently downward and curves so that you cannot see its end, but there is a gentle glow somewhere up ahead. As you trudge forward a noise begins to rise - is that cheering?

Eventually you enter a large, high ceilinged, well-lit chamber - there is a small crowd of festive drow here, gathered at the far end, in front of you. You know that there is a way forward beyond that crowd

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Luckily you have no intention of taking a dip and you push on towards the light burning ahead.

Your boat arrives at a small outcropping illuminated by the sickly green glow of a werelight . You tie up your boat and make your way up the steps carved into the wall. At the top is a dark doorway. You duck your head to pass through and move into a low ceilinged tunnel.

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You glide gracefully through the water, the wake from your boat lapping gently against the countless stately pillars that form a watery avenue. The singing behind you has ended; & been replaced by laughter, but you are already pulling away from whatever that distraction might be.

There are flickers of light in the water ahead.

The surface crackles and sparkles - electric eels skitter around the hull of the boat. To fall in now would be disastrous.

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Turning to the green beacon you glide through the water, the wake from your boat lapping gently against the countless stately pillars forming a watery avenue. You can hear someone singing to your right:

“We're all meat to the Cannibal King
Seldom so sweet when his dinner bell ring
He offers no mercy for cries or for sighs
The sight‘s a terrible feast for your eyes
The only water he cares for boils in his pot
So tarry with me, I’ll bother you not”

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Far ahead you can see a light burning like a navigation beacon through the serried ranks of pillars. You know that this light marks the Black Canal - a waterway which winds through the Deep-Works. Somewhere to the right, another light burns in the distance. This light is green and marks another jetty and the entrance to the tunnels. All else is blackness.

You climb into the boat and punt out into the inky darkness. Which direction will you punt towards:

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The Cistern Basilica. Serried ranks of tall thin pillars populate the room like some ancient petrified forest. Hundreds ... maybe thousands of them, making avenues in the darkness. Presumably they hold up the roof, but even your eyes cannot pierce the vast darkness above you to that degree.

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Down, down, down you climb. Your boots clang on the iron ladder and echo up and town the vertical tunnel. Above you, Mistress LaCuve stares down like a half-moon as she pulls the heavy cover back into place - sealing you into the Deep-Works with a resounding thump & the ratcheting of a massive lock.

Eventually you reach the bottom of the ladder. Debris crunches underfoot. You stand on a small wooden pier in a massive flooded chamber.

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Add the following to your character sheet:

Pocket tape of prodigious length & strength

Mistress LaCuve, the gatekeeper, steps down from the dais to a manhole cover in the far corner. She inserts a key and recites the chapter’s common prayer “Righty tighty. Lefty loosey”. You hear the movement of a locking mechanism. The gatekeeper heaves open the circular iron covering. Your drow eyes can make out the iron ladder which will take you into the Deep-Works.

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Domains: Low Society, Crime

Equipment: Knight Quarter plate (Armour 3, Heavy), Massive Pipe-Wrench (D6, Brutal, Tiring), half eaten beast-worst. Stiletto (D3, Piercing)

Core Abilities: Pubcrawler, Pick a Fight, Law of The Docks

Advances: Jouster, Braggadocio, Dirty Fighting

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“I am Dam Louise Littlehammer a knight if the Order of St Marius, pledged to patrol the Deep Works. I am the opener of ways - through seized sluice gate, armoured helm or locked heart. Whatever it takes, I’ll get it open."

Louise spent her durance as a BUILDER where she helped her Aelfir masters build intricate water powered machinery.

Resistances: Blood +1, Silver +2, Reputation +1, Mind 0, Shadow 0

Skills: Fix, Technology, Fight, Compel, Pursue

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