The city is massive. From my perch on a top of a two-story building, most of the slums are made up of one-story huts. I found one of the few buildings around two stories tall and made of stone and mud that might have been a small guard building at one point in time. Now it is only a home for two families that married into one. Hearing the old grandmother griping about her aches and pains then switching to complaining about her daughter-in-law's lack of work ethic. Even though the woman working her butt off cleaning, feeding four children, and her mother-in-law. All while her husband leaves before daylight to hop on a wagon that came out of the city walls. To cut logs and spend all day cutting down trees. So far, they have not seen me get on top and allow me to survey the slums around me that seem to stretch to the distances as far as the eye can see. The boy never travels far, and looking at the slums, I can see why. Leaning back against the wall, I fell asleep only to wake later to the children whining about being hungry. Even my stomach growl a little.

Rubbing my face to wipe the sleep off as I slid into my spot to watch the block I currently live. Well, not quite the block but a series of alleyways not quite big enough to handle a cart. Several alleys flow from the Merchant row, as they call it. There is the main dirt road called the South road by many of the slum residents that is not far away that leave from the gate and head south. Sure there are shops along there, but most of them are hawkers from other cities and a few merchants inside the city wall that own the shops and are patrol by guards. A whole different gang runs that street. This makes it easy picking for me, but having to avoid that gang there is hard.

But the Merchant Row has all the local slum merchants in the nearby area. At the far end of Merchant Row is another gang. As I've been calling them, the Trio brothers' are three, level three brothers with orc blood. They run a vicious gang that came into being a few months ago. Their men have started to make their shake-down run through the farther alleyways. I have been watching the area now for a week and have watched how they operate.

Thea and her young daughter of ten years run a booth out of their shoddy home on merchant row. They buy wood and rat meat, even some roach-like creatures that are afoot long to cook up and sell. Meat is meat around here, and nobody cares as long as it doesn't kill them. They do taste good, even the fried roaches.

Leo, the old man who carved out totems. He sells most of the totems to keep undead away or heal minor wounds, nothing significant in size. At first, I didn't believe that totems can work or were possible until I watch one of the totems help heal a minor knife wound.

Roger the carpenter with the one arm that he lost to an orc during one of their raids. Rumor was he also lost his wife and son along with the arm. Something about him screams noble-born. He dresses better than the rest of the people and talks like he has been educated. He wears a heavy leather vest that looks like it was once part of some armor at one point. The man guards the upper alleyway called Merchant Row with a couple of old guys. He plays some type of board game most of the day as he watches over the alleyway.

The Trio Brothers and their men avoid the alleys that Roger claims, and they avoid the alley the Hag that lives off the Merchant Row that everyone fears. Hilda the Hag, a local witch the trio are afraid of. She is in her thirties, maybe forty, and wears a worn cloak and walks with staff. I have seen her kill a man trying to rape one of the ladies in the alley. Never seen all of her face, just her eyes that are silver. She gives readings to the locals, and several of the highborn have come to her surrounded by their guards. Several others around the block make stuff or sell their bodies, like the ten women that stand near a tavern owned by the Trio brothers. The youngest prostitute is about fifteen years of age. The oldest is somewhere in her fifties and looks drug out most of the time. I don't know their names, only that one or two of them are found dead in the alley from week to week. There is always a girl to replace them when one of them dies. The trio brothers have built a gambling hall behind the Tipsy Lady, whose tavern sells water down alcohol. But the only game they know to play is bones, better known as dice.

One thing that gets my OCD work up is dirt, grime, and the smell. The street is filthy and is nothing more than a maze of buildings and shacks lumped together. People throw their garbage and waste into the alleys. Eighty percent of the buildings are mostly rotten wood. The rest are a combination of stone and mud or stone blocks thrown together, hoping they will stay up. Some are built with some bit of pride with what little money they have on hand. It is the ones that are slap together haphazard that scared me. No one has entered or left the good building along the wall in the weeks. I have been watching. I later heard they were abandoned by some lord a few years ago. I even heard a few stories about ghosts and monsters around the buildings but not seeing anything. I might have to check them out later. The back of the buildings is pushing up against the wall. The only difference with the rest of the shacks is they are made better. After a week of watching the alleyways and hunting rats, I slowly regain my health.

Heather that the daughter-in-law below the two-story building I am hiding on. She keeps the area around her building clean and spends most of her day cleaning clothes for people in the area. She and her children trek to the fountain for water and bring them back, and she spends the afternoon washing clothing. At the moment, she is fixing a small pot of grits for the family, always leaving the last bit for herself, which is not much. The woman is about in her early twenties but looks older from her hands washing clothes and the lack of food. She looks about fifty. She would have been once a decent-looking woman, but the hard life already lines her with hardship. I think I might leave a dead rat for her and the children to eat. Not sure if I would feed her mother in law laughing to myself.

Down the ally, Thea and her daughter cook and sells the dead rats that I left them. They have tried to catch me, leaving behind the rats to pay me, but I slip away. She is in her late thirties, and her daughter is about ten also. The woman's husband died. He was a soldier, and she was forced into moving to the slums when he died. The nobles care little for their own men. I also left a few pieces of wood I found in the sewer for Leo to carve his totems.

The sewer has become my hunting grounds. A rat, the size of a large house cat, would travel down both ends of the tunnels and stop at the stairs leading to the surface every fifteen minutes. Then turn around and head back from where they came. Once in a while, they meet and begin to fight until one is dead. At which point it will drag the dead body back. After a half-hour, eight to ten rats would show up and search for clues. During this time, the other rat would return and get kills. After that, the group will mill around sniffing at everything until the dead rats' friends arrive in a half-hour, and a large brawl will happen. The battle lasts until one side wins and drags off the dead. The side that lost does not show for about twenty-four hours later and starts its patrol again. The winning side resumes back its patrol within an hour of the battle.

After watching two times, as they fought their battles, I decide it's time to see what happens after a group of rats lose a battle. After watching the rat battle for the third time and seeing the victors drag the dead away, l move out of the shadows and head in the direction of the losers.

"Time to see what going on," I mutter to myself as I disappear into the shadows.

The dust fell through the dimly light sewer grate from the overhead as people and beasts pass by in their daily lives. I made my way through debris and watched the water canal from what little light to find a rat nest. I search for a half hour when a blind light flares out of the nest against the wall as a rat walks out, shaking itself and starts to sniff around. Seeing no other rat around, I jump at the rat and kick it into the wall stunning it until I stab it with a sharpened stick. Pulling carcass back from the nest, I waited for more rats to show. An hour from the blinding light and another light flash again. Once again, a rat steps out of the nest, opening and shake itself. Killing that rat was just as easy as the last.

Peaking into the nest's opening, I spotted six flat stones that form a hex about three feet wide. One stone has a glow to it, and across from it on another stone is an image of a rat. Slowly the glow went from one stone to another, finally back to the first stone as the light spills across the image of the rat and around to the first one. Taking an hour to complete the distance, it flares again as a rat slowly appears and steps out only to die by my hand.

"What does this do?" Pulling the stone that glows out of the nest after a few tries. There was a brief flash of light. Not like before, after looking around and not seeing anything. "Okay, false alarm. Let's get the rest of the stone and wait for the rat to appear." Muttering to myself. It took a few minutes to pull out all the stones. Moving off to the side, I trace the image carved into the stone of a rat. After an hour has passed, my eyes widen slightly as I realize that the stones must either be a summoning device that summons a rat or create one. After another hour pass, I decide to move toward the nest to clean it since the mess was irritating me. Several hours later, a large woodpile on one side will keep Roger busy for several months carving and Thea in firewood for a few weeks. I found fifty-one copper bits, ten silver talons, and one gold sun in the nest, along with two broken chain shirts that could be made into one. Several gnaw on worthless shoes and a pair of boots with a bone foot inside one boot.

Also found several rotten and gnaw on pouches, one of which has a small emerald inside. The rest were useless. Half of the wood in the nest was useless, and I put the debris on the other wall to burn later.

I found three scatter skeletons inside that I bundle up to drop at the cemetery tonight. As for the clothing, well, that was a lost cause. After I was done, the light from the drain above was dimming, meaning it was getting near sunset. Leaning against the wall in relief, I fell through with a yelp.

Seeing the wall, I fell through was an illusion. Stepping back and forth through the wall was weird. Looking around in the darkness, I made out a red light that was ahead. "Okay, Jack, let's see where this leads." griping my broken spear.

Checking to see if the stones are tuck away in my handmade shoulder sling is okay. I walk carefully down the twenty feet toward the red light. I felt that the walls were different. The wall felt more like bricks than stone. It seems odd seeing that I have not seen any bricks in the slums or the wall since I woke up. Bending down and run my fingers along the ground, it too felt like bricks and not stone.

"No dirt or grime," I mutter to myself. The glow became brighter as I got near. Until I see a ten by ten room with a glowing red gem floating in the middle of the room. Peering behind me and seeing no one, I advance into the room. Upon entering the room and seeing that room is all in brick. Even the ceiling was brick which doesn't make sense. The ruby gem is small, no bigger than my pinky fingernail. The light creates an eerie red glow in the room that started to pulse like a heartbeat. After a few scary moments, I realize it was beating to the beat of my heart.

Looking toward the exit, “okay, Jack, we need to get a grip on myself.” Muttering to myself.

"Hello! Jack, l am Dungeon core number one, one, nine, eight, Z, Q, A, one, five, three. Welcome to your dungeon." Said a female voice. I nearly jump out of my skin. Backing up to the wall holding my stick out in front of me.

“What the hell?” searching the room for the voice.