Peek: The Sewer Dungeon of Rest

Gather, and hear the tale of how Rest came to be, and how a strange dungeon helped that.  For you see, while many of the cities of the other races develop sewer dungeons after their founding, only Rest had a sewer dungeon before there was a city!

It all started so long ago.  While Rest was not always a settlement, it was always a good place to recover in.  The lake has plentiful fish, the beasts are generally more sedate, and the forage is bountiful.  Countless tribes would settle in the area for a week or two before moving on, and so they would dig refuse pits to keep filth from spreading.  Once covered, the pits would be quickly overgrown by the plants, and so bounty is given back to the land as thanks.

Until one day, a tribe came to settle, and found an empty refuse pit.  It was certainly strange, but a welcome gift from whoever the previous tribe in the area had been.  Once their stay was over, they covered the pit, and decided to pass on the gift, and dug out a new refuse pit for the next tribe.

This continued for many moons, until someone, perhaps as a prank or as a method of disrespect, decided to put a sign over their filled pit, stating it was the best output of one of the tribes.

The insult or prank made the rounds through the tribes, until it eventually made it back to those to created the sign.  But the meaning was different.  The targeted tribe didn't produce only waste.  They produced nothing.  Nothing?  The pit was full and covered properly, how could the joke be taken as nothing?

When the tribe next came to what would be Rest, they realized that the 'new' pit was the old pit, but somehow emptied!  What could be doing this?  And so they made camp further away, and kept an eye on the refuse pit.  The other tribes found this strange, but no hostilities were ever made, so they were ignored, and eventually tribes moved on.

And then the watching tribe saw it.  The covered pit was sinking!  And the freshly dug pit was filled back in!  It wasn't until one orc actually descended into the now-clean pit that they felt what had happened: there was a dungeon here!  Its denizens were mostly beetles, and they were moving the filth, and processing it into excellent fertilizer!  No wonder the area is so fertile!

Attempts to communicate were made, but it seemed all the little refuse pit dungeon wanted was filth.  Its primary affinity seemed to be decay, which would usually be a concern.  But the strange little dungeon had no need to seek out healthy things to decay, not when the orcish nomads kept just giving it easily decayable stuff.

News spread of the discovery, and a relationship easily formed.  The dungeon gets what it wants, the nomads have an even better place to rest when they are weary.  The dungeon grew, creating tunnels instead of open pits, and things were built.  Even if no tribe wanted to stay there indefinitely, the signs of constant travel and camping were obvious.  Someone would make a stronger tent, and simply not take it down, leaving it for the next tribe to do as they wished.  The next tribe might reinforce it, and the next would make another building, until eventually a city formed.  And in each new building, the sewer dungeon would create an access point, creating an easier way for the dungeon to get its refuse, and an easier way for the orcs to dispose of unwanted things.

And so Rest came to be: the first and only city to grow atop a sewer, instead of having to build sewer underneath itself.  

~Onthar, Orc Bard Historian

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Inspired by various suggestions to have a look at other dungeons.  Thank you all for the nudge suggestions, and I hope you have a good day.