The Discovery of Cheapside, City of Thieves

The resettling of the city of Iron Stone and the rebuilding of the Iron Stone Temple has been under way for over a year. To aid the dwarves in clearing out the upper levels of the city adventurers were recruited in their hundreds to beat back the threat from the evil creatures now lodging there.

After a number of missions into the dark passages and caves a plot was uncovered where the Drow had aligned with some of the Dwarven chiefs. It was this scandal that was resolved at Gen Con 2004. The fall out of this was a purge of the Dwarven ranks with many high ranking officials taking the long walk north into the Chaos Wastes.

The Dwarves continued to hire adventurers over the coming months and pushed back the denizens of the Dwarven city of Iron Stone. Then it was a group of Dwarven Rangers that pushing forward into a newly discovered cave system that they found the famed city of thieves; Cheapside.

Everything and nothing has been written about Cheapside, so named because the cheapest commodity in the city was life. This city is famed for not being there, it exists mainly in legend for those individuals not involved in its activities. It has been sought over the centuries by many a group wanting to curtail its lawless ways and by those wanting to get their property back. The Empire of man has been searched from end to end and always only rumours are found. Those that were unlucky enough to find it often returned a lot poorer than when they started. Most didn�t return atall except to appear in the slave markets on the far side of the world, where they laboured under strange kings to build temples to the sun god.

The secret of Cheapside was that it didn�t exist within the Empire of man a tall it was located many hundreds of miles away in an abandoned Dwarven city. Access from the empire was through a number of portals that had been set up. These were mostly located in unsavoury places where only the right sort of people would go.

And so it was to Cheapside that the poor unfortunate band of Rangers found them selves. They had located the city and waited a couple of days to scout it from afar. There careful approach had been detected by a number of local denizens and the Dwarfs movements were relayed back to the authorities in the city. The Dwarfs knew they had been rumbled when almost out of nowhere a man appeared just as they were about to feast on some of their hard tack. Before they could react the man joyfully declared �Rat on a Stick only 2 copper�. There was a slight pause as the Dwarves looked to their leader for guidance. Gard Stoneguard was unaware of this call for leadership direction as he was fumbling in his purse for some copper pieces, before stating �Two with sauce�. What followed can only be described as a scramble to secure the prized goods. Legend will only speculate on the identity of the Rat on a Stick seller but what followed can only be described as down hill.

The Dwarven Rangers after little debate decided to visit the town anyway as they had been discovered. With the intention to scout out the place and perhaps just have an ale before heading off home. What happened is another story but it is sufficient to know that only one Dwarf returned to the Iron Stone temple to report his comrades lost. All alive, most in either slavery or prison. The dwarf to return was saved by his inability to tolerate strong drink and thus passed out at an early stage. He woke to find himself alone and only wearing his under garments, otherwise he had been picked clean.

Over the next few months a number of Dwarf parties visited the city in more and more senior capacity to set up trade agreements and the defining of boundaries. The city of Cheapside existed in a number of mined out caverns and galleries and was not seen as necessarily a bad thing. A border was established with guard posts to protect all. But to protect the Dwarves only the miserablist of them was allowed to do guard duty. These dwarfs were selected for their ability to resist the temptations of the city beyond. The guards have started to generate their own legend, as it requires some unique traits to really get the right outlook on life to become one.