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Message: <blockquote data-quote="CanadienneBacon" data-source="post: 2872519" data-attributes="member: 11146">As the party passes out through the mouth of the natural cavern that houses the bulk of the bazaar and into the public bathing area, the air grows moister and hotter.  Steam, scented of sulphur and mud, joins the cool air of the cavern network that houses Szith Morcane, to create a light fog near the baths.  A trio of spear-armed drow guardsmen stand near a watchpost niche that affords them a view of both the passageway to the Lower Bar and the mouth of the natural cavern.  Two of the guards bully a merchant leading a harnessed team of svirfneblin slaves.  From the sound of it, an argument has ensued over whether the merchant must bathe his wares ere entering the bazaar.  Enraged at the expense, the duergar merchant shakes an angry fist at the third and silent guardsman, but the other two guardsmen point resolutely at the bath entrance.  The six svirfneblin captives have no fight left in them--whip marks caress their bare backsides, and all six have downcast eyes and slack limbs.As the party passes the archway of the steaming sulphur baths, the cave mouth of the passageway looms in front of them, the cooler air of its dark mouth an invitation to plumb the depths of the world beyond.  Crystal formations sprout like leafy ferns from every surface of this small, almost perfectly tubular passageway that has a very gradual downward cant.  The third guardsman manning the watchpost near the public baths lifts his eyes from the angry duergar merchant and silently watches with dark eyes as the party passes by, nodding at Blite's girth.  The other two guardsmen take no notice of the party as the continue to usher the merchant toward the baths with the tips of their spears and none of the three guards moves toward or addresses the passing party.  One hundred and fifty feet down the passageway, the noise of the bazaar lessons to relative quietude and soon the only sounds come from other passing folk, the jingle of their wagonloads of merchandise, or the flutter of cloaks in the still air of the tunnel.  Most of the tunnel's occupant step out of Blite's assuming way, but one halfling, small for his size and deep in conversation with a female comrade, smacks into Blite's lower shins full bore.  Something sharp pinches Blite's knee and as the halfling picks himself up off the ground, Blite sees the small creature quickly stash a small brass object inside inside his tunic before hastily making a round of apologies.  "A thousand pardons, Master Bull...no...man-ogre?  No, that's not it either.  Pansy?"   The male halfling turns to his companion, who has clearly blanched white and pasted herself against the far wall of the tunnel, as far away as possible.  "I say, Pansy?!"  The halfling's female counterpoint utters, "Minotaur!" just before grabbing her friend's hand and forcibly yanking him away from Blite.  The pair are soon out of sight, having passed into the throng heading up to the bazaar level of Szith Morcane.Rounding the corner of the passageway, the party soon detects that was had been a very gradual cant in the fern-strewn upper passageway turns into a sharp descent heading north and east.  The ground here is noticeably more rock and pebble-strewn, the tunnel walls the same circumference but held together in a considerably less smooth fashion and with less mortar and worked stone.  Three hundred feet down in the switchbacking passageway, which narrows in the middle to a bare 20 feet before finally widening out to a 100 foot public square, the party spies the massive black malachite worked stone archways that guard the Lower Bar.  The gate is manned by drow archers who walk the wall's catwalk, longbows in hand.  At the foot of the gate, just inside the massive ebony iron portcullis and lining the interior walls (some 10 feet thick) of the gate itself, stand two squads of neatly armored and appointed drow pikemen who watch those entering the city.The passageway opens into an intermediate cave some 100 feet across.  Though the cave is a natural formation and has glittering black stalactites littering the cavern's 70 foot height, the Lower Bar itself is obviously a creation of worked black malachite and wrought ebony iron.  The Bar and its accompanying walls stretch across a 100-foot-wide mouth on the righthand side that yawns into the inky black of the Upperdark beyond.  The Lower Bar's main portcullis consists of two iron and darkwood-reinforced gates riveted with blue steel metal that are swung outward.  The gates are 40 feet tall and 30 feet across.  Black malachite walls 50 feet tall and 10 feet thick at their base flank either side of the Bar and seem to be melded into the natural stone of the interior cavern.  A thick iron door, closed at the moment, is inset into the left side of the cavern wall just after the intersection of cave and malachite wall.  Etched into the inside of the Lower Bar's 40-foot arching gate lintel is an incription written in the archaic form of a language.Those interested and willing to take the time can certainly call for an attempt, of one variety or another, to read the inscription above the Bar.The 100-foot area inside the Bar seems to be a staging area for marketeers to meet up and caravan together up the passageway to the city.  Teams of guardsmen rove the cavern floor, checking and re-checking wagons.  Considered a plum guard assignment, coins of all variety flash in the sickly green light of the cavern as they change hands from merchant to guardsmen.  Against the left wall of the cavern sits a row of market shanty stalls similar to those in the upper bazaar.  From these stalls, hawkish merchants peddle food, water, and accomodation in the city above to new arrivals from the Underdark.  A small line of folk waiting to exit the city queue near the far iron door to the left of the Bar, papers and coin purses in hand.</blockquote>

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