Basement Folk
In the Kingdom of Not there is a city which spread up in a canyon, a place sometimes called Misery, where bells and hammers peal. And under the canyon-city Misery hides a maze of tunnels, abandoned mineshafts, twisting passages, drainage flues, secret storehouses, and hidden holy places. Under Misery the Glass Children dug temples, and the miners followed veins. Now the Glass Children are gone and the miners have followed the veins far from the city center, but the space remains.
And because vaccuum is abhorrent, the basement folk reside under the canyon-city. Long ago they fled the forest Uneasy or the forest Unfeeling. Their records and memories are spotty, but the grayest of the graybeards agree on a few points. They once lived under trees, in burrows and hollows, and many years ago they were forced from the woods by great galumphing beasts who spaded up their holes and fried them in oil or pickled them and called them a delicacy.
Who or what these beasts were, the basement folk don’t know or care. They keep themselves to themselves; the basement folk fear and hulking strange people of the city. Once burned, twice shy: they hide still today from the galumphing beasts of the woods. Now under the canyon-city they subsist off the city’s waste. Some of the basement folk farm mushrooms in rich subterranean compost, and some carve broken glass and bits of metal into mosiac art objects.
They do not trade with the folk of the city above, but instead hawk their wares in booths at the Quality Fair, when its biannual circuit brings it again to Misery. The larger people of the canyon-city assume the basement folk are part of the Quality Fair, and the artisans who know better have no motivation to explain the error. In two generations the basement folk have almost tripled their numbers, and would consider themselves thrice blessed but for the Killing Gong.
Now one day a month the basement folk hide in their holes and plug their ears with wax and stuffing, but til yet they have found no tactic that resists the Gong. Four weeks go by, and then a great bell above somewhere in the canyon-city called Misery tolls, and when that great deep sound mislikes something hidden in the heart of the basement folk, and breaks their ears or noses, and they bleed and are no more.
Now the grayest of the graybeards gather and wonder. They cannot flee the canyon-city, for the forests are not safe. Nor can they reveal themselves to the huge and vulgar men and women above them; who can judge whether pickled basement-folk is no longer called a delicacy? They must send word to the Exemplar whose portfolio includes them, an Exemplar of Basements and Burrows. Only this entity, holy and wise, can be counted on to save the basement folk. Sadly, as far as the graybeards know, no such Exemplar exists.