Walkthrough/Summary: The Sewer-Fire Way

[kobold38]

Stormreach is the wealthiest city in Xen’drik, the gateway to all manner of peril within the jungle continent. But the City of Dungeons has a plumbing problem. A kobold-shaped plumbing problem, to be precise. The waste the city generates has to be managed by someone, and the kobolds work cheap. But what happens when the kobold clans decide they’d like to renegotiate their contracts?

Level Range: All levels
Journal Section: The Harbor
Takes Place In: The Waterworks
Bestowed By: Secretary Sandry
Quest Acquired In: The Harbor
Relevant Quest(s):
The Slug Line
Film Treatment
The Screen Play
Scrip Rioting

Hey everyone!

I know there's a ton-ton-ton of hype around this new questline SSG released last week, and I also know a lot of people are having trouble with it. That, plus with that I think only a few people have bought access so far, is probably why there's no walkthroughs or summaries anywhere yet (as far as I can find, if you've done your own walkthrough, plz link and I'll link it here). So I'm gonna be posting my stuff about the questline in the hopes that maybe it'll help someone else down the road.

This is gonna be part-walkthrough, part-me just posting excerpts and stuff (but I have to go back manually and re-do the quest to grab excerpts and stuff, so I might post details more slowly, we'll see).

Good luck! And if you have any ideas for how this guide can be more useful, or questions about what happened on the quest, or even just your own opinions on the new questline, totally feel free to post em here. I thought it was a fun story arc and I wouldn't mind just chatting about it, haha.

I'm gonna post the first bunch of info in a bit about the first quest: "The Slugline".

[kobold38]

Heya, kobold38 here! I just completed this quest a week ago and thought it was really fun, though idk why there’s so much dialogue in it. :P Anyways it’s a pretty tough questline, but the first is super easy. Just get a pot of invisibility or three if you haven’t got the spell. It’s a lot like Stealthy Repossession in terms of strategy, so I won’t repeat that guide here. Just remember, Dungeon Alert is a PITA if you take too long, especially when you get to the levers and there’s fifty kobolds on your butt.

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CHAPTER ONE: THE SLUGLINE
There’s something fishy going on in Clan Leechmaw—just what are they trying to catch?
Heroic Level: 4
Duration: Long
Takes Place In: The Treatment Plant
Bestowed By: Secretary Sandry
Quest Acquired In: The Harbor

Secretary Sandy's a new NPC, they're right next to Harbormaster Zin by the Waterworks. I'm pretty sure from the dialogue that you have to have done the questline saving Tember's cousins before you can do these quests, but that's probably obvious!

Below I've got their dialogue options. I tried to get all of the options for you to read, just for fun! Let me know if you want me to skip the dialogue in the future and just focus on the actual action stuff.

Secretary Sandry
Faction: Coin Lords
Race: Human
Appearance: White, red hair done in a big Queen Elsa-style braid. They're dressed in a nice purple suit, can't really miss them tbh. I bold their dialogue and do [italics] like that for your options.

"Oh, hello there! You must be that adventurer who helped rescue those Gnashtooth hostages. Good job, that! Does adventuring pay well? I’ll bet it pays well."

[It pays fine, I guess. Are you thinking of taking up the sword?]
"Haha! Who, me? No, no, no. I mean, I imagine I’ve got a bit of magic to toy with, but nothing adventure-worthy, you know? No, certainly not. The pen is mightier than the sword, after all! Or so I’m told. Not exactly keen to test it out."

[Who are you?]
"The name’s Sandry! I work for the Harbormaster, or the Coin Lords, strictly speaking. If you want to be technical about it. I keep the books in order, and let me tell you, that kidnapping spree was a total nightmare. So much paperwork! The city owes you a great debt. Dang kobolds..."

[Is there something you want?]
"Ooh, well, if you’re offering… golly, there certainly is, pal! See, the city contracts with the kobold clans to manage our, ah, mortal chaff, you get me? That’s why we let them stay down there. As long as they do their job, the dogs stay above-ground, and we even pay them a fair wage for it."

[If it’s so fair, why do I keep getting called in to handle kobold problems?]

"Ooh, well that’s just the thing. See, sometimes kobolds split off from the big four clans and start little, ah, groups like Gnashtooth or the Tunnelworms to make trouble. It’s a mess, but what can you do? We try not to send guards in if we can help it, which is why adventurers come in handy."

[But…?]

"But there’s something strange going on now. See, there are four really big kobold clans in the Harbor right now—Clan Leechmaw, Clan Slimeclaw, the Smokespitters and the… oh, forget the last one. No matter. The trouble right now is the smallest, Leechmaw. They’re up to something. I need someone to go in there and find out what their leader is doing. You'll be handsomely rewarded!"

[Why are the Leechmaw kobolds making trouble?]

[What's the catch?]

"The catch is if you make too much of a mess, the kobolds will launch a rio… a… a little fun temper tantrum that will see half of this city in flames and the other half knee-deep in our own, ah, chaff. You just need to find if they’re doing anything, um, problematic, and shut it down without killing too many of them—or their obnoxious leaders. Then just get out of there!"

[You’ve got a deal.]

[Forget it. Do your own dirty work.]

[Edstienkin]

Not sure what is going on here, but you have certainly piqued my interest.

[kobold38]

Not sure what is going on here, but you have certainly piqued my interest.

Haha yeah, thanks so much for the nice comment! It's a fun quest. I'll try to get more info up soon about the Clan Leechmaw dungeon!

[cdbd3rd]

Not sure what is going on here, but you have certainly piqued my interest.

Kinda like...

[Fedora1]

A new Stormreach L4 quest line? When did this happen? Before or after Sharn? Why are these not in my quest logs? What am I missing? I am so confused!

[kobold38]

Hi again everyone! Sorry for the delay in this, and sorry if the guide has been confusing to people! I try to be clear, but I'm a bit new at walkthroughs. I'll maybe look into getting some screenshots next time I run through the adventure; Greg was telling me that I should try some of those to make it all easier to understand. Anyways, I hope it's fun to read, even if you're having trouble doing the quest!

Okay, so I'm posting the first part of this quest walkthrough now. Let me know if you have any questions and I can see if I can answer them!

Clan Leechmaw Treatment Plant

So to get to Clan Leechmaw, you've just got to go into the Waterworks and, in the room with the guard, down into the water. There's a tunnel leading west down there, I think they added it for this quest. It's a really long tunnel, but as far as I can tell, there's never any encounters or traps. Just a lot of old signs. Oh, there is some GM voiceover text!

"The air reeks of chemicals and refuse, the unwanted leftovers from a port city dripping magic from every orifice—and all down into the Waterworks."

And when you get into the main room, with four sewer entrances in the floor (you can only take the one with the big leech painted on the floor next to it), some more text:

"Warnings scratched out in the kobold tongue join faded signs painted by the city, dire consequences promised by both for the unwary trespasser."

Whoops! Guess it's not safe. Time to turn back. It's a weird quest, but I guess rules are rules, haha.

Anyways, kidding aside, you can go down whenever. Reminder that you're gonna want access to good stealth/speed-boosting buffs! This quest can butcher you if you're not careful. And don't wear any Guard armor items that deal damage automatically.

One more piece of advice before you go in: Keep an eye on the tracker in the quest box. You can kill 30 kobolds before it’s a problem, and if you kill more than 1 of the Kobold Elders, you lose a ton of XP. There are 3 Elders (technically, but we'll get to that) and two of them can pop up wherever basically.

Room #1: Entrance and Hallway
So as soon as you enter, make sure you watch your step, cuz there’s a nasty sawblade trap right by the entrance. Just stay away from the dark tiles. WAY away. I thought I could get close to the dark tiles to disarm the trap, but TBH, I wouldn’t bother. The panel is really hard to get to without getting hit and the trap has a stupid hair trigger. IDK how even the kobolds are supposed to get past it, haha, but who else would put such a nasty trap right at the exit for the Treatment Plant?

Once you’re past the sawblades, run through the hallway up ahead and honestly, unless you have good paralysis/sleep magic, just kill the 2 kobold guards there—it’s super hard to keep them alive, since you have to get the door open. If you wait to kill them, though, they do give some fun dialogue where they argue about whether an owlbear could beat a normal bear. There's a lot of NPC dialogue in this quest, and it's honestly kind of fun, sometimes. Maybe a bit distracting, though.

The first elder, Grackle the Storyteller, very rarely generates in this hallway. He's basically dressed like a silly bard, super colorful with a big floppy hat, and he's got a bunch of scrolls and books strapped to his back. He basically just buffs and heals the kobolds he’s with and sometimes tries to hit you with enchantment spells. he sucks in a fight on his own so he’s not a threat, but try to avoid him or incap if possible. He's honestly the easiest elder to deal with, as long as you can take out whoever he's with. If he's alone, you can just tank him for a while if you want to see all his quips and jokes.