Catchthief Alley
This short, narrow passage runs north off Golden Serpent Street, along the east wall of the Helmfast noble family villa compound. Its name comes from its site as the downfall of the infamous thief Uluryk Malogh, who was slain by a hail of poisoned arrows here many winters ago after he killed the heads of two noble houses in a tavern brawl and taunted their kin by revealing himself as an agent of the banished Thieves Guild, who had been ordered to bring about their doom.
He escaped into the sewers and cellars of the city which he knew as few others do, but the Guild thought him insane and a risk to themselves, and sent agents into the city to slay him. The agents of the Guild caught him in this alley. Some folk swear they have heard the ghostly bubbling whisper of his last words, pronouncing a curse on all traitors, and lamenting that the poison burns so.
There are persistent rumors that he made an extensive map of the cellars and sewers, detailing traps, barriers, and locks. If it exists, it has never come to light.
The alley is also notable for the fact that much of it was once destroyed by a wyrm bursting up from below! There is an old legend in the city of a dozen or more dragonets that once hatched early and ate their way to freedom, escaping from an importer of dragon eggs into the city sewers. They dined on rats, thieves, and other skulking monsters, growing slowly in size and powers. This tale has probably grown a great deal in the telling, but a single dragon undeniably broke out of some cellar, cell, or sewer below the widest part of this alley some 70 winters ago and flew away over the city to escape into the nearby mountains to the north. Its origin, if it was learned at the time, has been forgotten.
