Reblogged from Jim Webster, aka Tallis Steelyard:

Like all old cities, much of Port Naain is built on older bits of Port Naain. It’s claimed that in the Sump there are houses falling down because they’re built on the foundations of houses that fell down previously.

Madam Cissie Rotherie is perhaps unique in my experience in that she managed to use what she found of the past. When she and her husband purchased the house, the cellar was full of rubble. As a young couple they thought nothing about it, until Thandar Rotherie felt that he could do with somewhere as a workshop. Whilst a clerk of sorts he was one of these people who just has the knack when it comes to wood, and he made most of the family’s furniture. A very nice job he made of it.

So he started clearing the cellar. He was lucky at the time because somebody wanted to rebuild in the Sump and they would come and take away rubble for free as they wanted it for the foundations. Thus after a week or so’s hard work he discovered he had not merely a cellar, but a dungeon.

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