Trifle City's sewers were a truly repugnant place, as disgusting as they were deep, narrow, murky and dark. Monstrous red-eyed rats, tails as long as pythons, scurried through rip-roaring rivers of gelatinous slurry. Akin to a decaying wallpaper of chocolate Swiss roll, muck peeled from the walls in every conceivable shade of putrid, wretched, stomach-churning excrement. And the air... Yuck! So thick, one could literally build stank-castles from it–

  And that was just the sewers' gift shop! Bum-tish! (That was a comedic drum-roll, by the way, not a bum sneezing.)

  Anyway... By the time Detective Pilchard and Crumpet-Hands Man had descended a filthy ladder into the filthier bowels of the actual sewers (a perusal of the gift shop having delayed them, our hero snapping up a keychain with the message 'I came to Trifle City's Sewers and all I got was this keychain Dysentery') just one sup of the choking foulness caused the detective's ears to water.

  “Good gizzard on a gantry!” he burped, bringing a police-issue handkerchief to his mouth; the handkerchief screamed, resisted, but the detective clasped it tight; like all public servants, it had a duty. “But joking aside, Crumpet-Hands Man... Jeeez!” the detective coughed, spluttered, slapped his handkerchief back to consciousness before speaking through it, “it stinks to high heaven down here!”

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  Indeed it did. It wasn't long before God himself leant over his heavenly cirrus and demanded that one our heroes “close that damn drain cover!” behind them, for the reek was putting his godness and company off their fish suppers. Like.

  “Poo! I pray this stench doesn't get any stronger,” gasped the pale-faced detective, stepping from the ladder and straight into a puddle of something squidgy. “The.. The smell... It is already more than I can stomach. I fear...I fear,” the detective teetered woozily, “I fear I might–”

  “Here, take this. It will help filter out the stank,” Crumpet-Hands Man offered, handing the detective a small snorkel-shaped crumpet. “Go ahead. Pop it in your mouth now, breathe. Can you do that?”

  Detective Pilchard snorted indignantly. “I know how to breathe, good sir. I've been doing it most of my life! Kinda...”

  With the wee-little crumpet puckered in his gob, like a Polo mint but all brown and bready, the detective did indeed feel better; he could now inhale fully without the fear of gagging, fainting, or bringing up his breakfast. No need to thank him, our hero was only glad to be of assistance; having popped a little crumpet-snorkel of his own into his own little gob (albeit at the third time of asking; our hero's crumpet-eye coordination left a lot to be desired...) with a hoisting of his crumpet-waders and a flashing of his crumpet-torch, crumpet-Crumpet-Hands Man led the detective onwards into the sewer's tubular tunnels. They had barely gotten around the first bend before that foul-smelling water which lurked at the walkway's basin came up to their ankles – but this was a good thing, our hero insisted. “It indicates that this section is currently unblocked,” he splashed, getting a little in the detective's ears.

  Further along, however, our wading duo came across an intersection which was notably devoid of water. A ducking into a narrowing, pinky pipeline soon revealed the cause...