According to Kalikoff's fellow plumber Sturvin, the Deepdown has a long-standing reputation for being prime monster habitat, and it's worsened lately. Some 25 years ago or so, trips into the Deepdown were [ fun] [[Chronology - Volume #|✣ ]] -- after a fashion -- with rewards and a grand party thrown by the Sturmvoraus prince when monsters encountered there (usually resulting from something the prince had cooked up, of course) were dispatched. Nowadays, however, the denizens of the Deepdown have assumed such a level of nastiness that "it ain't no fun at all!" to go down there, as Kalikoff discovers the hard way. (Remarkably, he survives.)