Chapter 184: The Fourth Branch

The fourth branch got tighter almost immediately.

A few minutes after leaving the cistern, Arthur had to duck under another rusted pipe while ankle-deep water sloshed around his boots. There wasn’t enough room to comfortably draw Whisperwind, so he kept the bow lowered and his right hand free near the dagger on his left hip.

Felix turned sideways to squeeze his shield past a pipe jutting from the wall.

"Whoever designed this place was an idiot."

"They probably didn’t build the aqueduct around your shoulders," Emily said behind Arthur.

"Still sounds like poor planning."

Chloe’s light crystal threw their shadows ahead of them.

"Stop blocking my light."

Arthur glanced back. "This is why nobody invites you two anywhere."

"You’re here too," Emily reminded him.

The tunnel looked older the farther they went. Rusted pipes ran along the walls, half buried under thick white mineral crust, and several dead municipal lamps hung crooked from the masonry.

Felix stopped beside a rusted iron plate and wiped the grime off with his glove.

C-4 SERVICE / SLUICE ACCESS

He pulled out the map.

"This isn’t some new break. It’s an old service route."

Chloe leaned over to look. "Then why isn’t it here?"

Felix frowned. "No idea."

"Then we update the map," Arthur said.

They kept moving.

The narrow tunnel eventually opened into a wider valve control room. Water leaked steadily through several long cracks in the masonry, flooding the floor over their boots. A rusted iron walkway spanned the deepest section of the stagnant water, and the air smelled heavy and foul.

Felix stepped onto the wide iron grating to test it. The metal held.

He shifted his full weight onto the walkway.

CRACK!

Felix dropped through the grating up to his thigh.

Arthur and Emily immediately grabbed his shoulder harness and hauled him backward onto solid stone before the rest of the plate could give way.

Felix dragged his dripping leg out of the hole. "I hate this fucking place."

Chloe crouched beside Felix before he could even stand all the way up.

"Hold still."

She checked the heavy leather armor around his thigh and shin for tears.

"Nothing broke skin. Good," Chloe said, standing back up.

She shined her light over the dark, stagnant pool beneath the broken grate. Thick clusters of dead insects and old mineral residue floated in the scum.

"Don’t get that on bare skin," Chloe warned them. "And keep your hands away from your faces until we’re outside."

Emily reached up to wipe a streak of dirty water off her mouth with her heavy leather glove.

Chloe slapped her hand away.

"Did you just hit me?" Emily asked.

"Yes," Chloe said.

Arthur grinned. Chloe pointed the light right at him. "You too."

The light suddenly caught a long, dark shape moving rapidly through the flooded floor.

"Moving. Left side," Chloe called out.

Something thick and gray lunged out of the water and latched a lamprey-like mouth directly onto the side of Felix’s armored boot.

Felix swore, driving the heavy rim of his shield straight down and crushing the creature against the stone.

Another one erupted from the murky water toward Emily. She stomped it flat before it could latch on.

Arthur saw a third eel-like shape snaking through the water toward Chloe. Felix and Emily were directly in his firing lane. He held his draw, waited for them to shift, and fired the second he had a clean angle.

The arrow sliced into the water and sparked off the stone floor, missing the creature’s head by an inch as the murky water distorted its actual position.

"Shit."

Arthur adjusted his angle, drew again, and pinned the thing to the floor.

Felix looked down at the creature he had crushed. "Core?"

Chloe looked at the foul black water around it. "Not worth cutting that open down here."

"Works for me," Felix said.

The broken grate left enough room along the wall for them to cross, but nobody trusted it anymore. Felix went first, keeping his weight close to the stone while Chloe watched the rusted metal beneath his boots. Emily followed, then Arthur, one at a time.

Nothing else gave way.

They moved into an even narrower service corridor. Arthur squeezed past a thick, rusted pipe, and Emily bumped her hip into his on the way through.

The slick stone angled sharply downward. Emily’s boot skidded on a patch of wet algae.

Arthur caught her around the waist before she went down, hauling her back upright.

She used his arm to regain her footing. "Useful."

"Romantic," Arthur said.

"Don’t ruin it."

A few minutes later, Chloe pulled a relatively clean cloth from her kit and wiped a thick smear of mud off Arthur’s cheek. Arthur leaned in and tried to kiss her.

She shoved his face away. "Absolutely not. You’re filthy."

Emily watched them from the front of the line. "Coward."

"You kiss him," Chloe told her.

Emily looked at Arthur’s mud-caked face and dripping hair. "No."

"Great," Arthur said. "I feel valued."

They hit a small service junction. The main C-4 route continued straight ahead, but off to the right sat a heavy iron service gate blocking a side passage. Wrapped around the vertical bars was a thick iron chain and a rusted padlock.

Felix grabbed the chain to test the lock. Most of the links were buried under thick brown rust. The cut face on one link was much cleaner.

Felix held it up. "This was cut."

Arthur crouched beside it. No black crust. Nothing strange growing through the iron. Just a clean cut through an old chain.

"Recent?" Chloe asked.

Arthur leaned closer to the cut. "More recent than the rest of this shit."

Felix pulled out his notebook and recorded the finding.

Service gate chain cut. Cut face much cleaner than surrounding links.

Arthur looked at the dark tunnel stretching past the iron bars. If this branch had been in the game, he either hadn’t found it or hadn’t given enough of a shit to remember it.

Vale had told them specifically not to wander into the sealed municipal branches, so they left the gate shut, marked the side passage on the map, and continued straight down the legitimate C-4 route.

They walked another hundred meters before the tunnel ended abruptly in a collapsed vertical access shaft. Old stone stairs spiraled upward for another twenty feet before disappearing beneath a massive pile of caved-in earth and masonry.

Felix marked the old surface access as blocked. They turned around.

The return trip was much faster. They already knew where the submerged hole was. They knew which section of the iron bridge was weak. Felix’s map now included the missing C-4 branch, Chloe marked a hazard symbol over the unstable valve chamber, and Arthur marked the severed service gate.

They emerged through the main iron gate into the harsh white light of the staging point, entirely covered in mud, foul-smelling water, and monster blood.

Felix handed Professor Vale their route sheet.

Vale scanned the added branch and stopped reading.

CUT SERVICE CHAIN

He looked at them. "You go through the cut gate?"

"No," Felix said.

Vale nodded. "Pass. I’ll have someone check C-4 before the map gets updated."

Emily looked at Arthur. Arthur shrugged. They were exhausted.

"Can we eat now?" Arthur asked.

"Finally," Felix said.