The storm drain narrowed into an arched tunnel of cracked dark rock stonework. Its ceiling wept greasy rivulets of rusty cooled water that dripped onto the sludge-covered floor with hollow, rhythmic splashes. Arthur moved in a low, disciplined crouch, his combat boots stepping silently through the muck. Beside him, Grimm walked with fluid, zero-shaking grace, his black coat blending seamlessly into the underground dark. Only the low amber gleam of his eyes betrayed his presence.
Behind them, Titus’s massive shell scraped against the tunnel walls with a muffled grating sound, his claws sinking four inches into the settled mud to provide silent, steady traction. Pip flew ahead, gliding from pipe bracket to pipe bracket without flapping his wings, scouting the turns of the drainage chimney pipe. The air grew steadily foul, thick with the stench of decomposing offal, burnt signal fluid. The acrid ozone sting of overloaded stun-collars.
Arthur kept his Monocle Taxonomy Loupe (Mk. IV) active on low-light infrared. Every fifty yards, rusted heavy-duty discharge pipes entered the main tunnel, their rims coated in toxic blue algae that flourished in the chemical runoff from the Upper Spire biomes. In several hollows along the drainage wall, Arthur spotted the telltale signs of desperate squatter encampments. Rusted tin cans, sodden bedding. The small, hollowed bones of sewer rodents picked clean by starving commoners.
