Adventure 2.0 - Heli 3. Will Rat survive a nasty new world?

[Carthrat]

"I have no expectations and thus cannot be surprised," replies Carthrat, kneeling next to the hatch and shining a torch into it.

[Anastasia]

Down and ahead is a  twenty or thirty foot decent, stepping rings embedded into the wall.  Down below, you can just see some shadows - looks solid and non wet. Beyond that, you can't tell from up here.

[Carthrat]

Carthrat shoves his torch in his belt, so he can keep it shining down and his hand free to grip the ladder. He continues to slowly move down.

[Anastasia]

It's a fairly long decent, Rachel following behind as you go. Down and down into the depth of darkness you decend, each metal ring taking you closer to the end of this shadowed tunnel. When you finally do reach the bottom - smooth metal, showing no signs of rush or pitting, something speaking of technology and money - the faint light from above is merely a dot in the earthen roof.

It's dry here, with a path going roughly north and one going south. Neither have any marking features that you see, nor anything of interest. Both go farther than you can determine into the darkness.

[Carthrat]

"It'll be easy to get lost down here if the paths start branching off," comments Carthrat, grabbing a knife and heading north, cutting marks into the wall as he goes to keep direction.

[Anastasia]

As you begin to walk, Rachel examines the smooth metal walling. "It's steel," she asks, curious as you head into the unrelenting darkness of the underground.

Going in, you can see you're coming to an intersection, the gentle murmur of water heard.

[Carthrat]

Carthrat tries to listen to where to water is coming from. Generally, people would rather live near water than away from it, so that'd be the way to go.

[Anastasia]

It's coming from the right, you think. You aren't perfectly sure, as the sounds are slightly echoed in the depths below.

[Carthrat]

Carthrat heads right anyway, because there's no real way to gauge where the echoes are coming from. Not without a floorplan, and a few days to make the calculations..

[Anastasia]

As you begin to walk down, the air begins to smell of various scents - smoke is one of them, though lightly. Down ahead , you come to a break in the wall. It's perhaps the size of a boulder, most of that part of the piping collasped in something. Water trickles out from it, welled up and making a small river here. It's not much, only taking up the center walking area of the metal pipe and leaving the walksides dry. It doesn't pose any immediate problem to you.

[Carthrat]

Carthrat walks up to the hole and peers through it, checking back to make sure Rachel is ok.

[Anastasia]

She is, quietly following for now. It goes right into earth and rock. Offhand, it looks like a natural water source that was tapped into or burst through the tunnels.  It goes back a ways, and looks to be quite deep. It doesn't look dirty or polluted, either, at least not on any visible or smellable scale.

"Are they close," Rachel asks. "They'd have to live by the water, wouldn't they?"

[Carthrat]

"Not everything lives off water," replies Carthrat, shrugging. "But last I checked, this place was a human settlement. Primarily, anyway."

[Anastasia]

A simple nod, as the water continues to go.  "If they don't live off of water, what sort of creatures are they," she asks.

[Carthrat]

"Who knows?" shrugs Carthrat. "Ones that have serious trouble getting around the galaxy, I guess."