The tunnel was not a smooth Syndicate conduit. It was rough-hewn stone, old and damp. Moisture beaded on the walls, not from a pipe, but from the living rock. The sound of their footsteps was swallowed by a deep, pervasive silence.
"This is pre-Syndicate," Sage whispered, his voice full of wonder. "This is a real aquifer channel."
"It's a geological feature," Valentine corrected, but her tone was less certain. She ran a finger through the bead of moisture. "Potable?" she asked, her practical mind kicking in.
Sage used his scanner. "Mineral-rich. No magical resonance. No energy signature. Just… water."
The word felt sacred. It was just water. Not a multi-purpose W.E.R.M. fuel. A fundamental, simple thing the world had forgotten.
The tunnel began to slope more steeply downward. The air grew colder, thicker. A sound emerged from the silence ahead—not a drip, but a low, steady hum, like a giant's heartbeat transmitted through stone.
They rounded a bend and stopped.
The chamber was vast, a natural cavern. In its center glowed a pool of water. But it was wrong. Its light was the same sickly silver as Lysander's sample, pulsing erratically. Tendrils of smoky, silver mist rose from its surface, condensing on the ceiling and falling like toxic rain.
This was no pure font. It was a wound.
Standing at its edge, back to them, was Lysander Chrismont.