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I glanced behind us. Two dozen guards and engineers filled the room, and I spotted guards with levels in their teens. Many shook their fists before sprinting after us.

This was getting serious.

Lloyd had a commanding lead as he flung himself headlong down the hallway. He shouted a silly little song to the cadence of his footfalls. His voice echoed off the clay pipes.

“The clean ones like to chase us.

They think they own the town.

Their frills and gowns will trip them up.

We’ll wash the gentry down!”

I couldn’t help but wonder if Lloyd had gone mad. He slid to a doorway at the end of the hallway, opened it, and threw himself into a room filled with more pipes and valves. Shouts of alarm greeted him.

A Fireball exploded behind me, and I assumed it to be Fabulosa’s. By now, I joined his shouting chorus. “Lloyd, wait!”

I followed Lloyd into a room. The interior looked like a medieval grist mill dominated by horizontal valves—each as big as a merry-go-round. Heavy timbers supported the ceiling, backdropped by clay and copper pipes.

I ran in full panic mode. “Lloyd, what are you doing?”

We interrupted a group of engineers tightening a ceramic pipe’s fitting. They froze midway through their task and looked at one another for reasons a group of stinky adventurers wanted inside the control house. They reached for tools and instruments to use as weapons. Pulling the aggro of this many people seemed suicidal.

A pale five-foot woman with pointed ears wearing fine robes emerged from a doorway on the far side of the room. Alarmed by our entrance, she turned to face Lloyd and began casting a spell.

Name

Nasha, Deep Elf Engineer

Level

35

Difficulty

Dangerous (orange)

Health

2950/2950

Lloyd leaned over a railing in the room’s center and pitched forward into whatever waited below. As he disappeared, the deep elf’s spell fizzled. She hissed in irritation and focused on another target.

Fletcher and the dwarves had already run past me, heading for the same railing.

I Counterspelled the engineer as I followed, foiling her again. By now, I could see that Lloyd had jumped into a wide water channel whose current flowed as fast as a waterfall.

Drawing Nasha’s attention hadn’t bought my companions much time, so I ran toward her, widening my eyes like a madman and reaching for my Divine Bow.

Our eyes met, and her lip curled in outrage. She cast Mana Shield as I raised my bow.

Fabulosa swung one leg over the railing and called to me. “Patchy, don’t! Get over here!”

My fake-out charge bought everyone time. I Slipstreamed over the drop-off and into the current, making Fabulosa the last to get wet.

The drop wasn’t long, but the water’s near-immediate velocity jarred me forward, propelling me into a dark tunnel. I ignited Presence, having extinguished it before starting this insane race with the guards. I’d foolishly thought we’d sneak past Arlington’s finest. Light did little to improve my awareness as I tumbled through whirlpools and undertows. I collided with someone ahead of me, and Lloyd pulled me onto a round platform, which the water channel encircled.

My companions hung onto the edge of a flume. Lloyd left the water first. “The current is a ripper today. Haul your gills out of the drink! They’ll be on us quick. To the tanks!”

I could barely hear him over the noise of rushing water. After redoubling my efforts, I climbed onto the platform and joined the chorus of adventurers hacking and coughing up the water.

Lloyd beckoned us into an alcove with an open trapdoor. “Down the hatch! I’ll swab the deck behind us.”

His instructions made no sense, but I followed everyone crawling down a ladder.

Lloyd produced a cloth and wiped the floor behind us, concealing our trail.

I climbed down a ladder leading into a small, clay-tiled water basin barely high enough to stand. A wooden stopper the size of a monster truck tire plugged a hole in the floor, and an ominous sluice hung overhead, implying that the room flooded, although toward what purpose, I couldn’t imagine.

Lloyd closed the hatch door and crank-opened the sluice gate, causing a torrent of water to pour into the tank. We had to shout to be heard over the splash.

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Fabulosa watched him. “Will the wooden stopper float in the water?”

Lloyd shook his head and winked as if enjoying an insider’s secret. “Even filled with water, it’s pressure-locked. The suction is too strong. Once it fills, we’ll give this valve a turn.” He pointed to a valve connecting to a large ceramic pipe.

Fabulosa grabbed the handle. “What does it do?”

Lloyd winked again. “Don’t worry, L.T. I never steered ye wrong—unless you’re counting the last few hours.”

Lloyd turned his attention to a valve handle and mouthed lyrics to a song. The water surface reached my waist, and the dwarves pulled themselves above the surface by hanging onto the ladder.

Fabulosa tapped Lloyd on the shoulder to get his attention. She shouted into his ear. “They won’t look for us down here?”

Lloyd shook his head. “The engies designed these tanks to drown anyone fool enough to try what we’re doing. But fret not—we may be crazy, but not suicidal.”

Everyone’s expression echoed my fears.

I searched for another hatch since the water reached chest level. The smooth tank walls offered no other openings.

I shouted over the water. “Is the valve part of the escape route through the bilge tanks?”

Lloyd smiled and shook his head.

“Then what does it do?”

Lloyd smiled. “Since we’re taking this shortcut, it’ll add a bit of fun. It diverts harbor water into the cisterns in the Two Towers district. When the engies open the tanks at noon, the extra pressure turns the fountains into geysers.”

I looked at him in incomprehension.

“It’s been too long since the nobles enjoyed a late-morning shower.”

The water rose to the ceiling, and we tilted our chins in order to breathe. With the water level so high, the splashing wasn’t loud anymore, and we could hear Lloyd’s singing.

“They say we’re rotten children

‘cause our parents aren’t around.

We steal and smell and sing like hell,

We’ll wash the gentry down.”

Water soon drowned him out, and I heard loud squeaking sounds. Underwater, he and Fabulosa turned the valve.

Fletcher and I burned Presence, providing ample light. I made myself useful and gave my trident to Bernard, who passed it to Blane. One by one, we took turns breathing underwater.

Everyone except Lloyd took a breath. After turning the valve, he pulled out the special key Beaker had freed from its hook and pressed it against the giant wooden plug. He slipped it into a small port on the side of the stopper and waved to us to stay clear.

He pushed the key inside and twisted it. The plug’s base expelled an air bubble, and the stopper rocketed to the top of the tank—and the undertow pulled so violently that I lost my grip on the ladder.

The draining liquid pulled everyone out of the tank and into the drain, dumping us into an underground river. Six heads reached the surface, coughing and sputtering. The benefits of Hawkhurst’s Amphibious mandate had turned us into capable swimmers, though we could barely maintain our position. We instinctually swam against the current, resisting whatever controlled our destiny.

Lloyd’s voice echoed off the walls. “Easy does it, me hearties! This tunnel takes us to the gondolas. We’ll ride them to the surface, straight to the garment district. It’s fair sailing and low-moons from here on out.”

Lloyd intended to reassure us, but the loud rumbling downstream unnerved everyone. I could see no handholds to stop our progress. Once again, Lloyd led the way as he drifted with the water. He shouted over the rumbling. “Ye wants to dive for this next part. We’re beneath the gondola spillway. Scratch the bottom, lest ye be brained to bits.”

At least light greeted us ahead. The tunnel’s ceiling opened to an avalanche of water and brass-reinforced gondolas splashing into the underground river. It sounded like rolling thunder.

We dove deep and hugged the bottom while the splashing canoes pulverized the surface. Our swimming bonus made it easy to maintain negative buoyancy.

I grew paranoid that a drain might suck us away. The water looked clean, and I scanned the bottom with my spear’s infravision. Nothing threatened us.

After we passed beneath the thundering cataract of gondolas, I watched everyone surface to get air. Though I could breathe underwater, I followed them, replenishing my lungs. The familiar stench from the sewers returned.

Bobbing gondolas logjammed the surface. The tunnel narrowed, ending in a waterwheel. The deep rumbling of the waterwheel pushing the gondolas underwater made as much noise as the splashdown behind us. I possessed no energy to contend with another pulverizing danger.

“Lloyd! What is that?” Fabulosa had to shout over the roar of water, groaning wood, and thunder of timber.

“It’s okay, L.T.! Grab onto the insides of a gondola and hang on. That wheel will push the boats below the surface and into an intake tunnel. The tunnel leads to a well going to the surface. Turtle your gondola to trap air inside. It’ll make the ride faster.”

“What ride?” Fabulosa shouted to the sailor, but he had already gone underwater and rolled his gondola upside down.

His head poked above the surface next to the inverted boat. “Ye see? Ye can breathe the air and use it to enjoy your ride to the surface.” The maneuver took us several attempts, but we each inverted our gondolas. It took a little balancing to keep them from rolling over.

Lloyd pointed to the giant wooden waterwheel clunking boats beneath the surface. “Unless you prefer your skull in another shape, I suggest ye go under your gondola when it reaches the wheel!”

Without the glow of Presence, it would have been black beneath the trapped space between the water and the boat’s interior. My companions drifted in darkness.

The wheel banged against the roof of my boat as it shoved it beneath the water.

I held on tight. When the front tipped upward, I felt an intense upward movement. My stomach felt lurched as the vessel propelled upward. The violent rush ended after a few seconds, and my grip faltered when my gondola breached the surface. I breathed fresh air and opened my eyes. Nassi, in its half-moon phase, greeted me. Stars faintly peppered the dim light of the eastern horizon. Dawn approached.

I drifted peacefully on a pool’s surface amidst other partially submerged gondolas. Aside from the water lapping against wood, I only heard my companions coughing.

“Sparks and embers!” Blane clung to his canoe. “This marks the last time I’m stepping up for an adventure. I’d rather clean Rocky’s scullery than do that again.”

Bernard nodded. “Aye! Ye get just as wet, but at least ye don’t smell like a troll’s backside.”

“Sink me, but that was fun! Thank you, Cap’n, for giving these old bones a chance to ride the gondolas once more.” Lloyd panted and grinned as he discussed something out of earshot with Fletcher.

We surfaced behind a row of buildings somewhere in Arlington. The pool connected to various canals, and I could tell by the current it somehow powered the canals’ downstream flow. I wondered if magic or pressurization prevented this water from flooding the Underworks.

Another waterwheel lifted and drained the gondolas before setting them back into a canal. Nearby workers made sure the gondolas surfaced upright, giving us questioning stares as we climbed onto the banks.

Fletcher scanned the eastern horizon. “We’re a bit behind schedule. I’ll go down to the dock to hold the boat. The wind won’t pick up for a few hours, so you still have time to hit the debtor’s prison.

Fabulosa’s brow furrowed. “Will he hold it for us?”

Lloyd answered. “The captain is a proper canal rat. He won’t leave if Fletcher finds him.”

Fabulosa wasted no time. “Let’s shake a leg.”

Backing away, Lloyd shook his head. “Whew! That odor is worse topside! You’ll need naught but a downwind zephyr to knock out the prison guards. Fall back a bit until I get a head start.”

I grinned. “We’re following you again.”

Lloyd waved his nose and walked down the empty sidewalks. “The sooner we’re in Dark Harbors, the better. Your perfume isn’t up to citizenry standards.”