Dark.
Claustrophobic.
Damp.
That was the first impression—and the only impression—given by Underground Supply Pipeline B-7.
Two heavily modified Chimera personnel carriers had shut down their roaring fuel engines.
Powered only by backup battery packs, their motors drove them silently along tracks carpeted in decaying fungal growth.
Their wheels crushed long-calcified bones, and the faint crack of breaking bone was infinitely amplified in the silent tunnel.
Rovi, seated in the front passenger seat, no longer checked the time on his Brass Pocket Watch.
Instead, using the dashboard's faint, cold glow, he focused on the notebook in his hands, recording parameters along the route based on Susan's reports.
"Distance traveled: 12 kilometers."
"Current depth: 35 meters underground."
"External environment: oxygen concentration 15.8%, methane concentration 2.4%—still rising slowly."
Rovi stopped writing and looked up through the reinforced bulletproof glass at the outside.
The two hooded searchlights at the front of the vehicle could only cut through less than fifteen meters of darkness ahead.
Countless particles drifted through the beams.
More precisely, spores.
"Something's wrong."
Rovi leaned forward slightly.
He noticed a strange layer of dew forming on the outside of the bulletproof glass.
It did not look like ordinary condensation. It was somewhat viscous, a murky yellowish-brown, and slowly slid downward under gravity.
"Alpha, take a sample." Rovi gave the order over the comm channel. "Use the external mechanical arm to scrape off the condensation on the glass."
Priest Alpha did not waste a word.
With a faint whir of hydraulic transmission, a Mechanical Tentacle extended nimbly from the side of the vehicle.
Its sampling blade gently scraped the glass, then retracted into the built-in testing chamber.
A few seconds later, a string of red analytical data appeared on the vehicle's Augur Array display.
"Component analysis complete."
The priest's synthesized electronic voice