The maintenance tunnel descended deeper than I expected. The walls changed as we went from less natural coral to more worked stone, clearly carved by something other than time and currents.
The air got colder too, and there was this faint hum that I felt more than heard, vibrating through the water itself.
Elowen moved ahead of me, one hand trailing along the wall to keep her bearings. The darkness was almost complete except for the faint glow of her bloom spots, which cast these shifting shadows across everything. I could have lit the way myself, but we were trying to stay unnoticed. The fewer signs we left that someone had come through here, the better.
"The hum means the facility's operational; when it's dormant, you don't feel anything. This means they're running systems. Which means Vex is probably there, the apex protocol is being run."
She whispered after maybe thirty minutes of descent.
"Is that good or bad?"
I asked quietly.
