The foul stench of rotting offal, stale urine, and stagnant mud pressed down on Tair’s chest like a weight of lead beneath the earth.
The water reached waist height in the narrow, stone-arched drainage tunnel beneath Elyaran’s lower district. Tair dragged his lifeless right leg through the heavy silt with his submerged reinforced brace, leaving an invisible, silent trail beneath the cold current. His sound left hand gripped a wooden cane; his lifeless right arm was tightly bound against his ribs with an oily leather strap to keep it from swinging.
His single eye burned in the pitch darkness. As he advanced through the labyrinth of flooded intersections without a lantern, small red bursts of neural heat flashed behind his pupil.
Spatial Navigation: ASTRA
SYSTEM STATUS: Active
UNDERGROUND ROUTE: 80 meters to West Barracks
NEURAL COST: 29%