The Blue Lives

14# Maintenance Concerns.

Summary: You and George got separated, he and you have to find a way through the underground to get past and back to the surface. 

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"Oh..." You huff and gingerly make your way through the next door.  Even more valves and pipes go all over Wellington Wells and into homes. 
Once you were far enough you were finally able to take off the gasmask as it started to itch your face. "This place is a mess." You complain while paying attention to the noise you hear ahead, it sounds like voices so there are Council Workers around. You were worried that the underground is completely desolate, that there is no one to look after all these sensitive-looking machines. 

"For the last time, don't touch these pipes! They channel the hot steam!" a redhead Council worker scolds a colleague.  "You should have told me that earlier!" A Worker with glasses whines back while rubbing his burned hand to ease the pain. 
"I have!! But you never listen!" The other yells back, getting frustrated with this colleague's incompetence. 
You pay close attention to what the two workers are saying, this might be useful to your escape. It might be smart to not touch anything while you're here, hearing that some pipes are burning to the touch, you better watch yourself. 

You watch the worker walk away into another room, now is the time to make your move. There are some useful trinkets to pick up here, one of many being a few glass bottles, a loose valve and a slim steel pipe that you could use to defend yourself, should the need arise that it. You wouldn't just hurt anybody unless they hurt you. 
"I sure feel powerful while holding a weapon like this." You mutter excitedly to yourself. There is a spark of adrenaline awakened while holding this pipe, this is a true adventure alright, and you're going to get out of here together with George. 
"I hope he is doing alright..." You wonder out loud as you store the weapon to continue your journey to reunite with the man you can seem to stop thinking about.

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"The Joy is causing everybody to lose the plot." George mumbles while inspecting the papers with messages of complaints. "Such a shame, really." He pockets the papers and resumes his journey. The locked room ended in some kind of storage room for documents, seemingly left to collect dust evident to the layers upon layers of that stuff, even the spiderweb in the corner is dusty. 
Despite it being rather dark in this room, George can still make out a door on the other side of the room past all those cabinets. 

Exiting the storage room there is yet another hall that leads to some more rooms and officers presumedly. George looks left and right, not sure which way he should go to get back to (Y/n) to reunite with her. 
Lucky for George there is a sort of map of the underground that could help him locate the end of the underground and reach Maidenholm to the parade where he can find (Y/n) and leave with her via the Britannia Bridge.

George can read the map and sees that the hatch towards Maidenholm is east of where he is now, good enough of a lead for now. 
The hall feels musky, there has to be some gas or fluid leaking somewhere. It's almost a little difficult to breathe. George can hardly imagine how bad it is for your lungs to be a Council Worker.
Going in his desired direction, to Maidenholm. There is some noise in the hall ahead. Curious, George slows his pace with caution to investigate the sounds. 

"This is very bad! Edward, very bad!" A voice of a man can be heard. George expected a response from someone else, but a response never came which sparked his curiosity. Peeking over the corner is where he finds what he really did not expect to find here. 
This next room is much larger than the other, a main room of sorts. What George notices are those Jubelators that he finds rather tedious. What are those things doing down here? 
There is something about those machines that George had never really liked, perhaps it's the fact that those machines can operate without a driver, or now because they're being operated by people strung out on drugs. 
"There has to be a way through this..." He wonders, hoping he does not get spotted by any council workers and gets questioned by them. Police don't really show up in the underground, unless it's maintenance inspections, and he is not even qualified for that. 
If George plays it smart, he can fool a council worker once, and then play spy for the rest of the remaining time he is here. 

Abusing his authority doesn't leave a pleasant taste in his mouth, even if he has done it before technically. 
He prefers to play it safe and avoid a confrontation that could lead to something biting him back in the future perhaps. He kneels and crouches behind some wooden crates, if only he wasn't as tall as he is, sneaking would have been easier. George keeps comparing this experience to the times he sneaked into the fortress of some thugs to safe (Y/n), even if that little adventure didn't go as much as he had wanted it to go. He did eventually succeed in rescuing her with some minor bruises to prove it.