I nodded, and stepped back into the airlock. A moment later, I was out, walking on the ocean floor--or in some sense, far below the ocean floor. The first thing I noticed was how warm the water was down here. The second was the tingle of the hair on my neck standing on end. Crankshaft was right about the ambient magic too.

Moving slowly but steadily in the water, I set off following the cable that Crankshaft had told me. I was careful not to lose sight of it-- even though the crevasse meant that I couldn’t get too far off track, the extreme darkness made me not want to risk getting lost.

It was closer than I expected when I came across the extractor. A stubby metal scaffolding clung to the ground, with the cable terminating in some kind of transformer box. I couldn’t see the drill itself, just a hole stretching down into the rock, the size of a well.

I swam inside, slowly sinking further and further down into the depths. I had no idea how far I had to be from the surface now-- miles, perhaps? The further down I got, the more the feeling of freefloating magic intensified. I was glad not to be a unicorn; even still, I could feel the power thrumming in my bones. The everpresent darkness subsided, as the magic that suffused the water produced its own eldritch glow.

And then I came to the end of the tunnel…