It did not take long for the elevator doors to part before her, presenting the same empty yet illuminated interior it had shown her when she had summoned it on the rooftop. Haltingly, remembering how the doors had closed on their own the first time she had used it, Pithy leaned her body forward, trying to catch a glimpse of any controlling mechanisms before she locked herself inside.

It did not take long for her to discover the panel besides the elevator doors.

[i]Ding.[/i]

Pithy started and began to pull back as she heard the noise. She heard the mechanism controlling the doors whir into activity, then quickly halt a moment later.

Pithy frowned, studying the open door. [i]It seems these remain open for as long as one stands in the way. Good design.[/i] She wondered as to the trick behind it. The devices within the Justice Hub did not have the feel of sorcery to them, but she wondered how one would accomplish such things without the use of magic.

Gaining confidence, Pithy walked into the elevator, studying the buttons adorning the control panel, along with the accompanying sigils. She ignored the buttons at the very bottom of the panel, finding the markings unhelpful in elucidating their usage, but rapidly deduced that the buttons with numbers represented each of the building’s levels. The notation changed when the numbers reached the ground level, but it was simple enough for her to locate the button corresponding to the lowest level and press it.

The doors closed and the metallic cage shivered, making Pithy throw out a hand to the wall as though expecting the floor to crumble beneath her. A moment later, a low murmur and the rising feeling in the pit of her stomach told her that she was descending.

Pithy was forced to wait for the machine to deposit her where it would. The process only took a few seconds, but her hand never abandoned the wall she was using for support, and her eyes kept scanning the walls and ceilings for possible exits until the bell chimed and the doors opened.

Pithy stepped out into the dark hallway warily, holding her rapier at the ready.

As she did, the lights on the ceiling came to life, illuminating her path as they had done in the upper floors. Her stance relaxed when no threats made themselves known. 

As promised by Oren, a plaque with words and arrows hanged on a wall, one labeled [i]MAINTENANCE[/i] in clear, bold letters. A few other labels stood to attention right under it in smaller font. Pithy’s eyes immediately fixed on the one that read [i]Generator Access[/i].

Marveling (yet slightly perturbed) at the convenience of it all, Pithy began to walk down the corridors. 

Barring the lack of windows, the first hallways she walked down reminded her of some of the upper levels. Like above, the few doorknobs she experimentally tugged on refused to budge, but the occasional glass pane revealed offices much like the one she had entered earlier, along with the occasional large table surrounded by chairs that made her think of meeting rooms.

It was only once she discovered and began descending a set of stairs that she began detecting a change in the clean, business-like environment.

Ever so slowly, her surroundings began to look more and more like she had expected a dilapidated ruin to look. Cracks on the walls, open doors, and lights that could no longer tap into whatever mysterious power source allowed the others to remain lit.

It was what she had expected at first, but while part of her mind urged her to feel relieved at the ever so slightly more familiar atmosphere of a ruin, she could not dispel an almost instinctual feeling of apprehension. Abandoned buildings were much like corpses. Rotting ones were not something most would call pleasant.

Still, she had to wonder. [i]These lower floors are not connected to the elevator. Were they added later, or were they purposefully built such that one would not have easy access to this place from upper floors? And this damage… is this how this building looked while it was operational, or has it deteriorated since the place was abandoned? Is it somehow outside of the sphere of influence of whatever keeps the upper facility running smoothly?[/i] 

Pithy caught herself. The last thought was predicated on the assumption that the place had been abandoned for a meaningful length of time. Her instincts suggested that was the case, but the evidence pointed at a recently abandoned facility.

The maintenance sector, which she knew she had arrived to courtesy of a large sign on the wall, proved to be much less orderly than the administrative sectors of the citadel. Rather than hallways and cleanly arrayed rooms at each side, Pithy was forced to navigate a confusing array of rooms filled to the brim with containers, jugs and bottles of liquids she largely failed to recognize from their labels, and the occasional broom or obvious cleaning instrument that made her suspect as to the purpose of the complex. That said, if probed as to the function of the large boxes with circular glass panes on their front, she could give no satisfactory answer.

She followed the signs through a few more strange rooms, corridors and stairs before she reached the room he sought. 

She felt the reverberating drone of machinery before her eyes fell on the closed door. Pithy was deeply aware that, while she knew the word Oren had used to describe her objective, she had no idea as to what the clearly active machinery ahead was generating. There was no telling what she might find. At the very least, something that had managed to scare off the College’s investigators.

Pithy drew some magic into her rapier, shaping a spell. Six blades of ice coalesced behind her, hovering at her flanks like half-spread wings. 

With her weapons readied, Pithy tried the door.

The handle turned easily enough, but when she applied force, the door refused to budge. She frowned and shoved her shoulder against it. The door parted ever so slightly at the blow, the latch slipping from its nook.

[i]Not locked. Barred. And by something close to the ground.[/i] It immediately crossed her mind that one of the College’s researches may have died pressed against the door, but she was not sure a corpse would account for such a barrier.

She took a step back, considering the obstacle for a moment, before pointing at the door with her rapier. 

One of the blades at her side hovered forward and pushed at the uppermost corner of the door until it lodged itself into the crack between it and its frame. At that point, the ice slid down towards the actual block, forcing the slight opening to enlarge as it approached. When it reached the bottom, Pithy made a gesture with her rapier. The crystal suddenly twisted, applying pressure to the center of the barrier as though she was prying the door open with a crowbar.