text: [Themes: Mystery, blood, coming of age, female protagonist, mystery]
  
  > look around
  From this observation deck, you can see the grand scale of the operation of the Channelworks. A solid mass of machinery extends everywhere within this ancient building, filling its domed chambers and its high stone arches. Everywhere you look, pipes converge in a dizzying cacophony of hissing steam and flowing water, of whirling turbines and rolling metal drums.
  
  A foul-smelling tunnel leads out of the Channelworks to the south.
  
  There is a console here, and a hydraulic door to the east which stands out from all the others. The black trail flows from one of the leaking pipes near this door.
  
  > look at the steam
  It's the processed lifeblood of the district.
  
  > look at the console
  A grand table finished in rosewood and orichalcum. There are a myriad different needles and indicator bulbs, labeled with arcane symbols and organized with geometric precision.
  
  An inkstained memo has been left on one wing of the console. Beside it, there is a row of pistons with handles that can be pushed or pulled.
  
  Currently, the I piston is extended, the II piston is extended, the IV piston is extended, the VII piston is extended, and the X piston is retracted.
  
  > examine the memo
  I've shut the laboratory until the crisis blows over. No seal yet,
  but the pressure safety lock should be enough to keep muties out.
  -S
  
  > go south
  You are in the belly of the beast now, in one of the many pipes that radiate from the Channelworks' pumping heart. Here the walls are sloped and plated in ancient sigiled brass, leaving you only a precarious steel catwalk to tread upon. Below and alongside you, rushing water flows, filling the pipe with a roaring echo like a tempestuous ocean.
  
  You can follow the pipe north or south.
  
  A black ribbon winds through a hairline crack in the brass plating, flowing in a steady drip from the north.
  
  > look at the pipe
  (the leaking black trail)
  The leak is thin and insidious, so difficult to see that you might not have noticed it under any other circumstance. It seems to be coming from the other side of the hydraulic door.
  
  > look at the machinery
  These are the workings that underpin a society, which so few are able to glimpse.
  
  > talk to the spirits
  You have learned all they have to offer.
  
  > Go south
  You are in a massive subterranean chamber, dark but for glittering glyphs and candlelight. There are countless pipes and galvanic lines running from the city's workings into the heart of this chamber; and there a great sculpture rises, many-headed and many-armed, like a monstrous irradiated god.
  
  To the west is the passage back to the surface. To the north, an abandoned aqueduct leads to a Channelworks maintenance tunnel.
  
  A crowd of worshippers, all mutants, is kneeling before the sculpture in prayer. Patriarch Natos stands before them, overseeing the ceremony.
  
  > J.
  Sixth of Aquaria, Auritum IV
  
  So this is the Channelworks. I've always dreamed of visiting, but I never imagined it would be like this.
  
  What killed you, Reden? What curse lurks in the bowels of this place?
  
  Current objectives:
  
  ...and figure out how to open the hydraulic door
  
  Marid's notes:
  
  - It looks like the hydraulic door is automatically locked because the water pressure is currently unsafe.
  - I think the pistons on that console control the water pressure somehow.
  
  You are in a massive subterranean chamber, dark but for glittering glyphs and candlelight. There are countless pipes and galvanic lines running from the city's workings into the heart of this chamber; and there a great sculpture rises, many-headed and many-armed, like a monstrous irradiated god.
  
  To the west is the passage back to the surface. To the north, an abandoned aqueduct leads to a Channelworks maintenance tunnel.
  
  A crowd of worshippers, all mutants, is kneeling before the sculpture in prayer. Patriarch Natos stands before them, overseeing the ceremony.
  
  > examine the valves
  Old fixtures ruptured by the weight of years, and never mended.
  
  > put endoscope in manhole
  You take a peek with the endoscope, but it's too dark to make anything out from the outside.
  
  > put lantern in the manhole
  If you dropped it in the manhole, you'd never be able to get it back.
  
  > pull the piston X
  The X piston extends out of the console with a weighty hiss.
  
  Now, the I piston is retracted, the II piston is retracted, the IV piston is retracted, the VII piston is retracted, and the X piston is extended.
  
  > pull piston vii
  The VII piston extends out of the console with a weighty hiss.
  
  Now, the I piston is retracted, the II piston is retracted, the IV piston is retracted, the VII piston is extended, and the X piston is extended.
  
  The pressure lock on the door makes a grating sound. Now it says "HYDRAULIC PRESSURE BELOW SAFETY LIMITS."
  
  > pull the piston iv
  The IV piston extends out of the console with a weighty hiss.
  
  Now, the I piston is retracted, the II piston is retracted, the IV piston is extended, the VII piston is retracted, and the X piston is extended.
  
  > pull the piston ii
  The II piston extends out of the console with a weighty hiss.
  
  Now, the I piston is retracted, the II piston is extended, the IV piston is extended, the VII piston is retracted, and the X piston is extended.
  
  The pressure lock on the door makes a grating sound. Now it says "HYDRAULIC PRESSURE BELOW SAFETY LIMITS."
  
  > pull the piston i.
  The I piston extends out of the console with a weighty hiss.
  
  Now, the I piston is extended, the II piston is retracted, the IV piston is extended, the VII piston is retracted, and the X piston is extended.
  
  With a satisfying metallic click-click-clicking, the hydraulic door unlocks and telescopes open.