Somewhere Beneath Gotham City, July 18th, 1987
"You know, when I got into this business, I always assumed that "underworld" was just an overused euphemism. This is the second time this month I've had to go picking through the bowels of this godforsaken city!"
"Hah, better get used to it, kid!" Wildcat says as he finishes pulling down the rotting wooden boards that had been crudely nailed across the tunnel entrance in front of us, tossing them aside before dusting his hands "This whole town is full of hidey-holes like this, and half of them ain't even on the city maps anymore. Perfect if you don't want anyone to find you, not so perfect for the poor schmuck who's been hired to track you down!"
At least finding our way down here was a good deal easier than it was to find Doctor Death's lair. Unlike the tunnels leading to the World's Fair, the ones leading to our current target is part of a sect of abandoned subway tunnels, meaning it was simply a matter of finding the right station, then casting a Shading spell to get past a very unmotivated security guard. Seriously, I probably didn't even need the spell, considering I saw two teenagers jump the turnstiles right in front of him and he didn't even blink. But with Wildcat in full costume, it would probably have drawn at least a little attention, even if this is Gotham, so putting the station as far behind us as possible was probably for the best. Only the distant rumbling from the trains reminds me that we're still in the subway, no one's been in this part of it for god knows how long.
"You know, back in the 40's, we had to go down here all the freakin' time, I tell ya!" Wildcat continues. I think our trip down here has made the old fighter feel a bit nostalgic for the good old days. "I mean, yeah, the mobsters wouldn't be caught dead down here, they thought it was beneath them, but the gangs? Heck, this was practically a second home to those punks! You don't need a safehouse when you can just pry open a manhole or bust down a blockade, and the cops sure wouldn't come after them, they had enough trouble just policing the streets! I tell ya, before I started teaming up with Alan regularly, I probably spent more time trying to find my way around down here than actually knocking some sense into those brats..."
"You spend a lot of time in these parts of the tunnels too? Because there's a lot less graffiti and trash around here than I'd expect from a tunnel system..."
It's honestly rather creepy. Subway systems tend to be a gallery of vandalism, street art and random crap that gets thrown away, and Gotham isn't exactly an exception... except in this part, apparently, just a few miles down from an active station. And it's not like the tunnels leading to the World's Fair at all, these are... well, not modern obviously, but haven't been walled up for almost a century. And yet, it's like no ones been down here since they were closed. No taggers, no squatters, nothing. Just rats and cockroaches.
"You got a point there..." Wildcat mutters as he taps a rusted old pipe sticking out of the ground with one boot "Never did see anyone down here. People just seemed to avoid it for some reason. You hear stories about these kinds of places, corpses turning up, people disappearing, but that usually don't stop anyone. Here, it's like they just knew to stay clear..."
"If my information is correct, there's a good reason for that..."
...
The Previous Evening
"...this. This is where we'll begin our search" I say as I point to a marked building on the map I've unfolded on top of the Fries' kitchen table. The couple have taken a seat on the other side, Nora in one of the chairs while Victor is behind her, his hands on her shoulders, as they stare down on the map. Wildcat is right next to me, both hands on the table as he leans forward to look. The map isn't anything special, just another mass-produced print meant for tourists, because apparently, some people actually want to spend their vacation in this armpit of a city. But hell, people willingly go to Florida all the time, so who knows? The important thing is that the map features one of the locations where the Pit might be located.
The ruins of Wonder Tower...
"Wonder Tower? Are you sure?" Victor asks as he leans closer to see where I'm pointing "That place is a historical landmark, someone would have found the Lazarus Pit by now!"
"It's not in the tower itself, it's beneath it. From what I've read about it, the areas accessible to tourists are very limited, and none of them go beneath basement level. Judging by the general state of the tower, I'd also be willing to bet that there hasn't been a lot of money going towards renevations either. It's easy enough for the Pit to go undiscovered when no one has any reason to look for it."
The fact that Wonder Tower still exists in this universe was a bit of a surprise for me. It's been some time since I played Arkham City, but I do remember that Solomon Grundy was connected to Raz Al Ghul and the Lazarus Pit in the game, but that's obviously not the case here. The history of the tower itself also seemed a bit different, as it had apparently been commissioned as part of showcasing Gotham as a "city of the future" around the same time as the World's Fair, but it wasn't actually finished until years after the Fair had burned down. While this could be a coincidence, my scrying attempts have shown me that there's definetly a large concentration of some kind of energy in that area, and while it could be something else, I'm willing to take a chance.
On a related note, there's also something underneath Arkham Asylum that definetly shouldn't be there. Trying to scry over that area felt like sticking my hand into a wasps nest, to quote The Shining. But one problem at a time.
"We can use the subway to get there" Wildcat says, trailing one of the marked streets with his fingers "Back when the Tower was built, they were pushing hard for it to be some kind of connecting hub for the whole city, but the budget ran out before it could be finished, and those parts of the train tunnels were all closed down during the Depression. Shouldn't be too hard for us to get down there."
"So, um, what do you need from us?" Nora says nervously, clutching her husbands hand "Do we come with you, or..?"
"No, way too dangerous!" I say, shaking my head "I don't have any idea what we're going to run into down there, but I'd be willing to bet that if there's any League presence at all in Gotham, that's where they'll all be. If all goes well, we'll either find nothing, or we'll clear the place out before I open a portal back here to come get you!" I pause for a moment as something occurs to me. "Oh, unless we don't come back at all, in which case whatever we found down there killed both of us! But I'm like, 80% sure that won't happen."
An awkward silence settles over the kitchen before Wildcat speaks up "Kid, were you always like this, or did I knock something loose in your head during training?"
......
The scenery doesn't really improve the deeper we go. This far down, even the lights no longer work, forcing us to keep going with only my Candlelight spell to lead the way, and at one intersection, one of the archways have actually collapsed, forcing us to climb over the pile of rubble to proceed.
"Shit, what the hell happened down here, was there an earthquake or something?" I struggle back to my feet at the bottom of the rubble, dusting off the back of my legs while trying to ignore the sudden memory of the No Man's Land storyline. If it happens at all, it should be years into the future... I think. And desperately hope.
"Nah, Gotham gets tremors sometimes, but not enough to knock a whole section loose like this" Wildcat responds as he comes sliding down behind me, kicking up a cloud of dust in the process. "Back in the day, they built things to last, but even the best workmanship falls apart with no upkeep for almost a century, and thats if you actually use the best materials. Even back in those days, Gotham was as crooked as a three-dollar bill."
"Great, that's exactly what you want to hear when you're miles below the ground..." I push those happy thoughts away, and instead begin to focus my scrying. I wince at the sudden feedback, as I get a flash of something further up ahead, the energy coming off it in waves, standing out like a small sun against the shadows and darkness of the underground. I quickly shut the spell down, rubbing my forehead to soothe the ache. "Keep your guard up, we're getting close. If the League is down here, we're almost right on top of them!"
Wildcat nods, shoulders stiffening as we begin to move again, heading further into the tunnels, prepared for whatever is waiting for us...
What we weren't prepared for was nothing at all.
"This doesn't make any sense..." I whisper as our trail meets a dead end at the end of one tunnel, nothing waiting for us except an old metal door hidden away in a corner. I double-check to see that we're in the right place, and my scrying spell confirms that the Pit, or whatever it is, is right behind the door, but there's no one down here.
"You sure we're in the right place, kid?"
"Yeah, I'm sure of it, this is the place, but... if it is the Lazarus Pit, we should've run into something on the way here! There's no way the League would just leave a Pit unguarded like this, there should be a guard, or a trap or... ANYTHING!"
Wildcat nods, glancing back the way we came, as if expecting something to pounce at us from the shadows "Maybe it ain't the Pit down here after all? Could always be something else, god knows this city has enough weird crap going on..."
"Could be, but... I don't think so..." I stand there for a moment, uncertain how to proceed from here, before I make up my mind. Reaching into my pocket for the President's Key, I walk towards the door "Well, we came all the way down here, we might as well take a look. Let me just unlock it and-"
"The door ain't locked, kid."
"...what's that now?" I look up, my hand still clutched around the key in my pocket as I stare at Wildcat, who already has one hand on the doorknob. "That's impossible, this is the League Of Assassins, it's not like they'd forget to just lock the damn door!"
"Well, someone sure as heck did, take a look for yourself!" There's a click as the mechanism moves and the steel door begins to slide open, creaking on it's ancient hinges. I stride forward, irritation mixing with befuddlement.
"Okay, this is insane, I want to know what the hell is going on, and why we haven't seen-"
My words die in my throat as a shape suddenly slumps out through the half-open door, hitting the dusty floor with a thud. A desiccated husk of a corpse lies halfway through the opening, it's skin hanging off the bones like an ill-fitting suit, draped in black body armor splattered with dried blood, one bony hand clutched around a broken sword. Eyes sunken deep into their sockets stare into nothing, the head slumped back with the mouth open in a soundless scream. The throat looks like a wild animal has torn it out.
"Oh. That's why.