(Played on 6th October 2024)

From Tremen's notes

A picture of a small dingy room underground with a wet floor, On the wall opposite the camera are five valves. On the right hand side "E4" is stencilled on the wall while there are other stencil marks on the other walls

The small dingy Control room.

While I headed back to Section 9 to report back (and to be ready to collect some backup if that turned out to be necessary), the rest of the team (as reported in Cyberpunk Session 8) started to explore the sewers.

The sewers form part of the storm drainage network for this part of the city and so while the tunnels are relatively wide and somewhat easy to navigate many of the connecting tunnels have solid storm drain control doors that are remotely controlled. Ricky takes the lead backed up by the rest of the team and explores far enough to enter a room with a large central pit into which the drains pour their contents. Above the pit (and above the entrance by which Ricky arrived) is a solid bridge running north to south and Ricky catches a glimpse of something on the bridge going northwards. Another tunnel (at Ricky's level) leads a control room, a grand name for a small room which four control valves labelled E1, E2, E3 and E4. E1, as it happens, matches up with a sign next to the storm door that the team passed earlier. Ricky attempts to turn the valve labelled E1 but is completely unequal to the task and the valve doesn't move until Wakiya has a go.

At the same time Spooky realises that having a good map of the storm drain would be good and attempts to call up a map from the Net. Unfortunately the conditions in the tunnels means that she twice loses her grip on her equipment and by the time she recovers it for the second time it is obvious that the kit will need a good overall back at section 9 to fix all the new glitches that the device now has!

Having opened storm door E1 the team moves on through that door and continues its exploration. After some time passes and plenty more exploration Ricky enters another chamber and spots a lizard creature louping off down another tunnel and off into the darkness. In the other direction there is a set of stairs leading to another small dingy room once used as a small maintenance store but now clearly repurposed by someone into a rudimentary living space (with a nasty looking mattress and camping stove etc). More concerning, however, is the realisation that what Ricky previously thought was algae is actually a blood trail. This starts at a managled, headless, corpse and heads in the general direction that the lizard creature took.
Tharbinsan takes a sample of the blood and it matches that of Kendo Ita. One thing that becomes apparent once some light is shed on the scene, is a symbol of a nice pointed star drawn on the wall in blood.

A nine pointed star inscribed within a circle with a stylised glyph similar to the number 8 or the letter S in the centre

The symbol on the wall

As the team debates its next steps I arrive with Tachikoma since there's been no communication from the team for a good few hours. (To be fair to the rest of the team, radio and comms signals in the storm drain network is nigh on impossible). Since the Lizard creature is long gone (and is unlikely to worry the Tachikoma) we arrange for Kendo's body to be recovered for a full autopsy and for a full forensic examination (including an electronics sweep) of the small storage room.