Agustin is cold. Agustin is surrounded by fog and it clings to his clothes and to the cage around him. It leaves small droplets of milky water on everything around him, including the large bear of a man occupying the other 3 fourths of the cage. They descend, but the only reminder of such descent is the whirling noise he rope attached to the top of the cage makes as it moves. However deep, the fog stays, swirling downward.

As they descend, the light around them grows dimmer and dimmer, devoured by the grey. Warren Newbody, his partner and senior, stares at the fog in silence. After a while, Agustin couldn't say how long, he turns around.

"Light your lantern."

Agustin brings the lantern up and pulls a pack of company-issued matches out of his pocket. He opens the top of the lantern but struggles to light a match with only one hand against the damp surfaces around him. All the while, Warren has lit his in a matter of seconds. Eventually Warren reaches over with a match of his own and lights Agustin's lamp. Agustin feels ashamed.

With a jarring jolt, the cage stops. Agustin lowers his lantern and glances. Wooden flooring over which the cage is gently swinging, barely an inch of space between metal and wood. Warren turns his back to Agustin and waits a second, as if trying to look through the fog. The giant cylindrical shadow of the city obscures everything in the direction he's looking. Eventually, he opens the sliding door to the cage and steps down, the cage rising noticeably without his weight. He motions for Agustin to get down.

The red wooden platform they're on extends about 12 feet from the body of the city, 4 feet wide. On it, encrusted into the wood at regular intervals, are a set or metal rings, old and rusted. Warren walks to the towering edge of the city, the ever-climbing trunk of an unfathomable tree, his lantern shining light on a lamppost with its own extinguished lantern hanging limply. He grunts and lights it. The light discovers a set of planks hammered into the wooden wall, to the right, descending into the fog. He turns to Agustin.

"Set your lantern, like this. You want both hands free for this."

He takes his lantern and lowers it, catching the circular handle on a clip on his belt. Agustin looks down, to the company-issue belt he's wearing and, after some fumbling, does the same.

"Don't fall back, and don't shout. Whatever you do, don't try to climb back up."

Warren begins to descend the planks, keeping one hand on the wall. Agustin hesitates and then follows, his body turned to face the wall, both of his hands sweating inside his gloves. He wonders what good does it do to have both hands free, when the wall offers no handhold whatsoever. Warren descends slowly, gently placing one foot after the other. Agustin descends at a snail's pace, testing first with one foot and then moving his whole body onto the plank, repeating the process over and over. More and more planks emerge from the fog as they go down.

"What are you doing."

Warren's furrowed brow is looking back at Agustin, who's just finished descending onto a new plank. Warren has a lead of about 4 or 5 planks over Agustin. Less than he expected, more than what would be safe. As he warned Agustin before, tradition says that once one has begun the descent, for no reason should one try to go back up until one has finished descending. Warren talks from his spot, one leg on a plank, the other on the next.

"Never place all of your weight in one place, kid."

He turns his body sideways, and points down. 7 steps down, there is a plank missing. Agustin quickly places his leg onto his next plank and tries to not look down the gap over which his body now hangs. He stares at Warren.

"Well? - "...S-Sir?" - "Get over here."

Agustin descends the planks. When he's about to reach him, Warren continues to descend as well. Together, they reach the missing plank, the lanterns they both carry giving them a bubble of light that keeps the fog away. The platform on which they got off the cage is somewhere above, the light from the lamppost barely a golden pinprick in the mists.

"Careful. I'll go first and you'll wait until I tell you to move. Then I'll help you get across."

Agustin nods and watches as Warren makes the crossing. He's down one plank, the last one before the gap. Warren gauges the distance as if to jump. Then he changes his mind, sighs, and reaches for his backpack, pulling out a long metal nail with a ring at the end, and a hammer. He hammers it into the wall with slow, powerful blows. Agustin cringes with each hammer strike, feeling the shock travel through the wood and into the planks. Once fully impaled so that only the metal ring is visible, Warren tugs on it.

"Watch."

He takes his rope and passes it through the ring. Then, he opens his overcoat to reveal a leather harness underneath, with small metal rings in several places and a number of small pouches here and there. He passes the rope through most of the rings and ties it with strong hands. Fully secured, he kneels and stretches one leg out, barely able to reach over the gap and onto the next plank. He hops. The receiving plank creaks. He is across.

"Come down and untie my rope."

Agustin does, and struggles with the tight knot. After an awkward amount of tugging and pulling, the rope limps free.

"D-done, sir." - "What did I tell you? Shut up. Don't apologize. Now, I have this, but you'll have to make do with your belt. Aside from the two at the front, the belt also has a ring at the back. Make sure to pass the rope through all the rings and tie it as strong as you can."

"Done, Warren."

Warren takes the rope and wraps it several times across his forearm, until there is very little slack between him and the boy. It would probably be a better idea to have him tie his own rope to the nail. Also, if he wasn't going to have him use the nail, Warren should've asked the kid to pry it out. Warren steps two planks down. Too many times has he seen a partner go, engulfed by the mists, doing things the way they should be done. Too many times he has had to take the cage up, alone. Somehow, he always makes it back. In his mind, a sad certainty that he's more reliable than an iron nail is firmly planted.

"Go."

Agustin doubts for a moment and then makes the crossing in one quick hop, lighter and limber. Once he's across, he gazes back and realizes that the empty space he just crossed is less than a yard across. He feels sort of stupid. However, Warren has already untied the rope from his harness and looking at him, deep set eyes waiting. Agustin quickly unties his knot and hands the rope back. Warren bundles it and hangs it over his shoulder, starts to descend again. Agustin follows. The bubble of light steadily bobs deeper and deeper into the fog.

Eventually, the planks end. They arrive unto a platform not unlike the one above. So far down, the fog swirls heavier than Agustin has ever seen before. It moves almost as heavy as if it were liquid. The lanterns can barely keep it at bay. Warren grunts again, walking up to a lamppost identical to the one far above, both in its physical make and the fact that it is extinguished when they find it.

"Not good." - "Warren?" - "Both lights, out. Not a good sign."

Warren takes longer to light this one. Even with all his experience, the wet fog seems to cling to every single surface so far down. While he waits, Agustin walks to the edge of the platform, wanting to look down, into the seemingly eternal void over which Deephaven rises. Instead, he finds that the platform rests barely half a meter over a body of darkness. Agustin stops dead in his tracks. He shines the light as close to the edge as he dares, but it extends in all directions. So far down, the fog has drowned out all natural daylight, and Agustin stares into complete dark, barely reflecting the golden glow on his belt. A thousand folktales and stories in his mind, he loses control and hastily steps back, without looking. He bumps into Warren and noisily falls to the ground, his equipment rustles and clanks inside his pack.

"What the... What in the depths is wrong with you, boy?"

Agustin croaks and shakily points. "The-The Deep!"

Warren barely spares a tired glance toward what he knows to be water. He sighs and pulls another match to replace the one Agustin made him lose, continues to try and light the lamppost.

"That's just the lake, kid." - "... Lake?" - "A very large amount of water, pooled into a recess. The city is surrounded on all sides by it."

The lamppost is finally lit, feeble flame barely piercing the fog. Warren roughly lifts Agustin from the ground and pulls him by the arm, toward the city wall. The fog seems to hang there a little too long, as if wanting to keep trespassers away, so much so that Warren has to physically push it away, unhooking his lantern from his belt and using it wipe away the fog as if wiping a dirty window, revealing a large door set into the wall. It is wooden, as the wall, but has metal reinforcements running across its length. The lock itself is a big hunk of metal, old, thick, and rusting.

Warren produces a set of keys and picks the largest of the bunch, inserting it into the keyhole. The lock mechanism is old and finicky, but Warren knows it well. With yet another grunt, he works the door open. It swings on its hinges on its own, as if pulled by its own weight. Beyond it, Agustin can see a long street extending into darkness, similar to the ones above, the ones he grew up in, however much, much older and decayed. Everything he sees is covered in dust, the wood that makes up the entire street covered by large patches of mold and, something that is supposed to be impossible, even rotting in places. Warren steps inside, turns sideways and motions for Agustin to follow. Once he does, Warren pushes the door closed.

As they walk deeper inside, Agustin is accosted by a feeling of worry. The air is still. The lanterns shine long beams of light into long abandoned rooms and shops. The only sound is the sound of their steps. Warren finds a ladder, the kind Agustin used just this morning to ascend from Deephaven's 4th topmost street-layer up to the requisitions office. He makes his way down, Agustin close behind. Even this far down, it seems they must go deeper. A creeping anxiety, aided by the strange feeling, takes hold of Agustin.

"So... that's it?"

Warren grunts, inquisitively.

"The Deep. The tales the mothers tell us, it's all just a lot of water?"

Warren doesn't respond. He gets off the ladder they just used and shines his lantern at the ground. Agustin looks down and sees several sets of footprints , hundreds, moving away from the ladder in all directions. After a moment of consideration, he picks a direction that already has footprints and begins to walk. Agustin follows.

"Warren, um, how many teams are down here?"

"14, 15. Why?" - "The footprints, there was a lot of them." - "Some are older than others."

Warren finds a door leading into an apartment and enters it. The interior is bare, devoid of furniture. One of the walls has been hacked clean, leading into other apartments further inside. Strangely, there is some debris in those, pieces of wood and long empty picture frames hanging from some walls. As they advance, Agustin's distress grows and grows, walking through the claustrophobic rooms.

"And... And why did you look at them?" The Sir almost escapes his lips.

"The prints? The office gives each team different weekly routes. That way they can cover more ground and one team can spot something another might've missed. The routes are numbered and are assigned to corresponding numbers in the sole of our boots."

Accordingly, Agustin remembers that he was given a set of boots to wear with his kit. Curiously, he lifts one feet and places it over his thigh, tries to look at the sole. Sure enough, a reversed "14" stares back at him. He lifts his head and sees Warren's lantern light disappearing around a corner. He runs.

"Sir! Sir! Wait!"

Warren is standing just two steps away when Agustin turns the corner. However, relief is fleeting when Warren quickly steps back and loudly backhands him across the face.

"What did I tell you? Don't fall back. Don't shout. Don't call me sir." Warren's eyes drill the top of Agustin's head, who stares at the floor.

"I'm sorry. Won't happen again."

Warren turns back to walking.

"Don't need you to be sorry. Just listen."

After some more walking across winding back alleys and broken-in homes, they reach a new ladder going down. Agustin berates himself all the while, cursing at his perceived feebleness and low intellect. All the while, the unnerving feeling only grows. Warren readies himself to descend the ladder but stops just short.

"It's the fog." - "Huh?" - "The way you're feeling. The anxiety, as if something is staring at the nape of your neck. You feel like that because the fog is not here."

It's true. No matter where he looks, Agustin can't see the thin wisps of grey that he is used to always having around the corners of his vision. Above, even in the packed middle layers, full of poor working families living in overcrowded one-room apartments packed around the ever bustling factories and gas-bellows that make up the heart of Deephaven, even there, the fog always finds a way to sneak in every place, even if extremely faint. Here, deep down, the lanterns shine unbridled and the air is pristine and unmarred. Even after Agustin's acknowledgement of it, it remains an unnerving fact.

Warren steps onto the ladder and they keep going down. Directly next to the new ladder is another ladder, which they immediately take. The cycle repeats over and over until they come to a layer so old that any signs of life have all but dusted away to corrosion and rot. However, as used the ladders, they went from descending from ladders next to the street, to ladders inside the alleys, to ladders inside the rooms themselves, the space growing smaller and smaller. Now, at the very bottom, they have gone down into a room so tiny that it could be called an overgrown closet. In front of the ladder, half a step away. is a small door without a lock, uncanny in its simpleness. Warren turns to face Agustin, staring him down with those deep eyes.

"Pretty deep, no?"

Agustin nods. He can feel the pressure of the entire city above him, pushing down. Cold sweat runs down his forehead.

"You've done well. I've seen older men faint once inside the old city, yet you made it here. How're you feeling?"

Warren has decided to take pity on him, it seems. Agustin doesn't want to disappoint. "I'm feeling fine." The way that Warren's eyes narrow tells him that he doesn't like that answer.

"No need to pretend, kid. If you're feeling good, you need to speak. I'd rather have an honest partner than one that died for saving face." He turns to face the small door.

"I didn't... I didn't mean it like that. I'm feeling fine because I have to feel fine. I'm doing this because I have to, I have no other choice. But since I'm doing it, I might as well do it well. That's what my mom says: Agustin, always, no matter what you do, you do it well." A small smile creeps its way onto his face. "She's waiting for me, above, you see. She and my two little brothers. My father used to work for Farthing, in the factories. He... He died half a year ago, industrial accident. We tried to get by, on savings and small things my mother could do for the other families, and the small pension that Farthing sends every two months. but it is not enough. I tried to get a job at the factories but they wouldn't take me, said I'm too little of a man. Then.... Then mother fell ill and couldn't work and the pension will not come until next month. So, you see, I have to be fine. I have to be fine, do this well and come back up with plenty of requisition to feed them."

Warren is not impressed. "Did anyone ask for your life story?"

Agustin looks down. Warren opens the small door and moves into the room adjacent. It is bigger than the closet, if only barely. On the floor is an item Agustin has never seen before, although it reminds him somewhat of the oil-making machines inside the factories. It is a metal dome set into a heavy square frame, metallic as well. From the top of the dome extend two metal rods acting as handles, set up on an infinite screw. Warren stands on one corner, looks heavily at the object. Agustin wonders if this is what they're going to requisition. It's metal is barely rusted and it looks big enough. He waits, patiently, for Warren to tell him to get down and pull. However, the order does not come. Instead, Warren's face, dark and heavy with black grime and crust, is inscrutable.

"What is the purpose of the requisitions office?" - "... What do you mean?"

"What job did you get hired to do, kid." - "To... go down into the abandoned layers of the city and bring back, reacquire, left behind during the moving process to the upper layers."

Agustin does not comprehend why he is being questioned.

"Valuables such as?" - "Metal, principally. I was told that it is up to the requisitions worker to determine what to bring up and the office determines corresponding payment."

Warrens searches in the inside of his coat, along the lining. He finds a hidden pocket and pulls out a small object. It is a metal cylinder, shining chrome and untouched by rust. On one side it has a small glass panel that glows faintly in a shade of blue Agustin has never seen before.

"Bring metal up, you get pittance. Bring mementos, old books and paintings, you get pittance. Even bring forgotten oil canisters, you still get nothing. This is what you're getting paid to find."

Warren offers and Agustin receives the small tube. It barely weighs anything. "What is it?" - "Farthing scientists call them memory cells. Factories can't operate without them."

Agustin looks up. The factories are the heart of Deephaven, producing the heavy oil that represents their only significant trade good with the outside world. Without them, the city would stop, starve, or worse, not be able to get the wood necessary to construct new streets on top of the old ones.

"Yes. It's that important. However, one cell can last a factory for years, which is why you don't know about them and Farthing is comfortable just sending a handful of poor sinners to the depths in search of them."

Warren points to the metal dome set in the floor. His voice is harsh. "Do you think you're deep now? This. This is barely the entrance to the depths. You've only just walked up to the door, haven't even yet knocked. The Deep? That nebulous thing that your momma used to scare you and keep you from wandering down from your layer? It is real. It is not a lake, no folklore tale, and it lies beyond this hatch. It isn't some fear. No matter what the office psychologists say, what labels the scientists give it, claustrophobia, bathophobia, chronical weakening of the nerves? No such thing. I've seen it. And it has taken men far better and stronger than you."

In the disappointing, small amount time that Agustin had known Warren Newbody, the legendary requisitioner, he'd never seen him grow impassioned. It's nothing compared to the short outburst he had upstairs. He's turned into a completely different person, taller, fiercer, somehow deeper and depth-touched, more fitting of the tales of the poor folk.

"If you're doing this to feed your ailing family. If you're so preoccupied with their fate that you need to be fine, I'd rather have you be fine for me here all day and go up with me when I return, to never go down again. So, I'll ask once more and once only, Agustin. Do you want to keep going? Do you know what you're getting into?"

Warren, a fleeting though, a half-hearted hope, a too knowing conviction of the workings of the depths. Still, please say no.

Agustin, a half-cooked sense of awe, a mind full of impossible tales, an ever set responsibility of 3 hungry mouths topward.

"Yes. I am ready, sir."

Unheeding youth. Warren sinks back into the shadow of a man that left his apartment in the morn. "Do the honors, then."

Agustin, unsure, kneels down and pulls on the handles, upward. He strains, puts all his strength into it. Nothing budges. His feet lose their grip and he slips to the side, the handle follows. His cheeks red, he regains his composure and slides the handles to the side, unscrewing the hatch. With a soft hiss of air escaping, it opens, barely lifting over the frame. Now Agustin pulls up and the hatch follows, almost too smoothly. He can see a metal ladder, descending into an unlit room. Warren takes a step forward and places one foot on it, descending heavily. Every sound he makes echoes with a metal ring strange to Agustin's ears, raised on the soft sighs and creaks of wood. Agustin follows as soon as Warren's head is beneath the frame.

The room is completely made out of metal. The walls, the ceiling, the floor, all of it, all subdued silver and grey. It is square, just like the ancient wooden room they just left, but bigger. Agustin stops midway going down the ladder, reaches out with an ungloved hand to feel the smooth texture of the ceiling.

"Close the hatch."

Agustin reaches up and to the left and brings the hatch down a little too hard, sending a wave of air over his face. He screws it tight, and then gingerly comes down the ladder, landing with two rotund thunks upon the floor. There is a strangely exciting side to being inside a place in which so few before him have been. Warren is standing to the left, across the room, shining his lantern down upon something in the corner. He doesn't talk, or even acknowledge Agustin as he makes so much noise. With two quick, resonating steps, Agustin steps to the side of his bear form.

A man, probably in his late thirties, old for Deephaven standards, lies in a heap on the corner. There is a backpack not unlike the one Warren carries on his back, and his clothes are the same Agustin would expect to see on a factory worker, rough spun fabric, tough, durable and hard on the skin. Hanging from his belt, the glass broken, his lantern leaks oil over the floor, wetting his dark blue pants. His feet are bent in the wrong direction and his hands point everywhere with broken fingers that have been rotated over themselves, tearing the skin around the knuckles as if it were crumpled paper.

"What..." Agustin struggles to process the sight.

Warren says nothing at first. He simply points to the man's face. His skin is a pale grey, the veins black against the translucent tone. From his mouth, nostrils, ears, and eyes that look different ways, a steady trail of thick, black sludge flows.

"The Deep."