New Vance City

Tucked into the moss-choked woodlands north of the Waterworks lies Verdant Intake Nine—an overgrown water extraction site partially swallowed by forest regrowth. Once a proud part of New Vance’s hydro infrastructure, the intake station was abandoned decades ago after shifting aquifers rendered it obsolete. Now, it sits half-awake, its ancient filters still humming faintly beneath the underbrush, drawing moisture from underground springs. Locals refer to it as “the Iron Grove,” where vines drink rust and the machines seem to sigh in their sleep. Scavvers come seeking copper coils or spare parts, but more often find the place strangely preserved, as if the forest and the station made peace. Some claim the water here is purer than anywhere else—untaxed, unclaimed. Others whisper it’s cursed, and that the flora drinks more than water. The Hegemony posts no guards. They say it’s irrelevant. But someone still leaves tools behind. And the station doors always seem to close themselves.

Verdant Intake Nine rises like a forgotten altar among the trees—concrete walls slouched under ivy, its pipe-studded structure mottled with rust and creeping moss. Towering evergreens press close around it, their trunks bending slightly as if to listen. Massive intake tubes jut from the ground like broken tusks, partially submerged in a pool of glassy water ringed with lily pads and unnatural ferns that shimmer faintly at dusk. The old facility’s doors hang ajar, swallowed in shadow, and above them a faded warning sign barely peeks through layers of lichen. Inside, the filtration chamber glows with dim emergency lights that somehow still function, casting greenish halos through suspended mist. Puddles glint on cracked tile floors beneath skeletal piping and fan-vents choked with roots. Outside, the forest reclaims metal and wire alike, curling vines through every breach. It is neither fully machine nor fully wild—just still. Breathing. Watching. Waiting.