New Vance City

Deep in the northern forested fringe of the Waterworks lies the Verdigris Riser, a moss-cloaked vertical pumping station built into the side of a shallow ridge. It once elevated groundwater into upper-tier pipelines, feeding reservoirs closer to the city’s heart. Decades of neglect and creeping wilderness have transformed it into a half-functioning relic—part industrial outpost, part overgrown ruin. The Hegemony rarely patrols this far north, and the Riser has become a waystation for those who live off-grid: scavengers, silent traders, and wild-eyed loners who tap the rusted vents for unfiltered flow. Birds nest in its rafters, and strange insects buzz between cracked meters. Locals speak of “the copper hiss”—a faint whine that rises from the central shaft at night, like pressure still builds below. The pumps haven’t officially run in years, but the walls stay warm to the touch, and every so often, a plume of steam bursts through the treeline like a dying machine exhaling in its sleep.

The Verdigris Riser is a squat, cylindrical structure half-sunken into the forest hillside, its outer shell swallowed by ivy, lichen, and sheets of oxidized copper turned green by decades of rain. Thick metal piping winds up and out of the forest floor, snaking like roots toward shattered conduits overhead. A broken catwalk skirts the upper perimeter, now warped and softened by time, while steel access doors gape open beneath collapsed drainage screens. The surrounding trees lean in, their trunks blotched with moisture stains and fungal bloom. Inside, flickering utility lights cast an intermittent amber glow over walls lined with gauges, corroded consoles, and moss-patched valves. A central shaft descends into mist and shadow, faintly illuminated by bioluminescent mold that spirals downward like stars in a well. Steam curls from floor grates with soft, rhythmic exhales, and every metal surface hums just slightly—as though the entire place were trying to remember how to wake up.