Lousy design

I kicked a rock into the lake where it skipped across the surface. The rock actually skipped across the rock path underneath the water. It was both dumb made and smartly made. On one hand it was obvious something was here. However if you accessed it without earthbending the tunnel would flood with water triggering alarms. Except that still didn't stop random or in this case me from accessing it.

I parted the water instead of raising the earth and motioned to the group. Katara had come to the conclusion that it would be suspicious if they all just vanished, so our team of tunnel explorers consisted of Me, Mai, Sokka and Toph.

"These are a massive system of tunnels."

I nodded, then realizing she couldn't see it. I answered, "Most of them are sewers so let's avoid those. Who wants to go down first."

Mai stepped forward and lifted the cover of the entrance. She previously had her hand covering her eyes so I was not surprised she went first. Sokka shrugged and was about to go down before Toph grabbed him. "You first."

I rolled my eyes and jumped down the tunnel. I grabbed the ladder just before I landed on my and made the rest of the way down behind her. At the bottom it took a second for Sokka and Toph to join us. Toph came down last with a very slow pace. Mai looked at me with a raised eyebrow and I shrugged.

Sokka spoke before we started to move. "Orin any idea how to navigate? Or where we should head to?"

I thought on it a second, "From my knowledge there are three main zones of this place. I am gonna go ahead and assume the entrance we just used is not the main entrance."

"How do you know that?"

I looked at Toph and sighed, "because the main entrance is likely connected to the palace. Not to mention there is a what I will call a garage entrance for vehicles or large cargo. Now this is speculation, but the garage entrance is likely near to the west side of Ba Sing Se. That area likely has a underground barracks and armory. Which means from where we are..."

Sokka snapped, "We would want to head south, right?"

"South? Are you an idiot?"

Sokka frowned at Mai's remark, but he brightened as I continued. "South would likely be the best area to head. Even though North would likely head somewhere into the palace there is likely more of a patrol of Dai Lee or whatever. We could fight them, but if we are talking architecture there is no doubt an escape tunnel between the North and South tunnels. We just need our Badger Mole here to find that entrance."

Everyone shrugged and we started moving. Mai broke the small silence, "So she's gonna keep an eye out for the entrance?"

I held back a giggle, unlike Sokka who got punched by Toph. "Yeah sure I'll keep an eye out."

Walking through the tunnels we could hear a large amount of running water. Most of these tunnels were carved with simple shapes. When paths started branching out I chose to ignore them. Mai addressed this first.

"Why are we not checking any of the other directions?"

I motioned to the walls. "The running water is following this direction. Before you ask it isn't the sewage as we are moving up hill at like what?"

Toph sighed, "23 degrees."

"Thanks, which means that the water is being used for something further up. Besides those two weren't wondering why because Toph can see down them am I right?"

"Yeah I can."

Mai clicked her tongue. "So then what other information do you have?"

I raised an eyebrow and took a second. "Well these tunnels cross the entire city. We could theoretically be down here for days if we get lost. So you know that's nice."

Mai just frowned realizing I wasn't gonna go into more in-depth detail with Sokka and Toph here. Suddenly Toph stopped though and she froze up. Turning to her I asked the obvious. "Did you find it? or a map maybe?"

It then hit my ears a low rumble, It bounced off the walls and echoed. "I heard that, that was what I heard."

A look passed between all of us. So we took a detour following the direction the rumble came from. It only happened once and we had to rely on the first time we heard that rumble. At least until it happened again. Along with the more obvious rumble where we felt it.

Within a minute later we came across a literal door. It had two round handles and the thing was actually bolted down as a steel door. "Am I crazy to really want to know what's behind this?"

Sokka shrugged and Toph put her hand against the wall. Mai put the words out there as clear as day. "Let me guess it is all metal?"

Toph nodded and we were left to wonder how sidetracked we should get here. A second later another rumble came from the door and this time it was clear what it was. The noise was some kind of crying roar.

"I'll be honest I don't think your Mom is behind this door, so... As much as am interest in whatever secrets this has. I think if we enter its gonna be a curosity killed that cat situation."

Toph nodded, "I can create a short cut around it though. Thanks to the rumble I can see through the earth pretty clearly."

"Neat, lead the way blind girl."

-----Zuko pov-----

"You got to be kidding me!"

Uncle sipped a at his tea. "We may be imprisoned, but on the brightside..."

"On the brightside?"

Uncle Iroh side, "Okay I got nothing for this one. To imagine that young boy managed to figure out we were fire benders. Never thought this day would come, specially since they didn't even recognize us! Well at least not until that balding fellow did."

I took a bit out of my rice ball. As I looked around the dimly lit room. It had holes in the ceiling along with holes in the floor that allowed air in. Except other then those the entire room was sealed with stone.

"Why don't we have you practice some bending while we are here Zuko?"

I looked at Uncle like he was crazy, but I saw his message he made from his food. I sat down, "Alright let's practice."