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Travelling to the command tower or the residential area seems like it would take too long. Climbing through the maintenance tubes would slow you down significantly. You'd also like to see the state of the castle for yourself. So, there it is, you want to leave as soon as possible, and return to the surface.
Thick metal grates line the floors and ceilings, allowing sporadic strips of luminescent panels to shine through, illuminating just enough of the shaft to let you see where you're going. The rhythmic hum of machinery and Blaine's own breathing keep you company as you make your way through narrow ducts and up simple runged ladders.
You passed through a couple more junctions, all with flickering holographic displays, showing incorrect information, or just flat out non-functional. It didn't take long for Blaine to try to start up some conversation. At first, he just asks what you were up to, so you reply easily enough, your trip outside was a little more complicated than you thought. Of course, you speak in vague terms, phrases and situations that would be true enough for the both of you; especially when you move into recent events.
"That is so crazy. A third one?"
"Yeah."
The conversation eventually moves into recent events for him as well as those on the castle, a slightly more personal take compared to his desperate debriefing from earlier. Unfortunately, you sort of zone out, simply placing yourself into a mental autopilot. Eventually, you do find yourself ascending one last set of ladders. Like most of the hatches separating each compartment and accessway through the ducts, this last hatch is reluctant to move, when you finally force it open a brief shower of ice shards shatter from around the edges. The metal creaked as you forced it open. Then something starts flowing down, smothering you almost completely.
"Umph." Something cold and wet starts filling your vision, coating your armor in whatever it is.
"Snow?" Blaine said from below you.
"I'll take care of it," you said. "Stand back."
"Gotcha."
Pouring some energy into your body, you encompass yourself in an aura of aether, if you had to put a name to it you could call it the 'Rider Wave'? Using your body as a makeshift plow and snow-melter, you slowly melt a human-shaped hole into the snow and ice above you as you ascend. Soon, rays of light punch through the surface as the ice begins to give way. Finally managing to slip through the ice, you carefully look around, making sure nothing was in danger of falling into the maintenance duct. Then you grip Blaine by his offered arm and hoist him up as well.
