The Archive had a drain system.
Every large building built to last centuries had one. The Unified Age architects who constructed the Grand Archive had understood that water and stone had a long relationship and that the stone's interests in that relationship required active management. They had built drainage channels into the Archive's foundation — narrow, angled downward from the building's exterior into its lower infrastructure, designed to carry rainwater away from the structure's base.
Designed for water. Not designed for a person. But a person willing to be horizontal for the duration and whose shoulders cleared the channel's width by an uncomfortable but workable margin had options that the Vel-Thak's security planning had not accounted for.
