Shang-Hai Tunnels
The historic network of man-made tunnels and natural cave systems beneath the city of Portland have long been a place of mystery and danger. Even as far back as the early 19th century the smuggling tunnels beneath the old river-side ports of Downtown have been a local legend, with stories of illicit trade and gruesome acts of crime and kidnapping occurring right under the public's noses.
In fact the very name of the tunnels comes from such rumors, wherein unsuspecting civilians would be drugged, knocked out, or dragged into the back-rooms of seedy bars or criminal businesses. There they would be transported through the tunnels to the ports, and loaded onto ships bound for China to be sold into slavery or held for ransom.
How true any of the old rumors are is a matter well and truly lost to time, but what can be certain is that the tunnels are far more dangerous now than they ever were before. Their use as a highway for illegal operations never stopped, and over the many years the tunnels were greatly expanded by all manner of operations and groups, far beyond the knowledge of or capacity for any official map to fully encompass the true spread of the tunnels' reach.
The gross expansion and connecting of subterranean structures has roped nearly every sewer, subway, bunker, and secret hideout in the greater Portland area (and possibly beyond) into one interconnected web.
There are fools who would argue that travel by the tunnels is the fastest way across Portland, and indeed most of the underground is free of the inhospitable weather that makes traversing the surface so difficult. But what lurks in the darkness is often far worse than anything that can be found by the light of day. Raider dens, cannibal cultists, and defective defense robots are the best that one might hope to run into. If the endless twisting corridors of Portland's own Labrynth don't claim you, the unspeakble sun-shunned horrors that call it home certainly will.
Dark, dangerous, and crawling with the absolute worst of the worst, the Shang-Hai Tunnels are perhaps the most dangerous location in all of Cascadia. If you ever find yourself with no other option than to descend below the earth then be careful, be quiet, and be quick about it if you ever wish to see the sky again.
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