The Turbine Hall was a cathedral of industry. It was a massive, vaulted chamber where the air hummed with the electric potential of the Spire's primary generators. In the center of the room, twenty students from the Coalition stood in a defensive phalanx. They had fortified their position with walls of raised stone and floating turrets of compressed fire.
Jax stood at the front. The Fire Mage from the western noble houses looked at the floor grating where the ventilation shaft ended. He held a ball of condensed flame in his hand. He was smiling.
"They are in the shaft," Jax announced to his squad. "I can hear them scratching around like the rats they are. As soon as that hatch pops, I want the tunnel flooded with magma. Do not leave ash."
The students nodded. They were tense but confident. They had the numbers. They had the high ground. They had the choke point.
Beneath the floor, tucked in the shadows of the open maintenance hatch, Vane and Isole watched the ambush unfold.
