The massive stone carapace of the northern district heart shuddered as its subterranean legs drove forward into the municipal bedrock.
Twenty-three residential structures rode directly atop its colossal shell, their chimneys tilting precariously as timber joints creaked under the walking motion.
Inside the houses, hundreds of working families clung to window frames and doorposts, watching the nursery roofs of the lower district loom directly ahead.
Blacksmiths tied down their anvils with hemp ropes, weavers caught tumbling clay teacups, and terrified mothers gathered children into center hallways away from swaying brickwork.
Loccy stood braced upon the leading edge of the moving shell, her Worldbearer tattoos flaring with brilliant amber light across her shoulders.
Her footwear dug into the mossy stone as the sheer momentum of thirty thousand tons of walking masonry tested every tendon in her thighs.
