The smell of dried mineral dust, linseed oil, and warm brass filled the vaulted cistern maintenance room as Ferra spread the captured leather route book across the long drafting table.
Beside her, Master Mason Varin, the senior craftsman rescued by Lucan from the lower valve hall, adjusted a pair of heavy copper dividers over a yellowed blueprint of the mountain aqueduct.
Six of his fellow maintenance laborers sat on benches along the damp masonry wall, their bruised hands wrapped around cups of steaming water.
Their faces were etched with deep lines of exhaustion and fear, their tattered clothes stained with decades of subterranean coal soot, river slime, and machine grease.
Hajin stood near the arched doorway, his arms crossed over his chest as he monitored the hallway guards while checking the stream store interface floating before his vision.
