The air-powered locking bolts of the heavy silver-steel blast door disengaged with a series of muffled, clockwork thuds that echoed through the underground dark rock hall.
High-pressure seals hissed as the door slid open on greased bronze rollers, releasing a billowing wave of dry, fiery heat and the dense, stone-rich aroma of boiling earthen silts.
Beyond the threshold lay the central potion-made synthesis vault of Facility Fourteen. A vaulted underground cave sixty paces long, lit up by the amber glow of four massive, steam-jacketed heavy-duty crucibles suspended from load-bearing steel overhead frame cranes. Each crucible held fifteen tons of bubbling, semi-liquid stone paste, stirred continuously by heavy cast-iron helical impellers driven by underground steam lines.
Along the cave walls stood floor-to-ceiling iron storage racks, stacked with hundreds of airtight zinc drums, glass carboys of packed herbal extracts, and burlap sacks of powdered mountain phosphates.
“Look at this place,” Sergeant Corvo whispered. He stepped into the warm hall with his carbine lowered in stunned disbelief. “There’s enough refined potion-made test chemical here to fund an entire division’s winter offensive. Baron Rask was siphoning off the sector’s stone stockpile under the guise of heavy-duty trench waste.”
Arthur Vance walked past the iron racks, running his fingertips along the cold zinc barrels. His test monocle clicked softly as he rotated the brass zoom bezel, scanning the stenciled markings on the drums.
