The smell of damp sulfur from Mira Os’s clay pot crock had barely settled into the cold stone floor before Senior Engineer Korr Var stepped to the center of the chamber. He was flanked by Kel Dorr, the former academy apprentice whose gray wool tunic still bore the clean box-shaped outline where the stitched crest of the High Sluice had been carefully cut away with a seam-ripper two nights prior.
Between them, resting on a folding ash-wood tripod, they mounted a large, hand-drawn height map of the underground solid mountain stone beneath the High Terrace. The drawing was rendered in crisp black carbon ink, cross-hatched with red carpenter’s chalk to mark fracture lines and heat swelling zones. Around the outer edge of the parchment, twelve brass line-weight-bobs hung on fine linen cords, weighting the corners against the draft that swept through the high council doors.
“Members of the Senate,” Korr Var began, resting his brass pointer against the lowest cross-section of the drawing. “At the tenth hour this morning, following the full retraction of the third-gate river crest, a check party comprising myself, Auditor Nenn, Apprentice Dorr, and two master masons from the Builders’ Guild entered the central vault of the Hollow Crown. This survey was conducted under the direct warrant of the Civic Bench to establish the material condition of the gearwork following the release of the captive entity Senn.”
