A brass-tipped staff smashed into the timber frame of the central ore hoist, sending thick oak splinters spraying across the quarry floor.
The heavy iron winch groaned, its thick hemp cables vibrating under the sudden impact.
Deep inside the canyon pit, three hundred miners dropped their pickaxes and scattered into the side tunnels.
“Bury the shaft,” Iron-Fist Meng bellowed, his brass bracers clanging together with a harsh ringing noise. “Chop the main support pillars. Let the mountain crush them where they stand.”
Beside him, Iron-Gourd Tao unbuckled the heavy bronze vessel from his back, slamming its rounded base onto the bedrock.
A rank, acidic steam hissed from the spout of the gourd as twenty inner hall cutthroats leveled their iron axes at the timber scaffolding.
Behind the hoisting drum, Garrick Vance scrambled backward on his hands and knees, his silk coat covered in crimson cinnabar dust.
“Stop,” Garrick wailed, clutching an iron abacus to his ribs. “The hoist is worth four thousand stones. Branch Master Orson cannot simply destroy guild property.”
