The transformation of the Grand Scroll hall from a dormant archive into a living commonwealth of water-scribes began with the conversion of the iron.
In the cavernous workshops of the lowest tier. There, the ancient stonemasons had once sharpened their bronze chisels, the foundries were relit. But they weren’t stoked with rotten-egg coal to forge war-cleavers or air-powered harpoons. They were fired with clean charcoal to melt down the weapons of the fallen empire.
The lower foundries were a huge suite of vaulted stone halls carved directly into the red stone shelf below the lake waterline. Deep chimney pipes channeled air from the natural draft drain tubes, producing a steady, forced rising heat that brought the clay crucibles to eleven hundred degrees without the use of hand-bellows.
Fourteen tons of armor scrap—corselets, arm-guards, crossbow-gears, and air-powered valve-casings discarded by the survivors—were fed into the clay crucibles. Under the steady draft of the underground air-locks, the iron and bronze melted into glowing liquid streams, purged of their warlike forms.
The conversion of the weapons needed the highest metalworking skill. In the crucible furnaces of the lowest tier, veteran armopers who had once forged broadswords for the warlords worked side by side with young scribes. The steel of the heavy armor was high in carbon, brittle and prone to cracking under heat stress. To transform it into flexible measuring tools, the metal had to be decarburized by heating it in the presence of crushed iron ore, then cooled in underground spring salt…
