The flat top of the eight-sided benchmark stone stand at five hundred and twelve paces depth was polished smooth as mirror-glass, its dark pink granite surface reflecting the golden light of Paxa Sel’s safety lamp. Kezra Venn laid her open bonded survey notebook across the bronze lettering of the datum stone, her palms resting flat upon the heavy rag thick parchment.
Her knees were grey with rock dust, her sheepskin jacket smelled of cold granite and dry stone oil. Her fingertips were stained with charcoal and graphite. But beneath her calloused hands, the thick parchment began to generate a deep, rhythmic warmth that seeped upward through the bones of her wrists and arms.
It wasn’t the fiery, painful heat of an overtaxed class skill, but the steady, ringing warmth of an artisan’s forge when the iron reaches true working heat. Across the double-page spread of her notebook, the blank grid began to drink in the physical reality of the mountain foundation.
Lines of dark, permanent ink drew themselves across the thick parchment with astonishing, three-space-folding sharp-angled clarity. The drawing didn’t represent a flat office map. It resolved as a complete upright stone-built cross-section of Stonewake Citadel from the sky to the deep earth.
