Forty-year-old basin miner Voss stepped forward to the map table, his broad, heavy shoulders blotting out the light from the eastern lamp. His hands, scarred and blackened by forty winters of handling iron rock-drills and black-powder charges, rested flat upon the cross-section drawing of Windpit’s five-hundred-and-twelve-pace upright shaft.
With Fellis Dain leftover behind in Alderfast to build the escape carriages, Voss was joining the four-person alpine team: Kezra Venn as land-mapper, Yseld Arken as route-finder, Paxa Sel as physician, and Voss as specialist in deep shaft air-flow and underground ice-stonework.
Kezra looked at the veteran miner. She drew the expedition’s leather-bound Shared Veto Charter across the table toward him.
“You’re not coming with us as a hired pack-horse, Voss,” Kezra stated with total, skilled clarity. “In this expedition, no single person’s rank overrules another’s survival. Back on Page 019, Paxa, Yseld, Fellis. I signed this charter. Any member of the team can call an immediate, non-negotiable halt if terrain, health, or solid strength threatens life. Tonight, I extend that charter to you.”
She handed him an ink-dipped goose quill. “Before you sign, state your turnaround conditions aloud before Adra, Davren, and Paxa. What makes you order us out of Windpit?”
