The bronze reduction gears of Press Four were weeping green foam.
In less than twenty minutes, the bitter-salt mist had eaten through the lard lubricants, rusted through the teeth of the heavy drive wheels. Then it seized the main crankshaft of the Seventh Ward’s self-running magic charm foundries with a sickening, grinding screech.
On the flat stone slabs around the intake vents, two hundred mortal machinists and apprentice scribes lay gasping for air.
Their eyes were swollen shut by chemical burns, their chests heaving in shallow, whistling spasms as vinegar-soaked rags dried and hardened over their blistering mouths.
*
Meng Shan stood at the main air-flow intake. He held a three-ton granite slab across the opening with his bare shoulders.
His skin was mottled with angry scarlet acid sores where the green grease had seeped through his leather shin guards. His teeth were clenched so hard that blood trickled from the corners of his lips, his iron-hard metal earth channels roaring as he fought to keep his own lungs from dissolving.
“It’s... Eating the mortar,” Meng Shan rumbled, his voice thick with thick spit. “The ceiling will give in thirty minutes.”
