The floor of the first trial chamber was an unbroken expanse of black fiery dark rock, eighty paces wide and eighty paces deep.
Above them, the ceiling rose thirty feet into the gloom, supported by sixteen fluted bronze pillars whose surfaces were etched with linked sharp-angled patterns. Cold emerald fire burned within copper fire bowls mounted along the walls, casting flickering green highlights across the armor of the thirty sect students who had made it inside before the emergency drop-gate fell. The air inside the sealed bunker was stale, dry, and bitterly cold, tasting of ancient copper dust and dried potion-made stone oil.
At the far northern wall, a huge archway sealed with three linked star-iron bars marked the exit to the second tier. Above the archway, an ancient dial composed of hundred nested bronze rings ticked with slow, heavy clockwork clangs, counting down the trial cycles of the ancient sandbox.
A sudden, ear-splitting shriek of steam vented from the outer edge floor grates.
From the dark vents lining the southern and eastern walls, twenty clockwork shapes pulled themselves out onto the dark rock floor. They were forged of blackened bronze and cast iron. They were built in the body likeness of mastiffs, but with jointed brass pistons for limbs and high-pressure jaw assemblies lined with three-sided star-steel fangs. Their sight sockets glowed with hostile amber potion-made light, and green vapor hissed from their exhaust chimneys with the pungent stench of boiling burning acid.
