In the northern corner of the artisan slums. There, the heat of the blast furnaces gave way to damp stone chill, sat the abandoned cellars of the Old Brass Crucible Foundry.
Lin Tao halted before a low stone archway half-buried beneath twenty feet of crushed dark rock melted rock waste.
The heavy door was forged from four-inch oak heavy with cross-banded star-iron straps. It was sealed with an ancient chain secured by a heavy brass padlock. A weather-faded wooden board, nailed to the top door beam, bore the official seal of the Ministry of Works: Unsafe—CHOKEDAMP HAZARD—CYCLE 84.
Lin Tao inspected the seal with his land-mapper metal pen.
“Chokedamp hazard,” Lin Tao murmured, a faint, cold smile touching his lips. “The perfect outer edge barrier. Mortal workers won’t approach for fear of poison gas, and sky fighters avoid it because there are no spirit stones to plunder.”
Lin Tao pushed in the chisel tip of his metal pen into the keyway of the brass padlock. With two gentle, spinning clicks, the internal tumbler pins snapped. The heavy lock popped open with a dull snap.
He uncoiled the rusted chain and pushed the oak door inward.
The heavy hinges groaned in the darkness, releasing a puff of cold, dry air smelling of old lime mortar, sawdust, and cured pine. There was no poison gas—merely sixty years of undisturbed dust.
