A metal staircase, bolted directly to the dizzying wall of the fissure, descended in a rusty spiral into the bowels of the earth. With the information unwillingly torn from Vernh, Tom made her way down, each step on the metal grating echoing in the growing emptiness below. From here, the structure of Chisanatora revealed itself in its chaotic entirety: a city built upon itself, a layer of progress stacked on one of forgottenness, like the growth rings of a diseased tree.
With every flight of stairs she descended, the abyss grew closer, and the air, heavier. The smell of dampness and corroded metal intensified, mixing with an acrid, chemical odor that rose from the depths. The sunlight, already faint in the Lower City, became just a distant memory here, a gray haze that could barely pierce the web of structures above.
The ruins of the old city, once just greenish silhouettes seen from above, now became terrifyingly real. Buildings of ancient stone and metal, devoured by rust and time, clung to the edge of the precipice. The sickly glow she had noticed came from torches fixed in iron brackets, their green flames crackling slowly and releasing a pungent smell of sulfur, like the breath of a sleeping dragon.
But what truly made Tom's blood run cold weren't the ruins, but the figures that shambled through them. In this forgotten place, where the city unraveled into darkness, there were still people. They weren't like the hurried, suspicious inhabitants of the Lower City. These were specters. Dressed in rags that were barely distinguishable from the filth, they moved with a resigned slowness, their faces framed by a misery so profound it seemed to have eroded their very souls. They were the abandoned, those who had fallen through the cracks of Chisanatora and been forgotten by the world.
Tom stopped, clinging to the cold handrail. She looked up. She could see the "ceiling" formed by the base of the Lower City, and far, far above, she glimpsed the almost imperceptible shine of the commercial district's polished metal and the distant needles of the Top. Nausea churned in her stomach. Gold and rust. Dreams and despair. All of it, separated by nothing more than a few dozen meters of empty air.
The staircase finally ended on a suspended metal walkway that led to the entrance of a colossal structure, driven into the wall of the fissure like an iron tooth. It looked like an old factory or refinery, its dark metal facade stained by decades of soot and chemical leaks. From its cavernous mouth emanated the low, constant hum of heavy machinery. Outside, groups of workers gathered. Their uniforms, once perhaps blue or gray, were so caked in grease and soot they looked black. They spoke in low tones, but frustration and exhaustion were etched on every face, on every slumped shoulder.
Tom crossed the walkway, her heart heavy. Upon entering the factory, she was met with a blast of hot, metallic air. The interior was a labyrinth of gears, pistons, and pipes that intertwined up to a high, dark ceiling lost in the shadows. Metal platforms and catwalks crisscrossed the space at different levels, and the sound of pneumatic hammers and hissing steam created a deafening industrial symphony. And, as she had expected, patrolling amidst the controlled chaos were the Sentinels. Their blue uniforms and black boots were the only clean and orderly things in that place, moving with a purpose that contrasted with the workers' exhaustion.
As her eyes scanned the environment, searching for any clue, a firm touch on her shoulder made her spin around.
Before her stood a Sentinel, a middle-aged man with a tired face creased with worry. His brown hair was disheveled, and a layer of stubble shadowed his jaw. Despite his exhausted appearance, a single golden cord, identical to Briggs's, hung from his shoulder, identifying him as the officer in command.
"Hey, kid. This area is restricted," he said, his hoarse voice trying to sound authoritative but failing under the weight of fatigue.
Without emotion, Tom simply held out her hand, revealing the metal crest of the Order of Sentinels. "I'm a Herald," she replied, her voice deliberately monotonous.
"Ah…" An expression of pure relief washed over the man's face, erasing his feigned severity. His posture instantly slackened, and he let out a sigh that seemed to carry the weight of days. The reaction was so sudden and strange that Tom tilted her head, confused.
"Are… you alright?" she asked, genuinely curious.
"Yes! Great! Perfectly fine! And you?" he replied with an almost manic excitement, a wide grin spreading across his tired face.
"Fine… I guess…" Tom answered, taking a step back. What's with this guy?
"Thank the gods!" the man continued, the relief in his voice bordering on desperation. "To be honest, I didn't expect the Order to send anyone else. Much less a Herald so young! I thought we'd been completely abandoned!"
"Yeah, right…" Tom muttered, growing more unsettled by the second. What a strange guy. He seems way too happy to see someone who's come to investigate a case where everyone else has died.
The man seemed to notice her discomfort and tried to compose himself, clearing his throat and straightening his uniform. "Forgive me. These have been… difficult days. My name is Kael. Anyway, I imagine you'll want to see the ducts, right?"
◇ ◇ ◇
Kael led Tom through a circular, solid steel hatch that opened with the hiss of pressurized air. What greeted them was not a room, but the inside of one of the city's colossal arteries. It was a metal tunnel of dizzying diameter, so vast that their voices were lost in the low, constant hum of the chemical flow below. Metal grate catwalks clung to the curved walls on both sides, connected by suspension bridges that stretched through the acidic mist toward other ducts, forming an aerial labyrinth above a river of damnation.
Down below, the liquid of sickly colors—a moss green mixed with a corrosive orange—flowed slowly, releasing vapors that danced in the air and smelled of sulfur and something else, a bitter, metallic odor that scratched the throat.
Both walked in silence, their footsteps sounding hollow on the metal. They wore heavy protective masks with thick glass visors and filters that hissed with every breath. The presence of other Sentinels on patrol and employees in protective suits performing maintenance on control panels created an atmosphere of tense normality, as if walking over a river of acid was just another day at work.
"What are these ducts for, anyway? I don't think this is just sewage," Tom's voice came out muffled and metallic through the mask, her eyes scanning the immensity of the tunnel.
Kael, walking beside her, stopped and turned. His tired posture vanished, replaced by a professorial air, like a master proud of his craft. "You are correct, Herald. They are not simple sewers. They are the veins that feed the heart of this city."
He pointed to the walls of the tunnel, a dark and strangely smooth metal, showing no sign of corrosion. "Chisanatora is known as the City of Commerce, but that fame was built on a single pillar: steel. We are the largest producers of steel in the kingdom. Maybe even the world! And it all begins with a process of corrosion."
"Corrosion? But why destroy the metal you just produced?" Tom asked, confusion evident in her voice.
"Ah, therein lies the secret!" Kael exclaimed, raising an index finger. "We don't corrode the metal. We corrode the raw ore extracted from the mountains. Chisanatora's steel is so pure, so resilient, that this acid is incapable of rusting it. Didn't you notice the metal outside? The walls of the Lower City are hundreds of years old, and the rust is merely a superficial shell on their skin!"
Tom's gaze turned to the chemical river flowing slowly toward the abyss. "So, all this liquid…"
"Exactly," Kael confirmed. "These are the chemicals used to dissolve the rock and impurities, leaving behind only the pure metal that made us famous."
Tom watched the toxic flow and then the workers, whose figures moved slowly amidst the vapors. The idea of a revolt seemed so obvious. Dangerous work, low pay, perhaps? Deplorable living conditions? But Gunder's strange certainty echoed in her mind: the people don't hate each other. Did his perception reach these workers? And the lost souls living in the ruins below them?
"Why… the City of Commerce?" she asked, a hand on her chin, her voice low and thoughtful, almost to herself.
"Because mining has always been in our blood," Kael said, leaning on the safety rail. "Chisanatora was founded in this abyss ages ago, for the sole purpose of extracting this metal. In the beginning, that was all it was."
"So it always survived just on steel production?" Tom looked up, trying to imagine the city as a simple mining colony.
"Yes. The city grew and became rich from selling the metal. Prosperity attracted people from all corners, seeking the same fortune. And… well, where there are many people, other resources become necessary. Water, food, housing…" Kael looked at Tom, a spark of understanding in his tired eyes, knowing she would understand the next word. "…Entertainment."
"And that's why it became the City of Misfortune?" Tom finally asked, connecting the pieces.
Kael sighed, the sound hissing in his mask. "Exactly. Uncontrolled growth and our geography cornered us. Being a city built inside an abyss, the only way to grow was up. With each new floor, the city became newer, richer, further from its foundation. And commerce, once focused on steel, turned more and more to entertainment, to the whims of the newly rich."
"And that's where the barons came in," Tom concluded, her voice firm.
"Exactly," Kael confirmed, his professorial tone now tinged with bitterness. "They didn't build the city; they bought it. And they turned the labor that gave us life into just another gear in their money-making machine."
The conversation was cut short by the hissing of a nearby steam pipe. Tom turned to Kael, seriousness returning to her muffled voice. "Where exactly was the explosion?"
"In the final drainage ducts, further ahead," Kael replied, already turning and gesturing for her to follow. "Let's go."
They left the vastness of the first tunnel behind, entering tight service corridors that connected the ducts like connective tissue between organs. They emerged into a second duct, the view almost identical to the last. They crossed two more, one after the other, in a monotonous and exhausting walk. In the third duct, a shiver of fear ran down her spine. Here, the chemical flow wasn't a slow river; it was a tempest. The liquid bubbled and crashed against the walls with violent fury. The catwalk they were on was just a few meters above the surface of that acid sea, and the heat radiating from it was palpable through the soles of her boots.
Finally, they reached their destination. The contrast was absolute. The duct was completely dry, silent, and strangely dead.
"After the explosion, we sealed the flow to this channel," Kael explained, his voice echoing in the silence. "It now drains into the previous duct."
"Now I see why the other one was so full," Tom murmured, her gaze sweeping the desolate scene. Her eyes followed the path to the exit, to the point where the duct's contents were thrown into the abyss. And then, she froze. Her breath caught in her throat.
There was no metal pipe. In its place, a misshapen crater tore through the side of the fissure, a gaping, fuming wound. Everything around it was melted and corroded.
"Where… where does it all go?" Tom asked, her voice a whisper.
"Nobody knows," Kael said, his tone resigned. "The abyss is too deep. The expeditions that tried to explore never came back. It's too dangerous, and frankly, there's no profit in investigating the bottom of the pit."
Tom approached the edge of the crater, clinging to a twisted piece of what had been a safety rail. It was then that she noticed movement far below, in the surviving ruins. Small figures, dressed like the factory workers.
"What are they doing down there?" she asked.
Kael squinted. "Must be cleaning up the wreckage. Or something."
The vague answer set off an alarm in Tom's mind. She turned to him. "What do you mean, 'or something'? You're the officer in command. You don't know?"
Kael was taken by surprise. The truth was stamped on his face: he had no control over this situation.
In that instant, Tom made a decision. In a fluid, sudden movement that shocked Kael, she simply leaped over the rail.
"Herald, wait!"
But it was too late. Tom landed on the steep, corroded slope, using the friction of her boots to slide down the metallic surface as if she were skiing, descending at high speed toward the ruins.
She landed with agility a few feet from the two men, who turned, startled. They were, indeed, "workers," but something was wrong.
"What are you doing here?" Tom asked, her voice firm, no longer muffled by the mask she had removed during her descent.
"Just… working," one of them said, his voice defensive. "Cleaning up the mess."
"I see," Tom said, circling them slowly. "But it's strange. The employees I saw up there… they have exhaustion etched into their bones, soot ingrained in their skin. Things you two don't have."
"Maybe we're just more rested," the other retorted.
"Maybe," Tom agreed with a thin smile. "But to access this risk area after an incident, you need a special pass, requested and signed personally by the Sentinel in charge. A pass that I know for a fact he didn't issue."
The first man stared at her, pale. "Ah…"
"I told you, you idiot!" the second man hissed at his partner.
Tom's smile widened, becoming mischievous and dangerous. "Tehe! Just kidding!"
The two men stood there, stunned, staring at the boy who had one eye closed in a playful wink.
"YOU LITTLE—"
The man's shout was cut off by a sharp sound, like a whip cracking through the air. He was thrown sideways with brutal force, slamming against a twisted metal beam and falling limp.
The other man, frozen in shock, finally focused on Tom's figure, whose face was hidden by the shadow cast from the duct's ceiling. In her right hand, he saw a silvery metal rod, so polished it looked white. From the base of that rod, a thread of almost liquid metal extended, connecting to a second, identical rod—the weapon that had just knocked out his partner—which now swung gently behind her.
With a quick, precise movement, the thread retracted. The floating rod was pulled forward, and Tom caught it with her left hand, holding it firmly in the middle. Then, under the man's terrified gaze, the silver thread that still joined the two weapons began to thicken and solidify. With a low hum, it transformed into a third rod, a rigid shaft that now connected the ends of the other two.
Until then hidden in the gloom, her eyes rose to meet the man's. A faint, bluish glow emanated from them, as cold and sharp as the ice of the abyss itself.
"Surrender now," Tom then said, her voice devoid of any emotion. "I don't want to have to bloody my hands…"