The silence in the tactical chamber was a block of ice.
The watch captain stared at the table, his face pale. The farm master's lips moved in a silent, useless prayer.
Arthur slammed his open palm on the stone table. The sound cracked through the room, sharp and violent.
Every eye snapped to him.
"Your panic is useless," he said, his voice a low knife-edge. "It is a waste of oxygen."
He stood up, his gaze sweeping over the terrified faces.
"We are not going to die of thirst in a month."
Patrin, the old engineer, looked up, his expression broken. "But Commander, the geode is irreplaceable. The knowledge to create another was lost with the Old Empire."
"Then we will find another solution," Arthur stated. It wasn't a hope. It was an order. "Patrin, you will take me to the purifier. Now."
"The rest of you," he said, pinning the other leaders with his glare, "will begin drafting a strict water rationing plan. One liter per person, per day. For everyone. Including myself. Present it to me upon my return."
He turned and strode from the room without waiting for a reply. Borin and the shuffling, terrified engineer followed in his wake.
The purification chamber was deep in the fortress's foundations. The air was cool and hummed with a low, rhythmic energy. In the center of the room, floating in a containment field of swirling blue light, was the geode.
It was a crystal the size of a man's chest, a brilliant amethyst color. But it was dying. A network of dark, ugly cracks spread through its core, and the steady, healthy hum of the chamber had a sickly, stuttering rhythm to it.
Arthur walked around the containment field, his Sovereign's Gaze active. Faint words shimmered over the machine. [Power Fluctuation: Critical] [Matrix Integrity: 9%] [External Link: Severed].
That last tag snagged his attention. "External link?"
Patrin wrung his hands. "The geode is a secondary power source, Commander. A... a child of a much larger one. The First Engineers who built Al'Khem discovered a massive geode deep in the mountain's heart. They called it the 'Heartstone'. They couldn't move it, so they learned to draw power from it using these smaller, attuned crystals."
"So the main power source is still down there?" Arthur asked.
"Yes, but it doesn't matter!" the old man said, his voice rising with despair. "The Deep Tunnels that led to the Heartstone chamber collapsed during the final battle, a hundred years ago. It was said the Hero Kaelan himself brought the mountain down to stop Valerius's legions from breaking through from below. It's miles of solid rock. A suicide mission to even attempt."
Arthur stared at the dying crystal, a slow, predatory smile touching his lips.
A problem that everyone else considered impossible. A forgotten path. A single, critical objective with the fate of everyone riding on it.
This was not a crisis. This was an opportunity.
"Borin," Arthur said, his voice calm. "Where is Gideon's new office?"
"The west sanitation block, Commander. With the latrines."
"Go to him. Tell him I have a special project for him. He is to gather every mining pick, shovel, and explosive rune he can find in the archives. He has one hour."
Borin blinked, confused but obedient. "And bring them where, Commander?"
Arthur turned to the terrified engineer. "Patrin. You look like you're about to collapse. That is unacceptable. You are the only one who knows what this Heartstone looks like, and you are the only one who can attune a new crystal to it, are you not?"
The old man nodded weakly.
"Good," Arthur said. "Then you're coming with us."
He looked back to Borin. "You will bring the tools to the sealed entrance of the Deep Tunnels. We are going on an expedition."
Patrin the engineer looked like he was going to faint. "But... Commander... the tunnels are death! No one has gone down there in a century! The creatures, the unstable rock..."
Arthur placed a firm hand on the old man's shoulder.
"Patrin," he said, his voice leaving no room for argument. "Failure is unacceptable."
The journey to the sealed entrance took them even deeper into the mountain. The passages here were no longer smoothed and reinforced for habitation. They were raw, utilitarian tunnels, lit by sparse, moss-like glowing lichen on the walls. The air grew colder, heavy with the smell of wet stone and ancient dust.
"Commander, I must protest," Patrin tried one last time, his voice trembling as he scurried to keep up. "The legends… they say Valerius's forces didn't just use soldiers. He had beasts, twisted things that could burrow through stone. When the tunnels fell, some were trapped down there."
"Legends are stories told to frighten children," Arthur replied without breaking stride. "I am concerned with facts. And the fact is, the water stops in thirty days."
He kept his own thoughts to himself. The story of the collapse didn't quite add up. The Gaze had said the link was [Severed]. That was a clean, precise word. Not chaotic, not accidental. It implied a deliberate act. A hero doesn't cut off his own city's heart to stop an army unless he's a fool, Arthur mused. Or unless the story isn't true. Which were you, Kaelan?
They arrived. The end of the passage was a solid wall of jagged, interlocking boulders and ancient, petrified earth. It was not a simple cave-in; it was a cataclysm frozen in time. The sheer weight of the mountain seemed to press in on them, a silent, suffocating promise of the grave.
Borin was already there. Behind him, looking utterly humiliated and covered in a fine layer of grime, was Overseer Gideon. Two younger workers stood by a heavy cart laden with tools and leather-wrapped packages.
Gideon's one good eye burned with a hatred so pure it was almost a physical force. The tag floating over his head was simple: [PRAYING FOR YOUR DEATH].
"The supplies, Commander," Gideon said, his voice a low growl of forced obedience. "As ordered."
Arthur walked past him and inspected the cart. He picked up a heavy mining pick, its head etched with faint, silvery runes that seemed to hum with latent energy. "Your efficiency is noted, Overseer," he said, not even gracing Gideon with a look. "See that the latrines are managed with the same... diligence."
He turned his back on the fuming minister, the dismissal more profound than any insult. He faced the wall of rock that sealed their future, the tomb of Kaelan's last, desperate act.
Arthur tossed the heavy, rune-etched pick to Borin, who caught it effortlessly in one massive hand.
"Let's begin," the Commander ordered, his voice echoing in the dead, silent tunnel. "I want a hole big enough to walk through by sunrise."