With the massive concrete counterweight finally set (Bartok still meticulously chipping away at the exterior aesthetics), Elias was ready for the next, critical phase: Structural Steel Erection.
His pre-fabricated steel trusses—each one a geometrically perfect, standardized, but immensely heavy structure—lay stacked neatly on the ground. The problem was simple: moving them.
MAOI Alert:
[Structural Erection Crisis]
Required Lifting Capacity: 15 Tons (Per Truss).
Available Lifting Capacity: 0.5 Tons (Human Labor).
Deficiency: 96.6%.
"We have the components, Kaelen, but we are missing the fundamental Motive Energy Converter!" Elias yelled, running his hands through his hair. "We need to lift these massive trusses over the pit and lock them into the cantilever foundation! This requires a crane!"
Sir Kaelen looked out over the flat ground and the enormous, dense trusses. "My Lord, the Mages' Tower is fifty leagues away. Perhaps we could hire a temporary levitation ritual?"
"Rituals are expensive, and magic is an uncontrolled, unreliable variable!" Elias snapped. "We will use mechanics! We will invent a machine that multiplies human force using gears, levers, and torque! We are building a Boom Hoist!"
Elias's blueprint was for a massive, fixed Boom Hoist—a rudimentary wooden crane—anchored by the sheer weight of the finished counterweight foundation. It would use a long, heavy boom and a winch system powered by an agonizingly slow but immensely powerful gear train.
The entire team—miners, smiths, and even Master Finnick (who grumbled while making the necessary wooden gears)—was redirected to the task.
Elias focused obsessively on the gear ratios.
"The principle is simple, Kaelen! If a man can apply 100 pounds of force, and we use a gear train with a 40-to-1 ratio, that man can now lift 4,000 pounds! We trade speed for power!" Elias explained, illustrating with two rough-cut wooden gears.
The smiths worked day and night, hammering out crude, heavy iron teeth to reinforce the large wooden gears. The process was slow and frustratingly manual.
Elias had to manage a continuous stream of material and engineering flaws: the iron teeth constantly bent, the massive main axle kept binding due to friction, and the overall structure groaned ominously under the projected load.
After three weeks of labor (and Master Bartok's continuous, slow progress on the exterior aesthetics), the Boom Hoist was finished. It was an ugly, towering spectacle of wood, rope, and massive, noisy gears, anchored by thick chains wrapped around the foundation.
Elias gathered the entire workforce for the first test lift—a large, heavy boulder that approximated the weight of one of the smaller trusses.
"Gark! Kaelen! I need ten men on the winch handle! Slow, steady, and constant speed! The Motive Energy Transfer must be smooth!" Elias yelled, watching the main axle.
The ten men strained against the heavy winch. The massive gears groaned, the wooden frame creaked, and the whole structure vibrated with effort. The boulder, inch by agonizing inch, began to rise.
Success! The mechanical leverage was immense.
Just as the boulder reached its peak, a sudden, sharp CRACK echoed through the gorge. The boulder dropped six feet, stopped with a violent THWANG, and swung wildly.
Elias staggered back, horrified. "What failed?! The axle? The rope?!"
Kaelen pointed up. "My Lord! The Truss Connector Block! The wooden housing on the main axle couldn't handle the strain!"
The massive torque generated by the gear train had literally twisted and split the wooden block that held the main axle in place. Elias's engineering had been perfect, but his material choice for the axle support was flawed.
MAOI Critical Failure:
[Component Integrity: Wood Axle Block]
Failure Mode: Torsional Stress.
Solution: Metal Casing Required.
Elias slammed his fist against a beam. "We don't have time! Replacing that with a custom-forged iron casing will take another week! Vesper is waiting for us to fail!"
Kaelen, covered in dust and still reeling from the shock of the near-catastrophe, had an idea born of his endless, monotonous cleaning duty.
"My Lord, the iron casing will take too long. But we do have access to a massive supply of high-tensile material," Kaelen suggested, pointing toward the still-operating Mobile Smelting Unit. "We have the steel ingots. We could rapidly forge a thick, strong Steel Sleeve to wrap and reinforce the wooden block. It would be faster than a full custom casing."
Elias looked at the raw steel, then at the broken hoist. Kaelen was suggesting a quick, improvised reinforcement—a patch—using their own superior metal. It was structurally ugly, but functionally sound.
"A steel sleeve! A structural patch!" Elias's face lit up with greedy appreciation. "Kaelen, you have found the Optimized Temporary Fix! Gark! Smiths! We need a high-temperature forging immediately! We are going to patch our invention with our superior steel! No rest until the Hoist is ready!"
Within twelve hours, a thick, crudely forged steel sleeve was hammered around the damaged wooden block, reinforced with numerous iron bands. It was ugly, but the steel provided the necessary torsional strength.
The second test was slow, steady, and successful. The Boom Hoist creaked, groaned, and screamed under the load, but it held.
Elias stared at the crude, powerful machine, breathing hard. "We have solved the motive energy crisis, Kaelen. We have the foundation. We have the hoist. Now... we build the bridge. And we do it fast."