With the cantilever foundation poured and the rickety Boom Hoist successfully tested (and patched), Elias was ready for the most dangerous phase: swinging his heavy, pre-fabricated steel trusses out over the terrifying void of Wyvern's Gorge.
Elias had calculated the launch sequence precisely. The first few trusses, acting as the bridge's spine, had to be perfect. Any flaw would send the steel, and potentially his entire crew, plummeting into the mist.
Elias directed the assembly from the relative safety of the foundation, relying entirely on his rope-and-bell telegraph system to communicate with the winch crew.
"Hoist team! Slow pull! Constant speed! We must not induce a resonant frequency in the span!" Elias yelled, watching Gark and his men strain at the crank.
The Boom Hoist screamed as it slowly raised the first massive truss. The gears ground out a low, terrifying shriek, and the entire wooden structure vibrated ominously. The sheer power of the simple machine was palpable and terrifying.
Sir Kaelen, the only one brave enough (or stubborn enough) to secure the high-altitude connections, climbed onto the foundation. He had to guide the heavy, swinging truss as it slowly rotated over the chasm.
(Sir Kaelen's Internal Monologue):"I have faced dragons. I have fought ogres. Neither moved with the terrifying, inevitable momentum of this swinging, ten-ton piece of mathematics. I would prefer the dragon."
The truss was successfully maneuvered into the final connection point on the foundation. Kaelen and a few experienced miners rushed to bolt it down. Elias was already checking the MAOI for structural integrity:
MAOI Status:
[First Truss Lock]
Load-Bearing Integrity: 98%.
Vertical Alignment: Perfect.
Commence Second Truss.
The second truss was raised. When Kaelen attempted to connect it to the first, using the standardized, pre-drilled bolt holes, the disaster struck.
The holes did not align. They were off by three full millimeters.
"Stop! Stop the hoist!" Kaelen bellowed from the span. He grabbed his measuring tool and frantically checked the steel. "Baron! The holes! They don't match the template! The tolerance is incorrect!"
Elias, receiving the grim news, rushed forward, his face paling. He had checked every single truss against the template before the lift. The error was impossible.
"Bring the truss back!" Elias commanded, ordering the terrifying process of lowering the massive structure.
Back on the ground, Elias inspected the defective truss. The error wasn't in the pre-drilling; it was in the sizing of the steel beam itself. One crucial joint was three millimeters thicker than the template specified, causing the entire lattice to stretch out slightly.
Elias looked at the production stamp. It bore the mark of the forge, but it had a faint, secondary, decorative etching on the side—a symbol of a flowing river.
"Finnick," Elias hissed, recognizing the style of the estranged artisan. "That stubborn, artistic fool!"
Elias realized the truth: Master Finnick, the proud carpenter he had forced into standardized labor (Chapter 21), had secretly commissioned his smith friend to add a subtle "artistic signature" to a few of the steel truss joints—a slight, deliberate thickening of the metal to "improve its appearance."
Finnick had succeeded in inserting non-standard variables into the very heart of Elias's perfectly efficient system, compromising the entire structure simply to assert his artistic ego.
Elias, trembling with administrative fury, faced the reality: to fix the truss, they would have to file down three millimeters of incredibly tough, high-grade steel by hand.
"We cannot disassemble the truss! It took three weeks to build!" Elias ranted, grabbing a file. "We have to use manual labor! Gark! I need every strong man with a file! We are going to correct this structural arrogance with pure, agonizing labor!"
The work was slow, humiliating, and utterly wasteful. Filing away metal three millimeters at a time, high on the chasm's edge, took an entire day. Every minute cost Elias money and pushed him closer to Vesper's deadline.
Kaelen, covered in metal dust, finally connected the truss as the sun set. He descended, exhausted, but with a new understanding of his master.
"My Lord," Kaelen said, rubbing his aching arms. "We were almost destroyed by a craftsman's pride. But you anticipated the possibility of failure."
Elias just stared at the connected trusses, his eyes cold. "Anticipation wasn't enough, Kaelen. I need redundancy. I need a system that can withstand the whims of every idiot, artist, and noble in this world."
He pointed to the newly connected truss, which now looked perfect, save for the scarred, hand-filed joint. "From now on, we are designing every subsequent section with adjustable structural tolerance. We will build the bridge so it can forgive three millimeters of artistic foolishness."