Day 185. The Silent Reach.
The sun did not shine in the Silent Reach. The high peaks that ringed the valley trapped a layer of gray smog—a mix of natural fog and the toxic vapors seeping from the black earth. The light was flat, casting no shadows, making the distance hard to judge.
The camp was a miserable cluster of tents pitched on the hard, oily shale. Even with the charcoal masks Rian had provided, the taste of sulfur was always in the back of the throat, like the aftertaste of a rotten egg.
In the center of this bleak landscape stood the Tower.
It was a thirty-foot tripod made of thick Ironwood beams, lashed together with steel cables. Hanging from the peak was a heavy block-and-tackle system.
And suspended from that was the Drill String—a series of hollow iron pipes connected to the vicious Manganese Steel bit at the bottom.
"Heave!" Varg roared.
At the base of the tower, twenty men pushed against the wooden bars of a massive Capstan.
They trudged in a circle, their boots slipping on the greasy rock.
Creak... Groan...
As they walked, the central gear turned. The gear turned the drill shaft.
Down in the dark, fifty feet below the surface, the diamond-tipped bit scraped against the rock.
Grind... Grind... Grind.
It was agonizingly slow. One revolution every ten seconds.
The men were sweating, stripping off their furs despite the chill. The work was brutal. They were essentially human mules, powering a machine that should have been driven by an engine.
The Dwarf's Critique
Thane Borin sat on a crate of supplies, whittling a piece of shale with a knife. He watched the humans walk in their endless circle.
He shook his head.
"You dig like goblins," Borin grunted to Rian, who was checking the tension on the cables. "Scratching at the earth. The stone laughs at you."
"The stone is hard, Borin," Rian said, wiping grease from his gloves. "We hit a layer of basalt an hour ago. It's slow going."
"It is not the stone," Borin stood up and walked to the borehole.
He leaned over the edge. Mud and crushed rock were being pushed up around the pipe.
Borin grabbed a handful of the spoil. He rubbed it between his thick fingers.
"Your hole is dying," Borin diagnosed. "The walls are soft shale. They are collapsing in on your bit. You turn the drill, but the rock squeezes it. Soon, it will seize. Your iron pipe will snap like a twig."
Rian looked at the spoil. Borin was right.
The "Hydrostatic Pressure" was wrong. As they dug deeper, the earth wanted to fill the void. The drill bit was being suffocated.
"We need to case it," Rian said. "But I can't stop to insert pipes every ten feet. We lose too much time."
"Then the earth eats your tool," Borin shrugged. "Dwarves dig square tunnels. We shore as we go. Round holes? Foolishness."
The Alchemy of Mud
Rian looked at the bubbling black pools of tar nearby. Then he looked at the gray clay bank near the cliff edge.
He needed Drilling Mud.
In modern rigs, they used complex chemical polymers to keep the borehole open. Rian didn't have polymers.
But he had Physics.
"Stop the wheel!" Rian shouted.
The men collapsed against the capstan bars, panting. "Did we hit it, Boss?" one asked hopefully.
"No," Rian said. "We are changing the blood of the machine."
"Olaf!" Rian pointed to the clay bank. "I need that gray clay. Dry it. Grind it into dust."
"Varg! Bring the water barrels."
Rian grabbed a shovel. He began to mix a slurry in a wooden trough next to the rig.
Water + Clay + ?
He needed a weighting agent. Something heavy to push back against the collapsing walls.
He looked at the pile of Barite (heavy stone) they had mined as waste product back in Blackiron. He had brought sacks of it, knowing its use.
"Grind the heavy stone," Rian ordered. "Mix it in."
The resulting mixture was a thick, gray soup. It looked like vomit.
"Pour it down the pipe!" Rian commanded.
Borin watched with a raised eyebrow. "You pour mud into a hole you are trying to clean? You are filling it up!"
"It is Thixotropic Fluid," Rian explained, though he knew the word meant nothing to them.
"This mud is heavy. It pushes against the walls of the hole, holding them open so they don't collapse. And it cools the diamonds. If the bit gets too hot, the diamonds shatter."
They poured the gray sludge down the hollow drill pipe.
"Turn!" Rian ordered.
The men pushed.
Creak... Squish...
At first, it was harder. The mud was thick.
But then, something happened.
The gray mud started flowing back up the outside of the pipe, carrying the rock chips with it. It acted like a conveyor belt.
The grinding sound changed. It became smoother.
Hummm... Hummm...
"Faster!" Rian shouted.
The drill bit bit into the rock. The mud circulated, carrying the heat and the debris away. The walls held.
Borin picked up the mud flowing out of the hole. He felt the rock chips suspended in it.
"Smart," the Dwarf admitted, wiping his hand on his beard. "You use the earth to fight the earth. A Dwarf trick."
The Rumble of the Deep
Day 188. Depth: 200 Feet.
Three days of non-stop drilling.
The men worked in shifts. Day and night (though there was little difference in the gray fog).
They were exhausted. Their hands were blistered. The smell of the mud and the sulfur made them dizzy.
"How deep, Boss?" Varg asked, his eyes red-rimmed. "We are drilling to the other side of the world."
Rian checked the tally of pipes used. "Two hundred feet. The geological survey said the cap rock should be here."
Suddenly, the capstan jerked.
BANG.
The wooden bars kicked back, knocking two men into the mud.
"It stopped!" a soldier yelled. "We hit something hard!"
Rian ran to the rig. He put his hand on the vibrating iron pipe.
It wasn't hitting rock. It was skipping. Like a drill hitting a void.
RUMBLE...
A deep, guttural sound came from the earth. Not the mechanical sound of the drill. A geological sound.
The ground beneath their boots shook. The puddles of surface tar rippled.
"Back!" Rian screamed. "Back from the rig!"
[Ding! High Pressure Zone Breached]
[Warning: Blowout Imminent]
"The Mud!" Rian yelled at Borin. "It's coming back up!"
The gray drilling mud they had poured down didn't just flow out. It erupted.
A geyser of gray sludge shot twenty feet into the air, coating the tower.
The men scrambled away, slipping on the oily shale.
"It's a monster!" a soldier cried, shielding his face.
"No," Rian stood his ground, covered in gray slime. He watched the color of the spray change.
First gray (mud).
Then black.
Pitch Black.
The roar intensified. The mud was gone.
Now, a fountain of thick, black liquid shot into the sky, higher than the tower. It rained down on the camp, coating the white tents, the snow, and the men in a sticky, dark gloss.
It smelled of ancient, concentrated power.
Oil.
A Gusher.
The Black Rain
Rian wiped his goggles. He was drenched in crude oil.
He looked like a demon rising from a tar pit.
But he was laughing.
"Cap it!" Rian roared over the sound of the geyser. "Bring the valve assembly!"
This was the dangerous part. If a spark struck now—from a boot nail on a rock, or a friction spark from the rig—the entire valley would turn into a fireball.
"No metal tools!" Rian ordered. "Use the brass hammers! Brass doesn't spark!"
Varg and Borin ran forward. The Dwarf seemed to understand the gravity of the earth's pressure. He didn't fear the stone anymore; he fought it.
They dragged the heavy "Christmas Tree" valve assembly—a complex manifold of iron valves Rian had pre-built.
They wrestled it over the spewing pipe. The oil blinded them. It was slippery, warm, and suffocating.
"Push!" Rian yelled, shoving the flange down against the pressure.
Borin roared, his Dwarven strength anchoring the pipe.
They slammed the bolts home.
Rian spun the main wheel.
Creeeeaaak...
The valve closed.
The roar was cut off. The geyser died.
Silence returned to the valley.
But the camp was changed. Everything was black. The men were covered in the "Black Blood."
Rian stood up, dripping oil. He looked at Borin. The Dwarf's white beard was now black.
"You found the dragon's vein," Borin spat a mouthful of oil. "And you didn't die."
Rian looked at the pressure gauge on the capped pipe.
1,200 PSI.
Enough pressure to run a turbine. Enough energy to power a city.
"We didn't just find a vein, Borin," Rian said, slicking his oily hair back. "We found the heartbeat of the new world."
He turned to his terrified, oil-soaked men.
"Barrel it!" Rian commanded. "Every drop! This is worth more than gold!"
[Ding! Objective Complete: The First Well]
[Resource Unlocked: Crude Oil]
[Era Progression: The Fossil Fuel Age]
Rian looked at his hands. They were stained black.
He tried to wipe them, but the oil just smeared.
It stains, he thought. Industry leaves a mark.
But as he looked at the capped well, holding back the power of the earth, he knew it was a stain he would gladly wear.
End of Chapter 60