Earth tremors were felt in the morning.
Spotters reported a column of coal smoke drifting on the wind from some miles to the north of Fort McMurray, but Forsyth and Phipps were off somewhere and a decision was not made to sortie without them.
More tremors were experienced throughout the day, disturbing the garrison. Hartwell and Wilhelm hypothesized that the disturbances were originating from the undercroft, but could not say from exactly where.
Around noon a steamship flying British colours was spotted heading for the fort. It requested docking, but of course the fort's heliograph was still hors de combat. Luckily there was always the standby of making signal with flags, and by that means permission was granted.
Captain Spencer commanding Her Majesty's Aphid class Swiftsure was in a state of extreme agitation. He had just come from Fort Elgin to the north-west, or rather, the ruins of that stronghold. As the Swiftsure had approached for a landing in order to deliver urgent despatches when the entire fort was destroyed under the Swiftsure's keel by a titanic explosion that threw pulverised debris high into the air and almost caused the loss of the ship!
Captain Spencer was of the opinion that some sort of massive subterranean1 explosive device had been employed, and he was still showing signs of extreme agitation and shock, barely kept under control by force of will alone. All he knew for sure was that the commander of Fort Elgin had reported unusual earth tremors over the course of the last week and had requested instructions from the governor.
Having delivered his terrible news, he explained that it was of the utmost urgency that the loss of Fort Elgin, a vital pearl in the necklace that secured the Crown Colony's eastern border, be reported to he Powers that Be, and declared his intention to make all speed for Moerus Lacus.
Hartwell and Wilhelm used the opportunity presented by the Swiftsure to request Garrison Resupply with rations of certain provenance, parts for a new heliograph so that communication would be restored between Fort McMurray and the distant relay stations, and mining personnel to counter what could be some sort of sapper-based assault of the sort that overtook Fort Elgin.
That night, around 9pm, there occurred an actinic flash of light, brighter than anything seen by anyone at the Fort, to the north, followed some seconds later by a powerful shock wave and deafening roar. The difference between the flash and the sound suggested a distance of around five miles or so.
Wilhelm and Hartwell took stock of the situation the next morning, then decided to ignore the explosion in favour of exploring the undercroft again.
It was at this point when Wilhelm became aware of the half-buried crystalline mechanism sitting in the rubble just inside the entrance. After running some tests, he assembled a crew and had the machine carefully disinterred, then proceeded to get it moving on its tracks, driving it up and out into the courtyard.
There were two positions where a person might sit. One, to the front, was equipped with various levers that controlled the motion of the device. The other, further back and offset to one side, had something to do with the lage parabolic crystal mirror-like structure mounted in line with the vehicle's longitudinal axis.
Wilhelm had not worked out how to switch whatever this was on, but he surmised that it was some sort of beam-generator, obviously a weapon, and determined that this might be the very thing for giving what-for to those overflying piratical pests that were plaguing the fort of late.
Unfortunately for him, whatever the parabolic structure was, it had no independent elevation or rotation controls. Wilhelm assumed that one must lay this, this, whatever it was by angling the entire chassis and presumably firing over open sights.
The lack of sights as such did nothing to dissuade the intrepid inventor, and he ordered that a pit be dug to house the machine such that it might be driven up ramped sides to achieve the necessary elevation to target a flying kite. The garrison, grumbling, set to.
Wilhelm and Hartwell then re-entered the undercroft, heading for the corridor in which Forsyth and Phipps had noted distinct feelings of fear invading their excited explorations.
Almost immediately, Hartwell was overcome with dread and fled, thanking his lucky stars that there were none of his doughty Martian friends to see his courage fail him. Wilhelm continued for a while longer on his own,. and discovered an elaborate runic sigil carved into the floor of the corridor.
Unable to quell his insatiable curiosity, Wilhelm touched the inscription whereupon he was assaulted by whispering voices speaking in a language he didn't understand, but which seemed malevolent nonetheless, and he fled back to Hartwell.
The intrepid pair then made their way back to the room filled with strange mist, and stacked high with oddly well-preserved corpses of Martians of a hitherto-unknown type lying in bunks. Hartwell became convinced there was more to this room and spent several hours attempting to explore, but all his efforts at a logical approach to the search of the room were of no use, and he spent most of his time backtracking and becoming hopelessly lost.
Wilhelm spotted Hartwell passing by the door and pulled him out, but the attempt almost had Wilhelm mazed too.
The explorers gathered their wits and took some refreshment, then made their way to the deep shaft with the curious lack of gravity in it, and descended for several minutes until another adit was found.
This one led eventually to a junction, one leg leading to an immense hall filled with metal frames full of axles and cogs, yard-upon yard, off into the distance and towering to what looked like a hundred feet or more, all sitting silent and still. There were some lever frames as well, the levers seeming better suited to Martial hands than human.
The other "leg" led to a gargantuan ovoid of a room, with the door in the pole of the long axis. In the floor in front of the entrance was the same runic sigil last seen by Wilhelm in the corridor of whispers and fear.
Realising that many, many hours had passed in the undercroft (and always mindful of the problem of disjunct time streams already experienced in this place when returning to the world above, the team decided to return to the surface, where night had fallen.
- sub-Aerean?↑
