The ground lurched. Twice. The constant shifting of high pressure water and steam below produced a regular vibration and rumbling, but this was something different. For a brief moment every person in the underground mining complex paused, listening for the telltale sound of destabilization. Fearing the worst.
The shouting started soon after.
“Breach!”
“Vent in the middle levels!”
An open vent wasn’t as bad as a collapse, but it was close. Somewhere within the Yun Clan’s vast underground mining and refining complex, a vent of contaminated and likely superheated steam had burst through the reinforced walls. It all depended on the size of the breach. A small crack might result in little more than a single sealed and quarantined room or hallway until cleaners could remove the tainted air. At worst, the inhabitants of an entire level might be wiped out in a blinding flash of steam and natural essence: a deadly combination that only the strongest members of the clan would be equipped to survive. In over 400 years of operating this mine, the worst had never yet happened.
As the crowd pushed up from below, a few brave souls pushed back down towards the source of the panic. Guards and special responders, or just those thinking they could help.
“Clear the hall! Anyone with a third stage or stronger artifact follow me down! Stage twos stand by for support. Everyone else clear out!” Captain Vath bellowed. The guards and volunteers rallied around him as he quickly made his way through the central floor assembly and into the sloping tunnel beyond. As the nephew of the Yun clan patriarch, Vath was a familiar face and his maroon Guard Captain’s uniform stood out amongst the muted earth tones that the mine laborers and staff wore.
Vath was nearing middle age and his typically calm and reserved face was lined with worry. He increased his pace. In the deepest parts of the complex no one would go, no one could go, unprotected, but these middle levels contained homes and workspaces. No one had expected a vent to erupt here. No one would have been prepared. In his heart, the captain knew some of his fellow clansmen were already dead.
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Vath’s brother lived here, along with his brother’s wife and newborn daughter. He could only hope that they were not home. Softly touching each of the three bracelets on his left arm, he sent out a wish that the vent was small and weak. But he was afraid. It had become quiet. People had ceased coming up from below.
They found the first bodies not long after.
A haze was in the air, heat waves rising just a few feet in front of the group. The further down the hall they ventured, the thicker it got. The artifacts and talismans the members of the group wore pushed the corruptive air back but did nothing to protect them from the uncomfortable heat and humidity pouring out from somewhere further in. Water droplets condensed on the cooler walls and ran down to form puddles on the floor, puddles with a sickly rainbow sheen as though they were oil rather than water.
There were two collapsed bodies in the hallway. A brusque check revealed that they were not breathing and streams of blood had leaked from their eyes, noses, and mouths. The skin around their orifices had turned brittle and scaly, iridescent. A symptom of direct exposure to the corruptive natural essence that saturated the air.
With this density of essence, it was effectively guaranteed that if there were any survivors at all, they would suffer greatly from the condition known as stranging: corruption of the flesh and growth of strange, animalistic features. Scholars had determined that these mutations came from natural essence contamination from the ground water, and to a lesser extent the air. The lucky victims would end up with feathers or fur in many cases, along with the occasional heightened strength and senses. Most would simply die in agony, their bodies rejecting the changes. Humankind was not meant to exist in the essence of this world.
Captain Vath was briefly distracted by the multihued scales that had grown on his deceased clanmates. Scales were not an uncommon stranging, but these had a beauty to them that he’d never seen before.
Shaking himself, Vath refocused on the task at hand.
“Send word back. No one below third may pass this point. There’s no one alive for us to rescue. This is officially a containment and reclamation mission. Search every room. Bring any bodies you find back here. They will need to be cleansed before we can take them out to their families.” With that, Vath once again touched the bracelets on his arm. He focused briefly and a near-invisible pulse erupted from it in all directions, pushing the hazy air back and out of sight down the hall.
“Let’s go.”
He continued marching forward, then suddenly froze in shock when he heard the sound of a baby crying echoing through the empty corridor.