The acquisition of the sulfur flour was the final component in a dangerous chemical ledger. To maintain his production schedule, Kael needed to reach the deeper hematite veins, but the limestone overburden was becoming too dense for manual labor and iron wedges alone. He needed to move tons of stone in seconds. By combining the captured sulfur with charcoal from the kilns and nitrates extracted from the fermented waste of the aquaculture vats, Kael had engineered a crude but potent black powder. Now, he faced the "grit" of application: the first controlled industrial explosion in the history of the frontier.
The trial took place in the "Dead End" of the Outpost Alpha pit. Kael had mandated a total evacuation of the lower levels, leaving only himself, Hektor, and Drax to handle the placement. The atmosphere was thick with the smell of wet stone and the sharp, acidic tang of the nitrate crystals. Unlike modern explosives, Kael's mixture was volatile and unpredictable; the slightest spark from a metal tool could trigger a premature detonation.
"We aren't just blowing it up, Hektor," Kael explained, using a wooden dowel to pack the powder into a deep, vertical bore-hole. "If we just explode it, we'll collapse the entire shaft. We need a Stemming and Venting system. We pack the powder at the bottom, then seal it with heavy clay—the 'stemming'—to force the energy sideways into the limestone seams rather than upward."
The technical failure happened during the fuse preparation. The traditional flax-and-tallow fuses were too unreliable in the damp pit air, often sputtering out or burning too fast. Kael had to invent a Timed Chemical Igniter. He used a small glass vial filled with a concentrated acid, plugged with a thin layer of copper leaf. When the vial was inverted, the acid would slowly eat through the copper; once it pierced the metal, it would react with a base of potassium-rich waste to create a flash of heat. It was a chemical clock, precise to within thirty seconds.
The social tension was palpable at the surface. The original citizens and the new penal-laborers watched from the rim of the pit, their faces reflecting the flickering orange light of the signal tower. To them, Kael was no longer just an engineer; he was an alchemist playing with the breath of the mountains. The fear of a cave-in was a physical weight on the labor force.
"You're asking the mountain to move, my lord," Drax whispered as they climbed the final ladder to the surface. "Mountains don't like being moved."
Kael set the timer.
The explosion was not a sharp crack, but a deep, subterranean thud that shook the very foundations of the limestone ridge. A cloud of white dust and sulfurous smoke billowed from the pit, followed by the terrifying, rhythmic grinding of stone settling. For three minutes, the outpost was silent.
When the dust cleared, the results were revealed. The "Stemming" had worked. The limestone overburden had not collapsed; it had shattered along the natural fault lines Kael had mapped. Tens of tons of stone had been reduced to manageable rubble, exposing a massive, dark vein of high-purity hematite.
The grit of the aftermath was the immediate labor surge. Kael didn't give the men time to celebrate. He ordered the "Rubble Teams" in immediately. This was the most dangerous part—the "Scaling" phase—where laborers had to use long iron poles to pry loose any "hanging" stones that hadn't fallen during the blast. Two of the new penal-laborers were nearly crushed when a ton of limestone shifted unexpectedly, a reminder that chemical energy was a beast that could be directed but never fully tamed.
However, the trial had a secondary, unforeseen consequence. The vibration of the blast had traveled through the Salt-Spurs, acting as a seismic signal to the Duke's sulfur plant. Within an hour, the Gray Fang telegraphers signaled a new development: Eastern Variable actively mobilizing. Smoke volumes increasing. They heard the thunder.
Kael stood at the edge of the pit, looking at the mountain of ore they had just liberated. He had achieved the "Industrial Leap," but he had also announced his progress to the enemy. He was no longer just sabotaging their fuel; he was showing them that he had mastered their own weapon.
"The math of extraction just changed, Elms," Kael said, his face smeared with white limestone dust. "We can meet the axle quota in half the time now. But we've also turned Ashfall into the primary target for every chemist and saboteur in the Duke's employ. We don't just need better walls anymore. We need Chemical Detection."
Kael returnes to his workshop to analyze the residue of the blast. He had cleared the stone, but he had also opened a door to a new kind of warfare—one where the victor wasn't the man with the most pikes, but the man with the most stable fuse.