The influx of desertions had hollowed out the Imperial blockade, but the Seismic Mirror confirmed that Arch-Magister Vane was not retreating. Instead, the remaining signatures on the white-washed wall showed a consolidation of heavy weight near the primary limestone ridge. Vane was committing his final, elite engineers to a desperate counter-mining operation. To preserve the secrecy of the lower vaults, Kael initiated the False-Face—a decoy mining gallery designed to look like a vulnerable, high-value energy hub while functioning as a lethal mechanical trap.
The grit of the construction fell to the newly integrated Aspirants. Under Drax's supervision, the former Imperial soldiers were tasked with hollowing out a shallow cavern only forty feet below the surface. This space was purposefully cluttered with "leaking" steam-pipes, dummy brass gauges, and crates of low-grade sulfur ore. It was designed to look like the barony's primary geothermal intake—the "heart" of the mountain's power.
Kael engineered the False-Face with a specific structural weakness: the Stress-Balanced Arch. Unlike the reinforced Gothic arches of the lower vaults, these arches were held in place by a single, central iron "keystone" connected to a remote-release cable. To the eye of an Imperial sapper, the room would look stable; to a structural analyst, it would look like the perfect target for a sabotage charge.
The social integration of the new laborers was tested during the "Seeding" phase. Kael had the men leave physical clues near the surface—dropped tools, Imperial-standard footprints leading to hidden vents, and deliberately muffled voices. The former soldiers, now Ashfall Aspirants, performed their roles with a grim efficiency. They knew Vane's methods better than anyone; they knew he would send his most decorated sappers to find the "breath" of the mountain.
A technical challenge arose in the thermal signature. Vane's engineers would likely be using primitive thermal-seekers—mercury thermometers mounted on iron probes—to find the heat of the geothermal bore. To trick them, Kael diverted a small, high-pressure bypass from the real bore into the False-Face, heating the floor of the decoy chamber until it shimmered with a deceptive, concentrated heat.
The Seismic Mirror soon picked up the sharp, rhythmic clink-clink of Imperial picks moving toward the decoy. They were digging a vertical shaft, aiming directly for the center of the False-Face. Kael watched the interference patterns bloom on the wall. The Imperial sappers were moving with a desperate haste, their signatures heavy and unrefined.
He stood in the command vault, his hand resting on the lever connected to the Stress-Balanced Arch. He wasn't waiting for a battle; he was waiting for the Imperial engineers to commit their weight to the chamber. As the ceiling of the False-Face began to groan under the pressure of the Imperial breach, Kael adjusted the final dampening screw on the release cable.
The mountain felt silent, a heavy, expectant stillness that stretched across the tiers. In the flickering light of the mercury-pool, Kael saw the distinct vibration of the Imperial sappers breaking through the decoy's roof. They were in the trap.
Kael pulled the lever.
The release was silent in the deep vaults, but the Seismic Mirror registered a sudden, massive spike of energy. The iron keystones retracted, and the Stress-Balanced Arches did exactly what they were engineered to do: they transformed the weight of the limestone overburden into a localized, vertical collapse. The False-Face imploded, burying the Imperial sabotage team and their equipment under fifty tons of debris, while leaving the primary subterranean infrastructure completely untouched.
Vane's "Scalpel" had been broken. The Seismic Mirror showed a sudden, frantic dispersion of the remaining surface signatures. The psychological impact was total; the mountain had not just resisted their entry, it had seemingly "swallowed" their best men without a trace.
Kael let go of the lever, his breath steady. The blockade was no longer a military operation; it was a cleanup effort. He looked at the population log, which now sat at 685 as the last of the surface scouts surrendered at the intake gate.
The mountain has spoken, Elms. The Empire will not try the stone again. We have the space, the heat, and the silence. Now, we begin the work of Tier 5. We aren't just housing people anymore; we're building a factory that never sees the sun.