The Sea in Gallery Nine

The mine entrance opens into the sea cliff just above the crashing surf, with a wooden sign nailed across the timbers: CLOSED BY ORDER. Seawater surges out of the tunnel mouth in rhythmic pulses, like giant breaths, driven by something mechanical deep underground.

At the back of the mine tunnel sits a barrel-sized bronze sphere resting on a stone cradle—an ancient Old Kingdom relic that the miners accidentally broke through to. The sphere is rhythmically drawing seawater up from the deep and blasting it down the tunnel. Arriving behind you with his lamp, the pit foreman eyes the relic: "Either winch that thing out of my mine—a gunfounder in the next region can turn it into a deck cannon—or help me reverse its valve so it pumps my mine dry!"

The pit foreman meets you at the tunnel entrance with six miners, a heavy hand-pump on a sled, and oil lamps. "I boarded this gallery shut because I wouldn't send men in to drown," he says, watching seawater surge over the sill. "If your crew is going in to stop whatever's flooding my mine, my pump-hands are coming with you—and we'll split whatever we find at the back."

With the bronze tide-engine winched aboard your ship, the flooded tunnel drains completely—exposing a glittering vein of sky-crystal and a full tub of cut ore abandoned when the miners fled. The foreman eyes the salt-rotted ceiling timbers. "That crystal tub is mine property, captain, though I'd never have reached it without you—and I need hands to replace these rotten roof props before the ceiling caves in."

The foreman's crew drags the bronze sphere to the drainage sump at the tunnel mouth, where it continues to suck seawater in on every second beat. "A pump that drinks as much water as it expels is useless," his mechanic mutters. "There has to be a valve on this bronze casing to lock it into outward flow only."

The gunfounder is a veteran emberkin artificer with burn-scarred forearms. She circles the ancient bronze sphere twice and raps it with a wrench. "Old Kingdom siege work—somebody only converted it into a water pump later. I can forge a breech and barrel onto it to build a Deep Tide Lobber for your deck: it fires high-pressure water spheres that strip enemy ship wards like wet paper."

By morning, Gallery Nine is bone-dry all the way to the cutting face, and the first shift of miners is marching back in with picks and lamps. The foreman opens the mine strongbox at the tunnel mouth. "Your pump works like a charm, captain. For the second half of your pay, do you want fifty silver in coin, or the first tub of twelve sky-crystals cut from the dry seam?"