#// pneumaousia blocks might regenerate for the sake of the traveler but the wiki says they're artificially created and this is a factory

[dukemeropide]

This floor hasn’t seen power for centuries, so it would seem, and yet it still groans and sighs like the belly of some great, iron beast. Far above and far below, one can make out the signs of life from the rest of the sunken Fortress - steam from hissing valves, the rhythmic hammering of a plate press, and the rattle of water through knots of pipes - but carried here through the echoing chambers of abandoned tunnels and rusted air vents, the ordinary becomes otherworldly. The long-dried and defunct metal veins snaking the corridor overhead sing softly as if with the voices of some very far away, ghostly choir.

The Duke has explored this floor once or twice on his own before. He has plumbed the Fortress’ secrets so doggedly that investigation might as well be his true job and administration simply something he does on the side, and so he has a rough idea of where they are and where to go. Concentrating on an imperfect map he’s stitched together in his mind from his previous visits, he doesn’t immediately notice when the quick, resolute heels clicking alongside the steady thump of his rubber soles die away until he’s already gone nearly to the end of the hall. He stops there and turns with a curiosity deliberate enough to stamp out the undercurrent of panic. If he lost the former Archon here, he knows the only thing the court could do to him at this point is stand him across the ring from one legendary duelist. It was a fate as good as death.

But Furina has merely stopped by the wall some feet back, examining something high above her.

Ousia nodes, she says, and Wriothesley crosses his arms.

”A few things, I’d imagine,” he says as he makes his way back to her to see what’s so special about them. They couldn’t look nearly as out of place here as she does, all but shining in the gloom in her clean white and bright blue, and in fact he’s impressed by her eye when he comes up alongside her. Three dim bulbs in a line, hardly unusual in a place like this except for the faint glow of residual energy around them. Wriothesley stares up at them with a hand stroking his chin. Had someone been here recently…?

��Looks like one of them might lead to—“ He starts to look around, following the narrow piping zigzagging away from the leftmost bulb. There’s a filthy rag draped over some irregular shape hidden in the shadows against the wall and his eyes light up. “—Aha, there’s a console under here.”

He pulls it off to reveal a rusty old machine with rows of dust-caked keys along its front. A large gear sits inert behind it, connecting to the piping from the Ousia node. Wriothesley runs his fingers along the letters, then wipes his thumb across the little square screen at the top - lifeless and blank now.

”This probably operates a few cameras on the floor. Too bad I don’t have the means to make it run. I doubt there are any Pneuma blocks sitting around down here either. Those things are too valuable to be locked up and abandoned.”

　PARADE OF THE LADY ｡