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About halfway through the week, there is thunder in the East. As workers on the surface stop to search the sky for stormclouds, it comes again, louder this time. A moment later the air crackles with electricity for a moment, standing everyone's beards on end. Then, just as it begins to fade, the distant crack of a truly immense explosion a long way off. A protracted series of rumbling detonations begins, coinciding with an abrupt and massive increase in the "Volume" of the background psychic drone that most had begun to get used to, now "Louder" by a thousandfold, a deafening static screech, underlain with what almost seem to be words. The sky flickers with light several times, then erupts in brilliance.
As vision returns, a great aurora forms in the distant vaults of the upper atmosphere, a huge streaking sphere of reds and greens. The few complex electrical systems in the fortress are revealed, under later inspection, to have blown their safety measures, simultaneously and catastrophically. The only area unaffected was Magus Patham's workshop, having been shielded and grounded to protect against static damage of delicate components, and those safety measures have themselves failed.
After a few more mind-cracking moments, the great increase in psychic force fades back into a hateful background hiss.
Several of the more magically sensitive of the fortress' inhabitants have been driven into a comatose state, including a half-dozen Serfs and Patham's Observer-Apprentice. Mayor Murdoc initially seems to have fallen victim to the same, but quickly awakens, claiming only a minor headache.
In the realm of mundane progress, the dam's structure has been built up further, though installation of the remaining needed steel structural components and floodgates has been delayed until enough material can be produced. The various advanced research teams have suffered something of a setback, but not to any degree that cannot be recovered with a few days of work. In future, more complete documentation would likely reduce many such recovery efforts to hours.
The PEA datapad, though undamaged by recent events, seems to have other problems. The system was not designed to handle sudden and complete loss of power, since even removal of the battery would leave a few tens of milliseconds of capacitance for safe shutdown. While the operating system and BIOS are, fortunately, not noticeably corrupted, a majority of the bulk storage has been damaged to a worrying extent. Aside from the three-quarters of the storage drive filled with data in need of scanning for useful material, the device has returned to normal functionality. Creating a partition for any new data to avoid overwriting or further damaging the old may be advisable.
Having spent the past several days negotiating with various branches of the Military, the ranks, and certain members of high command, seem interested enough in the idea of general education to override the concern of the basic officers, though said officers remain solidly displeased with the idea of an informed populace.
The weapons research teams have begun to exhaust their allocation of resources, though conceptual progress is accelerating somewhat. They will need additional support to further advance the cause of more efficient death.
The subset of Infantry chosen for training with the fortress' muskets has completed basic training, leaving them, if not expert, then at least a useful asset and effective in combat. Training could be continued, but ammunition supplies are low enough that what remains will be less than enough for another real battle.
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Topic: If Bay 12 was a fortress Part 3: RETURN OF THE CHAOS (Read 235048 times)