The pump did not sleep.
Hiss. Thud. Splash.
Day and night, the Newcomen Engine groaned, lifting the subterranean water and vomiting it into the ditch. The machine was a tyrant, demanding a constant feeding of the very coal it was helping to reveal.
Ronan stood at the mouth of the shaft. It was no longer a pool of dark water. It was a gaping, muddy throat leading into the earth.
"It's dry enough," Ronan announced. He grabbed a pickaxe. "Who comes with me?"
The miners hesitated. They were used to digging shallow trenches for copper or tin. This was different. This was the dark underbelly of the world.
"It's just rock," Ronan said, stepping into the bucket attached to a simple winch system. "Lower me."
He descended into the gloom. The air grew colder, then stiflingly humid. The smell was ancient—wet earth and rotten eggs.
When his boots hit the bottom, forty feet down, he raised his lantern.
The walls glistened. A seam of coal, thick and black, ran horizontally through the slate like a vein of solid night.
[Resource Identified: Anthracite Coal]
[Quality: Medium-High]
[Sulfur Content: 2.5%]
Ronan struck the wall. The coal splintered easily, falling in shiny, black shards. It was energy. Millions of years of sunlight, trapped in stone, waiting for him.
"Send the buckets!" Ronan yelled up the shaft. "We are rich!"
The Poison Smoke
Two days later, the courtyard of the smithy was piled high with the black rock.
Kennos picked up a chunk. His hands were instantly stained black. "It's heavy, my Lord. And dirty. But you say this will save the contract?"
"Watch," Ronan said.
He threw a shovel of raw coal into a small test forge. He worked the bellows.
The coal caught fire. But it didn't burn clean like wood charcoal. It produced a thick, yellow-brown smoke that choked the apprentices. The smell of rotten eggs (sulfur) filled the yard.
Kennos coughed, covering his mouth. "It stinks of the seven hells!"
"Pull the iron," Ronan ordered.
Kennos pulled the test rod out of the fire. He put it on the anvil and struck it.
CRACK.
The iron didn't bend. It shattered.
"It's ruined," Kennos said, looking at the crystalline fracture. "It's brittle. Hot-short. This rock is poison to the metal, Ronan. If we use this, the Stark armor will shatter when a sword hits it. We will be executed for fraud."
"It's the sulfur," Ronan explained, pointing to the yellow smoke. "Sulfur binds to the iron and weakens the lattice. We have to clean the rock before we burn it."
"Clean it?" Kennos asked. "With water?"
"With fire," Ronan said. "We have to bake it."
The Beehive Ovens
Ronan took the construction crew to a flat patch of land downwind of the castle.
"We build domes," Ronan instructed. "Like beehives. Brick. Three feet thick."
They built a row of six ovens. They looked like igloos made of fire-brick. Each had a hole in the roof and a small door at the bottom.
"Fill them," Ronan ordered.
The peasants shoveled tons of raw coal into the ovens until they were full.
"Light it," Ronan said.
They threw in burning kindling. The coal caught fire.
"Now," Ronan commanded, "seal the doors. Brick them up. Leave only a tiny gap at the top for smoke to escape."
"But... if we seal it, the fire goes out," an apprentice argued.
"Exactly," Ronan said. "We don't want to burn the coal to ash. We want to cook it. We want to starve the fire of air, so it gets hot enough to melt the sulfur and tar, but not hot enough to consume the carbon."
It was the process of Pyrolysis.
For forty-eight hours, the ovens smoldered. They didn't roar; they hissed. Nasty, yellow gas vented from the roof holes, carrying away the impurities. The smell was horrific—an industrial stench that settled over the Wolfswood.
The birds stopped singing. The leaves on the nearby trees turned brown.
"We are killing the air," Varrick noted, coughing into a handkerchief as he watched from a distance.
"The price of progress," Ronan muttered. He felt a pang of guilt, but he pushed it down. He needed the steel.
The Grey Gold
On the third day, Ronan checked the smoke. It was no longer yellow. It was clear heat shimmer.
"Open them," Ronan ordered.
The men broke down the brick doors. They sprayed water inside to quench the heat. Steam exploded outward.
When the steam cleared, the black, shiny rocks were gone.
In their place was a pile of grey, porous, lightweight lumps. It looked like hardened grey sponge.
"It looks like slag," Kennos said, disappointed. "It looks dead."
"Pick it up," Ronan said.
Kennos grabbed a piece. "It's light. Like pumice."
"It's Coke," Ronan said. "Pure carbon. The sulfur is gone. The tar is gone. This burns twice as hot as charcoal and lasts three times as long."
The Blast Furnace
They carted the grey Coke to the massive Blast Furnace.
"Charge it," Ronan shouted. "Layer of ore. Layer of lime. Layer of Coke."
They filled the tower. Gendel, sweating and grimy, pumped the water-driven bellows.
The reaction was terrifying.
Charcoal burns with a gentle, orange heat. Coke burns with a violent, white ferocity. The roar from the furnace sounded like a jet engine. The bricks began to glow cherry-red from the outside.
"The temperature..." Ronan checked with his [Architect's Eye].
[Internal Temp: 1600°C]
[Status: Liquid Phase Achieved]
"Tap it!"
The iron flowed. It was thinner, more fluid than ever before. It ran into the molds like water.
But the real test came later, in the finishing forge.
Kennos took a bar of the new "Coke Iron." He heated it and hammered it. He folded it. He quenched it.
He put it in the vice and hit it with a sledgehammer.
CLANG.
It rang like a bell. It bent, absorbed the shock, and returned to true.
"It's steel," Kennos whispered, looking at the metal with reverence. "It's the best steel I've ever seen. And we can make... tons of it?"
"As long as the engine pumps," Ronan said, "and the ovens bake."
He walked out of the smithy into the courtyard. Snow was falling, but as it passed through the smoke from the Coke ovens, it turned grey. Black soot was settling on the castle walls. The pristine white of the North was being stained by industry.
Ronan caught a snowflake on his hand. It left a smear of black ash.
"Varrick," Ronan said.
"My Lord?"
"Send the raven to Winterfell. Tell Ned Stark his armor is ready. And tell him..." Ronan looked at the darkening sky. "...tell him the Wolfswood has awoken."
Status Update:
• Resource: Coke (Industrial Fuel).
• Production: Crucible Steel (Mass Production Enabled).
• Environment: Pollution levels rising (Local flora taking damage).
• Objective: Fulfil the Stark Contract.
.....
Author Note
Hi guys! Thank you for reading my fanfiction.
I wanted to let you know that I'm releasing bonus chapters for Power Stones. Here are the goals:
80 Power Stones: 2 Bonus Chapter
100 Power Stones: 2 Bonus Chapters
125 Power Stones: 2 Bonus Chapters
150 Power Stones: 2 Bonus Chapters
Thanks for the support!