The secondary archive opened into a brightly illuminated rotunda lined with polished registry pedestals and brass filing cabinets beneath a low dome.
Behind the vanguard, several civic representatives from Ouro ventured down the stairs, led by Tessa and municipal clerk Sava.
The shopkeepers and guild artisans looked around the ancient hall with anxious curiosity, clutching their work aprons with trembling hands.
"Can this archive restore our emergency communication lines without binding our souls to an emperor?" a master weaver asked timidly.
"In the old days before the siege, our neighborhood had a bell-resonance network that warned us of mountain flash floods!"
"We need a pain alert for the quarry miners when rockfalls collapse the northern drift," an elderly stonecutter chimed in.
"And a brotherly beacon for the night watchmen when wolves prowl the lower orchards!"
