The Ironbeard engineering team left the lower Iron Hills six days after Brekka Hammerfall's return to the Thane, traveling the southern road in a column of thirty-four: thirty engineers, two administrative clerks, and two senior foremen who had read Brekka's summary report twice each and had the expression of people who understood the technical implications but were still working on the emotional ones.
Their commander was Vorra Deepcut, a compact dwarven woman with calloused hands and twenty years of tunnel-sealing experience. She had been told what the Arch's void compound process required, told what the void compound's chemical overlap with the mining extraction process implied for her crew's skill set, and told that the situation at the Arch was urgent without being told specifically why it was urgent at this exact moment rather than six months ago. She had decided that the omission was political rather than informational and had chosen not to pursue it.
