The approach to the Whisperwind Foundry was a study in cautious reverence for decay. The structure loomed over the surrounding industrial wreckage like the carcass of some colossal beast, its outer skin of plasteel and composite materials peeled back in places to reveal shattered ribs of girders and conduits. Sections of the roof had collapsed inwards, creating jagged skylights through which the perpetually overcast sky of Meridian's mid-levels offered bleak illumination. The wind, funneled through broken vents and vast, silent chambers, created a low, mournful howl that gave the place its name, interspersed with the sharp scent of ozone and the deeper tang of old, cold metal.
Rhys kept his Echo Sense extended, mapping the immediate area. The foundry pulsed with faint, residual energies, much stronger than the background chaos of the sector. He felt the dominant signature of Air – swirling currents, pressure differentials, echoes of immense forces once directed through now-ruptured channels. But beneath that, there were pockets of intense heat residue, stable metallic resonances from exotic alloys, and the jarring signatures of damaged, dormant machinery. Structural integrity was also a major concern; his senses screamed warnings about weakened load-bearing columns and precariously balanced debris overhead.
"Careful," Rhys murmured to Boulder, pointing towards a massive internal support pillar riddled with cracks. "Whole sections could go at any moment."
They slipped inside through a gaping hole torn in a side wall, entering a cavernous main chamber. Gantries, twisted like licorice sticks by unimaginable forces or time, hung suspended high above. Huge, defunct turbines lay half-buried in rubble. The scale was immense, dwarfing anything Rhys had encountered before, testament to the power wielded by the pre-Sundering civilization.
Navigating the interior was like traversing an architectural graveyard. They climbed over mountains of debris, squeezed through gaps between monolithic, silent machines, and tiptoed across catwalks that groaned under their weight. Several times, Rhys used small, controlled puffs of Air Weaving – a skill slowly becoming more intuitive in this Air-resonant environment – to test the stability of floor panels or dislodge loose rocks from ledges above before passing underneath. Boulder, meanwhile, used his pry bar not just for leverage but as a probe, testing the solidity of the ground ahead.
Their progress was slow, hampered by the constant need for vigilance against environmental hazards. They encountered evidence of previous scavengers – discarded tools, stripped wires, old corpses picked clean by tunnel creatures – but saw no recent signs of activity. At one point, a sudden clatter from above sent them diving for cover as a damaged maintenance drone, disturbed by their presence, detached from its ceiling track and crashed to the floor in a shower of sparks and rusted parts. It was inert, but a stark reminder of the latent dangers.
Rhys focused his search. Starfall Ore Dust. Residue of extreme energy. He scanned for areas where the heat and power signatures were most concentrated, ignoring the general Air resonance for now. His Echo Sense led them deeper into the foundry's heart, towards a section heavily damaged but radiating a stronger residual heat signature and the tell-tale resonance of exotic, energy-resistant materials. It looked like the remains of a primary engine testing chamber or perhaps a plasma wind tunnel core.
The target area was a mess of slagged machinery, fused ceramic conduits cracked like eggshells, and shattered containment fields. And there, barely visible amidst the wreckage, were faint, shimmering particles clinging to the surfaces – Starfall Ore Dust. It wasn't a rich deposit, just trace amounts left over from whatever cataclysmic event or operational failure had occurred here.
Extracting it proved challenging. The dust was embedded in the slag and fused ceramics. Brute force would likely destroy the delicate particles or trigger a collapse of the unstable surrounding structure.
"Boulder, see if you can stabilize that leaning support," Rhys directed, pointing to a buckled plasteel beam threatening the section they needed to work in. While Boulder carefully wedged debris and used his pry bar to create a temporary brace, Rhys focused on the extraction.
He couldn't risk a clumsy telekinetic push. He needed finesse. Recalling the Meridian Dredging exercises, the feeling of guiding Aether along precise internal channels, he tried to apply the principle externally. He extended a fine thread of Aether towards a fragment of ceramic embedded with the shimmering dust. He didn't push; he vibrated it, subtly resonating with the ceramic's structure, trying to loosen the dust particles from their matrix without shattering the host material. It required intense concentration, his Aether draining steadily.
Slowly, painstakingly, tiny shimmering motes detached, floating free. He used a minuscule Air Weaving current, barely a breath, to guide the floating particles towards the small, lead-lined container he held ready. It was like trying to herd dust motes in a hurricane. Each grain felt precious, earned through immense effort and Aether expenditure.
He found his rudimentary Air Attunement helped slightly. Resonating with the ambient Air energy made his fine Air Weaving control marginally better, the currents more stable. He experimented briefly, creating tiny, focused vortexes to gather the dust, or gentle updrafts to lift particles from crevices. The efficiency was still terrible, the Aether cost significant, but it was a tangible application, a step beyond simple gusts. Air felt different – lighter, quicker, more responsive but harder to contain than Water, less volatile than Fire. It demanded precision.
After what felt like hours, hunched amidst the wreckage, carefully vibrating, nudging, and guiding, they had collected a small pouch-worth of the precious Starfall Ore Dust. It wasn't much, maybe enough for a few catalyst applications if used sparingly, but it was a start. Rhys felt utterly drained, his Aether Pool nearing empty again, but a grim satisfaction settled over him. They had faced the Rot, navigated the Foundry, and claimed their prize.
As he sealed the container, preparing to finally leave the hazardous extraction site, his Echo Sense picked up something odd within the shattered chamber. The air currents, previously driven by the wind whistling through the foundry's ruins, began to swirl in complex, almost geometric patterns around the remnants of the core machinery. They weren't random drafts; they felt organized, deliberate, like unseen gears turning or dormant systems stirring in response to their activity, or perhaps the Aether he had expended.
A sudden sense of unease prickled at him. Was this just a lingering technological echo? Or had their presence, their Aetheric disturbance, awakened something within the Whisperwind Foundry's sleeping heart? He signaled Boulder, urging a swift departure. The prize was secured, but the ruin suddenly felt less like a graveyard and more like a slumbering machine they had inadvertently nudged.