1 Days, 4 Hours, 25 Minutes
Robichaud et Fils Steel Foundry, Quartier-Ouvrier, Evening of April 23rd, 770
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It was past sundown when Mercator led you through the streets of the Quartier-Ouvrier to the lair of the Firebird, where the symbol of the Soul could be found. Robichaud et Fils, proclaimed the words emblazoned in cheap brass above the door.
It was a steel foundry, one of several that could be found in the workers quarter. Here, men labored at the crafting of steel and iron, making everything from wrought iron fences and elegant window frames to gun barrels and sharp blades. It was good work, and not Robichaud et Fils ever lacked for willing bodies to push into the foundries. They paid well, more than one could earn at most other work in the Quartier-Ouvrier. The men who worked here earned, and earned well.
And they earned well because they gave up their lives. The endless, blasting heat, the clouds of soot, the fumes from the great chemical furnaces, and the molten metal itself, all took a toll on the bodies that worked here. It was hard, grueling work, and accidents were plentiful. When one deals with iron heated to temperatures with four digits, even the slightest error can cost lives. And should by some miracle one avoid being murdered or mangled, the fumes would kill you just as surely, albeit somewhat slower. Very few steel workers lived long past their thirtieth birthdays. Even the administrative staff, locked away in the upper levels, handling payrolls and inventories, breathing in the deadly substances, they too rarely lived out their full span of time.
M. Robichaud and his sons were never seen in the foundry. They lived in the Quartier-Savant, where the air was sweet.
The frenzy of daytime production had ended by the time Melanchthon led you to the foundry floor. Most of the workers had done their time, served out one more day, and gone home. But the mighty steel furnaces were never left alone, and so a skeleton crew remained, men who worked these deadly jobs in the dark, their too-few lanterns supplemented by the glow of the molten metal.
The Firebird was here, nesting in one of these crucibles, vast furnaces that dwarfed mortal men. In the hottest one, according to proverb, the one in the deepest depths of the foundry. That was what Mercator Melanchthon had been told.
