No wonder the Gold College are so big on secrecy, secluding themselves behind high, windowless walls. It isn't some powerful arcanum they're protecting. It's just the fact that they're all stark bollock naked.
Naked wizards stop to greet the naked initiates as Sweetstone guides them along the high gantries that thread through the foundry. There is far too much handshaking going on for your liking. The female students struggle and fail to meet the conflicting requirements of handshaking and concealing their nudity, which makes the male students even more determined to hide theirs.
The only person who seems at home with the situation is Emmanuel, who bathes in the'attention. A golden form is exceedingly rare - even Aurel, the Gold College magi, is incapable of adopting one - and regarded as evidence of prodigious talent and a great destiny. Even the veteran wizards are awed, the'men marvelling, the women idolising him, almost literally. The softness of his metal flesh means that he moves with a catlike fluidity and grace. Meanwhile your granite form resists every movement you try to make, forcing you to walk like an arthritic puppet.'
You are shown the ore smashers and sifters, the furnaces, then follow a viaduct of liquid iron to where it is poured into clay molds. After that, the group ventures deeper to the quenching room, which is more of a subterranean lake than a room, where the cast items are dunked amid clouds of steam. Then it's back up to the fresh air and sunlight of the testing yard, where the newly forged armour, weaponry, and war machines are put through their paces. Even as they experimentally swing broadswords at each other, it is all done with an obstinate commitment to nudity.'
"This place is weird," you mutter to yourself.'
"I like it. It's exciting."
You glare at Emmanuel. "It's unsanitary is what it is."
After that come the artisans - the alchemists, the enchanters, the inscribers and the rune carvery. The astral refractory is a large, dimly lit dome studded with chunks of focusing crystals through which lance beams of concentrated light, collecting and distilling the properties of astral bodies to be placed into weapons.
"Mostly empty right now of course," Sweetstone explains, her voice echoing around the dome. "This area really comes alive during the night shift."
"Stop posing like that," you snarl at Emmanuel, as he leans over the gantry railing, positioning himself and flexing his arse just so, so that a blinding beam of sunlight reflects off his glorious golden buttocks and into your face. You feel soiled.'
"Okay, gang, follow me," calls Sweetstone. "There's loads more to show you of the Foundry, but I'd prefer to give you a quick look at some of our deep mining operations, then show you to your dorms."
She leads the group back through the foundry to the chasm that sits in the centre. It is several hundred feet wide and standing on the edge you see that it several miles deep, plunging vertically downwards. The bottom is a distant point of orange light.
The group piles into a wire cage hanging over the chasm, which begins to descend with a lurch. The heat 'and noise of the foundry gradually lessens as the wall of dripping stone slides past. The ring of picks echo from below.
"Most of our mining is done by slaves,"'Sweetstone explains as the cage descends past a side tunnel cut into the rocks in which a group of half-animal figures hack'at the rockface and load wheelbarrows of ore to be carried to the surface. "They're easier to replace than golems. At this level, it's too cold for saluria, so we mostly use felini and canids. At the lowest levels, close to the lava,'we have to use draconians. They're the only things that'll survive down there."
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