A Numbers Game

The Feather Race moved quickly.

Mercy had never been what allowed them to survive in the frozen reaches of Northern Ice Island.

The mine shaft slanted down along a fissure in the ice sheet.

It wound back and forth like a long snake probing deep into the ice.

Once the shaft reached a relatively stable section of ice, hot-water drilling equipment was brought in.

Unlike conventional geological drilling, this method bored through ice at an astonishing speed, advancing nearly a thousand meters downward in a single day.

Pipes extended all the way down to the reservoir below.

As the pressure was released, vast quantities of carbon dioxide escaped from the hydrates and surged up through the pipes with a rapid succession of hisses.

Feather Race miners took turns descending the shaft under respiratory support spells.

In the cold, narrow shaft, they installed suction lines to draw the gas to the surface.

There, another construction crew had already laid horizontal pipelines.

The gas was pumped through them all the way to the condensation plant.

There, it was pressurized again and cooled.

It froze into stark white dry ice cores.

Because they were racing to make progress, localized collapses beneath the ice never stopped.

Once again, more than a dozen miners were buried in an inclined shaft.

The necromancers accompanying them acted swiftly, sending undead rushing forward to chip away at the fallen ice, rock, and slag bit by bit.

In the end, they managed to rescue most of them.

News of the accident was quickly passed up through the ranks.

"The excavation phase is over," Chloe said to Su Ming.

"Once we reinforce each section with ice, the situation should stabilize soon."

"Send more undead into the dangerous areas," Su Ming said with a sigh.

He paused.

"Try to-keep the number