The Steam Age: Gears and Bones

Chapter 23

The group continued northward along the post road.

The fog thinned slightly in the afternoon, but visibility still did not exceed fifty meters.

The reed beds on both sides of the road were gradually replaced by low frozen hills, and the roadbed of the post road also showed obvious subsidence and cracks in several sections, indicating that it had not been maintained for many years.

As the carriage traversed a cracked section of road, its left wheel sank into a snow-covered fissure, causing the entire carriage to tilt sharply to the left.

Belfast supported the floorboards with one hand, and the four riders worked together to lift the wheel out of the crack. The axle was not broken, but there was a new scratch on the rim of the left wheel.

After inspecting the rims, Perfit didn't say much, but simply ordered the drivers to speed up.

The time was running out, and they couldn't afford to delay any longer.

Winter days are already short in the swamp; the light begins to dim rapidly before the sun has even sunk below the horizon.

The fog grew thicker in the twilight, turning from grayish-white to dark gray, and finally becoming almost opaque black.

The flag captain, who was at the very front of the procession, had to reduce the distance between himself and the main force from two or three hundred meters to less than fifty meters, because any further and he would be too far to even see his back.

"We can't go any further." Chertzov turned back from the front of the column, walked to Perficott's side, and said in a low voice, "It's going to be completely dark soon. Marching through the night in this visibility is suicide."

Even without encountering an infected person, any mud puddle could swallow a whole person.

Perfico nodded; she was about to give the same command.

The group stopped on a slightly raised mound beside the post road.

Cherzov, accompanied by two veteran Russian soldiers, left the post road and walked north along the slope of the mound for about two hundred paces. He then turned west to explore the terrain on the other side of the post road and spent about fifteen minutes before returning to the mound.

He chose a sheltered depression—with a low, frozen slope to the north providing cover, and several boulders half-buried in the snow to the east, which could serve as natural shelter. The ground was relatively flat and dry, unlike other parts of the swamp where water would seep out with a single step.

"Here it is," Perfit decided.

Instead of having people set up tents, she first took the alchemical staff with a fragment of the Philosopher's Stone embedded in it from her waist and walked to the center of the depression.

She pressed the end of her cane against the frozen ground, closed her eyes, and channeled her spiritual energy along the cane to the ground beneath her feet.

The Philosopher's Stone fragment glowed with a faint red light at the tip of the staff—a light that could not travel more than ten paces away, obscured by the thick fog and twilight.

Under her alchemical influence, the permafrost began to slowly change its structure. The loose peat was compacted, and the ice crystals in the cracks melted and re-condensed, forming a hard, stony surface.

The whole process lasted for about a few minutes. When she put her cane back, a hard surface, large enough for the entire expedition team to set up camp, had been reinforced in the center of the depression.

"Set up the tent." She straightened up, her voice tinged with weariness. "The stove must be dug before dark."

The tent was quickly set up.

It was a large tent made of thick canvas, which could accommodate about twenty people to rest in, while the rest of the team members slept in several smaller tents.

Perfit didn't set up a separate tent for himself; he simply had someone hang a waterproof tarpaulin in the corner of the large tent to create a small space where he could barely lie down.

The flag captain, along with several knights, dug a smokeless stove on the leeward side of the depression.

This is not an ordinary campfire pit in the wild, but a military stove. First, a deep pit is dug in the ground to serve as the stove chamber, and then an air intake is dug diagonally from the side. A thin stone slab with holes is covered above the stove opening. After the smoke rises, it will first disperse into the cavity under the stone slab to cool, and then spread along the gaps on the edge of the stone slab along the ground, with almost no obvious smoke column.

The flag captain had a Ross veteran check the angles of the firebox and air intake before starting the fire.

When the firelight came on, from ten paces away from the edge of the depression, all that could be seen was a faint warm glow on the ground; beyond that, nothing could be seen at all.

Perfit stood by the stove and stared at it for the time it takes to drink half a cup of tea, until he was sure there was no obvious smoke coming out of the stove, before nodding and telling someone to start boiling water.

The ones fetching water were two Romulus knights.

They found a half-frozen stream about three hundred paces east of the mound, broke through the ice, and scooped two pots of water back with their cooking pots.

The water in the pot was murky and yellowish, with the muddy smell characteristic of swampy water and a small amount of suspended grass clippings.

Perfit took a pill from her leather case—a water purification pill she had made in her laboratory before leaving, using alchemy to compress the ingredients of several water purification agents into the size of a small pill.

She dropped the pills into the first pot of water, stirred it for a moment with a silver spoon, and watched as the suspended matter in the water gradually settled, and the color of the water changed from murky yellow to clear.

She waited for about fifteen minutes to allow the pill to fully react before nodding.

"Boil it before drinking," she instructed the knight tending the fire. "Also, tell everyone not to touch any untreated water."

Several cooking pots were placed one after another on the smokeless stove.

The boiled water wasn't so hot when it was poured into each person's bowl, but it was enough to dispel some of the chill.

The food consisted of dry rations brought down from the ship by the expedition team—hard bread, cured meat, and a few pieces of cheese, one portion per person. The quantity was not large, but it was enough to fill their stomachs.

Perfit leaned against the carriage wheel, softening dry bread with hot water and eating it bite by bite, his eyes fixed on the notebook spread out in front of him, recording the activities of infected people he had observed along the way that day by the dim warm light of the smokeless stove.

No one spoke loudly in the entire camp.

Occasionally, people would talk, but they would whisper a few necessary words into each other's ears, and then fall silent.

The flag captain arranged for the sentry posts to be rotated. The first shift consisted of two knights and a Romulus veteran, with one post on each side of the depression, and the shifts changing every two hours.

Ludwig rested his sword on his knee, sat on a piece of gravel outside the large tent, and looked up at the fog-shrouded sky, seemingly trying to find his way, or perhaps simply looking around.

Cherzov sat next to him, about two steps apart, and neither of them spoke.

After finishing his meal, Perfit put the bowl aside and walked toward the carriage.

The wheel had been bumped when it got stuck in the crack, and there was a new scratch on the left wheel rim, and the rim was slightly deformed.

She crouched down to examine the damage, then stood up and took out her magic wand, intending to repair it.

"Miss Brandlis, let me do it." The young alchemist Allen, who was with the team, walked over.

His name is Allen. He is a student of Professor Archibald, in his early twenties. He worked with Perfit in Langdon's laboratory and did several sample analyses. He is serious and doesn't talk much.

Perfit glanced at him and took a step back.

Allen crouched down, ran his fingers along the scratches on the wheel hub, checked the seams of the iron hoops, then took out a special chalk from his leather bag and drew a material repair transmutation circle on the ground.

He knelt on the frozen ground, his wrists steady, drawing the basic magic array perfectly square.

After finishing the drawing, he took out a small piece of iron ore and placed it at the eye of the array. He then placed his hands on the edge of the array pattern and activated the alchemy array.

After observing for a while, Perfit suddenly spoke up: "The auxiliary rune on the left can be removed. You're repairing a wrought iron wheel made of a single material, so there's no need to consider mixed materials. Removing it and readjusting the node spacing will reduce energy consumption by nearly 10%."

Allen paused for a moment, then picked up the chalk, carefully erased the auxiliary rune on the left, readjusted the positions of the two adjacent nodes, and reactivated the transmutation array.

This time, the array patterns shone more evenly than before, and the rate at which the iron ore was consumed was noticeably slower.

The last tiny crack on the wheel rim disappeared completely in the light.

Perfico nodded: "Good technique. Wipe away the marks, don't leave them on the floor."

Allen immediately squatted down and carefully wiped away the chalk marks with his sleeve. His movements were swift and efficient, and his face showed a hint of understanding after being instructed, but he didn't say anything more.

Perfit walked to the other side of the carriage, peering through the thick fog into the dark depths of the swamp on the outskirts of the depression, before turning back to his tent a moment later.