“They’ve got some serious engineering going on here. They must have got gnomes in” Liaena muttered almost admiringly as she studied the dark walls, lined with pipes, cogs and valves. “Give us some more light, would you?”

“I am not a torch” Bella grumbled as she obliged, murmuring the words of a prayer under her breath as her hand glowed with weak Light. The girl took a nervous look below them, where the rumbling of the elevator gaining on them was apparent. “What do we do about that, Liaena?  When that arrives, they’ll raise the alarm!”

“Yeah, yeah, I know” Liaena responded absently as she dug a vial out of her pocket, surveying the creaking and groaning machinery as Hester fluttered past. “That looks important”

And with that, the girl hurled the vial straight into one of the valves that had just been gushing steam, the tiny bottle of liquid clattering audible down the pipe into the bowels of the machine. Bella’s eyes widened as she watched it disappear, while Hester squawked and put on a noticeable burst of speed. “What did you….?”

A dull explosion reverberated somewhere inside the depths of the machine, to be followed by another. Below, the elevator stalled with a horrible squeal, as several pipes started to buckle at the seams from internal pressure and valves started to spew gas and boiling steam. Hester clucked and beat her wings frantically to escape from the storm that was brewing, even as a valve right next to them shuddered to burst its rivets and blast them with a plume of superheated steam. 

….

“This is the…[i]stupidest[/i] thing….you have ever done” 

Bella wheezed as she released the weakened shield around them, the girl clutching at Liaena’s shoulder as she gasped for breath in the air, which was still horribly hot and tasted vile. Looking below them again, the stalled elevator was now only visible from the lights inside it. “There’s guys in there! This’ll kill them!”

“Please, that elevator was full of gas. There’s no way they’d have got back inside yet…” Liaena muttered as she surveyed the scene around them, searching for an escape route. Other than the three doors up ahead, there seemed to be nothing other than the valves….and for once, she didn’t feel like pushing her luck with that. Considering her options, she weighed up the potential threat levels of ‘Soldiers’, ‘Sailors’, and ‘Bureaucrats’, and came up with ‘Sailors’ as the least dangerous option. 

There was a very narrow metal ledge to the ‘storage’ door, where presumably the lift was supposed to dock. Bella was coughing up her lungs behind her as Liaena ran her hands over the heavy metal finish, before fishing in her robes pocket to produce – the ‘elephant rifle’ she had acquired from Dimpsi a few days ago. Opening the barrel, she fished out one of the bullets that armed it, before jamming aforementioned bullet roughly into the crack between the two doors, and wedging it in fully with a hard kick. 

“What – [i]caff[/i] – is – [i]caff[/i] – that!?” Bella wheezed as Liaena backed away, clambering back onto the now distinctly dishevelled bird that was huddling close to the wall, as she levelled her gun at the door. 

“Expanding gunk” Liaena said matter-of-factly, before coughing as she aimed carefully at where she had located the pellet. The ominous rumbling coming from below them very clearly stated that they should be leaving the shaft sooner rather than later. “Impact released. Should – [i]caff[/i] – do for a door”