Chapter 64: The Furnace of Empire
The highland winds howled like the ghosts of a forgotten world.
Prince Lancelot stood at the edge of a limestone ridge, his boots caked in red dust, his coat whipped by the wind. Before him stretched the inland plateau—untamed, vast, and cloaked in clouds. It had taken three weeks of rail through sheer granite and jungle to reach this height, and now the world opened up before them. Fertile valleys, glinting mineral ridges, and rivers that fed into distant, unmapped forests.
Juliette climbed up beside him, panting slightly, goggles around her neck, field notes tucked under one arm.
"This is it," she said, nodding at the view. "The Crown’s Furnace."
Lancelot raised an eyebrow. "The name?"
She smiled faintly. "Heat, ore, and pressure. It’s where empires are forged."
—
By the fourth month of the African campaign, the Civic Brigades had established eight primary settlements, all connected by a central railway artery stretching 140 kilometers inland. But now, at the frontier of the known plateau, the game changed. The terrain was steeper. Rainfall heavier. The soil richer—but riddled with sinkholes and ancient aquifers.
It was no longer just about industry.
It was about permanence.
"This can’t just be a camp," Juliette warned during the evening meeting in the steel prefab command hut. "If we’re building here, it has to last through floods, landslides, maybe even seismic events."
Bellido poured over geological charts. "Then we adapt. Modular steel foundations. Deep anchors. We’ll divert the water into retention basins and power turbines with it."