You operate a foundry built inside a volcano. Three pipes feed three gases into one chamber, and the order board wants them in an exact ratio. Turn the valve wheels with your thumb, watch the blend settle, and hold it steady while the pressure climbs.
HOW A SHIFT RUNS
The board posts a blend: 50% sulfur, 30% steam, 20% ash. You swipe each valve wheel left to close it or right to open it. The chamber mixes whatever arrives and bleeds off what it can. When all three readings sit inside tolerance, four rivets start lighting up. Hold the blend for four seconds, all four light, and the order clears. The next one comes in tighter.
THREE GASES, THREE TEMPERAMENTS
Sulfur is heavy and slow. Open its valve and the reading takes ten seconds to catch up, then it sits where you put it.
Steam answers in a heartbeat and drains just as fast. Good for a last-second correction, useless for anything you want to keep.
Ash builds up on its own in ragged bursts and barely leaves the chamber. Overshoot it and you will be fighting that number for the rest of the shift.
Because they behave differently, matching a ratio is balancing, not arithmetic.
PRESSURE PAYS
Every open valve pushes the needle toward the red arc. Above 60% the chamber pays 1.5x for a filled order. Above 75% it pays double. Let the needle reach the redline and the chamber breaches, and the shift ends there. The purge valve dumps pressure fast, but it blows the light gas out first and leaves your blend skewed.
WHEN THE PLANT BREAKS
Valves seize. Couplings spring leaks. Sensors go dark and hide a line's reading behind two question marks. A repair board comes down on chains over your console, and the shift keeps running the whole time you are working on it. Flip the tripped breaker, hold the blown fuse until it seats, crank the leaking coupling three turns. Later shifts add spindles that creep open by themselves, and those you fix at the console by closing the wheel to zero and holding it there.
Time spent on the board is time nobody is watching the mix. That is the trade.
WHAT YOU GET
Three shift lengths to start from, from steady to meltdown. An endless run of orders, each with a narrower tolerance than the last. One score to beat, kept between sessions.
No timers between runs. Portrait, one thumb, any session length you have.
Show more
