The Spine Mine


        This mine comprises a great network of scaffolds built up along the face of a single, colossal vertibrae. It is here that the white dust, awsil, is extracted from the calcium caverns within the dead god's spinal cord. Tunnels have been bored into the ancient bone on several levels, and a complex network of metal funnels and pipes allow unprocessed awsil to be gathered from all levels and dumped into collecting stations below. The interior of the mine is a honeycomb of hollow pockets, most of which have very thin walls that have been broken down. The pocket interiors near the centre of the vertibrae are caked with a brown film of crystalline powder, which is scraped off with long bladed poles and collected in metal pans, then carried over twenty miles to the sifting stations on the coast.

        Water is required to separate the raw awsil from the dried blood and spinal fluid, and a number of saltwater aquaducts act as slurries. The lighter, unwanted residue floats to the top and is skimmed off, and the rest of the solution is boiled down to salt at awsil crystals. This half-refined mixture is then sent to Golgoth to the west for final processing and alchemical treatment.

        The bulk of the mine laborers are weak undead such as skeletons or dust-mummified zombies. In rare instances, there will be living slaves, though these quickly die off and are melted down into necril resin or animated again to continue their work in death. Many of the undead here have had their forearms replaced with iron scrapers and powder scoops. The mine's average working population is roughtly fifteen hundred laborers controlled by the Spiral priests and their more intelligent undead underlings.

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