The Engine Room

Deck C is where the Verdigris stops pretending to be a garden with guns and becomes a fusion barge. The engine room is loud, hot, and mundane at the core — no mana in the reactor itself, no plants, no mystic fuel. A circular core burns white-blue behind shielded glass; analog gauges and physical levers monitor containment because the last digital retrofit was stripped for parts before the crew owned her.

Workbench and rolling tool cart sit in the foreground — grease, rags, spare gaskets. Safety rail overlooks a lower sump where steam vents when the drive strains. This is Elias's domain — technomage engineer: grease under the nails, chalk sigils on the gauge panel for readings that shouldn't work but do. Talyra helps when something needs nine-foot reach or a frost-hardened wrench; Ivan flies the result.

Magic lives in the dome. Power lives here. Confuse the two and the ship stops jumping.

Rear wall: massive circular fusion core, white-blue plasma, orange spark at heart, steam wisps, heavy ring mounts. Left: analog gauge panel, physical levers. Foreground right: stained workbench, tools, rolling cart. Safety railing with rag draped, lower deck visible below. Grated floor, dense pipes, amber work lights vs core glare.

₡400–₡1,000/week variable — ₡0–₡600 fuel reserve for in-system hops, scrubber consumables in the ₡400 life-support bundle, plus d100 maintenance hits: yard (2d6)×₡200 average when things break.

Elias — ship engineer, field patches, technomagic diagnostics on the core; once vented coolant chasing a "mana leak" that was a beer can. Talyra — heavy lift, overhead valves in cool-weave liner; too hot for long shifts. Ivan — pre-flight power read from the bridge; yells if the hum changes.