A Whisper in the Coils

The engine room swallows you in a fog of superheated steam and the rhythmic groan of pistons. You weave between the brass aetheric coils, your boots clanging on the iron grating, until something catches your eye — a glint of unfamiliar metal nestled where it does not belong.

Crouching, you find it: a foreign device, no larger than a pocket watch, soldered crudely into the primary coil. Its tiny crystal lens pulses a sickly violet, each throb releasing a soundless wave that you feel more than hear, traveling upward through the hull and out into the void.

Someone aboard the Aurelian is a saboteur. And whatever this device is calling — it is answering back.