“Wow, yeah!” a voice chirped from inside a locker.

I grimaced, and opened it up, Minnow tumbled out, tangled up in the diving suit within. She looked up at Madame Fog and cheerily waved. “Hi, I’m Minnow!”

“I thought I told you you couldn’t come,” Crankshaft growled.

“Oh did you?” she answered sweetly. “I guess it’s too late now though.”

While they argued, I caught sight of a light far below us. As we drew closer, I could see a metal structure with a concave, ridged top. Cables snaked out from its base, disappearing into the darkness of the crevasse.

As we settled onto the top of the structure, I heard a metallic clank and realized that it served as a docking station for the Hippocampus. Crankshaft pulled down a panel, revealing more gauges and dials.

“The extractors are located a short distance away,” he said distractedly. “I didn’t want them interfering with one another. But it looks like one is broken. They’re set up as drills, self-powering to slowly bore deeper into the bedrock. Something went wrong with one though. Or… it ran out of bedrock.”

“Then go check on it,” my mistress said...