With the void wyrms thoroughly eradicated, an aura of deep, ancient majesty settled over the Tartarus Deep pit. At minus twenty-five thousand meters beneath the surface, the air was clear, still, and fragrant with the clean, metal scent of purified pre-Cambrian aether.
Arthur Vance stood before the sixty-meter monolith of the Tartarus Grounding Altar. The ancient star-iron pillar, rooted into the very bedrock of the Earth’s lower mantle, hummed with a low, welcoming deep ring as Arthur approached.
From his tactical harness, Arthur retrieved the Primordial Caduceus Key. The double-helix relic was blazing with brilliant golden and sapphire light. It shook in harmony with the combined souls of the squad: Pip’s solar fire, Titus’s earth-shaking gravity, Grimm’s devouring void, Vesper’s spatial care, and Echo’s soothing sea.
“Toby, notify Federation Command,” Arthur spoke into his communicator, his voice steady, carrying the weight of a mission fought across miles of underground fire and stone. “Seating the final grounding relay now.”
“Copy that, Arthur,” Toby replied, his voice hushed with breathless respect. “Every ground-shaking star tower on Earth is patched into this feed. The world is watching.”
Arthur walked up the three steps of the star-iron altar.
As his boots touched the cold star-iron surface, Arthur felt the deep weight of his journey. Less than two years ago, he had been a penniless, unlicensed gutter medic running in the filth of Slum Ward 9, stitching the torn ears of stray hounds and bandaging the crushed shells of injured ditch turtles with salvaged gauze…
