As the sun crested the zenith, the Eastern Crag Plateau rang with the deep, rhythmic clang of heavy bronze sledges and the crackle of portable smelter kilns.
Tie Shan stood amid plumes of aromatic oak smoke. His living star-iron arm glowed with internal golden bright glare. Arrayed around his mobile forging rigs were dozens of massive red-bronze castings. Open-topped chimney pipes four paces long. He curved elbow channels engraved with swimming dragon motifs, and heavy counter-weighted weir gates forged from refined red copper and star-iron flux.
“Boss!” Tie Shan shouted, turning toward the edge of the deep bedrock fissure behind the highest dark rock basin. “The chimney pipes are cast, and the copper weirs are ready to mount! But an empty pipe won’t fill a tub! Are you ready to crack open the earth’s kettle?”
Lin Xiao bounced up to the lip of the dark crevasse in his forty-inch sapphire slime form, his white curved eyes sparkling with excitement.
“The kettle has been boiling for ten thousand years, Old Tie,” Lin Xiao bubbled cheerfully. “It’s about time someone poured a cup. Stand back from the fissure. When I pop the seal, you don’t want boiling stone mud on your whiskers.”
