A shudder rippled through the black basalt flagstones, rattling every cauldron in the inner ring.
Deep beneath the terrace, a sickening groan echoed from the central caldera. Rivers of violet-black Obsidian Earth-Fire surged through the bedrock fissures. The ambient temperature spiked by two hundred degrees in less than ten breaths.
At Table Seven, Alchemist Linnea gasped, hastily grabbing the iron handles of her cooling pot.
“The magma channels are overheating,” Linnea whispered, her face pale in the scarlet glow. “The Pill-Poison sediment is burning through the bronze pipe linings.”
Down in the central plaza, Furnace Warden Krahl stood beside the massive dragon-skull crucible. His scarred face twisted in absolute fury.
Before him, the colossal iron mold of the False Domain Seal was smoking furiously. Fine hairline fractures spread across the ceramic casing like spiderwebs. Thin streams of golden spiritual vapor hissed through the cracks.
“Stabilize the fire-vein!” Krahl roared, his molten whip cracking against the stone railing. “If that mold fractures, thirty days of living core refinement will dissolve into ash!”
Vice-Patriarch Galen Morvane strode onto the high dais, his ivory fan snapping shut with a sharp click.
