A heavy, rhythmic crunch echoed from the lower western terrace twelve hours after the final drum shattered.
Down beside the magma fissure, the air was dry, scorching, and thick with the tang of melted sulfur. Red light from the boiling lava pools flickered across the black basalt walls, casting jagged shadows across dozens of wicker baskets.
Old Barnaby stood over a massive stone preparation table, his single right arm moving in tireless, mechanical strokes.
He gripped a heavy iron pestle wrapped in rough rawhide. With every downward thrust, he crushed chunks of raw star-quartz and dense salt-iron ore, grinding the minerals against the bottom of a two-hundred-pound star-bronze mortar.
Sweat drenched his ragged gray hair and ran down his weathered neck, soaking through the coarse cotton of his herbalist tunic.
Three hundred pounds of auxiliary mineral powder had to be processed before the Jade-Marrow Salt-Orchids opened their petals. The formula for the Tier 5 Jade-Marrow Limb Regrowth Pill required star-quartz ground so fine that it would float on morning dew without sinking.
A young Golden Core disciple from the rescued exiles stepped cautiously toward the stone table.
“Elder Holt,” the young man said respectfully, offering two clean hands. “Please, let me take the pestle. You have been grinding ore since the second watch. Your shoulder must be exhausted.”
