The main tier of the Thousand-Cauldron Array was a scene of utter disaster.
Across Cauldrons 001 through 064, the royal cool had ended in disaster. The uncontrolled high-pressure hammer had burst eleven return pipes, spewing thousands of gallons of scalding salt water across the central walkway. Thick, foul-smelling yellow smoke billowed from the watching ports of the main crucibles. The clear, acrid stench of scorched herbs and hardened stone waste scum.
Apprentice refiners were running in blind panic, slipping on greasy runoff as they hauled injured stokers away from exploding steam vents. The floor was slick with boiling green slime, and several wooden narrow high walkways had caught fire from displaced coal embers.
Perched atop his watching dais, Grand Potion-maker Yan’s face was white as a funeral shroud.
His waxy, liquid silver-poisoned skin was slick with cold sweat. His braided white beard shook with rage and terror. In his hands, the fiery green jade scepter was shaking wildly. It struck the stone railing with wild, hollow clatter. Across eighty main crucibles, seventy-four batches had fully hardened into worthless black stone. Only six cooking pots had yielded anything at all, producing a miserable handful of cracked, discolored Grade-Seven pills heavily contaminated with Dan-fire toxins.
