Inside the Great Golden Bastion, floating three leagues above the Desolation of the Nine Pillars, the Grand Control Chamber of the Imperial Firewall Consistory was dropping into total, unmanageable terror.
For thirty thousand years, this vaulted hall of white sky green jade and carved red stone pillars had been a safe hall of divine order. Here, three hundred High Artificers in stitched silk robes sat upon lotus cushions. He watched the twelve giant scrying pools that displayed the health of the land-wide formations. The air was usually scented with burning sandalwood and quiet spiritual quiet focus.
Now, the hall was filled with the acrid stench of scorched gold and boiling liquid silver.
“The third scrying pool has boiled dry!” a junior formation master screamed, leaping backward as a jet of white-hot liquid silver vapor erupted from the bronze drainage channel. “The core math arrays are glowing white-hot! The cooling water in the underground water tanks has turned entirely to steam!”
High Director Zhao Xuan stood upon the golden dais, his royal robes disheveled, his nine-pointed jade coronet tilted sideways on his sweating forehead.
In his trembling hands, the Archon held the Golden Imperial Seal of Ingress Control. The ancient object, carved from a single piece of Precursor star-white-gold and inscribed with the sacred root runes of the First Era, was shaking with such violent intensity that it blistered the skin of his palms. He smelled the sickening scent of scorched silk and burned flesh as the seal’s heat climbed toward…
