Savage Awakening 546. Gold Rush (II)

He fit the gear into the altar. It groaned into motion, cranking into a spin.

After a few seconds it seemed to reach some stable rate. Some fundamental machinery of the Galaxy had whirred to life.

A portal popped open above him. 

Starlight flooded through, the colors of suns and moons. The image was pretty hazy.

It was like he’d opened the door to a snowy day—but rather than snowflakes, these golden embers drifted through, sizzling with flecks of Destruction.

He enjoyed the sear of it against his skin.

It was that time again. 

He stepped on through.

He found himself on an altar that looked exactly the same as the one he’d left. But his surroundings were changed completely.

The ground was an endless expanse of golden stone, riddled with fissures that broke it into countless islands. The cracks weren’t very wide—just a few feet. But they went down thousands of miles. A fierce sun-gold shone through, torching the land with light.

It was as though he stood on the cracked, hardened surface of some giant star.

The sky was a dome of space streaked heavy with asteroids. Just a few stars, but each was quite bright. 

He took out his Galaxy Gear and pocketed it, and the altar ground to a halt. Then he stepped onto a chunk of Pure Yang land proper.

Time for some investigating. He was pretty pumped for this.

He could feel the land beneath him shifting subtly over some heavy mantle. When he felt deeper into the cracks, sending his senses as far as they could go, he found an immensity of essence and Law.

He was sure that stuff, all those miles below, was starfire.

It was the purest energy he’d felt in his life. It made Malzareth’s black-gold reservoirs look like children’s toys. Just the stuff he could feel was enough to stuff a star, and he was sure there was far, far more than that down there…

He was suddenly quite keen to get an up-close look.

But a few experimental smashes showed there was no way he was digging all the way down there. This stone had an ancient feel to it. He got the sense it had hardened over millennia under Galaxy-shaping heat and pressure. It could hold up pretty well to even Empyrean-level blows. He got the sense he could dig for years and never make it down there.

There was a rumbling; he looked up just in time to see a meteor falling. Crashing to far distant lands… now that he looked properly, quite a few of those asteroids fell to meteors.

Before he left, Reina had found a little time to research the Pure Yang lands. Everything, the beasts, the land, and the very skies, was thick with starfire. It was said that the material that made every single star in Dragonspire came from the depths of this ancient land. Shot into space over millions of years, then coalescing as stars. But a good portion of that star-stuff would glue together and fall back down as meteors.

It was what made the Pure Yang lands so deadly. It was also what drew Empyreans across time to it. 

“Those meteors have the potential to leave Destruction or Creation Shards,” she’d told him. “It’s said all the Shards ever made come from meteors like those. At least—that’s what our best scryer-archeologists think… if I had to guess, most of the experts you’ll find will be chasing those meteor showers. It could be something of a gold rush.”

He blasted around, trying to get a lay of the land, and nearly had a meteor crash into him. It rammed an island a few hundred feet away. It didn’t leave any Shards behind, to his disappointment.

It did leave a Monster, though.

A sentient hunk of steaming, molten rock, welded together by gold light, crawled out of the wreckage. 

Astrolith (???)

Essence Level 703

It opened its mouth, and Zane felt a massive upwelling of starfire. 

But he was on it. 

He slammed it with a full-strength hammer bearing a full Plate of Destruction. He slammed it again for good measure, and that was the end of that. Whatever starfire-beam it’d stored up for him exploded with it.  

That thing definitely wasn’t Haxorax-quality.

He glanced up and saw a few more of these meteors hurtling his way. But they only dropped monsters. No Shards, which was a bit disappointing. He wondered what the Shard drop-rate was—or if they even dropped Shards at all. Reina usually wasn’t wrong about this stuff, though her scryers had to be working off some pretty ancient sources…

One meteor hurtled far into the distance. A meteor with a tail streaking Creation-black. It had to be a Creation Shard.

Unfortunately, it went past the horizon, and he still didn’t see it make landfall.

Probably not worth chasing that one down. He was thinking he might pick up a few Creation Shards for Reina, but there were other folk in this world. If anyone was remotely close, they’d have gotten to that one by the time he made it.

He doubted it would be his last.

His bet would probably be to find Mount X, like Noughtfire had recommended. He had a hunch that was where he’d find the Law source he was looking for. And if he felt any Shards popping up nearby, he’d see about collecting them.

Feeling optimistic, he headed off. 

***

T1 Empyreans clashing would’ve been catastrophic in most other places in Dragonspire. But the Pure Yang lands sustained it without a single crack in reality.

An Empyrean lady in white fluttering robes stood on a flying sword. She slashed two fingers, and an armory’s worth of flying swords fanned out around her. They screamed toward their target.

Her foe, a man in a skull mask, countered by slamming his staff on the ground. Portals tore open, showcasing a netherworld reality, and gobs of black flames spewed forth. Flames that formed the shapes of skulls.

Swords and skulls clashed mid-air, and the aftershocks rippled to the ground below, where a meteor had fallen just minutes before…

Two Shards of Creation lay nestled in the crater.

A few T0 Empyreans watched like vultures from the edge, but they didn’t dare approach.

The absolute weakest folk in the Pure Yang Lands were half-step Empyreans. It was the minimum requirement to survive the harshness of the landscape and the constant showers of Yang embers. Not to mention the meteors that fell like hail. Most everyone who arrived was a noble of some kind—often a Sect Leader, a Grand Elder, an extremely talented Young Master, or an Ancestor in their homelands. But here they were just another scavenger.

All these things Master Shen had told his disciple before they’d arrived.

“If you see any trouble, you are to stay out of it,” he reminded the boy.

“Un!” said Minzha.

“Why is that?”

“Because this land’s rife with hidden dragons,” said Minzha seriously. “We don’t want to get trampled on.”

“Good,” said Shen. They made sure to steer clear of the duel. “That’s a young mistress of the Drawn Sword Sect, I believe. Every Shard season, they stake out one of the largest campgrounds here. The other man I’m not sure of… he might be a wandering martial artist. But take care not to underestimate them!”

“Like the Iron Flame Sect did to Master Kain,” said Minzha, nodding.

Shen smiled. “That’s right.” 

He looked at Minzha approvingly. Everything he told the boy, Minzha took to heart, even after a single mention. As Imperial Advisor, Shen had made this journey twice before, and each time it was with one of the Fate Emperor’s elder sons. They’d made the journey here a living hell—but even after all those grueling months fording shattered space, battling void-fiends to get here, Minzha had never once complained. Shen could’ve wept by the end of it. 

They continued onward, making for the Plains proper. A half day later, they drew near.

Shen frowned at the banners fluttering in the distance.

“It looks to be a hectic year,” Shen said heavily. “But that was to be expected.”

The scryers had read the stars. Everyone knew this year would be one of the heaviest Shard seasons to date.

“Looks like all the major players are here,” he continued. “Drawn Sword, Iron Flame… that’s the insignia of the True Phoenix prince, if I’m not mistaken. And is that…?”

He sucked in a breath. “Jaxarys!”

“The Princess of Black Dragons?”

Shen nodded. “To think she’s come back after all these centuries… And they’re only the ones who’ve shown their faces. Minzha, disciple. We’ll have to take special care this time.”

“Yes, master.”

“Even if you witness some injustice, you mustn’t get involved! Many of these camps have long-held grudges... Shards make men mad, disciple.”

“I… yes, master.” Minzha’s brow furrowed, but Shen knew in the end he would be obedient. Minzha was, above all, a dutiful disciple. 

Master and disciple skirted the edge of the plains, just out of the way of any camp’s territory.

Shen truly hoped his disciple would do well here. His heart swelled just looking at him. The boy had such a good head on his shoulders… 

One day, Shen even harbored hopes of sending the boy outside Dragonspire, just like Nuwa or Lord Ironflame before him. Shen sighed.

It was just too easy to perish early. 

He’d nurtured Minzha since he’d discovered the boy as a little Nascent. Now he was on the verge of outgrowing Shen, though he seemed not to have recognized it yet. It was always a bittersweet thing for a master to be surpassed by his disciple… In time the boy would need a new master.

But until the boy achieved his potential, Shen would be the master Minzha needed. He only wished he had the strength to protect him here.

“The showers are densest around the Plains, stretching through Mount X,” Shen told his disciple. “That alone would tell you we’re close. Ready yourself, disciple.”

“Un!” Minzha hesitated. “Master… is that a rider?”

It was. Shen tensed—a rider on a stallion with a mane of fire, bursting out of a nearby camp. A rider clad head to toe in treasure plate. It was a young master of a minor faction Shen didn’t recognize.

“Stay behind me.”

“But master—”

“Do as I say, Minzha.”

“…Un!”

But it soon grew clear the rider wasn’t coming for them. A cloaked man had popped up out of seemingly nowhere, a few miles ahead of them—he’d emerged from just behind a nearby ridge. He seemed to be the rider’s target.

The cloaked man waved, to Shen’s surprise.

“What’s he doing?” said Minzha.

“I’m not sure…”

They exchanged a few words. The rider waved a flaming spear around. He seemed to be trying to scare the cloaked man off land which he claimed was his. It wasn’t working. 

The rider grew more and more impatient. He tried jabbing the man with his spear.

The man sidestepped. “—Fast!” gasped Minzha.

Then the rider went flying off his horse, yanked by heavy gravity. He barely had time to react.

The man simply punched him. 

There was a flash of Destruction, a shattering of essence and Law. The rider crumpled. 

The cloaked man blinked down at him, a bit surprised. 

“Master?” said Minzha. “What was that?”

Then the man caught sight of Shen and Minzha.

He gave them a wave too—a friendly one. He made his way over.

“Master?” said Minzha, uncertain. 

“Minzha… do you remember when I spoke of hidden dragons?”

“Un.”

“This man,” said Shen, slightly pale, “is just such a master.”

“Master?!” said Minzha, alarmed.

“There was just enough Destruction in the knuckles to shatter the Young Master’s defensive treasures. But after that, the way he knocked him out… it was akin to an ordinary punch, like he wielded no essence at all. He simply struck him, with fist and soul, and the Young Master fell over.”

“What does that mean, Master?”

“It means whatever attack he just wielded is so far beyond your master’s comprehension that your master cannot even perceive it.”

“Master… what will we do?”

“The only thing we can,” said Shen gravely. “Let’s hear what he has to say.”