Durosh tapped the wooden spoon against his palm, the celestial countdown mechanism glowing an angry, pulsing red against the pale cerulean. The light, sharp and intrusive, was already casting an unnatural crimson hue across his neatly tilled garden patch. His gentians, newly planted, shivered slightly under the unwelcome glare. He frowned. That particular spectrum wasn’t ideal for photosynthesis, not for his heirloom tomato plants he’d managed to conjure from a stray seed. They preferred full, unfiltered daylight.
“Lord Durosh! Do you comprehend the gravity of this calamity?” Vankar’s voice, a reedy wail, snapped Durosh’s attention away from the subtle wilting of a tomato leaf. The swordmaster was still clawing at his hair, a few strands already yanked free and scattered like straw on the porch.
“The gravity of the light pollution on my garden?” Durosh asked, more to himself than Vankar, as he knelt to inspect a struggling gentian.
Vankar choked, a sound like a frog attempting to swallow a boulder. “Light pollution? My lord, that is the Sun-Spire's Great Annihilator Sigil! It’s not merely light! It’s the preparatory phase for the Sun-Scourge Array! In twelve hours, the entire Shard-Plains, from the Bleak Spires to the Whispering Chasm, will be vaporized! Nothing but fused glass will remain!”
Durosh sighed, rising to his full height. “Vaporized, you say? Even the mud hut?” He glanced at his perfectly swept front step.
“Especially the mud hut! It will be a speck of dust in the inferno! The high prelates believe this 'Fortress of Dark Miracles' is the nexus of the Void Emperor’s power, and they intend to eradicate it utterly!” Vankar gestured wildly at the sky, his pupils dilated with dread beneath the theatrics.
“They’re going to vaporize my hut because of *me*?” Durosh rubbed the back of his neck. “That’s just rude. And quite disruptive. I just finished sweeping.”
Vankar dropped to his knees, his forehead pressing against the dirt Durosh had just walked on. “It is a weapon of unimaginable power! Forged in the primordial fires by the Ancient Sky-Wardens! The Sun-Core, which powers it, is a sacred relic stolen from my ancestral vault! My lineage, the Vankara of the Azure Blades, were its sworn protectors before the Sun-Spire enslaved us!”
Durosh blinked. “Your ancestral relic? So they’re using your stuff to destroy my stuff?” He finally registered the underlying tremor in Vankar’s voice, a different sort of fear, laced with a potent, festering rage. The swordmaster’s normally vibrant bronze skin had a faint, sickly pallor, and a network of tiny, dark veins pulsed faintly beneath his temples.
“Indeed!” Vankar cried, his voice cracking. “My father died trying to reclaim it! My mother withered away after its theft, for it was tied to our very life essence! I myself have been afflicted with the Azure Blight ever since, a terminal curse from the moment the Tribunal’s inquisitors tore the Sun-Core from its plinth! It poisons my blood, saps my vitality, and grants me but a few more seasons before I too fade into ash!” Vankar coughed, a dry, rattling sound that ended with a faint glint of dark, viscous fluid on his lip.
Durosh studied the network of veins on Vankar’s temple. “Huh. That sounds… inconvenient. You look a bit parched, actually.” He walked to the side of his mud hut, where a small, exquisitely carved wooden bucket hung from a nail. He dipped a chipped ceramic mug into the bucket, pulling out a clear, slightly shimmering liquid. The water, filtered by the divine mud of his hut, had a faint, earthy aroma, hinting at deep, rich minerals and a surprisingly delicate floral note.
He handed the mug to Vankar. “Here, drink this. It’s good for you. Helps with the, ah, parchedness.”
Vankar, still prostrate, hesitantly took the mug, his gaze fixed on Durosh’s hand as if it were carved bone. “Is this… a divine draught? A potion of celestial healing?” His voice was hushed, reverent.
“It’s just water from my hut,” Durosh said, shrugging. “Tastes better than the stuff from the river. Less grit.”
Vankar, still trembling, slowly raised the mug to his lips. He took a tentative sip. Then another, larger one. He drew a sharp rasp of air, rigid with surprise. The dark veins on his temples, which had been pulsating just moments before, began to recede, fading like shadows at dawn. The sickly pallor of his skin bloomed into a robust, healthy bronze. His shoulders, previously slumped with weariness, straightened. A powerful, clean energy seemed to radiate from him, the very air around him shimmering with renewed vitality.
He stared at the mug, then at his own hands, flexing them as if testing newfound strength. The lingering cough was gone. The dark, viscous fluid on his lip had vanished. He felt… vibrant. Alive. More so than he had in decades. The Azure Blight, the terminal curse that had plagued his every waking moment, the slow poison that had stolen his family and promised his own demise, was gone. Utterly, irrevocably gone.
“My lord!” Vankar roared, throwing the mug aside, though it landed softly on the grass, undamaged. He didn’t just prostrate himself this time; he slammed his entire body to the ground, his face pressed so hard into the dirt that Durosh worried about grass stains. “My divine, benevolent benefactor! You have cleansed the Azure Blight! You have shattered the curse of the Sun-Core! You have bestowed upon this unworthy servant a second life! My very soul is yours! Command me! My blade, my blood, my breath – all are yours to wield! I am but a tool in your sacred hand!”
Durosh sighed. “Right. Just… try not to get any mud on my pants when you’re doing that. They’re new.” He looked up at the increasingly agitated red glow of the sky-sigil. “So, this Sun-Core… it’s basically a continent-killing laser, powered by your kin's stuff, and it’s going to melt my hut and kill my tomatoes?”
“Indeed, my lord!” Vankar’s voice was muffled by the dirt, but no less fervent. “A planet-smelting, life-obliterating laser of pure solar annihilation!”
Before Durosh could ponder the logistical difficulties of relocating a continent-killing laser, a new sound rumbled from the heavens. It was a deep, resonant thrum, growing rapidly in intensity, shaking the very air. The red glow of the Annihilator Sigil began to dim, not because it was deactivating, but because something massive was moving between it and the Shard-Plains. Something colossal. Something that blotted out the sun. Durosh looked up, shielding his eyes, just as the first glimmering edge of a vast, golden hull breached the clouds, followed by another, and another. A vast armada, stretching horizon to horizon, a fleet of gilded airships, each one a fortress in the sky, was descending directly upon his front yard.