Chapter 181

The shriek of retracting bridges still hung like a physical ache in the air over the Skyfoundry district. Trapped on an island of groaning metal and erupting chaos, the air thick with the reek of burning oil, molten alloy, and panic, Aurélie's crew, Lysandra's beleaguered guards, and the remnants of the Coral Consortium divers caught in the crossfire huddled behind overturned machinery. Below, the amplified shouts of Selene's Tidal Enforcers echoed, drawing closer. "Saboteurs located! Level Four! Contain and crush!"

"Like, we're sitting ducks!" Bianca hissed, peering around a shattered conveyor belt control panel, her goggles reflecting the angry orange glow of a nearby vat threatening to boil over. Charlie whimpered, clutching his satchel like a shield. Kuro adjusted his cracked spectacles, his expression calculating but strained. Souta observed the approaching Enforcer squads, his inked wolf seeming to twitch. Ember rocked back and forth, fingers digging into her forearms, whispering frantic denials to the phantom Josiah. Lysandra, pistol drawn but face pale, looked cornered, her authority crumbling with every shouted order from below.

Then, a figure emerged from a service hatch disguised as a rusted pipe panel – Nori "Deepdiver" Kaito, his breathing labored, his simple diver's tunic torn, but his eyes burning with defiance. He was flanked by two burly Coral Consortium members, their faces grim. "Commander Reef! Outsiders!" Nori rasped, his voice strained from damaged lungs. "Listen! The Enforcers are sealing every exit! You're pinned!"

Lysandra whirled, pistol half-raising. "Kaito! You're supposed to be in chains!"

"Selene's chains break easy when the people rise," Nori shot back, a flicker of contempt in his eyes. "But we don't have time for grudges. I know these foundries. I know the old ways beneath them. Smuggler tunnels the Cartel forgot, leading straight to the Trench... and out." He locked eyes with Aurélie, then Bianca and Charlie, sensing their desperation to escape. "My people are still trapped in the Gardens, locked down after the riot. Help us free them, disrupt Selene's grip... and I'll guide you out. Through the deep veins of this rotting port."

A tense silence followed, broken only by another burst of Enforcer gunfire ricocheting off metal. Unspoken alliances warred with ingrained suspicion. Aurélie's gaze met Kuro's. A flicker of understanding passed between strategists – this was the only viable move. Lysandra, seeing no alternative, gave a curt, desperate nod.

"Fine! Free your rabble! But get us out!" Lysandra snapped.

Nori pointed a thick finger towards the central control spire. "First, we need cover. Selene's got spotter drones sweeping the upper levels."

Bianca's eyes lit up behind her goggles. "Like, cover? I got you!" She scrambled towards a gutted control console, trailing wires from her tool belt. "Sprocket! Jack me into the main weather grid feed!" Her little drone buzzed, attaching probes to exposed circuitry. Bianca's fingers flew across a salvaged keypad. "Foundry district atmospheric controls… online! Let's see… override particulate filtration… max output on the waste vapor scrubbers… reroute coolant venting…" She grinned, a flash of mischief in her soot-streaked face. "Like, who needs sunshine when you've got smog? Fog bank, coming right up!" She slammed a fist onto a jury-rigged switch.

With a deep, groaning hum that vibrated through the deck plates, massive vents along the foundry rooftops began spewing thick, grey-white plumes. Not smoke, but a dense, chemically-laced industrial fog, rapidly swallowing the upper levels of the Skyfoundries. Visibility dropped to mere feet, the harsh emergency lights diffusing into ghostly halos. The shouts of the Enforcers below turned muffled, confused.

"Move!" Aurélie commanded. The fractured group surged forward, using the sudden, choking fog as their shroud.

Guided by Nori through the fog-shrouded upper gantries, they encountered a bottleneck near a bridge control substation. Jet "Rustmouth" Eisen emerged from the murk, flanked by Iron Syndicate thugs, his voice modulator grating. "Reef! Thought you could drown me?! Now you choke on my fog! Take them! Especially the suit – he owes me steel!" Kuro's eyes narrowed behind his spectacles. As Iron Syndicate thugs charged, Kuro didn't engage them. He became a blur of charcoal grey, his movements impossibly fast and silent – Shakushi. He flowed past the thugs, his Cat Claws a flicker of darkness. His target wasn't flesh, but the vox-unit grafted to Jet's throat. With four precise, lightning-fast slashes – snick-snick-snick-SNICK – the modulator sparked, sputtered, and fell silent. Jet clutched his throat, eyes bulging in silent, impotent rage, his commands lost.

Kuro adjusted his glasses, already turning away. "Noise pollution is so… inefficient."

They reached the precipice where the Skyfoundry platform ended, the retracted bridge leaving a yawning gap over the polluted harbor waters far below. The Trench slums were visible like a festering wound on the port's underbelly. Lysandra, seeing a chance to escape the fog and the encroaching Enforcers, made a break for a suspended maintenance cable leading to a lower, connected platform. "This way! I know the codes for the secondary—"

Aurélie moved, not to follow, but to block her. "The bridge codes. Our bridge. Sector Gamma. Now." Lysandra snarled, raising her pistol.

"Out of my way, you meddling—!" Aurélie didn't draw Anathema. Instead, she unfurled. From her shoulders, a shimmering, chittering mass erupted – not wings of flesh, but a swarm of her locusts, forming vast, buzzing, ephemeral planes. With a powerful beat of these living wings, Aurélie launched herself at Lysandra. The Commander fired wildly, bullets pinging off metal. Aurélie closed the distance above the chasm, a silver wraith on insectile wings. One boot connected squarely with Lysandra's chest, knocking the pistol from her grasp and sending her staggering back. Lysandra teetered on the edge, arms windmilling, a scream tearing from her throat – not of fear, but of pure, venomous fury – before she plummeted, swallowed by the gloom and the rising stench of the Trench far below.

Deep within the safer, fog-bound heart of the foundry, Nori thrust a bundle of water-stained, hand-scrawled pamphlets into Charlie's hands. "The truth! Selene's lies! The exploitation! Read it! Let them hear!"

Charlie, momentarily forgetting his fear in the face of historical primary sources, adjusted his pith helmet. He cleared his throat, his voice amplified by a discarded foreman's hailer he'd found. "Ahem! Workers of Port Concordia! Hear the words penned by your own hands!" His voice, surprisingly strong, cut through the din. "'We dive deep, risking crushing depths and lung rot, for wages that barely feed our children… while the Cartel grows fat on Aqua-Crystals we harvest!'" He read on, translating the Coral Consortium's grievances with scholarly fervor, exposing Selene's price-fixing, unsafe conditions, and stolen wages. The words, broadcast over the foundry's groaning machinery and the distant sounds of conflict, resonated. Trapped divers, foundry workers huddled behind machinery, began to murmur, then shout. Nori stood beside Charlie, a fierce pride replacing his wheezing breaths. "You hear?! It's not sabotage! It's justice!"

Guided by Bianca's frantic directions over comms ("Like, left at the big melty thing! No, your OTHER left!"), Ember scrambled through steam-filled corridors towards the heavily fortified Cartel vault complex.

Her mission: plant Bianca's largest "Cupcake" drone – a hefty demolition charge – on the vault door to collapse it, preventing Selene from accessing her wealth to fund more repression. But the phantom Josiah was screaming. "STUPID! SLOW! They'll catch you! They'll BURN YOU! Just like Mama! BOOM IT ALL! NOW!" Ember whimpered, fingers tightening on the charge, tears mixing with soot on her cheeks. She saw Tidal Enforcers rounding a corner, spotting her. She saw laborers – real people, not Cartel suits – trapped behind a security shutter Selene's lockdown had sealed near the vault entrance. Josiah's voice shrieked about failure and fire.

Ember's mismatched eyes widened. "NO!" she shrieked, not at the Enforcers, but at the voice in her head. With a surge of desperate will, she didn't throw the charge at the vault. Instead, she spun and slammed it onto the heavy hydraulic mechanism controlling the security shutter trapping the laborers. "Boom goes the cage!" she yelled, triggering the detonator. KA-WHUMP! The explosion wasn't cataclysmic, but precise. The shutter mechanism blew apart in a shower of sparks and twisted metal. The heavy door groaned and buckled, then slammed down, creating a barrier between the laborers and the approaching Enforcers, and conveniently burying the vault entrance under tons of debris. The laborers stared, wide-eyed, as Ember gave them a shaky, tear-streaked grin before darting back into the fog. "For… for the kids who dive deep," she whispered to Mr. Cinders, a flicker of something besides chaos in her eyes.

The fog bank held. Kuro's silencing of Jet had thrown the Iron Syndicate thugs into disarray. Lysandra was gone. Selene's vault was sealed, her Enforcers momentarily baffled by the collapsed shutter and the rallying cries of workers echoing through the foundry.

 Nori grabbed Charlie's arm. "Now! To the Gardens! The tunnels!" The unlikely alliance, bound by desperation and forged in the choking fog of Meridian Atoll, plunged deeper into the port's wounded heart, their escape path now tied to freeing the very soul of the rebellion they had inadvertently ignited. The path to Elbaph remained shattered, but a new, treacherous route through the deep veins of the Trench had opened.

*****

The dying sun bled crimson through the bamboo canopy as Pedro and Carrot stood before Nekomamushi in his shadowed chamber. The Cat Viper, roused from sleep and wrapped in a silken robe, listened intently, his massive frame radiating disbelief that slowly morphed into fierce curiosity.

"A giant star-map? Beneath the Whale Tree? And it's broken, meow?" Nekomamushi's whiskers twitched, his eyes gleaming like molten gold in the gloom. "Inuarashi? Does that flea-bitten dog know?"

"Wanda went to him directly, Lord," Pedro confirmed, smoke curling from his cigarette.

"Good, meow!" Nekomamushi surged to his feet, shedding the robe. "Enough talk! Show me this 'Chamber of Tears'!" He paused, a predatory grin spreading. "Though 'Chamber of Headaches' sounds more fitting right now, meow meow!"

They moved swiftly through the twilight-shrouded paths, arriving at the Heart Pirates' camp as the last embers of sunset faded. The camp buzzed like an angry hornet's nest. Under Jean Bart's direction, tools were being hastily packed – heavy welding rigs, crates of salvaged metal plating, hydraulic jacks, and barrels of viscous, acrid-smelling lubricant. Ikkaku, her face smudged with grease and eyes alight with frantic focus, was barking orders while simultaneously sketching wild diagrams on a scrap of metal. "Need the high-temp sealant, Shachi! The red barrels! And those ingots Master Forgepaw sent over – treat 'em like raw eggs!"

Marya stood near the half-repaired sub, Bepo beside her, explaining the chamber's critical failures to Uni and Clione. "Fractured crystalline lens, sheared bronze gearwork approximately three meters in diameter, multiple sap-piston breaches, and significant star-metal plate fissures exhibiting high-energy discharge." Her voice was detached, clinical. "Ikkaku's assessment is required immediately for structural integrity and repair feasibility."

Bepo nodded vigorously, clutching a pressure gauge. "It's… it's really bad. The Grand Line current projection was frozen solid!"

Nekomamushi's arrival cut through the organized chaos. "Pirate!" he boomed, striding towards Marya. "Pedro paints a picture of ancient doom down below, meow! You're certain this… contraption steers Zunesha?"

Marya met his gaze, unflinching. "The evidence implies it functions as a navigational astrolabe. Its current state suggests catastrophic failure. The correlation with Zunesha's erratic behavior is undeniable." She gestured towards the gathered tools and the sweating Heart Pirates. "We are mobilizing for repair."

Nekomamushi's tail lashed. "Good! Speed is—"

CLANG-CLANG-CLANG-CLANG!

The frantic pealing of the Welcome Gate bell shattered the dusk, a jarring, metallic scream that echoed through the jungle, silencing the camp. Songbirds erupted from the canopy in a panicked cloud.

Pedro spat out his cigarette butt, grinding it under his heel. "By the Great Roots… what now?"

Marya didn't flinch. "Heart Pirates," her voice cut through the ringing echoes, cool and commanding. "Continue prepping. Prioritize the welding rigs, sealants, and structural supports. Move." Her order snapped them back into motion, the urgency doubling.

Pedro turned to Carrot. "Stay with them, kit. Guide them straight to the Whale Tree entrance when they're ready, gara. No detours."

"Got it, Pedro!" Carrot saluted, her ears flat against her head from the bell's assault.

"Come, Pirate, Duke," Pedro commanded Marya and Nekomamushi. "Let's see what fresh chaos rings that bell."

They raced through the gathering darkness, the path illuminated by the first emerging stars and the faint glow from Kurau City. They reached the Welcome Gate as the final, trembling notes of the bell faded. Bariete, the monkey Mink, was practically vibrating off the stone platform, jabbing a trembling finger towards the horizon where the last light bled into an inky void.

"HOLE!" he shrieked, voice cracking. "A MASSIVE HOLE! In the sea! And we're walking STRAIGHT FOR IT! GARA, HOLE GARA!"

Pedro and Nekomamushi rushed to the edge, peering into the deepening twilight. There, where the distant island had been, was only an abyss-a vast, unnatural circle of pure blackness devouring the starlight on the water, a chasm against the dark sea. Zunesha's path led unerringly towards its edge.

Marya let out a low groan, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Well. At least we're not heading for land anymore."

Nekomamushi and Pedro turned slowly, fixing her with identical, utterly flat stares. Marya simply shrugged, the ghost of a wry smirk touching her lips. "Perspective."

Wanda arrived moments later, breathing heavily, her composure frayed. "Lord Nekomamushi. Pedro. Marya. Lord Inuarashi has appointed Master Forgepaw and his senior smiths. They gather tools now." She followed their gazes to the terrifying chasm. Her face paled. "Oh."

"Time," Pedro stated grimly, lighting a fresh cigarette with hands that barely trembled, "is no longer a luxury. It's a noose."

Nekomamushi drew himself up to his full height, his silhouette imposing against the star-strewn sky. His voice, when he spoke, was a low growl that carried absolute authority. "Enough standing, meow! Every second grinds Zunesha closer to oblivion! To the Whale Tree! Now! Smiths, pirates, guardians – MOVE YOUR FUR, MEOW MEOW!" He didn't wait, leaping down from the platform and striding towards the jungle path, a force of nature demanding obedience. The race against chasm had begun.

The last crimson streaks of dusk bled through the canopy as Nekomamushi surged down the jungle path, a streak of white fur and deep urgency. Pedro, Marya, and Wanda matched his pace, the humid air thick with the scent of crushed ferns and distant rain. They burst into the clearing before the Whale Tree, its colossal trunk a shadowy monolith against the deepening twilight. Lamps, jury-rigged by the Heart Pirates, cast pools of warm yellow light onto the gnarled roots and the ancient carvings surrounding the hidden entrance.

Raizo, ever vigilant, stood sentinel beside the massive root-door, his ninja attire blending with the shadows. Beside him, Jelly Squish wobbled excitedly, his translucent blue form shimmering with internal light that cast faint, shifting reflections on the bark. "Bloop! You made it!" he chirped, bouncing slightly. Carrot, her ears twitching nervously, offered a quick wave, while Atlas leaned against the tree, his rust-red fur almost black in the low light, arms crossed, gaze fixed on the intricate mural depicting Zunesha walking beneath a sky full of guiding stars.

"Commander! Lady Marya! Pedro! Wanda!" Raizo greeted tersely. "The path is lit inside."

Nekomamushi didn't slow. He brushed past the greetings, his tail a lashing banner of impatience. "No time for chatter, meow!" He vanished into the dark maw of the entrance, the light swallowing his form.

Marya followed, her boots crunching softly on scattered wood shavings. She nodded curtly to Raizo and Carrot, her expression unreadable in the lamplight, though a flicker of something akin to amusement touched her eyes as Jelly wobbled precariously close. Pedro and Wanda exchanged a glance before following.

Inside, the air grew cooler, smelling of damp earth, ancient wood, and the faint, sweet tang of tree sap. Lamps strung along the passage illuminated the smooth, worn walls, revealing more carvings – scenes of Minks tending the great tree, diving into luminous waters, and always, Zunesha walking.

Nekomamushi had stopped dead ahead. He stood before a larger mural, bathed in the glow of a cluster of lamps. It showed Zunesha in intricate detail, not just walking, but bound. Etched lines of light, like chains woven from starlight, connected the elephant's massive legs and spine to complex, interlocking gears embedded within the roots of the Whale Tree itself. Minks stood at control points, their expressions solemn, directing the colossal creature's path across a swirling sea. The weight of centuries, of servitude etched in wood, hung heavy in the corridor.

Silence stretched, thick and uncomfortable, broken only by the distant clang of metal from deeper within and Jelly's soft, wet squelching as he tried to balance on one gelatinous foot.

Marya studied the mural, then Nekomamushi's rigid back. Her voice, calm and measured, cut through the quiet. "Lord Nekomamushi. Have you ever considered releasing Zunisha from this subjugation?"

Nekomamushi didn't turn, but his shoulders tightened visibly. Atlas, who had lingered near the entrance with Pedro and Carrot, pushed off the wall, his blue eyes sharp in the lamplight. "What are you implying?" he demanded, his voice low and edged.

Marya met his gaze steadily, then looked back to the mural. "I don't know the circumstances that warranted such… action. Or punishment. But it would be safe to say," she continued, her tone devoid of accusation but heavy with implication, "that perhaps it's time to consider releasing the creature from this servitude. Consider it time served. Settle on an island somewhere. Start anew." She adjusted the cuff of her leather jacket, the Heart Pirates insignia stark against the dark material.

Wanda opened her mouth, concern etched on her face, but Nekomamushi whirled. His eyes, narrowed to slits, blazed with an intensity that made even Atlas take half a step back. "That is not possible, meow!" he growled, the sound vibrating in the confined space. "The new Dawn is fast approaching! Zunesha must be there to greet it with us! It is written! It is destined!" He took a breath, his fur slowly settling, though his gaze remained locked on Marya. "What you say… has merit, child. But there is far, far more to be considered than comfort, meow meow."

Marya held his gaze for a long moment, then gave a single, slow nod. "Understood. Then we better get to work." She moved past him, deeper into the corridor towards the sounds of activity, her combat boots echoing softly.

Nekomamushi watched her go for a second, then strode after her, his earlier urgency returning.

Atlas remained rooted, staring at the mural depicting the chained Zunesha. Pedro lit a cigarette, the flare of the match momentarily illuminating the worry lines around his eyes and the grim set of Carrot's mouth. The smell of tobacco smoke mingled oddly with the ancient wood and sap.

"Is she right?" Atlas asked, his voice uncharacteristically quiet, lacking its usual taunting edge. He traced the carved lines of a starlight chain with a claw. "Does Zunesha suffer? For our sake?" His gaze flickered towards the entrance, as if imagining the vast creature beyond.

Carrot wrung her hands, her ears drooping. "I… I don't know, Atlas. It never… it never looked like suffering before. But seeing it like this…"

Pedro exhaled a plume of smoke, watching it curl towards the ceiling. "We are the descendants, Atlas," he said, his voice gravelly. "Not the ones who made the pact. I cannot say if the decision was justified then, or if the punishment fits now. All I know…" He gestured with his cigarette towards the deeper chamber, where the clanging grew louder, "...is what lies broken before us. Nekomamushi speaks true. The new Dawn is coming. I feel it in the air, in the roots." He met Atlas's troubled gaze. "With the new Dawn, there will be new choices. All we can do is face them when they come, and make them with the best intentions we possess."

"But what about Zunesha?" Carrot pressed, her voice small. "Maybe Marya is right. When the time comes… we might need to commit to starting over somewhere new."

Pedro nodded slowly, stubbing out his cigarette on the ancient wood floor. "Maybe so, kit. But that time is not now. It hasn't come knocking yet. Today, we fix what's broken. We keep Zunesha walking. And we continue to wait… for the New Dawn to arrive." He placed a hand on Carrot's shoulder and gave Atlas a meaningful look. "Come. Our skills might be needed."

Deeper within the roots, the passage opened into the Celestial Chamber. Marya and Nekomamushi stepped inside, momentarily overwhelmed.

The chamber was a cavernous, natural cathedral formed by the Whale Tree's taproots, vast beyond initial comprehension. The walls weren't stone, but a complex lattice of petrified root and hardened, glowing sap that pulsed with a soft, internal light – blue, shifting to amber, then back – in time with the deep, resonant thud that vibrated through the floor: Zunesha's footsteps. Embedded within this living matrix were enormous plates of dark, pitted metal that drank the light and smooth, sea-green stone etched with constellations and flowing, unreadable scripts that seemed to writhe if stared at too long.

The floor was a single, seamless expanse of dark volcanic glass, carved with seven deep channels that converged like rivers towards the center. Within them flowed not water, but liquid light – concentrated Whale Tree sap, each channel a distinct, shimmering hue: a clear East Blue azure, a chaotic Grand Line swirl of indigo and emerald, a deep, powerful New World violet. They met in a central pool of pure, mercury-like radiance. Above this pool, suspended by unseen forces, floated a crystalline orb the size of a small ship's wheel, its facets catching the sap-light and fracturing it into miniature nebulas – the Pole Star Lens.

Around the central pool rotated seven immense, interlocking bronze rings, each several meters across, engraved with star maps and tidal charts. The sound of their movement was a symphony of groaning metal and grinding stone, punctuated by the rhythmic clunk of massive gears engaging deep within the petrified root walls. Giant, articulated arms ending in complex lenses or prisms of crystal and sea-green stone projected from the walls, humming faintly as they tracked unseen celestial bodies far above.

Dominating one curved wall was a breathtaking, shifting projection – not a screen, but solidified light and mist forming a real-time map. The Red Line was a jagged, angry scar of crimson light, pulsing like an infected wound, radiating chaotic storm distortions. The Grand Line was a torrent of swirling, multi-colored energy, wild and constrained only by the Red Line's fury and the unsettlingly still, dark mist of the Calm Belts. A single, pulsing golden node – Zunesha – moved along a glowing path directly towards a terrifying circle of pure, light-devouring blackness on the map's edge: the abyss.

The chamber buzzed with frantic activity. Heart Pirates and Minks scrambled over the massive mechanism. Jean Bart, sweat gleaming on his bald head, directed the placement of heavy welding gear near a colossal bronze ring. Shachi and Penguin wrestled with thick cables snaking from salvaged generators. Uni and Clione were carefully examining a complex gear assembly recessed in the root-wall, their faces tense. Hakuga meticulously applied thick, viscous sealant to a crack in a sap-vein.

Ikkaku, her face smudged with grease and her curly hair escaping its tie, was deep in conversation with a massive, older Mink – the Forgemaster. He was a mountain of muscle covered in coarse, iron-grey fur, wearing a heavy leather apron scarred by centuries of sparks. He gestured emphatically with a hammer-sized hand towards a fractured section of one of the massive bronze rings.

Nekomamushi's arrival cut through the organized chaos like a blade. "Report, meow!" he commanded, striding towards the center.

Ikkaku and the Forgemaster snapped to attention. Bepo, who had been nervously monitoring a complex array of pressure gauges near the central pool, hurried over, clutching his clipboard.

"Lord Nekomamushi! Marya!" Ikkaku said, relief warring with stress in her voice. "Thank goodness. We've done a full assessment with Master Forgepaw."

The Forgemaster, Master Forgepaw, rumbled in agreement. His voice was like stones grinding together. "Aye. The damage is… severe, but focused. The main crystalline lens has stress fractures, but it's holding. The sap-pistons have ruptured in three places – we're patching them now with temp-sealant, but it's a stopgap… gara." He caught himself, mixing the rulers' verbal tics in his agitation.

Bepo pointed a shaking paw towards the massive bronze ring Ikkaku and the Forgemaster had been examining. "The worst is here! The main equatorial gear ring! Look!" A section nearly two meters wide was a mess of sheared, twisted metal teeth. "It's… it's completely stripped! The force when Zunesha changed course…"

"The other gears," Ikkaku jumped in, her words tumbling out fast, "we can mend. We can reforge, re-cut teeth, weld patches. We've got the tools, the skill. But this…" She tapped the ruined section. "This isn't just any bronze. It's star-metal. Meteoric iron alloyed with something else. Something incredibly hard, resilient, and…" She glanced at the pulsating sap channels and the humming lenses, "...somehow resonant with the chamber's energy. Our regular alloys won't hold. They'll warp, shatter, or just… not connect right. We need the exact same material to forge a replacement segment."

Master Forgepaw nodded grimly, his heavy brow furrowed. "Only one place on Zou ever yielded such ore. The Skyfall Chasm, near the Rightflank Summit. But the last known vein was tapped generations ago. Finding usable ore now…it's a long shot, gara."

Marya stepped closer, her golden eyes reflecting the fractured light from the ruined gear. She ran a gloved finger over the jagged edge of the sheared metal. "Show me the specifications," she said, her voice calm amidst the rising tension. "Weight, composition, dimensions. And show me where this Skyfall Chasm is." Her gaze lifted, meeting the Forgemaster's, then flickering towards the horrifying black maw on the glowing map. Time wasn't just slipping away; it was plummeting towards the abyss, and only a sliver of ancient star-metal could stop the fall.