The mud of the Obsidian valley was the color of old, dried blood. It was a
thick, viscous slurry created by the thawing of the Sanguine Range, mixed with
the ash of the destroyed Labyrinth and the tireless churning of thousands of
boots. In the "Real" world, there were no shortcuts to architecture. There were
no tectonic shifts to raise walls or starlight to fuse stone. There was only the
rhythmic, soul-deep exhaustion of manual labor.
I stood in the center of what would become the Foundry of the First Spark, my
boots sinking inches into the mire. The wind whipped across the open
construction site, carrying the biting chill of the retreating winter and the
heavy, acrid scent of the coal-fires from the lower smithy. I was no longer
draped in silver-silk; I wore a heavy tunic of reinforced leather and wool, my
crystalline white hair tucked into a practical braid that reached my waist. My
hands, once the conduits for the universe's most primal energies, were now
