The outskirts of the Wailing Gorge lived up to its name. Jagged stones—like the fangs of some titanic beast—pierced the corrupted earth. At their feet, bottomless chasms wound through the ground, swallowing what little light dared to reach them, emanating a chill that froze the blood.
The wind howled like the lament of a thousand ghosts as it whipped through narrow fissures in the rock. The once‑twisted trees had thinned here, replaced by relentless, aggressive stone. The taint of corruption felt denser here, as if a viscous black fog clung to the earth itself.
Karrion led the way. His thick, sturdy legs tread cautiously over the slick rock. Periodically he would halt, consulting a specially‑crafted compass. Its needle spun madly, alternately pointing toward the abyss and then skyward.
"This energy field's wilder than the floor of a dwarven tavern at closing time," he muttered, pounding the compass. "But at least the direction's right."
Raine followed close behind. His face remained pale, but his eyes held intense focus. He gripped the fragment of the star‑chart they'd retrieved from the Starborn ruins. It depicted not a conventional starfield but a network of strange energy nodes and the lines of force that linked them. Under the forest's corruption, those markings flickered in and out of view.
"The energy flow here… it matches my ancestors' records," Raine rasped. He fought to calm his senses, seeking the faint signatures that corresponded with the chart. "We must be close."
Thalia brought up the rear, her hood drawn low. The chaotic clash of energies here rattled the starcore embedded in her chest. Pure corruption assaulted her, yet faint echoes of ancient celestial power—like wildfire trapped in ice—stoked her own inner turmoil. Two opposing forces yanked within her. She sensed they neared a source of tremendous power—a dangerously balanced nexus.
"Watch your footing," Thalia warned, voice edged with exhaustion. She pointed to a seemingly flat patch of ground ahead. The rock there was darker, slick with a residue known as Voidmoss. "It drains life itself."
Karrion snorted and skirted the patch. "Even moss wants a bite here."
They pressed onward, navigating treacherous ravines and clambering up a sheer cliff face. Suddenly, the terrain opened into a wide, sunken basin.
Around its rim lay huge, broken stone pillars carved with ancient runes—now blurred by corruption's yoke. Vines and mold clung to every surface. At the basin's center stood a half‑ruined open‑air altar built of obsidian‑black stone, most of its structure collapsed save for the heart.
A surge of corruption welled up from the earth, rising in inky clouds that swirled among the shattered pillars. Diseased flora—gnarled and grotesque—sprouted from the ground. The air reeked of sickly sweetness and brimmed with a deeper, unworldly chill.
Yet at that altar's center, something defied the gloom: a slender beam of pure star‑light. Fragile as a dying ember yet stubbornly radiant, it formed an almost invisible dome around the altar's core. The black miasma beat against that light but could not penetrate it.
Two opposing forces—ravaging void and steadfast starlight—clashed here in a precarious stalemate. Even the air seemed to ripple and tremble under their friction. To stand within this ring was to feel the pull of both emptiness and hope.
"There it is," Karrion said, voice low and awed. "A Starborn altar… has it all decayed to this?"
Raine gazed at the faint glow. Deep in his bloodline, he felt a pang of sorrow—and anger. He could see, in memory's mirror, his ancestors once communed with the heavens upon this very spot. Now, the sacred ground lay tarnished, its last glimmer besieged by corruption.
Thalia's form trembled. The sacred light offered a shard of solace, but the dense corruption threatened to suffocate her starcore. She pressed her hand over her chest to steady the throb of pain.
"There's something wrong," she murmured. "It's too… quiet."
Indeed, an altar of such potent energies would surely draw the corrupted guardians, yet the basin lay eerily empty. Those diseased plants gave no sign of attack, as if something had "cleared" the area for them.
Karrion, sword in hand, crouched into a defensive stance. "Looks like we're not the first to take interest."
No sooner had he spoken than the ground beneath the altar's center began to pulse—not a tremor, but a heartbeat, slow and inexorable. The very stones trembled.
A crack fanned through the altar's heart. No molten lava or toxic fog spewed forth. Instead, an amorphous mass rose from the fissure.
At first, it resembled living flame, flickering with stars' brilliance. Then it liquefied into pitch‑black sludge of pure corruption. No solid shape held, as if forged of raw energy. Half of it blazed with pure celestial fire, the other half dripped with icy, viscous decay. The two essences writhed and contended within one monstrous form.
It had no eyes, no mouth, yet Karrion, Raine, and Thalia all felt its cognition lock onto them—an awareness both chaotic and violent.
"An elemental abomination!" Karrion roared, recognition dawning. "Wrenched from star‑power and corruption alike! Damnation—this creature shouldn't exist!"
Without warning, the abomination thundered forward. In its wake, rock and rot alike were simultaneously consumed by flame and corrosion.
"Scatter!" Karrion bellowed. He hurled his runed hammer into its path. The dwarven runes flared as he struck, shattering part of the entity's form—but it reformed instantly.
"Its core shifts between both energies!" he shouted. "Physical force or single‑element magic won't hold it!"
Thalia retreated at once, summoning shadow into gleaming blades. But as her tendrils lashed out, each touch sizzled under the creature's star‑fire, then recoiled before its wave of corruption.
"Shadows won't stop it either!" she gasped.
Raine tightened his hand on his sword. The abomination's power resonated with his Starborn blood—a hunger that both threatened to swallow him and drew him nearer. He poured what life‑star energy he could into his blade, its steel flickering with pale light.
The monster pivoted from the others and surged for Raine, a torrent of scorching cold and fetid dark.
Raine's reflexes failed him—he could not dodge in time.
At that moment, Thalia hurled herself before him, conjuring a shield of pure shadow. The wave slammed into it with a crash like the end of the world. She shrieked as the shield fractured, sending her sprawling backward, blood staining her lips.
"Thalia!" Raine cried, catching her. The cold emptiness in her eyes was gone, replaced by pain and resolve.
"It's weakness lies in their conflict," Thalia panted. "The gap when star‑light and void‑darkness clash."
Seizing the chance, Karrion charged again—not to strike, but to destabilize. He pressed his hammer's runes into a focused shockwave at the creature's most turbulent point.
"Now!" he roared to Raine.
Raine lunged forward, reciting the ancient Starborn invocation. The sword's pale glow steadied and then pulsed in harmony with the abomination's star‑energy. Slowly, the creature's star‑light peeled away from its core, leaving only roiling corruption.
Its agonized howl rent the air as its form collapsed in on itself. What remained was a steaming ooze of black muck that fizzled on the altar floor, absorbed once more into the earth.
Silence settled over the basin once more. Only the faint star‑glimmer yet lingered at the altar's heart.
Raine leaned on his blade, gasping. The battle had drained him to the last drop; starfire backlash burned through his bones.
Thalia sagged against him, pallid and weak. She'd given everything to shield him.
Karrion strode forward to the ruined altar and poked at the slick residue to confirm the abomination's end. Then he approached the central glow.
"It's time," he whispered, reverence in his voice. He knelt before the altar's core and brushed away debris. The source of that stubborn light lay exposed.
A fist‑sized crystal sat in a shallow niche. One half was as black and lustreless as obsidian, oozing oppressive corruption. The other half was clear as pure quartz, its heart alive with streaming starlight, warm and steadfast. The two opposite essences meshed in a single gem of uncanny beauty. Veins of flickering "flame" traced its surface like living runes.
"The Heart of Starflame…" Karrion breathed. "Born only where corruption and star‑power clash most violently."
He retrieved from his pack a pair of specially forged gauntlets and an engraved metal reliquary. "This power is unstable. Handle with utmost care."
Strapping on the gloves, he steadied himself, then delicately clasped the crystal in his hand. It hummed, alive with alternating surges of heat and chill. Karrion grimaced as raw energy battered his arm, but he held firm and slipped the gem into the reliquary's padded interior.
Only then did the altar's last star‑light wink out. A wave of corruption surged in, fracturing pillars and staining stone, until the basin returned to pure darkness and rot.
The dwarf exhaled, leaning on the reliquary. "Got it," he said, voice thick with relief. "The crucial core for forging the Starflame Blade."
He turned to Raine and Thalia, concern shadowing his eyes. "We must leave now. The corruption here grows wilder—and there's still that threat at our heels."
Raine nodded, bracing Thalia as they rose. They had secured the Heart of Starflame—but the cost and the perils ahead were only just beginning. The Predator's Shadow still pursued them, and the path before them would burn as only true Starfire can.