I regained consciousness slowly. I had no way of checking how long I’d been unconscious, but it was long enough for the pain to be blunted. It still burned, deep and sharp, but where before it had been so vivid my mind had shut down under the load, now I pushed past it.

I stretched out my vision, extending my consciousness out of the warm cocoon of my core to hover several feet above the ground. I had 360° vision of my surroundings, which let me see that I now lay at the bottom of a crater twenty feet deep. Stone, earth, and tiny core fragments were scattered across the ground where they’d splintered off during the impact.

My core had been a perfect octahedron, beautiful and symmetrical. Now it was noticeably smaller, missing a large segment of the upper pyramid that had broken off and left jagged edges, and covered in a spider web of cracks. I just hoped the lost fragments hadn’t contained too many important parts of my soul. Memories or pieces of my personality could have been damaged. For now, I didn’t even know what I didn’t know.

I checked my stability with dread.

Core stability: 4%

Priority one had to be healing my core.

How did you heal a core?

I didn’t have any idea, but logically, the first step was to make sure my core was safe.

I could move my vision around within the edges of my influence, which was naturally a cube roughly twenty feet around my core. For now, I slowly raised my vision up to the rim of the crater.

I had landed close to the center of a circular room, perhaps a hundred and fifty feet across, and capped with an enormous dome. The dome was seemingly stable under its own weight, with no columns to support it, which allowed room for the huge open chamber. Glazed tiles made a mosaic of two serpents that began at opposite sides of the dome and undulated their bodies to meet in the middle, where their jaws were locked in a titanic battle. Once they had probably been vividly green and blue, but it had faded to muted tones. Around the serpents, other creatures - both real animals I had seen before and strange ones that might’ve been mythical - formed two opposing armies.

My fall had obliterated a large section of the tiled floor and a hole had been punched through one corner of the dome, presumably my point of entry, but the temple - if that was its purpose - had been ruined long before I arrived. The rotten remains of furniture and fine fabrics were all that remained of the interior decorations. Even the huge double doors had been lost to time, with just rusting hinges left behind.

The space was so vast, at first I didn’t realise I wasn’t alone. Not until what I’d mistaken for a bundle of rotting fabric rose from the floor with slow, jerky movements. When it turned around, I realised it was actually a woman in a tattered hooded robe. She shuffled closer with the slow, weary movements born of great age. I’d mistaken the fabric for grey, but now I saw it wasn’t naturally that colour. It was stained with soot, layers and layers of it.

“Mizar, it is good to see you.” Her voice was soft but firm, yet almost weary.

How do you know my name? I said reflexively. No sound came out. I paused and tried again. In the Sphere of Stars, communication with my kin had been instant telepathy, but I wasn’t sure how to communicate here. I didn’t have a mouth to make sounds like mortals did.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

While I puzzled over trying to answer the woman, she had gotten closer. “Don’t worry about talking. I suppose you’re asking how I know your name. I know it because I called you here.”

You made me fall?! My core flared with red light, an outward expression of anger that rose up hot and quick. It took me by surprise, and I realised it was more than just anger. It was pure rage. Rage that she had ripped me from my home, nearly killed me, and damaged the sphere in the process.

Slowly, I released it, like letting the steam out of a kettle that was ready to boil over. I didn’t like the way rage felt. It was a new emotion to me, it wasn’t in my nature. Anger I’d felt before, when I’d watched mortals do awful things to each other, or even in juvenile arguments with my kin, but rage overwhelmed my logic. If I’d had any means to do it, I would’ve tried to strike the woman in that brief second and I had an awful feeling I knew who this woman was.

Gods rarely took well to being struck.

“I’m sorry, Mizar. It was necessary. I needed help.” She stopped at the edge of the crater and looked down at my core. “My name is Tamyris.”

She had no way of knowing where my consciousness hovered, but she’d stepped into the middle of my vision. It wasn’t a pleasant sensation to see four sides of a person at the same time. It made me dizzy. I pulled my consciousness back a few feet. Still, at least that confirmed my theory. Tamyris, the last god of Esiliur, and the keeper of the hearths. I flashed a white light in my core, hoping she’d understand it meant keep talking.

“Esiliur is dying.”

No shit. I’d inadvertedly punched a huge hole through the crystal sphere that separated the heavens from the mortal world. Right now, air and mana were both escaping faster than they could regenerate.

Tamyris sat down on a fragment of stone I’d torn from the ceiling during my fall. She sighed softly and massaged her back. “Not because of the hole you made. Esiliur was already dying before that. I took the risk of further damage because I couldn’t see another way.

“Without high cores, the world has no one to maintain it. Some of the mortals are trying, but they don’t have the power. The damage has been accumulating over time. Soon, the System won’t be able to operate safely and …” Tamyris mimed an explosion with her hands. “Well, you get the picture.”

I huffed, but there was no way to make her hear my frustration. The world was going to blow up, so she’d stranded me on it? How magnanimous.

“I have a plan,” Tamyris said. “I need you to save Esiliur. I have a little power left, it should be just enough to allow you to become a dungeon core.”

I tried to think of a word to describe my opinion of that idea. I’d learned many swear words, curses and obscene references to biological anatomy from watching humans. None of them seemed quite strong enough. I couldn’t make Tamyris hear any of them anyway, so I settled for flashing my core red again.

If I became a dungeon core, I would be trapped on the mortal plane forever. I’d never be able to return to my home. Not that I’d ever heard of a fallen star successfully returning, but at least it was an option. A dungeon core was locked to a single place.

“I’m sorry, Mizar, I don’t have a choice.” Tamyris slowly stood up and brought her hands together.

Don’t you dare! I shouted uselessly. I cast around for something, anything to stop her. I didn’t know how to affect the physical world yet. If I had time, maybe I could’ve figured out how to shift one of the boulders, to throw pebbles at her, or move my core. Something.

The tattered robe began to move in a wind blowing from all directions. It shook loose eons of soot and ash, creating a soft cloud that billowed out around the goddess’ body. The wind rose higher, picking up debris and dirt, fragments of wood and even the tiny shards of my core.

All I could do was pull my consciousness back to my core and huddle there.

A bolt of energy struck my crystal, and I saw no more.