The Blinding of Zayv

Embergore had to make a choice. Destroy Nemesis, the fortress housing the many peoples of Vad or find Zayv, Lost in the Stars in the Carapace Steppe to break the will of the people of Vad forever. For Embergore, this was no choice at all.

The elder dragon scoured the Steppe until at long last he found Zayv waiting. The histories and songs claim the battle began with an exchange of words:

"I am the disaster from the origins of time, come to claim you. Tremble and I may give you a death devoid of pain," said Embergore
"I have seen the depths of the black and the many stars there within. You know nothing of the origins of time. You and I are the same; leaves on a branch, stemming from a trunk which sprang from a seed eons before we opened our eyes. True, your leaf was first, but when the autumn arrives, we will both fall together," said Zayv.
"You compare yourself to me? You worm! You nothing!"
"Even the worm falls with us. Even the nothing."
-- Beyond the Elisar: Leaders of History, Bertrem Parch

With that, the battle began and did not cease for many weeks. Zayv never held the upper-hand during the struggle but his perseverance and cleverness were a consistent issue for the elder dragon, who had trouble landing blows with both claw and jaw. During the early days, Zayv exhausted his supply of mechanical weaponry. The artifice he'd constructed had done much to exhaust and impede Embergore, making the dragon sluggish and unfocused. Zayv, however, never lost his focus. Before him he saw the world, laid at his feet, his brilliance and progressive ideologies spread across cultures and continents. He saw a land propelled into the future. And he never lost sight of that goal.

After the ninth day, Embergore landed a mighty blow which destroyed Zayv's mechanical steed. Without the speed to match the dragon's, the gnome stripped the artifice from his body, removed his contraptions and weaponry, and laid bare his chest and arms, scarred and torn. Embergore in his pride and exhaustion moved in for the victory strike, but Zayv, Lost in the Stars, was only beginning to fight.

"While we can only guess at what went through the mind of Zayv when he lost Euripides, his trusted mount, but those who spoke with him after claimed the man was beside himself. Terrified, tired to death, and now no longer mounted, he saw the end closing in. It was in this moment Zayv found some kind of inner strength. Perhaps it was the hand of a god, or some power out there in the Steppe, but I choose to believe it was the power of belief. I believe he found himself more than capable of the battle without the edifice of metal. I believe he threw of the shackles of his possessions and became truly... Lost in the Stars."
-- Lost in the Stars: the Story of a Gnome Turned Legend, Unknown

Zayv was reinvigorated. He took flight, finding his power more than enough for Embergore. Strike after strike, blow after blow, the gnome fought on, evading, hiding, and attacking. One blow alone was barely a scratch to the mighty elder dragon, but after thousands, the mental fight was a losing one for Embergore, and his body was feeling the wear from such a long battle.

So Embergore changed tactics. He burned the Steppe. He ran from Zayv and focused on destroying Vad. If he could not defeat Zayv physically, he would defeat the heart of the man. Zayv's first reaction was to increase his offensive but he knew he would lose focus, and Embergore would find an opening to finish things once and for all. So Zayv did nothing. He watched as the Steppe burned and feigned nonchalance while his heart was torn apart. He ignored Embergore's savagery and meditated instead. When the Carapace Steppe was utterly in flames that could not be quenched, Embergore returned to Zayv to bask in his victory.

"Your home is ash. Look what your resistance has wrought! Your defiance has been your undoing. Now bow your head, and receive your eternity!" said Embergore.
"I am not undone. I am here. I see into this eternity you peddle and my sight it clear. You bring the fire to my lands but not my home. For I see a world united, moving beyond the rule of tyrants into the embrace of your eternity. And I do not see you," Zayv said.
"Then I will take your flawed vision, and release you from the burden of it," said Embergore.
"Yes," replied Zayv. "And when you do, that will be the end of it. My vision for the world will end. And so will this."
-- Beyond the Elisar: Leaders of History, Bertrem Parch

Embergore plucked the eyes from Zayv, meticulous and vilainous in execution, and when he did, the fight finally caught up to the mighty dragon. He collapsed, exhausted, seeking to slumber but unable to find rest. He fled from Vad then, never to return.

Zayv, returned to Nemesis and ceased all plans for Vad to take his work to the world. He set the fortress toward a path of self-discovery and improvement, seeking to help people find with themselves what he had found out there in the Carapace Steppe, which would continue to burn from elder dragon fire for years, until it would at least cease and leave only badlands behind.

When the fires did end, Zayv disappeared from Nemesis without a word to any of his people. It is said he wander the Carapace Badlands, seeking a way to bring the lands back to their former wonder. Many seek Zayv, Lost in the Stars out in the Badlands but none have ever found him. 

"Beneath the light of burning stars and worlds far away
The legend lives in Carapace,  for such is what they claim
But seek ye not the man who fought the dragon night and day
Seek instead the strength to stand, as stood the mighty Zayv"
-- Song of Vadian Pride, Cronos Dawnlight