The Lord of Crags, in the shadows under O'Ghomoro, was both harder and easier than expected.
It helped that you weren't alone, this time. The palaver with the feast provided ample time to prepare, and the Echo-blessed Scions you recruited to help drive out Aiatar had already agreed to see the battle through.
(Though, as Hahavit continued to insist, some of them are only in it for the pay.)
Blast's heat was already vicious on a good day, dry and scouring as the desert of his birth; in the Navel, surrounded by endless streams of golden magma, it grew near-intolerable. Rhetioeya, newly come into the white, did his best to stave it off, but the cooling bursts of Medica served only as momentary relief from the crushing weight of the Lord of Crags' displeasure.
You kept your distance as Blast tore living rock apart, the inferno in your gut swirling higher and brighter with every successful strike, following the Echo's signals to dodge past debris and force rot and decay into Titan's left knee. A lucky hit from Hahavit's labrys ripped his lower leg clean off, melted and broken from the corrosion in his veins; Nikol's Rockbreaker forced open a hole just large enough to reach in and tear a chunk of beating stone from his chest.
You knew to look, in the aftermath, and watched Titan's remnants suffuse the air with golden dust. It fell into everyone - you, your cheering teammates, the devastated kobolds - with all the weight of a kindly father's hand, laying soil around your heart from which something great could grow.
Y'mhitra said to return when Titan's essence fused with yours, and the time had come. As the victorious party disbanded - Hahavit to find his sister, Y'shtola to finish her business, Rhetioeya and Nikol to see what could be made from their trophy - you relayed the good news to Commander Rhiki, made your excuses to Minfilia and hopped on the first available flight to Gridania.
(Meanwhile, good people died so you might live. This was the first time. It would not be the last.)
This new being brought with him the weight of mountains, a thousand thousand years of implacable strength that would not be bent or bowed or broken. The earth packed around your heart was sown with seeds of light, crystallising into a mass of radiant, swirling stone; the armour he forged for you in that first instant was a bulwark against the other summoner's blaze, shielding you from their wrath with all the grace of a parent's embrace.
You had read, once, that the kobolds believed their god to be a kind one, sworn to protect them in their hour of need. After summoning his reflection, you could just about believe it.
You don't remember much of the weeks that follow, except for this: you had been so, so excited to show the other Scion arcanists your new egi, not even taking the time to give him a proper name before leaving the Shroud.
(In the end, you never got the chance.)
Buoyed up by scholarly enthusiasm, you didn't think anything of the detour you'd taken in the name of power. It wouldn't be the first time you'd taken your time returning from missions, after all, and you didn't take that long: Minfilia contacted you the afternoon of your victory, and you were at the Sands by dusk the next day.
(The crowd had been the first warning sign, their whispers mounting as you shoved your way through to the entrance. The lobby was empty and the stairs were dark and from the open door came the stench of blood and fear and-)
The other thing you can clearly recall is your vigil before Azeyma, cloaked and cowled in the blinding heat to avoid being identified. You passed a group of miners on the way to the stone, their cart full of gold and radiant in the sun.
(You don't know how you made it to Drybone, after. What you do know is that Noraxia lay broken for nearly thirty bells, waiting for you to arrive.)
Nugget isn't a very sophisticated name, but you were in no state of mind for anything greater at the time. He is calm, and clumsy, and enjoys watching plants grow from the earth. As you learned to grieve, he sat in your arms, a protective weight to keep you safe from yourself.