In a study in Cecil City, carpeted in blue velvet, Amber delivered the newly arrived intelligence to Gawain. "This is a new lead the Western Expeditionary Force found in an area that the Aberrants once occupied. I've organized it. Take a look."
Gawain looked up from his work and glanced at Amber, who was sticking her upper body out of a Shadow Rift with a document in hand. As he reached out to take it from her, he casually asked, "What kind of lead?"
Amber handed it over, braced herself against the desk, and jumped out of the Shadow Rift. "The ground operations team from the forward research vessel found the wreckage of some artificial object in the ruins of an Aberrant camp on Wolf Ridge Mountain. Preliminary analysis suggests it bears some resemblance to the cube the Naga 'salvaged' from the Azure Ley Lines, but it's badly damaged, and much of its structure can no longer be restored—the sample has already been loaded onto a transport and is being sent here.
"On the other hand, King Wickliffe, one of Augurey's Five Kings, provided the Expeditionary Force with a clue. He said that when the Aberrants attacked Fort Farm, they made some baffling moves. They launched a relentless assault on the high ground where North Tower stood, regardless of losses, and remained there for a long time. Afterwards, the technical priests of the Holy Sunset Legion searched the ruins of North Tower based on that clue and found a Rune Matrix and Mana Crystals beneath the ruins that had not been completely destroyed. Based on the residual energy fluctuations at the site, Technical Personnel suspected that those Aberrants—or whoever commanded them—had once conducted some kind of... Magic Ritual with massive energy fluctuations there."
Gawain flipped through the organized documents in