Pittman was a highly professional Druid—though he also claimed to be a professional archaeologist, psychologist, warlock, diviner, and cook, and those strings of "self-proclaimed" titles had earned him some subtle evaluations from people who knew him. Still, the old man truly was a professional Druid.
After all, he had once risen to the rank of mid-level priest in The End of All Things—if he had not spent his days loafing around, he might well have made it to the upper ranks long ago. After fleeing the End of All Things, he had then seamlessly joined the Sleeper Cult as another mid-level member. Behind that seemingly unreliable behavior was far more than simple fence-sitting—anyone without real skill should try bouncing between two Dark Cults where strength spoke for itself.
Or rather, given Pittman's way of doing things, which was even more shameless than Amber's, the fact that he had lived to such an old age without suffering any permanent disability said plenty on its own.
Thus, after his initial cry of surprise, the Grand Druid with genuine expertise circled the mass of biological tissue on the platform twice. He finally confirmed that the "hair" sprouting from the Flesh Tissue was actually dense roots, each of which wrapped around some kind of Neural Node. The unusual structure made him narrow his eyes. "Interesting... Where did you find this thing?"
"It was dug up on the front lines, in that open area to the east. We found a large number of Aberrants and bio-synthetic beasts gathering there, so we sent a dragon combat squadron to wipe them out. After the battle, the dragon commander leading the team detected Magic Reactions underground and dug this thing out," Rebecca immediately explained the origin of the "sample," then added, "Also, I suspect they took a bite