The Watch Alliance envoy, worried about his own position, spun a whole pack of lies.
Although the Watch Alliance had already received word that Noxus was gathering its forces in the north and had prepared plenty of cold-weather supplies, the envoy chose to hide most of the truth after arriving in Demacian Imperial Capital, hoping to make the situation seem more dire.
He only said that the Noxians were gathering a great army. He said nothing about their preparations for the cold, nor about the fact that they were assembling their warbands in the north.
That might lead to a strategic misjudgment... but the Watch Alliance was too worried to care about that.
The news from the Watch Alliance came as a considerable surprise to Lux.
The Watch Alliance was simply too far from Demacia. Even though the intelligence division had established many outposts, Lux still had no way to verify whether the report was true. In these circumstances, Eno, who was in charge of intelligence, could only make an initial assessment by asking merchants in New Freljord Port to investigate and track fluctuations in the prices of strategic commodities.
According to the sea traders in New Freljord Port, the prices of many bulk strategic goods had indeed risen noticeably in recent times.
Thanks to Northern Trade and trade with Ionia, international trade across Runeterra had grown considerably over the past twenty years, and the prices of bulk commodities had reached a relatively stable level.
In these circumstances, a sudden rise in commodity prices clearly indicated that something was going on.
Of course, this was only circumstantial evidence. It was necessary, but not sufficient.
The problem was that Eno couldn't get any truly reliable information from the Watch Alliance envoy either. Since there was no way to disprove the report,