In the dim, quiet confines of the College High court Scroll hall. There, the high arched windows looked out over the mist-choked river gorge, Corvin sat at his high oak desk. It was surrounded by stacks of official town petitions and bound tax ledgers. The air was cool and smelled of damp thick parchment, river sand, drying dark oak-ink. The faint, bitter warmth of cold boiled tea in a clay pot cup.
On the slanted desktop before him lay Master Davin Sorell’s private working mandate. He was stamped with the scarlet wax seal of the College Board. Mandate 730 · Directives for the Forced Coupling of the Lowbank Astral Relic to the Hollow Crown Resonance Core.
Corvin’s hand moved with lightning speed, his steel quill pen scratching across a narrow roll of heavy drafting thick parchment as he transcribed the document word for word. He didn’t summarize, and he didn’t abbreviate. He recorded the exact building tolerances, the proposed energy discharge rates. The total timeline that Malcor had signed in secret two hours before dawn.
Directive Three, the text read in Malcor’s sharp, arrogant Latin script: At eleven-thirty ante meridiem, thirty minutes prior to the projected crest of the Gray Rush, the High Potion-maker shall apply thirty thousand units of forced astral draft through the seized glowing-bronze rig. All reserve holding barriers shall be breached to feed the upper water shield. Any load-bearing warping or ringing burnout of the foreign relic is deemed backup to academy defense.
