The ancient library's air hung thick with the scent of burning incense and decaying parchment. Lania's slender fingers trembled as she traced the fractured symbols etched across Reed's message—geometric patterns that seemed to shift and writhe beneath her touch. Blood had dried in the corners of her eyes from the strain of deciphering the multidimensional equations. Twenty hours without rest, and still the truth eluded her.
"These aren't just coordinates," she whispered, her voice cracking. "They're... fragments of Reed himself."
Behind her, General Varkath's massive frame cast a long shadow across the stone floor. The goblin commander's flesh had continued its unsettling evolution; crystalline structures now protruded from his shoulders, catching the candlelight in prismatic bursts that mirrored the equations on the table.
