The Waking of the Seat

A Wrights' Heirs expedition pushed into Caer Vallen to dig into its deepest workings — and woke the Vallen Sentinel and set the whole broken seat stirring, lighting the fuse the College and the Choir now both reach for.

They meant only to salvage at the source. But the halls of the Imperium were built to answer intrusion, and the answer was the tread of bronze: the Sentinel that had paced its dead patrol for an age turned toward the digging. The expedition fled three lighter than it came, with word that the seat is waking — which is why the College wants the Sentinel stopped, the Choir wants the seat sealed, and neither will let the other reach it first.