The Exiled Duke's Lottery system

"I’m considering what happens if we don’t."

Lucien’s quiet admission settled over the council table like cold iron. Cedric offered no immediate reply. No one around the long table seemed inclined to fill the silence; the reports on Avarran were months stale, and debating movements with outdated intelligence had long since ceased to be useful.

Aurethar knew the Central Continent, but his knowledge was an old map—he had been gone for years. Vale and the rest of the expedition understood the modern Alliance far better, yet their picture had gone dark the moment their boots crossed beneath the shield.

Lucien looked across at Cedric.

"Bring Vale and Elenwe back."

Cedric studied him for a silent beat, the gears turning behind his eyes until the line of Lucien’s thought became clear. "My lord you want to reach the Alliance."

"If they sent an expedition to probe this continent," Lucien said, "they should also have expected a return on the investment. They expected news."

Aurethar leaned back in his seat, nodding slowly. "He’s right. No high council spends that much soulsilver on a long-range force only to trust the outcome to an expedition eventually walking home."

Lucien caught Aurethar’s eye. "My thought exactly."

Cedric signaled a guard at the threshold. A few minutes later, the doors parted and Vale and Elenwe were escorted back into the hall, both unable to mask their surprise at finding the council still sitting.

Vale came to a halt directly opposite Lucien. "What happened?"

"Nothing," Lucien said calmly. "I simply realized we overlooked an obvious step." He gestured for them to step closer to the table. "You were dispatched to locate the origin of the Warhound. Once you had your answer, you would report it correct?"

Vale nodded"Yes"

"How would you do so?"

Vale didn’t hesitate. "We were issued a long-range communication array."

It was the precise confirmation Lucien had anticipated. "Can you establish contact with the Alliance from here?"

"Yes."

Lucien waited, but Vale offered nothing further.

"From behind the shield?"

Vale looked sideways at Elenwe.

She stepped forward, her voice measured. "It was engineered specifically to pierce shield-grade interference. Provided the core components haven’t suffered physical damage, contact is possible."

From his side of the table, Gandalf’s posture straightened, his eyes narrowing. "Should be possible?"

"The primary communicator itself is intact," Elenwe clarified. "However, the supporting runic formation usually requires local recalibration depending on where and how it is deployed."

Lucien turned back to Vale. "Where is it stored?"

"In my spatial ring."

The ring, alongside the gear of the other captives, was held in the vault. Cedric dispatched a courier without delay. Moments later, the guard returned bearing a heavy, iron-bound container locked with an intact wax seal. Cedric inspected the mark himself, snapped the latch, and placed the silver ring on the table.

He looked Vale dead in the eye. "Communication gear only."

Vale’s expression remained flat. "I know the rules."

Cedric slid the ring forward. Vale picked it up, slipped it onto his index finger, and closed his eyes. A moment later, spatial distortion flickered over the table, depositing a heavy, reinforced metal transit case, followed immediately by two smaller auxiliary cases. Without a word of prompting, Vale slid the ring off and placed it back into Cedric’s palm.

"That is the complete set."

Cedric secured the ring inside the container once more as Elenwe unlatched the main housing.

Inside a tailored velvet matrix lay the core communicator. At its center rested two pale, milk-white crystal cores, suspended within concentric bronze rings etched with dense, microscopic runic tracks.

Gandalf was on his feet in an instant, circling the table. Maerath joined him from the opposite end. For a long, silent stretch, the two mages leaned over the exposed array, eyes scanning the structural etchings while Elenwe stood patiently by. Neither man felt the need to ask her for a basic explanation; their eyes read the spellcraft directly.

Gandalf pointed a long finger toward the twin crystals. "Paired resonance?"

"Yes," Elenwe said. "The matching core is seated in the primary relay on the Central Continent."

Maerath leaned lower, tracing the metallic rings. "Shield compensation geometry?"

"Partially," she replied. "The outer ring also dampens and stabilizes localized ambient mana fluctuations."

Maerath checked the alignment again, giving a tight, appreciative nod. "I see the loop now."

Gandalf followed a secondary runic thread back to the central regulator. "Once the receiving station picks up the signal, the return resonance locks the pathway and stabilizes the bridge."

"Precisely."

Satisfied with the core unit, Gandalf opened the second case, revealing a set of folded brass anchors and localized field regulators. Maerath lifted one of the heavy anchor assemblies, turning it over in his hands to examine the grounding nodes.

"Only four?"

"Four primary anchors," Elenwe confirmed.

Maerath looked across at Gandalf. Gandalf offered a slow, deliberate nod.

Vale frowned, watching the exchange. "What is it?"

"The communicator itself is impeccably crafted," Gandalf said.

"It’s the auxiliary field setup that will fall short," Maerath added, setting the anchor down with a metallic clink.

Elenwe didn’t contest the assessment. "It was designed for mobility."

"Which means it was constrained by what an eight-man squad could carry through hostile terrain," Gandalf noted smoothly. "Logical for a field expedition."

Maerath glanced back at the crystal cores. "Logical for the road. Deficient for a fixed, long-term relay station."

Lucien cut through the technical banter to the core issue. "So it requires modification."

Gandalf looked up. "It does."

"Is it a major setback?"

"No," Maerath answered smoothly. "The core array is solid. We simply need to construct a broader supporting matrix and calibrate the array once it’s anchored."

Elenwe agreed with a small nod. "So long as the internal resonance key remains untouched, expanding the perimeter matrix won’t disrupt the link."

Lucien brought the conversation down to the only metric that mattered now. "How long until you can establish a line?"

Gandalf looked to Maerath.

Maerath visually calculated the work required for the array and field nodes. "A few hours should suffice my lord."

Elenwe surveyed the open cases. "That should suffice. The majority of the time will be spent laying out the secondary matrix and running test pulses through the resonance field."

Lucien nodded once. "Good. I want a working link by evening."

"You will have it," Gandalf assured him.

Lucien turned to Cedric. "Clear the lower hall for them. Provide whatever conduits and raw materials they ask for. Elenwe remains under guard at all times, but give her room to work."

"Understood sir," Cedric said.

Lucien moved toward the double doors. There was no point in standing over three specialists who understood the mechanics far better than he did. He had asked if a bridge could be built, received his confirmation, and assigned the resources to execute it.

He would return when there was an answer waiting on the other end.

Behind him, the three mages were already lost in the schematics. Gandalf unrolled the original field diagrams across the table while Elenwe stepped up beside him and Maerath fully extended one of the portable brass anchors.

"Does the lower hall feature integrated mana conduits?" Elenwe asked.

"It does," Gandalf replied. "Along with more structural anchor points than we’ll ever need."

Maerath smoothed out the parchment map of the array. "Then we leave the central communicator pristine. We build the support matrix around it."

Gandalf nodded in agreement. "Agreed. We treat the original chassis as the heart, not the whole body."

Elenwe pointed to four node markers on the parchment. "These four original anchors handle both field stabilization and shield correction."

"That’s the first flaw to fix," Maerath said. "We separate the tasks."

Gandalf took an pen and drew a wider outer perimeter around the original diagram. "Outer stabilization ring goes here. Keep their original correction geometry nested safely inside."

Elenwe leaned in, following the line of the new circle, and gently tapped a point near the western axis. "Shift this node outward slightly. If it sits too close to the core, the feedback will bleed into the return path."

Maerath studied her adjustment for a moment, then nodded. "Right. Good catch."

Gandalf marked the adjustment on the draft. "How many outer nodes?"

"Eight," Maerath said without hesitation.

"Six would easily hold the threshold," Gandalf countered.

Maerath simply looked at him, unblinking.

Gandalf let out a quiet sigh and added two more marks to the parchment. "Eight it is."

A faint shadow of a smile touched Elenwe’s lips.

Cedric signaled the guards to transport the heavy transit cases down toward the lower hall while the trio continued modifying the array schematics. By the time the rest of the council began filing out into the corridor, the debate over whether the machine could work had vanished entirely.

They were simply deciding how best to force it to listen.

And before night fell, Lucien would have his line.