Alvin had spread three maps across the dining hall table.
Not neatly.
Not sensibly.
One was upside down. One had coffee stains. The third was layered with so many annotations it looked like a conspiracy theorist had discovered colored pens.
Natasha stood across from him, arms folded.
"You've circled half the planet," she said dryly.
"Only the interesting half."
"You circled the Pacific."
"It's very interesting."
She pinched the bridge of her nose.
The dining hall had slowly transformed into what Alvin had declared a "temporary geological war room." Books were stacked in unstable towers. Laptops hummed. Historical atlases lay open to tectonic plate diagrams.
Alvin tapped the map dramatically.
"The underground towers exist," he insisted. "We've seen fragments. The mana pulse patterns align vertically."
Natasha stared at him.
"Alvin," she said patiently, "Earth's recorded history contains no mention of subterranean arcane megastructures."
