"You, come over." Kaiser spoke via the crystal.
The words came out with Kaiser's usual bluntness, but there was something else under it this time, an urgency that wasn't panic, just the tone of a man who had found a lever and wanted it pulled before the moment passed.
Ludwig held the communication crystal close, thumb braced on its edge, and the projection sharpened in front of him like a window cut into the air.
The night around Ludwig was quiet except for river sounds and distant insects, but Kaiser's side of the world bled through the crystal in pale light: the captured settlement, the half-cleaned bloodstains, the enslaved lizardmen moving with wary obedience, and Kaiser standing among them like he belonged there.
Ludwig could see what was happening thanks to the close-range projection.
