The message from Lysander came via a condensation code—water droplets arranged on a cold pipe in their work yard, visible only at dawn before they evaporated. It was a time and a map coordinate deep in the derelict Hydrological Museum, a place stripped of everything valuable, a hollow shell.
They went, the risk a calculated part of their new, terrifying routine.
Lysander was there, standing before a giant, shattered relief map of the pre-Desiccation watershed. He looked tired, but his eyes burned with intensity.
"You survived the Font. And you're thinking deeper," he said, approvingly. "Good. The Syndicate fears the past because it contains the alternative."
He pointed to the schematic they'd received. "The Catalyzation Core is the heart of their control. It uses immense pressure and resonant frequencies to split the W.E.R.M. It's also what's causing the feedback loops, the corruption. It's a blade stabbing into the heart of the world, and we're seeing the blood poison itself."
"We found something," Sage said, showing him the scan of the spiral groove. "A natural harmonic pattern. It's the opposite of a fracture."
Lysander's breath caught. He traced the image with a reverent finger. "A Vivification Sigil. The old Aquifers called them 'the water's song given form.' They were placed at natural wellsprings to amplify the water's inherent life-giving properties. To cooperate with it." His face hardened. "The Syndicate's core is a brutal inversion of this. A forced, screaming note that shatters the song."
He looked at them both. "My network has located someone. An old man who was an apprentice Aquifer before the Soladorns purged the order. He's in hiding. Senile, they say. Rambling. But he might remember the songs. He might know how to heal the dissonance."
He handed Sage a slip of real paper. An address in the crumbling, forgotten Riverbed District.
"The Soladorns are accelerating their timetable," Lysander warned. "The instability is growing. They're not just containing it; I believe they're trying to weaponize the corrupted entropy. You must find the Aquifer. Learn what you can. Time is a resource we are nearly out of."