Chapter 94: The First Council
The great door of the Vault remained open. It was a statement, a gamble written in ancient stone and light. Through it, in the weeks that followed, flowed not armies, but a trickle of scholars, engineers, and diplomats. The "Concordance Council" was no longer a proposal; it was a chaotic, fascinating, frustrating reality.
A dedicated chamber deep within the mountain had been allocated, far from the sleeping Unified. It was a circular room with tiered seating carved from the living rock, illuminated by the same soft, sourceless light as the rest of the Vault. A holographic table dominated the center. It was here that the new world was being argued into existence, one painstaking clause at a time.
