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Huh.

It was still concealed a bit by the branches, but it seemed quite small--and not terribly intimidating, either, when considering the state of Lord Abbas and the giant mess around here. Perhaps he’d allowed his expectations to build up a bit too much. Abbas was still relatively new to using the Candle, after all.

But this lantern. He remembered seeing Agrian make a lantern, too, actually. That one had looked quite different. Bigger, darkly metallic, and more rectangular, almost like an entire suitcase. This one was more like a snow globe in size--and a small one, too--barely big enough to fit in the palm of one’s hand.

In fact... it looked rather like a tiny version of the great glass orb that had created it.

Which gave Hector pause. Hmm.

During his last few visits with Abbas, they’d discussed the man’s work a bit. Naturally, with the Sunsmith looking so disheveled each time Hector showed up, the subject of why the guy was pushing so hard had come up.

And repeatedly, the answer had been that Abbas wanted to retake Sair as soon as possible. Which was fair enough, Hector thought. So Hector had stopped asking about it, more or less.

But there’d been one time when the answer had been a bit more elaborate than that. And now that Hector was looking at this object in front of them, he was beginning to think about that answer more.

“...It is my hope,” Abbas had told him, “to establish an entirely new class of armored warriors. Warriors who will not require reapers in order to stand up and protect our land and our people. That has always been my end goal, ever since I began drafting up plans for my prototype suit.”

Hector had blinked at that revelation. “You mean... you want to mass-produce your armor?”

“Ah. Well, that would be quite a few steps into the future. I do not know about that. Perhaps. At the moment, my foremost concern is rendering it usable by non-servants. My armor, if you have not already been able to tell, drills directly into my brain in order to establish a neural link. Obviously, this is only possible because I am a servant. Before any other strides can be made, I must find a way to change this.”

And now, as he stepped closer to the wooden pedestal, sizing it up, Hector wondered how in the world a lantern might’ve been meant to address that problem. Or if it even was meant to. Maybe Abbas had pivoted and made something completely different.

That seemed unlikely, though. Knowing Abbas as he now did, that man did not strike Hector as the type to get distracted or change his mind very easily.